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Who We Don’t See On TV

In 2018 and 2019, there were a total of twenty-six recurring transgender characters who appeared on television, including streaming services. About one in six Americans report that they personally know at least one transgender person ("Where We Are On TV"). More than ninety percent of American households watch television on a regular basis (Leavitt 41). What this means is that for five out of six Americans, the only trans people they ever see—and this is assuming there are any—are a handful of characters on TV. If you live in America, and pay any attention, you know that vitriol directed the way of the trans community is pervasive—and it's not so hard to imagine feeling the same way if your only experience of trans people comes from Fox News and Ace fucking Ventura. That's just one example—but media in general presents a skewed perspective of just about every minority group, with one obvious exception.

Cultivation theory provides a psychological model for how media alters our perception of the world around us. The information we take in and the stories we're told change the way we contextualize what we see, reshaping or reinforcing the framework on which we hang our experiences ("Cultivation Theory"). If you see a Muslim committing an act of terror on television—and then see the same thing happen again and again—you'll begin to draw a connection between the two ideas. That's an obvious and simplified example, but there are innumerable subtler ways in which media builds connections between concepts that gradually become part of our own perception of the world. It's worth examining what connections exactly are being drawn, who's drawing them, and how exactly they're changing the world we live in.

Essentially every demographic—with, of course, the exception of one very special minority group—is drastically underrepresented in entertainment media. There are many subtle issues with the state of diversity in entertainment, but this isn't one of them—it's a simple fact that our math is just off. The selection of people who are represented in media differs significantly from the actual population—the world of entertainment is not like ours. A study of 900 films released from 2007-2016 found that 31% of speaking roles were female—a demographic which famously constitutes almost exactly half of the population (Smith 6). This is as clear-cut as it gets—I fail to imagine what a reasonable explanation for this inequity could sound like. Other statistics featured in the report are the total 1.1% of movie characters who were LGBT (far fewer than exist in reality) and the 2.7% who were depicted as disabled (the real-life statistic is closer to 1 in 4), among others (Smith 8, CDC). The simple fact of underrepresentation is far from the extent of the problem; there's also the issue of the quality of that representation, which is overwhelmingly inadequate. 

While a great diversity of characterization exists among ingroup characters—just about every white man that can be written, has—minority characters tend to be constructed from a limited bank of stereotypes. Characters from the least-represented demographics suffer the most from this oversimplification. Indigenous Americans, for instance, are very seldom seen on-screen, and when they are, they're depicted most often not as modern people but as 18th and 19th century stereotypes (Leavitt 40). The less we see of a group of people, the flatter and less realized those few glimpses are. It's clear that the majority-white population of writers who rely on other media for cues on how to represent marginalized groups, in the absence of diverse characterizations, are falling back on decades- or centuries-old stereotypes to tell their stories, and in that way, ill representation begets ill representation. That brings us to the problem of artists. A hefty majority of the people producing mainstream art are, not surprisingly, the same kind of people we see in front of the camera—white fellas. In the timespan covered by the Annenberg study, women made up 4% of film directors, while 6% were Black—and directors of other ethnicities were sequestered to an even more vanishingly small niche. The common factor is that every aspect of the entertainment industry is full to bursting with white guys, despite them being a comparatively small portion of the population.

The big question is: why is this an issue? And the answer is obvious and intuitive but nonetheless it's going to take a few pages to answer here.

In 2017, the most popular dream career among children in the US was to be a doctor. In 2019, two years later, more children aspired to be internet personalities than any other profession (Taylor). Children now feel that they are living in a world where "Youtuber" is a viable and fulfilling career. Which is to say that the landscape of media children were consuming palpably altered their worldview—they're identifying themselves with the people that entertain them, wishing to model their own lives after theirs. Media doesn't just entertain us—it is, in part, a substance with which we construct our self-image and our expectations of the world around us. This is especially true of young people, and when young people are presented with entertainment that belittles, stereotypes, or simply omits them, it can inflict real damage. It's been demonstrated that exposure to television is associated with lower self-esteem in all children with the exception of white boys—striking evidence of both the reality and real negative outcomes of  inadequate representation. The messaging may not always be clear to us, but it gets through to children: you are not the type of person that we value. 

One group that is constantly and severely devalued in this way is indigenous Americans. Contemporary depictions are so infrequent and negative as to subject them to what is known as "relative invisibility"—an almost total absence of any realistic or aspirational representations in culture (Leavitt 41). The effect of this pattern of representation is far from negligible. A study of indigenous American students found that greater exposure to media with indigenous American characters actually led to increased negative feelings about themselves, their place in the community, and their future aspirations (Leavitt 44). It's apparent from this result that a greater quantity of representation is not, on its own, an inherent positive. Exposure to a narrow and largely negative range of portrayals of oneself can narrow and negativize one's worldview and self-image. It's easy to imagine how one's dreams for the future could begin to feel futile if the only professions media seems to think you're suited for are mystical wise man and noble savage. Quantity of representation is not enough—in fact, if the quality of representation is lacking, greater saturation can actually do more harm than good, causing real harm to marginalized people whose self-identity and mental health may be damaged by poor portrayals.

When films and shows with stereotypical representations of indigenous Americans are released, indigenous Americans aren't the only ones watching. The same is true of Black people, Muslims, queer people, and every other heavily stereotyped community. While self-esteem is a real issue, we must also be concerned with the esteem in which others hold us. Prejudice presents a serious threat to many—prejudice informed in part by the media that we constantly consume. 

There are real-life political consequences of entertainment. Evidence indicates a relationship between audiences viewing negative portrayals of Black people and negative opinions about policies related to affirmative action, policing, and other race-related legal issues, as well as a general tendency to hold unfavorable beliefs regarding Black intelligence, work ethic, and criminality (Mastro). This is deeply relevant as policy regarding the legal treatment of Black people is one of the most significant issues in the public consciousness, especially in the last few years. The concept of Black people as innately criminal, reinforced by stereotypical media portrayals, has been and continues to inform the debate around issues such as police violence and reform. Voters watch movies and television—so do congresspeople—and the way certain communities look in movies and television contributes to policy decisions that will save or end lives.

The Latin American community deals with similar portrayals in media—they are most often shown as inarticulate, unintelligent, unskilled laborers or criminals (Mastro). These portrayals, too, are highly relevant to American politics. The 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump relied heavily on leveraging negative stereotypes about Latin American and specifically Mexican immigrants—they were characterized as violent, predatory, and a threat to the American way of life. Those stereotypes, however, were not invented for the purpose of promoting Donald Trump as a presidential candidate—their utility as a political tool came from the fact that this was already a popular way of viewing Mexican immigrants. The widespread stereotypes about Latin American people are reinforced and reiterated by our entertainment, and in this case, formed the foundation of a winning presidential campaign.

There are good examples, too—in the 1990s and 2000s, American support for gay marriage rocketed from around 20% to nearly 60%, an incredibly rapid change in public opinion caused largely by advocacy in the media (Baume). Gay marriage was then nationally legalized in 2015. The way people are portrayed in our entertainment has serious real-world consequences, good and bad; human lives depend on how the most vulnerable people in our society are shown to the rest of us.

The solution isn't just more. That's part of it, but as we know, increasing the quantity of representation can be harmful rather than helpful if that representation isn't also high-quality. There is some correlation between the two—a greater number of portrayals of a group generally means more divergence from stereotypes—but there's a more fundamental issue at play. There are an abundance of stories that involve characters from marginalized groups, and yet the overwhelming majority of people producing stories in the mainstream are the same white men. As a culture, we enjoy stories about different types of people, but seem to be very comfortable allowing those stories to be told to us by an extremely homogenous group of writers and directors. The entertainment industry often even seems uncomfortable allowing minority actors to play minority roles; although casting white actors to play people of color has mostly fallen out of fashion, it's still commonplace to cast non-disabled and non-queer actors to play disabled and queer characters. This isn't necessarily an unacceptable practice in itself, but it's common enough to create a sense that queer and disabled actors are being actively excluded from entertainment. Of the limited number of disabled characters who appear on-screen, only 5% are played by disabled actors (Pearson). Actors such as Adam Pearson, who was never considered for the leading role in a film about Joseph Merrick (whose condition Pearson shares), are routinely passed up in favor of non-disabled actors (Pearson). Queer actors are similarly underrepresented. As one would expect, minority representation is vastly increased by the presence of minority directors and writers—movies by Black directors have six times as many Black speaking roles on average (Smith 3). The possibility of high-quality, equal representation is clearly tied to increasing diversity behind the camera.

But—what if straight white men just make better entertainment? Maybe they make up such a huge majority of the media industry because their work is simply more valuable. From a certain angle, this is sort of true. The value assigned to entertainment is, in part, determined by the critical response it receives, and media critics are mostly white men. In 2017, 78% of the top film critics were men, and 82% were white (Choueiti 2). It's not strange to enjoy media you see yourself represented in, and it's not surprising that the media we consume the most is mostly comprised of people who look like the people who we allow to determine its quality.

The entertainment industry as it stands today is a self-congratulatory stew of white men. Most representation of anyone outside that group is done on their terms, and as such, lacks both quantity and quality. The only way to break out of the narrow range of representations of marginalized people is to inundate the entertainment business with those people. We need women, queer people, people of color, and disabled people in the media, behind cameras and in front of them. The way these people are portrayed has real and severe consequences—for their mental health, physical safety, and place within our culture. Diversity in entertainment is not a frivolous issue. It matters, a lot, and it won't solve itself. 

Works Cited

Baume, Matt. "Why Opinion Changed So Fast On Gay Marriage." Youtube, uploaded by Matt Baume, 25 June 2015.

"CDC: 1 in 4 US adults live with a disability." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 16 August 2018.

Choueiti, Marc et al. "Critic's Choice?: Gender and Race/Ethnicity of Film Reviewers Across 100 Top Films of 2017." Annenberg Foundation, USC Annenberg, June 2018.

"Cultivation Theory." Communication Theory, 2012.

Indiana University. "TV viewing can decrease self-esteem in children, except white boys." ScienceDaily, 30 May 2012.

Leavitt, Peter et al. "'Frozen in Time': The Impact of Native American Media Representations on Identity and Self-Understanding." Journal of Social Issues, 2015.

Mastro, Dana. "Race and Ethnicity in US Media Content and Effects." Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication, Oxford University Press. 26 September 2017.

Pearson, Adam et al. "'Actors don't black up, so why do they still crip up?' – video." The Guardian, 10 September 2018.

Smith, Stacy L., Choueiti, Marc. "Black Characters in Popular Film: Is the Key to Diversifying Cinematic Content held in the Hand of the Black Director?" USC Annenberg, 2011.

Smith, Stacy L. et al. "Inequality in 900 Popular Films: Examining Portrayals of Gender, Race/Ethnicity, LGBT, and Disability from 2007-2016." Annenberg Foundation, USC Annenberg, July 2017.

Taylor, Chloe. "Kids now dream of being professional YouTubers rather than astronauts, study finds." Make It, CNBC, 19 July 2019.