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Melting Pot Ideology In America

Decent Essays

Many Americans assume that the concept of actually forming the melting pot ideology in America would be easy to obtain, that combining various cultures wouldn’t be that much of a challenge. However, an attempt to completely bring this ideology into society can cause problems among the population. With the rising tension between races in America with recent events, such as the race riots in Ferguson, Missouri, trying to incorporate different aspects of cultures would cause an explosion of hate crimes and racism due to the differences between them. The Melting Pot culture is one where several different cultures come together and adopt other parts into one single society. Jennifer Pozner, who is the executive director and founder of Women in …show more content…

In Pozner’s Essay “Ghetto Bitches, China Dolls, and Cha Cha Divas” uses models on the television show America’s Next Top Model as examples to reveal that the casting and the scripting of show is racially unequal, and how they stereotype certain ethnicities. Gina, a Korean American contestant from the show, was used as an example to show that the producers felt that she should “choose whether she was ‘more’ tied to her ethnicity or her nationality” (Pozner 398). The show implied that trying to have aspects of her life be from both cultures together is not being a true American. This also shows that the producers and the judges don’t feel like t Examples like this can cause tension between these “real Americans” and those wanting to be considered an American yet maintain their culture. It can also cause conflict within themselves for trying to choose between wanting to be an “ American” and what their ethnicity is. This can make them feel like there is an imaginary standard of what and who “real Americans” are suppose to …show more content…

Pozner writes “The Lubriderm photo shoot illustrates how the advertising industry’s long-held racial essentialism influences the depiction of people of color in product placement- driven reality TV.” This quote shows that the media, like the photo shoot, will put people in situations that portray them in a stereotypical manner for the sake of a profit. Also, Television Shows, like America’s Next Top Model, will use the stereotypes in each race to cause the drama shown. This promotes the idea that a certain race is going to act a certain way, and may make someone or a certain race feel like they are in a box and are suppose to behave in a particular manner according to the stereotypes. This can create a divide among the different cultures due to the feeling that they behave in certain ways, such as the angry black woman or the spicy latina. The equivalent of these television shows happens in movies and social media with how they portray the certain stereotypes. Television shows and movies have the ability change and decide to break away from the stereotypes that they use , instead of promoting the drama coming from that. However, the issue of making that change is the ratings may decrease dramatically because their audiences are accustomed to a certain level of drama and

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