I am proud to say that thanks to Mr. O'Conner's and Mr. Bolos' TV Tokenism lessons this past week, I am now viewing TV programs critically. And what I've seen and analyzed makes me think about what I was doing before these lessons when I was TV watching. Now, whenever I see a non-Caucasian actor or actress, I immediately tune into their character. A month ago, I would watch the shows I love (Gossip Girl, Pushing Daisies) without thinking twice about how the characters acted. This makes me worry about young children or junior high students who are watching shows like this, totally unaware of the differences between the African American characters and the white characters. Because shows are so dominantly white based, it could easily send kids the message that in real life, African Americans are how they portrayed in sitcoms: usually never the main character, just a non-complicated, bland person. Obviously those are bogus statements.
I'm glad that our class was taught TV Tokenism. Not only should the critical viewing concept be taught in high school, but also to younger students as well so they, too, can understand the flaws of television.
2 comments:
I am also really glad we had this conversation in class. I was watching 90210 a show I have only seen once before but during this episode there was a barbique where there were all african americans. though they dominated the screen time I anilized there lines and I noticed that every other word they said was ither "yo" or "man".
Abby,
I'm glad you've taken the lesson to heart and that you are thinking critically about your TV watching. This is a good post. I only wish you had added more specific examples to take your point farther.
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