By Kien-Ling Liem, Editor, Trinity College Student
As defined by Oxford Languages, representation literally is the ‘description or portrayal of someone or something in a particular way’. It's the way we see people, and the way they see us. When a demographic of people are portrayed a certain way, we begin to associate those characteristics with them, and this is why media representation is important: it defines the narrative of societal standards. What is depicted on the big screen reflects what people think of us and shapes the minds of those that see it.
It might seem a trivial matter at first, but media representation actually implicitly moulds our minds. We are constantly consuming media, whether it be through movies, shows, newspapers or simply our phones, but what we don’t realise is the immense power it holds. Imagine you’re a small Asian girl, and all you see are white female characters being portrayed in movies like the Avengers. All you see are white Barbie toys and white models on magazines. You don’t see many faces that looks like yours, and this underlying notion actually discourages you to pursue or even think of the possibilities that you see on that medium.
Image via The McGill Daily
Historically, Hollywood has been poorly portraying so many types of cultures despite being the largest exporters of worldwide entertainment. They are largely responsible for indirect racism, sexism, and so much more; after all, the roots of the industry are racist, etc. For example, in the beginning stages of filmmaking, they refused to hire actual black people to play parts, so they used blackface or other types of offensive stereotyping to wrongly portray black folks. Their chosen reason to display it this way only reflects what they thought of black people. And this message was only bounced back to the audience where they consumed it, internalised it and eventually learnt to be racist. Because this was their only portrayal of this group of individuals, this is what they thought they looked and behaved like. These stereotypes transferred themselves into real life, thus black people were treated poorly because of this. It has taken decades to even acknowledge this, and the damage done will take decades more to undo.
Not only does racism stem from this, but the creation of fetishes are also prominent, especially Asian fetishes. In various movies such as Mean Girls (2004), female Asian teens and women were depicted as hypersexual, and this manifested itself into real life. Men, especially white men, began to fetishize Asian women because they were being portrayed as unnecessarily sexual on movie screens. The unneeded sexualisation and infantilisation of Asian women in anime, which will be elaborated further on in the series, is so deeply singed in many men's minds that they automatically associate any East Asian with anime. Consequently, Asian women are not taken seriously and are seen as objects more often than white women. Racist depictions of Asian men have also been used as the punchline of many movies, such as Sixteen Candles (1984). Gedde Watanabe, who played Long Duk Dong, contributed to this narrative that Asian men are a joke. Firstly, let’s address the name, because it just sounds like a slap in the face for Asian heritage. This representation is used for comedic relief and is shown to thousand of people in America, who at the time likely don’t have a proper image of Asian culture. This depiction only pushes this false image: again, people internalise it, apply it to an entire group of people and treat them the way they’re seen on the big screen.
On the bright side, representation has drastically improved in modern media due to the ongoing awareness being raised. Plus-size models are being included, breaking the normative beauty standards, and more ethnic groups are being included in shows and movies. Although Hollywood still has room for improvement, such as the disaster that was Mulan (2020), they have successfully managed to depict cultures correctly e.g., Black Panther (2018) and Raya and the Last Dragon (2021). Individuals are starting to learn more about other ethnicities in a better, less offensive way.
Media representation in everything is important. We might not see it at first, but it surrounds us. How many faces like yours do you see on TV screens? How are your people being represented? Together, we must challenge the stereotypes that Hollywood and other media corporations assign us, and paint a more accurate impression of who we really are.
Media representation serves as a mirror to our society: we should reflect what we see, not what we assume.