Rituals and Stereo Types

Popular Culture: Movie Series

Rituals

            Rituals are acts performed by people because of their family of belief system that has been passed down or taught. Some would say that seeing a movie could be considered a ritual. Families that gather and go to see a movie on the night that it is released because of interest in the movie or wanting to be the first to see a movie. Also families around the world sit down to watch movies together on “family night” like a Friday night so that they can spend time with one another. It all depends on who the family is and what their up bringing has taught them to do. In the movie series Twilight Saga being “vegitarian” and only drinking animal blood is a ritual for them, because they belive that drinking from humans is wrong. In the movie series Harry Potter fighting dark magic seems to be a ritual. In the movie series Underworld fighting between vampires and lycans and also the preservation of each species seems to be a ritual. There are many different rituals that have been depicted in movies through out time because we are so facinated by them as a culture.

Stereo Types

            I consider a stereo type to be a preconcieved notion about a person or group of people that is largely judgemental or based on visual, verbal, or incomplete information. Stereo types can be good or bad, but mostly they are negative. In the Twilight Saga vampires are pale, they have extrodinary powers, and they drink blood, but they do not burst into flames when they are out in the sun. This is an example of how that series does not conform to the stereo typical vampire. In the series Harry Potter, Harry is a very unassuming boy, and he does not meet the normal expectations for a hero, who are supposed to be hansome, strong, tall, and attractive? In Harry Potter the bad guys are usally the people that look like heroes, but then again this may just be my stereo type of what a hero is supposed to look like. Movies play to our beliefs and stereo types about people to either prove them true or to challenge what we think is true.