The Joy Luck Club is a film that dispels stereotypes about Asian women and culture overall. For the most part, this film presents complex female characters who have in depth background stories, wants, desires and challenges that they go through when trying to obtain their needs and the relationships that they want.

I could relate to several of the female characters at different times throughout the film. For example, I could relate to the daughter with her mother, she thought whatever she did was never good enough for her mother. I could also of a relate to the situation between the mother who taught her daughter to value herself, not to beg for a husband’s attention and forgiveness when he is not worthy of such love and affection.

Although the most of the male roles were minimal, and simplified in this film, I enjoyed seeing the father’s gentle love for his daughter, who played the lead female role in this film, as well as the love that he had for his wife and his wife’s first-born daughters in China, even though they were not his biological children. Chinese men are often portrayed as either harsh to their women or unable to support their family in the way that they would like to be able to support them. Thus, the Joy Luck Club provided a great alternative view of a men of Asian descent.

I saw many stereotypes that were addressed, broken, explained and dealt with. For example, the mother who wanted her daughter to play piano well, and the mother who wanted her daughter to continue to excel at chess. The film showed that the children aren’t just automatically smart. The film also showed that Asian parents can be just as competitive as any parent who may have a genuine desire for helping his or her child hone their natural ability. Parents, no matter what their race or ethnicity, tend to get competitive with other parents whose children excel in similar areas because all most humans naturally want to be able to brag on their kids. This film brings out the real and various human reasons behind why a stereotype could have evolved, but that at the end of the day, its only a stereotype because as when can see by the complex issues surrounding the stereotypical images presented in the film. The Joy Luck Club is a film that breaks several stereotypes, because the instances of the stereotypical behavior are not oversimplified in the film, but instead, complex. The film reveals to viewers the actual individual stories behind why each girl or woman in the film is facing what she is facing and behaving the way she is behaving.

Many major stereotypical images and ideas in this film are given room to be developed and made complex. As a result, the audience gets to see a view of Asian Americans that encourages us to use critical thinking when understanding the character’s motivations in the film. I think that this type of detail in addressing stereotypes in filmmaking can go a long way in helping individuals in society use their critical thinking skills and emotional abilities to see past stereotypes when interacting with people in the real world. I have learned: In order to avoid creating stereotypes in the media, try not to simplify the an action or idea just because it may be easily accepted by the public in general based on a stereotypes that have been broadcast and digested.

If anything make the ideas and images presented more complex. Even if in the end of the film or piece of media, the “stereotype” may happen to come off as true, viewers will know the reasoning behind why this instance came off true. Viewers should be able to recognize the humanness in the decision process of the character’s actions.

It is the human similarities in the circumstances surrounding the decisions, outcomes and actions of the characters that allow viewers to understand that they may have done the same thing if in a similar situation of likeness to that portrayed in the film or media sample.

I theorize that viewers are able to go through a mental process of critical thinking, understanding, and comprehension that can ultimately contribute to the breaking of stereotypes in one’s mental psyche. Especially, if this method is used and practiced often as a standard method in creating films that are intended to celebrate diversity, culture and similarities among humans and circumstances. It’s that aspect creating a path for the viewer’s mind to connect, understand and relate to the character on the screen, and the viewer being able to use that achieved receptor (linked) (neuron) path (open mind) to automatically want to relate and understand people in the real world, and not accept simple answers at face value now that the mind and critical thinking in that aspect has been opened and developed.