Stereotypes

There are a lot of stereotypes out there that effect many peoples daily lives.  There are tons of positive as well as negative stereotypes.  Both can be very harmful to people and can damage a persons view of themselves and their culture.  Throughout Neil Diamond's Reel Injun, many stereotypes that affect Native Americans constantly are exposed.  One of the most common stereotypes imposed on Native Americans is the classic thought that all of them wear feathers and really big headdresses.  This is completely false and of the many tribes one of the few known to wear feathers and headdresses were the plains Indians.  However, due to Hollywood's misrepresentation of this everyone thinks all Indians ride horses shouting a battle cry with giant feathery headdresses on.

A comparison to this would be like the stereotype that all women need to be skinny and petite with big boobs and a big butt.  However, the models and stars who set these trends do not even appear like they are portrayed.  Most of their "perfection" comes from people who edit the images of them. It is also unrealistic for women to look like that because it is unnatural and definitely not healthy.  Everyday all types of people deal with a battle against harmful stereotypes. These things can cause people to feel really badly about many things in their life they should be happy about.  On top of that they alter peoples perceptions about how certain people should act based on something like their culture or race not based on the individuals ideas and how they would like to act and portray themselves.

Ultimately, stereotypes effect almost everybody in some way, shape or form.  Stereotypes are much more difficult to reverse than they are to create as well.  They create issues for many people and are based off the way that a few people act.  Taking a small minorities actions and applying them to a whole race or culture is extremely harmful as well as very ignorant.  To overcome stereotypes people need to be willing to give everybody a chance and not assume they are gonna act a specific way because of some of their characteristics.