Playing into the stereotypes.

PLAYING INTO THE STEREOTYPES

The lecture on Comedy and racial profiling explained a lot for me in regards to the Pacific Media and how it is shaped. For a year i attended Pacific Institute of Performing Art, a tertiary that aims to foster the growth of talented Pacific Performers. The lecture for week 6 used the example of "The Skits" and how stereotypes were used by people with insider knowledge not to reinforce and affirm the stereotypes but to explore them through satirical humor according to Sarina Pearson. The show reflects certain truths about Samoans situations within domestic and religious life. I find the show hilarious and was introduced to the program from a young age. The show is one of the first pieces of media that put Samoan people on screens in New Zealand. My point is that this show is very influential in the way that roles are determined for Samoan or just generally Pacific Islanders. Is that a Good thing or a bad thing? If you think about it since "The Skits" have Pacific Islanders on screen grown out of these stereotypical roles or are they still creating media that explore the same Stereotypical roles through satirical humor. "Fresh" a T.V series that is similar to "The Skits" in the way that it is they both use Television as a media platform, but also because they both explore stereotypes associated with the Pacific Community in Aotearoa through satirical humor. If there is about 10 years in between "The Skits" and "Fresh" how has Pacific Media changed? For me it hasn't and that is due to the audience that such media is made for. Such media texts explain Audience tastes which in a way reflects the people. Pacific Islanders love their Comedy and have always loved satire since before Colonization. It was present then in traditional performing arts and still is present today in their form of traditional performing arts, and thus it is still present in other forms of performing arts through media in "The Skits" and in "Fresh." I guess what i'm trying to say is how is Pacific Media and Pacific roles going to evolve if Pacific people just keep reproducing the same content over and over again. Yes they do appeal to our Pacific audiences that are familiar with these regulated images of our situation, but don't we want to move forward and out of these situations instead of continuing to laugh at our misfortunes? To be honest  i loved to watch pacific Media as a kid my favorite was "The Laughing Samoans" when i used to watch it i used to feel empowered because I was seeing my people represented through media which was rare. But now when i watch, yeah I get the jokes and I get whats ironic about it, but I don't feel empowered and I guess that's what I wanna see the empowerment of Pacific Peoples through Media and casting.