From what I've seen from recent major commercial motion pictures, comedies in particular, movie makers have turned to very obvious stereotypes in the absence of creativity (Of course there are comedies that avoid this temptation, but I'm talking about the general movie releases). What's most disturbing to me is that they happen to be some of the higher grossing films.
One example of this is from Big Momma's House (2000), which grossed approximately 170 million dollars. In this film, Martin Lawrence plays an undercover cop who disguises himself as a grandmother. As this pseudo grandmother, he uses a thick accent deeply rooted in Black Vernacular and beats some of her "family" in a pick up game of basketball. The way that this comes across to me is that the production company lacked the desire to create any original work and decided to make the easy buck by pandering to the masses. The fact that these stereotyping movies are so popular says a lot about the mainstream movie goer. I think it shows that people strongly gravitate towards the things that are most familiar to them; seeing the unusual will make them very uncomfortable.
The fact that movie goers lean towards movies that are chock full of stereotypes is a significant hurdle in the process of integrating the people of America. If we are to put the issue of race to its grave, the things that the masses are comfortable with must be challenged. The status quo must be shaken to its core.
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