I used see political correctness as being too extreme, because it doesn't accept any sort of prejudice. This wasn't to say that I was prejudice, or conservative, or a bigot just because I was against political correctness, but that I felt society couldn't help being prejudice. To always be politically correct seemed too ignorant of the fact that prejudice is unavoidable in society. After doing this project, I've found out that this "hypothesis" is partially correct, but also partially wrong. Political correctness should be our goal for society, however being politically correct in present day is only worsening society.
After exploring my four types of media, I've learned that the media is a powerful source for our prejudice, but also media is a powerful source for our acceptance of equality. For example, racist satire, like the "Smirnoff Tea Party" music video, is actually helping society recognize stereotypes, and see the ridiculousness in racism. Similarly for Homestuck, it's because of it's large diversity in cultures of each character that it's many viewers can recognize, and even empathize with alien ethnicity. Even in Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends it always ends in respecting each other, and valuing friendship over cultural differences. On the other hand, for the child obesity ad, it has the opposite effect. It victimizes "big girls" for having child obesity. This spreads a message of hate and ignorance on how to treat people with obesity. These four types of media all has racism, sexism, and other forms of prejudice, but my first three examples incorporate these harmful themes as a way to fix society. Ironically my last form of media primarily has the intentions changing opinions of society, but it is actually harming society most. If we go by the philosophy, "out of sight, out of mind," if all four of these forms of media were politically correct, prejudice wouldn't change because society wouldn't know how to treat other cultures, plus it wouldn't be amusing for its audience.
Conversely, political correctness should be a goal for society. Society should be striving to reach equality. With America, and especially Norwalk,CT, being a melting pot for all races, genders, sexual orientations, shapes, sizes, etc., it's important to strive to have equality. How else will society coexist? After analyzing all these forms of media, the important theme I've noticed in what makes media either harmful or accepting is whether it is recognizing stereotypes and accepting them, or if it is creating stereotypes and hating them. In the "Smirnoff Tea Party" commercial, they aren't creating the stereotype that rich white people from New England always ride yachts, play tennis, and live in mansions. It's an understood, foreknown stereotype which the commercial completely satirizes. However for the child obesity advertisement, it is creating the stereotype that parents are making their children obese, and that the obese should be discouraged by society. This is an example of how media is creating a hateful stereotype that misrepresents the obese demographic. The media should accept all forms of society in order to reach equality, instead of scaring, and forcing people to believe discriminatory thoughts.
Society won't forever be prejudice against other cultures. In our globalizing world, where media is constantly growing with the more technology we make, I see it will soon be unavoidable to ignore other cultures. Because of media, in just the past fifty years, we've achieved more acceptance in racism, than it took America a century to after the Civil War. So in other words, political correctness is spreading, and so long as the media recognizes, encourages, and accepts other cultures, our country will increase in equality.
No comments:
Post a Comment