'Race,' Racism and Representation

In Nazi Germany, the concept of the superiority of the ‘Aryan race’ was created and became widely accepted among the population – and the race signified human perfection and purity. Anyone outside of the ‘Aryan race’ was considered to be inferior, and they were often regarded with hostility and distaste.  A number of physical traits were often considered to be the Aryan ideal, and these included: light skin, light hair, blue eyes, and tall height. But how, exactly, did this ‘race’ come to be? In Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction, John Storey writes that, “Whether or not they are made to signify, physical differences between human beings exist. But how they are made to signify is always a result of politics and power, rather than a question of biology” (172).

If we consider the ‘Aryan race’ from this perspective, we can reason that what the Aryan race’s image signified was not truly their biological superiority; rather, the ‘race’ was created in order to establish power and dominance over political opponents. By establishing the concept of a master race, those who fit into the Aryan standards were able to secure their power by ‘othering’ and oppressing those who did not fit into the Aryan standards. 

Additionally, John Storey writes that, “The work of cultural studies, like that of all reasonable intellectual traditions, is to intellectually, and by example, help to defeat racism, and so by doing, help to bring into being a world in which the term ‘race’ is little more than a long disused historical category, signifying in the contemporary nothing more than the human race (185). When we analyze the occurrence of racial stereotypes and racism, we realize that the term ‘race’ exists as a discourse that allows racism to occur. Though it was passed off as the ‘master race’, in reality, the concept of the ‘Aryan race’ is a mere construct – a set of guidelines established in order for Aryan supremacists to gain more power and to oppress any threat to this power.