Free Reflections Of Ethnicity, Race And Gender In The Media (Film, TV, Commercials Essay Sample

The TV show that I decided to watch was South Park. There is an episode entitled “Eek, a Penis!” where there are two storylines playing throughout the episode. The storyline that I found to depict race in a horrible light was the storyline in which Cartman is sent to an urban area school. Kyle tells Cartman that the kids are going to “murder” him because he’s a privileged “white boy” and they are “inner-city” kids. That generalization depicts how the media is going to portray any ethnic person on the show. This TV show is very popular among young adults and also very controversial in regard to topics they choose to parody.
Given South Park is a show in Colorado, many episodes are just parodies of issues in today’s society. This episode is a parody of the film “Stand and Deliver” because it follows the movie’s premise but adds the zeal of South Park too. Cartman shaves the top of his head so he can give himself a comb over and introduces himself as “Mr. Cartmenez” in hopes of giving himself a more ethnic look. Cartman’s language is even stereotypical because he adds a Spanish accent to his English and calls the students “ese” and “holmes.” The students in his class range from Mexican gangsters to African American gangsters too; they play up the stereotypes with dialogue stating “we ain’t going to college” or “Mexicans are told not to have abortions and raise their kids while the white girls go on and have abortions, go to college, and have more abortions.” The Mexican girl in this episode tells Carman or “Mr. Cartmenez” that she’s pregnant and her boyfriend is not going to help her raise it, when Cartman tells her to get an abortion, she tells him that she’s Catholic and that abortions are wrong. Again, we deal with more stereotypes about religion and ethnicity because of the dialogue shown. The media may be portraying these racial stereotypes for laughs because of the show’s concept, so this show may be offensive to some people that do night find parody to be comical. I do not find the episode to be offensive because as a person of ethnicity I know that the generalization does not apply to me. I do not find myself to be part of those stereotypes and do not generalize other races and lump them into stereotypes either.
The misperceptions of race in this episode are entirely based on stereotypes surrounding Mexicans and Blacks to be lazy and stupid. This episode highlights how Mexicans and Blacks cannot successfully get through school without relying on cheating and lying to pass tests. The episode also highlights how the teacher, in this case “Mr. Cartmenez”, is the main culprit who helps the students of race pass the class by helping them cheat. The episode also uses misperceptions of White people because “Mr. Cartmenez” uses White people as an excuse for his students to promote cheating and rationalize cheating as an okay thing to do. Cartman also uses the misperceptions that the reason why White people are ahead in society is because they never get caught cheating and when they do, nothing bad happens to them and they are not in trouble. That misperception also places White people as a favored race over the Mexicans and Blacks—at least in Cartman’s mind.