Is minority representation the pathway to success?

It has seemed to become common knowledge that minorities are inadequately represented on television. However, the representation of minorities on television have been changing for two reasons—firstly because there has been a rise in social support for inclusion of minorities in television and secondly because racial issues in television have been attracting the attention of mass media.

An article from The Guardian looks back on the fall television season of 2014, focusing on the seven new projects that included main characters of a minority race. This may not seem like much but is a huge increase from the one minority show produced in 2013, which was shortly canceled after airing. Shows like Blackish, a sitcom featuring an African-American family, as well as Fresh off the Boat which follows a Chinese family moving to Florida have consistently been featured by the news as unique and exciting programs—the first of their kind in years.

This move is not just about fairness or equality. If diversity wasn’t making money for the networks, it wouldn’t be happening. In a UCLA study in 2013, greater diversity in broadcast and cable shows was linked to higher ratings.

In the news, representation of race has been shifting, too. Since a study by Dixon, Azocar, and Casas in 2003 supported the overrepresentation of whites as victims in officers and the underrepresentation of African-Americans in the same roles, it has been widely accepted that the news does not necessarily represent reality. However, a more recent study performed at UCLA reworks this study focusing on both broadcast and cable news.

In this study, the results showed that the TV accurately depicted the correct amount of white violent perpetrators but actually underrepresented black violent perpetrators by 20%. Furthermore, the number of black victims was also underrepresented by 26%. Even worse are the misrepresentations of minority groups that are far less focused on than black or white. While only 47% of immigrant suspects are Latino, yet the news represents 97% of the suspects as Latino. Furthermore, while only 6% of terror suspects in the United States are Muslim, the news shows 81% of suspects as Muslim.

These statistics really tell it all; if the news, which is often considered a representation of reality, is so drastically representing minorities as criminal, it is only natural that the fictional shows created follow these guidelines and avoid making minority protagonist characters. As television shows begin to fight these stereotypes to coincide with increasing public support for accurate minority representation, it is time for the news industry to follow suit.

Asian Americans come to the surface after two decades

“Fresh Off the Boat” is an ABC sitcom based on memoir Eddie Huang wrote about his childhood as Taiwanese immigrants in Orlando, Florida. This sitcom is under the spotlight due to the fact that it focuses on featuring Asian America and consists of Asian American actors. In an interview from the New York Times, Huang said the reason to choose to sign up with ABC network was because ABC is one of the most powerful network, and he hopes to change the perception of Asian American that has been portrayed in the past. Regardless of growing population of Asian Americans, they were mostly treated as an invisible and were not representative in the mainstream media. In an interview with Los Angeles Times, Randall park who is well-known for his role in the recent movie The Interview said even though there are a lot of Asian American actors in Hollywood, they have less opportunity to become leading men compared to white actors and this is the norm in Hollywood. He also showed his excitement of playing a leading role because he always played fourth or fifth lead on a show.

It is true that the Asian Americans are underrepresented among other races. However, I think people are becoming more aware of recognizing racial diversity through school courses, school club, or community club. It is surprising that “Fresh Off the Boat” is the first show in 20 years that presents Asian American race and it is good to gather attention from critics and audiences whether their views are negative or positive because it means they do care about the race. However, it was ironic when the song Huang picked was criticized by producers the reason because they were worried what Americans will think. On the other hand, it was understandable because their main targeted audiences are white men rather than other races. The NY times and LA times well conveyed about preference of race in the TV show in film industry.