Stereotypes: Comparison Two Characters from the Comics

Nataliia Skrypnyk

Professor Casey Gordon

Writing: English 2100 T

10/9/2012

Stereotypes

Stereotypes-how often I think about them... just as often as I encounter them. In some cases, I'm the one who judge people, because of stereotypes. I'm often the subject of condemnation, because of my nationality. I have been discriminated against and sometimes ridiculed. The most often phrase I have been called is, "Go back to Russia!". I have never been to Russia before, because I'm Ukrainian. It would be very funny, if it wasn't so sad at the same time.

Stereotype can be defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as, "something conforming to a fixed or general pattern; especially: a standardized mental picture that is held in common by members of a group and that represents an oversimplified opinion, prejudiced attitude, or uncritical judgment". One of the methods to display the viewpoint, such a phenomenon, as stereotype, is to use the art of caricature. This way, the writer can give more emotions, more details in relation to a particular hero even without using words to describe something. In turn, it makes the reader to be more interested, and learn how to find something constructive. Striking evidence of this, is the comic book "American born Chinese" by, Gene Luen Yang.

In "American Born Chinese", by, Gene Luen Yang, the character, Chin-Kee, is a stereotypical Chinese male. Being that I did not grow up in the United States, I was interested to see how a stereotypical Asian male was viewed by my peers. I asked people that I work with, and I surprisingly got different responses on the characteristics of a stereotypical Asian male. One of my coworkers described them as very smart and quiet. Another described them as tattooed with dragons and all knowing kung-fu. The last coworker I asked to describe a stereotypical Asian male was pretty close to Chin-Kee- Annoying, obnoxious , book smart, but no common sense, always a tourist with a camera around their necks. (As stated in "Stereotypes of East Asians in the United States" on Wikipedia, In many periods of America's history, Asian Americans have been perceived, treated, and portrayed by many in U.S. society as "perpetual" foreigners who are unable to be assimilate and inherently foreign regardless of citizenship or duration of residence in the United States.) He even said "disgusting", further elaborating with how and what they ate. Although, there is definitely a general stereotype for many ethnicities, I think demographic plays a big part too. For example, when I hear the word, alcoholic, I think of Russians, whereas my boyfriend thinks of the Irish. My stereotype of a Russian girl is beautiful, well dressed, and another's might be a gold-digging slut.

The Character I am going to compare Chin-Kee from the book, "American Born Chinese", to is, Peter Griffin, from the cartoon, "Family Guy".

First of all I would like to note that both of the characters are fictional. So they have no real background. Peter Griffin is a stereotypical, blue-collar, Irish-American male, living in Rhode Island. He is known for his brash impulsiveness. When I told my boyfriend I was going to write about Peter Griffin as a stereotypical American, he got insulted, and corrected me