What is a stereotype? A stereotype can be defined as "a standardized mental picture that is held in common by members of a group and that represents an oversimplified opinion, prejudiced attitude, or uncritical judgment" (Merriam Webster). Another definition is "cognitive representations of another group that influence one's feeling about the group (Gudykunst and Kim). It is argued that stereotyping is a natural and universal information processing strategy that helps us make sense of a complex world. The problem with stereotyping is that they are often used to ascribe characteristics to entire groups of people and lead to ethnocentrism, prejudice and discrimination.
National stereotypes have been mapped in a project by Bulgarian artist YankoTvetskov who has created satirical maps of Europe and the world based on common national stereotypes in his Mapping Stereotypes project.
Read an interview with the artist who created these maps, YankoTvetskov and write your reflections on his project and the maps. Do you find them humorous? Offensive? Controversial? Do they serve to reinforce stereotypes or can they help us to challenge them?
I think that the stereotyp maps are in some case funny and humorous but in some other case quite controversial. Surely the creator wants ephatize defects or common habits related with a particular country and in a positve way that can helps to remove or change point of view that we have about others, beliefs that are only based to streotypes without any other knowledge. The negative aspect should be that the stereotypes, for example the way that italian people see the world, can become a justification for not change it and not overcome our prejudices.
RispondiEliminaYanko Tvetskov draw his maps of Europe based on different stereotypes. For the Americans, Europe is a sort of Eurodisney, with a big swimming pool (the Mediterranean Sea), the funny West and the evils East, a group of commies, violent, crazy people. On the other hand, according to Berlusconi Europe is made of all different sort of pussies. The Vatican focuses only on the way people shows their sense of religion and condemns their behaviors.
RispondiEliminaThe stereotypes are over-exaggerated and sarcasm is their backbone.
Personally, I do not think they are offensive, not at all. This is not Tvetskov’s aim. Laughing over something and doing satire over its unreasonable aspects help destroying false believes. And, by this process, stereotypes will tend to become irrelevant, empty, with no value in them.
It is worldwide known that to resolve a disagreement a laugh (and a beer with it, too) is better than a fight. The first step is being able to laugh at ourselves, at our own strange misbelieves and see how droll they are.
Yanko Tvetskov’s work, in my opinion, is a good challenging way to smooth differences and understand each other. It does not destroy or deny that stereotypes exist. He just shows, in the funniest way possible, how ridiculous they are.
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RispondiEliminaAccording to the interview, Tsvetkov designed his first stereotype map about his homeland, Bulgaria, and only after its success, he decided to begin the Mapping Stereotypes Project. So the principal aim was to entertain by mocking himself first and the stereotypes of his own culture.
EliminaIn my opinion stereotype maps are not offensive, they get a smile out of me and help me understand how Italians are seen by the rest of the world. If they seem insulting, it is because stereotypes are reductive. Stereotypes are a simplification of the reality we live in, a way to have an idea about something without knowing everything, which is impossible for human brain. In the era of globalisation we face a complex reality, non-stop information from all over the world and stereotypes help us labelling these information and cultures away from us. There is a problem when we use them as general truth and we stick to them, erasing individual richness and diversity.
Tsvetkov does not think that all Americans consider Russian people as Commies, and he does not want to label anyone, but he represents stereotypes - not people - exaggerating them.
So the first reaction is a laugh, but stereotype maps can also encourage us to open our mind and try to get rid of our prejudices. This Mapping Stereotypes Project was possible because its designer is open minded, he travelled a lot and he got in touch with different cultures. He learnt the best way to deal with them: accepting them with auto-irony.
Angelica Silvestri
Tvetskov says: “ If there is a serious problem, I prefer to present in in a funny say”. When I saw these maps in class, my first reaction was a laugh. I think that they are so hilarious, but also so sarcastic. Sarcasm can help when you want to say something with irony, but also to say something serious. So, when I look maps I think that they could be offensive for someone, but because they are straightforward to explain a certain point of view (Berlusconi's way, Vatican's way, …). But I believe that they are not so false, everyone in his life thought about stereotypes! They are useful for our mind to create order and they are immovable, like psychology says. So, Tvetskov makes only them in a maps and he shows us what everybody can think about a culture in an ironic way. We can laugh about that, because I think we have to try to live peacefully with our imperfections and keep live our typical cultural traits.
RispondiEliminaYanko Tsvetkov has created some satirical maps of national stereotypes based on people views and opinions.
RispondiEliminaThis is a good and smart way to take a look at what people think of other people, countries and different cultures.
I like his art project but at the same time I’m impressed by this artwork.
One country or a group of people can be seen in different ways depending on who are observing.
Stereotypes should be simply harmless sorts of jokes we tell about other nationalities or about a group of people, instead they are dangerous because they may provoke racial prejudice and intolerance.
The big problem with stereotypes is that they tend to generalize and the only reason why stereotypes exist is because people are afraid of diversity.
They prefer to cling to simple classifications, which maintain an old and familiar order.
I think stereotypes can be either positive or negative, but they are all unfair and misleading: in general, stereotypes reduce individuals to a rigid, inflexible image and suggest that people or groups of people are the same, when in fact, they are different.
Generalizations about people are based on limited and inaccurate information.
Yanko Tvetskov’s maps at first sight could be amused and they are, but prejudices aren’t funny.
Prejudice hurts everybody so before prejudging anybody we should think about the effects it might have on one person. Prejudices survive thanks to ignorance and fear.
Listening to Adichie's single story it’s easy to understand what I’ve describe above.
When I was a child I used to study catechism one a week: my grandmother was a great believer so in some way, I was forced to do it. My mother wasn't agree but discussing with my grandmother was impossible.
One day my mother decided I should have studied other religions for opening my mind. One a week I had private lessons with a teacher who taught me other religions, other beliefs and point of views.
My mother always told me that ignorance was a fault; for me, studying other religions was so boring, but now I understand her reasons, and I agree with her.
Yanko Tvetskov’s maps offer an important opportunity for debate about uniqueness and specialness of everyone. My favorite picture is “Europe according to the Greeks”. Just to make an example: Italy is called “Plagiarist” and U.K is called “George Michael”.
Yanko Tsvetkov on his blog says “It was about time to make a map of Europe according to Greece because as things are going, the country might disappear very soon. At least as we know it. I think what is happening today in Greece and all Southern Mediterranean Europe can be properly described as a clash of civilizations. You’ve probably heard the statement that Greece is the cradle of Western Civilization”. This is definitely a great way to promove discussions.
Stereotypes aren’t reinforce by these maps, contrariwise they have been ridiculed by him.
He has created two new maps for the Guardian, one titled “The Arab Winter” and the other “Crystal Ball View Of Europe In 2022”. The last one isn’t a positive presage but it shows how people, and in primis Tsvetkov, think about world and Europe.
Sara Berton
Personally I don’t think that Mr Tsetkov’s map is offensive or insulting: I find it a humorous and clever work. I agree that it is not so easy to understand it if you are not open minded and auto-ironic enough: stereotypes in fact are such a simplification and a reduction of reality, without shades, that come from our need to label everything we don’t know. But at the same time we can consider them as an exaggeration.
RispondiEliminaProbably in this globalized word, when we are now used to travel a lot, to get in touch with other cultures, to experience them directly, stereotypes are something too stable, as the author himself said. But I think that they belong to our traditional first approach with a new country, or a population we didn’t know, because they are simply and immediate to understand: it’s up to us to open our mind, in order to find if they are true or not.
RispondiEliminaYankoTvetskov thanks to his project “Mapping Stereotypes” shows that even if the world changes, the stereotypes remain the same. Prejudices are struggling to die although there have been important political, historical and cultural changes all over the world.
I think this project is very interesting because it is useful to see the different point of view, it’s curious to know which stereotypes have the people came from other continents about us, in fact I laughed when I saw that the average American thinks to the Mediterraneo as a swimming pool.
Personally, I don’t think that the maps are offensive, they are humorous and satirical but someone might be offended, a person who live in the North of Africa might feel offended if he read: “Fucking desert, Dude” on the map of the American perspective. So it’s important to remember that a stereotype is “a standardized mental picture” useful to simplify complex realities around us, it doesn’t represent an objective vision of the world.
In my opinion these maps can help us to challenge stereotypes. They serve to reflect, to understand that our vision of global reality is impartial and prejudices that we have about other cultures and places are wrongs.
Elsa Pasqual
According to the interview, Yanko Tsvetkov’s work has been made as a project to entertain people, maybe with a big laugh: because most of the maps are very humoristic and funny. In my opinion his work is also able to put people in a situation of thinking about his or her view of the world. stereotypes are a common vision held by members of a group, they’re always been present inside every society since the first groups of humans have started contacts with each others. Most of times they have been seen in a negative perspective, because they probably have been used to reinforce nationalism or to simple remark differences between groups instead of what unified all human societies. Now days we are living in a world which is not changing in a matter of decades but months. We are able to know about every country in the planet not by hearing personal experiences or neither books but with just a superficially look on a website we assume the right to make judgments over the most despaired situations. In the last decade we have been totally and completely slaved by mass media, we have to be 24 hours a day connected with this media system to be able to live in our world. It’s interesting to see how this new situation have changed the old stereotypes into new ones, maybe in a more insidious way because they are changing as fast as mass media decides. It’s impossible to eliminate these kind of common sense, as we may see in certain maps with old stereotypes that still marked. I think it’s important to reflect, just after a big smile, on how we are able to think with our mind, simply making judgments on our own opinion without the influence of the shadowed big brother hand.
RispondiEliminaMichele Taufer
The purpose of stereotypes is to help us know how to interact with others. Each classification has associations, scripts and so on that we use to interpret what they are saying, decide if they are good or bad, and choose how to respond to them. Mapping stereotypes is a project subject to controversy. On one hand this project can eradicate stereotypes, but I think that not so easy to do. Some of them are too deep rooted, that they become part of our culture. We identify each other by defining an «enemy» different from us. This difference starts up our identity. In contrast Mapping Stereotypes can be the starting point of the destruction of stereotype. As Tsvetkov says "If there is a serious problem, I prefer to present it in a funny say". The best way is laughing on how other countries and nationalities see us.
RispondiEliminaOn the other hand this point of view can reinforce stereotypes, by showing the characteristics of other nationalities that we can offender.
I see Mapping Stereotypes as a right method for extinguish stereotypes by rendering it ridiculous, because it is easier to create stereotypes when there is a clearly visible and consistent attribute that can easily be recognized.
Valeria Aleksenko
According to Americans vision of the world I see in the map the most known and current stereotypes. The Americans see the world divided in two different blocks: the United States are the civilized world, with the best economy, the good Policy and the better way to know the culture, the religion and democracy; while the Russian are the Commies.
RispondiEliminaChina is seen as the land of supermarket and creation of frivolous and cheapness things while Japan is the land of car, like toyota.
Africa can be divided in three major parts: the North is the desert area, where there is not civilization; the Sub-Saharian area is the "land of AIDS" and diseases and the East, the "horn of Africa" is the land of hunger, stuff and pirates (Somalia).
Americans see Africa as a country of poverty, starvation and illness and they don't think about the positive values it has.
The Middle East is the land of the "Other", the crib of Islamic religion, the Enemy. In Yemen there are thugs and terrorists, which are a danger for the American power and the international security.
In my opinion these maps -created by Yanko Tvetskov- are a good and smart way to understand the problem of stereotypes, that a human mind can be create; because they often used to ascribe characteristics which jeopardize and discriminate an entire groups of people.
It is difficult to understand another culture, but it is important that each person tries to comprehend the cultural and religion differences to not fall down in the view of stereotypes which create misunderstanding and hate between people and nations.
The use of stereotypes is a major way in which we simplify our social world; they reduce the amount of processing we have to do when we meet a new person.
RispondiEliminaBy stereotyping we infer that a person has a whole range of characteristics and abilities that assume all members of that group.
Stereotypes lead to social categorization, and thus they generate prejudices and discriminations.
The Bulgarian artist Yanko Tsvetkov has produced some maps in which countries and regions are renamed according to the stereotypes that are seen by other nations.
The Americans look at the French as "smelly people", the Russians are the usual "communists," the Germans are "lovers of pornography push" while the territories bordering the former Soviet Union are one area that acts as a "buffer zone " against the Russian enemy.
It is a provocation, made to commemorate the beautiful differences.
It is important to be ironic about the differences between people. The difference should not be a reason for discrimination.
The intention of Yankoo is to make people think. It is a way to laugh and joke and especially to destroy prejudices.
I think that: one of the advantages of a stereotype is that it allows us to respond quickly to situations, based on past experiences; one disadvantage is that it makes us ignore differences between individuals, therefore we think things about people that might not be true (to make generalizations).
I believe that it is the environment to produce behavior, and there is no anthropological determinism.
Maps are not offensive, but ironic and sarcastic. It is a fun way to highlight the differences of each.
The differences are fundamental and each people must understand their faults in order to improve.
To accept the diversity and to irony about our flaws are the first steps towards a better world based on respect and peace.
Ilaria Catozza
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RispondiEliminaThe idea to create a World map filled with stereotypes is simply brilliant. Showing to nations what they actually think about each other is one of the best way of making satire I've ever seen.
RispondiEliminaTsvetkov wants us to think that even if everything in the World i changing, something is not. Stereotypes still remain and in the end we must admit that there's no way to change this fact. I don't think that they can be destroyed once and for all, but we can actually laugh on them.
Personally I don't think that this work should be considered as offensive. When I first saw these maps I couldn't help me but laughing. That's what we should do with stereotypes: do not take them seriously. In this way, Yanko Tsventkov's work can help us to face stereotypes, in order to transform them into empty words.
Yanko Tsvetkov's map give us an hypothetical division of the world based on mental simplifications according to the Americans. I think these stereotypes, that characterize each country, at first conveys a superficial and humorous idea, but it's not completely false. Cliches sometimes creep into our mind through almost unconscious mechanisms. In fact, this map shows how our mind could react, at first and without the necessary deepening, to an hypothetical opinion on the different world countries. Unfortunately we are affected through the media by stereotypes and ideas that direct our thinking, since childhood. The reality filtered by the media does not always correspond to the real, but becomes a generalized idea into the minds of the people who see and hear. In my opinion these mental simplifications, we are constantly exposed to, lead us to draw the same conclusions, uniforming our thinking. I think that the chart is also provocative and the author of this map try to shake our mind to expand our view. Often we absorb passively information, images and stories of reality far from us, and we think to known and understand them. The graph should be considered a cue to go over these mental simplifications. The media have the power to spread their reality perception, so we have to react to the their "anesthetic" effect, trying to develope our critical ability and delving into the information for not be victim of stereotypes.
RispondiEliminaAs I saw Yanko Tvetskov’s maps, I was impressed by his artistic and ironic way to show the World. In a funny way he has explained how every single Country has a clear idea about other Countries on the base of silly stereotypes. Even if the World has changed, stereotypes are still the same, and I guess that no one will ever be able to change this way of thinking. Personally, I don’t think Mr. Tvestskov wanted to offend anybody by doing these maps, he has just shown how people can be reductive when it came to describe habits that are not their own. By looking at this Project, I realized that i'm not so open minded as I thought… for example it happened that I have described Swiss people as the Country of clocks addicted!
RispondiEliminaIf I would have the possibility, I would thank Mr. Tvestskov for his work. He reminded me that almost all our thinking is based on fake assumptions.
Laura Marchioro
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RispondiEliminaYanko Tsvetkov had a simple but brilliant idea. His stereotype maps show in a satirical way the prejudices that people of different countries turn each other. He caricatures a real phenomena and make us laugh and think over it at the same time.
RispondiEliminaI think that his work can’t be offensive to open-minded people, as the author, who is cosmopolitan and able to change his point of view.
I find interesting the choice to represent stereotypes written on a map. World is always changing so maps are often updated. If you draw a map today, it could be inadequate in 3-4 months. But stereotypes are deep-rooted in our mind and they can be hardly removed. For examples, in the map of Europe according to Americans, Russian are labelled as “commies”, which is an idea that comes from Cold War. Tsvetkov’s project is and will continue to be a topical work.
The project of the Bulgarian artist Yanko Tvetskov lets us observe how a certain population (and in some cases also premiers or religious élites) sees the rest of the world, in a definitely ironical, satirical and non-offensive way. At the base of these maps there are prejudices, stereotypes, common habits, and false beliefs. Nowadays, our actual world is characterized by the phenomenon of the globalization, more elaborated relationships, and closer interactions between populations, and that makes the stereotypes functional to the societies, permitting to simplify the reality around us. But... they are simple generalizations, trivializations of the world, limiting a community to a slogan that is inadequate to contain the whole culture of a population, with its characteristics and peculiarities. Reading, for example, how Italy sees Europe, the first reaction is surely to laugh and smile: the map emphasizes some cultural/physical characteristics of European nationalities or fallacies (such as the fact that in Romania everybody is a thief!), whose origin is traceable with difficulty. Also to observe how Italy is seen abroad is very curious and useful to do self-criticism and to understand the reasons of these prejudices, trying to neutralize them in the end (even if this can be very difficult because they are well rooted in collective imagination). On this topic, the video, posted in the blog, about a Norwegian advertisement shows how our pathological devotion to the family is considered ironical and exaggerate. We are also classified like “Pizza & museums” (by the Germans), “Plagiarists” (by the Greeks), “Godfathers” (by the Americans), “Noisy friendly people” by the French, and finally “tanned men with grey hair” by the British.
RispondiEliminaMichael Massarutto
I think that Yanko Tvetskov hits the center of the problem. Stereotypes are something innate in the mankind, it often happens that citizens of one country consider themselves the "best above the rest". Tvetskov tries to explain some common ideas that every community has insight, and he does it in a funny way.
RispondiEliminaPersonally, I like his project because, using different points of views, he achieves a realistic result: he maps many stereotypes that are present in our minds and I find some maps very effective: for example, the map regarding "The World according to Americans" describes some American prejudices that are very popular among the Us citizens.
In his interview with Tim Dowling, Tvetskov states that "there are things that you can only perceive when you are among the people, but the internet helps": I agree with him because many of the stereotypes he has listed have been created in the last decade, despite of the presence of the Worldwide Web. The free exchange of opinions allowed nowadays by the Internet gives the possibility to share ideas and convictions with people having different cultural background and, at the same time, it gives you the possibility to modify your personal thoughts about other collectivities.
Alberto Vigonesi
Yanko Tsvetkov's maps of national stereotypes.
RispondiEliminaIn the world seen by the Americans ("The world according to Americans" map) , to see that a part of the Asian continent is still covered by a red mantle causes me a certain nostalgia .... It's my stereotype?, hope?, illusion? ignorance? ...... Or all together? ...mah!!!!
In Italy, until a few months ago, a very stereotypical reading came from our by Prime Minister Berlusconi, who identified his political opponents as "communists". Not only that, but our beloved Silvio, also, would say that a part of the Italian judiciary would be affected by a certain nostalgia for the communist world!
George Bush himself, until a few years ago, had placed some states of the world in a ranking, calling them "rogue states", or rather enemies of the civilized world (the United States), committed to bringing freedom and human rights around the world.
Two small examples ....
Personally, it should be a matter of concern when certain observations are thought by "common people": it means that there is a cultural or social problem; but when they become arguments used by the "ruling class" of a country I think there is a certain danger.
Italy is a wonderful laboratory from this point of view, you could write an encyclopedia on how a social group of a region has a specific epithet that is hang it by its neighbor ("terrone", "polentone", "crucco", ... ).
I believe the factors have led to this are numerous: globalization has accelerated the movement of people between states, local media began to give a new interpretation to international events, often far from the truth; people losing reference points often tends to simplify and distort knowledge of what is happening in the world ....
Interestingly, when conservative groups come to power, the ability to access humorous programs decreases; indeed, they are important tools that help to overcome what the politically correct hiding, with the laughter.
I believe we can't build a good society without intercultural dimension and for this purpose we have to use all educational tools for children, so why not, laughter for adults: the latter, very often, stimulate curiosity, mutual interest and desire to know, than pedantic moral lesson.
After all, although it's clear business purpose of Yanko Tsvetkov's satirical maps, in the age of Facebook, all is useful!
Fabrizio.
Personally I find the Yanko Tvetskov's maps very hilarious and perceptive at the same time.
RispondiEliminaStereotyping is the easiest way of mapping the unknown.
Emphasizing on (bearing down on) some stereotypes might be useful to make people more aware of their own bias and prejudices that too often mislead their judgments and behaviours.
Here you are a comic adage which displaies other common stereotypes on and among the Europeans.
"Heaven: where the police are British, the cooks are French, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italian and it is all organised by the Swiss.
Hell: where the police are German, the cooks are English, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss and it is all organised by the Italians."
In this map is represented the world seen by Americans, and in general by western part of the world. The author labelled every country with a stereotype linked to that country. In this way the States became the land of the civilized world and of course, Africa became the lands of Aids, hunger and desert while middle East become the land of “Satana”.
RispondiEliminaAt a first look I find the map smart and funny. Thinking of India as the country of curry or Chile as the country of chili and a country that I don’t even remember the name as the country of the savages make me laugh a lot at first.
But after I started thinking in a different way… I started thinking that it’s a map made by a Western author but I realised that is also just for Westerns. Likely I don’t think that an Iranian would laugh if he sees is country labelled as the Satan’s country. What I’m saying is that the author realized and published this map on the Internet so that every part of the world would see it and not just the Westerns.
Even if it was created with a good intention, it risks becoming too provocative for some cultures. For example, a bad American movie has been enough to bring to the death of an American Ambassador and to rearrange security measures for all the embassies of industrialized countries, because it jokes Arabian culture.
Maybe the author himself has the stereotype that all people of the world are like Western countries and take this kind of stuff easily.
In conclusion I think that making maps of stereotype is a good and funny provocation that could make us laugh and debate about our imperfection according on how other people see us. On the other hand it could be also offensive for certain people that doesn’t see the mock.
Either way it doesn’t help us to go further stereotypes. And the only way to go further stereotype is to get in touch with different people of different cultures. Only this way we can delete the boundaries and acknowledge we are all part of the same world.
Yanko Tsvetkov's map of national stereotypes.
RispondiEliminaIn the view of the world in the map, there is a classical capitalist vision of the world, but also very westernized and egocentric.
Americans see themselves as a civilized world and consider Russia such as the world of commies.
Personally I don't think that this work should be considered as offensive. Generalizations about people are based on limited and inaccurate information.
Stereotypes are highly variable in these years, because globalization is changing many things and also the worldviews of people.
I believe that globalization has created a dissemination of information, often false.
An important example is that of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan where false information created in the minds of Americans the wrong stereotypes and prejudices.
The vision of the map is the result of the stereotypes that are really entered in the minds of American citizens and often reflects what they think.
Consider Iran as the country of Satan, India as the land of curry and Africa as the world's AIDS, there is very funny but also wrong and the result of prejudices.
Andrea Scapin
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RispondiEliminaI think Yanko Tvetskov's maps are little masterpieces. All of these little interpretations of world's countries are not just hilarious,funny and why not a little bit evil,but they also give us the opportunity to figure out how we stereotype the rest of the world.
RispondiEliminaAs a former art student I recognize the value of giving someone else the possibility to expose and stimulate its own point of view,this is why I don't think these maps are just graphic design,they are art and we already know that even in past centuries there are several examples of art as something strictly connected to transgression and breaking the common rules and ideas of society.
Anyone in front of a painting or a sculpture has it's own ideas so it happens as well with stereotypes about countries,gender or race.
I believe stereotypes are something that can be commonly found in both developed and under-developed countries,male and female and so on. When I looked to these maps I started to develop my own ideas and stereotypes, understanding me better.When i think to Japan it comes in my mind the immagine of a manga,whereas USA remind me loud people and peanut butter. So I realized that these maps unified with the power of the internet might be use as a powerful tool of inter-cultural relations,allowing us to participate to almost unlimited points of view in order to challenge stereotypes. If people will be able to deal with opinions and stereotypes of others it would be easier for them to understand that those are just ideas not based on facts and real experiences.
I do not believe Yanko Tvetskov's works are offensive and anyway I think to Yanko as someone very jocular and clever.
Stefano Pasqualetto
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