Issues of Race, Gender, Whiteness and Privilege (Q. #3)Race, privilege, and gender are three key issues addressed in Lee Mun Wah’s “The Color of Fear”. Different characters in the film bring out these issues and discuss how they have come about and how they are apparent in our society today. Lee Mun Wah uses different variations of visual language and compositions to show certain perspectives on the different characters. Also there is a theme of interlocking hierarchies presented in the film.Certain characters in the film bring out the idea of white privilege. These privileges and advantages of whites in our society often go ignored and unasserted. Victor states how white men “stand on the heads of their women”, meaning that men degrade women in our society. The interlocking hierarchies in our society show that whites see people of other races as being at a disadvantage, rather than seeing themselves at an advantage. David Chistensen represents the typical white society when he says that he sees everyone as having equal opportunities and as long as people of color just work hard like everyone else than they will get somewhere in life. Victor tells him that everyone does not have equal opportunities, and that whites are born with unearned advantages. White people have an invisible package of unearned assets. Invisible in the way that they can’t be seen or touched, but can be cashed in everyday at colored peoples expense. White people have these unearned advantages and privileges just for being white, and in our society this leads to a systematic tendency to over empowerment, where denial of these advantages occurs leading to no changes in society.In the film we see issues of race and racism as being a “white” problem, contrary to what we see in society as race and racism as being a “colored” problem. Victor and David Lee both make the statement that to be “Am...
