Stereotypes vs. Archetypes

[Music]

[Applause]

human

connection we

crave it many of us are starved for it

and yet we do the oddest things to block

to push it aside to turn it away to

shut it out

i have this memory i am

giving my voice students their midterm

i’m looking out across the rehearsal

hall and i am seeing all these drama

students all

draped all over each other leaning on

each other and filling in their midterms

and my

eye lands on the jock

i don’t know why he’s taking this class

he wants an easy a he wants to see

theater students in their natural

habitat

time passes people are getting up

they’re walking over

to me they’re dropping down the midterm

and they’re like hey

see you later hillary and time is

ticking and we have one person

left the jock

he finally rises puts on his baseball

cap and his letter jacket and he comes

on over

in his sauntering style lays down his

midterm out of the corner of my eye i

see

all of this tiny writing tons of

handwriting filling in the answers

and he says uh miss i’ve been

using the voice exercises with the coach

because i think that he would be a

better leader and the team would listen

to him better

if he were using his voice differently

mind blown little tiny box that i had

put that guy in

blown apart i had completely

flattened him and squished him and

stereotyped him

and put him as an other

why do we do that why do i do that why

did i do that to my own student

am i moving so quickly am i tired what’s

going on that

it’s like pulling in for fast food i’m

in a hurry i know it’s not great for me

when i want to pull in french fries

sound great

and i get my fast food our stereotypes

the fast food

of connection

they label and labels limit

and when we limit

what are we doing to people isn’t it

diminishing them isn’t it

disregarding them isn’t it devaluing

them and if we keep going on that

d trajectory may be damaging and then

honestly dangerous

and i’m a drama teacher

i’m a drama teacher i’m an actor i have

been directing

and we never allow anyone in the acting

profession to diminish their character

by playing a stereotype

we admonish it we say honor your

characters

find out about them be curious see them

i didn’t see

that student ask questions and explore

who they could be

create a roundness

i gave more honor to all the characters

that i’ve created and others have

created

than a human being in the theater we

have a really great tool

called an archetype and we all know

archetypes from the performance world

it’s

what creates the characters in our

stories

they are tools to figure out what role

we have

in the shared story of humanity

i’m going to share 12 archetypes

this is culture talks idea taken from

carl jung’s work he’s a swiss

psychiatrist

and looking at the behaviors and the

thought patterns and

all of the elements that go into human

beings these 12

make up us as humanity

you recognize some of the names on their

hero and lover

revolutionary every person

and thinking about these 12 archetypes

and people around the world these are

not the only ones let’s be aware that

there also

there’s a really fun article that has 99

archetypes

that we find in the movies that we’re

watching

and there’s another article with 253

from around the world

globally we connect we may change the

names

we connect and if everyone has let’s

take these 12

inside of us some of them are dominant

some of them are latent

they’re all there and

then we become as humanity an infinite

combination

of these different roles and different

parts of them and percentages of them

how exciting to blow apart the idea of

that flat stereotype

and go with the multifacetedness of who

we are as human beings

on this journey that we’re sharing

together

if we think about archetypes and

i invite us to contemplate them and come

into the

artist world and see what that might be

we can bring up i took

an assessment and the culture talk

assessment and i am

you can see a magician a lover and a

ruler are my

top and underneath we have some of the

traits

there are more traits than that

otherwise we’re back to the stereotype

so there are

more traits than that and we’re

multifaceted and this is me

let’s do what i’m inviting you to do

with the jock

i did this you may choose differently i

see him as a hero

and as a sage seeking the wisdom and

definitely as a revolutionary he’s

coming into that drama class

what happens then that

draws us to those stereotypes aren’t

they as a performer aren’t they funny

we use them for humor for sure

i had this amazing improv troupe of

teenagers

they challenged me and they performed

really like no other group

that i’ve been with and because

we are performers we discuss the

difference between

archetypes and stereotypes and it’s easy

to fall into a stereotype when you’re in

the middle of a scene and something’s

funny i can call even my teenagers my

sullen smelly teenagers

it doesn’t really go anywhere we

challenged ourselves

to see if we could bring the humor and

improv is not all about humor

if we could bring the humor and the

story in the humanity through

archetypes versus stereotypes and we

came up with this

list of differences

and we played and we explored

and i would add to this in the spirit of

improv

that the stereotype is the no but and

the archetype is the yes and

and i ask them i say what do you think

we lose

and as i looked at them and moved away

from thinking

of them as the smelly selling teenagers

and thought of them as that is such a

lover

with a revolutionary and that is

definitely a ruler with hero energy and

looking at them and

knowing who they are one of them piped

up and said

the only thing we lose

is the sharp edge that cuts

the sharp edge that cuts when we

stereotype

and push people away

so how do i keep going to stereotypes

what is that habit

that i have what draws me into that

i’m going to suggest two specific things

that happen the first one

is a sameness if you go back to the

story i started with

i stereotyped those drama students

i had them be really one facet

drama students draped on each other but

because i’m one of them

because i am the same i felt a safeness

in saying that

it doesn’t lessen the fact that there is

diminishing of who they were and perhaps

damaging of who they were

sameness not safe and something i think

i’m calling myself to be aware of as i

journey through life it’s a habit

and the second one i am

driving down the road and i’m having a

good time and then that person does

that thing that that person does

and immediately i’ve decided everything

about them right there

based on their behavior which was

ridiculous right what they just did the

dangerous maybe even

and maybe their car maybe the truck

they’re in whatever it is i just

stereotype them i am in the safety

of my little glass and metal and

fiberglass and plastic box

they can’t hear me i mean maybe they can

i don’t think they can hear me but you

know something’s going on

and unless i go to road rage what’s the

what’s the danger what’s the problem

the problem for me is that i just

increased the depth of my habit groove

in the safety of my own car

it gets easier when i’m walking down the

street to stereotype someone

it gets easier when i’m scrolling

through social media to stereotype

someone

it gets easier when i walk into a place

of employment stereotype

it matters if we see people

for all of their fullness and i know

we’re tired

and i know there are so many things

going on in our brains and the

stereotype is going to happen we’re

going to be pulling in for that fast

food at times

and yet how do we make sure that we

see people for what the possibilities

could be if we’re on a story together

in this this in this story together and

on this journey

how do we invite that diversity

i have a triple a action plan for myself

and i invite you to join me

first a to be alert and self-aware

noticing when i’m doing it the second

one

to be an accomplice and an advocate and

maybe someday an

ally really being fearless and calling

out when you notice it happening

using our voices to make sure other

voices

are heard and third

the archetype activate the archetype

have fun with it we see it in movies and

novels everywhere

have fun with it ask questions be

curious see that person and know they

can be

and challenge ourselves to

step into the complex

messiness of this interwoven story

that we’re in together and believe in

human

connection slow down

breathe maybe even stop

get nourished

and ultimately thrive

i see you and i want to know

[Applause]

[Music]

you