Gender and Race Perceptions, Reaction Paper Example

Lupe Fiasco’s music video Bitch Bad shows how racial and gender stereotypes are encouraged by the media. These stereotypes depict women, especially African American women, in a negative light. Bitch Bad shows how these images develop and how the word “bitch” negatively affects people’s perceptions of African American women.

The video takes parts in three acts. In the first act, a little boy watches his mother sing along with a rap song, referring to herself as a “bad bitch,” causing him to have a negative association with that word. The second act shows a little girl with her friends, and how they idolize the female character in a rap video. They associate a sexual identity with the female character and want become a “bitch” just like her. In the third act, the little boy and little girl, now both adults, are shown interacting. The woman has turned into the sexual “bitch” archetype that she wanted to be as a child, but the young man is repulsed. Neither understand how the how the word “bitch” and its image has affected their perceptions of women. All the while, the actors in the rap video are shown getting into their characters and applying black makeup to their faces. The makeup refers to how actors in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries would apply “blackface” makeup in order to make fun of African Americans. The actors feel bad because they know that they are making a mockery of women and African Americans.

Even though in today’s society, most intelligent people know that these stereotypes are not true. However, when these images are infused in our psyche at such a young age, they are difficult to overcome. Lupe Fiasco may not offer an answer to the problem, but makes people aware of how these negative stereotypes can create difficulty for otherwise nice and intelligent individuals.