Ethnic Notions Film Analysis

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A summary of the film Ethnic Notions by Marlon Riggs 1987 According to the movie Ethnic Notions there were two major characterizations of Black people that took place during two crucial periods of time. In this summary, I would like to briefly look into these characterizations, how and why stereotypes and caricatures were formed from these supposed characterizations, when they took place in history, and how the Black people were portrayed during each of these time periods. The first of the two major characterizations of Black people happed pre-reconstruction, before the American civil war. During this time period Blacks were characterized as happy childlike people that were content with their place in society as slaves; where they were looked after by their masters and needed their masters to survive and function. They were portrayed as simple minded and that slavery was for their own best interest and that they were happy being slaves with their masters to look out for them. These stereotypes and the caricatures created from them were cultivate against the Black people so that the rest of the White population would support the idea of…show more content…
The Blacks were now characterized differently by adding other elements to their supposed characters adding to existing stereotypes. These added elements were that the Blacks were brutes, animal like, and savages and were going to go back to their wild ways because they were now lost in their place in the aggregate society without slavery and their masters too look out for them. It was portrayed that the “good old days” of slavery were now over and that the new generation of freed Blacks were dangerous and that the White population should be wary and suspicious them and their future generations; giving the Whites a continued reason for future Black subjugation and to try to keep them “in their place” post-civil
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