Stereotypes: the bad, but also the good

These days the idea of stereotypes is bad. Very bad usually. It's as though the notion of grouping things by common type is unnatural and should be forbidden. In reality we group things all the time. Trees. Cars. Houses. And, yes, people. There are all sorts of categories: religion, race, gender, politics, psychology, and on and on and on. And, in stories all this adds up to a very useful concept. With few words, a whole character is created... "He was hunched, lurching about on crooked legs as he raved about corrupt politicians and insane laws." Yup, very stereotyped (and really corny) but you have an idea of the character and motivation.

Of course, fiction isn't reality and as such, stereotypes are great to force the audience into a particular mindset. Detective/mystery stories tend to do this to divert attention away from the real masterminds. Drop a dopy country hillbilly into a story and the audience immediately forms stereotypes. Now, it's up to the author to direct those impressions in certain directions, and it's amazingly tough for the audience to go against it (though they may not even want to anyway).

In the end, stereotypes are general categories. They aren't much good for individuals, because generalities break apart under scrutiny. Everyone is different up close. That's true in life as well as stories. Be careful how they're used and all is well, but be careless and stereotypes are as nasty as our culture believes. The main thing is to remember that stereotypes are a tool, like any other, and it all depends on how you use them.

- M