Stereotypes: Make or Break (Today's entertainment)

Stereotypes: Make or Break

 The definition of stereotypes according to dictionary.com:

Noun: Sociology. a simplified and standardized conception or image invested with special meaning and held in common by members of a group: 

The image/ perception of a practice, institution, program or person is important. The image can easily effect the public’s perception of said image. Having an image that is less than favorable can prove to be harmful to the development of society. Something genuine like charity or a non-profit organization should not be looked down upon because of one unfavorable incident. This blog is dedicated showing how images can be exaggerated in a negative or positive way to the audience being the public perspective in this case. Society rarely looks to the real original source of what they are being told about which in some cases creates something worse than stereotypes… ignorance. Ignorance or the lack of knowledge will never have a positive affect on anyone especially those who can really benefit from what the stereotype denounces. This blog will attempt to give very persuasive examples of one of the most stereotyped aspects of our society. Education is seen as a right to passage part of today’s society. This makes education highly sought and respected. Today’s society is very rebellious which invites the threat to education when its purpose is challenged. 

Education is meant to benefit anyone who receives it so it is already wrong to denounce it. However, calling for education reform or enhancement benefits and even uplifts education. Not everyone in society is fighting for the advancement of education when they are rebelling. Some people want to tear down society to see how far they can go with their empty agenda. Others might just want to make a profit of their stories and gain popularity from the public which usually is the case with motion pictures and other forms or entertainment. This blog will expose why it can be harmful to the knowledge of others who would actually benefit from an education but otherwise would not have if they only had the perception portrayed in the media. Higher education is one of the most disputed parts of education from its worth and value to its cost and demanding investment of time and resources such as money and effort. This is because human beings naturally want to be successful while they are alive. We live in an age of art and talent that is seen as a necessity for surviving in our society. 

What many fail to realize is that not everyone has been “blessed” with a talent that would support them excusing them to receive high levels of education because their genius. People can also be distracted by entrepreneurs who in some cases had to work even harder for their success than most people who received and education. Education is the best way to be successful because it is almost guaranteed if one does the work that is necessary. The false portrayals of entertainment is threating some people in society that would benefit from and education by painting a picture in their minds that they may not need one. Entertainment is a great way to catch the attention of most people. For rebels it is wise to take advantage of that. Someone who is an entertainer can produce works that can easily falsely portray a practice or group of people. The problem that this creates is that of the audience actually believe the form of entertainment to be true. Today’s society can be somewhat gullible because of the thirst and sole interest in entertainment in contrast to information. When entertainment is the main source of information ignorance and stereotypes or quickly created. It is very difficult to erase a stereotype because it lives on from generation to generation. A stereotype is mostly false because it is a widely held but fixed oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing. Stereotypes can slander the vision and success of a program with good intentions because stereotypes are FALSE. This blog asks its audience to try to stay properly informed while being entertained. This blog also urges society especially the youth to try to lead a more informed life which is most cases is healthy. In conclusion, this blog hopes to expose the dangers of stereotypes by showing how awful it can be when it spoils the reputation of something as honorable as a broad education that a college or university provides. In this blog our contributors Zak Jensen, Keilah Long, Samantha Pragnatta and Osigah Kakhu prove unproductiveness of stereotypes through examples of the source of entertainment itself. Examples will include ideas and perceptive from various scenes in the films “Accepted” , “Legally” “blonde”, and “Neighbors”. In short, Team 3 believe that stereotypes for the most part stem from ignorance and naive. 

In Legally Blonde, it features Elle transitioning to life at Harvard University from her luxurious life in undergrad. Legally blonde was a very accurate movie that also featured many perpetuated stereotypes that exist within a college campus. Blonde hair often implies that women are ditsy and oblivious which is a huge stereotype throughout our American culture. This movie took that stereotype and turned it into something positive. Elle not only scored one point below a perfect score but she was admitted to the prestigious Harvard University. Even as she was enrolling into the institutions she still received the negative stereotype, but she prevailed by being resilient and graduating with honors. Even though she was not “good enough” for Warner she continued to press on and gain an impressive internship. Elle definitely made the dumb blonde stereotype false throughout the film.
Another aspect of this movie that relates to this topic is stereotyping Ivy League schools such as Harvard and their students. The film made all the Harvard students look bland and judgmental and wore darker colors in contrast to Elle. All Harvard students do not wear only one type of color and would not be judgmental of a blonde attending Harvard. Elle stood out so much because her exotic appearance really took people off guard; she does not look like a graduate student aspiring to be a lawyer to her peers. This stereotype is not realistic because you cannot draw conclusions about someone off what they look like. One specific student at Harvard, Enid, identifies as a feminist and acts as what is expected for a feminist. Enid rambles to Warner at a party about how the term “semester” should be changed to “winter ovester”. This perpetuates the stereotype that feminist have no clue what they are talking about.
The movie Accepted also featured stereotypes of the typical Ivy League school with the fictional school Harmon College. The dean of Harmon College stated, “Rejection. That's what makes a college great. The exclusivity of any university is judged primarily by the amount of students it rejects.” This is widely believed by many prospective and rejected students. Many prestigious schools seem like they send out more rejection letters than acceptance, which makes the school look even more luxurious. The dean was overly obnoxious with how he wanted Harmon College to be elite, to the point where he wanted to bulldoze South Harmon Institute of Technology just to make a park-like gateway to “keep knowledge in and ignorance out” Accepted mentioned stereotypes of college education in general also. Accepted featured students trying to break from the norm of most institutions to create their own.

The phony professor of South Harmon Institute of Technology stated “we throw a lot of fancy words in front of these kids in order to attract them to going to school in the belief that they're going to have a better life.” This could describe many universities across the globe. College is assumed to provide students a leg up in life than just receiving a high school diploma. Although a college degree can help you achieve many comfortable occupations, some degrees leave you wondering where to go from there. The phony professor also said, “You know a lot of people say that college is a time when young men and women expand the way that they look at their world. When they open their mind to new ideas and experiences and when they begin that long journey from the innocence of youth to the responsibilities of adulthood... now isn't that a load of horse [feces]!” He touched on the stereotype that college is often thought to expand one’s mind, which is not always true for everyone. Some students maintain their mindset that they carried before college and that prevents them from learning of new ideas and thoughts. Most students are also still reliant of their parents throughout college to pay for their tuition and other costs, which do not allow students to really see the true responsibilities of being an adult.
In Neighbors, it barely features much education within the pranks and parties going on throughout the movie. Like most stereotypes for Greeks, the movie mostly revolved around parties and pranks and slightly featured fundraising. Education was only mentioned with the school’s 3-strike policy that only allows the Greeks to have 3 infractions. Unlike popular belief the vice president of the Delta Psi Fraternity is worried about life after college and even attends a job fair with hopes to find potential employers. 
Legally Blonde, Neighbors, and Accepted each relate back to the stereotype given to people in Greek life. Legally Blonde projects a negative stigma on sorority life because in the beginning of the movie when it shows her in a sorority, all she seems to care about is her image. Her petty personality, lavish outfits, and weekly spa visits are what the common outsiders think sorority life is all about. I am apart of Greek life and a lot of these stereotypes don’t exist or at least on a smaller scale. Originally, I was reluctant to rush because of the negative stereotypes that are present in our society. However, I soon found out the process to even get in a sorority is hard because you have to be a well-rounded individual and once you do get in you have to fulfill a lot of requirements to even maintain your membership. These include thing such as keeping up your grades, participating in community service events, joining one other organization aside from Greek life, etc. 

Legally Blonde gave an accurate portrayal of the stereotypes given to sorority girls but a false portrayal of what sorority life is all about. Along the same lines, Neighbors portrays fraternities in a negative light. Typically, people associate fraternities with insane parties and a lot of girls. However, this is a false representation of fraternity men and their brotherhood. At one point in the movie Zac Efron’s character, Teddy, is at a job fair and a representative from AT&T recognizes that he is a Delta Psi brother. The rep then proceeds to ask Teddy how his GPA is, basically offering him a job. Teddy then replies saying, “low 2’s…. High 1’s” which is an awful GPA and would not be tolerated in Greek life. The rep looks at him and says something along the lines of “we are looking for someone smarter than you.” The stereotype of fraternities being stupid and not worried about grades is very incorrect. Similar to sororities, fraternities are expected to maintain a certain GPA so this is scenario is obviously completely out of the norm. Another stereotype present in both films is how people in Greek life are spoiled, rich, preppy kids. This is a very ignorant observation. My group member, Zach, and I are both perfect examples of how this doesn’t apply to all members. I have to pay for my $800 dues while maintaining a job, 3.8 GPA, and three organizations. Just because you are associated with Greek life doesn’t mean you are filthy rich; they are mutually exclusive. Although this organization seems like all fun and games, when it comes down to it the underlying focus is to prep us for the real world. For example, we have chapter every week, which is basically a business meeting where we have to dress professionally and learn about our upcoming duties/events. You actually see a glimpse of this in legally blonde although this scene is making a mock of it. In some cases stereotypes do live up to be true. In the movie Accepted, there are a lot of stereotypes about hazing in fraternities. For example, Sherman attends the actual university across the street called Harmon University. While attending the university he pledges the most prestigious frat on campus. Sherman is forced to wear a hotdog suit and scream inappropriate things such as “Ask me about my weener.” Also, Sherman is required to purchase things for the party because he is a pledge. During instruction about what to bring to the party, Sherman had to run along the President’s golf cart because he wouldn’t make time for him otherwise. 

I have heard a lot of stories that compare to what Sherman went through in this movie. Although I don’t encourage hazing, I still think the stereotype in this movie is spot on in certain scenarios. Greek life can be associated with several negative stereotypes, and that holds true in all of these movies. Although a lot of people will not agree with this, I am a primary example of someone who has some sort of knowledge on how Greek life works. The movies are entertaining, but do not confuse this with reality because this is a false representation of this organization. Now that we have analyzed our different movies, we are able to see that the movies we picked all have several similarities. Most of these similarities have to do with the stereotypes against fraternities and sororities. One being the stereotype that all students in Greek life do is party and don’t care about grades. All kids who are in Greek organizations know that it’s not true but people who are independent don’t understand. The topic of the importance of obtaining a college education has come into question with Greek life recently and over the years a stereotype has risen that grades are not important to either sororities or us. In neighbors at one point in the movie Zac Efron’s character Teddy is at a job fair and a representative from AT&T recognizes that he is a Delta Psi brother. The rep then proceeds to ask “Teddy” how his GPA is basically offering him a job. Teddy then replies with “low 2’s…. High 1’s” which is a GPA that would get a student kicked out of UNC Charlotte for having. The rep looks at him and says something along the lines of “we are looking for someone smarter than you.” The stereotype of fraternities being stupid and not worried about grades is very incorrect. I think this is a way these movies coincide together and is a hidden similarity that people do not really notice at first. To hold a positions in most Greek organizations you must show you are academically sound having a 2.7 for general positions and a 3.0 for executive positions at least for our fraternity that is the requirement. Like Sam said previously, we all know that in today’s world fraternities and sororities are seen as your spoiled, preppy, rich kids whose dads pay for everything. I would love to destroy the stereotype with a personal experience. My family is far from rich and I pay my own $650 towards my dues each semester. I work 2 jobs, go to class full time and hold three different officer positions in my fraternity. So whoever says ALL my brothers and myself are rich are quite mistaken. I know for a fact that Sam and I both have to pay our own dues and all the extra nice things for our organizations such as shirts and having to pay for events that we want to attend. Although I would like to say every fraternity brother on campus is just like me I cannot and say that this stereotype could still fit a lot of brothers in other fraternities on our campus. Even though it does not usually fit a lot of the brothers in our fraternity. The brothers of the “Delta Psi Beta” were very diverse much like my own fraternity and slightly resembled us in the mannerisms they showed. Many aspects of the movie were highly blown out of proportion such as the huge parties and outrageous purchases. But, the message of “bros before hoes” and “your fraternity is the family that you pick” are very true. We pride ourselves on being morally sound, having strong brotherhood and being strong in the classroom. This is the side of fraternities that the media misses. With recent stories like the rape accusations on fraternities at University of West Virginia, the names of frats are tarnished and stripped of their once great honors. Many none Greek individuals would not know but fraternities are actually booming businesses. The amount of work that goes into and comes out of fraternities is a large amount that people never see. People always ask when the next party will be but are never around to plan for them. I know the planning is not their job but it is an enormous part that none Greek party goers never see. Setting dates, picking themes, assigning designated drivers, and figuring out the little details takes weeks in advance. 

That being said the stereotype that has risen that we party all of them time is wrong. But also in turn since we do work so hard, we play even harder which is how it should be in the business world. To wrap up this blog post I believe that all of these movies show some type of connection whether through Greek life or through just stupid stereotypes that non-Greeks that are chosen to believe about us.