Romantic Comedies: Lack Of Stereotypes

Because of the lack of diverse representation in major media, people make assumptions based solely on appearances and the depicted stereotypes. This directly results in an adverse effect on the consumer’s behavior. This lack of representation spreads across all types of media such as magazines, movies, television, and social media.

While I am checking out at my local grocery store, in every checkout lane there is an array of magazines and advertising marketed towards women. These images, of mostly white women, are strategically placed so there is almost no choice but to acknowledge them. Most often there are covers advertise women losing dozens of pounds, people’s newest relationship updates, or someone’s latest scandal. Magazines are

Romantic comedies especially, portray a heterosexual fantasy of relationships that is nowhere near reality. This genre particularly lacks diversity the most. Of the top 50 most popular romantic comedies, all of them have Caucasian actors as the main roles (“50 Best Romantic Comedies of All Time”). In addition to the lack of diversity, the presence of stereotypes for people of color has been very obvious. Even though most recent films have dropped the racist portrayal of Eastern Asian characters, they have moved on to representing them as one-dimensional Guinnesses who still have chauvinistic tendencies. It seems as if their only purpose is to assist with the problem at hand. Indian men also face a similar issue; often they are cast in roles relating to technology or customer service. All of these statements are true to television shows as

Reality Television stars, like Kim Kardashian, use their fame to sell whatever product will get them the most money. Most all of the Kardashian- Jenner women use waist trainers. The endorsement of such a product by women that have millions of followers is detrimental to the common woman of the world. Kim Kardashian; specifically, creates a certain standard for beauty. Her body is known for its curvature and smoothness. Her derriere is considered iconic and her waist has recently shrunk even more due to the training of her waist. The national average of a woman’s waist in the United States is 38.1 inches, whereas Kim’s waist has been recently reported to be 24 inches (“National Center for Health Statistics”, 2017) (Mazziotta, 2018). She nowhere near represents the average American woman’s body, however, she represents the average American woman’s ideal body. This can be especially harmful to the female youth of the Nation. Realistically, their body may not be able to ever reach that size; which, in turn, destroys the youth’s self-esteem and possibly lead to eating disorders or other mental illnesses. The youth of the world are the ones who are exposed to these issues of self-esteem because of what is advertised on social media. This is most likely the root cause of the