Marvel Whitewashing Effect

Superheroes such as Miles Morales, Kenan Kong, and Jaime Reyes taking the title of Spiderman, Super-Man, and Blue Beetle all have one thing in common; they epitomize an underrepresented ethnic and racial community. Axel Alonso, the creator of the half-Hispanic, half-black Spider-Man (Miles Morales), explains, “Miles is but one face in a diverse landscape of heroes that includes Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel), Sam Wilson (Captain America) and Amadeus Cho (the Hulk), and offers readers of all creeds and colors a chance to see their own reflection” (Moreno, 2016, para. 10). Just like the creation of Batwoman, Miles Morales’ creation is due to the fact that creators wanted to be able to reach every member of their audience. However, “often lost in the intersection between superheroes and science fiction is the place race occupies in the genre, and when it is addressed, the discussion frequently turns to framing the genre as racially biased,” (Nama, 2008, p. 134). For these reasons, many comic book creators refrain from addressing these issues, since it may lead to them being accused of conforming to a stereotype. Even so, “the audience for comics is a truly multicultural one; in fact, it is more ethnically diverse than are the heroes the young people read about” (Brown, 1999, p.

Author Scott L. Baugh has examined the role of Latino Americans in the movies, and he explains that there "…remains the uneven balance of power among characters," in particular with reference to Latino "subordinate characters" that tend to be portrayed as "stereotypes" (Baugh, 2012, p. 259). Early films (in the late 19th century and early 20th century) depicted a very "simple hierarchy," in which the heroes and main characters were white and held positions of "leadership and agency" (Baugh, 259). Latino characters were "secondary" to those main white characters, and Latino characters tended to be the villains, Baugh explained.

In 2013, Latinos accounted for only 4.9% of the roles in the top 100 films of the year. From the beginning, Hollywood had always been dominated by white men and women. However, as time progressed there was a very slight change in cultural and ethnic diversity. Though it is more likely now than ever to find a Latino or Latina in a Hollywood film, their roles are often small, stereotypical, and almost entirely unimportant. As if it wasn’t hard enough to get any role in any Hollywood film regardless of ethnicity, Latinos have to endure playing a harshly demeaning role. Latino men are often cast as comedic relief and play gardeners, janitors, or thugs. Latino women are often cast as maids or mistresses. Aside from this, when women are cast as mistresses they are often submissive to their white male partners, meaning that not only are these roles ethnically demeaning, but also sexist. Along with Latino female sexualisation, though, Latino men are also heavily sexualized. Both Latino women and men have to deal with the exploitation of their culture for stereotypical roles in a movie. However, these are only some of the vicious patterns that attribute to the everlasting ethnic misrepresentation in the biggest part of mass media, Hollywood.

Television and film is a huge part of American culture. As the “face” of America changes, it is expected for our media to reflect it. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Since the beginning of film, minorities have been misrepresented and underrepresented. While there has been a significant increase in minority actors since the beginning of film, there is still a huge underrepresentation present in American television and film. Our media needs to reflect out diverse country. This topic is always important and relevant because race, gender, and sexuality, in general, have been issues throughout the growth of television and film. Even today, minorities are subject to

The University of Southern California discovered that filmmakers have made little progress in casting more non-white characters. Even though the United States is becoming more diverse in culture Hollywood has not change from its roots. From (Sanathanam and Crigger, 2015) research the top 100 films in 2014 up to 75% of the characters were Caucasian. 17 of the top movies in 2014 featured non-white lead or co-lead actors (Out of 30,000 Hollywood film characters, here’s how many weren’t white section, para 1). Informs that Hollywood is not in a rush to change their ways to avoid diversity for Caucasians to share the fame with other ethnic groups. Hollywood is mindset is to keep Caucasians superior.

In the 2017 media article “How Fair is Hollywood” the main problem is the lack of inclusion that Hollywood has been using throughout their movies . This problem can be solved by having an actor play the role of the corresponding race of his/her character.As noted by Media Mix news in paragraph 1, the author explicitly describes “People have reported frustration with Hollywood’s casting process. That’s because they see non-white actors repeatedly kept out of the spotlight. There is also the phenomenon called “whitewashing,” when roles are written for minorities are given to white actors”. This indicates that people are being displeased by the fact that Hollywood has been doing negative things to put actors to play a  different race from what

I agree completely with Monika’s claim that lack of representation, whitewashing, and stereotypes are the issues in American media. I think the media don’t understand the importance of diversity and how it positively impact society. In fact the author’s stated that absence of minorities in shows where set in cities that have high present of minorities population which means that there are a race better than others and that’s what is going in the media displaying white race as more intelligent, affection and other races can’t survive without the white race .In the article the one the issues with whitewashing was replacing minority roles to white actors. However, The media argues that representing the minorities as mine characters may lead to

I have chosen the issue of “miss/underrepresentation of minorities in American television and film.” As America has changed over the years to become much more accepting and inclusive, American media seems to be a bit behind. There are countless instances in which characters from a book or graphic novel has been white-washed once they make it to the big screen. Some may argue these choices are made because the actor is very strong at their craft or they are a star and will bring in the big bucks in theaters. While this may be true, it completely discredits not only the original art and meaning of the work but also the community of talented non-white artist in America. I want to delve deep into the reason this can be happening in a generally

Whitewashing can be referred to as the misrepresentation of minorities in film, specifically referring to placing racially diverse rolls into stereotypical parts. The misrepresentation of racial diversity is a recurring theme in today’s Hollywood movies. It is more likely for someone to land a job in Hollywood if they are a white

However, their acting careers are quite different; therefore, I will explore how in Hollywood film industry there is still a strong color bias. First of all, I will give an introduction about how skin color has being given privileges within Afro-American community, and then I will analyze how this affects on Hollywood film

Over the years we have seen the same white story told a thousand times that we have become desensitized to it, never expecting anything else. America was a European-White country but it has become one of the most diverse countries in the world, so American isn’t just white anymore. We are at a place in our society where we can and should be talking about race and one of the best ways to do this is through film, but there has been little to no change over the past decades. Films tend to lean toward white backdrops because it is more “relatable”; Noah the 2012 film used an all white cast because they were considered

As I reflect on my identity, I notice that many shows that I regularly watch contain a cast made up of predominantly white actors/actresses. Furthermore, I believe that many shows in general consist of a dominant white cast. As we’ve seen, the amount of white representation in media compared to the white population is

Ever since the integration of television and movies there has been a problem with the whitewashing of American entertainment. From cartoons to live action features, producers and casting staff seem to have trouble creating a feature that is diverse and culturally appropriate enough to accurately portray America. The diversity of film and television is not important just because it gives all actors equal worth, but because it also shows the world how we view Americans who are people of color. Diversity on television is important for breaking stereotypes and typecasting, great representation of America and viewers want to see television that they can relate to. America is one of the most diverse countries in the world yet, its citizens still struggle with stereotypes.

There are many talent actors who cannot get a good role in the movie because they are not popular enough to play the main role. Most of the film maker just care about how much money the movie can make for them, so they just need to get the popular actor in order to get a lot of viewers. In the movies, the main character usually is White people since the writers and directors believe that they will get more audience if the main cast is White people. Some people believe that the movie is for entertain, so the writers and directors do not have a social responsibility to avoid stereotyping ethnic characters. However, there are three factors that Hollywood writers and directors should take social responsibility to avoid stereotyping ethnic characters:

“Oscars So White” a phrase that began trending on social media sites after the 2016 Academy Awards announce their nominees for Best Actor and Best Actress, it was predominately white for a second year in a row. The movie industry is no stranger to controversy and since its inception it’s constantly been guilty of underrepresenting ethnic people. It’s evident that film is a type of mass media that has a certifiable amount of power to influence audience’s views, yet this platform constantly disregards the need for diversity in favor of stereotypes. Movies such as Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), Scarface (1983), and Pan (2015) are all guilty of this. The depiction of non-American characters in Hollywood movies are constructed around racial