Representation on Television - Pt. 1

Transcription

1 Pop Culture Shen Representation on Television - Pt. 1 Name: As we ve seen in our study of tv thusfar, early on, television was populated by predominantly white, hetereosexual actors/actresses and storylines. While it can certainly be argued that we ve come a long way from the films of the 20s and 30s and the tv of the 50s & 60s in terms of diversity, have we achieved a representation in American tv today that is truly representative of all people/groups? Media/tv images When writers rooms aren t diverse Indians on TV, Masters of None The Simpsons All-American Girl Fresh Off the Boat Directions: As you watch the clips, keep in mind how tv represents characters of various of ethnic, gender, racial and sexual backgrounds. Add to the chart below any characters/shows you see positive/negative representations. Positive representations (diverse in cast/roles, complex, multi-dimensional) Negative representations (invisible, flat, one-dimensional, stereotypical) As much as we may want to dismiss TV as simple entertainment, it undeniably contributes to our cultural landscape and our understanding of the world, says Stanford researcher Jenny Lee. What does it mean when [people of color] are missing or tokenized in this landscape? It reinforces the idea that we don t belong. What is a trope? (DEFINE) What is Aziz Ansari s point in the episode Indians on TV?

2 "I realized that people on the margins aren t afforded the privilege of being complicated, whole, human beings in America; we have to create that existence ourselves, and it is that experience that I feel fundamentally binds us." - Eddie Huang, author of Fresh Off the Boat We re not here to do the taxes of the white person, or to be the chipper best friend to the white person. It s important to see Asians in those leading roles because it changes what I m calling the anglo-heteronormative status of TV. [Imagine] that a producer says, Guy and girl meet-cute at an ice skating rink. They fall in love, but then she has to move away. If you say that to anyone, including an Asian person, you picture a white person because that s what s become normative to us. If it s Asian-American meet in a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown, that s the only time you picture it. We need to have a picture of Asian Americans. We shouldn t be a voice for all Asians. We are such a varied group that there s no one show that can be like, This is what Asian America looks like! But we re given that burden because we re so rarely represented. If you see Tina Fey on television, you re not like, All white women are like Tina Fey. Yet people are like, Oh, Jessica Huang s not like my mother, but this show is supposed to be about Asians, so shouldn t she be like my mother? I understand the burden, because the history of our representation on TV is very sparse. But we d be doing a disservice to the people who are worried about that by watering it down instead of trying to be specific. Specificity is what makes good storytelling, and good storytelling is what makes money, and making money is then what encourages new producers to invest in different stories about Asians. Hopefully this will get the ball rolling in terms of other people telling other stories that are completely different and totally unique. - Constance Wu, actress who plays Jessica Huang 1. What is Constance Wu saying above about the issue of representation in television? What s her point? 2. If television is a form of storytelling, what story is Fresh Off the Boat attempting to share/tell? When asked about his feelings on the success of Crazy, Rich Asians, Alan Yang (co-creator of Netflix s Master of None, director/writer/actor) said: I couldn t be more excited... I m excited for all the opportunities it s gonna open up for Asian Americans all over the industry. I m happy that we got Crazy Rich Asians, but that s one movie over 25 years. There s way more movies starring dogs than there are starring Asian Americans. They got Air Bud, Beethoven, Cats and Dogs, Marley and Me, Homeward Bound. Don t even get me started on the animated ones. We have one movie in the last 25 years [the Joy Luck Club ], so we ve got to at least catch up to dogs. Pop Culture Name:

3 Shen Representation on Television - Pt. 2 If You Want To See Diversity Onscreen, Watch Netflix. And Amazon. And Hulu. Celebrate diversity & chill. ( By Sara Boboltz and Brennan Williams) Netflix, Amazon and Hulu are frequently praised for the diverse, high-quality stories they tell. Where else can you find an original series about a family whose patriarch decides to become a matriarch, or about a Colombian man who runs a cocaine empire, or about a women s prison and its inmates? But as we approach the 88th Oscars on Sunday which is, again, overwhelmingly straight, white and male industry insiders brought up one advantage of streaming sites that is often looked over: they re new at this and aren t afraid to make up their own rules. Hollywood studios and major television networks have been around since the first quarter of the last century, giving them decades to form biases on what works and what doesn t work. Part of the business no small part is making safe bets on movies with people you know. But streaming services don t seem to carry as many preconceived ideas of what a show should look and sound like. Their genesis is content distribution not creation. Netflix began as a place to stream old television shows or movies you saw in theaters ten years ago, only shifting into original shows and films within the past few years. Hulu and Amazon, too, have only recently began their aggressive push to offer cord-cutters the same high-quality entertainment they re used to finding through traditional mediums. [Netflix does have an advantage in that it produces so much original content and isn't tied to traditional primetime television schedules. As Andy Yeatman, Netflix s Director of Global Kids Content, said, "One of the things about being an on demand platform is that people can choose what they want to watch... part of what we offer to consumers is such a variety of choice." Mike Royce, co-executive producer of Netflix s Cuban-American remake of Norman Lear s One Day At A Time, echoed this sentiment, likening Netflix to a supermarket: "You can go in and get whatever you want whenever you want as opposed to just one thing on at one time, so [Netflix is] happy to try things out."] Netflix, Amazon and Hulu don t need to play by anyone else s rules, because all have their own means of distributing whatever they make to potentially massive audiences. Their executives, then, are taking a chance by doing something revolutionary: letting the creatives run the show without so much interference. It s not the same kind of hands-on crushing of stories that I ve experienced with networks, Bridget Bedard, co-executive producer of Amazon s Transparent, told The Huffington Post. On some network shows that I ve worked on, the network becomes involved at such an early stage that they re noting dialogue, Bedard continued. They re saying things like the women sound too mean, or specifying what color the jacket might be in a line of description in the script. Netflix also seems to put up fewer creative roadblocks in developing original series. Jayson Jackson, a producer on the Netflix documentary What Happened, Miss Simone? praised the studio s desire to champion stories and artistry. They re seemingly not confined to [this idea of] We have to put what we think are bankable film stars in it, he explained. That hands-off approach starts at the very top. In an April interview with Wired, Cindy Holland, the company s vice president of original content, described her production philosophy as creator driven, adding that the company also uses predictive models from the heyday of its DVD rentals to determine whether there s a large enough audience among its subscribers to support any given project. Meanwhile, Roy Price, head of Amazon Studios, boiled his company s green-lighting process down to the underlying humanity of the characters, regardless of how they look. You can have a very specific character, who s unlike me or you, but the emotion is there, he told Wired.

4 Price s argument stands in stark contrast to one of Hollywood s longest held assumptions: that black, Asian and female characters will only appeal to black, Asian and female people. He s not alone in his contrarian opinion. Speaking last fall about an episode of his show Master of None centering on immigrant parents, comedian Aziz Ansari commented, I know white people that have watched it and they have not been totally [turned off]. In a 2015 interview with Variety, Holland explained that part of Netflix s commitment to producing diverse and eclectic shows stems from its aim to serve an increasingly global audience. (Last month, the company announced it had expanded service to 190 countries.) Netflix executives, along with the producers and directors they hire, must be more reflective of the audience we serve, Holland said. Hollywood serves a mostly global audience, too. In 2015, upwards of 70% of box office revenue from major tentpole films originated outside the U.S., which makes its failure to produce wide-ranging stories even more baffling. Streaming content, though, seems to be chipping away at the Hollywood rulebook. The evidence isn t just anecdotal, either. According to a University of Southern California study on diversity in 414 films and television shows released Monday, streaming content repeatedly fared better than Hollywood film in measures of diversity particularly gender. Women account for 38% of speaking roles in streaming content compared to 28% in film. Black and other minority characters account for 29.4% of speaking roles in streaming, whereas on film, it s 26.7%. Another study, GLAAD s report on queer representation released in November, counted 43 regularly appearing queer characters in streaming shows, compared to 35 on television networks. The HuffPost evaluated the number of black and other minority characters with fully realized lives rather than those that merely serve as scenery in white stories - to original scripted dramas and comedies on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and the Big Three networks: ABC, CBS and NBC. Out of 61 streaming shows evaluated all of which were marketed as originals by their respective distributors 36% passed the test. Out of 58 network shows evaluated, 33% passed. Where racial representation is concerned, streaming and television aren t too different after all. Across the whole landscape there s an epidemic of invisibility, as the USC researchers put it, for women, people of color and queer people. But in that bleak environment, streaming content along with shows on network and cable television are telling more stories from different perspectives. I think networks are trying to imitate some of the shows that are online, Bedard opined. I think they re influencing each other. Indeed, other media platforms are taking steps in the right direction. ABC made history last week by appointing Channing Dungey, a black woman, its new president. Dungey is responsible for launching Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder both series with black leads and she s promised to make increasing diversity in programming one of her top priorities. Diversity on-screen is improving, but everyone Hollywood studios, streaming studios, and network and cable television should be trying to do better. If more inclusive stories are working for Netflix, Amazon, Hulu (and any of the other networks airing them) we can only hope other executives are taking note. What can you say overall about network television s vs. streaming services representation of non-white Americans, LGBTQI people, immigrants or women on TV? Why is there a difference? Media/tv image Parents, Master of None

5 How is a show like Master of None or Fresh Off the Boat an example of progress in terms of representations of diverse people and stories on television? BROADER CONNECTIONS: While it can certainly be argued that we ve come a long way from the films of the 20s and 30s and the tv of the 50s in terms of diversity, have we achieved a representation in American tv today that is truly representative for all people/groups? In what ways yes and in what ways no? Looking at some of the shows and the various non-white/foreign characters on TV over the last years, how can we argue that in many ways, TV is a powerful indicator of shifting American values?