Stop the Sagittaron Stereotypes
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Stop the Sagittaron Stereotypes is a The Caprican Opinion article written by Harold Sims. It was printed in Aprilis 24, YR42.
Story
I was watching Young People Going Out with Each Other the other night and, in a remarkable twist on the show's usual theme, there was a character that turned down a woman's invitation to go back to her apartment after meeting at a dance club. "What are you, a Sagittaron?" she asks, mocking his decision to remain sexually abstinent.
I was watching Sketch Comedy Friday the other night and there was a skit where a hospital was taken over by a Sagittaron doctor, who banned all modern medicine and demanded patients only be administered herbal remedies and faith healing. Everyone in the hospital started dying from their sicknesses and injuries, and when the staff pleaded with the doctor to allow them to reinstate their usual health procedures, he refused, saying, "It is the Sagittaron Way."
I caught an old horror movie called Terror in Tawa in which a young Sagittaron girl becomes pregnant out of wedlock and gets an abortion. Everyone on her block finds out and they proceed to subject her to horrific physical and emotional tortures before burning her to death in front of a temple in the center of town as "a warning to others."
I have many more examples, but do I really need to go on?
Yes, stereotypes usually exist because they are based on some kind of truth. But they also exist because it is easier to simplify something you don't understand rather than try to truly be educated about it. Stereotypes are based on ignorance, and fear, and laziness. The Caprican entertainment industry chooses to see Sagittarons as pedantic religious zealots hopelessly behind the times, and from that point of view they are able to conjure endless sources of humiliation disguised as comic relief.
What they base their material on is certainly founded in some sort of reality. But it is far, far from the complete picture.
In short, I'm sick of the Sagittaron stereotypes in movies and on TV. By humiliating us for the sake of a laugh, the entertainment industry is only spreading its offensive ignorance and fear to its audience.
For shame!
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