Gazing Upon a Media Mirror: A Reflection on Real Recognizes Real

CSS’s AIR Adolescents report Real Recognizes Real provides a first-hand perspective of what adolescents perceive as real and how that affects the overall success of each film franchise. As an author of the report and an adolescent myself, working on this project has sparked many thoughts in my head. It’s imperative that media representation feels authentic, or purely-cosmetic diversity can be detrimental to a franchise. Growing up as a first generation Filipina in a predominantly White area, people that mirrored my race were few and far between. Although this lack of representation did not change much in my neighborhood as the years went on, I noticed a shift in mainstream movies. My media mirrors became clearer and clearer. At first, Mulan was the only option for some semblance of my culture in the Disney princess realm, but in high school, Moana’s release claimed the titular character a spot as my nickname, and in college, Raya and the Last Dragon showed me a character inspired by southeast Asian countries like the Philippines. Representation like this does not go unnoticed.

One of the main findings of the report revealed the importance of an adolescent’s lived experience in the predictiveness of their rating. Higher representation ratings by those who share that identity better predicted box office success than ratings by adolescents that did not share the identity. This felt intuitive to me, as people who grew up in a certain culture are likely more educated on authentic representation than their counterparts. I could certainly tell what made Moana and Raya feel authentic since I was exposed to similar cultures growing up. However, it did come as a surprise to me that adolescents as young as 13 reported ratings similar to 24-year-olds if they both had lived experience in the identity portrayed. My attitudes about being Filipino differ so much now as a 22-year-old than when I was an 8th grader. Analyzing the data, one explanation is that since the media landscape is so much more diverse now, the average 13-year-old has more media literacy around their respective cultures due to seeing it on screen much more than I did growing up. Or, given how much I could see myself in Moana at an early age, it could be that 13-year-olds understand when representation of their culture feels authentic, but may not be able to verbalize the why in the same way as an older adolescent.

For marginalized communities, seeing the television as a mirror shifts something in how one views themselves. Our culture is no longer seen as Other, but something worth mainstream inclusion, providing validation and building young people’s confidence. I remember feeling this when my family went to see Spider-Man: No Way Home.  The roar of laughter in the theater from Ned’s muumuu-wearing, Tagalog-speaking lola throwing a pillow at Spiderman echoed around in my head as I walked back to the car. My parents and I were giggling about how they nailed the ambiance of a truly Filipino home. From the classic lace tablecloth on the table to the Catholic shrine in the background, I could basically smell the chicken adobo cooking on the stove from my seat. My dad, who grew up in a rural province with a concrete and chicken wire hut as a home, was beaming the whole car ride home from seeing his culture on the big screen, even if just for a short scene. A counterintuitive finding from the report was that stereotypes did not lower the ratings of representation for adolescents. But we can gather that cliches can be funny when they’re authentic, relatable, and done in good taste. Watching something so niche and authentic to my upbringing, even if it is a bit stereotypical, broadcast in front of an audience makes it feel like I’m in on an inside joke with a bunch of strangers. It not only brings me closer to my culture, but closer to the relationships that are tied to that culture.

Working on this report also made me think about the fact that diverse characters, like people with diverse identities, do not exist in a vacuum. That is why I am not at all surprised by the finding that adolescents that related to relationships on screen also rated the franchises higher. Diverse characters that hold meaningful relationships feel more authentic to the viewer. When a character is grounded in a web of connections, they don’t stick out like a sore thumb anymore. Instead, they take on a more vibrant and believable storyline. For example, in Avatar the Last Airbender, a series based on various Asian cultures, Aang feels like he truly is a Tibetan monk due to his mentor relationship with Monk Gyatso. Their interactions make it easy to understand the dynamics of a Tibetan monastery and fosters an authentic peek into their world. His kind demeanor towards his friends highlights the ‘do no harm’ mindset of his culture. By illustrating the Tibetan monk lifestyle through relationships, it becomes easy to understand and relate to for anyone. Relationships between diverse characters with a shared identity, like Ned and his lola or Aang and his mentor Monk Gyatso, can bring that culture to life for all audiences.

Real Recognizes Real offers insights from real adolescents from all backgrounds and walks of life with rich cultures who deserve to be represented on screen, and it has been such a privilege to work on it. My hope is that insights from the report can aid in helping franchises create clearer media mirrors for more youth so they grow up to be confident in their own cultures and more understanding of others.

Hana Ibarra is an author of Real Recognizes Real and a recent graduate at the University of California Santa Barbara, with a B.S. in Psychological and Brain Sciences and a minor in Applied Psychology. Her honors thesis investigated the connection between interoception and empathy in different relationship types. She has worked with CSS for two years and is planning to pursue a PhD in social and affective neuroscience.