More Than an Afterthought: Authentically Representing Intersectionality in Media
HIGHLIGHTS
• It is important to not think of intersectionality as simply adding up multiple identities that have no influence on one another.
• Without taking intersectionality into account, progressive ideas and movements lack substance.
• When creating a character, list out the intersectional elements of their identity and consider how to work these into all aspects of their characterization on-screen.
In college, I was briefly part of an organization that advocated for gender-oppressed people’s rights on campus. The group had themed weeks, like Sex Education Week and Period Awareness Week. The last theme of the semester was Intersectionality Week.
As a woman of color, I laughed. Intersectionality is not something I could wait weeks to live out. It’s my daily life. But too often, I find that advocacy groups and well-meaning people who are trying to support movements do the same thing. Intersectionality consistently shows up as an afterthought when it really should be a part of their mindset from the beginning, given that most movements have been started by the most marginalized people.
Intersectionality refers to the way that different identity markers, such as race, gender, sexuality, and class, interact and affect each other. These “intersections” produce experiences that are distinct to those who have the intersectional identity. Kimberle Crenshaw, the legal scholar who coined the term, wrote about Black women’s experiences in the workplace, saying that “the intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and sexism.” Crenshaw analyzed the way that the legal system separated Black women’s identities into “Black” and “woman,” but refused to account for how those two characteristics would overlap in a way that is unique to Black women.
Intersectionality is often treated like an addition problem. Women of color experience oppression because they are women + because they are people of color. A queer woman of color would experience homophobia + misogyny + racism. However, this goes against the foundation of what intersectionality is.
While it may seem like the Addition Problem Approach is a sincere attempt at understanding oppression, it can actually center privileged people instead. This is because there cannot be a universal experience of homophobia added to a universal experience of misogyny added to a universal experience of racism. Each one of these forms of oppression is influenced by the other, and the result is not an overlap of different shades of discrimination, but its own entity.
Too often, when we think about sexism, what we’re actually thinking about is the sexism that white, cis women face. When we talk about homophobia, we’re actually referring to white queer people’s struggles. When discussing racism, we generally think of the ways that it affects men of color. These associations are problematic because we believe that we can then understand intersectional identities and issues, but we’re just adding variables that never fit the equation in the first place.
The Addition Problem Approach has been used to explain intersectionality to people who have never heard about it before, but it cannot be the tool that we use when trying to actively work towards inclusion. Rather, there needs to be a consistent and active focus on intersectionality.
Let’s talk about what that might look like. In the context of gender, the starting point of a conversation cannot be an assumption that everyone understands femininity to be the same thing. A lot of conversation surrounding feminism and gender identity seems to push back against the idea of women being feminine. However, it’s important to understand that our society’s “default” ideas of gender are intertwined with whiteness, and so anyone who isn’t white will have a different interaction with the construct.
For instance, Black women are often hypermasculinized, meaning that their femininity is not just doubted, but rejected. The way that non-Black people enforce gender on Black people has roots in slavery, where the destruction of people’s identities was essential to their dehumanization and enslavement. Hortense Spillers, a Black feminist scholar, famously delves into the relationship between gender in Black communities and slavery in “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book.”
In media, there are patterns of Black women being portrayed as masculine. Consider the way that media outlets have talked about Serena Williams and Michelle Obama. In movies and television, similar patterns appear. This may manifest as casting a Black woman or girl in minor roles where she is only a prop for a white main character’s development, she is never thought of as a love interest, or her romantic life is a joke to other characters and the audience. In Pitch Perfect, Cynthia-Rose’s sexuality and romantic relationships are made fun of constantly, and the jokes about her make up nearly her entire character. In Sex and the City, Jennifer Hudson’s character, Louise, is more of a pitied character than a fully realized one.
Given the context of Black history, how would shunning femininity be the solution to misogyny? Of course, there are many Black people who don’t want to be feminine. But the point is that society’s current approach to gender is steeped in anti-Blackness and racism, and mainstream feminism’s idea of rejecting femininity as a form of freedom only works for a few people. If we don’t think about the way people with intersectional identities experience gender, then it’s just another case of supporting a kind of activism that doesn’t actually help people who are being hurt.
Conversely, East Asian women are hyperfeminized, and consistently characterized as submissive and only useful for sexual gratification. Examples include characters in Miss Saigon or Memoirs of a Geisha. While femininity is something that East Asian women are given access to, the interaction between race and gender is something that is marred with force and harm.
As a South Asian woman, I know people who look like me are either fetishized and seen as some exotic, sexual toy, or are ridiculed and thought to be sexless. One example that is branded in my mind is an early scene in How I Met Your Mother, a show that dominated my early teenage years. The men of the main cast are sitting in a taxi with Ranjit, a driver who reappears multiple times throughout the series. They ask him where he’s from, and he replies, “Bangladesh.” When Ted, Marshall, and Barney follow up by asking, “Are the women in your country beautiful?”, Ranjit shows them a picture of his wife. The protagonists respond by looking at each other and choking out, “He could have just said no.” This one scene is the only time I have ever heard an American show mention the name of the country that half of my family is from. It made my stomach drop, and as a tween watching the show, immediately convinced me that I would always be laughed at, always thought of as ugly. These aren’t just instances of racism; it is discrimination that works specifically because of intersectionality.
All of these examples demonstrate that the goal of blindly destroying masculinity and femininity as constructs is narrow-minded. The separate associations of femininity to domesticity and sexualization or masculinity with apathy, violence, and machismo undermine the layers of institutional oppression that people of color experience. To be clear, breaking down gender norms and the gender binary is key. However, doing so without actively centering histories of enslavement, genocide, and imperialism is not only irresponsible but harmful.
Problematic representation can also appear indirectly. Netflix's Moxie aims to tell a story about students engaging with feminism, but is ultimately a white feminist portrayal of social justice. Though historically, advocacy movements have consistently been started and led by Black women, Moxie places Black women and other characters of color to the side and characterizes white women as rebels. This not only ignores Black women's prominence in activism, but also paints over the suppression that intersectional people have faced in building advocacy groups.
I’ve given a few examples of the way race and gender intersect. There are thousands of layers within each category, and I haven’t even talked about intersections that involve socioeconomic status, religion, sexuality, neurodivergence, or disability. Intersectionality is not simple. It cannot be something that content creators and writers think about at the end of a project.
Instead, intersectional identities and histories need to be the mission from the beginning. Privileged people need to work more on understanding their roles in creating and contributing to discriminatory systems rather than assuming they know how to talk about or even create content portraying progress. Intersectionality is deeply complex, but it merits prioritization and continuing efforts to educate oneself.
For example, Pose offers insight into the way that the lives of trans women of color are also completely shaped by gender and race in ways that are different from cis women of color. Again, trans women of color often have to fight for femininity. Pose starts with intersectionality, rather than tacking it onto the end. While the show had limited representation of dark-skinned Black trans women, it provides a look into what mindful content creation looks like. Other examples of works that have prioritized intersectionality include Grown-ish, One Day at a Time, Grey’s Anatomy, Moonlight, and Girls’ Trip. While these works vary wildly in genre and tone, all of them include plotlines that are influenced by characters’ identities without identity markers making up the entirety of the characters.
This work extends beyond who’s in front of the camera. In addition to content creators and writers needing to research and learn about their characters’ identities, it is essential that there be diverse representation throughout a film or television show’s development, production, and distribution. For instance, the iCarly reboot has not only cast multiple Black characters, but has also hired Black hairstylists like Cora Diggins. The result has been stunning hairstyles for the characters in the show, as well as an outpouring of praise and support for the show’s decisions. Intersectionality was not just an afterthought here, but clearly something that was carefully considered throughout the process.
Ultimately, intersectionality is key. Without taking intersectionality into account, progressive ideas and movements lack substance. Progress doesn’t begin until intersectionality shows up, so it is critical to consider where in the work the subject is brought in. Shows and movies that attempt to lift up marginalized communities without thinking about intersectionality are only perpetuating different systems of prejudice and oppression. While it may feel daunting or overwhelming to think about the countless identity markers that people and characters have, there is beauty in investigating. Intersectionality isn’t an invisible or elusive concept: there are people with intersectional identities everywhere who live rich and deeply complex lives.
Actionable Insights
Prioritize telling stories with leading characters that have intersectional underrepresented identities.
When creating a character, list out the intersectional elements of their identity and consider how to work these into all aspects of their characterization on-screen.
Think about characters with multiple marginalized identities, and tell stories that do not consist solely of their struggles with those identities.
When telling stories of characters with intersectional identities, hire cast and crew members who can draw from their own intersectional identities to positively influence the authenticity of the overall storytelling.
When telling stories that aren’t “part of the real world,” like fantasy or science-fiction works, ensure that intersectional identities are represented without writing marginalization into their characters (i.e., make sure the characters are not just representations of their real-world oppression).
5 Content Creators to Listen To:
@kennathevampireslayer (TikTok)
@daejahtalkstv (TikTok & YouTube)
@crutches_and_spice (TikTok)
Khadija Mbowe (YouTube)
@thecounsciouskid (Instagram)
Jasmine Baten
Master’s student in Media and Communications, American University
Disclaimer: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this blog belong solely to the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Center for Scholars & Storytellers.