No innovation without representation

NO INNOVATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF HOW POC ARE REPRESENTED IN MEDIA

Written by Darya Jafarinejad

Imagine if we introduced ourselves as our stereotypes: “Hello, I’m a terrorist.” “Nice to meet you, I’m a lazy job-stealer, and my friend here is a seductive dragon lady.” Absolute nonsense, right? However, too often in the media, this is exactly how people of color are represented. That is, if they’re represented at all. It seems that people of color are at a crossroads: either accept false and harmful representation or don’t get represented at all and see the same bland white savior on your screens and in your readings over and over again.

While recent events, such as diverse casts in shows, make it seem like racism in media is healed, the fact is, we have only recently begun to tackle the behemoth that is white-dominated poc representation. Even when POC are cast, oftentimes, the racially diverse characters are actually intended to mask the fact that the writing team is composed of all white people who echo and reinforce their narratives through the voices of POC characters.

Now, before anyone asks, no one hates white people. What deserves hate is the persistent ignorance of those in power who benefit from the multi-generational subjugation of entire nations of people and continue to augment, distort or completely erase the voices of those people altogether. Not all white people are bad, and many are allies of POC communities. However, this harmful behavior is most often demonstrated by white people.

For instance, the 2008 film, You Don’t Mess With The Zohan, included Middle Eastern people and their culture at the forefront of the movie. However, not only was there only one Middle Eastern cast member (whose only purpose was to be sexualized by men), but all the writers and producers of the film were white. While the movie is a comedy— so certain aspects of the plot are exaggerated—as a Middle-Eastern woman, I felt embarrassed watching it. Its main source of comedy was embellishing and emphasizing stereotypes about Middle Easterners in an offensive way to generate shock value. This misrepresentation goes beyond films; the 2022 popular World Cup song, “Tukoh Taka”, which has gone viral for how awful it is, has successfully upset and angered the Middle Eastern community due to how it portrays us. The appalling song lyrics disappointed Middle Easterners because we are made to appear dumb to the entire world. The World Cup is a time to highlight what makes us unique, not mangle it.

On the other hand, there is the issue of being absent from the narrative altogether. The top songs on Billboards are by white artists. The books we read in class are predominantly by white authors (with maybe one book by a black author conveniently in February). The awards given to films and television shows have a majority white cast (with one token character that is a side character). This propagates the lie that POC have nothing to offer. This also allows our stories to be written for us. As a result, we are either scrubbed of our heritage and culture until we are as white as snow, or embellished beyond recognition to become the monster that the white male savior battles and the innocent white woman flees.

What is shown in the media is echoed in our individual and communal realities. On an individual scale, POC face microaggressions or hostile behaviors from others. Community-wide, POC are the subject of hate crimes that—at most—receive thoughts and prayers as a pitiful excuse for reparations. Both communally and individually, depending on the stereotype, either an unreasonably high amount is expected from us or nothing at all due to an assumed lack of work ethic. We are never perceived as simply human or held on equal scales of judgment, and subsequently barred from entering social circles or moving up in the socioeconomic scale because of the heavy influence of false and unjust stereotypes. All these issues are further reinforced, and sometimes arise from, our absent representation or misrepresentation in society.

Growing up in America, I learned from a young age to never see someone like myself represented in a positive—or even neutral—light. If someone like me was to be shown, it was an ugly terrorist with thick accents and low intellect. I would eventually internalize these inaccurate, one-dimensional caricatures. It would be years before I would begin unlearning all the societal messages I had been spoon-fed about my own culture.

And I know I’m not alone in this. Model minority, job-stealer, border-hoppers, doomed criminals, stupid and unpatriotic foreigners—these are all incredibly detrimental and blatantly false messages that were devised by the dominant group in power and sustained through the media. This is exactly why there is an urgent need for more POC voices in the content we consume. If every door is closed, we must kick it down and introduce ourselves, because why wait for an opportunity when we can make our own? We do not have to live within the confines of a rigid binary, deciding whether we should be grateful they at least represented us or grateful they didn’t ruin our images by displaying appalling lies about our communities. We should be the pioneers of our own stories, the innovators who change repetitive and false societal representation.

We can follow in the footsteps of the trailblazers before us: Toni Morrison, Khaled Hosseini, Rami Malek, Min Jin Lee, Michelle Yeoh, Aretha Franklin, Selena Quintanilla, Guillermo Del Toro—these are just a handful of the people who have forged their path in the entertainment industry to bolster the strength of POC voices in the content we consume. We can take advantage of the media as a social tool for activism. It can be our conduit for sharing cultural struggles or delights and traditions, personal stories intertwined with our ethnic heritage and more. Since the media has been wielded against us for so long, a device for social control by keeping minorities “in check”, we can take back our power by making the media work for us. With minority voices leading the way, the only limit to what we can achieve is our own imagination.

Given that racism is still heavily prevalent in the creation of media, it may not be easy to become involved on a massive scale. But, it is not impossible, as evidenced by the increasingly diverse voices represented on a wide level today. Even altering the formula and practices of local media in your community is a great start with the potential for significant change.

It is essential that we use our voices to change the social atmosphere of how POC are perceived in the media, and by extension, in life. Without POC, the same banal stories are displayed on loop. We can be the creative minds behind the next generation of stories. And more importantly, we will get to do it right. There can be no innovation without representation.