Representation in the Media

Geena Papini, Grade 12

In the past twenty years, the role that film and television play in our lives has become significantly larger and more influential. With the introduction of resources such as Movies On Demand and Netflix, as well as the availability of thousands of online download sites, the film industry is now reaching more viewers than ever. Today, 99% of Americans own a television set[1] and in 2011, 67% (more than two-thirds) of the US/Canadian population saw a movie in theatres at least once[2]. This increase in film and television viewership means that now, movies and television shows, as well as the plethora of advertisements that accompany them, are reaching a larger, more diverse community. However, despite any claims that Canada and the Unites States are multi-cultural countries, representation within our media still fails to reflect that diversity, particularly when it comes to the representation of women, ethnic minorities and the LGBTQIA* community, all of whom are, more often than not, reduced to little more than tropes and stereotypes.

The representation of these groups in Western media exhibits depressingly white-washed, Euro-centric values and tendencies. A study released by USC’s Annenberg School For Communication & Journalism examined the 500 top-grossing films released in the U.S. from 2007 to 2012 and found that “over three quarters of all speaking characters are White (76.3%)”. [3] These statistics are troubling, given that 44 percent of movie tickets sold in the US in 2012 were purchased by non-Caucasians3, and are just one indication of how underrepresented minorities are in the media.

Minorities are not only underrepresented in Western Media, they are more often than not misrepresented or portrayed poorly, if they are portrayed at all. The representation of women is something that I have noticed has failed to be reflective of the true diversity of the gender. Film and television shows abound with women and girls who are overwhelmingly white, inconceivably thin, one-dimensional, flat characters that usually only serve the purpose of validating the male hero. Characters such as the newly introduced Clara Oswald from the current Steven Moffat-era of Doctor Who might as well not exist at all, for all we learned about her and what she contributed to the plot of the series. Her only purpose seemed to be to approve of the Doctor’s frankly immature, childish decisions. As a woman this is especially disappointing and off-putting, not only because I know the series has done better in the past (and under different head-writers), but because there are depressingly few TV shows that portray a diverse range of female characters.

Similarly members of the LGBTQIA* community can expect to be relegated to one of three categories—the flamboyant gay man, the butch lesbian, or the resoundingly silent nonentity.  Admittedly, shows such as Jenji Kohan’s Netflix Original Series ‘Orange is the New Black’ have made progress in the diversification of the portrayal of lesbian and transgender characters, but Canadian and American television remains overwhelmingly heterosexual.

Stereotypes are dangerous. When our only exposure to a group of people are negative, degrading tropes, those stereotypes become all that we believe to be possible of that group. If the media only portrays women as either the weak damsel in distress or the ice maiden who needs a ‘real man’ to inflame her, then the possibility of the existence of other types of women as complex, flawed, and believable individuals becomes unimaginable.

Not only does this stereotyping rob people of their individuality and dignity, it damages understanding and effective communication across genders, sexualities, ethnicities and cultures. Their portrayal as ‘single stories[4]’ limits the possibility of deeper understanding and damages the ability of others to be able to relate to them and connect as human equals. In the words of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, “When we reject the single story, when we realise that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.”

Work Cited

1.  Nielsen, A.C. "Television Watching Statistics." Statistic Brain RSS. N.p., 12 July 2013. Web. 07 Jan.

2014. <http://www.statisticbrain.com/television-watching-statistics/>.

2.  International, ORC. Theatrical Market Statistics 2011. Rep. Motion Picture Association of America,

2011. Web. 9 Jan. 2014. <http://www.mpaa.org/resources/5bec4ac9-a95e-443b-987b

bff6fb5455a9.pdf>.

3.  Smith, Stacy L., Dr, Marc Choueiti, and Katherine Pieper, Dr. *Race/Ethnicity in 500 Popular Films:

Is the Key to Diversifying Cinematic Content Held in the Hand of the Black Director? Rep.

Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, 2013. Web. 9 Jan. 2014.

<http://annenberg.usc.edu/sitecore/shell/Applications/~/media/PDFs/RaceEthnicity.ashx>.

4.  The Danger of a Single Story. Perf. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. TED: Ideas worth Spreading. N.p.,

Oct. 2009. Web. 07 Jan. 2014 <http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger

_of_a_single_story.html>

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[1] http://www.statisticbrain.com/television-watching-statistics/

[2] http://www.mpaa.org/resources/5bec4ac9-a95e-443b-987b-bff6fb5455a9.pdf

[3] http://annenberg.usc.edu/sitecore/shell/Applications/~/media/PDFs/RaceEthnicity.ashx

[4] Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TEDTalk on the Single Story

Hip

Chris Spangenberg, Grade 12

Looking back, entertainment was encouraging. There was a lot to hate for hipsters, and there were a lot of hipsters to hate with their snobbishness and insistence of fusion and Tame Impala. My Chemical Romance broke up, along with the Jonas Brothers and The Mars Volta; the first of which was cause to an avalanche of tweets and Facebook posts to the inherent futility of life post-break up, and the last of which ensured manly weeps from progressive rockers. Gotye's song Somebody That I Used To Know redefined repetition through the airwaves, along with Carly Rae Jepsen's Call Me Maybe. To the socially hip, Daft Punk released their anticipated album Random Access Memories in May, and Queens of the Stone Age released their album ...Like Clockwork around the same time, both to critical acclaim.

Notes on underground Hip-Hop: R.A. The Rugged Man released Legends Never Die to a hardcore fan base of teeth-clenching, bug-eyed old and new school loyalists, most who would out-debate any number one Eminem fan. They left optimistic. Legends Never Die is a dope injection in the vein of hope, a sign that underground music is still wilding out—and not without a middle finger to the mainstream.

Popular Hip-Hop really started the year with Started From The Bottom from yours-truly Ultra-Charmin-soft Drake. His track Wu Tang Forever was about everything but Wu Tang, and put him again in the crosshairs of his critics, who lost all their faith in his rhetoric. Unsurprisingly, the members of the Wu sucked it up and lined up to congratulate Drake on their new partnership. Yeezus returned to Earth in the form of a blank CD case with no album cover, which the man himself thought innovative and deep. Jay-Z released Magna Carta. And indeed, somewhere in America, Miley Cyrus is still twerking. Her obsession with ratchet culture is an ominous saga overshadowing other world events, like the war in Syria. The media focus on her rump is bigger than the object of interest, and why is the subject blown up to such proportion? Only the King of Pop reached such levels of infamy with his skin, and that was the King of Pop. Who is this Disney diva? Nearing the end, Eminem released the Marshall Matters LP 2, and they buffed 5 Pointz in New York City, the graffiti Mecca. Sad times all around.

Mandela Over Matter: Musings On The Man

Chris Spangenberg, Grade 12

Nelson Mandela is dead. December 5, 2014 saw the end of an era, a time of unlimited idealism, restless romantics, and deafening dreamers. He is the last to leave, in the line-up of visionaries; Martin Luther King Jr, Gandhi, Che Guevara, Malcolm X... And with him, goes the immutable trust in all their rocking the jet turbulence. No lookalike will come close enough to match their calibre. No hope lies in the public reserves, which have been spent on semi-legitimate acts of terror and fiscal cliff-hangers— rabble-rousers round the world make second page, half-assed editorials. No hope— and will there ever be again the same assurance in the wideness of his smile? Will he fade into the dusty recesses of black history month, just another mug to flash every year to the next generation of law abiders? Not when he's passed, surely not...

But pry yourselves loose and listen: Madiba is dead. Yet this warrants neither condemnation nor celebration, outside the public eye, in the safety of your home.

What does it mean 'He died before his time'? Or "Our nation has lost its greatest son"?

The man lived to a ripe age of 95. Few first world frolickers enjoy that privilege, much less the third world bane of equality; the anti-apartheid icon. He is commemorated, and will be remembered by all, especially his enemies. He wasn't shot, lynched, hung, or stabbed. Assassination did not take him from us. Suffering from health issues late in his life, he struggled with a respiratory infection before passing. He died in his bed, surrounded by friends and family. This is a quieter death than other visionaries, a pleasant alternative to the twenty-one bullets in Malcolm X, or the single shot in Martin Luther King Jr. They can contest to that. “I have come and I will go when my time comes." he'd said. He is gone from us now, and it is not a loss suffered easily by this brave new world of political correctness where Caucasians share the sentiments of the coloured creed in a United Nation world circle.

Yet they are the first to forget his roots. Or do the victors write history? Behind that kindly old man there lies the grey mane of a slumbering lion- a slumber twenty seven years long and counting. He made amends in jail, and changed from a SACP communist co-founder to a humanitarian hero. And he was a commie, on the same wavelength as Castro. His acts of sabotage pressured the government, and he can be grateful it wasn't the Son of Bush leading South Africa at the time. But Reagan is dead too, and who thinks of him at this moment?

The reactions of the Republicans were swift and sullen. They had spent an obvious amount of time pondering the greatness of Mandela— something around ten seconds—before tweeting their scathing opinions of the man. Something of his commie terror past drives them to this natural loathing. They are foremost likely relatives of Reagan and Nixon, at last finding common ground— at last, an enemy they can face together. But they will have to stand this one alone, for he is no Bin Laden-Khadafy-Trosky-ite. He is Nelson Mandela, the smiling Father of the Nation, the template for a whole new upstart generation of dissatisfaction. Good luck to them tarring and feathering his reputation.

Denouncing Obama has more appeal in retrospect. His legacy carries on beyond the boundaries of Black History Month, into the mouths of the socially Hip and tragically young. Mandela is an untapped household name. It will not be too long before he will be called out for the same level of glorification as Gandhi.

The real tragedy is not his death. Madiba's loss is a front for the ongoing international failures of our modern crusaders of peace. The revolutionaries today have no spokespersons with charisma and catchy, exotic, pronounceable names. They are a faceless mob confronting a faceless police riot squad. Che Guevara and Malcolm X still ring bells with a majority, but who has heard of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova? Only those who stay informed of Russia's authority and her stance against the Pussy Riot members, but do they have just cause and a titular auto-biography? No, they do not. Julian Assange from Wikileaks has the Fifth Estate made after him, but even that is riddled with inaccuracies, and was pronounced propaganda by Assange himself.

The past few years saw a rash of revolutions across the Middle East, dipping into Africa and Asia and more. Egypt, Syria, Turkey, and more recently, Thailand, have seen uprisings, and shifts in their strict systems. Diplomacy was not allowed to interfere with the transitioning; they were therefore nasty, brutish, but they weren't short.

Egypt still struggles with the switch, and the ousting of the Thai leader Yingluck

Shinawatra is still ongoing. Still, the beggar bowls are clinking, alright. When they beg for some spare change of regime. Those come a dime a dozen a day, along with gentrification and a McDonalds' in every country. Their successes do not go unnoticed, but they are understated and unpublished in the realm of American dominance.

The revolution will not be televised... Not to a mixed audience of middle class underperforming college grads, working mothers with twins, and teenagers with the shadow of a fossil fuel-less future upon them. They have better things to worry about than some congregation of angry foreigners halfway across the globe in this interconnected community. Right? Right.

Even though no revolutionary today has stepped up to fill the shoes of olde, we can always look back at the people whose actions resulted in today's world, of ethics, and morals, and social equality. Mandela was a leader of conviction, and he will remain a symbol of cooperation; a man of the modern age, who retained his tribal Madiba roots.

He is gone now, but he will not be forgotten that easily.

Factoid In Review

Chris Spangenberg, Grade 12

Over DiCaprio’s dead body in that swimming pool he never used, and exit the green light at the other side of the bay—The Year of the Snake is over, and so is Gatsby's garden party.  Many stories came with image of importance, but few would come to commemoration at the end of the year, of 2013. Only Nick Carraway, and an army of superstition that had been living under the dark clouds of the unlucky number in their calendar for about a year or so.

But as we slip under anesthesia to 2014, the gag reflex of the information age kicks in, and we find ourselves scurrying about like rats in a bouncing castle, desperately asking the same along similar lines... Was there anything good about that year? Anything worth remembering? And the prophetic How will the next year be? These are not just inquiries to inside personal life, but queries to outside the windows of the soul and the boob-tube. It's a small-town world. We might not care about drones with bombs or foreigners in rice paddies halfway across town—but by hellion and healthcare, we deserve to know it! What is wi-fi there for, if not constant news? Texting? What was new they knew by then, and once known, the new is as welcome as Newton at a pewter. Yet nostalgia is irrational in its insistence, and colours the ungrazed grass at the beginning of the year. Was it greener then?

Enter the United States of America, center of the world, paragon of all nations united under jingoism. Boy, did they ever get it. The Boston Bombings had a manhunt going, and the swarm of security rivalled that of the search for Bin Laden. But with a body count of 3, and an estimated injured of 264 at a big public event, that's what you get when you spit acid in the eye of the establishment. The motives drive this point further, with the buzzwords of Islam and extremism floating around in the heads of analysts and FBI interrogators. The National Security Agency (NSA) had a leakage the size of the British Petroleum oil spill with Edward Snowden. And suddenly, Big Brother is larger than life; the face behind our internet history, telephone calls, and e-mails... and a helluva lot more personal. Still, it will be a while before the term 'Orwellian' becomes an operative imperative word muttered not only by political analysts and fascists.

Speaking of the government, and their shutdown in midnight of September 30^th; whatever happened to that? Republicans wanted money milked out of Obamacare, and refused to turn over and play dead when the care of Obama and his Democrats turned tyrannous. In a deadlock, both sides blamed the other for not working together. There was debate and argument about funds and spending, and somewhere in between, the government shut down due to a lack of money. The effects were enormous and immediate, and it is hard for mortal minds to grasp the extent. National parks closed, along with memorials, art-galleries and zoos, and 800,000 government workers were temporarily out of a job, with a million asked to work without pay. All factions of the government were shut down, except the military. Which is sensible, very sensible indeed. With Kim Jong Un breathing down the neck of the United States with ambiguous nuclear threats, and China posing for photo shoots with its own military, you want a standing army. Just in case, of course…

Also of notice is the green light for ganja. Marijuana has been legalized in Colorado and Washington, starting officially January 1, 2014. The medical usage of marijuana has been legalized already in 19 states, but recreational usage is restricted. Colorado and Washington are creating a restricted pot market where authorities will oversee the trade, instead of shady dealers. Not quite following in the footsteps of the Netherlands, whose drug policies tend towards the tolerance of low consumption, rather than legalizing it altogether. The shooting of Trayvon Martin in February, and its resulting prosecution of the killer George Zimmerman enraged the Afro-American community. And like the opposite of twin O.J Simpson, this divided the nation again, pitting colour against colour, in a collective way.

Take a glance outside the center of the world, and notice an empty spot around the campfire where the Father of the Nation used to sit. Nelson Mandela is dead at 95 years old, succumbing to a respiratory lung infection on December 5. One of the last of the great revolutionaries and visionaries of our time is gone now, taking with him the boundless energy out of the modern day revolution. He was up there, on the same wavelength as Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. But lest we forget he wasn't always that smiling peace president—he was an alleged communist who was willing to use sabotage to pressure the government. So, a bit more like Malcolm X, and unlike Gandhi. Yet his legacy is still one of cooperation, and his status as anti-apartheid icon is ensured in history.

Though Madiba is dead, the spirit of the revolution is not. Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi was ousted by the army chief, Abdul Fatah Al-Sisi, who was in favour of the millions of protestors on the streets. Turkey's protestors were brutally suppressed— first at a sit-in at a park; their forcible eviction led to further unrest. The demonstrations are ongoing, and the crowds still swelter the streets. Thailand saw recent conflict emerging in the form of opposition leader, and disagreement with its leader Yingluck Shinawatra. There are no charismatic international outspoken leaders whom the West can look up to, such as Guevara, and there is no real threat to the West from their end realizations, so media coverage is kept especially low. And still the protests go on, outside the camera's lens, on foreign land.

From the motherland, Great Britain, and all around the world, we still live in the medieval age where royalty is still of relative value to the People... the royal baby Prince George can look back in eighteen years, and think about all the hullaballoo he caused when kicking in the womb, and then bursting out on the front pages of The Guardian and The Telegraph, to name two of the many magazines and papers reporting the royal birth. In Rome, Pope Benedict XVI resigned in February, due to declining health—a strange move, considering most modern Popes still hold power until their death. The new pope, once archbishop of Buenos Aires, goes by the name of Francis. He criticizes rampant capitalism, and is not too much of a strong shepherd on abortion, and gay/ lesbian relations. There is hope still.

With the fresh gusto of religion, come the gusts of typhoon Haiyan to the Philippines in November. The country was badly affected by such suffering, and up to 11 million people are feeling the outcome of the disaster. The infrastructure will take time to be rebuild, and the roads are down. Humanitarian agencies are still passing around the donation tin.

On a more positive note, Mayor Rob Ford allegedly smoked crack in Toronto, and there are videos of the man himself caught in the act. Why is he so despicable in the media's eye? Obama admitted to doing cocaine when he was younger. Clinton admitted to smoking a reefer, but never inhaling. But was there footage of Clinton? Did Obama get his frat pictures posted? No, and this is why Ford is so in the wrong. He should've just come out with it in the beginning. If looks could tar and feather...

So where does all of this lead in to the new year? 2014 starts on a fiscal cliff-hanger, according to the economic analysts. You can officially purchase marijuana in Colorado on January the first. Russia will have its Winter Olympics in February. Does this mean anything for those who pay taxes, attend university, and have a homegrown family? Does this mean much for those who evade taxes, tag the walls of the faculty, and sneer at the padre familia? Dire tidings. But the rainbow parade is still held. Kim Jong Un still is committed to his nuclear schedule. Miley Cyrus still slumbers in the lime light. And somewhere, somehow, the vague assurance of better tomorrows blinks in its insomniac state.