Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Week 8: Stereotype and the Ethics of Representation

 I had the opportunity to engage in some of the suggested readings and videos this week:

King 
by Ho Che Anderson

March book 1 
by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell

Lighten Up 
by Ronald Wimberly

Born Sexy Yesterday 

Damsel in Distress Part 1-3

Regarding Will Eisner's beliefs on the necessity of using stereotypes to convey narratives quickly. I believe while this practice can be useful and I, myself use to believe these were necessary, I now think that this method can be considered lazy and insulting to the readers.

Letting readers interpret for themselves what certain characters are made to represent is one of the unique characteristics that makes storytelling valuable. Engaging readers from different perspectives allows the story to transcend from whatever the author had in mind for it. By forcing readers to interpret a character or story line one way through the use of stereotypes, limits not only the reader but the reach of the story and even slows the growth of newer innovated stories.

I noticed while reading King and March I was not greeted with the same stereotypes I am subconsciously used to in media. This was likely due to the fact that these were non-fiction tales but it shows that stories can be well understood without the use of stereotypes. People are capable of understanding the writer's intent without the handholding of stereotypes and using them seems to show a lack of effort from the author. Which leads me to the short comic Lighten Up where speaks about how darkness of skin tones effects the readers enjoyment of a comics. End result: no one cared. None of the readers noticed that the skin tone was darker than the comic art director wanted and the performance of the comic was not affected.

Stereotypes in comics, animation, and games are not really benefiting the audience. It gets the viewers used to seeing these same story tropes and doesn't let the audience be as engaged as they could be. 

No comments:

Post a Comment

Week 15: Revision of week 7

For the blog revision, I had decided to speak a little more about one of my favorite readings in the first half of the semester  MAUS .   ...