A social cognition approach to stereotyping in documentary practice

Abstract

Our perceptions of the social world are guided by categorical (i.e. stereotypical) thinking based on preexisting schematic knowledge, which frames filmmaking as well as viewing practices. This chapter outlines how folk-psychological mechanisms, as manifested in films and filmmaking textbooks, potentially result in the construction and perpetuation of social stereotypes that are detrimental to certain communities such as disabled people. This knowledge is then deployed in my own film practice to reduce or reconfigure disability stereotypes, particularly using the strategy of narrative fragmentation, which prevents the formation of schematic characters and plots.