African American Stereotypes in Movies While trying to fight against the stereotypical image of the gangster, movies often perpetuate it due to the way that they address the topic to their audience. “Media have divided the working class and stereotyped young African-American males as gangsters or drug dealers. As a result of such treatment, the media have crushed youths' prospects for future employment and advancement. The media have focused on the negative aspects of the black community (e.g. engaging in drug use, criminal activity, welfare abuse) while maintaining the cycle of poverty that the elite wants. There are no universally accepted and recorded codes or rules, which apply to journalists in news selection and production. The media have devoted too much time and space to "enumerating the wounded" and too little time to describing the background problems of African-Americans. What is not a crisis is not usually reported and what is not or cannot be made visual is often not televised. The news media respond quickly and with keen interest to the conflicts and controversies of racial stories. For the most part, they disregard the problems that seep beneath the surface until they erupt in the hot steam that is the "live" news story”. Why does the film industry matter?

Potential Solutions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMGfhXCpN2k Films like “Sisters in Cinema”-depict the success of African American women by showing their “path” full of happiness, struggles, obstacles and most importantly victories. The creation of laws in the Film Industry (. There are no universally accepted and recorded codes or rules, which apply in news selection and production. ) -However, a powerful platform has been initiated specifically in the media industry *National Coalition on Racism in Sports and Media- exists to fight the powerful influence of major media who choose to promulgate messages of oppression. *The MARS program The joint EU/COE program MARS - Media Against Racism in Sport sought to question the media’s ability to include diverse and non-discriminative approaches in the way they were covering sport issues. Sport is considered as an important area for building social cohesion and it is also a major sector of investment in the media industry. However, sport media coverage does not always reflect social and cultural diversity and does not ensure equality for all.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMGfhXCpN2k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXAho8vlmAI

Potential Problems with the Solutions There seems to be evidence that opposes the “Sisters in Cinema” solution. Taking for example the American television sitcom “The Cosby Show”, which portrays the good life of a middle class African American family. Although the show had presented the characters as a regular family that does not have to deal with racism, stereotypes and prejudice, there was a lot of skepticism surrounding it due to the accusations that it did not depict the reality that the African American community was living in. According to many people in times when black people were forced to live in poverty and discrimination, “The Cosby Show” presented an image that was entirely unrealistic. On top of that, there was a big number of people considering that besides hiding the truth it also worsened the situation that the African American communities lived in due to the fact that many people were unaware of the sad reality. . There are no universally accepted and recorded codes or rules, which apply in news selection and production. The media have devoted too much time and space to "enumerating the wounded" and too little time to describing the background problems of African-Americans.