Blog 34 - Stereotypes

I've decided to do my essay for Commonplace about stereotypes. My main paper is about the series Dollhouse, which is a show where there is this company that has this technology to erase your memories and "install" new ones. The people that undergo this procedure are called dolls, and their memories prior to joining Dollhouse get erased too so they never know who they are. I thought that this is kind of similar to how people lose who they are due to the images that people force onto them. Stereotypes are just that; they're an image that gets forced onto a certain type of person. Although there are some truths to stereotypes, for the most part there are so many other things to people than the images that other people forced onto them, or even just on the surface of who they seem to be. I definitely can relate to the effects of stereotypes (everyone can, really) because, being Asian, I have the stereotype of "Oh you're Asian, that must mean you're smart." Even though that's probably one of the milder stereotypes in the sense that it seems to be a positive stereotype, it gets really annoying sometimes. I'm not just my schoolwork.  There's also the stereotype that all Asians are these slanty-eyed, small-penis, bad driver, good with electronics people who go around saying "Ching chang chong." And yes, I really do have to deal with that stereotype everywhere I go. What people don't realize is that I'm not just Asian, I'm also American. I was born in the US, I know about and lived through American culture as much as, if not more, about Asian culture. Anyway, I'm actually looking forward to this essay topic mainly because I can relate to it more and I'm also a lot more passionate about this topic.