In the fourth episode of The Real World Denver Season, the two black males Tyre and Stephen and the homosexual Davis got into a verbally abusive fight critisizing each other's stereotype. Everyone is out at the club and gets pretty intoxicated. Davis decides to go home because he feels that he is too drunk. Stephen claims that Davis left him at the bar because the bartender would not let Stephen in and said a racial slur. Stephen claims that Davis heard the bartender say the word and then did not defend him. When Stephen gets home he tells Tyre and Tyre gets heated and gets into Davis's face to the point where they are both screaming at each other "I want you out of here! Hit me!!" Tyre repetitively gets in Davis's face and says face me like a real man. Davis, who is most intoxicated, then gets on the phone and starts screaming "I'm going home because some "n****r" wants to hit me."
I feel that this issue is apart of today's American culture because Davis has claimed many times that he is not a racist and that he is a devout christian. Yet Davis said the "N" word when he was mad and drunk. I think that there are many people in America today that claim that they are not racist, but in the back of their minds they do think about the negative stereotypes the African American and may agree with some of these characteristics. Does this make them a racist? Does this make them a hidden racist? I think that there are many Americans that are "hidden racists." They would never act negatively in any way towards an African American, yet they still have some racial feelings.
When Davis tries to get Tyre to hit him he tells is assuming that Tyre would just become physical and blow up at Davis. He tells the producer who has to step in between the two that he doesn't want to live with Tyre because he is a black man that is going to kill him. Where does Davis get this image. It's like the reading on whether or not popular culture is dumbing us down or making us smarter. It may be making smarter, but dumbing us down in a sense by making us ignorant of different cultures and social classes with in America. Davis probably felt threatened by Tyre because he has seen a black angry character somewhere in television committing a crime or becoming over aggressive and murdering someone. This is a role that is played by many African Americans, and a stereotype that us Americans are learning about and assuming that they are all like this.
Since this is reality television, one just can't say that there is an intended message because everything is candid, however there is a reason that the producers decided to put this situation on the show. The message that I learned from this particular incident is that I can just be influenced by the stereotypes that pop culture feeds to me. I need to be open to what people are really like and not be ignorant of others and the situations that they may be in as everyone is characterized into some sort of stereotype.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Hey Brit, I have to tell you that as soon as I heard this is what our topic was going to be, I thought of the clip you talked about right away. It will probably be a huge episode for years to come due to the racial hit that Davis took at Tyre that night. I agree with you when you say that "many people in America today claim that they are not racist, yet soon as they get drunk or mad the "N" word flies out of there mouth." I also thought that the questions that you raised asking if this does in fact make these people racist is a great one and one that would have many different answers to it, what the right one is, who am I to say? I also loved how you brought up the point about popular culture today and whether it is dumbing us down or making us smarter. I definately agree with what you said when you talked about how it is dumbing us down, because I feel that there are many ignorant people out there today that claim to be "cultured" but in fact are the first ones to throw a racial slur out. And lastly the Real World is completely up to the producers as to what us the viewers get to see and dont see and I too find it very interesting how they decided to show this clip, where they had to step in and such hurtful things were said and directed towards such a large population of people today.
Post a Comment