The 2016 Oscar nominations were recently announced and the public is outraged. #OscarsSoWhite trended on Twitter because all the nominees in the four main acting categories are white. That’s right, for the second year in a row, not a single person of color was nominated, despite there having been several acclaimed roles played by black actors and other people of color this year.
This is all part of the ongoing conversation about the importance of representation in films and TV. In recent years, things seem to be getting better in Hollywood, with film casts reflecting the diversity of their audiences. The recent film "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" has been praised for straying from the traditional all-male, all-white cast, with John Boyega and Daisy Ridley acting among the main characters. The new film was praised for having a far better portrayal of women than the original movies did, as well as featuring a black stormtrooper.
Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, there has been plenty of racist backlash over the casting of a black main character (Finn, played by Boyega), with many people urging for a boycott of the film (as well as ridiculously and offensively calling it a conspiracy to promote "white genocide"). Boyega has responded to his racist critics with grace: “I'm proud of my heritage, and no man can take that away from me. I wasn't raised to fear people with a difference of opinion.”
Despite the all-around success of the new "Star Wars" movie, Hollywood has time and time again shown that minority representation is not its strongest suit. In recent years, they have made some embarrassing mistakes regarding the diversity of actors. Movies like "Aloha" (2015), "The Last Airbender" (2010) and "Dragonball: Evolution" (2009) were criticized for casting white actors in the roles of characters that were supposed to be Asian.
TV seems to be doing a better job of having more diversity. I appreciate the presence of classic brown characters like Kelly Kapoor (Mindy Kaling) on "The Office" and Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari) on "Parks and Recreation." However, I wish the shows would talk about their “brownness” more than they do. Although many people praise characters of color that exist without their ethnicity becoming their entire self, I think there needs to be some middle ground.
Stereotypical characters that tokenize and misrepresent ethnic identity, such as Raj (Kunal Nayyar) in "The Big Bang Theory," should, of course, be avoided at all costs. But I personally would love more characters written with their immigrant or minority experiences in mind. Shows like "Fresh off the Boat" and more recently, "Master of None," do a good job of portraying well-rounded characters in a setting that doesn’t shy away from discussing their heritage and identity.
I want more diversity on screen. When I was a little kid, I wrongly assumed "Bend It Like Beckham" was a Bollywood movie just because the main character was a brown girl, and I had rarely seen that anywhere else (somehow, I wasn't thrown off by the film's lack of musical numbers). Minorities and women should be as commonplace on TV as they are in our society. Until it is normalized, minority representation is essentially politicized -- which can be tiring, but perhaps we could embrace it. The world needs to know that non-white people exist, so let’s make them deal with it in pop culture.
