by Sarah Love

Created on: March 16, 2009   Last Updated: April 06, 2009

When you Google "black women in the media" do you know what comes up? There are references to pornography, anger, and disinterest in beauty. What kind of message does that send to young women- black or white?

In today's society with so much pressure to be thin, popular, and trendy, adding in stereotypes makes the whole thing a big mess. African American women have been stereotyped as many things over the years like the large black "Mammy" character Aunt Jemima, or an abused or beaten woman, to a "jezebel" or loose woman. Black women are also thought of as loud, crazy, and overweight. More often than not, black women are associated with negative stereotypes making it hard today to break these preconceived ideas. Instead of being thought of as strong, smart, creative, or beautiful many times black women in the media today are being viewed and portrayed the same as they have for years lazy, crazy, and sleazy.

Take a look at how certain popular black women we see in the media dress and act today. Some of them aren't helping change these stereotypes from the past. Tyler Perry's movie Diary of a Mad Black Woman shows us the "Mammy" character, which seems to always be angry, loud, or crazy. Although we might get a laugh out of this, it is continuing the big black angry woman stereotype. What makes this worse is it is a man dressing as a women and acting like a crazy black lady. That doesn't give young black girls much to look forward to hey, when you grow up, you can be just like that! Not such a positive role model.

Then there are the girls on the VH1 show Flavor of Love that are flaunting themselves for the attention of one guy! They are willing to do just about anything to get this guys attention is that what girls should do today? The "jezebel" stereotype of the past associates young attractive black women as "easy," or "loose." It seems that some of the women on this show continue this stereotype through their behavior and clothes. Instead of using positive attributes such as their personality or inner beauty, they focus on wearing tight skirts and cleavage showing shirts.
Once again, another stereotype from the past being pushed on us.

Recently there has been lots of focus on the news of Rihanna being beaten by her boyfriend, Chris Brown. Here is a beautiful, and seemingly smart, new signer on the rise only to make it big in the media because her also highly known boyfriend abused her. We all saw the pictures and heard the reports.
Instead of being a strong young

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