Richard Dyer Theory of stereotypes

A Stereotype is a commonly held belief or assumption about a certain group of people.

There are 4 parts to a stereotype

  1. Appearance
  2. Behaviour
  3. constructed to fit in to a particular medium
  4. Comparison with normal behaviour 
Richard Dyer suggests that stereotypes are often used as a shortcut for the producer to convey their ideology.
He also thinks that they are reference points for the audience and an expression of dominant societal values.

Stereotypes legitimise inequality, "A way to ensure unequal power relations are maintained is to continually stereotype – GTAV is a misogynist video game where players have the opportunity to kill prostitutes in their own violent way – the game is entirely male point of view and arguably serves to maintain dominant male culture"

This is something Dyer said himself, and we can see from the example he gave that there are many man and woman stereotypes.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Videogames 8 - Assassin's Creed and reception theory

Magazine - Next article analysis - 350ppm