Stereotyping Due to
Preconceived Notions
of Other Races
Ryan Barrera
March 6, 2015
After listening El-Beshir's lecture on how the media depicts the Arab world, I gained a better
understanding of just how delusional society can be due to the media and entertainment. Not that it's
anyone's fault, but with the way we see things through the lens of the media/entertainment it is easy to
how some fallacies can be taken as truths.
Kung Fooled (2011) will cover a variety of stereotypes ranging from othering to basic racial
misunderstanding between the Asian, African-American and Caucasian communities. The video starts
off with two Asian gentlemen watching television. As they notice an Asian on the program, they jokingly
assume he will know karate and the character on the show actually does karate. The young men joke
about the things society says all Asian are good at when they admit they can do none of those things.
As one of the men is going to take out the trash, he is stopped by a mugger. While this is happening, the
Asian man swats at a fly. The white trashy looking mugger thinks the Asian man has made a karate move
and that the Asian knows karate and how to defend himself. The mugger lets him go.
Now our main character believes he actually knows karate just because he is Asian others will think he
knows karate. He later bumps into another Asian in a confrontation as they both claim to know karate.
In what seems to have turned into a duel with neither Asian man actually knowing karate, they
eventually call it off and spew made up knowledge of karate with one another.
Still with the hubris that he is an intimidating individual because people believe he knows karate
because he is Asian, he now tries to be the bully rather than the victim. He approaches a black man
getting into his car and attempts to steal it. The black man calls his bluff and the Asian man, now
humbled, runs off. The black man is surprised himself that just but using a deep voice and being black
that the Asian man believed him to be dangerous. Even with the different races involved in the video,
watching Kung Fooled made it easy to refer back to what El-Beshir was referring to.
Though there are not tricky camera angles—just the standard close-ups, medium wide, to wide shots
and the jumps cuts incorporated for the actions scenes—the true artistic talent comes from the way
Kung Fooled delivers the information at hand. In the very beginning of the short [0:09], the two young
Asians are watching television—like everyone else in America—when they see the Asian character on
the television perform karate. The two men even were initially surprised there was an Asian in the
program and assumed he was about to perform karate before he actually did.
Reprinted from Film Studies
http://filmstudies.info/reviews/manuscripts/barrera-ryan.html
Last updated on 6 March 2015
Photo Credit: Screen capture from Kung Fooled.
1
El-Beshir talks about how not just the media but how the entertainment industry perpetuates
stereotypes. It's in everyday news, movies and shows and we all see it and sometimes don't even realize
it as it's happening. Even with how the entertainment industry portrays Asians, the two young men
admit that they can't do anything that society says they can do. This can lead others to believe that their
not "real" Asians since they can't do what society says they should be able to do.
El-Beshir also talked about how the Arab population is around three hundred and fifty million
throughout the world. However the radicals are only a fraction of a percent to the whole population and
yet they get all the media coverage. She goes on to say how it is unfair the way the media poorly
portrays the Arab world and that the rest of the world judges them in a negative way based on the
actions of so few in their community. This brings us to the main character in Kung Fooled.
Being associated with karate or good math skills is not as bad as being associated with terrorists, these
stereotypes are all stemmed from the way media and entertainment portray people. When I think of all
the Asians that I know whom are expert black belts in the form of martial arts, I can only think of two:
Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. That makes two people who account for the whole Asian community's
reason for being stereotyped at knowing some form of martial arts. This shows you how effective media
and entertainment is at spreading information.
In terms of othering in Kung Fooled, there are two moments where this is especially apparent. At 3:55,
the young Asian man actually believes he knows some form of karate even though he doesn't at all. Just
by being Asian, he feels that this gives himself power and the ability to perform karate.
For the African-American male, the Asian man realizes that just because he is a black man in an alley
that he is someone you avoid because he is dangerous [4:21]. At [4:38], you see the African-American
man in disbelief that he was able to scare off a car jacker because he has a hard time believing he is a
tough and scary individual.
Though the most impressive part about Kung Fooled is the filmmaker's ability to talk about an extremely
controversial topic in a comedic manner. Not that they present this topic as a laughing matter, but that
they make the subject more approachable and easier to talk about. For another comparison, you could
say they used a similar style that was used in West Bank Story (2005) to talk about the Palestinian and
Jewish conflict. Being able to talk about a serious subject in a comedic way is a tough thing to do, and I
felt these individuals did an excellent job at achieving that.
Reprinted from Film Studies
http://filmstudies.info/reviews/manuscripts/barrera-ryan.html
Last updated on 6 March 2015
Photo Credit: Screen capture from Kung Fooled.
2