Different societies form their own distinct cultures and, unfortunately, these cultures have often had difficulty accepting each other’s ideas and values. This difficulty resulted in racism and stereotypes. People have attempted to fight these concepts throughout history and have only been successful to a degree. We have made progress in understanding how wrong these things are and laws have been made to prevent them but they are far from being eradicated.

Stereotypes are very present in the media. For example, when characters are created for shows or movies, they often are based on stereotypes because it is easier for the audience to understand the characters. Racism is often used as a form of comedy. Writers will use racist and offensive remarks or ideas to get attention and to get people to laugh. In both of these cases, the intention is harmless. However, they can have harmful impacts as audiences are repeatedly exposed to racism and stereotypes. People may start to believe the things they are seeing and hearing even if they aren’t meant to. In addition, because cultures have different ideas and values, things that are meant as harmless may be interpreted as harmful.

David Henry Hwang’s play Chinglish, touches on this idea of misinterpretations between cultures. It shows off how Asians and Americans have difficulty understanding each other at times. The play contains no Asian-American characters because it wants to represent the relationship, or lack of relationship, between the two separate cultures.