Category Archives: Stereotypes/Blason Populaire

The Cook and the Cowhands

Nationality: American
Age: 50
Residence: Campbell, CA
Performance Date: 3/20/17
Primary Language: English

There was a joke that my grandpa used to tell. It’s a little off color but not so bad. But he told the story, and then my mom told the story, and I haven’t really told it but I can tell it to you so you can hear it. It’s a little bit racist but you can take the race out of it and it works just the same. This is a story that my grandfather’s older brother and father told him. So there was a ranch in the West somewhere, probably Colorado or California. There were cowhands, and they were working all day on the ranch, and they had a cook named Wong. They thought they would play some practical jokes on him. When Wong was sleeping, the cowhands they would tie his shoes together with lots of knots. The next day they waited for a reactions, but nothing happened—he just fixed his shoes and didn’t mention it. The next day they put thumbtacks on his seat. They waited to see his reaction, and when he sat down he kind of grimaced, but just swept them away and didn’t really care. The next day they either short-sheeted his bed or soaked his sheets with water—I don’t really remember. They waited for a reaction, and no reaction. So they finally decided to talk to him. “So Wong, you’ve been a really good sport, tying your shoes in knots and putting thumbtacks on your seat, and messing with your sheets, so we won’t do that to you anymore.” In a different voice; “You no more put knots in my shoes?” “No, no more knots in your shoes.” “You no more put tackies on my seat?” “No, no more tacks on your seat.” “You no more soak my sheets in water?” “No, we won’t soak your sheets in water anymore.” “Good, well I no more pee pee in your soup.”

This story is important to the informant because of its history, and it having been passed down for multiple generations. It reminds him of how different the world used to be regarding the treatment of minorities, and their portrayal.

I find it interesting that the racist aspect of this narrative isn’t actually essential to the story– it could be told just about the same, without making stereotypical voices or mentioning the races of the characters.

Prejudiced beliefs about Jewish People

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 61
Occupation: Private Chef
Residence: Santa Monica
Performance Date: 4/16/17
Primary Language: English

Informant related this while at tea, when interviewer mentioned a Jewish holiday in passing.

First of all, I don’t believe any of this, but these are things my grandparents said to my mother and she said to me.

I did tell you before, didn’t I? How my grandfather used to take my grandmother to the opera, and he had a box because he was a successful early ad magnate or tycoon or what have you, and he would pick out the Jew in the audience by their pointed ears. I never asked for an explination because you know, you don’t need one with something that batty.

My mother grew up in Indiana and they had a cook and a maid and one day, you know, Mom and I were driving up at 19th and California, there’s a little tiny temple school, and my mother says in ths really sweet voice she used sometimes, “when I was growing up, my I was told by the maid that Jews took Christian babies and ate them and drank their blood.”

I think it must have been the German help because my mother never saw her parents and they tended to try to at least keep their prejudices, you know, tasteful. At no point did I ever press my mom for more details about this because, you know I was stunned.  Schtunned.

Informant’s grandparents are of English and German extraction, and their beliefs do reflect historical attitudes held by many Europeans at various points in time, generally emphasizing the otherness of a group of people who lived and looked different and may have, at times, competed for economic resources; by identifying the strangers as ‘bad,’ these groups may have felt more justified in protecting scarce resources for themselves during hard times; and the stories created for this purpose were then passed down through generations.

 

These beliefs, and other similar ones, are discussed in John Efron’s Jews: A History. Taylor & Francis, 2013.

 

Tom and Jerry

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: California
Performance Date: April 26, 2017
Primary Language: English

“When me and my brother were younger, and even still to this day, my grandfather compares us to Tom & Jerry.  Like the cartoon, Tom & Jerry.  But it’s not just for me and my brother, he believes every pair of siblings follows that dynamic.  Like the younger one being like Jerry and always fooling around and bothering the older one, Tom, who’s just trying to ignore the younger sibling.  It’s probably because that’s the way he was with his younger brother and he likes to think everyone’s the same as him.”

ANALYSIS:

It’s interesting that this folk belief is based around someone’s experiences with watching a cartoon.  Because of the informant’s grandfather noticing a parallel between his own life and the lives of his grandchildren and two characters in a cartoon show, the grandfather made an assumption about the entire human population, which I find really funny, and honestly not entirely inaccurate; I definitely understand where the grandfather is coming from, as I do believe that me and my own older brother follow this dynamic as well.  I wonder in the creators of Tom & Jerry based the cartoon off of a prominent sibling dynamic they noticed, or just thought Tom & Jerry were funny characters and that’s all.

Brazil vs. Portugal

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: New York
Performance Date: April 27, 2017
Primary Language: English

“So my mother’s Brazilian, and in Brazil there’s this stigma against people from Portugal.  It’s kind of like how people in America view blonde people as being dumber than average, or maybe it’s more like how people in America see people from New Jersey as lesser people.  So like, in Brazil, there’s just this stereotype that people from Portugal are dim-witted or something.  Like, if someone does something stupid, Brazilians will say, ‘oh, how Portuguese of them’ which sounds really mean, but there is an heir of teasing behind it.  It’s not like Brazilians are bigots that actually have something agains Portugal, it’s just this kind of international teasing, but just with a little bit of truth behind it (laughs).”

ANALYSIS:

This is a really interesting cultural stereotype to make because while it is playful, it wouldn’t exist if people didn’t at one point in time, believe there was some truth behind it.  I would be really interested in seeing how this stereotype originated, and if it was still teasing back then or if it was really serious.  And seeing that it’s even still slightly serious today, I would think that it was serious back when it originated.  After all, I don’t think it would have stayed around for as long as it has without people believing it to at least some degree, like the informant does.

South Korean Plastic Surgery

Nationality: South Korean
Age: 55
Occupation: Homemaker
Residence: Cerritos, CA
Performance Date: 4/10/17
Primary Language: Korean
Language: English

Background: Stella is a 55-year-old woman living in Cerritos, CA. She was born in Seoul and has lived in South Korea for the majority of her life until she moved here for college. She stays at home. Before that, she worked at a hair salon as a beautician. She is married and has two grown children.

I was watching a Korean music show with my mother. I commented on how gorgeous the idols were and my mother interjected, “you know, they’re all fixed, right? Every idol, no matter how natural they look, has had plastic surgery on some part of their face. Look at them. They all look the same.”

I asked her if she really thought that was true and how she knows they’ve had plastic surgery.

She said, “Korea’s plastic surgery is the best in the world. There’s a reason for that. We have the best, and we want to look the best. You know, I think every Korean citizen probably has or will get their faces and bodies fixed because it’s just, um, part of the culture there, do you know what I mean? Even I’ve had my nose raised and eyes widened, so you see, I can tell if somebody else also had the, um, same procedure.”

I believe my informant is both proud and skeptical of the plastic surgery phenomenon in South Korea. It has caused her to become very jaded about “natural beauty” and very particular about what features are “beautiful” in her eyes. She constantly talks about how Korean people all look the same because they all go to the same plastic surgeon. As a result, she refuses to call anybody “pretty”. But at the same time, as someone who has undergone plastic surgery herself, she begrudgingly recognizes the power of plastic surgery as well.