So, trying to track racial minorities in the media that I watched this week taught me several things. Firstly, I don’t actually watch a lot of TV—I had to remind myself that I needed to in order to have something to write about. Secondly, there are not a lot of people who are ethnic minorities as main characters in the shows I watch. I mean, no shows were completely devoid of any sort of diversity, but the vast majority of leads are white. One thing that really struck me as interesting was the way different ethnic minorities are portrayed in crime shows (my guilty pleasure.) The two shows that I looked at this week were Law and Order: SVU and Criminal Minds.
To begin with, of the main characters on these shows, most of them are or appear to be white. In Law and Order, there is an African American detective and medical examiner, and an Asian-American psychiatrist. In Criminal Minds, there is one African American member of the team. That’s it. I’m a little surprised that I hadn’t noticed this before, and I’m not sure why that is. I guess it just wasn’t something on my radar. I did notice though, that even though there are very few characters who are ethnic minorities on these shows, their characters are not one-sided or necessarily portraying a stereotype (although I don’t watch these shows all the time, so I can’t speak for every episode.) There does seem to be character development of all characters over the course of the show in both these shows, and every character is multi-faceted. Law and Order tends to focus more, however, on the development and story of the two main detectives (both of whom are white) while Criminal Minds may focus on different characters’ storylines depending on the episode. So, for example, in a series of episodes the audience learns that Morgan (the only minority member of the team) is struggling with maintaining his faith in face of all the evil he deals with in his job, and things like that. Overall, I think a good job is done in making an effort for these characters not to be stereotypes.
These being crime shows, however, there is a huge supporting cast of characters playing the suspects and victims of crimes, and here I think the shows don’t do such a good job at trying to combat stereotypes. On Criminal Minds, the vast vast majority of the suspects and serial killers and white—the few times the suspects weren’t white, they were terrorists of some sort (to be fair, this is only out of the episodes I’ve seen—but still.) The show often cites some statistic about the vast majority of serial killers being white men, but really? Terrorists? That’s the best the show could come up with? Isn’t there a better way to incorporate diversity into the show without making it a stereotype? Law and Order has a different issue—from what I can tell, most of their suspects are ethnic minorities, at least originally. I’ve noticed they’ve done a better job in recent years of mixing it up, but you still see this, and that’s a negative stereotype to be passing on to viewers. But it is often disproportionately the case. So, the question that I’m wondering about: is it better to have a stereotyped or even negative representation of ethnic minorities in a TV show rather than no representation at all?
To begin with, of the main characters on these shows, most of them are or appear to be white. In Law and Order, there is an African American detective and medical examiner, and an Asian-American psychiatrist. In Criminal Minds, there is one African American member of the team. That’s it. I’m a little surprised that I hadn’t noticed this before, and I’m not sure why that is. I guess it just wasn’t something on my radar. I did notice though, that even though there are very few characters who are ethnic minorities on these shows, their characters are not one-sided or necessarily portraying a stereotype (although I don’t watch these shows all the time, so I can’t speak for every episode.) There does seem to be character development of all characters over the course of the show in both these shows, and every character is multi-faceted. Law and Order tends to focus more, however, on the development and story of the two main detectives (both of whom are white) while Criminal Minds may focus on different characters’ storylines depending on the episode. So, for example, in a series of episodes the audience learns that Morgan (the only minority member of the team) is struggling with maintaining his faith in face of all the evil he deals with in his job, and things like that. Overall, I think a good job is done in making an effort for these characters not to be stereotypes.
These being crime shows, however, there is a huge supporting cast of characters playing the suspects and victims of crimes, and here I think the shows don’t do such a good job at trying to combat stereotypes. On Criminal Minds, the vast vast majority of the suspects and serial killers and white—the few times the suspects weren’t white, they were terrorists of some sort (to be fair, this is only out of the episodes I’ve seen—but still.) The show often cites some statistic about the vast majority of serial killers being white men, but really? Terrorists? That’s the best the show could come up with? Isn’t there a better way to incorporate diversity into the show without making it a stereotype? Law and Order has a different issue—from what I can tell, most of their suspects are ethnic minorities, at least originally. I’ve noticed they’ve done a better job in recent years of mixing it up, but you still see this, and that’s a negative stereotype to be passing on to viewers. But it is often disproportionately the case. So, the question that I’m wondering about: is it better to have a stereotyped or even negative representation of ethnic minorities in a TV show rather than no representation at all?
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