When will we see young adult shows about people of color?
The upbeat needle drop of “maggots for brains” by 23-year-old pop star Olivia Rodrigo captivated audiences watching the premiere of the new Amazon Prime Video series Sterling Point.
Directed by Canadian actor and director Megan Park, this young adult show carries the tropes and formulas many people enjoy watching. From the love triangles to the emotional coming-of-age stories of the characters, this show quickly became a hit.
The story follows 17-year-old Annie Jacobson, who lives in New York with her adoptive father and her twin brother, Conner. As the plot progresses, we can see the characters go through the trials of teenagehood, which deal with aspects such as friendship, romance, sexuality, and discovering oneself.
Much like Sterling Point, popular shows catered towards Gen Z audiences like The Summer I Turned Pretty, XO Kitty, and Heartstopper deal with similar topics of growing up. The stories that are aired on popular streaming platforms have one consistent theme that stands out amongst the rest.
A lack of minority representation!
The shows tend to follow a majority of white characters and the struggles within their lives.
Yes, these shows do have people of color within the cast. Isabel Conklin from The Summer I Turned Pretty is Asian-American, and many characters within XO Kitty are Korean.
However, stories that get adapted into popular shows feature people of color as characters that are secondary to the main cast and have writing that seems to fall off as the season progresses. As seen in Sterling Point, Stacy Mallory is one of the only black women featured in the show.
Instead of being a pivotal character, she serves as a barrier that prevents Oona and Ramona’s relationship from progressing. This can be seen similarly in XO Kitty with Juliana and Nicole in TSITP. Black characters, as well as Hispanic, Indian, Latinx, or even Native American characters, get cast aside and are only used to create drama for the main characters who are predominantly white.
I feel as though screenwriters and directors seek to create stories with a “certain” aesthetic that doesn’t seem to “fit” for people of color. If they don’t align with a story that is located in places such as a small town off the coast of Maine or attending a wealthy school in London from a family with old money, the poc are cast in roles that are stereotyped solely to check the box of the diversity category.
Or better yet, not even written into the plot.
When will production companies finally create shows that tell the stories of young people of color and the struggles with coming-of-age in a society that is historically built to disadvantage them?
Our stories deserve to be told too!