The Unbearable Invisibility of Being MENA in the Media
Growing up in Hawaii, despite its beautiful, multicultural communities, there was rarely a person around me that was Middle Eastern North African (MENA). My Iranian immigrant family practically took off sprinting after anyone if we heard even an inkling of Farsi spoken, just so that we could say hello. It was that rare and that coveted.
Decades later, those same combined, complicated feelings of yearning, heartache, and gratitude still wash over me when I find any media representation whatsoever that positively represents Persian culture. That’s why I was immediately diverted from my piled-up to-do list when I came across an Instagram video post of Britney Spears saying “Asheghetam” (“I love you” in Farsi) to Sam Asghari, her long-time boyfriend and now fiancé, who happens to be Iranian-American.
In fact, representation of Iranians, or anyone with MENA heritage has historically fallen short in Hollywood. Portrayals are often limited to painfully stereotyped characters which Meighan Stone, Former President of the Malala Fund, described as “negative, violent, and voiceless” in her report for the Harvard Kennedy School. In fact, her study of a 2-year period, between 2015-2017, found that there was not a single news story that highlighted positive coverage over negative coverage of Muslim protagonists.
Similarly, Jack Shaheen’s book Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People analyzed 1,000 films across more than 100 years of filmmaking (from 1896-2000) and found that a whopping 93.5% offered negative portrayals, while 5% were neutral and a sad minority of only 1% were positive. A recent study by the MENA Arts Advocacy Coalition found that 242 primetime, first-run scripted TV and streaming shows between 2015-2016 underrepresented MENA actors. When including MENA characters in primetime TV shows, a majority (78%) depicted roles of terrorists, tyrants, agents, or soldiers, most of which were spoken with an accent.
MENA actors who break through MENA stereotypes are often still hidden and invisible in terms of their MENA identity. Among those with Iranian-American heritage: Yara Shahidi, Sarah Shahi (birth name Aahoo Jahansouzshahi), Adrian Pasdar, and others whose roles are often portrayed as a character with another non-MENA ethnic background (which sometimes coincides accurately with their own mixed heritage, but does not reflect their MENA side), such as Black, Latinx or Italian American.
Not enough has improved, but there are inklings of potential progress. Although the intriguing plan to launch a comedy about a Middle Eastern family of superheroes has yet to bear out, the TBS sitcom Chad made it on air after five years in development. Chad is about a teenage boy named Ferydoon “Chad” Amani, a 14-year-old Iranian-American played by Nasim Pedrad of Saturday Night Live.
In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Nasim Pedrad sums up how her personal experience motivated her vision for the show:
“When I was growing up, I did not see a half-hour comedy centered around, you know, a Middle Eastern family let alone specifically, a Persian one. In fact, so much of the representation of Middle Easterners on TV that I did see was predominantly negative, which was very alienating. I didn’t see Persian people on TV that seemed anything like the Persian people that I was surrounded by, not just in my family, but in my community. I didn’t understand. I was like, ‘Why are Middle Eastern people on American television only bad guys?’ Like what about those of us living here that are just like the rest of you, except for the specific cultural elements that we still celebrate and hold onto. So my hope is that people watch the show and actually can recognize that yes, this family is Persian American, but hopefully they can tap into just how many similarities we all have and how much we all have in common.”
Psychologists and other scholars substantiate the importance of representation. The failure to move past stereotyped, negative roles for a majority of MENA characters is deeply harmful. It contributes to what my colleagues and I described as a cumulative racial-ethnic trauma for MENA Americans, in an article published in the American Psychologist. MENA Americans live with chronic and pervasive experiences of hypervisibility related to negative portrayals, and utter invisibility when it comes to featuring the positive, or even just the normal. These chronic subtle, and sometimes overt, messages of hate build up, contributing to insecurity, alienation, hopelessness, and ultimately, physical health and mortality.
In contrast, the potential benefits of media portrayals that affirm the ways in which MENA and other diverse communities are interconnected, loving, and share common values, hopes, and dreams, matter to children’s mental health and well-being. They matter to creating a society that has compassion, empathy, and embraces the many strengths that diversity brings.
Actionable Insights
Do your homework. Watch and read authentic stories. Examples in the media are when Anthony Bourdain visited Iran on Parts Unknown, or when Brandon Stanton took his camera to Iran and other countries allowing his loyal HONY following to connect with the universality of human struggles and triumphs across borders.
Represent rich complexity, identities, and varieties. Feature MENA characters in television and film with non-stereotyped characteristics and roles. Pay attention to details such as accents, religious beliefs, immigrant generation, sexuality, and gender roles that perpetuate negative stereotypes, are often inaccurate, and do not represent the diversity within the MENA community.
Involve insiders. Involve MENA Americans in content creation to ensure authenticity of stories and characters. CSS Collaborator, Sascha Paladino, and his team offer a lovely model of inclusion and authenticity in Mira, Royal Detective, a Disney Junior show featuring a South Asian protagonist.
Amplify capable, compelling, desirable representations. Amplify MENA stories that represent the many societal contributions MENA Americans make. Oftentimes, when someone with a MENA heritage does something well, their race/ethnicity is suddenly invisible from the story, and may not even be reported.
Increase the sheer number of characters. Increase the MENA American characters in children’s programming. At only about 1%, there’s no place to go but up.
Be accurate about identities. Accurately and authentically depict MENA actors as MENA (or, when relevant to their actual background and not creating conflict with the storyline, upholding their mixed heritage) characters. Likewise, such as in the case of Prince of Persia, or Dune, when characters are supposed have MENA heritage, hire MENA actors.
Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara
Collaborator of CSS
The Importance of Authentic Asian American Representation in Hollywood
The Importance of Authentic Asian American Representation in Hollywood
Ages 5-10 were my Full-House-obsessed years. I considered myself an honorary Tanner. Then it was what my parents referred to as “The Inappropriate Show,” also known as Saturday Night Live. They thought it was too mature for my little sister and me, but we loved it. The Office got me through stressful high school times and now I quote it without thinking. However, amidst the joy these shows brought me, as a Korean-American I have been continually let down by the lack of representation of Asians in Hollywood. It makes me angry -- shattering the meek, silent-in- the-midst-of-unfairness, and the rarely impassioned portrait that the media has painted of people like me. Despite attempts at diversity in Hollywood movies and TV, Asian characters have often been portrayed as weak, nerdy, exotic, incompetent, powerless, and are seldom in the spotlight as leads, just like black television and film characters.
Notable progress has been made, however, in the past few years with the successes of Crazy Rich Asians, ABC sitcom Fresh Off the Boat, and Netflix’s Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj. Asians in Hollywood are portraying the Asian American community in a more authentic light than before; but while progress is exciting, there is still more to do when it comes to true representation of Asian TV characters and Asian movie characters on-screen and behind the scenes. What we view on-screen reaches far beyond entertainment; diversity in film and TV also impacts mental health, identity, and race relations as they pertain to Asian Americans. Content creators and industry decision-makers must change how Asians are portrayed in the media, as they have an opportunity and a duty to yield this powerfully influential medium in a more responsible manner. Avoiding racism, gender stereotypes of girl and boy characters, and other negative images are key.
Effect on Children
Personal identity is heavily influenced by the media, starting from a young age. Film and television have become avenues for imprinting stories in history. When it comes to authentic Asian movie and TV characters, the absence is noteworthy. The pride I felt watching Crazy Rich Asians’ all-Asian cast surprised me as if the sudden surge in representation alerted me to its prior absence in Hollywood. Asian children will subconsciously internalize an omission of Asian faces in the content they watch as an indication of their perceived invisibility or the box they are subjected to in the workplace and the world. Research shows that people exhibit feelings like shame and anxiety when viewing stereotypical representations of their racial group, even those framed as exaggeration or parody, and Asian stereotypes in movies and TV have been far too visible for far too long. While Hollywood has since moved away from the glaring racism of characters such as Long Duk Dong, the foreign exchange student in 16 Candles, Asian actors continue to be typecast and are still underrepresented in major film roles.
HIGHLIGHTS
• Personal identity is heavily influenced by the media, starting from a young age
• Content creators and industry decision-makers must change how Asians are portrayed in the media
Model Minority Myth
In today’s society, Asian characters in movies and TV are often stereotyped as over-achievers who obtain financial and educational stability: the 4.0 students, doctors, and Tiger-parents. Asian-Americans have been framed as the “model minority” within American culture -- the minority group that worked its way to success. This myth implies that other minority groups are lesser-than or do not work as hard, and also negates the ever-present discrimination that Asians and other minority groups experience. Such Asian stereotypes in film and TV shows also suggest that Asians belong to one homogenous group that shares the same attributes, when in fact, there are many subsections of the Asian community - composed of individuals each with their own stories and struggles. The effects of this perpetuated stereotype in the media, depicted by Asian actors but often driven by white writers and directors, jump from the screen into reality. Racial bias, even nonverbal, can be imprinted on people through the screen. It is perplexing how Asians are viewed as diligent and hardworking, yet rarely with strong leadership qualities or charisma. The scarcity of positions of power among Asian film and TV characters is reflected in many aspects of life. In fact, according to Harvard Business Review, Asians are the least likely group to be promoted to management in the United States. While this can also be attributed to different cultural values and other factors, a lack of diverse representation in media is influential in reinforcing these attitudes and perceptions.
Tokenism Behind the Scenes
What we see on-screen should not be the only aspect of representation examined. The majority of successful endeavors featuring Asian actors and stories were backed by Asians in Hollywood behind the scenes. More Asian studio heads, casting directors, producers, writers, showrunners, and filmmakers means more advocacy and support for Asian stories and Asian TV and film characters. Great strides have been made and writers’ room representation has significantly improved; however, discrimination still exists here. To promote more diverse representation in media, large networks host diversity training programs in which writers of color have the opportunity to be staffed on television shows. The networks and studios subsidize writers’ salaries, incentivizing shows to employ these essentially free “diversity hires.” It is common for showrunners to let these writers go after their wages are no longer paid for, communicating that Asian writers are only hirable when free. Diversity in numbers is insufficient as long as Asians in Hollywood are not receiving the same opportunities to succeed in this industry.
On YouTube, people produce their own content with virtually zero gatekeeping. It is no coincidence that Asian content creators have become some of the most popular and prevalent faces on the platform, with millions of subscribers and views. From beauty guru Michelle Phan to comedy YouTuber NigaHiga, there is tangible proof that when given a fair opportunity, the Asian community thrives and reaches incredibly far.
Financial Benefits
If the moral facet of equal Asian representation in Hollywood is not enough to motivate content creators and gatekeepers, there is data that supports financial incentives for more Asian TV characters and Asian movie characters. Asians are the fastest-growing racial group in the country with a buying power of $1 trillion in 2018. They lead the nation in internet connectivity, enabling them to consume Asian stories on TV (and Asian movies via home video) via broadband and subscription video on demand faster than any other group nationwide. An average Asian household will watch about 23 hours of television per week, and the percentage with subscriptions to services such as Netflix and Hulu surpasses that of the remaining population. It is clear that Asians possess considerable buying power in the US and make up a large, expanding segment of media audiences.
Hearing Bowen Yang, SNL’s first Asian cast member after 45 seasons, refer to himself as the “Lizzo of China” while playing a government official on Weekend Update, filled me with pride. It was not until I saw myself on-screen that I realized I had been missing this feeling my whole life, and I needed to see, hear and read about more Asians in Hollywood. There is more work to do, more stories to tell, always. There’s great power in representation. My Asian-Americanness is of value, and I expect the country in which I live to reflect the same.
Actionable Insights
Write Asian movie and TV characters that defy stereotypes, even if stereotypes are seemingly “positive.”
Portray more Asian diversity — all groups that are part of the Asian community are unique with distinct stories, cultures, and struggles. This includes groups like the Bhutanese and Burmese that suffer from a poverty rate that is twice as high as the national average, yet experience the repercussions of the model minority myth.
Feature more Asian TV and movie characters in positions of power and leadership on-screen.
Hire more Asians in behind-the-scenes positions: writers, directors, studio executives, casting directors, producers, showrunners, filmmakers. Rich and authentic stories come from those who can speak from experience and incorporate essential nuances to the characters and their interactions with the world around them.
Avoid framing content created by and featuring Asians solely as “Asian films.” While still taking their cultures into account, remember that Asians are normal people who have more to offer than just the fact that they are Asian.
Nicole Park
CSS Intern
Why it’s so important for kids to see diverse TV and movie characters
This article originally appeared on The Conversation.
The hype surrounding “Black Panther” has been as hyperbolic as any feat its characters might perform, with the film being praised for its layered story and what’s been described as its “Afrofuturist” cast. And “Black Panther” will be joined by “A Wrinkle in Time,” another film with blockbuster potential and an interracial cast.
But no matter how much money or how many awards films like “Black Panther” and “A Wrinkle in Time” amass, our research strongly suggests another reason they’re important: Children need a diverse universe of media images. And for the most part, they haven’t had one.
Some progress, but …
In the 1970s, Boston University communications professor F. Earle Barcus began publishing the results of content analyses he had conducted on children’s television. His findings showed large disparities between the numbers of male and female characters and between the numbers of white and non-white characters. In a 1983 study, Barcus analyzed over 1,100 characters in 20 children’s television programs and found that only 42 were black. Just 47 others belonged to some group other than white.
Since then, researchers have consistently found that the animated worlds children see on television are out of sync with their real environments.
Over the past seven years, we’ve continued studying this topic at the Children’s Television Project (CTV) at Tufts University, documenting images of different races, gender and ethnicities in the most popular children’s animated series. We’ve also taken steps to try to understand why stereotyped portrayals still exist well into the 21st century. Finally, we’re starting to develop ways to study and collect data about how children process the images they’re exposed to on TV.
In order to categorize the images children see, we’ve developed a system for coding the race, ethnic identity, gender and age of primary and secondary characters in children’s animated television shows. We’ve also included a sociolinguistic component to the analysis, because we know that children are absorbing both sights and sounds as they process media.
The good news is that the world of children’s animated television is more diverse than it used to be. For example, we’ve found that female characters account for just under one-third of all characters. Discouraging as this may appear, it’s a significant improvement from the 1:6 ratio that F. Earle Barcus had previously found, and better than the 1:4 ratio that communications professors Teresa Thompson and Eugenia Zerbinos found in the 1990s.
There’s more racial and ethnic diversity, too. Black characters account for 5.6 percent of our total sample of over 1,500 characters. (A study conducted in 1972 by researchers Gilbert Mendelson and Morissa Young for Action for Children’s Television found that over 60 percent of the TV shows in their sample had no racial minority characters at all.) There are many more Asian or Asian-American characters (11.6 percent), though this likely due to the prevalence of a few popular cartoons featuring mostly Asian characters such as “Legend of Korra.”
The bad news is that there’s still a ways to go. African-Americans represent an estimated 13.3 percent of the U.S. population. Meanwhile, Hispanic or Latinos make up 17.8 percent of the population, but we’ve found Latino characters only made up 1.4 percent of our sample.
Furthermore, stereotypes persist in both how characters are drawn and how they talk, with “bad guys” using non-American accents and dialects. We see this in characters like Dr. Doofenshmirtz from “Phineas and Ferb” or Nightmare Moon on “My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.”
To try to understand why stereotyping persists, we’ve interviewed some of the people who write, direct, cast and provide vocal talent for children’s animated programming. While we haven’t completed this part of the study, it seems that economic pressures compel the creators of children’s animated programming to rely on stereotyping as a kind of shorthand.
For example, one director of a popular children’s animated show told us, “If something’s worked before, you tend to just use it again,” even if that “something” is stereotyped. An African-American voice actor reported being in auditions where he was told to make something sound “urban,” a code word for a more stereotyped African-American dialect.
Kids, quick to judge
But the real question is why this all matters.
Studies from many fields have shown that it’s important for children to see characters who not only look like themselves and their families, but also sound like them.
There’s a relationship between low self-esteem and negative media portrayals of racial groups, in addition to an association between poor self-esteem and the paucity of portrayals of a particular group. Others have found that media misrepresentations of ethnic groups can cause confusion about aspects of their identity among children of these groups.
In our study of how children process the sights and sounds of animated worlds, we developed a method in which we show children images of diverse animated faces and play voices that use different dialects. We then ask kids to tell us if the person is a good person, a bad person, or if they can’t tell. We follow this up by asking them why they think what they do.
Though we’re not far enough along yet in our research to provide definitive answers to our questions, we do have some preliminary findings.
First and foremost, kids notice differences.
We’ve found that first- and second-grade children, when presented with a variety of drawn cartoon character faces they haven’t seen before, have no problem sorting them into “good” and “bad” characters.
In fact, many children have clearly developed ideas and are able to tell us lengthy stories about why they think a particular character might be a hero or villain with minimal information. Sometimes this seems to be based on their belief that a character looks like another media character they’ve seen. They’ll then make the assumption that a face they’re shown looks like “a princess” or “someone who goes to jail.” With the lack of diversity in the world of children’s television, it’s not surprising that kids would make associations with so little information. But it’s also a bit alarming – given what we know about the prevalence of stereotyping – that children seem so quick to make attributions of who’s good and who’s evil.
It’s important that children not only have a diverse universe of characters but also that these characters have diverse characteristics. It’s okay for characters to have non-American accents, but good guys – not just bad guys – should have them too. The heroes can be male and female, and non-white characters don’t have to be relegated to the role of sidekick: They can assume leading roles.
This brings us back to why these new films are so groundbreaking. Yes, “Black Panther” is demonstrating that a film about a black superhero can shatter box- office records. Yes, “A Wrinkle in Time” is the first $100 million movie directed by a woman of color.
But beyond all that, these films break the mold by showing the complexity and variety of black male and female experiences.
If more movies, TV shows and animated series follow suit, perhaps we will finally move beyond the underdeveloped and stereotyped characters that children have been exposed to for far too long.
Actionable Insights
1. Children internalize stereotypes featured in programming they consume, influencing the way they judge and interact with others. Children should not easily be able to identify the “good guys” and the “bad guys” in your story through a reliance on biases.
2. When featuring characters with non-American accents, avoid falling into the trope of these individuals serving solely as the villains. Instead, show that both “good” and “bad” characters can speak with a non-American accent or dialect. A character’s cultural background does not determine their morality.
3. Showcase more diverse characters in leading roles, particularly non-white characters often relegated to acting as side-kicks. Tokenism can be especially harmful to children of color, causing identity confusion and poor self-esteem. All children benefit from seeing that anyone, regardless of their identity, can be the lead character in a story.
4. Heroes should not exclusively be male characters. Feature more women and female-identifying characters in heroic roles that thoughtfully showcase their strengths, weaknesses, and struggles.
5. Remember that featuring diverse characters is not enough. Attention must also be paid to featuring varied characteristics and more vivid backstories.
Senior lecturer, Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development, Tufts University
Editor and General Manager, The Conversation
Associate Professor, Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development, Tufts University
Professor of the Practice, Department of Drama and Dance, Tufts University
This article originally appeared on The Conversation.
How to move beyond tokenism in kids TV
With kids watching more content than ever, the industry should consider how it can create a more diverse on-screen landscape, writes Kevin Clark.
In April 1968, Harriett Glickman, a mother and former school teacher, wrote Charles Schulz to encourage the addition of a Black character to his “Peanuts” comic strip. The story of Glickman’s interactions with Schulz were recounted upon her death in March of this year. Schulz liked the idea but had reservations. He worried how a Black character would be received.
This was not the first time Schulz had considered questions concerning racial diversity in comic strips. A few years prior, he had discussed the issue with African American cartoonist Morrie Turner, whom Schulz had mentored. Schulz encouraged Turner to create a comic strip with diverse characters. Turner’s first attempt, Dinky Fellas, featured all-Black characters. Unfortunately, only one daily newspaper published it. In 1965, Turner changed the strip’s name to Wee Pals and added white characters. It became the first American syndicated comic strip featuring diverse characters.
Ultimately, Schulz took the step in July 1968 to add a Black character, Franklin Armstrong, to the already popular Peanuts gang. Schulz got some pushback, but also cheers.
What Glickman, Turner and Schulz did meant a lot to Black people. I applaud their vision and courage. More than 50 years later, we need the same level of courage to move media forward for all children, beyond what was done in 1968.
When my kids were growing up, it was challenging finding content for my daughter with authentic, high-quality images of Black girls. I was also frustrated seeing my young son with such a limited menu of children’s television shows which portrayed someone like himself as the main character.
With schools closed because of COVID-19, some children are spending a lot of time watching television at home. Think about what they are seeing.
There are still not enough authentic, multi-dimensional characters representing diverse perspectives in children’s media. I want children who are rich and poor, of all hues, of all faiths to see themselves in the media they consume. I want the media that children consume to help them understand others who don’t look or sound like them, who have different cultures, religions or economic status. Every child should internalize the idea that all things are possible for everyone, before broader societal narratives lead them to a different and intractable conclusion. To make this happen the aperture of the various media groups must be widened.
These aren’t new ideas. Indeed, many of the ways in which we need to widen the media groups have been oft discussed. But they bear repeating as movement is still lacking.
Move away from tokenism and embrace the culture. Too often a group of characters are put together simply to show diversity. It leads to flat characters. Giving a character an ethnic name, mentioning she celebrates Ramadan, or coloring her tan does not lead to a relatable experience for children. The characters must have accurately portrayed issues, customs, dialogue, and emotions that lead the viewer, no matter who they are, to a visceral connection. An example of this is the Oscar Award-winning animated short film, Hair Love, which is beautifully conceived and resonates with multiple audiences.
Believe that with quality work, the audience will come. There is a pervasive fear in the industry that there will not be enough viewership, nationally and, many argue, internationally, for work that features ethnically diverse characters or issues. The national and international demographics suggest the viewers are there. Generation Z, makes up 32% of the world’s population, and is the most ethnically diverse in history. According to PEW research, nearly half (48%) of Gen Z identifies as racially or ethnically diverse. And they have an estimated purchasing power of US$44 billion annually, according to the National Retail Federation. What’s more, shows that feature authentically diverse characters are not only for people who belong to that particular group, but are for all people—if the work is well done.
Enlist a diversity of writers, producers, animators, voice talent, and creative execs to develop and green-light, authentic shows that enrich everyone. In addition to inclusive writer’s rooms, crews, and characters, inclusion needs to exist at all levels of production and decision making. Creative executives are heavily involved in decisions that may lead to shows being greenlit and/or receiving the resources needed to be successful.
Currently, there are no statistics on the ethnic diversity of behind-the-scenes staff and executives in children’s media. However, we do know that only 13% of Hollywood writers are people of color. In kids television in the United States, men make up 71% of creators, 53% of writers, 80% of directors and 64% of producers, while in Canada, men make up 62% of creators, 63% of writers, 82% of directors and 57% of producers. Bottom line, it’s difficult to write or make decisions about things with which you are unfamiliar.
Examine the entire slate of offerings in light of the world’s changing demographics. Make sure the suite of media offerings represents the demographic realities of what children, their families, and communities really need and care about in a global context. To that end, children’s media should provide opportunities for children to see themselves and their communities, while also being exposed to and learn about the lives, customs, and perspectives of others.
Let’s thank Harriett Glickman, Morrie Turner, Charles Schulz, and Franklin for a great start. Now let’s move beyond Franklin. I think they’d all be proud to be the initiators of a bigger legacy.
Kevin Clark, Ph.D.
Professor of Learning Technologies and Director of the Center for Digital Media Innovation and Diversity at George Mason University and a children’s media consultant.
This post originally appeared on KidScreen
https://kidscreen.com/2020/05/25/how-to-move-beyond-tokenism-in-kids-tv/
[c] Brunico Communications Ltd. Reprinted with permission.