As Black History Month begins, I am reminded of why celebrating the African American experience continues to be vital in the current state of the world. I remember the heroes who have come and gone before us, changing the world for the better, and I remember the people who exist in our current time, striving every day to make the next one better. I am inspired and humbled by their courage and persistence.
One area where African Americans have been both marginalized and celebrated is in the entertainment industry. Recently we’ve seen black leading roles in movies like Black Panther, consisting of an almost an entirely black cast. Movies like Hidden Figures showcase the intelligence and persistence of African American women whose story had been ignored for years. Other movies like The Hate U Give highlights the fear African Americans face every day, threatened by a police force that is supposed to protect them. The entertainment industry is getting better at including characters that reflect our diverse society, but despite how far we’ve come, there is still so much more we can do to be better.
It is so valuable for children to see faces that look like them on their TV screens. According to an article from The Conversation, studies show “that it’s important for children to see characters who not only look like themselves and their families but also sound like them.” It’s also been found that inaccurate representations of ethnic backgrounds can confuse children’s sense of identity. With movies, TV shows, and books being such a big part of everyday life, there needs to be more ethnic groups represented appropriately in the entertainment industry.
That’s what makes movies like Black Panther and Hidden Figures so important. We need movies that accurately represent African Americans. They have a history that defines their community, but their past isn’t the only part that should be showcased. For example, Hidden Figures is a powerful movie that shows the racism and sexism that these black women faced in their jobs at NASA, but it also highlights their capabilities and intelligence as mothers and wives. While other films, prolong some stereotypes by only including leading women of color as slaves or housekeepers, Hidden Figures embraces a different portrayal of black women as the backbones of the technological development of the United States. It’s important that movies and TV stop portraying black women only through their struggles and showcase the diversity in talent and experience.
Many TV shows today are trying to capture more of the diversity that exists in America, and some do a great job, while others fundamentally fail. A New York Times article discusses a TV show called The Bold Type that uses Black characters to “diversify the cast, but not necessarily the story.” The author, Sesali Bowen, explains that she often sees black people in TV shows shown through two main narratives. They are either “criminal masterminds who dominate industries stereotypically associated with black people (music, drugs, basketball). Or black people who live and work in white communities without any racism. Neither captures the realities of race in America.” According to Bowen, the problem with The Bold Type is that it erases this character’s “blackness,” and the realities of being a black American — “Nothing about her role speaks to her race or cultural experience.”
When Black Panther was released in 2018, there was a frenzy of excitement among the Black community. In a viral tweet, referenced in an article from the NY Times, you can hear how big of a deal this was for a Black teen who says, “This is what white people get to feel all the time?” The simplicity of seeing people who are like you on the screen, playing superheroes, is something so incredulous to the boy in the video, something white people take for granted.
There needs to be more movies that normalize African American leading roles to break down the exclusivity of the entertainment industry. Normalizing underrepresented groups without erasing unique cultural backgrounds is an important step to reflect the diverse society that exists in the United States and throughout the world.