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Unrepresented Children Essay

Decent Essays

An Unrepresented Childhood:
Society’s Traits and Their Impact
A personal issue that I struggle with is the representation of different people in art, writing, advertising, and media. When casting directors, character designers, and writers choose a specific type of person to represent their product or work, it influences how these actual people are perceived. I and many others see an unspoken preference to make important characters and influential people fit a “comfortable” set of traits: white, male, straight, thin, and able bodied, only straying from these when it is for a definite purpose. My use of the word comfortable is to say that the listed characteristics are not controversial or stereotyped; they give creators an easy way to make …show more content…

When she asked what was wrong with my hair the way it was, I said that none of the characters on I saw on television had my hair. Struck by the realization of how much surrounding people influence children, my mom decided she would find every opportunity to point out people in television and real life who resembled me and had curly hair like mine. It in turn, opened my eyes to see that while television and media lacked people who looked like me, that did not mean there was anything wrong with the traits that I do …show more content…

Seeing a positive role model who resembles an underrepresented population sets an example to these children for what they can accomplish. Representation paints a picture of who people are, and when children are shown that people like them can do great things, it gives them the encouragement to follow their dreams that they may have thought were impossible. In an interview with Nichelle Nichols from the show Star Trek, she quotes Whoopi Goldberg on her inspiration to become a television

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