There are many forms of popular culture that people would choose to consume depending on their personal preferences, but the most commonly consume popular culture would have to be an advertisement. Advertisements are extremely impactful in our culture because it serves many uses to businesses, consumers, and etc. Like anything else, the purpose of an advertisement is to persuade consumers to buy certain things that businesses are trying to sell, shape our attitude and values and plays a role in shaping consumers’ buying decisions. Advertisement is a form of communication that business would use to implicitly mold people choices. Like everything, advertisements comes in many forms, but the most common type of advertisement used would be the traditional broadcast media. Because advertisement drives the nation’s economy, it’s extremely crucial for ad creators to create ads that will drive consumer spending. In order to drive consumer spending, these ads will have to include specific criteria like who will be starred in it, the background, the message, etc. When it comes to advertisement, “there are limited roles for people of color on television” (Henderson & Baldasty, 2010) and the race that dominates this area would be Whites. The issue of racial diversity in advertisements will be addressed in this article and how different race that falls under the umbrella of minorities would be the group that tends to get the short end of the stick when it comes to wanting to take on lead roles that are “created” for Whites. Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians will be compared to their Whites counterpart and how people of color only serves as the background for Whites.
To begin, we must acknowledge the fact that the entertainment industry will always be dominated by our White peers. Everything that is shown in the media is often starred by Whites and this area of media tends to be White dominant while leaving other races to serve as their background. In the article, Race, Advertising, and Prime-Time Television, “people of color are frequently not present [in media]; when they are, it is often in marginal or stereotypical roles” (Henderson & Baldasty, 2010). This demonstrates that people of color are only present to serve as a statement that furthermore lives up to the assumptions and stereotypes that are created while serving as the background that sustains white power. Unlike other races, African American appears in advertisements more frequently than Hispanics and Asians; however, these appearances are only minor which suggest “an unwelcome tokenism” (Henderson & Baldasty, 2010). According to dictionary.com, tokenism is “the practice or policy of making no more than a token effort or gesture, as in offering opportunities to minorities equal to those of the majority”. An “unwelcome tokenism” is similar to giving out handouts to people while giving them “hope” at the same time. When people of color are given the chance to play a role, almost half of them, 46.4% out of 310 commercials would have peripheral roles (Henderson & Baldasty, 2010). Peripheral roles are roles where characters would serve as the background to bring out the power of the main character, and most of the time, the main character would be White while the peripheral would be the people of color. This proves that racism is still alive and breathing. Even if our country is no longer segregated and everyone is deemed as “equal”, there’s still this underlying practice and belief that our White counterpart will always be more dominant than other racial groups because of our history. One of the reasons why Whites are dominant in advertisements because the targeted consumers are White and the best way to persuade White consumers to buy certain products or believe in certain things is to use White people as the main character in advertisements. Besides that, the associations amongst the ads done by Whites and Blacks both contain the drastic cost of products. Advertisements that are Blacks dominated are closely tied to low-cost products: fast food, soft drinks, and gum while Whites dominated ads are more geared towards expensive automobiles, household products, and etc. The drastic difference in association amongst these two groups illustrates the latent racism that we are socially taught to associate people of color to “low-cost, low-nutrition products” and how White people will always be the opposite of that. The stereotypes that are created due to these associations makes it harder for people of color to ever be recognized for possibly doing the same advertisement as Whites since “some products are more closely associated with Whites than with people of color, and vice versa” (Henderson & Baldasty, 2010).
In addition, besides accounting such a low percentage of roles in prime-time televisions, African Americans “have been portrayed as less educated, from broken homes, and possessing lower status jobs than Whites” (Busselle & Crandall, 2002). This example further validates the stereotype that African Americans are always less than Whites and this further frame audience to think that about this group. Also, programs that include the storyline of African Americans tend to be extremely shorter in comparison to programs that revolve around the lives and concerns of Whites. According to the article, Television Viewing and Perceptions About Race Differences in Socioeconomic Success, “at the time of the study, 27% of poor Americans were Black, but Blacks made up a majority, roughly 63%, of poor people presented in the most heavily consumed national news media. He cites two national surveys indicating that slightly more than half of White respondents believed a majority of poor Americans are Black” (Busselle & Crandall, 2002). This is the reason why African Americans are constantly associated with being lower class, it’s because the media only creates stereotypical roles for them to play which is not represented of this entire group. They are also linked to crime in news reports besides being linked to poverty. The negative portrayal of this racial group is extremely condescending because the media is allowing its audience to further carry out this association which is always overestimated in comparison to the statistics.
Furthermore, underrepresentation of racial/ethnic minorities in Hollywood films and televisions is still prevalent in the 21st century. According to the article, Race, Gender, Hollywood: Representation in Cultural Production and Digital Media’s Potential for Change indicate that there are three types of representation in cultural production and how these different types of representation can influence whether or not minorities will be starred on the work. The three types of representation are numerical, quality and centrality. The numerical representation shows the number of presence and absence either on screen or behind the scenes amongst different social groups. From this representation and several studies that have been conducted in Hollywood, Erigha has concluded that “Hollywood is a predominantly White sphere, with racial/ethnic minorities being highly unrepresented with proportions well below their share of the US population” (Eriga, 2015). In addition, the recognition that racial minority film directors receive in the film industry is close to nothing. According to Erigha, “the only Black-directed feature to win a directing or producing award was Steve McQueen's 12 Years A Slave (2013), which won a Best Picture Academy Award. To date, no Black director has won a Best Director Academy Award for a feature film. Asian-born American film director Ang Lee, however, broke a long-time barrier for racial/ethnic minorities in Hollywood when he won Best Director for Life of Pi (2012)” (Erigha, 2015). This issue is extremely problematic because racial minority film directors are not even considered at awards ceremonies and ignored by the American culture. Even if the population of racial/ethnic minorities grows, their chances at even attempting to be a part of the media do not increase. The other two types representations are quality and centrality of representation. Centrality representation shows the important group within the institutions’ core. The core of this industry’s institution would be Whites especially male. The research that was conducted within the centrality representation shows that racial and ethnic minorities were less likely to belong to a core talent agency in comparison to Whites. There are a lot of benefits in being a part of a talent agency because it allows the actor/actresses to access a lot of resources like better reputation, legitimacy, income, success, authenticity, etc. However, the chances of racial and ethnic minorities being a part of a talent agency like Whites is extremely rare since the roles that racial/ethnic minorities take on does not receive recognition like the roles that Whites are given. In addition, there is this assumption that racial/ethnic minorities are only “limited to narrow roles and genres for cultural production” (Erigha, 2015).
Overall lack of racial/ethnic diversity, representation and stereotypical roles for minorities in media is a serious social issue because these different groups of people are not given the chance to pursue the career that they desire. The entertainment industry is mostly dominated by Whites and this makes it extremely difficult for the audience that is consuming this type of popular culture to know the existence of racial/ethnic minorities. Because of their lack of important roles and always serving as the background for their White counterpart, there is this assumption that the racial/ethnic minorities are not skilled enough to take on more important roles; however, this assumption is invalid because the audience does not know that this group of people is not even given the chance to even try in the first place. This issue heavily impacts how the racial/ethnic minorities are viewed as a whole, how they will always be below Whites and that’s not right because they are not getting the recognition that they are entitled to. In addition, the roles that are created further validates the stereotypes that are given to these different groups that fall under the umbrella of racial/ethnic minorities. There was this study done by Nancy Wang Yuen which studied how film directors would cast actors in racialized roles. For example, “in popular films, African Americans were typed to play roles that exhibited ghetto behavior or linked to ties with inner-city communities. Asian and Asian American actors were racialized in roles as martial arts gurus, superhuman characters, or victims (Erigha, 2015)”. This study further illustrates that the media that we all consume as a form of popular culture is embedded with racism that people follow without even knowing because everyone is implicitly taught to conform to the majority and the dominant racial group. There is not a specific solution to this social issue because this issue is embedded in our country’s core. The idea of letting the racial group that “found” this country dominates in every aspect of our lives has become so normalized to the point where it’s unacceptable to change. This social issue will not be solved completely but changes can be made once people become more informed and knowledgeable about what they are consuming.