GCSE Media Studies, Action Adventure, SOW, Yr 11, OCR

1. Learning Objective
To understand the
representation of ethnicity in
Action Adventure films

2. Ethnicity
• Villains are often non-white or ‘foreigners’ in
Hollywood Action Adventures.
The
Mummy Egyptians
The Goonies – the
Fratellis (Italian)
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
– Indians and Raiders of the Lost Ark Germans

3. Ethnicity
• Asian (Chinese, Japanese etc)
characters are often wise or skilled in
martial arts (Karate Kid,
Jackie Chan/Jet Li/
Bruce Lee films).

4. Blaxploitation
• The 1970s also saw the emergence of
black action cinema (sometimes called
"blaxploitation") with both male and
female heroes deploying violence,
gun power, and martial arts against
oppressive enemies and institutions.
•In particular, the international stardom
achieved by the Hong Kong cinema martial
arts icon Bruce Lee (1940–1973) suggests
the possibility of shifting the seemingly fixed
association of white heroes in US cinema.
Lee's premature death, in the same year that
his first (and only) American production,
Enter the Dragon (1973), scored a huge
commercial hit, reinforced his iconic status.

5. Biracial casting in ‘Buddy’ Films
Just as 1970s blaxploitation deploys uncomfortable racial
and sexual stereotypes, the 1980s variant of biracial buddy
movies, such as 48 Hours (1982), the Lethal Weapon series
(1987, 1989, 1992, 1998), and the Die Hard series (1988,
1990, 1995), has been read as a strategy to exploit and
contain black male stars, such as Eddie Murphy. These films
pair black and white stars in order to appeal to the widest
audience demographic, and in the process black characters
are typically portrayed within primarily (or entirely) white
institutional contexts.
Die Hard

6. The cowardly/incompetent
black side kick
• Chris Tucker as
Ruby in The Fifth
Element
•Snails in Dungeons
and Dragons (Marlon
Wayans)

7. More recent improvements
Samual L Jackson
Denzel
Washington
Wesley
Snipes
Will
Smith

8. Hancock

9. Question 3
• Discuss the ways in which the characters
are represented in the extract.
[20]
Stereotype
Representation
Expectation
Ethnicity
Roles
Target Audience
Blaxplotation