Southern New Social Message of The Headless Woman Film Discussion Review the module resources and overview, then select a popular culture example. (It can

Southern New Social Message of The Headless Woman Film Discussion Review the module resources and overview, then select a popular culture example. (It can be a television show, a commercial, a game, a movie, etc.). Analyze the representation and social message that is associated with the example. If you would like, you can select a particular episode of a show.In your initial post, briefly describe the popular culture example you selected and address the following:What is the composition of the primary characters, and what groups within diversity do they represent?What is the latent (or unintended) social message or commentary about a particular group to society that is reflected by this example?What are the social implications of this message? Briefly discuss any potential social impact or response to the example. Race, Gender, Hollywood: Representation in Cultural Production and Digital …: Multi-Search
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Race, Gender, Hollywood: Representation in Cultural Production
and Digital Media’s Potential for Change
Authors:
Erigha, Maryann
Source:
SOCIOLOGY COMPASS; JAN 2015, 9 1, p78-p89, 12p.
Publisher
Copyright:
WILEY
ISSN:
17519020
DOI:
10.1111/soc4.12237
Document Type:
Journal
Language:
English
Accession
Number:
000365316300007
Copyright:
Copyright (c) Clarivate Analytics Web of Science
Publisher Logo:
Database:
Social Sciences Citation Index
Race, Gender, Hollywood: Representation in Cultural Production and
Digital Media’s Potential for Change.
Listen
American Accent
Since its inception, the Hollywood industry has played an instrumental role in the mass dissemination of popular culture, both within the United
States and globally. Yet, White men have almost exclusively created the narratives and myths that comprise Hollywood cultural production,
while narratives by women and racial/ethnic minorities are fewer and less prominent. This article gives an overview of current research on
racial and gender inequality in representation in the production of Hollywood film and television in the United States, with a focus on the
contemporary era. Research on Hollywood cultural production points to a problematic trend of disadvantages in opportunities and outcomes
facing women and racial/ethnic minorities, leading to the prevalence of stereotypes and a lack of diversity on?screen. However, transformations
in technology that alter the production and dissemination of media present the possibility of decreasing inequality for women and racial/ethnic
minorities.
For nearly a century, Hollywood studios have played an instrumental role in the mass dissemination of popular culture, both within the United
States and globally—for better or worse. On the one hand, American cinema has left an indelible footprint of narratives, images, and myths
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about American and global culture. On the other, the orchestrators of this historical and wide?reaching trail of American popular cultural artifacts
have been almost exclusively White men, while the narratives from women and racial/ethnic minorities have occupied far less space in the
cultural canon. For decades, scholars, workers in creative industries, as well as civil rights organizations have pressured decision?makers in
Hollywood film and television industries to open their doors to embrace greater diversity in participation of racial/ethnic minorities and women in
the cultural production process. A growing number of studies—like those from The Writers Guild of America; The Directors Guild of America;
and studies on screenwriters, actors, and directors written by scholars like Bielby and Bielby ([ 5] ) and Guerrero ([ 16] )—revealed dismal
statistics on the dearth of diversity behind?the?scenes in Hollywood.
Unfortunately, recent research confirms that not much has changed 20 years after those landmark studies. Women and racial/ethnic minorities
remain underrepresented in Hollywood, far below their proportion of the US population. How does this lack of proportional representation
contribute to how societal culture is created? More specifically, how does the dearth of women and racial/ethnic minorities in behind?the?scenes
positions in Hollywood translate into stereotypical and limited creative visions on screen? And finally, what might changes in technology,
including the changing nature of the television medium and the proliferation of digital media, mean for future diversity of Hollywood cultural
production?
This article gives an overview of current research on racial and gender inequality in representation in the production of Hollywood film and
television in the United States, with a focus on the contemporary era. Unsurprisingly, research on Hollywood cultural production points to a
problematic trend of disadvantages in opportunities and outcomes facing women and racial/ethnic minorities, leading to the prevalence of
stereotypes and a lack of diversity on?screen. However, changes in technology and in the production and dissemination of media present the
possibility of decreasing inequality for women and racial/ethnic minorities. Sociologists and media scholars can learn a great deal about what
the future holds for underrepresented groups in Hollywood by investigating what changes the production of mainstream culture will have to
undergo in order to maintain dominance in the face of rising competition from new online methods of production, distribution, and exhibition.
Three types of representation in cultural production
Production of culture scholars analyze the manufacturing, organization, and distribution of cultural products, as well as the organizations,
occupations, and characteristics of the industries that produce cultural goods for mass audience consumption (Du Gay et al. [ 12] ; Grindstaff [
15] ; Negus [ 31] ; Peterson and Anand [ 32] ). The making of the images and narratives that form the backbone of societal culture is
crystallized through the values, attitudes, and opinions of people working in culture industries (Grindstaff [ 15] ). Because cultural products are
inextricably linked to meanings derived from the people working in culture industries, at stake in the production of popular culture is the ability
for various social groups to develop and disseminate their own meaning systems. Therefore, understanding the demographic characteristics,
employment conditions, and experiences of diverse groups of cultural laborers will give us greater insight into the system in which societal
culture is produced and why stereotypical and limited creative visions might emerge from it (Caldwell [ 8] ; Hesmondhalgh and Baker [ 18] ).
Of great concern to marginalized groups is the precise quantity that constitutes adequate representation in media. Numerical representation
describes a social group’s presence or absence on?screen or behind?the?scenes, usually referring to the proportion of a particular occupation
that the group occupies. Several studies described Hollywood as a predominantly White and male sphere, with women and racial/ethnic
minorities being highly underrepresented with proportions well below their share of the US population (Bielby and Bielby [ 7] ; Erigha [ 13] ;
Lauzen [ 22] ; Lauzen [ 23] ; Lauzen [ 24] ; Lauzen [ 26] ; Smith and Choueiti [ 38] ; Smith and Choueiti [ 39] ; Smith et al. [ 40] ).
In addition to numerical representation, quality of representation also matters. Quality of representation includes the kinds of roles that groups
occupy on?screen and behind?the?scenes. In front of the camera, actors favor multi?dimensional, multi?faceted roles over stereotypical, one?
dimensional parts (Shohat and Stam [ 36] ). Behind?the?camera directors and producers prefer to work in a range of genres rather than be
typecasted, or relegated to niches, ultimately making long?term viability vulnerable due to genre popularity cycles (Bielby and Bielby [ 7] ; Yuen
[ 45] ). Cultural producers also have varying leverage in terms of their behind?the?scenes conditions of employment. For instance, although
directors and producers desire production circumstances that allow for maximum creativity, industry decision?makers may only circumscribe
them to limited scales of production or provide them with sparingly few resources for the execution of a project. Nonetheless, the quality of
representation that characterizes the participation of women and racial/ethnic minorities in Hollywood largely dictates the parameters for what
kinds of culture they can and cannot produce.
Another measure of representation, centrality of representation, assesses how central groups are to an industry’s core institutions. Research
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on centrality of representation investigates whether racial/ethnic minorities and women are located in institutions that are in the core or
periphery of cultural production. Prior research has demonstrated that women and racial/ethnic minorities employed in Hollywood face difficulty
accessing the core of the industry and more often find work with marginal companies, such as in the Bielby and Bielby ([ 6] ) study, which
showed that women and racial/ethnic minorities were less likely than White men to belong to core talent agencies. However, the benefits of
belonging to core talent agencies—better reputation, resources, authentication, legitimacy, employment, and income—make career success
and advancement substantially more likely with membership in core talent agencies compared to membership in non?core talent agencies.
In film, major studios offer cultural producers advantages that smaller studios cannot afford. With regard to the exhibition of films in theaters,
major studios have branch offices in critical regional markets, allowing them to maintain extensive and continuous contact with theater chains
across the country, whereas independent distributors are less strategically networked with exhibitors and generally have greater difficulty
marketing, publicizing, and gaining large theatrical releases for their films (Marcks [ 28] ; Scott [ 34] ). Consequently, directors working primarily
with independent studios experience disadvantages in theatrical releases for their films compared to directors primarily working with major
studios (Erigha [ 13] ). Given the benefits of belonging to core organizations, having limited access to core organizations demonstrates yet
another level of inequality that presents disadvantages in career opportunities for women and racial/ethnic minorities in the cultural labor
market.
Integrating key points about representation through these three interrelated concepts—numerical representation, quality of representation, and
centrality of representation—allows us to understand the totality of marginalization facing women and racial/ethnic minorities in Hollywood,
whereas focusing solely on one while ignoring others provides an incomplete portrait of the layers of inequality facing marginalized groups in
culture industries. Therefore, the most thorough studies on cultural representation should take their simultaneous effects into account. These
three types of representation come to bear on prominent positions in the production of popular film and television. Above?the?line positions,
such as writers, directors, producers, and creators, each play instrumental, yet different, roles in the production of mainstream culture. “Writers
are crucial to film and television because without a script there is no product” (Bielby [ 4] : 140). Producers oversee all aspects of making of
films and television programs. The director is the key role facilitating the making of the video product, as well as guiding actors, camera
placement, technical crew, and other elements of production. On television shows, the creator is the key figure who successfully sells the
television show’s concept and has an integral voice in production choices (Hunt et al. [ 20] , p. 12). In different ways, each position influences
on?screen outcomes, shaping who is cast, what traits and behaviors characters exhibit, and how central characters are in narratives.
Racial/ethnic minorities’ and women’s representation in film and television is at the heart of their quest to gain a platform in popular culture.
Racial/ethnic minorities in Hollywood
Numerical representation
Comprehensive data on employment in Hollywood production illustrate that racial/ethnic minorities are vastly underrepresented in acting,
writing, directing, and creating for Hollywood film and television. Few television directors are from racial/ethnic minority backgrounds. The Hunt
et al. ([ 20] ) Hollywood Diversity Report, which analyzes 1061 television shows airing during the 2011–12 season on 6 broadcast and 62 cable
networks, showed that minorities directed only 2 percent of broadcast comedies and dramas and 7 percent of cable comedies and dramas.
Meanwhile, on most television shows—73 percent of broadcast comedies and dramas and 71 percent of cable comedies and dramas—
minorities directed 10 percent or less of episodes (Hunt et al. [ 20] , p. 15).
Film directors were similarly underrepresented in Hollywood. For instance, in 2008, only 6 of the 100 top?grossing films were directed by Black
directors—translating into roughly 5 percent Black directors (Smith and Choueiti [ 38] ). In 2013, 6.5 percent of top?grossing Hollywood films
had Black directors (Smith et al. [ 40] ). The trend of few Black directors extended over the first decade of the 21st century with Black
filmmakers directing only 7 percent of all theatrically released Hollywood films between 2000 and 2011 (Erigha [ 13] ).
It is true that critically acclaimed films also matter; in fact, they can carry as much, if not more cultural influence, than top?grossing films.
However, racial minority film directors have been largely ignored at major Academy Awards ceremonies. Thus far, the only Black?directed
feature to win a directing or producing award was Steve McQueen’s 12 Years A Slave (2013), which won a Best Picture Academy Award. To
date, no Black director has won a Best Director Academy Award for a feature film. Asian?born American film director Ang Lee, however, broke
a long?time barrier for racial/ethnic minorities in Hollywood when he won Best Director for Life of Pi (2012). While sociologists have focused on
racial minority directors’ advancement among top?grossing films and in the largest Hollywood studios, more work on which minority?directed
films receive critical acclaim will ultimately question what we think we know about which films, directors, and actors gain visibility in critics’
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circles and why they achieve this recognition.
In acting for film and television, a Screen Actor’s Guild report showed that while White actors dominated positions, occupying 75 percent of all
roles, African Americans occupied 14 percent, Latinos 5 percent, and Asian Americans less than 3 percent of roles (Screen Actors Guild [ 35] ).
Examining the race/ethnicity of speaking characters for the top?grossing films of 2013, these numbers remained largely unchanged. Only Asian
Americans increased their presence with 4.4 percent of speaking roles from less than 3 percent. Latinos, however, were most
underrepresented, comprising over 16 percent of the 2010 population in the United States but slightly less than 5 percent of speaking
characters (Smith et al. [ 40] ). More than half of theatrical films had casts that were 10 percent or less minority (Hunt et al. [ 20] ).
The racial/ethnic disparity in acting becomes even more substantial when examining placement in lead roles. Of the top 172 non?foreign
feature films released to theaters in 2011, racial/ethnic minorities only accounted for 10.5 percent of lead roles, although they accounted for
36.3 percent of the US population in 2010 (Hunt et al. [ 20] ). Minority actors were a dismal 5 percent of lead acting roles in broadcast
comedies and dramas, on shows like Scandal (ABC) and Nikita (CW), and 15 percent of lead roles in cable comedies and dramas, on shows
like Single Ladies (VH1) and Tyler Perry’s For Better or Worse (TBS) (Hunt et al. [ 20] , p. 8–9). In reality television, minorities comprised of 15
percent of broadcast reality television leads, on shows like America’s Next Top Model (CW), and 13 percent of reality television leads on cable
networks on shows like Basketball Wives LA (VH1) and Tia & Tamera (Style) (Hunt et al. [ 20] , p. 10). Racial/ethnic minorities’ subordination in
supporting roles compared to leading roles provides them with less on?screen visibility than their White counterparts, despite their increasing
proportion of the general population.
The writing occupation shows similar patterns of White overrepresentation and minority underrepresentation. Over the past decades, White
Americans accounted for nearly 80 percent of feature film writers and 70 percent of television writers (Hunt [ 19] ). Together, Latino, Asian
American, and Native American writers comprised less than 2 percent of working television writers between 1999 and 2000 (Bielby and Bielby [
7] , p. 25). In recent years, this disparity has increased significantly. According to the 2011 Hollywood Writer’s Report, between 2005 and 2009,
minorities comprised of just 9–10 percent of television writers and 5–6 percent of screenwriters (Motion Picture Association of America [ 30] ).
For the 2011–2012 season, most broadcast television writing staffs (62.5 percent) and cable television writing staffs (69 percent) were
comprised of 10 percent or less minority, while only 10 percent of writers across all broadcast comedies and dramas and 7 percent of writers
across all cable comedies and dramas were from racial/ethnic minority groups (Hunt et al. [ 20] , p. 13–14).
Television creators can possibly impact diversity in the racial composition of the cast and writing staff, but here too, racial minorities face severe
underrepresentation. However, African American Shonda Rhimes was the only creator from a racial/ethnic minority group whose television
shows aired on a major broadcast network during the 2011–2012 season (Hunt et al. [ 20] ). Her shows, Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, and
Scandal, which aired on ABC, constituted 3.1 percent of broadcast comedies and dramas during the 2011–2012 season (Hunt et al. [ 20] , p.
12). In contrast to broadcast television, 7 percent of cable comedies and dramas were created by racial/ethnic minorities, including shows like
Let’s Stay Together (BET). All in all, minorities remained largely underrepresented across behind?the?scenes occupations in Hollywood with the
vast majority of television shows and films excluding members of racial/ethnic minority groups from behind?the?scenes participation.
Quality and centrality of representation
Across all media occupations, racial minorities were typically associated with ethnic genres and performances of race and ethnicity (Hunt et al.
[ 20] ; Yuen [ 44] ; Yuen [ 45] ). Nancy Wang Yuen’s ethnographic studies on race and film actors revealed ways in which actors were cast in
racialized roles. In popular films, African Americans were typed to play roles that exhibited ghetto behavior or linked to ties with inner city
communities (Yuen [ 45] ). Asian and Asian American actors were racialized in roles as martial arts gurus, superhuman characters, or victims
(Yuen [ 44] , p. 254). Actors with Asian backgrounds were generally typed as foreign and asked to speak in Chinese accents, since casting
directors failed to distinguish between foreign?born Asians and Asian Americans, nor account for variation in Asians’ ethnic backgrounds and
cultures (Yuen [ 44] , p. 255).
Similar to the stereotyping actors faced, directors and writers were also typecasted into ethnic genres. In Hollywood feature films, Black
filmmakers were overrepresented in directing music?themed movies, arguably the most entertainment and performance?oriented film genre
(Erigha …
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