1.The title American vs Disney Stereotypes tells you what the artist is trying to be portray. In the textbook Difference Matters: Communicating Social Identity, the author Brenda J. Allen says We often expect certain individuals to play certain roles based on a relationship between context and expectations. (Pg 2, Allen). I think that is what this artwork is depicting. Different stereotypes we have seen throughout American history and through Media such as Disney. The African American slave is depicted with big lips, eating a watermelon, showing how America viewed them at the time and how some still do. We see native Americans who are a bright light red, an extreme exaggeration from their actual skin tone. Through various actions individuals systematically have sought to separate white from nonwhite, to glorify whiteness and malign color (Allen, 33). That is what depictions of different races were trying to do back when these were acceptable. It was trying to reinforce and keep white supremacy by showing other races in a poor light. Showing them as not people, but caricatures based on harmful stereotypes. You have to think about segregation. If you only saw African Americans as the cartoons that were depicted in Media, of course you are going to look down upon them and view your own race as superior. In Lee Artzs writing about Disney in Gender, Race, and Class in Media, Artz believes a reinforcement of social stereotypes is still happening some way today with Disney. Lee claims Disneys family-friendly entertainment carries appealing coming-of-age tales of common sense that sustain belief in existing social relations of power and hierarchy. (Artz, 413) We can see Disneys history of promoting stereotypes in this artwork, so maybe It is not hard to believe this idea of reinforcing social norms is still in practice just not with specifically white supremacy.
2. My initial analysis about this picture above is about the multiple levels of difference between each character in the picture and all sorts of ethnicity. This piece of art to me looks like it is speaking to more of the less-dominate members of society or in this case minorities. In the course book it states, efforts to address difference can arouse negative feelings from members of non-dominate and dominate groups (Allen 6). With that being said, I think the artist is trying to create a mural/art piece to create a more kind of diverse and signifying way of talking about the differences in society. I also think that more prominent and dominate groups could get certain negative feelings about this art piece. Another thing I noticed about this piece is the levels of social identity that strikes out in this because most or all these cartoon picture represent a heritage that some may only identify with or could be used as social identity, social identity refers to an individual and/or a collective aspect of being (Allen 11) so in this case it is all a collective aspect of being. For me I also think maybe all the colors speak in away of communicating about social identity or letting people know where they come from like social awareness. The difference in this piece of art that expands from all over represents maybe all the lovely cultures that are unrepresented like the obstacles of valuing difference from other countries. The biggest thing I think this piece of artwork is trying to get across is the valuing of difference.
3.At first as I scanned over this picture, I did not recognize most of the images that were drawn. Then I started to see a few that I recognized such as a bird from Dumbo, and a few characters that reminded me of Peter Pan. I also thought it was an interesting expression to draw mickey mouse in a native headdress smoking out of a pipe. Based on the title of the piece, I feel that a lot of what he is showing does open the eyes to the stereo types that Disney and Americans have towards natives and Asians. I am impressed by its uniqueness.
A quote from Zach Mazurs text Assimilation and Resistance: The Art of Roger Shimomura really gave me a whole new perspective on this painting especially because I had not read anything about the painting when I first looked over it.
With a small, collapsed post located in the foreground one cant help but assume Shimomura is talking about breaking down the fence of the internment camp escaping imprisonment, only to be surrounded by a new prion- one dictated by inaccurate, racist cultural depictions circulated by the popular media and contributing to the socialization of difference for young audiences.
I feel that this showed me so much more of what Shimomura might have been trying to say through his work. It made me realize that there are two finger pointing to it also, which I had not noticed before. Both Shimomura and the yellow Asian woman next to him are pointing down, where the top of the post is. Looking further, the characters at the bottom are facing back that way, and on the right hand side the little native boy is looking up towards the rest of the show while it almost appears that he is throwing the blanket out, as if to cover what the others were looking at. This sparks my feelings and thoughts that Native Americans have definitely been overlooked because of what other folk wanted to create out of America when the colonies first were founded. America has a history of racism and although so much is clearly unforgotten, such as slavery or the Japanese internment, I feel that our present culture and media definitely has not overcome stereotypes and has been simply blanketing the past racial issues to create a new culture without fully overcoming what the past did to so many not white humans. There so much more to see, I truly love this art piece and the depth of details he put into his message.
4.Through his artwork, we can easily see the different races of cartoon characters. Shimomura Rodger uses various kinds of stereotypes, signs, and signifiers as the primary subject matter in his work. We can see races like Asians, Latinos, Native Americans, and Black through the painting. While the artist, Shimomura Rodger, is in the middle of the picture with a black kung fu uniform. Look deeply, we can see that he is trying to fight against the typical Asian American stereotype. By wearing a kung fu uniform, he said Asians are often categorized as “Chinese” instead of their actual origin. He is surrounded by racially charged cartoon characters from Hanna Barbera, Disney, and Warner Brothers.
Behind the painting, Shimomura Rodger is uncovering daily racism and stereotype in American society. He explained it was built in our community since World War II. With technology and media further shape people’s perception of Asian Americans in a negative way.
Personally, I have another perspective of looking into this painting. Disney-style cartoon characters symbolize the minority race living under the skin of American stereotypes instead of their own self. Native American was wearing Feather headdresses, Hispanic American wearing a sombrero and playing the guitar, African American carrying a spear, and Asian American wearing a rice hat. All of us hold the same nationality but being criticized in different ways. I believe not only Asian people suffer in this country, but other races also suffer in this country in their own way.
5.This artwork was shown in an exhibition last year in Bangkok, Thailand. In the concept of curiosity in the diversity of humans. This topic focused o LGBTQ+ in Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia is the place that contains the many aspects of culture and diversity of nationality that make many differences in society. The owner of this artwork is Jakkai Siributr, Thai artist that creates many artwork questions for society. This time, he used fabric to make the art, each of them used around 2 meters of the fabric. The message that he want to sent through these set of work is the pain of LGBTQ+ teenager. The colorful symmetric that he use in the art refer to the pink triangle shape that Nazi party used to embrarass the LGBTQ+ during that time period, but now it have turned to the sign of pride of LGBTQ+. Moreover the fabric that he used is from his friends clothes that can represent the transformation throughout people’s lives. The indirect meaning that people insert in the media can give consciousness and realization to people who pass by. The result of those I not a direct answer to make society think about it one day, but they can have time to think over and over again. The realization that came by oneself is likely to get deeper. In addition to organizations, I discuss media and their pivotal roles in communicating social identity. In each social identity chapter, I highlight a
specific form of media and how it matters to that category(Allen, 11).
