Representation in the Media

The new Law & Order Los Angeles debuted yesterday, and I was pleasantly surprised. The first episode was almost half in Spanish, with English subtitles - something you certainly don't see everyday.  Many of the lead characters are Latino, and although the first episode featured a Mexican gang - and all of the stereotypes that went along - the heros of the episode were also people of color, and the second episode featured a White man as the "villian".

I've written previously about the show "Outsourced", a show whose cast is predominantly people of color but that, in my opinion, consists entirely of cheap jokes about stupid stereotypes of the Indian culture.  It seems that in the general media, people of color are included in one of the following ways:

• Either it's a show like Law & Order LA where there were so many more people of color than there are usually that it was very noticeable; OR
• A person's race / ethnicity / religion / etc serves only as comedic relief or is exploited in some other way; OR
• There is a really negative portrayal in the news - see below: 

I think that representation of many different groups of people is increasing in the media, but it still has a long way to go. There is a mix of overt examples of racism in the media like the "looting vs. finding" captions, and then there are the more subtle microaggressions that continue to run rampant. Microaggressions can include the lack of different cultures in primetime television, the showing of internalized superiority (such as when different lifestyles are mocked or othered), and the messages we receive about what is good, beautiful, and right. For this, see my previous entry on "Liv Dolls"...