Chinese perceptions of American stereotypes in Dreamwork's animation Kung Fu Panda

Stereotypes are rooted in people's minds as references for perceiving others in a biased way. Traditional Chinese elements adopted in American films have often provided typical American stereotypes in specific forms. DreamWorks' Kung Fu Panda benefits from adopting Chinese elements and achieves its popularity with Chinese audiences. So in this study, the purpose was to explore whether Chinese elements in the movie were shaped with bias by American stereotypes.;A pilot study and a survey were used for gathering Chinese public opinion. The pilot study suggested that most Chinese viewers think this film was Americanized rather than biased. So the survey was designed to test the degree to which the Chinese elements of Kung Fu Panda are Americanized with a 1--5 Likert Scale. An independent t-test was used for data analysis, in which 171 participants were broken down to 2 groups by whether they ever had visited the United States. Therefore, by running independent t-test, we expected to see whether the perceptions are different towards American stereotypes of Kung Fu Panda between Chinese viewers who were at home and those who had ever been to America and had more direct opportunities for touching American culture.