Race,Gender, and Representation: Have We Advanced?

As I began working on two series- one being historical, the second being fantasy- the process of research and world-building cause me to question tropes and standards not only in real life itself, but in film, television and literature.

Examining these inequalities in these works brought to mind these questions presented here below.

Enter Exoticism 101

Orientalism and Exoticism are the main pitfalls one may become susceptible to in following this course.  It takes minimal effort, surprisingly, to simplify cultures, divest them of humanity, and present a banal, shallow stereotype for the mere sake of razzle-dazzle.  Therein constitutes a wow-factor to entice or enthrall readers with some great electrifying pageant, and nothing more.  

There are the films of the Kung -Fu masters, the pagodas, a campy, glossy, and grossly inaccurate westernized version of Geishas and Samurais, fans and noodles, perhaps some Shaolin monks hailing from an unknown cloister, that are postured as Eastern Asian.  
In the U.S., the stereotype of academic geniuses or gawky nerds follow suite, or reverting to an earlier prototype, the underdog reincarnation of Bruce Lee.

If characters are female, they might be the martial artist, or the shy schoolgirl,  the Dragon Lady, or the Auntie with broken English, or a mystical matron who runs a nail salon/laundry/restaurant.

While we are on the topic of typecasting, take a look at what actress Iyin Landre has accomplished by breaking the mold of type-casting that Asian-American actresses face in the film industry: http://www.kickstarter.com/pro…

Or you may see the "tribal" pageants they pass off as representing "Africa"- as if it's one enormous collective, and not a continent of countries with equally diverse cultures and languages. Or countries with varying economic levels.
Keeping pace with modern times, many films or shows will perpetuate cardboard characters as maniacal dictators, pirates, mercenaries, or political dissidents with machine guns.

(Anime and video games are equally guilty of this, and of gender biases, but that demands an entire article of discussion by its own right.)

The same old hat trick gets recycled for Latin America, more or less- dictators, military juntas or con artists.  Adding to the catalog of stereotypes are the drug dealers, drug lords, drug mules, gardeners, cooks at greasy spoons or temperamental , unkempt mechanics.
 If a show casts a Latina woman, she is usually the sexy dance instructor, the buxom house cleaner or the seductive nanny.  If the character is in school and in the U.S., she is either the fish out of water, or the fashionista diva.
She is immediately sexualized and witty- never looking human, never with a position like a doctor, senator, police chief, business owner, college professor, or library director.  Forget the titans like - Jovita Idár, Ellen Ochoa, Antonia Novello and  Sonia Sotomayor- they are not glamorous enough for the screen, or so the popular media and its heads assume.


Instead, they take an effortless road paved with a crowd of readers clamoring for the stereotype. They convince themselves that they have satisfied the call for diversity with a splash of color, showcasing but dehumanizing cultures and people.  Nevertheless, it is a shallow victory, if it is deemed such.  No one benefits from this outrageous “triumph.”

What is the solution to this problem?

Simple: write differing cultures with the same depth and humanity as would your own.

While we are all different regarding food, traditional clothing, religion, certain customs- the aspects of life, such as birth, childhood, adolescence, youth, adulthood, marriage or singleness, children or no children, family, friends, weddings, funerals, birthdays, holidays, parties, traditions, faith, the grieves, the joys, the doldrums of everyday and dealing with jobs, co-workers, employers or tasks less than pleasant, the corruption of authority in every level, natural disasters, cynicism dealt right and left from every voice heard and opinion cited, the true wonder of goodness people can show towards others- all this cements us of the commonalities we share as humans in any society and walk of  life, all created equal, all the same by being different.

In this day and age, this can appear as good-intentioned but worn-out sentimental hope. The sort of Disneyfied, sugar-coated sentiment a world exhausted by wars and social turmoil wonders if such an audacious hope can still survive, let alone thrive. At times, good will and peace seem like a cruel farce that laughs back emptily at the world-as it is, it was, and it might always be.

We are inclined, given the external complexion of our modern society, that we have eradicated prejudices and discrimination.
We have made progress, yet our journey has not even reached halfway.


Personal Experience with Racism

My mother faces different forms of racism on a first- hand basis frequently.

My mother, (who many of you know) is from Honduras. She is proud of her heritage- part Lenca (Mayan descendant), part Castilian Spanish, and part Iberian Romani.  
She possessed the courage and moxy to learn English and come to the U.S, leaving behind family, friends, and everything she knew.

Yet because of her appearance and her accent, whenever she jogs outside, or shops for groceries with my dad by racial profiling by the town police on more than one occasion (this has happened four times in the past 7 years since we moved uptown):
"Do you have identification?"
"CAN. YOU. UNDERSTAND. ENGLISH?"

The authenticity of her motherhood is questioned by medical institutions:
"Are you the biological mother of this/these child/children?”
“Are you the stepmother?”
“Are you the care-taker or nanny?”
“We just needed to ask that question."  

Her own dignity and worth are often trashed by the cruel condescension of people’s own arrogant ignorance in social settings:
 "Do you speak English?”
“Are you from Mexico? The Philippines? Japan?
“Are you an Eskimo? You sort of look like one.”
“Where are you from?”
“Do you make your 'special' food?”
“We have stores here for people like you.”
“Don't you know about [insert some historical event the public might not readily recall at hand]? You must not really want to be part of this country.”
“Don't you miss being around your own kind?”
“Why don't you wear those nice, brightly colored dresses and jewelry like those pretty Mexican girls?”
“Your dark complexion is lovely, I wish I had yours!”
“Why don't you speak Spanish? Do you speak it with your kids?
“Do you listen to your salsa/mariachi music?”
“Do you love dancing?”
“Do you have pinatas for birthdays for your kids?”
“Do you work at the Empire Chicken Plant?”
“I see a lot of girls like you working there. You speak better English than they do.”
“So, did you come here over the border legally?"

As if Mexico and the stereotype films and shows churn out represented the entirety of Latin American and the Latino people.
"Where's Honduras?”
“ Is that a city in Mexico?”
“Do they grow coffee there?”  
“Is Honduras in the Philippines?”
 
Some slurs she has had dealt to her:
 "F***in' 'Spic!"
"Bean F*****" (A five year old boy yelled this to her one day when we were taking the trash to the curb. I later learned this crude term was a derogatory slur aimed specifically towards Hispanic people.)


Ignorance, sometimes, can take on an innocently patronizing form. Enter me and my questionability as a "mixed" Hispanic person.
"Um. You really don't look like you mom!”
“I would have never guessed you two were related.”
“Oh, wait I see it! It's your eyes! You have the same eyes as your mother!”
“You're half Hispanic? Really? “
“You don't look or act like someone Hispanic.”
“Why don't you speak Spanish with your mother?”
“Will you be having Quienceanera?"
Here’s my favorite [sarcasm here]- “But you're so white! I would have never guessed your mother was so dark!"

Here is the definition of Hispanic or Latino- it IS racially diverse. It is culturally diverse. Wikipedia cites this definition:  A person of Latino or Hispanic origin can be of any race.

The first time my mother called at my workplace, one co-worker who answered the phone asked me, "Huh. There's someone on the phone asking for you. She says she is your mom. Does your mother speak with a  FOREIGN ACCENT?"

Exit innocent ignorance that can be resolved with some information and pardoned on grounds of lack of exposure.

Enter my mother's family- reverse racists of the most nightmarish order.
However, due to matters of sensitive legal nature, I am compelled not to discuss the abhorrent nature of the racial slurs and physical aggression/violence wronged against my siblings and I.

However, my father's equally bigoted mother- she makes Cruella De Vil, Lady Tremaine (Cinderella's stepmother) and Joan Crawford ala Mommie Dearest look like Marmee March by comparison.  
The first thing that garbled out of her mouth was, as soon as she peeked at my infant face, "OH! I can't believe she is WHITE! I thought she was going to be dark and funny-looking like you, Claudia!"
Other slurs went along the lines of, "Oh, I thought you were one of those bad, gold-digging, Mexican girls, Claudia!"

Racism, either way it charges its ugly head down the course, harms all and serves no one. It leaves scars and wounds that never heal completely.

My own identity remains on the fence.
On one side, I take comfort and familiarity with my mother's culture and the linguistic expression of her language-I want to and should be considered of her heritage. On the other side, blending in with the rooted "Americana" mixed with a brand of "Dutchy" that Pennsylvania (Ohio, Indiana, and New York included) has been a part of my identity make-up.

For the former side, I am too gringo; for the latter side-if I am honest- I am "too" Hispanic.

In her article on her blog, RoadKillGoldfish, (roadkillgoldfish.com/), "My Life As a White Hispanic", Kimberly Helminski Keller, recounts in candid detail the problems and confusion growing up as a biracial and bi-cultural person faces Her account struck an all too tender chord in me as I read:

"Life in Buffalo was confusing to me. When I was with my dad, no one looked twice at me. I was just another little brown-eyed girl with golden hair. However, the looks changed when my mother and brother were around. My mother was an absolute Latina beauty, and my brother inherited her tan skin and curls. They got stares from strangers. Some of our neighbors looked down their noses at them. A few parents told their children not to play at the “dirty spic” house. My own Polish grandparents, while never overtly prejudiced, were emotionally distant with us, but they lavished attention on our literal fair-haired cousin. I was too young to understand what was happening, but all the signs told my young mind that there was something wrong with me and the people I loved most.

...My only sadness came from when we were around other Puerto Ricans in the community. People stared at me when I was outside. I knew enough Spanish to understand the muffled conversations about “the white girl.” They laughed when I called my grandmother, “Abuela.” "

For some people, being multi-racial means your identity is discounted as non-valid. In other words, they real meaning is, "Yes, your parent(s) may be such and such of us, but you're not really part of us."

Kimberly Helminski Keller expounds on this further in her article:

"Being multi-racial means embracing all sides of your heritage, but unfortunately, the sides don’t always embrace you back. When I look “white,” I can blend in with the white community. But if I allow myself to tan in the summer, I’m not as welcome. I can speak Spanish, cook traditional foods and talk about shared cultural experiences, but other Latinos often acknowledge me with a patronizing grin.

I’ve met a few other people who are multi-racial. Most live their lives in the culture that best matches their physical features. It’s easier to blend in than to stand out. I straddle the fence."

In the melting pot we now live in, we, of combined races and heritage, have become a culture of our own. In reality, with global homogenization, it appears the younger generation is fashioning a hybrid culture from the product of melding the cultures they have come from.

Kimberly Helminski Keller concludes in her article, "I want to be part of both cultures, but I know that in reality, I am a culture unto myself. My self-culture isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it’s the best illustration of how the American melting pot should work."

News and Media/Charity
The news, on numerous instances, only inflames the stereotypical misconceptions when it depicts  any other countries/regions/groups etc., as some collective, chaotic, tumultuous hotbed of civil unrest and shouting rage-mongers.
Disaster p*rn  masks people as some great plight collective to be pitied while we can pride ourselves in our excesses. 

I am not qualified to speak on this subject, but one group, SAIH - The Norwegian Students' and Academics' International Assistance Fund, articulated the subject succinctly regarding the stereotypes some charities often resort to. Taken from their website at www.rustyradiator.com/#why-don… :

Hunger and poverty is ugly, and it calls for action. However, we need to create engagement built on knowledge, not stereotypes.

Do you remember the first time you heard about people starving? That initial feeling of shock, and then after having seen the same pictures on TV over and over again, it turned into little drops of apathy.

Example-  Child Fund: Will You Be My Sponsor?
In this video, children cannot speak for themselves because they are “too poor for words.” 

This claim is beyond offensive; the video presents the Western donor as the savior. In addition, the video gives you the impression that just 92 cents a day will save the life of the child you sponsor. When did only addressing poverty, structural inequalities, lack of proper health systems and other issues become so simple!

Stereotypical imagery is hurting both the cause and the people being portrayed. It's taking away people's dignity and agency, while creating apathy instead of action amongst people in the rest of the world.

We like aid. It often works. Still, aid in itself is not enough, and fundraising campaigns rarely reflect upon this. Fundraising ads give you the impression that a few cents is all that is needed. This simplifies the issue of poverty. At the same time it distracts attention away from how western countries policies can have a negative impact.

Don’t focus too much on the single story. With this we mean that too often fundraising campaigns tell the story of one nameless individual's person sad story. What we want to see is more information about why poverty exists, and what is our role in it?

 
Enough said.


Film and Television: Is The Silver Screen Gender and Color-Sensitive?

Hollywood, despite the progress it made with some choice films, has yet to fully demonstrate an authentic sense of diversity and gender equality. You can make all the films and shows you want about the struggle for POC or gender equality, but when the majority of films or shows revolve around male characters (and that male majority being non POC), Hollywood's stance for equality, is questionable.  

According to Dorothy Woodend's article on Tyree (via Salon.com), less than 7 % of women hold a Television and Radio station license.


Other problems plaguing female representation, continues Woodend, again citing Silverstein, "Silverstein’s article goes on to state: “Females from 13-20 are more likely to be hypersexualized i.e. [exposing at least some skin in the breast, midriff, or high upper thigh area] than older women in all demographic groups. Teenage girls wearing sexy clothes increased 22 per cent between 2009 and 2012.”

New York Film Academy recently released  a study of statistics of the gender bias in the film industry as shown here: www.nyfa.edu/film-school-blog/…


Female characters-when subjected to the writers and producers own vision and the relentless scrutiny of viewers/fans- are set against a double standard. If a female character exhibits tough, violent traits (e.g., fights "like a man") she is praised and considered progressive.
However, if she reveals any trace of emotion, (or lack thereof, eliciting the opposite criticism of being a "heartless [expletive]".) or human needs, the character is instantly denounced as weak, "overly feminine" or "pathetic".
(Are emotions considered gender-restricted? Additionally, is displaying feminine traits a defect that should be eradicated?)

However, if emotions and vulnerabilities are revealed by a male character, it is viewed and praised as "character development" or as "realistic", or even romanticized as "deeply moving".
Check out feministTV's concise post on this topic: feministtv.tumblr.com/post/600…


Racism plays the subtle hand in Hollywood's complexion of typecasting POC.
Mexico's ambassador, Eduardo Medina Mora, has voiced concerns regarding the unsavory typecasting Hollywood paints Mexico and Mexicans.  (In addition, this applies to every other Latin American country Hollywood depicts.)

"Mexico’s top diplomat said that the movies a nation produces can provide insight into the attitudes of that country and that he has concluded that in the films produced in Hollywood’s studios, 'Mexican characters are frequently drug dealers and gardeners.'  While there is nothing wrong with being a gardener, he said 'it implies that they are not capable of doing anything else' and ignores the contribution Mexicans have made to the United States.

Typecasting of Mexicans limits the range of roles which even the most talented Mexican actors can play. 'Even our best actors, like Demián Bichir, cannot escape the gardeners and drug dealers trap for Mexicans in Hollywood'. Bichir was nominated for an Oscar for his role as a gardener in the 2011 drama A Better Life; in the 2012 crime thriller Savages, he is given the role of a drug dealer.
'I am still eagerly waiting for the movie where Salma Hayek plays a Nobel Prize winning chemist that teaches young Americans to create new forms of alternative energy…'

As for the role of drug dealers 'so often played by Mexicans in American cinema', Medina Mora did not deny that Mexico has a significant drug problem, but rejected as “racist” the “stereotypes” of Mexicans as only that.  He asked to frame the debate on what to do about drugs in a larger discussion about social context and institutional strength and capabilities."

In addition, who can forget the whitewashing, blasphemous fiasco (to ATLA fans, at least) that we remember as The Last Airbender movie?   Maybe the casting agents forgot there are actors/actresses who are Inuit, Native American, or Asian/Asian-American?

Why are actors like Denzel Washington or actresses like Halle Berry were only awarded Oscars for playing stereo-typical criminal/impoverished roles?  Why are the many female Black roles being casted with light-skinned blacks?

Like a barnacle stuck on a boat's hull, Hollywood adheres firmly to the idea that even a diverse cast requires a white, male hero heading the action and gets results.


Look at last year's film, "Elysium".
While many, (including star Matt Damon) contend it makes the case for class warfare (and it does), it is somewhat disappointing that the central character and heroic figure was not a POC or possibly, a WOC.  That, out of all the population on earth, a POC or WOC is not deemed capable (by the writers) of leading a social movement against social warfare and discrimination.

Really? History begs to differ. What about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks among the titans of Civil Rights- remember them from your history classes in elementary school?
Remember Gandhi?  I mean the real Gandhi, not the 1982 film ala Ben Kingsley.


Hollywood sometimes garners enough temerity to fan the flames of racism and xenophobia blatantly.
Look at another  movie from last year, "Olympus Has Fallen”.
The film revolves around a Secret Service agent, Mike Banning,(played by Gerard Butler) attempting to stop a group of North Korean terrorists- headed an ideologue played by Rick Yune - who have hijacked the White House.

Whether the movie's innuendo contained racial undertone is debatable for another discussion.  Nevertheless, the racist tweets posted on Twitter and the posts found on Tumblr are extremely disturbing and demonstrate an alarmingly racist mindset among the tweeters.

You may read these at your own caution here: publicshaming.tumblr.com/post/…

Racial slurs such as "chinks,” "zipperheads", "gooks", and hate threats peppered these tweets and the hash tags.  As one tweet read, “Just saw Olympus Has Fallen.  I wanna go buy a gun and kill every [insert f-ing word] Asian."

This year's remake of the 1981 film, Red Dawn, recycled in casting North Korea as the great evil.  It even elicited one tweet, "After seeing Red Dawn and Olympus Has Fallen, I now have an extreme dislike of all people of Asian descent."




Literature-Wider Audience, Broader Ideas?

But what about literature?  Literature is a powerful tool. Not as powerful as mortars and tanks, but ideas are hard to stamp out. Literature preserves ideas-good or bad. (You can either write the next The Rights of Man or the next Mein Kampf.)

If we write for the right reasons, then let's write like this:

We write of the things we fear talking about in public.  We write our own fears- as the words are jotted down, we are like knights staring into the mouths of our own dragons.
We write what we hate about the fallacies, ignorance, and prejudice of society.  We write about the injustices- injustices either ignored, denied or viewed as the norm.

We write as real people-nothing sanitized. Don't use certain people you choose as people to be some shining example and not actual humans with wants, needs and flaws.


Hazel Rochman, author of 1993's Against Borders: Promoting Books for a Multicultural World succinctly summarizes the importance of multicultural literature:
A good book can help to break down [barriers]. Books can make a difference in dispelling prejudice and building community: not with role models and literal recipes, not with noble messages about the human family, but with enthralling stories that make us imagine the lives of others. A good story lets you know people as individuals in all their particularity and conflict; and once you see someone as a person - flawed, complex, striving - then you've reached beyond stereotype. Stories, writing them, telling them, sharing them, transforming them, enrich us and connect us and help us know each other. (P. 19)

Some great authors to start reading (and yes, these titles are Young Adult/Children's Literature, but the quality is amazing!) are:  Laurence Yep, who wrote titles such as Dragon Wings, and Kashimra Sheth, who wrote Blue Jasmine and Koyal Dark, Mango Sweet, and Pam Munoz Ryan, author of Esperanza Rising,
Girls of Many Lands Series; Dear America series/My Name is America series,
The Royals Series,
The Diary of Ma Yan: The Struggles and Hopes of a Chinese School Girl;
Chu Ju's House by Gloria Whelan, and Melissa de la Cruz's Fresh Off the Boat.

From personal experience,  I read these books.
 I felt I was right at the side of these characters. They became real people to me. Some instances, it almost felt like I had felt the same emotions and thoughts as they did. As I read, I learned, and as I learned, I understood them in a sense.

We can never fully understand someone-unless we have lived and grown as they have. However, by being able to gain insight into their lives, we gain a sense of understanding we might not have had prior. Our misconceptions and prejudices erode.

Reading may not solve problems, but it might help us to understand.

Internet- The Global Connection
Since the expansive availability of the internet, we all know how we can connect- you can meet a fellow video game(or whatever subject) fan from as far from where you are in, say, New Jersey or Colorado, to the fellow fan who lives, say, Taiwan or Tasmania-or vice versa.

Anywhere around the world, we connect. From students and teachers exchanging lessons and assignments across continents, to geeks (of any nature, be it comics to stamps) bonding from one side of the globe to the other, the internet provides link of communication.


From personal experience, and having met people from other countries, I learned of their cultures and lives and gained a new understanding of the world and people. I put many of the stereotypes that media/entertainment/misconceptions from society to rest thanks to meeting these people and their kindness in answering my questions as I desired in learning of their cultures.

From the internet, we create exchanges- as we meet other people, we gain knowledge and armed with this knowledge, we can dispel stereotypes. In essence, we challenge the misconceptions generally viewed as the norm.

The internet could very well exceed literature in its effectiveness to bridge cultural and lingual gaps.


Final Words

Show more of that “real” reality in news-don’t employ it as a way to bait an audience hungering for shock. 

Create more of that reality in film-don’t glamorize it with a sugar-coated, hyper-sexualized script or gloss it over using glamorous cinematography.  Don't employ rushed character "development" that falls flat at the plot unfolds.

Don't sentimentalize your work- don't make it all hopes, dreams and syrupy nostalgia. Not everyone learns the lesson and then holds hands with their newly pardoned enemies as the sun rises.

On the other hand, don't exaggerate vices in a vein that doesn't match actual reality.
Not everyone who lives below the poverty level is a gang-member or selling drugs or liquor.

In other words, don't be a minstrel spouting feel-good fables; but don't hail brimstone on everyone.

Write more of the real life (and not the manufactured sentiment) in art, film, television and literature.  
It's there, we live in it.

In the words of Seema's mother from  Blue Jasmine, "Friendship does not happen because you have the same lifestyle; neither does it depend on it."
This absolutely applies to understanding others.  Maybe we could learn something here.


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Links / Sources:

1. http://www.kickstarter.com/pro…
2. roadkillgoldfish.com/2013/07/2…
   
3. www.rustyradiator.com/#why-don…
   
4. www.salon.com/2013/06/07/holly…
5. www.nyfa.edu/film-school-blog/…
6. feministtv.tumblr.com/post/600…
   
7. www.forbes.com/sites/doliaeste…
8. publicshaming.tumblr.com/post/…
9. education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizo…