Represented, But Not Really
This article is an online version of the print article for the S/S ‘20 Lexington Line edition. The print version can be viewed here!
12-year-old black girls shouldn’t have to look to 12 Years a Slave for a character that looks like them, and young queer people of color should have someone they can relate to in media too.
We are at an interesting time where there is an abundance of representation in books, television, and movies for the black community. However, we are also at a point where black stories are not validated unless they center on race-related trauma.
In the past decade, we have had plenty of books and movies about slavery, discrimination, and oppression, but only a handful of rom-com, sci-fi, mystery, comic book, and light-hearted stories centered on a black protaganist. Every year there is a film such as Glory, 12 Years a Slave, or Selma, but movies that are based around black characters in non-traumatic scenarios are few and far between. While I am grateful to finally see black people given roles in major Hollywood films and black authors given deals to publish black stories, will we ever reach a point where we can celebrate stories that don’t involve oppression?
At the 2020 Oscars, Cynthia Erivo, who played Harriet Tubman in Harriet, was the only non-white actor nominated. According to Forbes, from 2008 to 2018, 90% of the nominees in the acting categories of the Academy Awards have been white. The lack of inclusivity here gives the impression that the people who give out award nominations only feel comfortable handing out awards to black stories with narratives that are familiar to them. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences is 70% white. There is a noticeable power imbalance when it’s clear that the further inclusion of black directors, actors, and stories threatens the white standard of normalcy established in the last century of film.
This has extended to all sides of media. After winning his Grammy, Tyler, the Creator said, “On one side, I’m very grateful… [to] be acknowledged in a world like this. But also, it sucks that whenever we, and I mean guys who look like me, do anything… they always put it in a ‘rap’ or ‘urban’ category. [It] feels like to be nominated was a backhanded compliment. Like, ‘Oh, my little cousin wants to play the game, let’s give him an unplugged controller so he can shut up and feel good about it.’”
The ongoing strategy of placing black artists in “urban” categories is not new. In 2019, there was mass outrage after Lil Nas X’s smash country hit “Old Town Road” was removed from the country charts for not being “country enough.” This launched a conversation around the exclusion of POC from traditionally white categories, and the trend of racial separation through categorization.
These are some fantastic examples of representation in media that place people of color in roles where they can be unabashedly happy, adventurous, and free of a repeated narrative without negating the black experience.
So, what now? Can’t we be grateful that black people are being represented in the first place? We can multitask. We can celebrate the astonishing work of actors like Cynthia Erivo, Ruth Negga, and Denzel Washington, and we can celebrate projects like 12 Years a Slave and Glory. We can also celebrate the importance of movies and books that tell the hard truth of the black struggle. But we can also work to uplift stories that feature black characters in other genres of media too
So there is hope for the future. 2020 will see the full realization of Tyler Perry Studios, new books from authors like Marlon James and Candace Carty-Williams, and new seasons of shows like Atlanta and Chewing Gum.
It’s wonderful to see black stories given a platform, but the hope is to see the entertainment industry reach a place where black kids, teens, and adults can have their own Harry Potters to look up to, or their own Nancy Drew. Representation matters, but it should be done from a place of authenticity rather than tokenism.
LGBTQ+ representation for people of color has been, at best, centered around trauma, and at worst, non-existent. Queer representation is slim to none, and the recent examples of representation have been mediocre. Almost every single movie and television show that has been based around a gay protagonist has been white. Call Me by Your Name, GBF, Alex Strangelove, and Love, Simon… all white.
In 2016, GLAAD reported that 73% of any LGBTQ+ characters appearing on television series and in movies were white. According to the Williams Institute, in America there are over one million people of color who identify as LGBTQ+. It is hard to be patient. It has to be hard for queer people of color to only have white stories to relate to.
Prominent author L.L. McKinney offered her thoughts on the issue. McKinney is a writer, a poet, and an advocate for equality and inclusion in publishing. She is known for being the author of The Nightmare Verse book series and has published books that feature a diverse set of characters.
“Queer BIPOC [representation] is important for the same reason any positive representation is important, because we deserve it, first and foremost. We deserve stories about laughing, living, loving, all of that. We deserve to be seen as more than our pain and struggles, particularly at those intersections,” she says. “We deserve the response and sensitivity given to any other characters. We deserved to see reflections of ourselves that are fully fleshed out, that are the product of time and effort and care, that aren’t just there to check a box or fill a quote. It’s easy to tell when we’re being included as an afterthought or an add on, when our presence wasn’t intentional or is little more than a cash grab.”
Most representation for queer POC has been reserved for secondary or tertiary characters, but we have to mention the outlier: Moonlight. Moonlight was praised for being a story about a black gay man, but Hollywood’s first major example of representation for black gay men was extremely depressing. Centered on abuse, sadness, and pain, the story of Moonlight is important, but does little to provide a relatable role model for young black queer kids.
These are some incredible works of literature out there that are paving the way for the new age of POC queer representation, and they are playing a vital role in the field of thoughtful inclusion
Following the lack of POC queer representation in television and movies, many people turn to the original form of media: books. Books are leaps and bounds ahead of movies and television in representation and diversity. Queer stories are plentiful in literature, but again, we run into a problem.
I visited a queer bookstore in the Lower East Side of Manhattan and searched for a queer romance novel that featured a POC main character. I left empty-handed. Because queer literature is typically based on white characters, it’s hard to even notice the lack of diversity.
I have read over 30 titles based around a same-sex love story and ended up with only a few that featured a main character that was a person of color.
McKinney says that most LGBT+ representation in pop culture is white because white “is still the default.”
“There’s still an avenue of privilege here, and whiteness is nothing if not persistent. I shouldn’t have to explain what I mean by whiteness, and normally this is where I would provide that information anyway to assuage any potential hurt feelings, but I’m not doing that anymore. Whiteness is a construct, and Google is free,” she says. Society has a way of putting people in boxes, she adds. “It likes to regulate what you can and can’t talk about. ‘You, black woman, can talk about race. That’s it. You can’t talk about where it intersects with any other part of your identity. That mess doesn’t count.’ That’s usually how it goes, right? People will (maybe) listen when I have something to say about race, but the minute racism as it pertains to queerness pops up, now it’s a problem. White people who are also marginalized still have to work against wanting to center themselves in the conversation.”
We have taken so many steps towards diverse representation on all media platforms, but we can’t accept the few bones that have been thrown to minorities as being the prime of our societal inclusion. Our diverse population of the present and multicultural generations of the future deserve someone to admire. The entertainment industry has an epic choice ahead of them: turn a new page and work harder to support and write stories of new heroes and new role models, or remain stagnant in a field of tokenism and erasure. Support diverse creators. Support the voice of the underrepresented by seeing movies exclusively produced by and starring marginalized groups.
Hollywood might love its slave stories, but the new age of award-winning POC narratives are on the horizon. The void of queer stories is waiting to be filled. The future is colorful and bright.