Chantelle in tabloid breast exposure shock
It is with little surprise that I discovered non-celebrity Celebrity Big Brother winner Chantelle got her top bollocks out for The New of the World. I have seen breasts before on the television and in books and these appear to be a decent representation of them. It is not the 'getting them out for the lads' (or lasses - I learnt about Lebenons at school) that saddens me but the total adherence to stereotypes. She's from Essex, she's blond, she works in PR, she's a Jew short of a holocaust and low and behold she poses topless (in fact I would be enormously shocked if she didn't worry about the plight of whales and dolphins). I scolded myself initially for predicting this outcome but then I realised that stereotypes are there for a reason; they serve as a cognitive heuristic, allowing efficient encoding of information. I just wished she could have proven me wrong - left the house and joined The Foreign Legion or something. Why don't you ever see Gypsies doing recycling? Why are bouncers never camp? It is with this fear of stereotype conformism that I have decided to take up armed robbery.
posted by Andy @ 9:35 AM
9 Comments:
Although it is true that dear Chantelle did adhere to stereotype, I would just like to point out the number of similarly blonde-haired, big boobed women who wander round Cardiff/Shropshire/most regions of Britain everyday.
I would also like to point out that many women from Essex do not adhere to this stereotype. I for one am from Essex but I don't have blonde hair, I have never and will never work in PR, I have a degree, a good job and I have never got my breasts out for a red top newspaper or in fact anyone other than the lucky gentlemen who happened to make it into bed with me.
My point is that stereotypes hurt. I've worked my arse off all my life to be in the position I am now and to be short it pisses me off when I tell men where I'm from and they immediately assume that a)I am thick, and b)they are in for an easy lay.
On both counts they are wrong.
HATE CRIME!
hehe
I think that be me point exactly. She's done nowt but reinforce that stereotype (which is, admittedly, massively misinformed) and not done you or your Essex lass-brethren any favours.
Firstly I would like to aplogise for coming across in such an aggressive manner. With the impending doom of Valentines Day I was in a shit mood.
Although I did get your point that Chantelle has done nowt but reinforce the essex girl stereotype it isn't this I disagreed with. It was your realisation that, "stereotypes are there for a reason; serving as a cognitive heuristic, allowing efficient encoding of information," that got me.
Stereotypes don't allow efficent encoding of information, they simply give close-minded bigots the excuse to continue with prejudice, to continue constraining people into tight-fit little boxes.
So please, rob a bank, prove the bigots wrong. But please be polite in doing so, say thank you to the cashier.
The aforementioned stereotype was a four-pronged one and not just reliant upon being from Essex. You are from Essex, but not blond, not in PR and clearly not a carthesis short of tragedy (additionally your beautiful name - 'Anonymous' - has far more mystique than CHANTELLE). Therefore it would be wrong for me to expect you obtaining delight in exposing your breasticles in a red top comic.
My point was simply that Chantelle held all of the aforementioned attributes and despite my gut instinct to suppress my expectations of her, she did get her norks out (not that there is owt wrong with doing that - girl power and all that shite).
Therefore although lazy and not always accurate, (from a purely psychological perspective) the use of stereotypes must have evolved for a reason. They allow the brain to constrain "people into tight-fit little boxes" to save time and resources, enabling a host of information about that stimulus to allow prompt action. For example, if you meet a chap in a dark alleyway brandishing a knife you won't stop to find out his intentions: you rely on your stereotype of that stimulus and run away like a bastard.
Stereotypes are essentially a mean of information and you base attributes of the stereotype on the average of your experiences. The problem arises however when this mean is based upon an unrepresentative sample. Negative experiences are more salient and you may weight them higher in calculating the mean (e.g. all Muslims are suicide bombers).
I concede that stereotypes can be hurtful and inaccurate; I for one would much rather be judged individually (rather than "he's from the West Midlands so he must be a spazzer"). However, if the stereotype is based on a large number of experiences and each experience of the group is weighted equally when calculating the mean I believe that they can be useful in everyday cognition as we simply do not have time to judge every stimulus on its individual merits.
Sorry if I upset you or owt. I'm sure your not an easy lay.
It seems dear Andy that we will have to agree to disagree.
catharsis
You flirting with me?
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