Role Models and Stereotypes

Summary of Reading:

The book chapter discusses how creating the “Other” is part of a media maker’s basic toolkit. To keep the audience engaged, media makers create protagonists bearing similarities to the viewer, positioning them closer to us as we identify with them. Conversely, media makers create Others who “either oppose the protagonist or present alternatives to them”, positioning them further away from us as they symbolize what “we” have rejected. Thus, Others are often “frighteningly repulsive”, embodying attitudes, values or beliefs we don’t subscribe to (92).

Outside Example:

One example I thought of while reading the chapter was the TV series “Stranger Things”. “Stranger Things” is a sci-fi horror-drama show set in Hawkins, Indiana during the 80s. The show revolves around a group of young boys who witness a series of supernatural events beginning with the disappearance of their friend (Will Byers) and the arrival of 11, a girl with psychokinetic and telepathic powers. Although the show centers around the fallout of covert paranormal experiments carried out by the nearby Hawkins National Laboratory, the third season reflects period-anxieties of Soviet presence in the United States (the show is set in Cold-War America). While anti-Soviet propaganda is wide-spread, the characters are forced to question their perception of the Soviet “Other” when they capture a Russian scientist, Alexei, who helps them uncover the secret Soviet base hidden under Starcourt Mall.

Connection to the Reading:

The producers turn Alexei into an “Other” in a number of ways. As the rest of the characters are Americans, he is an outsider as he is Russian. In addition to this – by subscribing to the idea that all Soviets were “commie bastards”- Alexei is once again “Othered” by association with communism, a value opposing American capitalism and American freedoms. While the rest of the characters speak English, Alexei can only communicate in Russian. Although initially considered the “Other”, the audience and characters slowly come to understand that Alexei (ie. the Russians) may not be so different from themselves after all. For example, Alexei enjoys cherry slurpees and going to the fair just as any resident of Hawkins does. By slowly eliminating differences between the protagonists (and by extension, the viewer) and the supposed enemy. In this way, the media makers create an intimacy between the viewer and Alexei which makes his sudden death so shocking and upsetting.