Images that represent American- Positive and Negative

I have chosen this image of the Brady Bunch family because, I believe it shows how some people portray the ‘Typical American Family’ in a postive mannor. The Brady Bunch was a series broadcasted in America in the late 1960’s early 70’s and was very succesful. Through the series you begin to get to know each character, and each character deals with issues and problems in the typical everyday American life. These problems are solved and over come with the idea of working through the issue and working hard and idea from the American Dream- Work hard and you will benefit in the long run. The audience is able to relate to the characters through this. The Brady Bunch family convey, the happy american family image with a christian background, this kind of sterotypical happy American family is also shown in other films and series such as ‘Stepford wives’ a classic example of how the American dream is/was sculpting America. I believe the American Dream is a key factor in this image,each family member is smiling, and portraying and almost perfect family portrate image. This image also is effective in showing how wonderful the American lifestyle can be, enouraging people to live like the Brady Bunch too!

I believe this image is incredibly effective in portraying a negative image of America. The Image shows Black American men behind prison bars, not all the faces are shown, which could suggest there is more than meets the eye, with the amount of Black men in this particular prison. I believe this image says a lot about America and the less glamourized image America often tried to convey. Leads us to think actually how far has the USA really come? Although slavery has been abolished and American now his it’s first ever black president, actually how many black people are affluent as white people in American Prisons?

Barack Obama has come far with his success of being the first Black president in the United States however, with images like this it really makes us question whether the rights for black people living in America has really changed post slavery abolishment?! And are black people misrepresented? Statistics show there are more black people in prison than there are white, what does this say about America? Statistics show that 12%-13% of Americans population is African American and 40.1% of this population are in American Jails and prisons. Statistics also show that the male African American population of the United States aged between 18-24 is 1,896,00 and according to the Bureau Of Justice Statics 106,00 African Americas in this age group were in state prisons .According to  the same data 530,000 of these African-American males were enrolled in colleges and universities in 2005. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2007/10/young_black_males_headed_for_e_1.html .  Again what does this really say about America? More young African American men are in prison than there are in University.  

This image also makes me think is Barack Obama an effective representative of Black people in America- with statics and imagery like this? I believe this image is a very  effective negative image representing America.