Essay On Minorities In Hollywood

487 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Portrayal of women in movies

The underrepresentation of minorities in Hollywood goes further than the typical surface level marginalization of certain racial groups, it also includes the exclusion of people who have distinct sexual orientation, gender identity, and religion that are often not even given the opportunity to show their talent. We say “It’s 20xx” to remind ourselves and surrounding people that we have progressed from the time that our country was narrow minded, yet hollywood in the recent years has had a significant decline in minority talent portrayal.

After the end of the twentieth century, with the generations (Millennials & Gen Z) being raised with exposure to information of the world around them in an instant thanks to technology, we have had a drastic inclusion of more minorities. More black people are being …show more content…

Regarding the lgbtq; “Only 14% of top 100 films contained one or more lgbtq character...15.8% out of 100 tops films contained a queer person of color” With these numbers being observed, and the notion that minority numbers in hollywood are actually decreasing tells us that our desire to represent every group has decreased, this may be due to the fact that people assume minorities get enough recognition in news where there are constantly assaults against them, such as the BLM and transgender bathroom laws, that they get less and less roles available to them. Or it may be due to the fact that our country is becoming more diverse, more people are marrying and having kids with a person of another race which increases the other category. Whichever the reason may be, we know that more representation is needed and crucial for the progression we strive for, for equality of all people regardless of their

Show More
Related

  • Post 9/11 Racial Profiling of Muslim Americans

    2655 Words  | 6 Pages

    "Race and Ethnicity in Entertainment." Issues & Controversies On File: n. pag. Issues & Controversies.

    Read More

  • Women and Minorities in Television and Movies

    740 Words  | 2 Pages

    Since this winter, I can't watch television or movies anymore without critiquing how women and minorities are portrayed. One unexpected thing that I have picked up from taking this class is a sense of wariness when I counter any piece of written material. I have learned to be suspicious, if not directly critical of any particular part of the media as I experience it; I have been inspired to read and be influenced by some prolific female thinkers. It's all coming together for me, what I want to do; I just have to figure out how.

    Read More

  • White Chicks: Film Analysis

    1681 Words  | 4 Pages

    In today’s society, pre-existing assumptions and stereotypes of other ethnicities and individuals play a large part in the way we see others. This social construct of stereotypes has placed restrictions on many people’s lives which ultimately limits them from achieving certain goals. In this sense, stereotypes misrepresent and restrict people of colour to gain casting within the Hollywood film industry. The issue of how casting actors to certain roles and how these actors are forced to submit and represent these false stereotypes is one worthy of discussion. White Chicks (2004), directed by Keenan Wayans, illustrates this issue through the performance of Latrell, performed by Terry Crews, and his performance of the hyper-sexualised “buck” will be a prime example in this essay to discuss the racial politics and stereotypes in Hollywood casting.

    Read More

  • Asian American Representation In Hollywood

    868 Words  | 2 Pages

    The number of Asian American communities is growing in the U.S. population, however, these groups of people are often marginalized and misrepresented in mainstream media. In today’s mainstream media, there is a visible lack of Asian American representation on film. Asian actors, when given roles in film and television, are rarely cast for central roles and form about only 3% of prime-time characters (Ramasubramanian, 2011). Not only is the number for casting Asian and Asian Americans low, the roles of these characters are often portrayed in the stereotypical ideology which has been present for decades. But why are Asians portrayed the way they are? Why has Hollywood maintained its representational practices when it comes to the portraying Asians? Why do these portrayals persist in the presence of a growing Asian population and racial diversity? What is the significance of the Asian American segment for Hollywood? To what extent does the consideration of the Asian American market influence the way Hollywood portray Asians? These are the questions that surface when watching films, and in the lens of an Asian American, many Asians and Asian American do not fit the mold created by Hollywood. First, I will introduce the range of common film representation of Asians. This literature review will focus on the negative and positive light of Asian representation , the structure of Hollywood film industry and its effect on representing Asian race, the social acceptance of Asian stereotypes, and Asian American’s social identity theories.

    Read More

  • Racial Diversity In Pop Culture

    720 Words  | 2 Pages

    Although we have taken monumental strides in the past fifty years towards racial equality and diversity, it is still commonly argued that popular culture lacks some sort of racial representation. In the United States, the people who live here are vastly diverse when it comes to race and culture, yet in the media people of color get marginalized and stereotyped everyday in film, music, and etc.

    Read More

  • Spike Lee Film Analysis

    1948 Words  | 4 Pages

    African American representation in the film industry has always been a topic for discussion. Whether talking about character types and roles, the actors being cast or not cast, and the lack of diversity in front of and behind the camera. ‘The contemporary status of race in mainstream American culture is intimately bound to the process of representation within and through the mass media.’ (Rocchio, 2000, p. 4). Any role that was to be played by an African American kept in with the dominant stereotypes of the time of production; incompetent, child like, hyper-sexualised or criminal.

    Read More

  • Hollywood 's Diversity Problem : Film And New Media

    950 Words  | 2 Pages

    Hollywood’s diversity problem is well-known; however, the extent might be surprising to most Americans. According to a 2014 report by the Center for the Study of Women in Television, Film & New Media, found that females comprised only 30% of all speaking characters among the top grossing films of 2013. (Lauzen, 2014) However, minority women faired far worse than their Caucasian counterparts. As a matter of fact, if one looks at the numbers even female characters from other world’s were as better represented in film than some minority women; the numbers are as follow for women: Caucasian (73%), African American (14%), Latina (5%), Asian and other world tied (3%). (Lauzen, 2014) If the lack of representation were not enough consider a 2009 study which found that when minority groups are portrayed on television the portrayal tends to be negative. (Alexandrin, 2009) A study by Busselle and Crandall (2009) found that the manner in which African-Americans are portrayed, often as unemployed criminals, tends to have an influence on the way the public perceives African-American’s lack of economic success. Furthermore, the news media does an equally poor job in the ways that African-American’s are presented; according to the same study while 27% of Americans were considered “poor” in 1996 the images of America’s “poor” being presented by news media was heavily Black (63%). (Busselle & Crandall, 2002) Today, this can be seen in the way that African-American victims of police brutality are depicted in the media. Even when African-Americans are murdered at the hands of police for minor and non-violent offenses (e.g. Mike Brown, Eric Gardner, and Tamir Rice) they are often portrayed as thugs, criminals, and vandals. What’s more, seve...

    Read More

  • How Asian Americans are Portrayed in Hollywood Movies

    1254 Words  | 3 Pages

    Asian American actors and actresses are portrayed in Hollywood movies as always being the silent and yielding foreign victims to social injustice and prejudice. Whether or not these depictions are true, they are nonetheless stereotypes that Hollywood producers have come up with. According to the US Census in the year 2000, Asian Americans make up 4.2% of the entire American population, and knowing that most Asian Americans live on the west and east coast of the United States, many Americans living in central parts of this country have not really been exposed to any Asian Americans. Because of this fact, it is highly probable that most Americans get their exposure to the Asian American lifestyle only through television and movies. Even if Hollywood companies, directors, producers, editors, writers, etc. decide to give their Asian American actors the leading role in their movies, film makers will still try to employ stereotypes on the Asian American community in hopes of satisfying America’s view on what is Asian. And even more bothersome is that they will also try to instill European American beliefs, values, and ideals into the Asian American culture. Therefore, Americans must be warned that what they are seeing in Hollywood movies of so-called Asian characters are actually not legitimate portrayals of real Asian American people.

    Read More

  • Race In The Media Essay

    2242 Words  | 5 Pages

    The use of media has always been very tactical and representative of a statement or purpose. The issue of race has always been a topic of immaculate exploration through different forms of media. Mediated topics such as race, gender, and class have always been topics represented in the media as a form of oppression. The widely use of media surrounds the globe extensively as the public is bombarded with media daily. There are many different types of media that circulates the public making it widely available to anyone. Media can hold an immense amount of power as it can distort the manner in which people understand the world. In our society the media creates the dominant ideology that is to be followed for centuries in the classifications of race, gender, and class. Media can be a powerful tool to use to display a message which, is how “…the media also resorts to sensationalism whereby it invents new forms of menace” (Welch, Price and Yankey 36). Media makers and contributors take advantage of the high power that it possesses and begin to display messages of ideologies that represent only one dominant race or gender. It became to be known as the “dominant ideology of white supremacy” for many and all (Hazell and Clarke 6).

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Movie ' War Room '

    1042 Words  | 3 Pages

    Those who deny the existence of the racism rooted into modern day Hollywood are far from reality. They may think that in the United States we are getting closer to equality when it comes to casting but we in fact are not. While there is the belief that America has progressed when it comes to social issues, the percentage of roles held by black actors in film and TV has dropped from 15 to 13 percent from the early 2000’s to 2011 (McClintock and Apello 2).

    Read More

  • Stereotypes In Hollywood Film

    1000 Words  | 2 Pages

    While watching movies, have you ever noticed that the villains in almost every single Hollywood film are of Middle Eastern or European descent? In a reoccurring theme of Hollywood, the villains in these films are almost always foreigners or people of color. This is a stereotype. On the other side of the spectrum, we often see that the heroes of these films are most often than not white males. This is another stereotype. Within the last few years, we’ve seen actors such as Will Smith, Morgan Freeman, and Zoe Saldana take the lead roles, so it can’t be said that there are no non-white heroes, but there certainly isn’t many. Hollywood action movies, moreover than other genres, are typically loaded with an abundance of stereotypes. The way these movies are composed and structured can tell us a great deal about the views held within the American psyche and who holds the social power. The harsh reality is that the media ultimately sets the tone for societal standards, moralities, and images of our culture. Many consumers of media have never encountered some of the minorities or people of color shown on screen, so they subsequently depend on the media and wholeheartedly believe that the degrading stereotypes represented on the big screen are based on fact and not fiction. Mary Beltran said it best when she stated in her “Fast and Bilingual: Fast & Furious and the Latinization of Racelessness” article, “ultimately, Fast & Furious mobilizes notions of race in contradictory ways. It reinforces Hollywood traditions of white centrism, reinforcing notions of white male master while also dramatizing the figurative borders crossed daily by culturally competent global youth – both Latino and non-Latino” (77). This paper will specifically look...

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Diversity On Television

    1074 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Hurst book discusses in Chapter 8, that “whiteness is invisible to most whites,” this could be a reason that there is not a lot of diversity in Hollywood, but it could also be racism, and discrimination toward people of different ethnicities as well (Hurst, 183). According, to Hurst racism is “embedded in the structure and institutions, and defining racism individualistically rather than in structural terms, has allowed our attention to be defected from White privilege” (Hurst, 184). White privilege is present in Hollywood, everything is ran by white people, and it is the white writers and directors, they decided who they will cast in the show or movie. Racial and ethnic diversity in TV programming should not be a problem in the 21st century, this is a problem of the past and should not still be going on. The NPR article discusses the shift of more series with “non-white actors, and a more non-white cast, but that still is on 30% of all TV shows” that is a major improvement but there still needs to be more

    Read More

  • Lack Of Diversity Within The Media

    1155 Words  | 3 Pages

    Ethnicity and appearance has become a tremendous problem in the media due to the fact that they try to use it as a power to control creativity of abstaining the truth in media. According to journalist Nishijima, A, she refers to the Oscars and explains that it is very absurd how the media is slowly progression in lacking diversity. This was recognized when watching the Oscars and seeing that based off predominantly white nominees. Nishijima quotes “Boone Isaacs decl...

    Read More

  • Essay On Minorities In The Media

    1188 Words  | 3 Pages

    Any form of media having correct representation of minorities is very rare, but also incredibly vital. Minorities like people of color, people with disabilities, people in the LGBTQIA+ community and women often aren’t portrayed well in media outlets. Correct representation of minorities is very important in the media because it gives a voice to smaller groups, eliminates harmful stereotypes, and it gives everybody an equal chance in professions.

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay On Minorities In Movies

    564 Words  | 2 Pages

    Do people not realize that there are people other than white? That white skin is not the standard canvas on which to splash the beautiful colors of on-screen personality upon? Minorities in our country make up 38% of America. 19 out of 50 people a culturally rich background, a story waiting to be shared. While minority groups make up 38%, only an infinitesimal 6.5%-8% of minorities are casted in television roles.

    Read More

More about Essay On Minorities In Hollywood

Open Document