TV And Racism In Film

TV And Racism

TV and movies plays a major part in the way people see the world. Different types of films and shows influence everyone around them. The movie The Birth of a Nation, brought light to some of history’s biggest events, such as the John F Kennedy assassination. It also showed the KKK’s point of view of the events of the past, which started riots in America by blacks. This is an example of misrepresentation of people, which may not have happened if they got input from other races. So the raises the question, is TV “too white?” TV is not “too white” because shows include proportionate races rates of the U.S. and actors in Hollywood, they cater to audiences when making movies, and audience members do not care about what race characters

Author Alex Leptos interviewed many different people at big film companies about the issue of too many white people in Hollywood movies, and he says that, “Another thing is the issue of modern Hollywood fearing that casting a lesser-known, non-white actor may attract less viewers and therefore bring less profit.”(Leptos) This quote means that if you put lesser known actors in a movie it may now get as much viewership. So they sometimes cast them because known white people are gonna to get more viewership than a not-known colored person. This means that the film company will get more money if they cast a well known actor. For example, in the film, Ghost in the Shell, Scarlett Johansson got the part instead of a Japanese actor. The situation made lots of headlines, leading to more publicity for the movie, and they have Scarlett Johansson, who is a very well respected actor, which people may go see the movie just because she is in it. USC researchers also said that, “Only 17 of the top movies that year featured non-white lead or co-lead actors.”(Santhanam) It means that 17 out of 100 of the top films had a lead or co-lead character that was a minority. This study was done in 2014. People may have not have wanted to watch the movies with minority lead characters because some people want to see that they could do that too. Even though they could have done that, ethnically speaking, whites versus minorities have different upbringings

There’s a reflection of the US races in movies, the creators of the shows cater to the target audience, and it doesn 't seem people care about the color of the person’s skin as long as they play the role correctly. Why should people care about how much of race is on TV anyway? As long as they fit the job well, why should someone else be hired because they are a minority? It’s not the job of the public to police what is okay in TV and what is