[Professor Deni Elliott] Media producers have the power to reach a mass audience. Now, along
with this power to influence comes the responsibility to be conscious and careful of how they represent
individuals and groups in the society in which we live.
Music, film, art, theater, journalism and advertising hold up mirrors to individuals and communities.
These mirrors can be cracked or distorted, and even the very best mirror only shows a sliver of reality.
Mirrors can reflect stereotypes and mistaken beliefs that are held by media producers
or by dominant society itself.
[Paige] When you have images of black women in the media that talk about them being, you
know, welfare queens or talk about them being angry black women, or when we have these stereotypes
that hyper-sexualize the black female body. And then that is all people think when they
see you.
I get direct responses whenever I have a conversation with somebody of,
"Wow, you're so well spoken!" and I think, "Is that a surprise?
Was I expected not to be well spoken?"
It's not unreasonable for individuals to want truthful representation. For example, the
film, The Hurt Locker, received nine Academy Award nominations, winning 6 Oscars. Yet,
this story of a journalist embedded in an Army unit in Iraq drew strong criticism from
some war veterans. According to critics who had been fighting in Iraq at the time, the
movie showed a soldier getting blown up in a scene that would have called for robotic
bomb detonation in real life, and according to another, "No soldier would go down an alley
in Iraq by himself in 2004 at night."
Any individual or group can be presented unfairly,
but those most likely to be negatively represented are members of groups who have a history of
discrimination.
[Ramya] A recent show that's gained a lot of popularity is "The Big Bang Theory", right?
So, the women that are represented in that, the smartest of the women group is represented
as, you know, almost dull and boring and unattractive, and not funny.
[Rich] The gay characters in Modern Family -- they're very stereotypical, they're saucy,
they're salacious, they're… they're very loud, they're always fighting, they're bickering.
It just perpetuates these stereotypes that are already held by, by, by most people.
When viewing media or when producing material for a public audience,
here are four important questions to keep in mind:
1: Is the perspective presented that of dominant
society or is it the perspective of the people within the group? Perspective matters. A media
report might use common phrasing to describe someone as QUOTE “confined to a wheelchair,”
but most wheelchair users would see it differently. Wheelchairs, for many of the people who use
them, are symbols of mobility, not confinement.
2: Which descriptors are needed to help your audience understand your story subject,
and which needlessly perpetuate stereotypes?
Any descriptor should be analyzed for relevance. Religion or race may be relevant to an individual's
criminal act. But usually it's not. Based on demographics, for example, most robberies
in the United States are committed by people who were raised in a Christian tradition.
But it doesn't follow that Christians are likely to rob people and the same is true
about the lack of relevance of most terrorists' religions.
3: Does the representation impede the group's progress toward equality within dominant society?
The film, Argo, won Best Picture in 2012, but was critiqued for the decision to cast
a white actor as Latino Tony Mendez. Many critics argued that Argo followed a long tradition
of white actors playing Latino characters in film, such as Al Pacino in Scarface, thus
denying Latino actors professional opportunities.
4: The last question to consider is who is not captured in the media mirror?
Lack of inclusion in media presentation makes it easy to dismiss members of a group in real life.
But, if viewers and media producers become sensitive to people whom the camera ignores,
media presentations will expand to include a greater diversity of perspectives.
To every stereotype, there is some truth rooted in it, and the problem is when that becomes
the norm for a whole… that becomes the representative of a whole group of people.
Most people strongly believe that artists and journalists must have freedom of expression,
but we also value respecting the beliefs, customs and cultures of others. By keeping
the four questions raised here in mind, we can start a dialogue that helps everyone understand
the issues, with the potential of reducing moral disagreement. In this way, we can promote
authentic and inclusive representation, and better understand the producer's message when
prejudice is purposefully depicted.
[Madilynn] Things like diversity and cultural responsibility can't just be buzzwords that
we put in mission statements.
They have to be things that we are consistently and actively trying to achieve.
I am a black American, but I‘m a complex individual.
[Letisha] We have to be really, really thoughtful about the way that we portray people and think
not only about the instance in which we're portraying them but about the histories that
undercoat that.
You know, it is a challenge and I think it has to be one that is ongoing.