A few days ago, I was watching a movie on TV with a few other people. I kept commenting on how the women in the movie were portrayed, the lack of minorities in the cast, and even how glad I was that a back-to-school commercial had included a child in a wheelchair. After the movie was over, I thought about how many times I had spoken about the portrayal of the actors in what we had watched and realized I made the overwhelming majority of the comments.
My initial reaction was of slight embarrassment because I thought about how I might have annoyed the people I was with. However, the more I thought about it, although during a movie might not always be the best time to make my comments (I do have a reputation of talking during movies), I am not and will not ever be ashamed of speaking up against the representation, or lack thereof, of minorities and women in media.
To take this movie in particular as an example, of the seven main characters, five were men. The two women were significantly younger than their male counterparts, and were attractive, thin, white women. The villain was black, and he was the only person of color (POC) I noticed in the entire movie.
This isn't abnormal. In fact, relative to so many popular movies and TV shows, the fact that there was a person of color at all is, sadly, an improvement. The idea that the leading ladies in movies need to be attractive and young doesn't come as much of a shock, either. Older men are considered "distinguished" or "mature," while female actresses are shamed for aging. In a recent interview, as just one of the many examples of the ageism in media, actress Maggie Gylenhaal was told she was too old to play the love interest of a 55 year old man, even though she herself is only 37.
In regards to minorities in the media, there are even fewer opportunities for representation. It seems, at least from my perspective, that unless a role was written specifically with a minority in mind, that role will be offered to a white actor. A project that highlights this is a Tumblr blog called Every Single Word, where Venezuelan-American actor Dylan Marron has edited tons of famous movies so that only POC actors speak. It's a creative way to clearly depict how little screen time minorities have in these huge franchises, and shows how large this problem truly is.
For example, one of my favorite series growing up, Harry Potter, had only 12 POC characters depicted in all eight films. Their combined screen time made up only 0.47% of the entire series. Now, for me, as I watched Harry Potter growing up, I might not have recognized this lack of representation as an example of Hollywood's inherent discrimination against POC, but it did make me believe that maybe people who looked like me couldn't really fit in at a place like Hogwarts. In a series where spells and three-headed dogs and dementors were actual things I could accept, I believed that my skin color would be out of place. How messed up is that?
Much of this problem stems from the fact that, in the grand scheme of things, there aren't enough female and POC directors, producers and people in high places out there to push for more representation in movies. And that isn't for lack of trying, but simply because there is already a system in place that makes it very difficult for them to achieve the same level of recognition as their more privileged counterparts.
As someone who has an interest in theater and acting, my race has been a factor in more than one occasion. It's a horrible feeling to think that you could be limited simply because of the color of your skin. For many years, it's been something I've internalized, and even blamed myself for. But I am beginning to see that the fault does not lie with me. It lies in a system that creates media we all consume, yet depicts only a small fraction of our population.
With this new understanding, I am encouraged to challenge this system, because I am tired of actresses being valued only for their beauty and done with seeing film without color.
