I've been reminiscing on my childhood growing up watching Cartoon Network, Disney Chanel and Nickelodeon. But while going back and having a think back to the major shows I was consuming, I recognised the lack of representation of a diverse cast in majority of the shows that were popular back then.
I really became aware of the token black character in most of these shows. And how, in my memory, these characters would often not really have many episodes where they played a main role in the narrative of the episode. I felt like Michael in Zoey 101 was more there to aid the crazy storylines of the other, mainly white characters. In later released shows like icarly and Victorious, the black characters were portrayed quite extremely, with Andrea's grandmother's main personality trait being that she's a crazy old lady. In icarly the only black character "T-bone" was never really a person beyond the comedic gag of him putting random food items on a stick. Or, Helen in Drake and Josh main trait was being extremely mean to Josh and super sweet to Drake. Overall these characters were all quite one dimensional and never really got explored as characters very much.
In these 2000s era shows, there was barely any Asian characters from my memory, all I can remember is numbuh 3 in Code Name Kids Next Door, London Tipton, and Lulu in True Jackson VP. Which must have been so disparaging to grow up unable to watch a representation of yourself on popular tv shows.
I do think there were some great shows with great representation eg: Lilo and Stich, Avatar the Last Airbender, That's so Raven, Kenan and Kel, True Jackson VP. However it really does show that during this time, white characters made up the majority of the main cast members. Although I do not watch Disney Chanel, Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network at all anymore, I really hope the shows they are producing follow suit with the worlds shifting view points of race representation. I think it is especially important in children's media that kids can see themselves represented in the characters on screen.
Very insightful Jade. Representation was important to me as a child. In 2006 when 'Laughing Samoans' and 'Sione's Wedding' took off, representing Kiwi-Island culture, my family, friends and school (Ōtāhuhu Primary) were enamoured with not just us visually on-screen, but our culture: not just Islander, but kiwi-islander, the hybridity of otherness that left us stuck without a concrete identity.
ReplyDeleteShortland Street missed this even with Poly characters, in which I think the inaccuracy stems from the people who write the narrative and create the characters don’t come from (and therefore understand) the cultures represented in their fiction.
Scarcity of representation made us in my opinion desperate for any representation, so we settle with what’s better than before, rather than what’s right. For example, we settled with bro’Town (2004-2009), which is coon garbage to me; but we supported it under the mentality of ‘it’s better than nothing.’ Which I feel is apart of the reason why Hattie McDaniel who played Mammy in Gone with the Wind (1939) considered her role and the Oscar she received as something amazing at the time – yet today in 2020 we’re eliminating representations of Mammy among others.
Overall, like you said, I hope those shows but media in general follow suit with the worlds shifting viewpoints of race representation, until there’s a surplus of accurate representation and a scarcity of misrepresentation, opposing the contemporary vice versa. I think as aforementioned the key is to do what’s right not what’s better than before.
It is so sad how lack of representation and bad representation is normalised. And how it is towards to children so they grow up with the ideas of casual racism.
ReplyDeleteI've too been thinking a lot about the shows I used to watch and looking at the shows I watch now and there still isn't a large difference in the casting. Theres still the token Asian and token African American being represented amongst a cast of White actors. I'm hoping that we'll have a more even depiction in film/TV in the next decade..
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