Asian Representation in Televsion and Film

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

Though I can't say that television nor media should be our main source of contact for race and culture, it often is our first and sometimes only contact of people unlike us. And when people are not represented in our academics and even further over shadowed in television and media we all lose out.

I have made it a priority to support media that represents POC, so shows like Cristela, Fresh off the Boat and Blackish, all represent shows that have main characters that represent an audience that is not represented when you have shows like Friends, Seinfield or the Bachelor.

Erasure of POC out of mainstream media is an unfair role that gets played out on television by writers and studio heads that aren't negatively impacted by this lack of diversity.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/susancheng/asian-representation-in-hollywood-in-2015?utm_term=.dgrPVm0E1#.geMjO946Z

[Anonymous]

@srogers thank you for posting this. I think that you bring up great points about how television and media shouldn't be the major sources of race and culture, but when teachers are the only ones providing some kind of context the media wins. You made me reflect on what my students think about people of color and how they identify themselves in that spectrum. I wonder what factors they are choosing to identify with and what exposure they have.

I just had dinner with a colleague and we discussed that most of our students remember roles that fit stereotypes and it is very difficult to fight it because all they need is one real world example for them to believe these things. This made me a bit sad because, there are very limited representations as you've mentioned and they don't encompass race and culture in the many facets whether they are good or bad.

I think this topic is definitely something to think about and discuss with our students, hopefully something can be engrained in them and if they're not mature enough to understand it yet, maybe they'll remember it later.

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