An Inclusive Litany

11/15/93

In a Boston Globe editorial, Deborah Prothow-Stith, assistant dean for government and community affairs at the Harvard School of Public Health, criticized Steven Spielberg's blockbuster Jurassic Park for perpetuating stereotypes about various groups.

"A black worker is eaten in the first five minutes of the movie—an occurrence that is incidental and overlooked.

"Other people eaten include another black man who smokes, a fat man who is trying to steal the dinosaur embryos and sell them for a profit—expendable people about whom the audience is made to care very little. Children learn not to value the lives of these characters."

But they do learn to value blonds, which also bothers Prothow-Stith. "All the blond characters—and only the blond ones—are lucky or smart enough to survive without injury. The one dark-haired scientist who lived was hurt badly...

"This stereotype—the valued blonds and less valued and incidental others—is an outrageous insult."