Wednesday, June 30, 2021

Representation

Black representation in the Media

 In the past black people in media have been represented as the joke men they would often play the servants and the poor people, they were basically there to laugh at. Many older movies are like this however times have drastically changed since then and placing people in those roles due to old stereotypes is very much so frowned upon.

In the past, film companies have tried to exclusively have an "all coloured cast" however these companies failed due to lack of "white" appeal and poor "marketability".

Again for many years, black people were portrayed in movies as people who needed to be saved by white people seen in movies like The Blind Side and Freedom Writers to name a few. In both of these, there was a white lady who gave "salvation" to a young black male.

Netflix says they are representing black people through their leadership roles, major casting, film and distribution crew, etc. Black directors Ava DuVernay and Spike Lee have helped Netflix head the movement Strong Black Lea
d "It's a promise to represent black audiences authentically".

In 2018 Black panther was released by Marvel having black people as the main actor, the main antagonist, and most of the supporting lead roles. This was a huge step for marvel and Hollywood, in general, to show that movies with a majority of black actors can be successful. The movie grossed over $1 billion worldwide.

In 2016 at the Oscars there were 0 black actors who were nominated for an Oscar award and it didn't go down well with a lot of black actors as many made videos on it and shared their outrage on social media. This caused the Oscars to widen the variety of cultures and ethnicity that they have on the Oscars from that year on.

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