Stereotypes
“Most of the women of Set If Off are provoked to violence by their economic situation, believing that robbing banks is their only recourse. As previously noted, Stony, Tisean, and Frankie were all abused by the judicial and law enforcement systems. They see money as their way out of poverty and into middle-class respectability.� Kimberly Springer, Waiting to set it off Pg. 187
I think this movie is a good example of how stereotypes can influence an individual to put themselves into that particular stereotype due to abuse and accusation from the standard norm. For instance, at the beginning of the movie Frankie and Stony were both portray as “good� people until they were both accuse or being blame as apart of the “bad� norm. Frankie being fire from her job because she was accuse of being related to the robber and Stony having to experience her brother’s death because he was accuse of being the bad guy. In result, these accusations trigger them to think that since they are already being stereotype as “bad� from the dominate norm then they might as well be or act “bad� to work against the system (which in this case would be the judicial and law enforcement systems). In retrospective, these two women feel that they are being ill-treated because they are simply Black. Sick of the stereotypes and the negative accusations that go with it, they feel the need to rebel and be vicious. On the whole, stereotypes then can be problematic in various ways reinforcing the idea that if you think I am this way then I guess I'll act this way.