Today, I was hoping to find some web clip art to illustrate a page for my job that had to do with bilingual tutors.
Imagine my irritation and frustration when every site onto to which I typed Hispanic, if they had anything at all, featured the same things: some exaggerated, bandito-looking guy with a big, black handlebar moustache; a flamenco dancer; a cactus; or various items of quasi-Hispanic food.
Nowhere was there any clip art showing Hispanic characters going about normal, daily, 21st-century life, although a few photo sites had such material. No children reading or parents parenting; no Hispanic characters typing on a computer or carrying a briefcase or leading a business discussion.
When it comes to Internet art, apparently we still live in Speedy Gonzales' world. Que malo!
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Last gripe of the day -- outdated stereotypes passing unchallenged
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People would be less likely to upload to their websites, a picture of a businessman or other common citizen under the file name "Hispanic businessman" than they would be to upload a photo of a bandito-looking guy under a file name containing "Hispanic". They'd also be less likely to take such everyday photos in the first place I guess.
However, if you search under 'Mexican', 'Chilean', 'Peruvian' etc, you get slightly less skewed results. And searches with Google Images for 'Australian', 'Italian' and 'Indian' produce similarly skewed results.
Unfortunately, I think people often want something easily identifiable or humorous, for their print-outs or whatever, and the stereotype achieves this for them, even if we recognise it's a stereotype. But yeah, I agree, it's distressing when you realise lots of people don't know it's a stereotype.
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