There has been a pressing issue of the lack of diversity in mainstream media in front and behind the camera. For many years the face of Hollywood was white, occupying roles as actors, directors, screenwriters and other prominent positions in the industry.
Due to racial discrimination in the 19th and 20th century Hollywood would would avoid casting African American actors, instead they would cast whites and paint their faces black which led to the term ‘Blackface’. However blackface died out in the 1930’s due to the negative connotations of bigotry and racism.
It was seen that African Americans would only be cast for roles as slaves and maids which were demeaning to them and their community. As the movie ‘Gone With The Wind’ made in 1939, the post Civil War era “All the heroes in this film are white, whereas the black characters are mostly stereotyped as loyal servants or mammies.” (p. 2, ) Resulting in them being perceived as someone their not.
African Americans weren 't the only
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According to the article “African American Representation In Hollywood”, the first person of color to win an Oscar was Hattie McDaniel in 1940 for Best Supporting Role, however it took 61 years later for another woman of color to receive an Oscar and in 2001 Halle Berry took home an Oscar for Best Actress in a Lead Role in ‘Monster 's Ball’ and the same night Denzel Washington also went home with a Best Lead Actor award in ‘Training Day’. Though many more people were nominated, less than a handful of minorities walked away with an award throughout the years. We wonder why, but according to the “2016 Hollywood Diversity Report”, studies show that “minorities accounted for 37.9 percent of the U.S Population in 2014, yet they were underrepresented by nearly 3 to 1 among lead roles for that year.” (p.10
Film Historian Donald Bogle, the author of “Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, & Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films,” offers compelling and informative examples of various stereotypes of African-Americans performers. He emphasizes on historical characteristics of gifted black actors/entertainers; renovating their roles to disseminate specific representations that are significant to the economics and history of America’s shifting environmental circumstances.
African American representation in the film industry has always been a topic for discussion. Whether talking about character types and roles, the actors being cast or not cast, and the lack of diversity in front of and behind the camera. ‘The contemporary status of race in mainstream American culture is intimately bound to the process of representation within and through the mass media.’ (Rocchio, 2000, p. 4). Any role that was to be played by an African American kept in with the dominant stereotypes of the time of production; incompetent, child like, hyper-sexualised or criminal.
...writers of all races and every ethnicity could be shown this video to learn about stereotypes to avoid in their screenplays. Television and movie producers could benefit from hearing other producers such as Hal Kanter and David Wolper talk about their experiences with African-American representation in their shows.
In the latest Disney film, a live action rendition of Beauty and the Beast, there will be a character who is gay. I personally am excited for this, I think that starting to include a diverse range of characters to show to younger children and create new ways of teaching open-mindedness to children when they are young is very important. However, I am just curious and wondering if, given Disney’s track-record, a statement like this is actually true:
...ent from the silent era of film, overt racism of ethnic minorities was blatantly apparent within the film medium. However, presently this overt racism however has shifted into a more subtle segregation of casting and racial politics within the film medium. It seems that both the problem and the solution lies in the Eurocentric domination within the Hollywood film industry – and it seems that it still remains challenged to this day.
Over the course of approximately one-hundred years there has been a discernible metamorphosis within the realm of African-American cinema. African-Americans have overcome the heavy weight of oppression in forms such as of politics, citizenship and most importantly equal human rights. One of the most evident forms that were withheld from African-Americans came in the structure of the performing arts; specifically film. The common population did not allow blacks to drink from the same water fountain let alone share the same television waves or stage. But over time the strength of the expectant black actors and actresses overwhelmed the majority force to stop blacks from appearing on film. For the longest time the performing arts were the only way for African-Americans to express the deep pain that the white population placed in front of them. Singing, dancing and acting took many African-Americans to a place that no oppressor could reach; considering the exploitation of their character during the 1930's-1960's acting' was an essential technique to African American survival.
In addition, due to negative feelings about Asian Americans prevalent in American culture, Hollywood’s attempt to expand its target audiences is constrained, and despite the increasing market values of Asian Americans, Hollywood is possibly unwilling to portray successful Asian characters for fear of provoking its mainstream audiences who hold prejudice against Asians. There is a dominant white preference over the effects certain stereotypes may have on Asians and Asian Americans (Park, 2005).
Although we have taken monumental strides in the past fifty years towards racial equality and diversity, it is still commonly argued that popular culture lacks some sort of racial representation. In the United States, the people who live here are vastly diverse when it comes to race and culture, yet in the media people of color get marginalized and stereotyped everyday in film, music, and etc.
From the stand point of Hollywood writers and directors, they want to build characters that will be touched by the audience. There are even people whose job is to critique a movie and rate it on how the audience will perceive the movie and how it can relate to individuals in the world. For example, the movie, "Friday" starring Ice Cube, Meagan Good, Nia Long, and Chris Tucker was created as a comedy that happens in the streets every day. This movie was loved by so many people around the world. Although all the actors and actresses are African American, people loved it because so many individuals can relate to what happens in the movie.
Often racial injustice goes unnoticed. Television tries to influence the mind of their viewers that blacks and whites get along by putting them on the screen to act as if interracial relationships has been accepted or existent. “At the movies these days, questions about racial injustice have been amicably resolved (Harper,1995). Demott stresses that the entertainment industry put forth much effort to persuade their audience that African Americans and Caucasians are interacting and forming friendships with one another that is ideal enough for them to die for one another. In the text, Demott states “A moment later he charges the black with being a racist--with not liking whites as much as the white man likes blacks--and the two talk frankly about their racial prejudices. Near the end of the film, the men have grown so close that each volunteer to die for the other” (Harper,1995). Film after film exposes a deeper connection amongst different races. In the text, Demott states “Day after day the nation 's corporate ministries of culture churn out images of racial harmony” (Harper, 1995). Time and time again movies and television shows bring forth characters to prove to the world that racial injustice has passed on and justice is now received. Though on-screen moments are noticed by many people in the world it does not mean that a writer/ director has done their
Those who deny the existence of the racism rooted into modern day Hollywood are far from reality. They may think that in the United States we are getting closer to equality when it comes to casting but we in fact are not. While there is the belief that America has progressed when it comes to social issues, the percentage of roles held by black actors in film and TV has dropped from 15 to 13 percent from the early 2000’s to 2011 (McClintock and Apello 2).
Although Hollywood has added in a greater amount of diversity into their #1 blockbusters in the last decade, their motives, while they may be discrete, prove to be profit-induced. While black actors are landing roles
The Hurst book discusses in Chapter 8, that “whiteness is invisible to most whites,” this could be a reason that there is not a lot of diversity in Hollywood, but it could also be racism, and discrimination toward people of different ethnicities as well (Hurst, 183). According, to Hurst racism is “embedded in the structure and institutions, and defining racism individualistically rather than in structural terms, has allowed our attention to be defected from White privilege” (Hurst, 184). White privilege is present in Hollywood, everything is ran by white people, and it is the white writers and directors, they decided who they will cast in the show or movie. Racial and ethnic diversity in TV programming should not be a problem in the 21st century, this is a problem of the past and should not still be going on. The NPR article discusses the shift of more series with “non-white actors, and a more non-white cast, but that still is on 30% of all TV shows” that is a major improvement but there still needs to be more
Some of the movies that were whitewashed were praised by critics and audience. Huffingtonpost reported, “ Harlem’s Amsterdam News wrote glowingly about Al Jolson, a white actor who wore blackface for the 1927 film “The Jazz Singer,” with the paper declaring, “Every colored performer is proud of him.”” A respectable British actor, Laurence Olivier” played Othello in the movie, Othello (1965), a black lead character. How did Mr. Olivier played Othello? By using blackface. Blackface is when an actor uses dark makeup to represent an African-American which is disrespectful to the community. It tells the audience that an African-American actor doesn’t have the skills to play the role of their race, so another actor must do it. Some critics even defend blackface by saying, “actors are simply actors, playing imaginary roles”. But as counterpunch.org stated, “ But it is valid because it rests on a post-racial, cosmopolitan view of ethnicity that makes the subject of racial difference entirely redundant.” In one of the iconic films in the industry, Mickey Rooney plays a Japanese character who in the film is very stereotypical, but The New York Times on October 6,1961 praised his performance by saying, “Mickey Rooney’s bucktoothed, myopic Japanese is broadly
Ethnicity and appearance has become a tremendous problem in the media due to the fact that they try to use it as a power to control creativity of abstaining the truth in media. According to journalist Nishijima, A, she refers to the Oscars and explains that it is very absurd how the media is slowly progression in lacking diversity. This was recognized when watching the Oscars and seeing that based off predominantly white nominees. Nishijima quotes “Boone Isaacs decl...