from cliché to stereotype

[cacian]

I cannot tell the difference between a cliché and a stereotype.
To stereotype a look is to put it into a cliché box. Is it just that one is French and the other is English terminology speaking?

[Bluehound]

As I understand it, a cliché is a turn of phrase which is very over used - "Got on like a house on fire".
A stereotype is a character who behaves exactly as you would expect - The gay hairdresser. The drunk Irishman - and stereotyping someone is pigeonholing them due to their nationality or other identity.

[cacian]

As I understand it, a cliché is a turn of phrase which is very over used - "Got on like a house on fire".
A stereotype is a character who behaves exactly as you would expect - The gay hairdresser. The drunk Irishman - and stereotyping someone is pigeonholing them due to their nationality or other identity.

Thank you Bluehound. I was thinking in terms of references. Does not a cliche typify an incident or an action?

[Steven Hunley]

Thank you Bluehound. I was thinking in terms of references. Does not a cliche typify an incident or an action?

A stereotype is a character who has been portrayed in the same manner, with the same aspects of character, so many times before you're already familiar with them.

A cliché is an overused phrase. So a stereotype is an overused character. They share a lot in common.

It may be that such phrases or characters are too recognizable, especially for writers, since writers pride themselves on being able to portray something fresh and new.

[jayat]

It may be that such phrases or characters are too recognizable, especially for writers, since writers pride themselves on being able to portray something fresh and new.[/QUOTE]

Yes, I agree with that definition. An apart from the main point, writing creatively likely mean to substitute all these clichés and stereotypes in your mind by something "fresh and new". The work of riding creativity has to be gigantic. Just a comment.

[cacian]

A stereotype is a character who has been portrayed in the same manner, with the same aspects of character, so many times before you're already familiar with them.

A cliché is an overused phrase. So a stereotype is an overused character. They share a lot in common.

It may be that such phrases or characters are too recognizable, especially for writers, since writers pride themselves on being able to portray something fresh and new.

But do they? to write seems to be geared towards making more new cliches through sticking with the stereotypes.
For example every reader seems to expect dilemma in a story to make it fit the genre of mind reading.
That in itself is a big cliche.

[jayat]

Everything under the written, graphical, authoritarian right of a set of pages or a book (even a good audible speech) can become easily, automatically a cliché, definitely. But the matter is how much time will this last in the reaers' minds like something purely "fresh and new", something truly revealing? Well, just another comment.

[jayat]

As I understand it, a cliché is a turn of phrase which is very over used - "Got on like a house on fire".
A stereotype is a character who behaves exactly as you would expect - The gay hairdresser. The drunk Irishman - and stereotyping someone is pigeonholing them due to their nationality or other identity.

Thank you for clarifying the difference...I coincide.

[cacian]

Everything under the written, graphical, authoritarian right of a set of pages or a book (even a good audible speech) can become easily, automatically a cliché, definitely. But the matter is how much time will this last in the reaers' minds like something purely "fresh and new", something truly revealing? Well, just another comment.

Well at this rate I could firmly say life is a cliche in itself and that is no coincidence . Everything about it is from us to it.

[jayat]

Begin with an individual and you find that you have created a type; begin with a type and you find that you have created — nothing.” F. Scott Fitzgerald

[cacian]

Begin with an individual and you find that you have created a type; begin with a type and you find that you have created — nothing.” F. Scott Fitzgerald

I am not sure about this quote..... let me see.
To begin with one is already an established type. What I mean is that we all begin with ourselves no matter how much we want to brag about it not being the case. We are characters from other established ones from within a frame work of minds opinions and ideologies. I would not be if it was not for others around me. We look up to individual that surrounds us all the time and we copy what they are were.
We are already a type of our own and others.
To typify however is to build a something that is a combination of possible and impossible. That is definitely something. Today we use computerized analysim a technological engineering or euphemism that create a robotic image of a type. That is not impossibility because we have the means to recreate these images through science. We more and more look to glossy magazines and movies ie media to rectify our looks and become those computerized images we see on a daily basis.
However we must delve from within ourselves that is . We must typify from within to out. It is the only way and that in itself is an enormity and that is definitive not nothing.

[jayat]

Don't lose the main idea, though, cacian: nothing is possible without racking your brains with the written pages (i.e. reading as if the devil would chase you) and with the white pages (i.e. trying to write something decent instead of defecating nonsenses or superfluous stuff).

[cacian]

Ok sure :) well....
begin with someone and you will you have somebody. Begin with anything and you will have something. Begin with neither and you will have nothing.
I guess this sums it up.