Theme: Effects of misrepresentation of race, mental illness, drug use, gender and use of colorism in the media.
“”The prequel to [#]OscarsSoWhite is [#]HollywoodSoWhite," said Stacy L. Smith, a USC professor and one of the study's authors, in an interview. "We don't have a diversity problem. We have an inclusion crisis.”” (Coyle, 2016, para. 3)
Take a look at the biggest Hollywood stars, and you’ll find that most of them are able-bodied, straight, white males. There is the occasional white female, who becomes popular through their outspoken beliefs on feminism and politics, even if their perception of equality only applies for white females - not all people. But little to none of them of them are people of colour (or are of various ethnic
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In this same survey done by Sherri Burr, the kids were asked what qualities they associated with each race. The results written, ¨Children more often associate positive qualities such as financial and academic success, leadership, and intelligence with White characters, and negative qualities such as lawbreaking, financial hardship, laziness, and goofy behavior with minority characters. When children were asked about positive qualities, 58% of the children said that they see Whites on television as having a lot of money. Only 8% perceived minority characters as having a lot of money. As for negative qualities, 6% reported seeing White characters breaking the law or the rules compared with 47% of minority characters.¨ (Burr, 2001, para. 6 and 7). Because of Hollywood’s consistency with having minorities play criminals, ethnic children are not allowed to see themselves or their race represented in a good way. This type of representation also brings about harmful stereotypes, that can and will be spread if the kids grow up with these harmful ideologies. Another example of this racism is how we only watch a movie if it portrays a race a certain way. Like Olivia Cole explained, we only watch a movie with a black person casted if it is about slavery. In any other situation, the movie gets less reviews and less people go to it. Other stereotypes include asians featuring as brainiacs, and hispanics as criminals and even just as non-english speaking people. This is exceedingly harmful because after continual exposure to this, we become unable to view people of different races in different. If they were to be casted in a role where they defy the stereotypes, it would be labeled as unable to happen in real life which can cause less people to take up those roles in real
Research shows that dehumanizing portrayals of Black people in entertainment, advertising and the news are dangerous. Constant
Besides, in cultivation theory, George Gerbner proposes that heavy users of media treat the content of media as a primary source to perceive the world and assert what they see in media is very similar to the reality (Bryant, Thompson and Finklea, 2013), so there is a high possibility that audience will bring the perception of stereotyped portrayals of African-American from media into the real world. Based on the above unhealthy situations, this paper is going to illustrate how the racial stereotypes in media negatively affect people’s perception, attitude and behavior toward African American in the reality....
Latino portrayals in the media of theatre and movies have had negative affects for the Latino community but there are roles that are slowly becoming positive for their community. Not only have Latinos been portrayed negatively through stereotypes but they have also been ignored from American Media. When Latinos are actually present in different forms of media a very consistent type of Latino is portrayed. The words Hispanic and Latino already come with an image of that specific person who has dark features and an accent. When it comes to stereotyping Latinos in the media whether it be Hollywood or Broadway they tend to translate everything negatively through the roles they play. The audiences’ lack of understanding different Latino cultures allows the media to manipulate and reinforce myths on Latino communities. Rita Moreno from the film West Side Story had to overcome many stereotypes in order to achieve her fame. "Before 'West Side Story,' I was always offered the stereotypical Latina roles. The Conchitas and Lolita’s in westerns. I was always barefoot. It was humiliating, embarrassing stuff. But I did it because there was nothing else. After 'West Side Story,' it was pretty much the same thing. A lot of gang stories”
Since the September 11th attacks, the media has become more bias in its portrayal of ethnic minorities. A news story may not say “Black people may rob your house” but their bias portrayal in the media would make you believe it (Schemer & Wirth). The article features a section on several experiments...
The White Savior Complex is a damaging subconscious underlay of the Hollywood system, and more broadly all of western society. It is used to further separate the notions of “us” and “other” by creating a firm separation fueled by self-righteousness, and a sense of entitlement. Hollywood attempts to address race relations, but fails because of this trope. Kingsle, from the article “Does My Hero Look White In This?” described that both racism and colonialism are acknowledged, but not without reassuring that not only were white people against the system of racist power dynamics, but also were actively fighting against it in leadership roles (2013).
...s the only one. Except for Time-Warner’s Richard Parsons and Barry Meyer, there are no minorities at the top of the film industry. And there are practically none at the next tier either.
For many years, racial and ethnic stereotypes have been portrayed on multiple television programs. These stereotypes are still illustrated on a day-to-day basis, even though times have changed. Racial or ethnic stereotypes should not be perpetuated on certain television programs. These stereotypes provide false information about groups, do not account for every person, allow older generations to influence younger generations, create tension between groups, and affect people in many ways. To begin, racial or ethnic stereotypes on certain television programs provide false information about groups of people.
In addition, due to negative feelings about Asian Americans prevalent in American culture, Hollywood’s attempt to expand its target audiences is constrained, and despite the increasing market values of Asian Americans, Hollywood is possibly unwilling to portray successful Asian characters for fear of provoking its mainstream audiences who hold prejudice against Asians. There is a dominant white preference over the effects certain stereotypes may have on Asians and Asian Americans (Park, 2005).
Racial stereotypes have always invaded films, from the earliest silent film, to the most modern film production. Stereotypes in early America had significant influence over how other viewed African Americans, Latinos, Asians etc. The most stereotyped race in history is the black male. In most early films, they were portrayed as simple minded and careless individuals, but when African Americans started to stand up for themselves films portrayed them as more savage and bloodthirsty.
Pop culture is a backdrop of day-to-day life from television to film to Facebook to music. It has the power to influence us on how we think and what we think. So why does it still lack equal and fair racial representation?
Currently there is a long-standing debate dealing with the effects of media. Some believe that the media is just something to indulge or watch and that it has no significant affect on people while others say that has a powerful pull on society as a whole. Research indicates that bias in media articles leads to minorities and women being portrayed in a stereotypical or harsh manner (Hazell and Clarke 3). This leads to African Americans being seen as individuals fit for “lower status occupations,” (Hazel and Clark 7). Black men were also seen as hostile, intimidating figures mainly working as athletes or musicians while women were portrayed as domineering, overly expressive people (Hazel and Clark 9).
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).
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
Hit shows such as ABC’s Blackish, Fresh Off the Boat, and Scandal, the CW’s Jane the Virgin, and FOX 40’s The Mindy Project feature well-written multi-dimensional characters worthy of Emmy and Golden Globe nominations and awards. However, according to Tamra Winfrey-Harris, while there is more diversity of female characters, there’s “nowhere near the diversity that our white counterparts have” (Cheung). In 2014, 73.1% of film actors were white, and only seventeen of the top-ranking films in 2014 starred “non-white or co-lead actors” (Santhanam, Hickey). Lack of representation is proven to have an effect on society. An English primary school teacher found that his students of color would write narratives featuring English-speaking white characters because they believe that “stories have to be about White people” (Chetty). However, how can one be surprised when they observe the amount of whiteness children are exposed to throughout their youth? The myriad of white Disney princesses, Snow White, Belle, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Rapunzel, Merida, Anna, and Elsa serve as the white child’s role models. Only four princesses of color exist in the Disney universe: Pocahontas, Mulan, Jasmine, and Tiana. The omnipresence of white characters and actors in the media dramatically impact a child of color’s development; to them, the normal,
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, however what is considered beautiful by some is not considered as beauty when discussing diversity within the media. Society is based on criticism of judging one’s characters body, shape and or race/ethnics background. In the media the society only sees one type that is only focused on perfection to the mind; however within the United States, it is very typical in that the media lacks ethnic representation, cultural identity and gender inequalities. There are no ethnic representation when it comes to the media world and that the media has been trained to believe that the ethnic groups are not valuable. African Americans and Hispanics writers are the minority group when it comes to a social group. According to journalist Prince and Television critic Deggans “CNN , let go one of its most high-profile anchor of color, Soledad O’Brien, replaced her with a white man, Chris Cuomo. Wolf Blitzer gave up one of his hours to another white man, Tapper. Though Zucker met with both National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalist to try and address their concerns, there has been no overt sign from CNN that it is bringing on any more anchors of color, ”(Mirkinson p.1).