Blog 5: Stereotypes in Media

The movie that I have chosen is the Mazerunner. I have read all three books and watched the movie. The movie does an amazing job cinematically and casting wise. The movie stays true to the original book series and found the right cast to do the job for them. The Mazerunner does contain racial diversity, but the same cannot be said for gender diversity. There are six main characters in this movie, two of them are non-white and the third is female. Although three out of six does not sound like a lot, I personally think that it is an accomplishment for American entertainment. The two ethnic characters are specifically, an Asian and an African American, which both characters are not minor characters, but two main characters that help shape the storyline from start to end. Even through out the movie, the viewers will notice that the supporting casts are not all white males, but there is definitely a racial diversity within the crew. As for gender diversity, there is only one main female character through out the whole film and she is the love interest of one of the main characters. This is slightly disappointing, but after reading the book series I would like to encourage the viewers to please look forward to the second installment of the Mazerunner, which will introduce a more racially and gender diversity to the film. I do believe that diversity is important to media because media is not targeting a specific group of people, but they have a wide demographic. Media, especially movies, is showcased worldwide. Everyone watches it, so why not try to appeal to a wider audience rather than keeping it limited.

I believe that the Mazerunner does breaks a lot racial and gender stereotypes. First and foremost, Alby is an African American character. He is not your typical African American gangster or slum who is always in everyone’s face. Alby is the leader of the Gladers. He takes control of everything and everyone respects him. He is a humble, calm and strong character. Second, we have Minho, an Asian American. Minho is not your nerdy and quite Asian guy who gets pushed around by everyone. He is the leader of Runners. He is strong headed, sarcastic and smart. No one dares go against him; because he knows what he is doing and can literally kick some butts for all he cares. Last but not least, we have the female fatale of the movie, Teresa. She is portrayed as your in-between-typical woman stereotype. She is strong and smart not weak. She has a little bit of action going on for her, but everyone still protects her a lot. She is like Mulan stuck in a Cinderella story. Her character was extremely well written in the books, but the movie lacked in expressing her true character. Even though the movie did quite well in trying to portray some non-stereotypical roles, it still had many cliché characters. The biggest fault, but the greatest success would be hands down the main character, Thomas. Thomas is your typical main character: white boy, curious, ambitious and brave. Without him we would have no plot. He somehow puts everything together after a ruckus of problems and everyone is well and fine at the end. He is the main attraction, but I just keep imagining how the success of the movie would be like if Alby or Minho was the main character. They had so much potential, but of course it goes to the typical stereotypical character. Overall, I really enjoyed this film and it does a good job at breaking stereotypes. I hope the second film will be able to showcase a little bit more the next time around.