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Political Stereotypes In Scandal

Decent Essays

The political thriller Scandal which began airing in 2012 has become an immensely popular television show. The protagonist Olivia Pope is portrayed by the actress Kerry Washington. Olivia Pope is a crisis manager who runs her own firm, Pope & Associates, which specializes in managing political situations and making the problems of the elite go away. Scandal, challenges the mainstream blueprint used to construct most television shows in Western society. Primarily, Scandal breaks down stereotypes of African Americans and females in general in society. There are many ways in which Scandal achieves these goals. Scandal has a diverse cast of characters normally not portraited on television. The characters do not conform to the stereotypes that have made other similar characters successful. Scandals also uses on-screen and off-screen choices that contrast choices typically made by the television industry. Through these different choices Scandal portrays African Americans and women on television in a way which is far from common in the industry.
Television is widely considered a more racial and gender friendly medium of popular culture. However, prime time television is not nearly as progressive as people believe, and is still a male dominated industry. In a report done by the Institute for Diversity and Empowerment at Annenberg, 11,306 speaking characters were evaluated and 66.5% were male, while 33.5% were female [1]. Moreover, 41.6% of females in television took leading or

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