By Katrina Smith | Staff writer
Think back to when you were a little kid watching television. How often did the lead roles look like you? How many heroes had the same features as you? If you are a person of color, you might have found it more difficult finding someone who looked like you and who wasn’t a villain.
Although we’ve come some way since the ‘50s or even the ‘80s, still today when you turn on the TV, a majority of the shows and movies are predominantly white with a sprinkle of minorities here and there. Although for ages people of color have openly complained about the lack of diversity, it’s often times written off as whining. So, in efforts to hush all of the so-called whining, they add one or two minorities to fill the quota. It’s relative to the same reason that after revealing the six new cast members of Saturday Night Live and receiving enough back-lash for the fact that they were all white, SNL held special auditions for black comediennes. It wasn’t because Lorne Michaels or anyone else on the show felt there should be more black women or people of color in general, but more as a way to quiet the media storm. Fortunately there has been the recent emergence of shows such as Brooklyn 99 and Sleepy Hollow, that consist of a good racially diverse cast. It brings hope that media can call for change and start a trend that can last well into the future.
But, it’s more than just being on the screen, it’s how we are portrayed on the screen as well. It’s a matter of quantity and quality. Unfortunately writers continually put characters that play off of the same repetitive racial stereotypes and call it diversity: the sassy black woman, the weird Asian nerd, the Hispanic maid who knows little English, or even the man of Arab descent who owns a corner shop and has a heavy accent. But, it’s not a display of diversity. It’s a display of disrespect. It ignores the fact that minorities are more than one-dimensional caricatures, whose only purpose is to make the masses laugh. Minorities are people, plain and simple. They’re people with a wide range of personalities, backgrounds, cultures and more that should be celebrated, acknowledged and shown. America is a melting pot and its media should reflect that.
So why aren’t there more Hispanic doctors, black firefighters, Asian superheroes, or just characters of color in general, with more purpose than being the comedic relief? And why does it even matter if there is or not?
Whether you believe it or not, representation does matter. When there’s a good character on screen that resembles a person, it impacts that person. It inspires that person and sends the message that they too can be like that character.