Diversity in Tv

Today I’m going to discuss the changing landscape of diversity of races on long form television. How many times have you seen black people as criminals on a TV series? How often did you see an Asian face on a television show? If you did, how was that person portrayed? As a kung fu master? Or another martial arts expert?

Growing up as an Asian myself, I have always been looking forward to have role models and representations of my culture on the television screen. Very rarely do people perceive an Asian character who is cool because he has cultural awareness, which sends a very subtle message that Asians are not interesting simply being Asian. Black white latino women are still being exploited but there are so many positive role models to counter the negative ones. But there are not enough positive role models for Asian actors in the media. However, there is this recent change of trends for diversity on television and the people’s voice are being heard.

TV is now in color. There are notable number of popular shows featuring minority actors in lead roles such as Empire, Blackish, Jane The Virgin, Fresh Off The Boat, Scandal, How To Get Away With Murder. Not only do they have colorful casts, Shonda Rhimes now controls all of the Thursday prime-time programming on ABC, with her dramatic hits "Grey's Anatomy," "Scandal" and "How to Get Away With Murder with Viola Davis, the first black woman to ever win the Emmy for Best Lead Actress in a Drama (Krauser, etonline.com). Last year "Empire," the hip-hop soap opera on Fox with a nearly all-black cast, became one of broadcast's biggest breakout hits in years (Collins, latimes.com). What this has really demonstrated to TV execs though is that beyond Hollywood there is a whole world of audiences who want to see everything on their televisions. From complex LGBT issues to more black female leads, we want entertainment that is as interesting and as diverse as the world we live in.

Shows like Empire, How to Get Away with Murder, Transparent, the current television landscape certainly feels far more inclusive than it used to, and a survey counts a total of 162 L.G.B.T. characters on scripted series, plus an additional 109 recurring characters (Lawson, vanityfair.com). Some of the most celebrated shows on TV showcase diversity, whether it is the African American family of ABC's "black-ish," the multiracial inmates on Netflix's "Orange Is the New Black" or the transgender dad on Amazon’s Transparent, which Jeffrey Tambor accepted a Golden Globe for his potrayal of a Transgender White Woman and also won the Best Comedy series. (Acuna, businessinsider.com.au) I think it’s fascinating that Jill Soloway, the showrunner and Jeffrey Tambor is that they take the responsibility of this diversity representation, knowing that it is a part of changing culture for a community that many people still don’t know about, putting it into the context of a middle class family to make it more accessible for people to understand.