what is good representation in media

Why Representation Matters and Why It’s Still Not Enough

Reflections on growing up brown, queer, and asian american..

Posted December 27, 2021 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

• Positive media representation can be helpful in increasing self-esteem for people of marginalized groups (especially youth).
• Interpersonal contact and exposure through media representation can assist in reducing stereotypes of underrepresented groups.
• Representation in educational curricula and social media can provide validation and support, especially for youth of marginalized groups.

Growing up as a Brown Asian American child of immigrants, I never really saw anyone who looked like me in the media. The TV shows and movies I watched mostly concentrated on blonde-haired, white, or light-skinned protagonists. They also normalized western and heterosexist ideals and behaviors, while hardly ever depicting things that reflected my everyday life. For example, it was equally odd and fascinating that people on TV didn’t eat rice at every meal; that their parents didn’t speak with accents; or that no one seemed to navigate a world of daily microaggressions . Despite these observations, I continued to absorb this mass media—internalizing messages of what my life should be like or what I should aspire to be like.

Because there were so few media images of people who looked like me, I distinctly remember the joy and validation that emerged when I did see those representations. Filipino American actors like Ernie Reyes, Nia Peeples, Dante Basco, and Tia Carrere looked like they could be my cousins. Each time they sporadically appeared in films and television series throughout my youth, their mere presence brought a sense of pride. However, because they never played Filipino characters (e.g., Carrere was Chinese American in Wayne's World ) or their racial identities remained unaddressed (e.g., Basco as Rufio in Hook ), I did not know for certain that they were Filipino American like me. And because the internet was not readily accessible (nor fully informational) until my late adolescence , I could not easily find out.

Through my Ethnic Studies classes as an undergraduate student (and my later research on Asian American and Filipino American experiences with microaggressions), I discovered that my perspectives were not that unique. Many Asian Americans and other people of color often struggle with their racial and ethnic identity development —with many citing how a lack of media representation negatively impacts their self-esteem and overall views of their racial or cultural groups. Scholars and community leaders have declared mottos like how it's "hard to be what you can’t see," asserting that people from marginalized groups do not pursue career or academic opportunities when they are not exposed to such possibilities. For example, when women (and women of color specifically) don’t see themselves represented in STEM fields , they may internalize that such careers are not made for them. When people of color don’t see themselves in the arts or in government positions, they likely learn similar messages too.

Complicating these messages are my intersectional identities as a queer person of color. In my teens, it was heartbreakingly lonely to witness everyday homophobia (especially unnecessary homophobic language) in almost all television programming. The few visual examples I saw of anyone LGBTQ involved mostly white, gay, cisgender people. While there was some comfort in seeing them navigate their coming out processes or overcome heterosexism on screen, their storylines often appeared unrealistic—at least in comparison to the nuanced homophobia I observed in my religious, immigrant family. In some ways, not seeing LGBTQ people of color in the media kept me in the closet for years.

How representation can help

Representation can serve as opportunities for minoritized people to find community support and validation. For example, recent studies have found that social media has given LGBTQ young people the outlets to connect with others—especially when the COVID-19 pandemic has limited in-person opportunities. Given the increased suicidal ideation, depression , and other mental health issues among LGBTQ youth amidst this global pandemic, visibility via social media can possibly save lives. Relatedly, taking Ethnic Studies courses can be valuable in helping students to develop a critical consciousness that is culturally relevant to their lives. In this way, representation can allow students of color to personally connect to school, potentially making their educational pursuits more meaningful.

Further, representation can be helpful in reducing negative stereotypes about other groups. Initially discussed by psychologist Dr. Gordon Allport as Intergroup Contact Theory, researchers believed that the more exposure or contact that people had to groups who were different from them, the less likely they would maintain prejudice . Literature has supported how positive LGBTQ media representation helped transform public opinions about LGBTQ people and their rights. In 2019, the Pew Research Center reported that the general US population significantly changed their views of same-sex marriage in just 15 years—with 60% of the population being opposed in 2004 to 61% in favor in 2019. While there are many other factors that likely influenced these perspective shifts, studies suggest that positive LGBTQ media depictions played a significant role.

For Asian Americans and other groups who have been historically underrepresented in the media, any visibility can feel like a win. For example, Gold House recently featured an article in Vanity Fair , highlighting the power of Asian American visibility in the media—citing blockbuster films like Crazy Rich Asians and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings . Asian American producers like Mindy Kaling of Never Have I Ever and The Sex Lives of College Girls demonstrate how influential creators of color can initiate their own projects and write their own storylines, in order to directly increase representation (and indirectly increase mental health and positive esteem for its audiences of color).

When representation is not enough

However, representation simply is not enough—especially when it is one-dimensional, superficial, or not actually representative. Some scholars describe how Asian American media depictions still tend to reinforce stereotypes, which may negatively impact identity development for Asian American youth. Asian American Studies is still needed to teach about oppression and to combat hate violence. Further, representation might also fail to reflect the true diversity of communities; historically, Brown Asian Americans have been underrepresented in Asian American media, resulting in marginalization within marginalized groups. For example, Filipino Americans—despite being the first Asian American group to settle in the US and one of the largest immigrant groups—remain underrepresented across many sectors, including academia, arts, and government.

Representation should never be the final goal; instead, it should merely be one step toward equity. Having a diverse cast on a television show is meaningless if those storylines promote harmful stereotypes or fail to address societal inequities. Being the “first” at anything is pointless if there aren’t efforts to address the systemic obstacles that prevent people from certain groups from succeeding in the first place.

Instead, representation should be intentional. People in power should aim for their content to reflect their audiences—especially if they know that doing so could assist in increasing people's self-esteem and wellness. People who have the opportunity to represent their identity groups in any sector may make conscious efforts to use their influence to teach (or remind) others that their communities exist. Finally, parents and teachers can be more intentional in ensuring that their children and students always feel seen and validated. By providing youth with visual representations of people they can relate to, they can potentially save future generations from a lifetime of feeling underrepresented or misunderstood.

Kevin Leo Yabut Nadal, Ph.D., is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the City University of New York and the author of books including Microaggressions and Traumatic Stress .

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How can TV and movies get representation right? We asked 6 Hollywood diversity consultants.

Here’s what they said about writing characters that actually reflect America.

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In 2012, Kerry Washington, star of the Shonda Rhimes-created ABC political drama Scandal, became the first black woman to lead a network drama in nearly four decades. Two seasons later, the series became the first on a major broadcast network that “was created by a black woman, starring a black woman” and also directed by a black woman, when Ava DuVernay stepped in to helm an episode.

Fast-forward to 2016, when an episode of The CW’s post-apocalyptic drama The 100 featured a groundbreaking love scene between the show’s bisexual female lead Clarke (Eliza Taylor) and her lesbian love interest Lexa (Alycia Debnam Carey) — right before killing off Lexa. The plot bomb resonated so widely that it sparked a Hollywood pledge to stop needlessly killing LGBTQ characters and raised a larger discussion about who was dying onscreen .

With the help of social media, both shows and others like them are shifting discussions around “good representation” from a simple desire to a necessity. Who lives, who dies, and who tells the story — as Hamilton so succinctly put it — matters now perhaps more than it has ever before.

So who is helping Hollywood tell better, more diverse stories? How are they doing it? What is Hollywood currently getting right, and what is it still getting wrong? To find the answers, I spoke with diversity consultants, many from nonprofit media advocacy organizations, who, along with tasks like compiling data on minority representation, offer free training and research support to studios and networks.

Here’s what representatives from GLAAD (which focuses on LGBTQ representation), Color of Change (race), the Geena Davis Institute (gender), Define American (immigration), and RespectAbility (disability), as well as a religion expert, told me about the work of Hollywood diversity consulting and the state of representation onscreen.

Everyone wants good diversity, but “good” and “diversity” can look different to various identities

Rashad robinson, executive director, color of change.

We are looking for representations that are authentic, fair, and have humanity. Where black people are not the side script to larger stories and are not just seen through white eyes. There is a way in which we get the same types of representation over and over again, which kind of decreases the sensitivity and humanity that people receive because the media images we see of people can be so skewed.

Madeline Di Nonno, CEO , Geena Davis Institute

[Through our research,] we found that even though there were female characters, they were onscreen and speaking two to three times less. That gave us a whole other thing to talk to people. You can have a cast of 100 and 50 are female, but are you hearing them?

Elizabeth Grizzle Voorhees, e ntertainment m edia d irector, Define American

What most might consider good immigrant representation is characters that are hard-working, humble but high-achieving ... non-threatening to “the American way.” We find the “good immigrant versus bad immigrant” ... perpetuates the respectability politics forced upon many marginalized communities and suggests that only certain people are worthy of our humanity. [We need] reinforcement in mainstream culture that — at the end of the day — we ... have more in common than not.

Jennifer Mizrahi, CEO and president, RespectAbility

The two [current] gold standards are the TV show Speechless , which is scripted, and Born This Way , which is reality unscripted, and that’s because the leads are people with disabilities — played by people with disabilities — authentically portraying their lives.

We see it as a success if an amputee is playing a police officer in an episode of Law & Order and you never talk about that person’s disability. All you see is an incredible police officer.

Megan Reid, professor and religion consultant, Cal State Long Beach

[Some] shows do a good job of showing the faith part accurately, but that’s all we ever see. If it’s a show where religion is an essential plot, it would be helpful not just to see characters who struggle with their faith but how to make decisions about what to do in a multicultural environment.

Whether their services are offered or asked for, Hollywood diversity consultants aim to increase representation and inclusion at various levels of the industry

Zeke stokes, vice president of programs, glaad.

I can tell you in a very general way that if you are seeing LGBTQ inclusion on television, there is a very, very strong likelihood that GLAAD played a part in it at some point.

It may not be in an ongoing way with a production if it’s a long-developing arc or if an LGBTQ character or storyline is a basis for the show, but you can generally bet we were involved at the outset in helping them ensure that they weren’t falling into outdated tropes, that a character wasn’t just there to support everyone else’s storyline, that they have a well-developed storyline of their own and sort of a reason for being indispensable.

Madeline Di Nonno

[The Geena Davis Institute] has met with every major studio, network, cable company, and pretty much every division. We really focus on who is making financial decisions and who is making creative decisions.

Once something is in construction, we’re not involved unless someone has asked us to be an adviser. For example, YouTube Red has launched originals, and we were asked to be advisers on a show called Hyperlink , which is about young girls in STEM. We looked at the scripts, the dimensionality of the characters — are the characters balanced? Are they well-rounded? Are they stereotypes?

Jennifer Mizrahi

We are meeting with the networks and then reaching out to them and letting them know we are available. Big partners for us are the unions [like] the Casting Society of America’s Committee on Diversity, the Screen Writers Guild, and SAG-AFTRA.

Elizabeth Grizzle Voorhees

There are a variety of ways we engage, including casting for undocumented and documented immigrants non-scripted television programs and films, providing storylines, and on-set consultation and scene review during filming.

R ashad R obinson

The working relationship can be dependent on the entity that we’re dealing with. We do a series of salons throughout the year, where we bring together writers from a host of shows — writers from B eing Mary Jane , Black-ish , and Homeland have been there. We spend hours sort of talking about different themes.

Who is asking for help may not always be who you expect

The majority of folks that reach out [to Color of Change] are not black, but it’s really about what the show is trying to achieve. Do folks feel like they’re talking to us under duress? Do they feel like they’re actually trying to get something right? Are folks trying to get a feeling for the general surface rather than trying to go deeper? Each situation is very different, and I would say there have been a number of white folks in Hollywood that have reached out with good intentions and interest in trying to deal with challenges that have existed in the past.

What we have seen [from RespectAbility’s] work in Hollywood is that there is a huge number of people working who have ADHD, dyslexia, and mental health disorders. Just like sometimes people on the autism spectrum can be better at math, science, and engineering than people not on the autism spectrum, it does seem that people who have mental health differences can be better sometimes at acting or comedy.

But those people don’t come out about it.

In many, many cases, they tell us when they speak with us, “Well, I’m living with X, but don’t tell anyone.” It’s really quite common that there are people working in Hollywood with hidden disabilities who are not publicly disclosing those disabilities.

Zeke Stokes

[GLAAD] works with a lot of straight creators who want to tell stories in a really authentic way, and ... the same is true for LGBTQ creators. If you’re a white gay male creator, you might not have the depth of personal experience to write a really authentic queer woman of color.

I think more and more the LGBTQ creators in Hollywood are realizing that there are so many LGBTQ points of view that if you’re not bringing in people that have certain experiences to help guide your creative process — either as a full-time part of the production or as a consultant — then you’re very apt to get it wrong.

The questions and challenges that Hollywood needs help with are not one size fits all

A lot of people come to [the Geena Davis Institute] for help with getting their projects greenlit. Some come to us for recommendations on financing, or they come to us for recommendations on things like female directors and writers. Many of the talent agencies don’t represent enough women writers and directors. We’re at a point where the really well-known female writers and directors are working, so it’s creatives who are maybe on the cusp that really need the support and need to be given a chance.

A lot of times people are well intentioned, but their lexicon is wrong. For example, [a script] might use the expression “wheelchair-bound,” which is just really bad to say. If someone uses a wheelchair it’s an element of freedom, because that’s how they get around. So we look at scripts and help with that lexicon.

[Color of Change] has a big report coming out this fall with UCLA on the diversity of writers’ rooms, and much of that report is about content. We’re looking at upward of 150 shows ... tracking back to three different themes. One is racism in the show and whether it’s individual or structural. Another is ways in which black people or black families feel like a problem rather than a solution. Then we’re looking at how the criminal justice system is often shown as infallible — so police officers, district attorneys, DNA evidence.

There are a lot of identities and issues outside those traditional sexual orientation and gender binaries that are suddenly in the public consciousness, and [GLAAD is] being called on to do work around that a lot. We’ve been living in this sort of transgender tipping point, so we get a lot of calls from creators and networks who want to get that narrative right.

Just in this past year or so, networks and creators have begun to tackle the realities of this next generation, which is, that they’re eschewing labels in a lot of respects. So we’re doing a lot of consulting around what that means and ... the impact of bad representation on that community.

[There] is definitely a huge effort to portray religious rituals correctly. Also an effort to make settings plausible ... [and for] more respectful portrayals of prayer leaders. Many networks are seeking to get right issues with regard to [religious] law and how it plays a part in people’s lives here and abroad.

What they have gotten wrong, but don’t normally ask for help about — and it’s a problem of perception: the lack of a plausible, nuanced range of the level of religiosity in portrayals of Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Sikhs, [and others].

We're starting to see more of the linking of universal themes with the stories and experiences of immigrant families. Storylines that appear in TV and film often follow the headlines we are seeing in the news media, so specific topics like deportations and ICE raids have had high-interest levels recently, [too].

Increasing intersectionality is a top priority

The point of view is: Infuse your content with a lot of female characters, and as you add, then think about the rainbow of what that could be. Could that person be someone with disabilities, could that person be someone of color, could that person be LGBTQ? Lots of times if creators have a limit on female characters, if they have only one female character, they tend to try to make her flawless. The problem comes in because there’s often just one.

If you look at the inclusion that’s happened on television over the last 20 years, from Will & Grace forward, while there has been a lot of LGBTQ inclusion, the vast majority of it, for way too long, was white men. That’s one of the things [GLAAD is] really working to change. We want to make sure that it’s not just diversity and inclusion, but we’re seeing diversity in inclusion. People of color, women, Muslims, immigrants — when you think of all these communities that have been marginalized, they all live within the LGBTQ community as well.

[RespectAbility] feels very strongly that people with physical disabilities should be represented in every crowd scene and they cannot only be white. In terms of the invisible disability — mental health, sensory, attention deficit — that can be put into a storyline. If you want to be authentic and tell authentic stories, they need to be as people are in humanity. Where’s the person who is a wheelchair user? Where’s the service dog? Where’s the person with Down syndrome? We have 56 million Americans with disabilities, so one out of five Americans. The disability experience is something many Americans live with.

Some Hollywood diversity consultants see their job as a challenging balance between education and accountability

There may be a variety of reasons that people reach out to [Color of Change], but a lot of this is about building relationships and trust and then having enough honesty on our part to say, “Just because we give you advice doesn’t mean we’re going to like the outcome.” It’s getting people to understand that the content they put out doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

GLAAD is the organization that literally started tracking the characters, the representation, the kinds of portrayals we were seeing, and reporting that publicly, so that the industry was being held responsible.

It’s one thing to know something, but to see it in writing and reported in the media I think awakens the industry to a different level of consciousness. So not only do they want to do better because it’s the right thing to do, but they want to do better because there can be consequences if they don’t.

Changes are happening, but not in the same way or at the same pace for everyone

[RespectAbility] just did a focus group in Hollywood, and these folks said when they’re casting, they now know that if they’re going to have four stars of a show, one needs to be nonwhite. But they are hesitant to have that person have a disability because they feel that it’s a stigma. But why can’t a person with a disability be a black person who has the most talent in the room? Disability means you can’t do Thing A, but it doesn’t mean you’re not the best in the world at Thing B. The stigma is [harming] employers’ willingness to hire people. Ninety-five percent of the time [that] there is a character with disabilities onscreen, they are played by an actor without that disability.

Many issues don’t come up as issues of religion until the story is actually about religion. Much of what else we see on television — actors and storylines — are about white, even black, Americans, and we just assume they’re from the Christian background.

Otherwise, [religion is] nearly always in the context of a violent incident. Why can so few people name a single incident on TV or film where a Muslim, Hindu, or several other devout practitioners of their faith laughs so hard he or she cries?

Honestly, there hasn’t been a huge shift yet with writers and executives wanting to portray a more diverse and accurate depiction of immigrants. What we have seen is a desire for more intersectionality, which naturally results in more diverse characters.

As we increase the quantity [of representations], it also raises the bar on quality and that requires content creators to be much more surgical. It’s one thing to be a straight white person who is creating a woman of color on their show, who finds a queer woman of color to talk to about this, but what are we doing as an industry to empower queer women of color to tell their own stories, to create their own content, to have access to writers’ rooms and a career path in the industry?

One of the shifts that I’ve seen is that with black showrunners ... there’s been a wider range of portrayal and a wider range of stories about the black experience. I still don’t think we see enough economically challenged people on television, and I feel like this has been a trend across race that we’ve seen. I think not having stories featuring people who are economically challenged adds to the lack of empathy that we have for the challenges people are having.

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Popular Representation Guides

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What is Media Framing?

Representation and the media.

Theories of representation argue that media products are not faithful or accurate reflections of reality because producers will always have to make important decisions about how the text is constructed. Think about a news broadcast. The way people, places, ideas and events are presented to the audience can be shaped by which direction the cameras were pointing, how the footage is cut and spliced into a narrative, the words used to describe the situation, and the music that accompanies the piece.

Signs are selected and combined to encode a message. Editors edit. Even selfies posted on social media are filtered. Representation, therefore, is the mediated version of reality.

Feminist Theory and Theorists

Feminism analyses and explains the impact of social forces on gender, especially the experience of women. Do media representations of femininity and masculinity systematically reinforce inequality? Find out more in our guides.

• Liesbet van Zoonen

Judith Butler and Performativity

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The Representation of Women on Magazine Covers

The Beauty Myth

Representation matters. The media can have a significant impact on how we see and understand each other. This is particularly important when the narratives convey hurtful and damaging misrepresentations. The following critical frameworks examines how ethnic-racial groups are depicted in the media.

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There is no doubt social and cultural contexts will affect the choices producers make when creating media texts. The following guides explore some of the processes which influence the representation of people, places and important issues.

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Ideology and the Media

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Getting to grips with representation and the media is a challenge. If you want to develop your understanding of the key concepts, you need to analyse the representation of people, places and products in a broad range of media texts. The following examples are a good place to start.

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Diversity and representation in TV and movies and why it matters

The world is extremely diverse which is why representation is so important. There are people of different colors, different cultures, and different backgrounds everywhere. Yet when we take a look at some of the highest-grossing movies of the last decade, or the most popular television series on streaming services such as Netflix, we can not always find this diversity translated back on the screen. This lack of representation has consequences on our society and the people that can not find themselves back on the screen. In an interview with PBS, a high school junior said, “I do think it’s powerful for people of a minority race to be represented in pop culture to really show a message that everybody has a place in this world” (Elbada, 2019). This essay aims to analyze the representation of minority groups in popular media and the effects this has on our multicultural society. 

Representation and diversity in numbers

The Annenberg Foundation, a philanthropic foundation dedicated to funding charities and building communities, released a study examining the portrayal of, among other things, race and ethnicities in over a thousand films released between the years 2007 and 2017 (see Figure 1). They found that in the top 1100 most popular films, only 30% of the speaking characters are non-white actors. Of those 1100 films, 20 did not have any Black or African American speaking characters, 37 films had no Asian speaking characters, and 43 films had no Latino speaking characters. These statistics include both men and women.

Figure 1: Percentage of different ethnicities in Hollywood movies.

Taking a look at the numbers for women of color in the most popular movies produces even more staggering results. In the top 100 films of 2017, 42% did not include any black women. Asian or Latina women appeared even less, with respectively 65% and 64% of the films showing no women of that background. The Annenberg Foundation study also compared these numbers to the percentage of the Latino population in the United States. Whereas Latino speaking characters only reach 6% of all speaking characters in the top 1100 movies, they make up almost a fifth of the American population (The Annenberg Foundation, 2018). 

The effect of Representation

We live in diverse societies, yet Hollywood does not represent our reality accurately. Not only is this unfair, but as Sara Boboltz and Kimberly Yam state in an article for HuffPost, “It’s unfair that just over a quarter of speaking roles went to people of color in 2015’s top movies ― that Asians and Latino nabbed tiny slivers. It’s unfair that women made up less than one-third of protagonists in top movies in 2016. It’s unfair that black, Asian, and Latinx actors were completely left out of acting categories in the Academy Awards last year, and the year before that.” (Boboltz & Yam, 2017). It is also a vital issue to address in terms of consequences. The media people consume, the movies they watch, and the television series they follow, are not just entertainment, it also has an impact on the way people think and view other people. Television and movies have the ability to normalize events and phenomena that they show on the screen, and this can both have negative and positive results.

Representation has an impact on the way people think and view other people

Darnell Hunt, the director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA, said, “We’re pretty confident that, the more TV you watch, the more media you consume, the more likely it is that media ― almost like radiation ― builds up. And the accumulated effect is to make you feel that what you’re seeing is somewhat normal.” This notion is supported by Ana-Christina Ramón, the assistant director of the Bunche Center, “What you see often becomes a part of your memory, and thus a part of your life experience.” (Boboltz & Yam, 2017). This means that films and television can influence the views of the watcher on certain people or different cultures. In addition to this, people of color or characters with different backgrounds can also shape how underrepresented people view themselves. 

Symbolic Annihilation

As The Annenberg Foundation established, many people of color will not see themselves in the majority of the popular films; this can lead to symbolic annihilation. As Cole Bowman explains, “the term “symbolic annihilation” refers to the erasure of people—specifically categories of people like women, people of color, people with disabilities, and members of the LGBTQ+ community—from popular media” (Bowman, 2021). The representation of people belonging to minority groups, or the lack thereof, is not only a narrative issue. It is an issue that is social, political, and psychological. As Coleman and Yochim explain in their article on the subject, “symbolic annihilation points to the ways in which poor media treatment can contribute to social disempowerment and in which symbolic absence in the media can erase groups and individuals from public consciousness” (Coleman & Yochim, 2008). Simply put, symbolic annihilation occurs when a lack of representation of a specific group begins to affect their experiences in real life (Bowman, 2021). The term symbolic annihilation was first coined by George Gerbner in 1976 to describe the absence of representation of certain groups in the media. He states, “Representation in the fictional world signifies social existence; absence means symbolic annihilation" (Gerbner, 1976). 

Figure 2: Lovecraft Country, HBO, 2020.

Multiple studies are showing the psychological effects of poor or non-existent representation. For example, a study by The Opportunity Agenda concludes that the way black boys and men are represented often adds to negative stereotypes such as aggression. Furthermore, the study argues that these stereotypes, the negative ways in which Black males are perceived, are especially harmful when the black males are dependent on others’ perception of them, for example, a judge in the court of law. Research shows that this can lead to “less attention from doctors, harsher sentencing by judges, lower likelihood of being hired or admitted to school, lower odds of getting loans, and a higher likelihood of being shot by police” (The Opportunity Agenda, 2011). 

In 2019, Vice Media interviewed eight black women on how they are portrayed in popular culture. With black women being underrepresented, and considering the black women we do see in movies and on television are often shown in a negative light, Essence, a magazine and lifestyle organization conducted a study on the representation of black women, finding that the majority of images encountered regularly on television, social media, music videos, etc. are overwhelmingly negative. They will often fall into stereotypical categories such as gold diggers, baby mamas, or angry black women (Walton, 2020). To the question, “What is still problematic about the way Black women are represented and/or portrayed in pop culture,” visual artist Armina Mussa responded, “Where white women are said to be standing up for themselves, Black women are seen as wanting a fight. We are still unseen, and society has successfully exploited the cultural psyche of Black women. I hate how much pain everyone feels we are still capable of enduring. We are a glimmer of light, spirited and gentle, too.” (Vice Media, 2019). Mussa’s response notes the social and psychological impacts on-screen representations have. 

Emily In Paris: a case study

A very recent occurrence of harmful representations having a direct real-life impact is the second season of the Netflix series Emily In Paris. The series follows the titular Emily as she moves from the United States to Paris, France, for a job at an elite fashion magazine. The series focuses, among other things, on the cultural clashes Emily experiences in the European country. 

Soon after the first season of Emily In Paris, a controversy followed. The video essayist known as Friendly Space Ninja on YouTube analyses the issues in the series, specifically the casual racism, xenophobia, and offensive representation that appears in the video “ Emily In Paris: Romanticizing Ignorance .” This video is currently the most viewed video concerning Emily In Paris on the entire internet, even beating the official trailer for the show on Netflix’s YouTube channel. 

In December 2021, Friendly Space Ninja made a follow-up on the Emily In Paris video, discussing the controversy surrounding the second season of the series. He argues that the xenophobia that was rampant in the first season, is still a big issue in the second season. In the second season, Emily begins to take French lessons, where she meets and befriends a Ukrainian woman named Petra. Petra’s character is highly one-dimensional; the audience only learns her name, that she is from Ukraine, and, most importantly, that she shoplifts. After the episode where Petra tricks Emily into shoplifting, she is never seen again. 

This harmful stereotype of Eastern European women as criminals caused a significant backlash. Many Ukrainian celebrities have taken to social media to speak out against this negative portrayal of Ukrainian women. Ukrainian influencer Eugenia Havrylko wrote an open letter on Instagram to express her disappointment in the series. She says, “@emilyinparis I’m speaking here on behalf of all the Ukrainian women around the world. And I feel like this cannot be ignored. Being the most successful @netflix show in 2021, knowing your influence on millions of minds and hearts all over the world, there is still a place for such ignorance and intolerance? The way you treated the image of Ukrainians in your second season, 4th episode is such a low cost trick, absolute scandal and a shame. And I cannot believe this is still happening in 2021. Time, where we show respect to all the nations and genders. Time, when we fight all the stereotypes that are ruining peace and cross-cultural relationship. Time, when nobody is laughing at such miserable things. Despite of that, you expose Ukrainian woman as a person without any feeling of taste and dignity. Stupid, ignorant thief. Come on. are you even serious? Such a shame for such a scale and this is happening when there are so many talented Ukrainians, who are influencing worldwide market of technology, fashion, art, sustainability, science, sport, etc.? In case, you didn’t know. Just some of thousands absolutely cosmic Ukrainian women. Just In art and fashion as an example.” (Havrylko, 2021). Havrylko’s caption perfectly encapsulates the issue people, especially Ukrainian women, have with the series, how this negative portrayal of someone like them in a remarkably popular series can be harmful and insulting. 

Figure 3: Emily and Petra in 'Emily in Paris'.

The public backlash did not end with a handful of Instagram posts. Instead, it became a conversation amongst large press institutions as well. The Ukrainian branch of Cosmopolitan and Vogue spoke out against this offensive representation. Even the Ukrainian Minister of Culture and Information, Oleksandr Tkachenko, condemned the show’s portrayal of Ukrainian women. He said, “We have a caricature image of a Ukrainian woman that is unacceptable. It is also insulting. Is that how Ukrainians are seen abroad?” (Abbott, 2022). 

The importance of representation

In November 2021, the Disney movie Encanto was released. It was an instant hit with audiences. The movie follows a multi-generational Colombian family with magical powers (Smit, 2022). Soon after, a mother, Kaheisha Brand, posted a picture of her son standing in front of the TV playing Encanto. Her son, who bears a striking resemblance to the animated character of Bruno, stands proudly next to Bruno. Brand tagged the post with #RepresentationMatters. With the addition of a repost on Twitter, the photo received over one million likes and more than eight thousand retweets. The virality of this picture proves how important people find it to be able to see themselves in the media they consume and how touching it is to see a young boy experience that. In an interview, Brand said, "The image of him sitting and staring was actually the first picture I took. He seemed to be in awe. He would stare at the screen and turn around smiling. [...] I think there is empowerment in positive representation. It is important that he see images that reflect him. I’m grateful for the creativity behind this movie and the diversity amongst the Black and brown characters." (Valdivia, 2022). 

Figure 4: Real-life example of why representation matters.

Michael Morgan, former professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, said, “Stories matter, stories affect how we live our lives, how we see other people, how we think about ourselves.” (Boboltz & Yam, 2017). Diversity in popular movies and television series matters because an accurate portrayal of society affects both the over-and under-represented groups of society. Whereas an inaccurate, often offensive portrayal is harmful to both entire communities and also individual people. Representation matters. Representation impacts people. Everyone deserves to have their story told.  

Abbott, K. (2022, January 3). Ukraine’s culture minister blasts Emily in Paris over ‘unacceptable’ stereotype.

Coleman, R.R.M., & Yochim, E.C. (2008).  Symbolic Annihilation . The International Encyclopedia of Communication.

Friendly Space Ninja. (2021, February 4). Emily In Paris: Romanticizing Ignorance [YouTube Video].

Gerbner, G., & Gross, L. (1976). Living with Television: The Violence Profile. Journal of Communication, 26(2), 172–199.

Havrylko, E. [eugeniahavrylko]. (2021, December 23). Emily In Paris [Instagram].

katchingupwithkenzo. (2021, December 31). #RepresentationMatters [Instagram].  

Rawan Elbaba, Student Reporting Labs. (2019, November 14). Why on-screen representation matters, according to these teens.  

Smit, F. (2022, January 19). Diversiteit gaat in Encanto verder dan alleen uiterlijkheden, vandáár die monsterhit.

The Annenberg Foundation. (2018, July). Inequality in 1,100 Popular Films: Examining Portrayals of Gender, Race/Ethnicity, LGBT & Disability from 2007 to 2017.

The Opportunity Agenda. (2011, October). Opportunity for Black Men and Boys: Public Opinion, Media Depictions, and Media Consumption. Tides Center.

Valdivia, P. (2022, January 10). This 2-Year-Old’s Reaction To Seeing Himself Represented In “Encanto” Is Why These Movies Matter .

Vice Media. (2019, February 4). 8 black women on how they’re portrayed in pop culture.

Walton, D. (2013, October 7). ESSENCE’s Images Study: Bonus Insights. 

• News Releases

In-depth Study of Diversity and Representation Shows Scale of Opportunity in Media and Entertainment Industries

Chloé Laluc, Public Engagement, World Economic Forum, +41 79 589 7002, [email protected]

• First of its kind study on the state of diversity and representation in the media, entertainment and sports industries highlights where efforts fall short and focus is needed
• The report offers a framework for evaluating diversity in both input (creative production) and output (content consumed)
• It makes recommendations for how the industry can drive change and progress, focusing on measurement, accountability, community and collaboration
• The World Economic Forum Taskforce on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion will address the challenge of diversity and representation in media, entertainment and sports

Read the full report here

Geneva, Switzerland, 27 September 2021 – The World Economic Forum’s Power of Media Initiative has compiled a first-of-its-kind compilation of the state of diversity and representation in the media, entertainment and sports industries. The Power of Media initiative is a collaboration between the Platform on Shaping the Future of Media, Entertainment and Sport and the Centre for the New Economy and Society, which are committed to building prosperous, inclusive and equitable economies and societies that create opportunities for all and help to advance voices of underrepresented groups in media content.

Produced in collaboration with Accenture, the Reflecting Society: The State of Diverse Representation in Media and Entertainment report assesses the state of diversity across content and creative production in five key sectors: gaming, TV and film, news and publishing, advertising, and sport and sport media. It draws on research, interviews and insights from heads of content, diversity, equity and inclusion leaders, institutes and organizations.

Among the key insights, the report notes that:

• Progress varies widely between sectors . Gaming, news and publishing lag, while advertising, TV and video have seen progress. According to one study, for example, only 3% of video games had a primary character of colour and only 23% of games allowed players to choose their character’s ethnicity.
• Corporations that prioritize diversity and inclusive representation can reap financial benefits. In the film industry, for example, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have shown that movies without authentic representation underperform at the box office and large-budget movies that rank below average in inclusive representation underperform by around 20% of their budget at opening box office weekend.
• Attitudes among consumers towards diversity can be shaped at an early age. Despite this, a study by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that fewer than 4% of books contained significant LGBTQ+ content, while only 11% had significant African or African American content or characters.
• Meaningful progress requires policies that remove structural barriers and behaviours. For example, in 2020, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences added 819 new voting members, of which 45% were women and 35% were from historically under-represented groups. This resulted in the 2021 Oscars shortlist being the most diverse ever.

While each media sector may face different contexts and challenges, the report highlights a path forward for the media, entertainment and sports industry. The Forum’s Power of Media Initiative has created a Taskforce on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to accelerate the three priority areas that the report identifies:

• Measurement – The report highlights major gaps and inconsistencies in measurement that hold back progress and data-led action. The taskforce will work to create data-driven benchmarks and metrics to formalize the measuring of progress and goal setting.
• Accountability – The taskforce will strive to create greater transparency and accountability in initiatives and results.
• Community and collaboration – The taskforce will enable community-building among peers across the industry and provide a safe space to explore sensitive and new topics in diversity, equity and inclusion and share best practices.

“The Power of Media Taskforce on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion [DE&I] brings together leaders from across the industry, including those in creative leadership roles, independent non-profits focused on DE&I, corporate executives, and DE&I professionals, to answer this call and drive change as a community,” said Cathy Li, Head of Media, Entertainment and Sport Industries at the Forum.

“It became clear in our work with the Forum that the relationship between audience diversity and business performance is strong, that the people who work in the industry shape the stories that get told – and that more diverse stories attract more diverse creators,” said Kristen Hines, Managing Director at Accenture. “That change, however, will require transparency and honest reflection, real commitment to results and accountability of leaders to improve diversity and inclusion from top to bottom, and particularly in senior roles. We’re excited to publish this report and to actively support the Forum taskforce in driving long-term and lasting change.”

In the months ahead, the Power of Media Initiative will continue to tackle the challenge of diversity and representation in media, entertainment and sports, with the aim of leveraging the Forum's global network of leaders to mobilize progress.

Notes to editors

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2 Article 2 Set: Importance of Representation in Media

There are NINE (9) article options in this set.

The Importance of Representation in Media

Huang, V. (2021, June 12).  The importance of representation in media. Race to a Cure. https://www.racetoacure.org/post/the-importance-of-representation-in-media

The comfort of finding a character you relate to. The pride of seeing your beliefs, culture, and traditions embraced on the big screens. The joy of seeing a hero that looks just like you. How many of us have experienced this, and how many have not?

Media, especially in the form of film and television, is at the forefront of the entertainment industry. Over the past century, it has rapidly evolved into a widespread medium for storytelling, art, knowledge, and enjoyment. We engage in these forms of media because they share something special—whether opening our eyes to a life vastly different than ours, enforcing a lesson previously beyond our perception, or unearthing our roots as individuals, society, and humanity as a whole. Yet too often, the media fails to accurately represent the people they portray. Too often is inclusivity swept aside by the Hollywood norm —the exclusion of diversity rather than its opposition. Misrepresentation and a lack of diversity in media negatively impacts marginalized communities, including racial, ethnic, and religious minorities, LGBTQ+ individuals, disabled people, and women. This issue is prevalent and important, and in this article, we will take a deeper look at media representation from the thoughts, experiences, and perspectives of today’s youth.

Image is courtesy of FOX .

Definition and Importance

The BBC defines representation as how societal aspects such as race, gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, and social issues are presented. When it comes to media, especially film and television, this audience is vast. Mass media broadens our scope of perception when it comes to society, multiculturalism, and the world. It holds, for many, an educational impact as it showcases unique experiences otherwise beyond reach. This is why representation is crucial. In a multicultural, diverse, multifaceted society, it is vital to amplify the voices and share the stories of all.

The Harmful Effects of Stereotypes

While a lack of representation is harmful in itself, the misrepresentation of underserved communities is a significant issue with damaging consequences. This concept is evident through stereotyping. The Arab Film & Media Institute describes stereotyping as assumptions or generalizations made and depicted of individuals due to their racial, ethnic, gender, sexual, religious, or other identities.

Stereotypes in media are often inaccurate and portray underrepresented groups in a negative light. These flawed portrayals can be easily internalized by both the individuals of a group being stereotyped and other members of society. All in all, it influences public opinion and the societal view of underrepresented communities.

“As a child, stereotypes that were portrayed in the media went over my head. I was just there to be entertained. However, as I got older and began to truly understand what it meant to be Black in society, those stereotypes that I once looked at with a blind eye began to get a little glaring. When I was younger, I always found myself drawn to shows with a Black character, but now that I look back, those shows never had a lot of Black actors. In addition, the beauty standards of those characters were quite Eurocentric. I didn’t look like the girls in that show. This was disheartening as a little girl, to not see people like me at that level of fame. Presently, I see more representation of Black people in the media but I struggle with the narrative. When I want to watch TV, I want to laugh, get lost in a story, relax, and forget about my troubles. Not be thrust into a world of discrimination and hardship that, although quite relevant, does not represent all aspects of life.”

– Lola, grade 12

As Lauren Washington discusses in an examination of film and media representation, stereotypical depictions create unconscious bias in viewers which can directly impact an individual’s thoughts and behaviours towards others. It is especially dangerous when bias is institutionalized, perpetuating the issues of discrimination and hate crimes, police brutality, mass incarceration of disadvantaged communities, and others.

“In my experience, stereotypes are the most prevalent issue in the media. They are literally everywhere, and create a very toxic environment for young people. Even the most positive stereotypes have negative connotations that are used to divide and hurt people who do not fit the standards that society expects from us. Whether it is racial stereotypes, gender stereotypes or others, it creates a playground for prejudice to grow throughout our society and formulates the idea that people do not need to think through their behaviour or give opportunities to certain people based on what they seem to be.

In most of the TV shows and movies I watched when I was younger, the woman would always fall in love and that would make her happy, or white people would always save the day. It made me feel like I had to be saved instead of taking action on my own and for the longest time, I just accepted it. It was not until I saw characters who were like me that I started to truly grow as a person. To imagine what I might’ve been like if I had those influences when I was younger hurts me a little because I always wish I could have more goals to reach, more determination, and that is swayed the most by what I take in through the media. In our media, schools, music and experiences, we need leaders to break these stereotypes and show that people are more than they are expected to be.”

– Tia, grade 11

The Arab Film & Media Institute further defines the issues of tokenism and typecasting. Tokenism is when individuals from minority groups are included for the sole purpose of exhibiting a seemingly diverse environment. This infamous tactic does not equate to equal representation, but is rather a demeaning concept that utilizes minority characters to fulfill an agenda. Typecasting in the entertainment industry occurs when individuals are consistently assigned roles due to their ability to fit a certain stereotype. This often targets actors belonging to underrepresented groups and limits their ability to grow in the industry beyond playing stereotypical roles.

Image is courtesy of Netflix Junkie.

Children and Teens

Underrepresentation, as a result, has the potential to establish harmful views and negative perceptions. For children who are developing their thoughts and behaviours, and for teenagers who are searching for identity and their place in society, media takes the role of a significant influence.

“I have felt a tremendous lack of diversity in the media while growing up. Often when characters looked like me, they fit a certain stereotype as the ‘supporting character’ or the ‘comedic relief.’ Rarely were Black and Brown characters seen as the protagonist or desirable and intelligent individuals and honestly, that took a toll on my self-esteem. A lack of diversity is harmful not only to the people being misrepresented but also to others who watch those shows or movies who then base their perception of a group solely on the media they consume. Luckily, there has been an increase in the diversity of characters of colour! But we have a long way to go to dismantle the many stereotypes that have been engraved in the history of television and film.”

– Hanna, 2nd year undergraduate

According to an article by Forbes , general media can escalate racial tensions and affect confidence and self-esteem. The author describes how predictions in the study of prolonged television exposure involve decreased self-esteem for girls and Black boys, which correlates with racial and gender biases in popular media. With the effects of underrepresentation so prevalent and impactful to youth, diverse and inclusive media representation must be prioritized as we move forward.

“Growing up, I definitely felt like it was hard to see myself represented in the media. Especially in the case of beauty standards, I feel that it has now become such a common story for Black women to go through a stage of not liking their features, and more specifically, their hair. For me, this was straightening my hair often, for others, it might have been relaxing their hair, but for many of us the cause was what was portrayed as ‘beautiful’ in the media. However, within the last few years, I have become a lot more comfortable in my identity and in wearing my hair out, as big as it is!

As far as we’ve come already, what I’m really waiting for is a coming-of-age movie starring a young Black girl that is not solely about her identity as a Black person. There is certainly a time and place for these kinds of movies, but I am so excited for when I can see myself represented in the media without having to think about all the problems that I may face as a Black woman.”

– Leah, grade 12

Image is courtesy of Girl Museum .

The Push for Greater On-Screen Diversity

The youth of today are passionate about inclusive representation, and they are making their voices heard on what they want to see more of in modern media.

“I feel like the groups that really need to be represented in the film, television, and the entertainment industry are minorities such as Black, Asian, Brown, LGBTQ, and people with disabilities. Especially people with disabilities because I hardly ever see them represented in the industry.

– Lemuela, grade 10

Progress is underway, but for representation to be achieved in all aspects, there must be greater inclusivity of underrepresented groups both on-screen and behind the scenes as writers, directors, producers, and more. The entertainment industry, media creators, and society can benefit significantly by confronting implicit bias and stereotypes and actively commit to fostering inclusive environments. Through this, may we begin the journey towards media that includes representation for all.

Article Author: Victoria Huang

Article Contributors: Lola Oyefeso, Tia Rose Desouza, Hanna Asheber, Leah Daniel, Lemuela Ajuwon

Article Editors: Maria Giroux, Stephanie Sahaeo

Article ii:

The importance of representation in film and media.

Washington, L. (2019, December 29).  The importance of representation in film and media. Medium. https://medium.com/@Laurenwash/the-importance-of-representation-in-film-and-media-2d006149cac9

Imagine the first time when young children see a superhero or an astronaut on screen whose image looks like them. It is 2018, and for some kids, the historic moment of seeing  Black Panther  was their first time seeing a superhero of color on screen. Better yet, this groundbreaking film which has netted over $900 million dollars, could have been the first time seeing a predominantly black cast with a black director, black costume designers, black hairstylists, and more, actively producing representation in a positive light. Sandra Bullock’s astronaut character, Dr. Ryan Stone, in the 2013 film,  Gravity , may have been the first occasion when young girls witnessed both a female astronaut and scientist on screen. The content our society views on screen is supposed to reflect its people, but all too often the entertainment and media industries tend to marginalize people of color, and women, just to name a few. Stories affect all areas of life in terms of how people view themselves, how they live their lives, and how they see others. Some of the content that these industries distribute to the public remains the only form of representation some individuals see, and these portrayals may be accurate or inaccurate. Media depicts stereotypical representations for people of color and women, whether through Hollywood or on the news, as violent criminals, the help, terrorists, submissive characters, highly sexualized beings, unintelligent people, and more. Similarly, there are concerns for Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) populations and depictions of disabled persons. Seeing oneself on screen is crucial because society is not monolithic, but multifaceted.  The continued cycle of excluding diversity, inclusion, and ignoring misrepresentation in the entertainment and media industry showcase the importance of having diverse storytellers, actors, directors, and producers involved both on-screen and behind the scenes.

Historically, film and media industries have had a poor track record in accurately representing diversity. Hollywood is the biggest exporter of culture, yet has long ignored the importance of diversity since its creation (Burgin 2018). The roots of the industry involve systemic, institutionalized racist practices, “whether its appearing in disparaging roles or not appearing at all, minorities are the victim of an industry that relies on old ideas to appeal to the “majority” at the expense of the insignificant minority” (Horton, Price, and Brown 1999). Early 18th century practices presented African Americans in inhumane frameworks, as ignorant, clownish, and animalistic. Specifically, African Americans were not even afforded the opportunity to play themselves, as whites dressed in blackface to reinforce white supremacy, creating a cycle of negative effects with society’s perceptions (Horton, Price, and Brown). Following this period, there were voices of protest railing against stereotypical and demeaning representation; yet the industry still remained guilty of perpetuating false narratives and provided limited opportunities for minorities. Perhaps one of the most egregious and despicable films that served as a catalyst for African Americans to produce their own films was  The Birth of a Nation  in 1915 which glorified the Ku Klux Klan and reiterated blacks as inferior beings. Thereafter, a wave of films showcasing blacks in authentic, fully dimensional roles developed by African American filmmakers from independent black studios like at the Lincoln Motion Pictures Company and the Micheaux Film Corporation who challenged the notion of single narrative, stereotypical roles. (Horton, Price, and Brown). In contrast, although white executives deserve blame for lack of inclusion and inaccurate portrayals, there have been minorities over the years who further perpetuated horrible stereotypes as well. For instance, the first film to feature an all black cast,  Hearts in Dixi e, starred the black actor, Stephin Fetchit, who horrifically reinforced the “ stereotype of the lazy, stupid, good-for-nothing Negro who knows his place,” in not only that film but throughout his career (Horton, Price, and Brown). Fetchit became the standard for black roles until only in 1952 when Hollywood discontinued casting such characters, but even with the “statement,” negative stereotypes continue to plague minorities in films with degrading roles (Horton, Price, and Brown). In the early 20th century through the present, many diverse groups are scrutinizing all facets of the film and media industries’ transgressions (Gaydos and Gray 2016). Similarly, throughout history as the media industries of print and television evolved, their influence continued to shape public opinion about minorities.

The media industries’ evolution from mostly print to television increased the emphasis of the power of the mass media with heavier influence in portraying minorities inaccurately. With the rise of television, information became easily available to millions and “often gives people insights into worlds that are unfamiliar and vastly different from their own,” as it may be their only encounter with that part of society (Horton, Price, and Brown). Therefore, the influence that media has is a tremendously weighty responsibility and unfortunately, many of these studios have created harmful false narratives. As individuals continually see flashes of false information and a skewed depiction, it becomes mentally damaging because “when images and ideas presented at a young age take hold, and are reinforced over years of viewing, these images become reality and once these stereotypes and misconceptions become ingrained in the psyche of American children, they become self-perpetuating” (Horton, Price, and Brown). For far too long, the media executives reflected their versions of society which more often than not was exclusionary, damaging, and not objective. Although progress has been made, major television news outlets have traditionally not featured journalists of color and perpetuated one-sided narratives. “Oftentimes in newsrooms across the country, you don’t have a substantial representation of people of color in newsrooms who are making decisions to what’s going to be portrayed in the media.” (May 2018). Reportedly, men deliver 65% of political segments, 63% of science and technological stories, 67% of crime, and 64% of global issues; alternatively, females receive minimal on-air time allotted 32% screen time, and the stories they cover are limited to education and lifestyle stories (Alter 2015). Unfortunately, media biases are prominent in featuring portrayals of minorities primarily as criminals, terrorists, uneducated, highly sexualized people, and more. These depictions penetrate the minds of viewers and create unconscious biases which negatively affects the way individuals interact with each other. Ghandnoosh pointed out in 2015 that implicit biases have led to unnecessary discrimination and police shootings of black males. By extension, the media’s excessive and impartial coverages of “alleged black criminals” creates a domino effect in also impacting the justice system. Jury members, lawyers, as well as judges involved are consequently more inclined to deliver tougher punishments for blacks (Donaldson 2015). For these reasons and more, the necessity of having diverse journalists, executives, and producers on screen and behind the cameras is crucial. Society is multidimensional not monolithic, so the beautiful mosaic of all people should be represented. Cheriss May, photojournalist, and correspondent for the White House shared in 2018:

Representation matters so that the full story can be told, and so you don’t have a one-sided story that isn’t a fair representation of a diverse population. The media needs to represent the society that it serves because if people don’t see themselves, then it’s almost like a lack of care that’s communicated to people. There has to be some diverse voices that represent everyone in the society that can speak from the voice of those people because there are different issues and different things that are of importance to us. On Capitol Hill, for example, the photographers that shoot there and the newscasters that are shown are disproportionately white males. I think that there needs to be more of an effort to seek out diverse voices and diverse representation with a conscious effort (2018).

Overall, there needs to be an increased amount of heightened pressure to ensure that networks and producers do not leave marginalized groups out, or showcase them in harmful, inferior, or undesirable ways.

Moreover, filmmakers and media depictions have been negligent in including people of color, women, LGBTQ individuals, and those with disabilities on-screen and off-screen. In this current day and age, Hollywood continues to exclude people of color from television and film. Within the industry, there is this dynamic of white America being the majority owners and majority movers and shakers of creative ideas in Hollywood (Burgin 2018). Prominent African American filmmaker, Spike Lee, has long been a voice championing the importance of showcasing the positive realities of the black experience. Although the Oscars have recently spotlighted the void in recognizing diverse works, Lee recognizes the problem is larger than the award show. He noted: “As I see it, the Academy Awards is not where the ‘real’ battle is. It’s in the executive office of the Hollywood studios and TV and cable networks. This is where the gatekeepers decide what gets made and what gets jettisoned…This is what’s important. Those with ‘the green light’ vote” (Rainey and Gray 2016). Comparatively, those who are Muslims face similar exclusion and stereotypical misrepresentations. The horrific terrorism of 9/11 perpetuated negative connotations that continue to plague many Muslims who had no part in that tragedy. Xavier Burgin, filmmaker, and screenwriter, noted in 2018 that the entertainment industry is guilty of unfairly maligning and characterizing Muslims as brutal, cruel, inhumane terrorists:

For the most part when it comes to the entertainment industry, usually what people view and see as a Muslim individual, they’ll see a terrorist, which is absolutely ridiculous because it is a small, tiny segment of the population who are terrorists in the first place. But unfortunately, Hollywood tends to only suggest and put up those kind of portrayals when it deals with Muslim people.

Activist and actor, Riz Ahmed, in a 2017 speech further corroborated the victimization of Muslims. He explained the dangers that arise when there is a failure to represent Muslim civilians as everyday people. What arises instead is that people will gravitate towards negative tropes depicting Muslims as criminals, terrorists, or members of ISIS. Ahmed stated:

After the Brexit vote, hate crimes went up 41%, & against Muslims it went up 326%. Now if we fail to represent, I think we’re in danger of losing our in three ways, the three E’s. One, is we’re going to lose people to extremism; second, we’re going to lost out on an expansive idea of who we are as individuals and as a community; and thirdly, we’ll lose out on the economic benefits that proper representation can bring to our economy.

Sadly, realities surrounding inclusion and fair representations of women, African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, LGBTQs, and disabled individuals are also bleak. “In total, 29.2% of all characters were from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups, which is well below U.S. Census (38.7%) as well as the movie-going audience in this country” (Smith et al. 2017). A nine-year study by USC’s Annenberg School of Communication uncovered startling findings from 900 movies. With regard to the aforementioned groups, they found these groups have been consistently ignored by the entertainment industry (Smith et al. 2017). Within the industries, women have been limited in their opportunities and portrayals. In the event that females are miraculously cast, then, unfortunately, they “are much more likely than males to be shown in sexually revealing attire (F=25.9% vs. M=5.7%) and partially or fully naked (F=25.6% vs. M=9.2%)” (Smith et al. 2017). Throughout time, women have been limited in their representations with highly sexualized, helpless, or less intelligent identifications. “Movies perpetuate the sexualization of women from ‘other’ racial/ethnic groups, even as these female characters are least likely to be shown as parental figures” (Smith et al. 2017). Undeniably, when it comes to the powerful, behind the scenes jobs on a movie set, men dominate the playing field disproportionately for example, “ Focusing on directors, 120 helmers were attached to the sample of films with 4.2% (n=5) female and 95.8% (n=115) male. This is a gender ratio of 23 male directors to every 1 female director” (Smith et al. 2017). Furthermore, African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians do not fare much better. There is such paucity in available roles for the aforementioned groups. If by chance, these ethnic groups are lucky enough to receive screen time, their speaking roles and influence are drastically limited. The same is true for behind the scenes work by directors, screenwriters, or producers, as the employment of minorities in these areas has not evolved:

Across 900 movies, only 5.6% (n=56) of all directors were Black. Perhaps most disturbingly, only 3 Black women (<1%) have helmed a top‐ grossing motion picture across the sample. Across 900 movies, only 3% of directors were Asian. Almost all of these directors were male except two. Perhaps the group that is most affected behind the camera are women of color, as only 3 Black and 2 Asian women worked across the sample time frame. Though not measured, only one Latina female director worked across the 900 movies (Smith et al. 2017).

People of color, LGBTQs, and those with disabilities need to be given positions in power on all levels because “The more perspectives that have a seat at the table to tell stories means more sources and different types of ideas, cultures, worlds and characters that can expand the possibilities for how stories are told” (Thomas 2018). Since 2007, the invisibility of ethnic minorities has severely lagged in comparison with the changing nature of white actors and actresses (see table 1).

Likewise, filmmakers and news outlets often ignore the voices of LGBTQ individuals and people with disabilities. As supporting roles have increased for LBGTQs, the findings are still troubling as the small percentage of roles do not reflect the larger population. Transgender representation is almost entirely invisible and there are very few roles for diverse ethnicities. Quite simply put, the typical narratives in existence today tend not to reflect the everyday lives of LGBTQs (Smith et al. 2017). Like most people in society, LGBTQs are individuals who fall in love, enjoy shopping, traveling, gardening, raising children, jogging in local parks, and they also experience the general rollercoaster malaise of life in general, as all humans do. Comparatively, those with both physical and mental disabilities accounted for about two percent in the top 100 films of 2016 (Smith et al. 2017). Similarly to the intersectional discrimination among LBGTQ representation, with characters of disability, there are more predominantly white, older males as opposed to ethnic minorities, LGBTQs, and younger representation (Smith et al. 2017). Through the extensive research presented from USC’s study, it is quite evident that inadequate representation and exclusion is a normalized practice ingrained in Hollywood with few fully dimensional roles for ethnic minorities. “If you look at white media and white people within American media and the entertainment industry, they wouldn’t change anything. They would keep it as is because it benefits them first and foremost” (Burgin 2018). Misrepresentations are not troubling to those in power as long as they benefit from profitable gains, while it is certainly damaging and harmful for cultural groups.

Unfortunately, although some roles exist for traditionally marginalized groups, tragically far too often, the portrayals are misrepresentations. For people of color, the entertainment and media industries often project stereotypical narratives. “The biggest problem is when you have negative stereotypes such as the thug, the pimp, the drug dealer, and that’s all you see and then all those types of roles are played by people of color” (Burgin 2018). Hollywood tends to repeat patterns of having white actors portray every race/ethnicity and culture. “One of the reasons for this might be that when there are roles for non-white actors, they still get played by white people” (Vox 2016). Industries tend to push prominent white actors at the forefront by whitewashing roles, for example, with Angelina Jolie playing an Afro-Chinese-Cuban in  A Mighty Heart , Emma Stone in  Aloha  as a part Hawaiian and Chinese character, or Tom Cruise in  Edge of Tomorrow  playing what was supposed to be a Japanese character (Sharf 2017). Misrepresentations cause an accumulation of negative effects. If there’s a failure to represent, there’s a danger of inaccurately portraying society. As African American filmmaker and screenwriter, Aaron Rahsaan Thomas, shared in a 2018 interview:

The term, misrepresentation, tends to be subjectively defined, depending on how the source views representation, its intention and how things should be presented. However, the lack of inclusion from diverse voices in storytelling tends to limit the possibilities of what stories might be told. The craft itself is therefore limited from reaching its potential and tends to encourage a narrower worldview as stories are shared across cultures. Finally, the lack of inclusion sends a hostile message, whether intended or not, that other voices are not valued or welcome to join the conversation.

Undeniably, filmmakers and news outlets do ignore the voices of marginalized groups; thus, these decisions result in damaging psychological effects. Across these groups, many of these people inevitably start to internalize the misrepresentations and start to believe the false realities. Disabled groups, for example, are tired of the continuous storylines that showcase them as sad and suffering characters to be pitied (Clark 2016). That cliche storyline dangerously glorifies and champions the allure of suicide for a higher purpose (Clark 2016). As a further illustration, the LGBTQ communities also suffer from single, stale, stereotypical narratives that can jeopardize healthy self-image. Unfortunately, “Too often, the few LGBT characters that make it to the big screen are the target of a punchline or token characters. It usually categorizes all of the LGBT people into just lesbian and gay” (Anderson 2016). Not seeing oneself is mentally and physically damaging, especially for young children. Young people are yearning to figure out their identities and Hollywood and media industries play a high role in affirming their views. As Burgin reminds, “What we see on screen dictates much of what we believe in real life. If you want the youth to have a positive view of themselves, then they should see themselves on screen being presented in a positive light, it makes a difference” (2018). Without accurate representation, there is the tragic erasure of the beautiful multifaceted society that exists in our world.

Positive results happen when diverse storytellers, actors, directors, and producers are involved both on-screen and behind the scenes. If there are not more diverse individuals who are included in the structures of power that disseminate the ideals through television and movies to the world, then nothing can change. It is statistically proven that more diverse films and stories through the media tend to perform better economically. “While minorities account for more than half of frequent US moviegoers, minority representation in films has dipped since 2013” (Guardian 2016). There is a long, pre-existing myth that inclusivity in Hollywood and the media will diminish box office sales or ratings. However, the rise of popular streaming services like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu are recognizing the demographics of audiences they can reach by incorporating diverse casts and creators. With more content creators behind the scenes working in the entertainment and media industries, accurate representation will increase and reflect society. For instance, the groundbreaking film  Black Panther  has defied all expectations and is proof that the public will support films featuring diverse people on and off-screen as it surpassed  Titanic  to become the third most successful film of all time in American history. Moreover, the film proved the power of how stories shape and dispel narratives, specifically across the globe, as  Black Panther  is the first film to be released in the highly restrictive culture of Saudi Arabia, in over 30 years (Jovanovic 2018). Furthermore, not only are there social effects of positive representation, there are substantial economic benefits too. Namely, “ Black Panther  generated $83.9 Million to Georgia’s economy and contributed over $26.5 million in wages to more than 3,100 workers across Georgia” (Deadline 2018). Marketing products like apparel, toys, and bedding accessories, just to name a few, are vastly being produced due to the film’s success. Larger benefits like the production of multiple sequel films and amusement theme parks are likely to attract billions of customers and generate billions of dollars. As more studios and executives hire diverse professionals such as journalists, anchors, actors, and directors, doors and opportunities for inclusion will finally open for the next generation of storytellers. When this ideal reaches fruition, individuals will be able to relish seeing an authentic mirroring of society.

The media has been historically, grossly irresponsible in their portrayals of people of color, women, LGBTQs and disabled persons. The depictions range from showing these groups in stereotypical lights to being virtually nonexistent. People feel validated and a sense of worth by seeing themselves reflected on screen. The integration of diverse filmmakers, directors, actors, and executives into the entertainment and media industries must increase. In order to eradicate the pattern of excluding diversity, inclusion, and misrepresentation, marginalized groups must gain access and have a voice in shaping culture.

Article iii:

 representation is everything.

Papcun, M. (2022, March 25).  Representation is everything.  The Daily Campus. https://dailycampus.com/2022/03/25/representation-is-everything/

Representation is one of the most important aspects of media, yet it is simultaneously where most media today is lacking. In general, we can think of  representation  as how media texts present to their audience different demographics, including gender, age, sexual orientation, race and religion, among others. And in Western media, many demographics are therefore  underrepresented , including women, people of color, LGBTQIA+ people, people of non-Christian religions, and people with body types other than thin.

It seems really simple to say that of course we want to see ourselves represented accurately in the media we consume. However, this is not reality. Hollywood is extremely white and male. And this leads the media produced by Hollywood to also be extremely white and male. While this is not to say that Hollywood is the only producer of media, all media will inherently have traces of the society and culture that created it, and is thus reflective of said society.

Looking at the statistical side of things can paint a better picture of the lack of representation for marginalized groups in the media. UCLA’s 2021 diversity  report  states that only in 2020 did people of color and women nearly reach proportionate representation among film leads when compared to their white male counterparts.

Perhaps this is a great stride given the film industry’s historical lack of representation for people of color and women in film leads, but we should be better than this overall. And behind the camera the statistics are worse. The report explains that people of color remained only 25.4% and 25.9% of film directors and film writers in 2020, respectively. Similarly, in 2020 women only accounted for 20.5% of film directors and 26% of film writers.

Interestingly enough, the same 2021 diversity report from UCLA found that films where less than 11% of the cast represented minority groups performed the poorest among global box office receipts in 2020. Thus, it is not a stretch to say that audiences want to see diverse casting in films created by diverse groups of people. We have made strides overall, but there is still a long way to go.

Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund, states in Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s 2011 documentary “Miss Representation,” “You can’t be what you can’t see.” It’s one of the standout quotes of the film, essentially meaning that audiences need to see people like themselves on screen and in positions of power to best understand that they can achieve similar things. The argument is not that you need an exact blueprint to “break the mold” so to speak and become something amazing. However, it is true that people need to have some idea or a glimpse into a reality where it can be done. Hence, the importance of representation of all demographics in the media is tenfold.

This is not just a rallying cry to diversity the numbers on paper. Overall, Hollywood and other types of media need to look more representative of America’s real population so they are true to the real world. Representation needs to exist, and it needs to be positive.

This requires characters being fully developed, rather than two-dimensional caricatures based on harmful stereotypes. For example, in order to have a positive effect, LGBTQIA+ representation needs to be more than  Pixar  placing an undefined lesbian couple briefly in “Finding Dory” in 2016. In this case, it should look more like  Officer Specter  in Pixar’s 2020 film “Onward,” who briefly mentions having a same-sex partner without it being a big deal or selling point of the movie.

Another good example would be the 2018 movie “ Crazy Rich Asians ”, which was the first film in 25 years to have a majority-Asian cast. “Crazy Rich Asians” is another step in the right direction, proving that a movie’s cast does not have to be mainly white for it to be a box-office success. Moreover, the characters in this movie are not based on offensive stereotypes, nor are they shallow or superficial.

Moreover, movies like the 2017 film “ Hidden Figures ”, that highlight the achievements of women and people of color in STEM fields, are additional examples of positive representation we should hope to see more of in our media consumption.

It’s not too much to ask for the media we consume on such a constant basis to be representative of the reality we live in. The world is diverse; our movies, television shows, books, magazines and video games should reflect this.

Article iv:

Why on-screen representation matters, according to these teens.

Elbaba, R. (2019, November 14).  Why on-screen representation matters, according to these teens. PBS. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/why-on-screen-representation-matters-according-to-these-teens

Why does representation in pop culture matter?

For some young students, portrayals of minorities in the media not only affect how others see them, but it affects how they see themselves.

“I do think it’s powerful for people of a minority race to be represented in pop culture to really show a message that everybody has a place in this world,” said Alec Fields, a junior at Forest Hills High School in Pennsylvania.

Fields was one of 144 middle and high school students who were interviewed about seeing themselves reflected — or not — on the screen. PBS NewsHour turned to our Student Reporting Labs from across the country to hear what students had to say a topic that research shows still has room for growth.

The success of recent films like “Black Panther” and “Crazy Rich Asians” have — again — sent a message about the importance of representation of minorities, not only in Hollywood but in other aspects of pop culture as well.

Only two out of every 10 lead film actors (or 19.8 percent) were people of color in 2017, this year’s  UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report  found. Still, that’s a jump from the year before, when people of color accounted for 13.9 percent of lead roles. People of color have yet to reach proportional representation within the film industry, but there have been gains in specific areas, including film leads and overall cast diversity.

According to  2018 U.S. Census Bureau estimates , the nation’s population is nearly 40 percent non-white. By 2055, the country’s racial makeup is expected to change dramatically, the U.S. will not have one racial or ethnic majority group by 2055, the  Pew Research Center estimated .

Some students said that not seeing yourself represented in elements of pop culture can affect mental health.

“It just makes you feel like, ‘Why don’t I see anybody like me?’ [It] kind of like brings your self-esteem down,” said Kimore Willis, a junior at Etiwanda High School in California.

Others said they often look to trends in pop culture when forming their own identities.

“We need to see people that look like ourselves and can say, ‘Oh, that looks like me!’ or ‘I identify with that,’” said Sonali Chhotalal, a junior at Cape May Technical High School in New Jersey.

Others, however, feel that Hollywood is overcompensating for their lack of diversity by depicting exaggerated and stereotypical characters.

Eric Wojtalewicz from Black River Falls High School in Wisconsin said that he sees a lot of gay characters that seem “over-the-top,” playing on old tropes. “I definitely think that not all gays are like that,” he said.

Kate Casper, a junior at T.C. Williams High School in Virginia, called Hollywood’s attempt at diversity “disingenuous.” Although there can never be enough diversity, Casper said, she feels that the entertainment industry is using diversity for economic benefit. “Diversity equals money in today’s world, which is cool, I guess,” she said, adding that “it’s cooler to have pure motives.”

The  UCLA report  agrees that diversity sells. It says that the median global box office has been the highest for films featuring casts that were more than 20-percent minority, making nearly $450 million in 2017.

Although public opinion  may be divided  about whether the entertainment industry is doing enough to represent all types of people, South Mountain High School student Dazhane Brown in Arizona said that feeling represented is “empowering.”

“If you see people who look like you and act like you and speak like you and come from the same place you come from … it serves as an inspiration,” Brown said.

PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs produced this story in an effort to highlight the importance of representation of minorities in popular culture. Students from 31 Labs across the country submitted these responses.

Why Seeing Yourself Represented on Screen Is So Important

Lawson, K. (2018, February 20).  Why seeing yourself represented on screen is so important.  Vice. https://www.vice.com/en/article/zmwq3x/why-diversity-on-screen-is-important-black-panther

Last year, researchers at USC Annenberg published their annual  report  on diversity—or, really, the lack thereof—in Hollywood. One again, they wrote, their findings “suggest that exclusion is the norm rather than the exception in Hollywood.”

And then  Black Panther —with its virtually all-black cast, fantastic representation of strong women, African setting, and nuanced characters and storylines—happened. For a brief two hours, our superhero is T’Challa, an African king hailing from a technologically advanced country who uses his superhuman strength to protect his people and their way of life. He’s surrounded by fierce women, including Shuri, his brilliant engineer/princess little sister; Okoye, the general who’s loyal to her country but is also someone’s beloved; and Nakia, the love of his life, a humanitarian, and a spy.

Stacy Smith, one of the authors of the diversity in Hollywood report,  tweeted  her congrats to the movie’s producers, adding, “There is more to be done but this weekend is a giant leap forward.”

The  record-breaking  response at the box office to the Marvel/Disney film, not to mention the surrounding social media flurry and subsequent thinkpieces, reveal just how hungry audiences are for stories like  Black Panther —stories that center those who are sorely underrepresented in mass media.

On Monday, former First Lady Michelle Obama offered some insight on the film’s cultural impact,  tweeting : “Congrats to the entire #blackpanther team! Because of you, young people will finally see superheroes that look like them on the big screen. I loved this movie and I know it will inspire people of all backgrounds to dig deep and find the courage to be heroes of their own stories.”

As Obama noted, representation matters. Carlos Cortes, a historian who wrote the book  The Children Are Watching: How the Media Teach About Diversity , offered an important example in  a 1987 article of what happens when it’s lacking: During an episode of the game show The $25,000 Pyramid, he wrote, two contestants linked the word “gangs” with East LA. Why? Because of the way mass media operates. When the only portrayals audiences see of minority characters are negative—in this case, he was talking about Latino gangs in East LA that were featured prominently by news media—those portrayals transcend to public image, he noted.

“First, whether intentionally or unintentionally, both the news and the entertainment media ‘teach’ the public about minorities, other ethnic groups and societal groups, such as women, gays, and the elderly,” Cortes wrote. “Second, this mass media curriculum has a particularly powerful educational impact on people who have little or no direct contact with members of the groups being treated.”

He continued: “Minorities realize—supported by research—that the media influence not only how others view them, but even how they view themselves.”

Sadly, little has changed since the 80s. A  2011 study conducted by The Opportunity Agenda found that black males in media are usually portrayed negatively, limited to a handful of “positive” stereotypes, painted as flat characters, or missing altogether. (Last year’s USC Annenberg report, for example, found that a quarter of the 900 movies analyzed didn’t have even one speaking or named black character.) Audiences—especially those with little exposure to those outside of their community—typically equate these limited, and harsh, media representations with the real world. That, in turn, can lead to “less attention from doctors to harsher sentencing by judges, lower likelihood of being hired for a job or admitted to school, lower odds of getting loans, and a higher likelihood of being shot by police,” the authors write.

The report also found that black males themselves were impacted by these media portrayals: “Negative media stereotypes (thugs, criminals, fools, and the disadvantaged) are demoralizing and reduce self-esteem and expectations,” they write, adding that they can also create stress and “drain cognitive resources in some contexts.”

A  2012 study  looking at representation on TV and its impact on children’s self-esteem had similar findings. In a survey of almost 400 black and white boys and girls, researchers found that the only demographic that didn’t experience lower self-esteem after watching TV was white boys. They pointed to racial stereotypes and the way black characters were portrayed as one explanation: “Black male characters are disproportionately shown as buffoons, or as menacing and unruly youths, and Black female characters are typically shown as exotic and sexually available,” the authors wrote. The TV portrayals of white boys, on the other hand, were “quite positive in nature.”

That’s why  Black Panther —whose only two white characters serve to move the story along—is so important. Danai Gurira, the actress who portrayed General Okoye Gurira in  Black Panther , told  IndieWire  she hopes the film will especially empower young girls. “Even if it’s a mindset of hers being shifted or a realization of how to experience and express her own ferocity and femininity,” Gurira said. “Those sort of things, that sort of impact, if little girls have that and have images now to refer to that are cool and empowered and hip, that they can say, ‘Listen, I don’t have to fall into anyone else’s ideology of what I can be,’ that’s everything. That’s just everything.”

Article vi:

Why representation matters in kids’ media.

Rogers, O. (2021, October 20).  Why representation matters in kids’ media. Common Sense. https://www.commonsensemedia.org/kids-action/articles/why-representation-matters-in-kids-media

Our new report highlights the instrumental role media can play in kids’ understanding of race and ethnicity.

The media we consume has a profound influence on how we see, understand, and treat people, both those within and different from our own race or ethnicity. Decades of research into how ethnic-racial representation in media affects adults has shown that very influential messages are communicated about who a culture views as “normal” and “good” or “different” and “bad.” And those representations have real-world implications as we continue to engage with media over time. For kids, media representations may be even more meaningful as they look for cues in their social environment to develop and shape their understanding of ethnic-racial groups.

Our latest report at Common Sense, “ The Inclusion Imperative: Why Media Representation Matters for Kids’ Ethnic-Racial Development, ” looks at current research into the impact of media on how kids build their understanding of race and ethnicity, as well as perspectives from parents and caregivers on how they use media as a tool to teach acceptance and inclusion. Our review integrated over 150 different journal articles, book chapters, reports, and other academic sources to get the best available understanding of how media can influence children’s ethnic-racial development. Here is what we learned:

Screen media continues to fall short on its portrayal of diverse races and ethnicities.

Our report reinforces that people of color are underrepresented in movie and TV roles across platforms, and when they are represented, they’re often stereotyped. For example, despite being 18% of the population, Latinos only make up 5% of speaking film roles. Characters of color in shows most watched by children age 2 to 13 are more likely to be depicted as violent, and women of all ethnic-racial groups in adult programming are more likely to appear in sexualized roles.

Parents and caregivers agree that the media their kids are watching still largely contains stereotypes of people of color. Most feel that White people are often portrayed in a positive light in the media their children are exposed to; one in four believe that portrayals of Black, Hispanic, and LGBTQIA+ people are more likely to be negative. And among families of color, feelings about current stereotypes in kids’ media are even stronger.

You can’t understand the effects of media on children’s understanding of race and ethnicity without understanding their development.

Importantly, our report shows the importance of considering media as part of children’s development, and specifically their ethnic-racial development. From the time they’re babies, children are taking in information about ethnicity and race from the people, images, and interactions around them. These experiences inform how children feel about, evaluate, and understand ethnicity-race for themselves and others. Understanding what children know about ethnicity-race at different ages can illuminate the kinds of media that may meaningfully affect them.

Media representation is important to how kids build their perspectives on their own ethnic-racial group, as well as that of others.

Our review of available research reinforced the idea that media can have both positive and negative impacts on kids’ ethnic-racial development. On the negative side, stereotypical portrayals of people of color can promote harmful views about and responses to people of color among White audiences. For example, heavy exposure to the stereotypic portrayals of Latinos on entertainment television is associated with increased belief that these representations are accurate reflections of Latinos in society. Exposure to negative representations can also negatively affect children’s future professional aspirations and undermine their sense of self.

But while exposure to negative media depictions of their own ethnic-racial groups can undermine children’s sense of self, high-quality children’s media can promote positive ethnic-racial attitudes and interactions. For example, among Black elementary school girls, exposure to liked Black TV characters is associated with more positive feelings about their own status, appearance, and happiness. And studies going back decades have shown that programs like Sesame Street and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood can have positive effects on children’s feelings about their own ethnic-racial group and on interracial relationships.

Adults want more from the media their kids watch.

In a nationally representative survey of over 1,100 parents and caregivers of children from 2 to 12 years old, they repeatedly told us that they believe media is a valuable tool to help their kids understand race and ethnicity. They’re looking to media creators to deliver content that better reflects the diversity of the world their kids are growing up in.

They want realistic, non stereotypical representations of their own culture. About six in ten parents (57%) say it is important for their children to see people of their own ethnicity/race in the media they consume. But it’s most important to Black parents, 75% of whom say representation is important. Also, 70% of parents want media that exposes children to more about their family’s culture, religion, or lifestyle.

They want stories that are inspirational and aspirational. About two in three parents (65%) feel that media has a big impact on their children’s professional aspirations, which underscores the importance of providing positive role models for Black, indigenous, and children of color.

They want diversity because it teaches acceptance and inclusion. Almost 6 in 10 (57%) parents say that the media their child consumes has prompted conversations about diversity, and 63% of parents believe that media has an impact on the information children have about people of other races, ethnicities, religions, and cultures

What comes next?

Parents and caregivers are looking for realistic, three-dimensional representations of diverse races and ethnicities that aren’t rife with stereotypes or cookie-cutter portrayals. The  new rating for diverse representations from Common Sense Media  will help families identify quality media that elevates quality portrayals and inclusion. Content creators have a responsibility to improve diversity and elevate inclusion in the media they’re creating for young audiences — even for the youngest viewers. They also have an incredible opportunity to use their power to tell the types of stories that will help us all shape the world we want to live in.

Dana Mastro, Ph.D., professor of communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is a co-author of this blog and the report.

Michael B. Robb, Ph.D., senior director of research at Common Sense, and Alanna Peebles, Ph.D., assistant professor of communication, media, and technology at San Diego State University are also co-authors of this report.

Article vii:

The importance of diversity in images.

Campaign Monitor. (2021, April 6).  The importance of diversity in images. https://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/email-marketing/diverse-images-brand-value/

Most marketers and organization leaders would agree that diversity and inclusion matter for company performance.  Statistics reveal  that the more diverse a company is, the better its profitability.

But beyond profitability,  diversity in marketing  is important, affecting how consumers perceive a brand and possibly even how they perceive themselves and others.

For this reason, it’s crucial that marketers prioritize diversity in their campaigns, especially when it comes to the images they use.

What does diversity in images mean?

It’s important to have a complete, nuanced understanding of diversity, especially as it applies to choosing images for your marketing and branding.

A common myth  is that diversity refers exclusively to diversity of race and gender. However, while diverse race and gender are certainly a part of true diversity, it expands beyond that. True diversity in images includes representation from people of different races, gender identity, socio-economic status, age, disability, sexual orientation, culture, and more.

More than mere representation, diversity also requires  showing individuals as humans first  — rather than a representation of a group. That is, recognizing difference without implying that anyone is superior or inferior to anyone else.

This also includes avoiding tokenization. As  Vanderbilt University defines it , tokenization is “the practice of doing something (such as hiring a person who belongs to a minority group) only to prevent criticism and give the appearance that people are being treated fairly.”

With this definition in mind, we can now explore why it’s important to have diversity in your images.

Problems with non-diverse images in digital marketing

Images in marketing, media, and advertising have implications beyond the brand itself. These images shape our culture’s perception of reality, of what’s “normal” and what’s not.

When images lack diversity (showing, perhaps, only one person among many who is not white, able-bodied, thin, young, straight, and cis-gendered), the effects are far-reaching.

As Jenny Dorsey and Addy Zou recently wrote in  Studio ATAO , “People with marginalized identities are taught from an early age that there is room for only one of their kind in any given space.”

Let’s take a closer look at why non-diverse images are harmful.

Doesn’t accurately reflect reality

The United States is becoming  more culturally diverse every day , yet diversity is still lagging in marketing imagery. The majority of marketing doesn’t accurately reflect the reality of the diversity of the North American population.

And this lack of diversity in marketing extends beyond race, ethnicity, and culture. For example,  15% of the world population has a disability , but people with disabilities are portrayed in only  2% of media images .

Similarly, though data shows that searches for transgender representation in stock photo websites  has starkly increased , only  three  photos on top stock image websites showed transgender people engaging in everyday activities the way cisgendered people are shown. Instead, the top image results did not show the face of the person at all.

Statistics like these reveal a common theme in marketing images: White, able-bodied, thin, young, straight, and cisgendered people are over-represented, while others are underrepresented or are tokenized (or both).

Perpetuates stereotypes and impacts individuals

Lack of diversity in marketing and media images has real-life consequences for everyone observing them — which is nearly every member of our society.

Theories suggest  stereotypes are formed based on a collective observation of everyday life. And since Americans spend an average of  3-4 hours per day looking at TV or smart phones , much of our observations are dictated by representation there.

In other words, what we see in marketing and media shapes how we view the world and the people inside it. If marketing and media images lack diversity, perpetuate stereotypes, or tokenize individuals, many of us will internalize those ideas as indicative of reality.

As to how this affects lives, we can look to a  recent study that found  the self-esteem of girls and Black children of both genders decreases as TV consumption increases, but the reverse is true for white male children. The researchers concluded that  how and how often  your demographic is represented in the media directly impacts how you feel about yourself.

White male children, frequently shown images of heroes that look like them (think: Superman, Batman, Luke Skywalker), may internalize that confidence. Conversely, girls and children of color, with  half as many positive images  in the media, may internalize the idea that they are not as valuable or capable.

Audiences want to see more diversity

It’s very likely that your consumer base desires to see diversity in your marketing.

A Google survey  revealed that diverse marketing directly leads to more clicks, engagement,  and sales. In fact, 64% of respondents reported taking an action on an ad specifically because they thought the ad was inclusive or diverse. And this percentage was even higher among minority groups: 85% Latinx, 79% Black, 79% Asian/Pacific islander, 85% LGBTQ respondents reported taking an action on an ad because it was diverse.

Another survey  found that “nearly 80 percent of consumers globally said they expect that brands demonstrate a consistent commitment to inclusivity and diversity in their advertising.”

Importantly, this survey uncovered that the majority of consumers are sophisticated in their understanding of diversity — they see through surface-level tokenism and prefer a thoughtful approach to diversity and inclusion.

Diverse images in your marketing are likely to improve the effectiveness of your marketing, and less-diverse images may therefore diminish the effectiveness of your marketing.

How to include diverse images in your marketing

It’s clear that marketers should prioritize diversity in their images. However, as we’ve seen, diverse images go beyond simply including non-white people in your photoshoots or stock images.

Here are some strategies for making sure your images are truly diverse:

Don’t perpetuate stereotypes

Including diverse subjects isn’t enough. Images should also not reinforce a stereotypical version of the subject.

With Vice’s release of the  Gender Spectrum Collection  of stock images, the media company outlined a helpful guide for how to ensure images don’t perpetuate stereotypes:

“Understanding the stereotypes and tropes that have accompanied transgender media representation—such as trans subjects being cast only as sex workers, portrayed solely in states of apparent victimhood or crisis, and being characterized as deceptive and mentally unstable—can help you to avoid them. If your usage of one of these photos could feed into a stereotype or negative stigma, you probably shouldn’t use it.”

Though this statement refers to the trans community, the principle can be applied to every aspect of diversity and inclusion:  Understand the stereotypes of how different groups have historically been portrayed, and then take care to not choose images that reflect the stereotype. 

For example, portraying a disabled person in a hospital gown or with a sad, lonely expression reinforces the stereotype that  disabled people are tragic anomalies  incapable of a healthy and happy existence. The  image below  is an example of one such stereotypical stock image:

Instead, opt for an image that portrays a disabled person as they exist in reality, as happy, social, and productive members of society, just as able-bodied people. The image below from our Free Image Gallery, is a great example of an image that does not perpetuate negative stereotypes:

Think critically about image context

Part of true diversity in images involves the context of the subject.

It’s important to choose images that show subjects in a variety of settings or real-life scenes (at a restaurant, at work, with friends, etc.) rather than posed and non-contextual (in front of a blank wall, face blurred, alone, etc.).

Additionally, be mindful about tokenization or implied superiority. Often, tokenization in images looks like having a homogeneous group of people, with one different person as an attempt to not be so homogenous. Implied superiority often looks like featuring minorities as background characters in the scene rather than the main focus.

For example, the  image below  is not a truly diverse image: It shows a group of white, young, cis-gendered, and able-bodied people engaging in a discussion at work, while one person of color looks on in the background.

By contrast,  this image  shows a more diverse workplace setting: The group includes a variety of different races, genders, and ages, and no one is portrayed as inferior to anyone else.

Create a documented strategy for diverse and inclusive marketing

Diversity does not start or stop at choosing diverse images for your marketing; it should go all the way down into the core of your marketing strategy.

This not only makes it easier to spot and select truly diverse images, but it also helps avoid the pitfalls of tokenism or stereotyping (which consumers will see through).

What does a documented strategy for diverse and inclusive marketing look like?

To start, it means creating target audience personas that aren’t homogenous, ensuring your marketing team is diverse and inclusive, and making diversity a core value of your organization.

Questions to consider before creating or selecting an image

Once you’re ready to select an image for your next campaign, it can be helpful to have a checklist to refer to. Here are the questions we recommend you ask before choosing an image:

• Who is missing or excluded?
• Would I want to be portrayed this way?
• If this was a photo of me or someone I love, would I be okay with how they are represented?
• Are any stereotypes being perpetuated in the photo I am using?
• Am I depicting someone in the role our culture typically puts them in or making a more unexpected choice?
• Can everyone who might view the photo see someone like themselves represented in it?

Asking these questions helps you be mindful of diversity when creating or choosing your marketing images.

Diversity in marketing is a must to help your audience feel seen and safe in your online spaces. Additionally, diversity in marketing also reflects the diversity of your company on a deeper level, which is vital to your revenue and company performance.

Though diversity in your marketing doesn’t begin and end with your images, having diverse images is a clear way to signal to consumers that your organization holds diversity and inclusion as a core value.

To make it easier to gather diverse images, Campaign Monitor has created a Free Image Gallery of diverse and inclusive stock images right inside your email builder.

Article viii:

Why it matters that you’re seeing more lgbtq+ people onscreen.

Middleton, L. (n.d.).  Why it matters that you’re seeing more LGBTQ+ people onscreen.  Pocket. https://getpocket.com/collections/why-it-matters-that-youre-seeing-more-lgbtq-people-onscreen?utm_source=pocket-newtab

TO BE UPDATED

Article ix:

Explainer – should non-lgbtq+ actors play trans or gay characters.

Greenhalgh, H. (2023, February 6).  EXPLAINER – Should non-LGBTQ+ actors play trans or gay characters? Openly. https://www.openlynews.com/i/?id=a4668c87-1a38-4541-9650-100776a81a8b&utm_source=pocket_collection_story

​Nick Offerman’s portrayal of a gay man in ‘The Last of Us’ has fueled debate over whether straight actors should play LGBTQ+ roles

• Controversy as actor Nick Offerman plays gay man
• Critics say non-LGBTQ+ castings a blow to equality
• Others cite gay, trans actors in straight, cisgender roles

By Hugo Greenhalgh

LONDON, Feb 6 (Openly) – LGBTQ+ fans of “The Last of Us” are split over the casting of Nick Offerman as a gay character in the hit TV series, reigniting a long-running debate over whether straight or non-transgender actors should play gay or trans roles.

“Nick Offerman is the only straight man I’m okay with being cast as a gay character. He is the exception to the rule,” one viewer tweeted after the third episode of the HBO/Sky series, which features two men, including Offerman’s character, falling in love.

Critics say casting straight actors in LGBTQ+ roles deprives gay, bisexual and trans actors of opportunities to appear on screen and stage as characters they are best placed to represent.

Others point to the many LGBTQ+ actors who play straight characters, arguing that the mark of a talented actor is the ability to convincingly portray a wide range of different characters – regardless of their sexuality or gender identity.

Here’s what you need to know about the debate:

What is the controversy about?

Influential figures in the arts and some LGBTQ+ rights campaigners have spoken out about straight or cisgender – non-trans – actors playing gay or trans parts.

Accepting his 2016 Emmy for playing a trans woman in Amazon series “Transparent”, actor Jeffrey Tambor told the audience, “I would not be unhappy were I the last cisgender male to play a transgender character on television.”

Leading British TV writer Russell T Davies, who won plaudits recently for the 1980s AIDS drama “It’s A Sin”, said in 2021 he was “going to war” over the issue of straight actors playing gay characters, which he says deprives LGBTQ+ actors of opportunities.

“It is not a fair playing field,” Davies  told the New York Times . “The equality notion is based on 50% this way, 50% that way. But 90% of actors are straight and 10% of parts are gay.”

But many actors say playing someone different is the essence of their profession, pointing to the wealth of LGBTQ+ actors, from Elliot Page to Jodie Foster and Matt Bomer, playing straight or non-trans roles.

The Oscars have frequently recognised heterosexual and non-trans actors for playing LGBTQ+ roles.

They include Tom Hanks for “Philadelphia”, Hilary Swank playing a trans man in “Boys Don’t Cry” and Rami Malek for portraying Queen’s lead singer Freddie Mercury in “Bohemian Rhapsody”.

What does Hollywood say?

Following increased scrutiny over the issue in recent years, greater consideration is now being paid to hiring LGBTQ+ performers, and actors have sometimes turned down roles in response to criticism.

A few years ago, Oscar-winner Halle Berry  pulled out  of a trans film role.

Others come prepared for questions if they accept roles portraying people from sexual or gender minorities.

Oscar-nominated star Viggo Mortensen, who played a gay man in his directorial debut “Falling”,  told Openly  in 2020 that actors are actors – whether playing gay characters or anyone else whose life experiences are different to their own.

“I apologise to all the proctologists for casting David Cronenberg,” Mortensen said of his decision to cast the renowned Canadian director as a colorectal surgeon in the film.

Are there similar debates for other minority groups?

Today, no casting director would hire a white actor to play a person of colour, but in the past it was common.

Infamously, British star Laurence Olivier adopted “blackface” makeup in the 1965 film “Othello”, which is now banned in many schools in both the United States and Britain.

It remains common for non-disabled actors to pick up roles as disabled characters, though some campaigners say that should also be challenged.

Speaking with Openly in 2020, the directors of a British film about a love affair between two teenagers, one of whom has Down’s syndrome, called for more honest  media portrayals of disability .

“You’re still seeing actors portraying people with disabilities that don’t have a disability,” said Lloyd Eyre-Morgan.

“Yet there are so many brilliant actors out there that do have a disability and they’re not getting a look in.”

Related stories:

Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry apologizes for considering trans role

‘They can love’: UK film focuses on untold story of LGBT+ disabled teens

‘Lord of the Rings’ actor Viggo Mortensen defends decision to play gay role

(Reporting by Hugo Greenhalgh @hugo_greenhalgh; Editing by Helen Popper. Please credit Openly, the LGBTQ+ news website from the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters. Visit  https://www.openlynews.com )

Openly is an initiative of the Thomson Reuters Foundation dedicated to impartial coverage of LGBT+ issues from around the world.

Our Standards:  The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles .​

CS 050: College Writing Media Theme Copyright © by Confederation College Communications Department and Paterson Library Commons is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Representation of Diversity in Media – Overview

Media representation issues

What we see – and don’t see – in media affects how we view reality. Media works can be imagined either as mirrors that reflect an audience’s own experience, windows that give them access to experiences they otherwise wouldn’t have known, or in some cases both. Rosemary Truglio, Senior Vice President of Sesame Workshop, described the diverse cast of Sesame Street as giving children “a mirror for them to see themselves, and (…) a window for them to learn about others." [1]

Sesame Street was a milestone in representation of race and disability in children’s media.

Media portrayals may provide different audiences with mirrors but not windows, or vice-versa, and a lack of either can have a negative impact. For members of historically under-represented groups, “when you have never seen yourself in books or movies or music, the first time you do is stunning.” [2] Similarly, “for children from dominant groups, window moments in stories come when the children realize they hold a powerful place in society and that there is something unjust about this.” [3] Unfortunately, fewer than half of Canadians feel that “Canadian media is a mirror in which all Canadians can see themselves.” [4]

In mass media, these issues typically play out in three ways:

Under-representation : Many groups have historically been under-represented in media. Even today, we are less likely to encounter many forms of diversity in mass media than we are in real life – and diverse communities are typically even less well-represented behind the scenes than onscreen. Under-representation can also make other representation issues worse because less representation means fewer opportunities for authentic representations of diversity within a group.

Besides being simply under-represented, groups may also be de-centred. That means making them or their culture a backdrop for more “mainstream” (e.g. White, abled, cisgender, etc.) protagonists. In some cases this may take the form of having a White character that excels in skills associated with a non-White culture, such as martial arts; stories where characters from under-represented groups need a White or other majority-culture character to “save” them; [5] and cases where aspects of an under-represented culture literally act as a prop. [6]

Stereotyping : This means portraying members of a particular group in just one or a small number of roles. This is particularly worrying when the stereotype is a negative one, but stereotyping can also do harm by only portraying a group in a narrow way. Even so-called “positive stereotypes” can have a negative effect because they limit how we see members of that group, as well as how we see ourselves. For example, if you belong to a group that is stereotyped as being good at sports, but are not particularly athletic, you may feel inadequate for being bad at something you’re “supposed” to be good at.

Another form of stereotyping is exoticizing , emphasizing the ways in which a character or culture are different from the (presumed) audience’s: for instance by overemphasizing aspects of a culture that mainstream audiences are most likely to find strange or disturbing, or by relying on things like accents or stereotyped characteristics for humour. Its most extreme form is othering , in which groups are shown as being fundamentally different from the audience and, in some cases, even as not being fully human.

Stereotyping can also happen when diverse identities always play the same role in the story. Author Corinne Duyvis identifies three ways that a character’s identity may be part of a work: “issue” stories where the identity and the challenges that come with it are what the story is about; “incidental” stories where a character’s identity is apparent but not relevant to the story, such as the main character’s sexual orientation in the Disney film Strange World, which provides a romantic subplot but is never specifically commented on; and “middle ground” stories where the identity is not the focus of the story but is recognized as always being relevant . As Duyvis puts it, “ableism, homophobia, and racism influence countless aspects of people’s everyday lives.” None of these is necessarily better than the other: what is most important is that audiences see all three kinds of stories, so that while marginalized communities’ specific issues and challenges are reflected in media they are also allowed to simply be . [7]

Whitewashing : While it has become rare for White actors to play Black or Asian characters, it remains common for disabled people, 2SLGBTQ+ people and other groups to be played by actors from outside those communities. Similarly, when works are adapted from one medium to another – such as when a book or comic is made into a movie or TV show – it is still fairly common for diverse characters to be changed into White ones, or for characters’ sexual orientation or disabilities to be downplayed or altered.

It’s important to point out that whitewashing only occurs when a character from a historically under-represented group is changed or recast so they are no longer part of that group, leading to reduced representation for that group and less diversity overall. For instance, the casting of a White actor to play an Asian character in the film Doctor Strange would count as whitewashing, while the casting of a Black actor to play a White character in the same film would not. [8]

These three issues are related, of course. Whitewashing contributes to both under-representation and stereotyping, as there are both fewer representations of historically under-represented groups in general and, in particular, fewer authentic representations. Similarly, under-representation contributes to and increases the impact of stereotypes because having fewer characters representing a particular group means fewer opportunities to show members of that group playing different roles in stories and in society.

For more examples of how these apply to different communities, see the specific articles on how each group is represented.

Impacts of media representation

All of these representation issues can have significant effects, both on audiences who are members of historically under-represented groups and those who aren’t. Seeing one’s own group stereotyped can lead to stress, negative self-image [9] and impaired academic achievement, [10] while being exposed to stereotyped portrayals of others can contribute to implicit or explicit prejudice. [11] Even more than changing individual attitudes, media portrayals – because they are seen as representing how others view a group – can have an impact on broader social attitudes towards different groups. [12] At the same time, exposure to authentic portrayals of oneself can improve self-esteem and promote a more positive view of one’s identity [13] or even improve academic performance, [14] while seeing authentic portrayals of other groups – which do not have to be uniformly positive ones [15] – can actually reduce prejudice. [16]

“Works of art are the only silver bullet we have against racism and sexism and hatred […] Art engenders empathy in a way that politics doesn’t, and in a way that nothing else really does. Art creates change in people’s hearts. But it happens slowly.” [17]   Lin-Manuel Miranda

There can be significant impacts if different groups are not represented behind the scenes, as well. In mass media, under-representation behind the scenes generally results in under-representation on the screen, but it can also contribute to stereotyping as the portrayals are less likely to be authentic. [18] In digital media, not having historically under-represented groups involved at the design and management levels can lead to their experiences and concerns being ignored or treated as afterthoughts.

For more examples of how these affect different communities, see the specific articles on how each group is represented.

Intersectionality

While the other articles in this section address media portrayals of different groups separately, it’s important to point out that for many people they are not experienced that way. Many people identify with more than one historically marginalized or under-represented group, particularly when gender is added to the equation. Legal scholar Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality” to conceptualize “the way that different identity markers, such as race, gender, sexuality, and class, interact and affect each other.” [19]

Intersectionality does not mean that the impacts of different identities (including stereotyping) simply add on to one another, but that they transform and sometimes conflict with one another. East Asian women are frequently hypersexualized in media, [20] for example, while for East Asian men the stereotype is often the reverse. [21] However, audiences tend to consider just one aspect of intersectional identities. [22] When the stereotypes associated with two identities conflict with one another, people who identify with both may face confusion [23] or even hostility [24] from others.

It’s important to consider intersectionality both when making media and when critiquing it. For media makers, “shows and movies that attempt to lift up marginalized communities without thinking about intersectionality are only perpetuating different systems of prejudice and oppression.” [25] As well, some intersections may be an easier “sell” than others, both to audiences and the media industry. While the title character of House M.D. (2004-2012) both had a physical disability and was an outspoken atheist, he was also White; conversely, the showrunner of the currently running (2022) series Abbott Elementary said of one character’s canonical but unseen agnosticism “I honestly don’t know if we would be able to present that on ABC. It may not seem a big deal, but for a Black girl in Philadelphia — there are very few agnostic people.” [26]

When critiquing media, we should consider not just whether individual characters are stereotyped but whether a broad range of diversity, including intersecting identities, is represented. [27] As well, we should make a point of recognizing authentic portrayals of intersectionality in media, such as Reservation Dogs and Hawkeye. Finally, taking an intersectional approach to media education means considering other digital media issues – from cyberbullying to advertising to digital access and privacy – through an intersectional lens: not assuming, for example, that only White youth suffer from body image issues, and giving all young people a chance to confront the distinct ways that those issues affect them. [28]

Maya Lopez from the Disney Plus series Hawkeye is Deaf and Indigenous, as is the actor who plays her, Alaqua Cox.

The importance of media education

Young people’s attitudes towards media representation changes over time. Children under nine don’t generally question whether what they see in media reflects their reality unless they are prompted to by parents or teachers. Tween and teens typically begin to become aware of media representation issues, especially if they are members of under-represented or stereotyped groups. By their later teens many actively seek out works with better representation. [29]

Media education can help young people put current images and messages into perspective by helping them understand how the media work, why stereotyping exists, how decisions are made and why it matters who is involved in making media works. Digital media literacy, especially if it explicitly addresses stereotyping and other media representation issues, can correct misperceptions of and prejudices towards other groups. [30] For young people who see stereotyped depictions of themselves in media works, media literacy can also mitigate negative effects on their self-esteem. [31]

Media education has also been shown to be an effective way of approaching issues like racism, providing a way of discussing difficult topics that feels safer while still challenging students’ assumptions and preconceptions [32] and can also help students affected by stereotyping deal with its effects. [33] Talking about media portrayals of diversity, especially positive ones, can also be a way of affirming students’ identities and encouraging them to create works that reflect those identities.

Positive portrayals don’t just avoid stereotyping, under-representation and the other issues identified above. They also:

• take the extra step of authentically portraying the challenges that members of under-represented communities face, such as racism or accessibility issues;
• tell stories of characters’ accommodations, resilience and agency in the face of those challenges; and
• show characters in the context of, and connected to, their communities. [34]

Media education is not about learning the right answers; it’s about consuming media images with an active, critical mind and asking the right questions.

Here are a few examples of the types of questions that could lead to a better understanding of how different groups are represented depicted in media:

Who selected or created these images and stories? Why does it matter who made these selections?

The first principle in media education is that nothing is objective—each and every media production is created with a viewpoint and for a purpose. The “reality” depicted in film or television productions is the result of many choices and each of these choices is based on the experience, knowledge and bias of the producers involved. More important than any conscious choices are the questions media makers don’t ask – the things they believe they already know. When members of historically marginalized groups are not involved in making shows, movies, news coverage or other media featuring them, it shows.

It’s also important to understand that media can have very different meanings depending on who made them, and that marginalized groups may “reclaim” stereotyped portrayals for their own purposes.

Whose voices are being heard? Whose voices are absent? Why?

Who is interviewed on a current affairs program? Which “experts” are chosen for sound bites on an issue? Whose perspectives are ignored completely? If characters or cultures representing a historically marginalized group are represented in a media text, have the creators of that text made significant efforts to consult with those communities, as Disney did when making Frozen II and Moana ? [35]

The question of whose voices are heard isn’t just important in mass media. While digital technology has made it easier than ever for people to make and share their own media, the online platforms where they share their work – whose ownership and workforce remain overwhelmingly White [36] – do not provide sufficient moderation and tools to push back against hate speech, they may fall silent in the face of online harassment. [37]

Why are certain stories selected or privileged and others not? Are some groups only represented in a small number of frames or contexts? Are characters representing diverse communities shown as real human beings in media, or are they defined exclusively by their identity? Do depictions respect differences and diversity within these communities?

Media producers, especially those in Hollywood, have used members of historically marginalized groups to tell mainstream cultures’ stories for generations. Rarely are diverse characters given complex personalities or autonomous roles. Rarely do they rely on their own values and judgements, or act upon their own motivations. Although efforts have been made to undo this tradition, old stereotypes die hard. [38]

This question highlights why it’s important not to look just as specific media works, but at the bigger picture. Each individual game, movie, or TV show with a White, non-disabled, cisgender, heterosexual, non-denominational Christian protagonist does not necessarily matter by itself, but when all of these are seen as the default identity for a main character it sends a powerful message about who can be the “main character” and who cannot.

How do commercial considerations, including the “conventional wisdom” in the industry, lead to issues around stereotyping and representation?

Commercial considerations are often given as a reason for excluding members of historically under-represented communities, whether explicitly (such as the assumption that White audiences won’t see movies with non-White leads) [39] or implicitly (by saying, for instance, that a movie needs a “big-name” lead to be successful – without saying out loud that most of those big names are White, non-disabled, heterosexual and cisgender). [40] While this industry conventional wisdom has been proven to be false, it’s still widely held. [41]

Characteristics of different media industries, in different countries, can also have an impact on whether diversity is represented. The Canadian television industry is often described as highly risk-averse, with licensing American shows seen as a safer bet than developing Canadian ones. As a result, when diversity does appear on private Canadian channels such as Global and CTV, it more often reflects the population of the United States than Canada’s. When private broadcasters do make original programming, they tend to play it safe – which usually means making shows aimed at White audiences. [42] As the report Deciding on Diversity puts it, “Risk narratives about equity-seeking stories and storytellers persist to preserve the status quo.” [43] Nathalie Younglai, founder of BIPOC TV and Film, paraphrases TV executives’ attitudes more bluntly: “How is this Canadian? How does someone in Saskatchewan relate to this?” [44]

Similarly, digital technology companies claim to be motivated by market pressures in deciding things like which languages digital assistants should be able to speak; this, too, often fails to hold true in the light of accurate data – Apple’s Siri, for instance, is offered in Finnish (which has about five million native speakers) but not Swahili (which has nearly a hundred million). [45]  

How can different audiences “read against” or negotiate the meaning of a work with representation issues?

Some audiences, especially those from groups that have traditionally been marginalized in media industries, may engage in “resistant reading,” interpreting works in ways that are directly contrary to the generally received meaning. Nevertheless, it is true that, as bell hooks put it, “While audiences are clearly not passive and are able to pick and choose, it is simultaneously true that there are certain ‘received’ messages that are rarely mediated by the will of the audience.” [46]

In other words, while we don’t automatically accept the surface meaning of media works, most of us will take away a meaning that is fairly close to it. Only a small number of people, mostly those whose identity or experience lead them to a resistant reading, will have a significantly different interpretation. Until members of these groups have more meaningful participation in the media industries, however, neither the portrayals nor the mainstream audience’s interpretation of them are likely to change.

Resistant reading is also easier in some media than others: in most video games, for instance, ‘resistant play’ – choosing actions other than the ones the designers assume you will take – will prevent you from progressing very far in the game. [47]

How may the codes and conventions of the medium and genre perpetuate stereotyping and representation issues?

Both different media (such as TV, film or video games) and different genres (science fiction, advertising, animation, et cetera) have their own codes and conventions that may lead media makers to fall into stereotyping or under-representation, often unconsciously. For example, both advertising and news (especially headlines) have to grab the audience’s attention right away and communicate information in a small amount of time. As a result they often use stereotypes as a kind of “shorthand” that allows the audience to fill in what they already know (or think they know). Similarly, animation and comics – and works in other media that are based on comic or cartoon characters – often have characters whose racist origins are still apparent, or for whom traits like facial scarring, prosthetic limbs or stereotypically Jewish features serve as visual markers of villainy.

Even when media works try to confront racism, homophobia and other issues, there may be fundamental features of certain media, like the episodic nature of news and the focus in fictional media on individual characters, that lead them to portray these primarily as something perpetrated by individuals and downplay their systemic qualities. [48]

How can digital tools and platforms give voice to historically marginalized communities? How may they contribute to marginalization?

Unlike traditional media, there are no one-way connections in digital media. You can share content with other people as easily as a producer or distributor shares it with you. As a result, the barriers to participation are much lower than in traditional media and anyone can publish content and find an audience. But while power in networks is not hierarchical, neither is it evenly distributed: it rests in the nodes with the most links. This means that those who had gatekeeping power in the old media environment have had their influence reduced, but not eliminated.

For instance, while online publishing has made it possible for historically under-represented groups to “restory themselves” by making versions of popular culture works that include and even centre their own experiences, [49] online platforms also have tremendous power to either promote or suppress the same voices through the algorithms that determine what is shown or recommended to users. [50] As the historian of science Melvin Kranzberg put it, different technologies are neither inherently good nor inherently bad, but neither are they neutral: [51] like mass media, they reflect the beliefs, unconscious biases and unquestioned assumptions of their creators.

As a result, the impacts that networked technology have had on historically under-represented groups are complex. Online spaces can provide diverse communities, especially those that are geographically far-flung, with an ‘ecosystem’ that would not be possible with traditional media; [52] at the same time, content moderation systems can apply censorship that is more absolute than was ever found in film and television, limiting the ability of marginalized youth to access relevant health information, [53] to monetize content that reflects their community [54] and even to speak the name of their identity. [55]

Technical tools have an impact on how we use them not just through their affordances (what can be done with them) but also their defaults (what we are expected to do with them). For example, one study of video games found that while 23 percent had affordances that allowed players to choose their character’s race, 60 percent of those defaulted to a White character unless the player actively changed it. [56] Whether or not members of diverse communities were involved in the design of those affordances and defaults may determine whether they work successfully when used in or by those communities: a review of facial algorithms found that they were at least ten times as likely to mis-identify a Black or East Asian face as a White one, [57] for example, and many digital assistants such as Siri and Alexa routinely misunderstand Black users. [58]

Networked media can also make it possible, or easier, for marginalized groups to experience harms that were not possible or less likely with traditional media. One of these is amplification: [59] for example, the frictionless quality of networked media allows hate groups to broadcast their messages more widely and to tailor them to potential audiences at different levels of the “radicalization pyramid.” Amplification does not only apply to intentional acts, though. It can also reflect a harm that already exists and make it more widespread by embedding it in the operation of a networked tool – for example, for many years Google searches for terms such as “Asian girls” and “Black girls” returned primarily pornographic results, reflecting how they were most often used in the wider internet, while “White girls” did not. [60] Questions as simple as who appears in an image search for “doctor” or “happy family” can have a huge impact on how different groups are perceived. [61]

A Google image search for “happy family” conducted in March 2022.

As with the other search terms mentioned above, Google has taken some positive steps in this regard as a result of consumer pressure. [62] This demonstrates why a key part of media education is empowering young people to make their voices heard through making and publishing their own media, as well as to push back against stereotypes and other misrepresentations in media and to use digital tools to make a difference in their online and offline communities.

• MediaSmarts lessons that teach students to make their voices heard through media making include Representing Ourselves Online , Avatars and Body Image , Bias in News Sources , First Person and Art Exchange .
• MediaSmarts’ guide Talk Back! How to Take Action on Media Issues explains the rules and codes that apply to different media industries on issues such as stereotyping and representation and includes some advice on how to use social networks to speak out on a media issue.
• Speak Up! Your Guide to Changing the World, Online and Off explains how to use digital tools like social networks to share your views and organize others in making change.

How can educators limit resistance and backlash when addressing diversity in media?

Two of the most common risks of addressing diversity representation in media are resistance – in which students challenge the validity of media education as practice, such as by dismissing the work under study as “just an ad” or suggesting that the teacher is reading meaning into a work that isn’t there – and backlash , in which students feel the teacher is pushing their own views or interpretations, rather than encouraging students to articulate and argue their own.

One way of minimizing these is having young people explore questions, such as the ones listed above, rather than leading them towards a pre-ordained conclusion. While it is important to make them aware of the facts of representation in media, conclusions about the implications of those facts – and appropriate responses – should emerge from critical thinking and discussion.

Another important approach is to help students understand the key concept that all media have social and political implications – and that when they appear not to, it’s because they reinforce how you already see the world. Similarly, while we may be tempted to dismiss the importance of entertainment media relative to things like news, we are actually more likely to be persuaded by works that “transport” us and bypass our critical minds. [63]

As well, highlight to students that it is possible for a media work to be problematic in some aspects of its portrayal of diversity but successful in others. The 2016 film Doctor Strange , for instance, had many problematic elements in its portrayal of cultural diversity but also a fairly nuanced representation of the main character’s disability and his efforts to accommodate it. [64]

Perhaps most importantly, it’s important to teach students from early on that critiquing a part of something doesn’t mean you don’t like it, nor does critiquing a work mean that you’re criticizing anyone who likes it. Criticizing our children’s media choices can easily make them feel we’re criticizing them. There is a difference between a media work that was motivated by racism or sexism and one where it’s the result of the media-maker not questioning their assumptions or the “conventional wisdom” of their industry. Most of the time, the messages in the things they make aren’t on purpose but because of things they assumed or questions they didn’t think to ask. (It’s important to understand that the people who make media aren’t necessarily media literate in the critical sense.)

As Turner Classic Movies host Jacqueline Stewart points out, this is a distinction that people in historically under-represented groups often learn early. Describing a childhood viewing of Gone With the Wind, Stewart notes that “Black audiences have always juggled the pleasures and problems of mainstream media. I was learning that you can enjoy a film even as you are critiquing it." [65] Of course, we also have to make a habit of studying accurate representations as well as critiquing negative ones – and recognize that a work may be positive in some aspects but problematic in others.

There may also be backlash from students relating specifically to the topic of diversity representation. This can be a result of a belief in the value of colour-blindness; though generally well-meaning, this attitude has been shown to contribute to prejudice, rather than reducing it, because it denies the identities and experiences of historically under-represented groups and prevents us from addressing the challenges and injustices they face. [66] Instead, stereotypes need to be acknowledged and faced head-on. As Jeffrey Adam Smith, author of Are We Born Racist? , puts it, “When we encounter a ‘slant-eyed, Oriental mastermind’ (to quote one old comic of mine), I stop, close the book, and tell [my son] that image is a product of prejudice, and that I think prejudice is wrong. I try to answer any questions he has. Then I re-open the book… and keep reading.” [67]

Young people may also want to distance themselves from a sense that they are accused of being prejudiced, or that they benefit from a prejudiced system. To explore different ways of addressing this, see our article on Privilege in the Media and our guide to Complicated Conversations in the Classroom .     

For more tips on how to approach digital media literacy, see our article on Digital Media Literacy Fundamentals .

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[26] Marchese, D. (2022) “Quinta Brunson Knows Why America Was Ready for Abbott Elementary. ” The New York Times .

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[28] Tate, A. (2021) “‘Eating disorders are for white girls.’” Culture Study. Retrieved from  https://annehelen.substack.com/p/eating-disorders-are-for-white-girls

[29] Dickson, J. (2022) Kids talk representation and authenticity in Being Seen report. Kidscreen.

[30] Erba, J., Chen, Y., & Kang, H. (2019). Using media literacy to counter stereotypical images of blacks and Latinos at a predominantly White University. Howard Journal of Communications , 30 (1), 1-22.

[31] Stamps, D. (2021). Media literacy as liberator: Black audiences’ adoption of media literacy, news media consumption, and perceptions of self and group members. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication , 14 (3), 240-257.

[32] Cho, H., & Johnson, P. (2020). Racism and Sexism in Superhero Movies: Critical Race Media Literacy in the Korean High School Classroom. International Journal of Multicultural Education , 22 (2), 66–86. https://doi.org/10.18251/ijme.v22i2.2427

[33] Volpe, V. V., Willis, H. A., Joseph, P., & Tynes, B. M. (2021). Liberatory media literacy as protective against posttraumatic stress for emerging adults of color. Journal of traumatic stress , 34 (5), 1045-1055.

[34] Pineau, M.G., & Handt J. (2022) Reckoning with Race in Adolescent Stories. Center for Scholars & Storytellers. Retrieved from https://www.scholarsandstorytellers.com/blog-main/reframing-adolescence-race-in-teen-stories-in-film-and-tv

[35] Simonpillai, R. (2019) “Disney signed a contract with Indigenous people before making Frozen II.” Now Toronto. Retrieved from https://nowtoronto.com/movies/news-features/disney-frozen-2-indigenous-culture-sami

[36] Dirksen, A. (2020) “Decolonizing Digital Spaces.” Published in Citizenship in a Connected Canada: A Research and Policy Agenda , Dubois and Martin-Barieteau, eds. Retrieved from https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3620179

[37] Kassam, A. (2017, July 27). First Nations leader urges Canada to prosecute “out of hand” hate speech. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www. theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/27/canada-first-nations-hate-speech- bobby-cameron

[38] Burke, S. E. (2015). A comparative content analysis of African American and Caucasian role portrayals in broadcast television entertainment programming . Wayne State University.

[39] Jagernauth, K. (2014) “Ridley Scott Says ‘Exodus’ Would Never Get Financed Starring ‘Mohammad So-and-So From Such-And-Such’.” IndieWire . Retrieved from  https://www.indiewire.com/2014/11/ridley-scott-says-exodus-would-never-get-financed-starring-mohammad-so-and-so-from-such-and-such-269706/

[40] Han, Angie. (2017) “The 8 main excuses Hollywood uses for racially insensitive casting – and why they're BS.” Mashable. Retrieved from  https://mashable.com/article/movie-whitewashing-excuses

[41] Higginbotham, G.D., et al. (2020) Beyond Checking a Box: A Lack of Authentically Inclusive Representation Has Costs at the Box Office. Center for Scholars & Storytellers. Retrieved rom https://www.scholarsandstorytellers.com/s/CSS-AIR-Final-Research-Report-9bch.pdf

[42] Roberts, S. (2022) “The Superficial Diversity of Canadian TV.” The Walrus . Retrieved from https://thewalrus.ca/canadian-television/

[43] Coales, A., & Verhoeven D. (2021) Deciding on Diversity: COVID-19, Risk and Intersectional Inequality in the Canadian Film and Television Industry. Retrieved from https://wiftcanadacoalition.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/DOD-Report_English_September30-2021-1.pdf

[44] Roberts, S. (2022) “The Superficial Diversity of Canadian TV.” The Walrus . Retrieved from https://thewalrus.ca/canadian-television/

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[50] Botella, E. (2019) “TikTok Admits It Suppressed Videos by Disabled, Queer, and Fat Creators.” Slate. Retrieved from https://slate.com/technology/2019/12/tiktok-disabled-users-videos-suppressed.html

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What Makes Good Media Representation?

What are some markers of quality representation in TV and film?

If you’ve been online in recent years, involved in social justice discourse, or simply enjoy knowing about media and popular culture, you may have come across the hashtag or phrase “Representation Matters.” This slogan can refer to representation in any field and realm, but essentially, it expresses the significance and importance of genuine, positive presentations of human lives and experiences. There are many reasons as to why depictions of people, especially in film and TV, ought to be present, realistic, and reflective of reality. Good representation is important for many reasons, including: that it can be educational, that it affects how people are seen by others and how they feel seen themselves, and that it guides discourse about real people, places, and experiences. In the realm of culture, it subliminally dictates which issues are ‘important’ or ‘allowed’ into the mainstream, and which ones are excluded.

Thus, when looking to create media, the question of what to show, whom to represent, and how to go about it are some of the first questions that must be considered. Not only will exploring these questions help writers to develop a better understanding of their creative characters and stories, but it will also contribute to the quality and accuracy of the work overall. It’s both important and useful to bear in mind some tips for representing all people accurately and respectfully in the media, but especially when representing people from minority and/or marginalized groups. Every person experiences the world differently and possesses similarities and differences with others – but everyone also deserves to feel visible and respected. They also deserve to have their perspectives reflected and affirmed in the media they watch.

Although ‘quality’ and ‘goodness’ are subjective topics, there do exist a few consistent standards and guidelines for the creation of ‘good’ representation. Grounded in my own experiences and understandings, as well as some research, here is a shortlist of strategies that tend to either promote or hinder high-quality representation in TV and film.

Indicators of poor-quality representation

• Stories based solely on tragedy or ‘trauma porn’ are inappropriate because they exploit suffering for non-group-member audiences’ entertainment, serve no function to those it’s trying to represent, and can even be triggering to those who’ve experienced these difficulties.
• The blog article Understanding Character Representation – Mythcreants does a great job of clarifying why stereotyping is harmful, and how to recognize when a character is merely a manifestation of a stereotype.
• Claiming representation when it is not actually depicted, or, alternatively, claiming representative accuracy when the depiction is not reflective of people’s true experiences, is not ideal representation. This may result from a lack of knowledge or consideration on the part of creators.

Indicators of high-quality representation

• When a viewer sees a character or storyline and thinks, ‘That’s me/that’s exactly how I feel/that’s also what I’ve experienced!’, the representation is probably on the right track.
• Representing characters in a fair and accurate manner, backed by research and understanding, is key. Characterizations might portray any combination of positive and negative aspects of an identity, but should be created with realism and factuality in mind.
• It’s great if members of a group being represented are thoroughly involved in the media, especially in the creation and portrayal of certain characters, so that marginalized voices and perspectives take the main stage and are not filtered through the lens of another.
• Good representation isn’t sandwiched into an otherwise non-representative story; marginalized characters and stories should be valuable, functional to the plot, and engaging in their own right. Such stories deserve to be centered, not portrayed as an afterthought.

While this list is by no means comprehensive, adhering to the points outlined could allow for the creation of better-quality, thoughtful, and accurate representation in stories, which in turn creates more space in the world for similar voices to be amplified and heard. The above points also outline ways for new creatives to begin to think about the characters they are crafting, and to reflect on how and why diversity is critical to storytelling. Ultimately, the final creative result can only be enhanced by thoughtful, high-quality representation.

You Press is a social enterprise based in London working with young artists to bring attention to voices not often heard in the public sphere.

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Media uses representations to engage us, and students can benefit from learning how

By Jo Flack

• X (formerly Twitter)

Representations in media engage audiences in order to communicate ideas, information, knowledge or emotions.

Some media goals are simple: sell products and services, such as a movie ticket, a burger or insurance. Other goals are more complex, such as constructing meaning and suggesting points of view around complex issues like global warming, race or gender.

The media industry is built on the assumption that representations that appeal to media consumers will attract bigger audiences.

Representations in media products influence both beliefs and behaviours, which in turn results in greater income for content creators and those who employ them.

Representations have become more sophisticated

The idea of representation is not new. The first cave paintings were representations as are the latest images in an Instagram feed.

A heart has long been a representation of love, but today we’re less likely to send a Valentine’s Day card than click on a ❤ emoji or share a #love TikTok.

This is, in part, due to the way we think of love these days and partly due to the ease of expressing this emotion online.

Once a largely private and romantic experience, today social media allows us to construct a representation of love to share with a range of audiences.

We might ❤ a football team, a cup of coffee or an image of a friend’s cat. We understand both the emotion and the ways it can be represented as we read media messages in context.

Over time, representations have become increasingly sophisticated, building on each other and what has come before, morphing and developing as audiences evolve and technologies allow greater user participation.

Everyone makes media

Today we all create media content, representing ideas for personal audiences such our friends and family. As a result the nature of audience engagement has also changed as we move between media forms and platforms. Sometimes we are part of a mass audience, at other times we are an audience of individuals.

Regardless of the size and type of audience, representations still suggest ideas and sell products as they inform and entertain.

Media success can be measured by both corporations and individuals as they measure the number of views, likes, retweets or comments.

But the line between audience and creator has shifted. With the shift to interactivity, we are all still audiences, but at different times we are also users, members, subscribers, consumers, viewers, listeners, buyers, players, gamers, contributors, commentators, lurkers, influencers and creators.

The proliferation of this terminology reveals much about the changing relationship between the media, its audiences and creators —and about changes in society.

Audiences are primed to prioritise engagement over analysis

Media creators produce works that are designed to influence us in a particular way. This is termed their “preferred reading”.

As audiences, we respond to media representations based on both our understanding of them and the context in which we consume them. Media experts call this process “making a reading”.

We almost never think about the differences between a media creator’s preferred reading and our own. Our readings are mostly instantaneous and subconscious. We accept or reject media representations in the moment based on our understanding of them, which is in turn based on our culture, experience and the emotions they generate.

The media is good at its job and so are its audiences. As experienced and expert instantaneous decoders we laugh, cry, yell, hide our faces or click as we read and respond to media messages.

We’re usually not so interested in thinking about how and why representations are constructed, and we almost never interrogate our reactions and emotions.

But with a bit of practice, it’s possible to engage and analyse simultaneously. Believe it or not this makes the media even more entertaining.

Who is making and promoting this media product? How is it constructed and distributed? Why has it been constructed in this way, and what is its impact?

When thinking about the media’s impact on audiences, begin with yourself and then think of others.

Analysing our own readings can help us think more clearly about how others may react. This method helps us become more analytical and less judgy.

Big picture and fine detail

Get in the habit of asking both the big questions about the role of representations in the media and the small ones about how individual representations have been constructed.

Big picture questions might include:

• Who is the market for this content?
• Why was this media product created?
• Who stands to gain from the production and consumption of this media product?
• What is the preferred reading of representations in this product?
• What do these media representations say about the society in which they were created or distributed?
• How would this content be received and read in different societies?

Fine-detail questions will vary and be specific to individual representations but might include:

• How did the creator structure the message?
• Why is that font so dominant?
• Why is the character costumed in that way?
• What does the use of colour reveal?
• What is the impact of that camera angle and movement?
• What does the use of sound such as dialogue, music and effects contribute?
• How does a particular editing technique make me feel?

New business models and ethical challenges

Audiences have embraced social media — it fits our busy lives, creating connections that are not possible through mainstream media. But like anything new, social media has also created issues and dilemmas that couldn’t have been foreseen.

Every click is harvested, analysed and sold to creators and advertisers who use your tastes, preferences and media-usage patterns to direct your attention to content that is formulated to appeal to you.

It’s no longer possible for parents and teachers to monitor the media use of the young people in their care as was once the case, and while the world is now in our pockets, social media content and industry practices are not always safe or ethical.

The greatest challenge is to balance the positives and negatives by keeping the lines of communication open and educating all stakeholders — parents, teachers, young people and legislators — about its possibilities and problems while celebrating all that social media has to offer.

One thing is certain: it is our future.

Jo Flack is a teacher of over 40 years, specialising in the relationship between media and society. She is an author, a curriculum developer and an assessor, passionate about the possibilities new media offers individuals, communities and the world while being realistic and analytical about the challenges it creates.

Visit ABC Education for more media literacy resources, including classroom activities that explore representations in social media.

It’s all about the socials: classroom activities that explore representations in social media

A guide to statistical literacy in the classroom

Activity: Could we live in a world without news?

Use The News: In media arts or across the curriculum

The News Diet Challenge toolkit

The Reflector News

Featured stories, supporting good representation in media.

Netflix’s pivotal sitcom “One Day at a Time,” which focuses on a Cuban-American immigrant family, is a paragon of media representation and diversity done well. Covering serious topics such as immigration, racism and sexism, the sitcom serves as a raw and genuine representation of Latin-American immigrants, and all the highs and lows that entails. Instead of being merely characters whose cultural identities are labels for the sake of achieving a diversity sticker, “One Day at a Time” allows culture to become intrinsically ingrained in the family’s struggles and development. The show has facilitated learning about Latin-American culture through the experiences of actual Latin-Americans, and never has shied away from covering hot button topics. And as of last month, it has been canceled.

The cancellation of “One Day at a Time” illustrates a pervasive and long-running tragedy in popular media: a distinct lack of and care for good representation. According to USC Annenburg’s annual report on diversity, in Hollywood, “exclusion is the norm rather than the exception.” The study found that 70.7 percent of film characters are white, noting a severe lack of representation for LGBTQ, disabled and non-white individuals. What little representation these individuals garner is poorly written and poorly developed.

We, as human beings, learn from the things that we consume. We are taught by example. And that’s where a lack of good representation begins to get dangerous. Historian Carlos Cortes, in his book The Children Are Watching: How the Media Teach About Diversity , wrote that media essentially teach the public about different minority groups based on how they choose to portray them. By extension, the media teach the public how to perceive these groups. As an example, speaking about the plights of black males specifically, an article from the Social Science Literary Review noted that distorted portrayals of black men in media have resulted in, among other things, general antagonism toward black males, lack of identification with and sympathy for black males, exaggerated views related to criminality and violence and more.

But this conversation is an old one. Because we know. We know, or at least we should know, that there is not enough diversity in popular media. We witnessed the uproarious praise garnered by Marvel’s “Black Panther” and laughed at JK Rowling’s flailing attempts at post-Potter diversity. In a time when different marginalized groups are more than ever before scrambling for representation, media outlets need to know what good representation entails and even further, how to support media products that do it well.

This last point is what I prefer to focus on. This is not the first time “One Day at a Time” has been canceled—and, at the risk of sounding daring, it probably won’t be the last. Netflix in particular has an unfortunate habit of canceling shows with diverse casts, such as “Sense8” and “The Get Down,” both of which had queer and cultural representation. Both of these cancellations have been attributed in some part to lack of audience interest, and yet, despite this, the cancellations were met with social media outrage. But it is not enough to fight for good representation after it has been taken away from us; rather, it is necessary to support these paragons of good media while they are still alive. Remarkably enough, the answer to keeping good representation alive lies merely in our capacity to sit down and actually consume its content.

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Understanding media stereotypes and the importance of diverse representation

The origin of stereotypes can be traced back to various factors. Often, stereotypes develop due to limited social exposure that leads to oversimplified generalizations surrounding certain social groups. While cultural narratives, personal experiences, and cognitive processes may play a role in the development and perpetuation of stereotypes, the influence of popular media is far-reaching. 

Though recent history has seen somewhat of a cultural-wide push for expanded representation in media, stereotypes regarding gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation continue to be perpetuated through mass media and culture. It may be helpful to explore the often harmful nature of media stereotypes and the importance of more diverse and inclusive representation in popular culture to understand this complex relationship. 

The harmful effects of stereotyping in media

Understanding how psychology influences the origins of stereotypes may clarify their role within the media. Within psychology, the mental process of categorization, which involves sorting objects into groups and organizing knowledge, can play a significant role. For instance, people commonly categorize cats and dogs under the broader group of "animals."

While cognitive categorization can be helpful in certain contexts, it becomes problematic and potentially harmful when applied to social groups. For example, stereotypes centered on racial and ethnic minorities have the power to fuel prejudice, discrimination, and hate. 

Stereotyping has been prevalent in broadcast television, literature, film, music, and news media for years. In fictional media, certain ethnic minorities are often portrayed as one-dimensional archetypes of their respective cultures. Women are often portrayed as sexual objects, whereas male characters may be represented as harsh and unemotional. 

While certain stereotypes in media may appear “positive” on the surface, these concepts are often rooted in gender, sexuality, and racial biases. For instance, when the media portrays certain ethnic groups as “smart” and “studious,” it can erase individuality and perpetuate shallow, cursory ideas of entire minority groups. 

Stereotypes can affect public perception and individual sense of self. Unrealistic and one-dimensional portrayals of beauty, intelligence, and demeanor tied to certain genders, races, ethnicities, ages, religions, and sexualities often create self-esteem issues for those who are subject to stereotyping. 

Research on the harmful impacts of stereotypes

At their most harmful, negative representations of minority groups and racial stereotypes in media coverage can lead to bigotry, intolerance, and violence. Though people may understand that mass media has the power to influence widely held beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors, the extent of its power has been researched extensively.

Studies suggest that media influences through two effects: the individual effect and the social effect. A study published by the Harvard Kennedy School explains, “In the individual effect, media information about new norms may persuade individuals to accept them. In the social effect, the information creates common knowledge of a norm. It enhances social coordination as individuals more readily accept the information if they believe others have also accepted it.” 

Through gaining insight into the powerful effect of media on individuals and society, the harmful nature of stereotypes in media is often clear. While the subject remains complex and nuanced, the benefit of overcoming and challenging stereotypes continues to become more apparent. 

The importance of representation in media

When media accurately reflects the diversity of the offline world, it challenges stereotypes, breaks down barriers, and promotes inclusivity. Seeing diverse individuals and communities represented across different platforms allows marginalized groups to be acknowledged, validated, and empowered. 

Moreover, diverse representation fosters a more comprehensive understanding of the human experience, encouraging empathy, cultural appreciation, and social cohesion. Media can be a powerful tool for promoting equality, dismantling biases, and creating a more inclusive society by showcasing a wide range of perspectives, identities, and stories.

Overcoming and challenging media stereotypes

Confronting and overcoming media stereotypes necessitates a combined effort from individuals and society. At the individual level, each person can play a part in challenging stereotypes by scrutinizing their own beliefs and assumptions. Engaging in introspection often allows individuals to recognize who is most impacted by media stereotypes and how they might internalize them. 

On a larger scale, media literacy education and including diverse representation in popular media can influence the cultural and cognitive factors associated with stereotyping. By expanding technology and introducing new media formats such as Instagram, TikTok, and other virtual platforms, diverse artists, creators, and other entities are working to create more access to mass media play. 

How to cope if harmful stereotypes have impacted you

If you’ve been affected by harmful stereotypes about your marginalized identity, you’re not alone. Below are a few ways to cope with these impacts. 

Find community

Finding others who share your identity, culture, and ideas may be beneficial when experiencing the harmful impacts of stereotypes. Having someone who understands your struggles to talk to in difficult moments can be cathartic and help you build long-lasting bonds. In addition, you may experience a sense of relief in not having to explain yourself to people who may not understand you. 

Spread awareness and educate others

It is not your responsibility to educate others about your marginalized identity. However, if you’re interested in activism and enjoy spreading awareness, it may help reduce the impact of media stereotypes in your community. Some people may use their experiences of oppression or marginalization to share hope, empathy, and education with others. 

Reach out for professional support 

If you are struggling with the negative consequences of media stereotyping, therapy may offer valuable guidance toward challenging and harmful impacts. A therapist can guide you through evidence-based practices for reducing stress, anxiety, and depression. A therapist may also be a helpful resource for those living with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to the harmful impacts of marginalization. 

People in marginalized communities, such as ethnic minority groups, are often at a higher risk of mental illness, suicide, and stress. However, they may also be more likely to struggle with income disparities and a lack of resources. In these cases, online therapy through a platform like BetterHelp may offer a flexible and affordable way to find care. In addition, online therapy platforms can allow you to choose an LGBTQ+ therapist or BIPOC therapist to talk to. You can also select your preferred gender of the therapist. 

Along with ease, convenience, and cost-effectiveness, online therapy has been proven to provide quality care, with research showing it is equally as effective as in-person therapy.

Diverse representation in the media can profoundly impact societal perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs. Understanding the power of media to influence society at large can help you work toward advancing society and culture by dismantling harmful stereotypes. If you’re experiencing the detrimental impacts of stereotypes in your life, you might also consider contacting a professional to explore the implications in further detail. Connect with a therapist online or in your area to get started. 

• Recognizing, Understanding, And Overcoming Toxic Femininity Medically reviewed by Andrea Brant , LMHC
• Where do stereotypes come from? Medically reviewed by Andrea Brant , LMHC
• Stereotypes
• Relationships and Relations

RACE TO A CURE

• Jun 12, 2021

The Importance of Representation in Media

The comfort of finding a character you relate to. The pride of seeing your beliefs, culture, and traditions embraced on the big screens. The joy of seeing a hero that looks just like you. How many of us have experienced this, and how many have not?

Media, especially in the form of film and television, is at the forefront of the entertainment industry. Over the past century, it has rapidly evolved into a widespread medium for storytelling, art, knowledge, and enjoyment. We engage in these forms of media because they share something special—whether opening our eyes to a life vastly different than ours, enforcing a lesson previously beyond our perception, or unearthing our roots as individuals, society, and humanity as a whole. Yet too often, the media fails to accurately represent the people they portray. Too often is inclusivity swept aside by the Hollywood norm —the exclusion of diversity rather than its opposition. Misrepresentation and a lack of diversity in media negatively impacts marginalized communities, including racial, ethnic, and religious minorities, LGBTQ+ individuals, disabled people, and women. This issue is prevalent and important, and in this article, we will take a deeper look at media representation from the thoughts, experiences, and perspectives of today’s youth.

Image is courtesy of FOX .

Definition and Importance

The BBC defines representation as how societal aspects such as race, gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, and social issues are presented. When it comes to media, especially film and television, this audience is vast. Mass media broadens our scope of perception when it comes to society, multiculturalism, and the world. It holds, for many, an educational impact as it showcases unique experiences otherwise beyond reach. This is why representation is crucial. In a multicultural, diverse, multifaceted society, it is vital to amplify the voices and share the stories of all.

The Harmful Effects of Stereotypes

While a lack of representation is harmful in itself, the misrepresentation of underserved communities is a significant issue with damaging consequences. This concept is evident through stereotyping. The Arab Film & Media Institute describes stereotyping as assumptions or generalizations made and depicted of individuals due to their racial, ethnic, gender, sexual, religious, or other identities.

Stereotypes in media are often inaccurate and portray underrepresented groups in a negative light. These flawed portrayals can be easily internalized by both the individuals of a group being stereotyped and other members of society. All in all, it influences public opinion and the societal view of underrepresented communities.

“As a child, stereotypes that were portrayed in the media went over my head. I was just there to be entertained. However, as I got older and began to truly understand what it meant to be Black in society, those stereotypes that I once looked at with a blind eye began to get a little glaring. When I was younger, I always found myself drawn to shows with a Black character, but now that I look back, those shows never had a lot of Black actors. In addition, the beauty standards of those characters were quite Eurocentric. I didn’t look like the girls in that show. This was disheartening as a little girl, to not see people like me at that level of fame. Presently, I see more representation of Black people in the media but I struggle with the narrative. When I want to watch TV, I want to laugh, get lost in a story, relax, and forget about my troubles. Not be thrust into a world of discrimination and hardship that, although quite relevant, does not represent all aspects of life.”

- Lola, grade 12

As Lauren Washington discusses in an examination of film and media representation, stereotypical depictions create unconscious bias in viewers which can directly impact an individual’s thoughts and behaviours towards others. It is especially dangerous when bias is institutionalized, perpetuating the issues of discrimination and hate crimes, police brutality, mass incarceration of disadvantaged communities, and others.

“In my experience, stereotypes are the most prevalent issue in the media. They are literally everywhere, and create a very toxic environment for young people. Even the most positive stereotypes have negative connotations that are used to divide and hurt people who do not fit the standards that society expects from us. Whether it is racial stereotypes, gender stereotypes or others, it creates a playground for prejudice to grow throughout our society and formulates the idea that people do not need to think through their behaviour or give opportunities to certain people based on what they seem to be.

In most of the TV shows and movies I watched when I was younger, the woman would always fall in love and that would make her happy, or white people would always save the day. It made me feel like I had to be saved instead of taking action on my own and for the longest time, I just accepted it. It was not until I saw characters who were like me that I started to truly grow as a person. To imagine what I might’ve been like if I had those influences when I was younger hurts me a little because I always wish I could have more goals to reach, more determination, and that is swayed the most by what I take in through the media. In our media, schools, music and experiences, we need leaders to break these stereotypes and show that people are more than they are expected to be.”

- Tia, grade 11

The Arab Film & Media Institute further defines the issues of tokenism and typecasting. Tokenism is when individuals from minority groups are included for the sole purpose of exhibiting a seemingly diverse environment. This infamous tactic does not equate to equal representation, but is rather a demeaning concept that utilizes minority characters to fulfill an agenda. Typecasting in the entertainment industry occurs when individuals are consistently assigned roles due to their ability to fit a certain stereotype. This often targets actors belonging to underrepresented groups and limits their ability to grow in the industry beyond playing stereotypical roles.

Image is courtesy of Netflix Junkie.

Children and Teens

Underrepresentation, as a result, has the potential to establish harmful views and negative perceptions. For children who are developing their thoughts and behaviours, and for teenagers who are searching for identity and their place in society, media takes the role of a significant influence.

“I have felt a tremendous lack of diversity in the media while growing up. Often when characters looked like me, they fit a certain stereotype as the ‘supporting character’ or the ‘comedic relief.’ Rarely were Black and Brown characters seen as the protagonist or desirable and intelligent individuals and honestly, that took a toll on my self-esteem. A lack of diversity is harmful not only to the people being misrepresented but also to others who watch those shows or movies who then base their perception of a group solely on the media they consume. Luckily, there has been an increase in the diversity of characters of colour! But we have a long way to go to dismantle the many stereotypes that have been engraved in the history of television and film.”

- Hanna, 2nd year undergraduate

According to an article by Forbes , general media can escalate racial tensions and affect confidence and self-esteem. The author describes how predictions in the study of prolonged television exposure involve decreased self-esteem for girls and Black boys, which correlates with racial and gender biases in popular media. With the effects of underrepresentation so prevalent and impactful to youth, diverse and inclusive media representation must be prioritized as we move forward.

“Growing up, I definitely felt like it was hard to see myself represented in the media. Especially in the case of beauty standards, I feel that it has now become such a common story for Black women to go through a stage of not liking their features, and more specifically, their hair. For me, this was straightening my hair often, for others, it might have been relaxing their hair, but for many of us the cause was what was portrayed as ‘beautiful’ in the media. However, within the last few years, I have become a lot more comfortable in my identity and in wearing my hair out, as big as it is!

As far as we’ve come already, what I’m really waiting for is a coming-of-age movie starring a young Black girl that is not solely about her identity as a Black person. There is certainly a time and place for these kinds of movies, but I am so excited for when I can see myself represented in the media without having to think about all the problems that I may face as a Black woman.”

- Leah, grade 12

Image is courtesy of Girl Museum .

The Push for Greater On-Screen Diversity

The youth of today are passionate about inclusive representation, and they are making their voices heard on what they want to see more of in modern media.

“I feel like the groups that really need to be represented in the film, television, and the entertainment industry are minorities such as Black, Asian, Brown, LGBTQ, and people with disabilities. Especially people with disabilities because I hardly ever see them represented in the industry.

- Lemuela, grade 10

Progress is underway, but for representation to be achieved in all aspects, there must be greater inclusivity of underrepresented groups both on-screen and behind the scenes as writers, directors, producers, and more. The entertainment industry, media creators, and society can benefit significantly by confronting implicit bias and stereotypes and actively commit to fostering inclusive environments. Through this, may we begin the journey towards media that includes representation for all.

Article Author: Victoria Huang

Article Contributors: Lola Oyefeso, Tia Rose Desouza, Hanna Asheber, Leah Daniel, Lemuela Ajuwon

Article Editors: Maria Giroux, Stephanie Sahaeo

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How Black representation in film and television can impact, empower

Joseph Ferrer , Arts & Entertainment Editor February 11, 2021

Whether it be through film, television, literature  or any other type of medium, representation in media can critically influence the public perception of ideas, topics,  and ,  most importantly, people. When people see themselves represented properly through others in media, it can be an uplifting and empowering experience to see a representation of your life and part of who you are to others. Proper representation of the Black community and culture is especially important because of this and Black representation has progressed significantly in recent times.   

Well – executed Black representation in media does not start and end with simply casting Black actors in more roles .   I t involves actually putting  in  the effort to represent the Black community within the context of the media itself. Senior Maria Desir highlights this through  the way in which  “The Cosby Show” portrays the equality of Black families.   

“‘The Cosby Show’ showed a regular  B lack family. You have a mom and dad who are a successful couple with kids and it showed that they were regular people , ” Desir said. “One of my favorite parts was also when Theo applied to NYU and one of Bill Cosby’s daughters went to an Ivy League. It taught that us Black folks can be successful too.”   

Other shows have helped portray Black families and communities in a positive light as well ,  such as “Living Single , ”  “A Different World” and “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air . ”  Sophomore Tianna Gil discusses how the representation in these three shows, in particular, made an impact on her.   

“These shows were non-stereotypical shows about  B lack people in the United States. They did not place a negative stigma on the Black culture and that stuck out to me , ”  Gil said . “These shows showcased essential positive traits among my culture and/or heritage such as our resilience, endurance, work ethic, strong achievement orientation and various more.”    

As described in th ese examples, p roper representation  can be incredibly empowering and its presence is  not only  significant  in  the  media , but   for all of those within the Black community . Media can also help establish role models for people to look up to, especially in fictional media featuring Black protagonists with admirable qualities. Characters such as  T’Challa  in “Black Panther” and Miles Morales in “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” go through relatable human journeys while also representing Black culture in their own unique ways.  This  is especially important for children as  they can see themselves and their culture in a positive light.   

 Representation is  crucial across all forms of media.  Every instance of representation executed well is another chance to help inspire  and empower those who face undeserved discrimination from prejudiced individuals. Proper representation can also help bring people from across the Black community together as  Gil  explains.   

“Representation creates a sense of unity and collectivism within the Black  c ommunity. Seeing Black  c ulture and individuals being represented establishes a sense of togetherness ,  creating a feeling that we are a part of something , ”  Gil said .  “It shows that if someone from my community, culture  and heritage can succeed in something I am interested in, I can do it as well.”   

Black representation in media has progressed a significant amount ,  and as it continues to do so, Black communities and individuals can continue to find strength and inspiration by seeing people just like them in the media they consume.     

Contact email: [email protected] Hello! I am Joseph, a senior and digital media major. I am passionate about all kinds of different media from...

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Media & News Literacy

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Research & data, media representation: videos.

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Teaching Resources

• Media Representation of Race & Ethnicity Overviews and lesson plan from the Critical Media Project
• "Representation in Media and Information" Learning Module From UNESCO's Media Literacy Information for Teachers resource

Media Representation in the News

• "New CAA study says diverse casting increases box office potential across all budgets" Los Angeles Times, 21 Jun. 2017
• "Starting in 2019, if Your Film Isn’t Diverse, It Won’t Be Eligible for a BAFTA Award" Slate, 19 Dec 2016

Media representation refers to how the media portrays particular groups, communities, and experiences.

• Media Representations of Disability Information and resources from the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund
• Re-Search Browser extension makes image searching gender-balanced
• The Representation Project Founded by filmmaker Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who has directed two films on media representation of gender
• Sociological Images on Pinterest Collections of images around specific themes, such as Women vs People and Racial Objectification
• Race in the Writers Room From Color of Change, Nov. 2017
• Where We Are on TV Report From GLAAD, Nov. 2017
• Film Dialogue from 2,000 Screenplays, Broekn Down by Gender and Age From The Pudding, April 2016
• Annual Hollywood Diversity Report From the Bunche Center at UCLA

Some films below are available via  Kanopy .

• The Try Guys Get Photoshopped Like Women From Buzzfeed video, July 2016
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What is Media Representation?

Media representation refers to how the media portrays groups of individuals with different characteristics. It refers to how some aspects, such as gender, age, physical abilities, age, or race, are presented to society.

Why is representation important?

If you can see it, you can be it: this is the idea behind those who promote the positive representation of all people, regardless of class, race, physical or intellectual capabilities, gender identity, and sexual orientation.

Many experts say that what children and adolescents are exposed to directly influences their goals and dreams. In other words, children and young people determine what they can achieve based on examples.

In the case of people with disabilities, negative representations in the media can limit their aspirations. For this reason, people with disabilities must be portrayed positively in the media.

Two actions to improve your children’s aspirations

• Discuss the movies and series you watch with your children. Talk about what is unique about each character, what you like about the characters you see, what you do not like, and what your children can learn from each character.
• Search stories, songs, movies, and tv shows that positively reflect the characteristics of your son or daughter.

Examples of media representation

The followings are some movies, and tv shows recommendations that can be ideal for your family.

• Raising Dion: this series tells the story of Dion, a boy who discovers his superpowers, and his mother, who wants to protect him at all costs. Fun fact: Sammi Haney, the actress who plays Dion’s best friend, is a patient of the Children’s Rehabilitation Institute TeletonUSA (CRIT) in San Antonio, Texas.
• Finding Nemo: A father’s love leads him to travel the world to find his son while discovering the importance of friendship and courage.
• Fundamentals of Caring: An 18-year-old teenager with muscular dystrophy journeys with his caregiver, learning about life and the importance of having love to get ahead.
• Atypical: A teenager with autism is ready to fall in love, so he strives to become independent from his family. The series talks about the dynamics of a family with a young man with Autism Spectrum Disorder. This series questions what it means to be “normal” and asks us: who is “normal”?

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Queer representation in media: the good, the bad, and the ugly

It’s no secret that mainstream media struggles with queer representation. It’s part of the reason why fanfiction has been thriving since the 2000s — audiences craved queer characters so strongly that they began to create their own alternative universes and headcanons (ideas held by fans that are not explicitly supported by the content itself). 

While representation in entertainment media is slowly improving, progress is sluggish — and sometimes misguided. 

Queer representation now comes in many forms, and it isn’t always positive. On top of that, even accurate and compelling forms of queer representation can sometimes be very upsetting to queer folks. Representation is a nuanced topic, not just because diversity is difficult to depict, but also because different forms of representation can achieve very different outcomes. 

Let’s explore the complex path of queer representation together.

Why representation is important

Proper representation helps combat stereotypes and ignorance. And this isn’t just a theory. A 2015 study found that, when straight people are more exposed to gay characters on TV, they become more accepting of gay equality. On top of that, a 2020 survey by GLAAD and P&G found that queer representation increased queer acceptance by up to 45%. 

The reason this works is simple: seeing queer characters on screen normalises the existence of queerness. And when these characters have compelling inner lives and relatable struggles, queer existence is destigmatised. While this certainly isn’t a cure-all for all sexuality and gender-based intolerance, it’s a great start — especially for the older generation. 

It’s also important for queer people to see themselves represented. Seeing proper representation validates their experiences and affirms their existence, because it lets them know that they are not alone in their struggles. On the flip side, the lack of representation often encourages hostile environments that are very distressing for queer folks. 

Let’s also not forget that queer identities have always existed — including them in works of fiction arguably makes for more realistic and compelling stories too. 

Even when there’s representation, we still have to take into account diversity and intersectionality. For instance, does it only highlight well-built, cisgender gay white men, or does it include people of different races, sexualities, gender identities, and sizes? As we devour our favourite shows and books, we should always ask ourselves what experiences are being normalised — and what are being ignored.

Different types of queer representation in media

Negative representation.

Negative representation happens when queer characters are based on negative stereotypes, or consistently portrayed as bad or evil people. 

Consider Singapore’s local Chinese drama, My Guardian Angels (单翼天使) . Creators of the primetime TV show decided to write a gay character as a paedophile who spreads STDs to teenage boys. This archaic and untrue stereotype (that gay men are paedophiles with STDs) caused a massive uproar among Singaporeans, and ultimately led the studio to issue an apology for their discriminatory (mis)representation. 

Other bizarre stereotypes exist too, such as the “ murderous bisexual ”, the “ who's the man in the relationship ”, and countless dangerous and untrue ones about trans people .

While stereotypes can sometimes be hilarious in-jokes to people within the community, they cease to be funny and veer into the territory of being severely damaging when it reinforces negative biases. This is especially true if the wider society is already hostile towards queer people — these prejudices create unsafe environments and impact queer folks’ mental and physical well-being.

No representation

Okay, this isn’t technically a kind of representation, but instead a lack of it. In shows without representation, none of the characters are LGBTQ+ and none of the subplots involve LGBTQ+ characters. 

Countless shows portray only straight people, or worse, a complete wash of ethnically and sexually homogenous people. For example,  big franchises such as Jurassic Park , Transformers , or Fast and Furious are completely devoid of LGBTQ+ characters. One reason for that could be the homogeneity of writer’s rooms and showrunners, with the majority of them being cisgender, heterosexual (cishet) white men (although that is sloooowwly changing). 

In countries such as Singapore, state-sanctioned censorship also plays a part in the lack of queer representation. For instance, free-to-air TV channels and radio stations here don’t feature any queer content because broadcasting guidelines explicitly prohibit them. Heck, a TV channel even censored Barack Obama’s pro-LGBTQ+ message in 2016 to comply with the censorship rules. 

As we’ve mentioned previously, a pervasive lack of queer representation in society creates unsafe environments for queer people and negatively impacts their mental health. 

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Token representation

Queer representation is tokenised when the LGBTQ+ character either doesn’t play a notable role in the plot, or doesn’t have their identity meaningfully explored. This is generally done to placate the LGBTQ+ community and recruit their viewership and increase profits. It’s essentially lip service to the idea of diversity without actual meaningful representation.

There is (thankfully) less tokenised representation in recent years, because it’s being called out way more often now. In the past, we used to get “queer” characters who frankly might as well be straight: Lucille, the “lesbian parole officer” in Sin City who is later killed, and Helena Cain in Battlestar Galactica , to name a few. 

Yet the plague of tokenism still lingers today. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker contained the first ever lesbian characters in the history of the franchise with a two-second kiss between 2 women background characters. In 2017’s Beauty and the Beast , director Bill Cordon hyped up character LeFou’s “ gay moment ”, which added up to little more than an end-of-the-film dance with a henchman. Media standards have improved significantly today, and token representation like these have become much more inexcusable. 

It’s easy for creators to claim diversity because of throwaway moments, but that doesn’t mean they’re truly inclusive. Tokenisation has all the benefits of no representation (i.e. nothing at all), yet risks making the public think that actual representation has already been achieved. 

Queerbaiting

Queerbaiting is the inclusion of scenes that suggest a character might be LGBTQ+, while maintaining a distinct lack of evidence in the story to confirm or deny it. 

There are countless examples of this in mainstream media — consider the fraught relationship between Glee’s Rachel Berry and Quinn Fabray, Betty and Veronica’s kiss in Riverdale , and Finn and Poe’s bromance-or-romance relationship in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker . 

Listen, it’s nice to see unexpected queer subtext in shows, but queerbaiting is really nothing more than a marketing technique. Creators draw in queer audiences with the promise of possibly, maybe, seeing themselves represented on screen, but don’t actually follow through. 

Intentional queerbaiting carries similar repercussions to not having representation at all, except creators profit off the potential of seeing a queer character realised on screen or on paper.

Retroactive representation

Retroactive representation happens when creators explicitly (and retroactively) claim that certain characters are LGBTQ+, although nothing in the story definitively confirms it.

J.K. Rowling, we are looking at YOU, the modern pioneer of retroactive representation. In 2007, weeks after the final book in the Harry Potter series was published, Rowling revealed that Albus Dumbledore was gay all along . While people initially celebrated this surprise announcement, many grew increasingly uncomfortable over the lack of evidence in both the books and films to support this claim. To make matters worse, Rowling proceeded to straight-wash Dumbledore in the 2018 prequel film Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald . 

Representation really doesn’t mean anything if it’s not actually shown. We might as well get no representation at all, because this cheapens real allyship and actual, realistic representation. It’s a way to escape the necessity of crafting compelling representations and putting in the work of advocating for queer people, while still claiming progressiveness and allyship.

Sob stories

A sob story is a realistic depiction of the struggles that LGBTQ+ people face. 

The past few years saw a notable number of critically-acclaimed shows with queer-centered narratives that accurately represents queer existence and struggles in a heteronormative world. For example, 2016’s Moonlight showcased the coming-of-age of a gay black man, and 2018’s Boy Erased and 2021’s Pray Away told the heart-breaking tales of harmful “conversion therapy” practices.

These movies are excellent at fostering understanding among cishet people about the struggles that queer people face daily, by making discrimination something visual, rather than abstract. It also helps them realise that inaction will often indirectly help perpetuate harmful practices and prejudices.

But while this type of media provides good, accurate queer representation, they tend to be heavy and hard for LGBTQ+ people to watch, because it resonates deeply with their own histories or current struggles. Those who know too well what it’s like to be discriminated against might not want to be reminded of it again — in other words, these forms of representation can actually become triggering instead of uplifting. 

This is an under-discussed facet of representation: that great, compelling, and important queer stories can sometimes be too real for folks within the community to enjoy. 

This nuance creates an interesting tension in such forms of representation. On the one hand, there is desire for more realistic depictions of queer struggles so that society can understand the pain they’re causing and start making corrections. On the other hand, many queer folks don’t want to watch hyper-realistic representations of discrimination that they face. When viewed from this perspective, sob stories — apart from helping queer folks achieve cathartic release — are a form of representation that’s almost always targeted at cishet folks rather than queer people. 

Idealistic representation

This is the kind of depiction that’s set in a made-up world where queerness isn’t stigmatised or discriminated against.

These depictions are borderline utopian for queer people, and helps them see what life and society could be like in a world where someone’s gender identity and sexual orientation aren’t issues of contention. The hallmark of idealistic queer representation isn’t that queer characters don’t face any struggles, but that their struggles aren’t caused by their queerness at all. 

Season 2 of the absurdist show Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency , for instance, culminated in the conflict between 2 warring families in fantasy land Wendimoor. The eldest sons of both families are in love, but the conflict of Wendimoor was never about the fact that their relationship was gay, but rather that both families were already at odds with each other. 

In Becky Chambers’ Wayfarer novel series , Neon Yang’s Tensorate novel series , and Tillie Walden’s On a Sunbeam graphic novel, queer relationships and identities are also seen everywhere, but never framed as a reason for conflict. 

For cishet people, seeing idealistic representations of queer people normalises the existence of queer folks and helps them process and understand queer identities. It doesn’t associate queerness with sadness and struggle, but instead highlights the possibility and power of queer joy. However, it’s worth pointing out that such representations don’t help them understand the struggles that LGBTQ+ people face in reality. 

For queer people, this type of representation may feel uplifting and wholesome, even escapist to some extent. It helps them see themselves represented in the media, without constantly being confronted by the hostility they already face in their daily lives. It’s nice to be able to see a world in which their personhood isn’t up for debate in their social circles, families and governments. Idealistic representation might not be super realistic, but its dreamlike quality can be a much-needed breath of fresh air for many.

Representation is complex, because lived experiences are complex

Who would have thought that even compelling representation can make queer people feel uneasy? If anything, this goes to show that representation isn’t a one-size-fits-all kind of situation. A diversity of queer representation is also necessary to reflect how diverse the LGBTQ+ community really is. 

Intersectionality — the idea that multiple facets of a person’s identity (such as race, gender, etc.) collectively affect their relative advantages or disadvantages in life — is an important lens that should go on top of any analysis of representation. We need to remember that queer people come in all shapes, sizes, and colours, that bisexuality is often erased , that trans people are left out of conversations, and that black and brown people are tone-policed. 

It’s also worth noting that some shows or books fit more than one category of representation. Take RuPaul’s Drag Race , for instance. The reality TV series is overwhelmingly about queer empowerment and celebrating self-expression ( idealistic representation ), yet also sheds light on the struggles that LGBTQ+ folks face ( sob stories ). On top of that, the show has also been accused of giving contestants of colour an “evil” edit, making them come across as spiteful or angry ( negative representation ).

As we’ve mentioned right at the start, media representation directly affects public perception. So the next time you feel euphoric or enraged at a piece of media, we hope that this analysis provides a useful way to understand and inspect that intuition. Being critical of the media we consume can quite literally change the world. 

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I definitely agree with Fast & Furious. It is one of my favorite franchises, and it lacks queer representation, even though one of the main actresses is queer herself. In one of the movies, I think Fast and Furious 4, they did show a lesbian couple kissing in the club when they went to meet Braga’s goon! I recently noted they don’t have any queer main characters and it is deeply saddening! Even in Marvel, there are hardly any queer characters as well! Loki is about the only I can safely name is queer.

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