Looking back throughout the history of media, the portrayal of minorities – particularly that of Women of Color – has been formed, shaped, taken apart, and reformed. The audience need only look at commercials, television programs, and movies to realize that the exemplification of women of color (WOC) in the media is either scarce, stereotypical, or unrealistic. As time advances, individuals and organizations, such as The Representation Project, work towards establishing a new kind of WOC in the media – a WOC who is not portrayed with a stereotypical role, but is instead a strong, capable, intelligent woman with a real story. This paper will detail how a WOC’s lack of presence, negative portrayal, and subsequent skewed perception, halts the …show more content…
Taking a closer at these roles, one can see a certain pattern emerge: stereotypical, negative depictions of black, Asian, and Latina women. The many television and movie tropes concerning WOC can be destructive to the audience for a number of reasons. First, to the audience these stereotypical women are portraying, a sense of low self-esteem and self-hate can develop. For example, in the Netflix original Orange is the New Black, a show about a woman’s correctional facility, the majority of the characters are minorities who have done crime, i.e., murder, theft, and distribution of drugs. Though articles such as Diane Anderson-Minshall’s Why You Should Watch Orange is the New Black praised the show for it’s all female, mostly minority cast, there is no denying that a show about female prisoners, who the majority are WOC, reflect badly on women of color as a whole (2013). The portrayal of minorities as criminals has a long standing history of affecting America’s youth negatively. Arguably the most famous study that reflects this is Kenneth and Mamie Clark’s “Doll Test,” where black and white dolls was placed in front a series of children and then told, “Show me the doll that's a nice doll. Show we the doll that's a bad doll” (Clark). The results showed that many of the children accredited positive attributes to the white doll and negative attributes to the black doll. Second, …show more content…
In 2015 Hollywood Diversity Report: Flipping the Script, Drs. Darnell Hunt and Ana-Christina Ramon takes a hard look at the statistics of women of color involved on television, in movies, and behind the scenes. In 2013, cable scripted television programs had approximately 62.9% lead male roles and 37.1% female lead roles – of that 80.7% of lead female roles were white and 19.3% were Asian, Latino, Indian, and black women of color – a slight increase of 4.6% since 2012. It was in 2012 that women held the most female leads in the history of film: 30.8% – of these 15.1% were women of color; however, in 2013, the percentage of female leads dropped to 25.3% while increasing in minority roles to 16.7%. Furthermore, it is seen that female television writers and directors make up approximately 30% with 30% of these women being minorities. Oscar winners by gender was an even 50% in 2012, and increase of 32% since 2011. Of these female actresses, 25% of them were minorities – an increase from 0 in 2011. Drs. Hunt and Roman admit to studying these finding in an attempt to shed light on the “Hollywood race and gender problem” (Ramon). The increase and decrease of gender roles and minority roles is proof that Hollywood has the capacity to correct the problem when it comes to discrimination and prejudice, but seemingly refuse to do
When you look at the amount of African American stars on television, it is easy to tell that stereotypes of African Americans are being portrayed negatively. Since the 1960s, black television has thrived in many different ways. From “Different Matters” to “Insecure”, African Americans have tried to get rid of this stigma. African Americans are constantly shown as. However, with the increase of representation comes an increase in misrepresentation. The amount of discrimination has risen exponentially in the United States. This is due to the increased hatred and miscommunication of black struggle and black problems in the world, causing an inhumane belief and standard of regular African Americans in the world.
The stereotypical misrepresentations of African-American women and men in popular culture have influenced societal views of Blacks for centuries. The typical stereotypes about Black women range from the smiling, asexual and often obese Mammy to the promiscuous Jezebel who lures men with her sexual charms. However, the loud, smart mouthed, neck-rolling Black welfare mother is the popular image on reality television. The typical stereotype about Black men is the violent, misogynistic thug, and the ever-enduring pimp. These images portrayed in media and popular culture createpowerful ideology about race and gender, which affects daily experiences of Black women in America. With few healthy relationships portrayed in the media, Black women
Women have come a long way. They started off unable to vote or even have equal rights to now it is hope that a woman may potentially be president. People of different races and people with different sexualities faced many many struggles with discrimination and being looked down upon to now being elected for several levels of government.unable
Have you ever noticed the recurring stereotypes of black women that is portrayed on reality television? Everyday you can look on television and tune into any network and see the madness that goes on. Whether it be Love and Hip Hop, Bad Girls Club, or The Real Housewives of Atlanta, you can see the exaggerated confrontations and animated expressions given off by these women. Media stereotypes of the angry black women have become more persuasive in recent years than ever before. If we as a whole stop these television networks from promoting dangerous stigmas on black women, we can increase the amount of positive representation of women of color drastically in television, advertising, and social media.
The way entertainment in the media portrays us has greatly affected how others identify us. Movies and shows like; Madea’s family Reunion, Bringing down the House, Love and Hip Hop, and Basketball Wives all portray us in a degrading way. People sometimes find it comical of course, but the fact that it is comical does not justify it being debasing. This image of us has evolved from things in the media, and its’ power to shape people’s idea of us. We as a race must stop living up to our stereotypes. As soon as we take action in not succumbing to our own stereotype, people will not think we are “Ghetto” or any other undignified term they think of us; therefore in the media we won’t be perceived in that way. As Colin Powell once said, “Fit no stereotypes. Don't chase the latest management fads. The situation dictates which approach best accomplishes the team's mission.” Although African American stereotyping is prevalent in the media now because of its’ entertaining quality; it perpetuates a cycle of harmful stereotypes. As long as this cycle continues, our culture will always be illustrated negatively.
Who are we? What defines us? In America, we are defined by our class, what we do and most importantly – how we look. Since the birth of our nation, a notion of “race” has been rooted to our core personas. In fact it can enforce stereotypes of class and careers. It is evident that Black Americans are un-proportionally living in poverty and without easy access to achievement. This harsh reality is not helped by our media-driven society. In a world so heavily integrated with mass media hysteria, we scroll past posts that can have the countering effects of degradation or empowerment through our identities. While movements of Black Power can be painted through media, it also not hard to see the difference between the ways in which Black Americans are manipulated within the lens of media. They are portrayed as fitting a certain stereotype – uneducated, violent and intriguingly exotic. For example, while women in general face the enemy of “sex sells”, black women have this experience intensified. These women are portrayed as exotic sexual beings. They are objectified and degraded with the intent of women of color being seen as sexually gratifying, but nothing more. The parallels to the mindset one hundred years ago is uncanny – black women, black men and black children are seen as objects to appropriate and use for the media’s benefit. We can see this through our some of our “greatest” stars. Miley Cyrus, the Kardashians and even Justin Timberlake have taken a culture and twisted
This article comes from the Journal of Interpersonal Violence. The title of the article is A Comparison of Women of Color and Non-Hispanic White Women on Factors Related to Leaving a Violent Relationship. This study compares women of color and non-Hispanic White women regarding the influence of socioeconomic status, family investment, and psychological abuse on leaving a violent relationship. Women of color and non-Hispanic White women did not differ in their length or rate of leaving, although women of color left more frequently when they did leave. Women of color with higher socioeconomic status were less likely to leave, which was not the case for non-Hispanic White women.
The film industry’s portrayal of African American people consists of countless stereotypes and inaccuracies. These depictions lead to an innumerable amount of misrepresentations about the African American community. As the latest wave of black films begins to dawn, the clearer the images become of a collective people. Using my personal experiences as a mixed woman of color, as well as including my academic strengths and goals, and points of view regarding various black films, the content of this paper will examine the representation and stereotypes that can be seen in African American Hollywood.
“The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” said Malcolm X (Kulaszewics Pg 4). The representation of African Americans in media has been a major concern in American culture. One problem we see today in the media is equality. Research has found that African Americans in media have been frequently portrayed in stereotypical occupational roles with negative personality characteristics.
Although much different than the turn of the century, African American women still struggle with the media and its limiting, bias circumstances. It is important to acknowledge early stereotypes of African American women, and the recurring struggles they faced throughout the development of the media’s message. It is also important to recognize African American women in today’s media, and the limiting circumstances that follow. A favorable outcome of the future in media would be equality of all actors and actresses, regardless of race and social standing; as well as the termination of old stereotypes that are often revisited in different genres of the media
Images in media, television especially, are a direct projection of the people who control and project them, which often tends to be white people. “‘We face the problems of images projected by people not of us,’ she said. ‘The media is the most powerful mind-manipulating tool on the earth.’”(Ruby, 18) The perception of black women in the media today can be damaging to the self-image of the young black women of today. During the Black Arts Movement, many artists and poets spoke of how white influence in our lives has created skewed beauty ideals in the African-American community. This white influence tends to harm black women’s images of themselves. Most female images seen in mainstream media are white, thin, tall and just plain gorgeous,
Afro-American woman are one of the most under represented groups in Hollywood films. They face double underrepresentation not only on screen but also behind the camera and it is because they are woman and black. Since the very beginning, Hollywood film industry has been dominated by white male producers, writers, directors and executives (Smith, 780; Covington, 21) that empower their own race and gender hierarchies. The Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA carried out a study of the top 200 Hollywood films in 2013 and found that leading characters are 74.7% male and 25.3% female and according to race, 83.3% are white in contrast to 16.7%, which consists the minorities. Behind the camera, regarding the gender of directors,
African American females are usually given the characteristics of someone who is either loudmouthed, an angry black women, tough, ghetto, a single mother/ “baby mommas” who are in the lower class society, or someone who is dirty (Shields) (The Huffington Post). When it comes to the media, black women are misinterpreted negatively and it’s time for society to change this depiction of them. But how do we do this? Instead of the media making African American women “baby mommas” and “angry black women”, they should portray them as successful beautiful women. Writer Shonda Rhimes in fact does portray African American women positively and empower them within the roles they play in television shows. Rhimes is the writer of Scandal, which is a television show with a strong African American female who’s main character is Kerry Washington but known as Olivia Pope in the show. Pope is a strong, highly-educated and successful black women who is the CEO of Pope& Associates and knows what she wants in life (The Huffington Post). Many African American females look up to her as well as other young women. They love the strong attitude she attributes to herself and how she is a business women with confidence and dresses to impress at all times. If more writers of television shows or movies gave African American women strong female roles like
Not only as a tool of entertainment, television also serves as an instruction tool because television can be the reflection of culture, race and gender. Because of the diversity of the audiences, expanding diversity is necessary in the television industry. More and more shows begin to feature minority group; however, the representation of minorities still has issues of underrepresentation and stereotype because producers believe casting minorities can’t make money. It is no doubt that white actors disproportionally dominate the screen and minority actors are often characterized as criminal and immoral roles. The colorblind casting and a diverse writers’ room are effective measures to solve those challenges.
In a study of 414 films and television series, only 33 percent of all characters were women, and only 28 percent were of racial minority status (Associated Press). Casting diversely in entertainment has been an issue for years and has recently spawned many controversies such as the 2016 Oscar Controversy where an outrage occurred due to a lack of minority Oscar winners. Many cultures and races fell underrepresented and cast aside by film and television. The entertainment industry should cast more diverse actors because it increases viewership, provides a broader perspective, and creates a more realistic setting.