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John Carter's avatar

What's really frustrating with all of these cliches is the way that they've sunk into the mass mind and inflected everyone's view of reality. To a certain degree the writers in Hollyweird are probably affected by this too - hence the persistence of the cliches. But there's certainly a deliberate ideological component to this.

There are other frustrating cliches.

Homer Simpson: the stupid, incompetent white father, who would be utterly helpless without his long-suffering wife.

Virtuous Diversity: if there's a black woman on the screen, you know she'll be the smartest, savviest, most competent, and most ethical character. If it's a murder mystery, she's definitely innocent.

Interracial relationships: despite being very uncommon, black man/white women pairings are depicted at a rate that would make you think it's the norm. Recently black women must have started making noise about being erased, and the writers seem to have responded by showing lots of white man/black women pairings ... which are vanishingly rare in the real world. Aside from giving people a false idea of reality, this also leads to poor acting, since the chemistry in these screen couples is usually abysmal.

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John J Giorgis's avatar

Well done Declan. Should be mandatory reading in Hollywood AND Academia.

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