Thursday, April 25, 2019
Discuss the Ethnicity, Race in new cinema and how these elements Essay
Discuss the Ethnicity, Race in new cinema and how these elements represent the culture identity element in new cinema - Essay ExampleCountless movies have been made that dictated the sporty break away concept atop the pedestal. This is appargonnt in many genre, setting and context. Films strengthen the existing plethoric social concepts (Kellner, 1995, as cited in Brayton, n.d.) that refer to a middle class white heterosexual anthropoid as the normative figure (Brayton, n.d.). The concept of pass is a social construction and originally delineate by western people. The gen eonl notion brought by this concept is that the white people are higher-ranking over those with colored skin. This prevailed during the colonization period where the colonizers were white people. Whiteness reached its peak after the colonial era though (Lopez, 2005). Thus, having colonized lands with black people, the latter were treated as inferior and were made slaves. The same discussion is accorded to people with brown skin. The concept of whiteness was perpetuated even after colonialism as desirable and utilized to suffocate and marginalize the others (Lopez, 2005). The concept of personal whiteness referred to by W.E.B. Du Bois has been readily and dogmatically accepted by groups which were racialized, enslaved, conquered and colonized, unless who regard white power and white pretense as critical concerns (Towards a Bibliography 2006, p. 5). Although numerous groups are working to counter this unequal social construct, there are still segments in society as well as individuals who retained such white supremacy notion. Even those not fiting to unionised groups, their individual attitude towards colored people show antagonism or disgust. Individuals who do not belong to the whiteness group are categorized as belonging to the other (Performing Whiteness n.d.). The concept of race can be found in many cultural materials such as stories, narratives, habits, etc. and perpetuated in cinema (Critical Race Theory 2011). Although socially constructed, race has been institutionalized in the US through systematic and deliberate actions, thus creating social structures and consequences (Lipsitz, 1995). In cinema, race is constructed continually as a performance and understood as a set of cultural tastes, but not in relation to biological or cultural existence (Brayton, n.d., p. 63). The lifestyle of the rich upper class whiteness is portrayed as the proper norm (Johnson and Roediger, 1997, as cited in Brayton, n.d.). It is played around the concept of consumer choice (Brayton, n.d.). Academic debates on race focus on cultural identity, the roots of the group, and how members see themselves as a cultural group (Bernardi, n.d.). identity does not remain the same. It undergoes continuous change and transformation (Hall, 1989, as cited in Bernardi, n.d.). White dominance as a performance is aptly described by Orwell (1936 as cited in Lopez, 2005) in saying that by wearing a mask, the face grows to fit with it. Shifting Focus of Whiteness Racial formation, according to Omi and Howard (1994, as cited in Bernardi, n.d.), is a divide grounded on cultural and physiognomic parameters that tells who should have access to institutions. Racial formation changes homogeneous identity (Bernardi, n.d.). During the early developments in cinema, the concept of race was dominated by social Darwinism and eugenics wherein humanity is placed in a hierarchy of human cultures and histories with the Anglo-Saxons at the top, followed by the other Caucasians, the
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