Race and Sexuality in Media Representation 

In today’s world, the media has been pretty much embedded in almost every aspect of a person’s life. One aspect in particular includes the representation of a particular race or ethnicity in the media itself? The answer to this particular question is yes it does! Yes! In fact, the emergence of media in today’s world plays a pretty big role in the representation of race and ethnicity. How is that so? How does media affect the representation of certain races and ethnicity? Why does this happen? Why is one race represented differently from other races? This paper will discuss the answers to these questions and other questions that are related to the topic “The Representation of Race and Ethnicity and Media”.

Firstly, it is important to understand the idea of racism before digging deeper into the representation of race and ethnicity within the media itself. In the old days before media emerged, racism was merely grouping people to levels of hierarchy based on their skin color. This however changes as media start to be increasingly more embedded in people’s lives. What is different? In the broad picture, with the emergence of media and its adoption within people’s lives, racism has become more in terms of grouping down people and individuals based on cultural stereotypes. What is the correlation between the emergence of media and racism? The truth is, the emergence of media, and media content in reality impact the beliefs, emotions and behaviors of its audience in regards to the topic of race and ethnicity.

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the media content (information) that are available to the audience through the medium of media impacts the beliefs, emotions and behaviors of its audience regarding race and ethnicity. The question is how? How does something that’s virtual or untouchable impact what we as a person believe and how we behave in regards to that belief? A study or research conducted by Happer and Philo (2013) finds that the exposure to information, often related to strength of attitude. In other words, those who had the least amount of exposure to information about a particular subject will easily change their belief of that particular subject when compared to an individual who are more exposed to the same information.In her paper “Racism and The Media: A Textual Analysis” (2015), Kassia E. Kulaszewicz wrote that the media educates people. This statement implies that the media in fact feeds its audience with information, both credible and not credible information. In simple words, according to Happer and Philo (2013), media plays a role in shaping behavior, legitimizing certain courses of action but can also insert doubting confusion into debate by feeding us as its audience continuous messages that impact our belief and value systems.

This paper is going to also discuss the representation of African American women in the media as well as the representation of African Americans in general within the media. In K. Sue Jewell’s (1993) work, “From Mammy to Miss America and Beyond: Cultural Images and The Shaping of US Social Policy”, there are three stereotypes of African American women in the media. These representations include: Mammy women, Sapphire women and last but not least the Jezebel women. What are these “different” women? Firstly, the Mammy women, this is one of the personna that portrays the representation of the media about African American women. This particular personna was created during the slave period to convey what is acceptable for a slave woman to do, say or behave. Additionally, this image of African American women is portrayed as an assexual and maternal figure. Secondly, the Sapphire women, what is this personna really? According to Jewell (1993), the Sapphire woman is a personna known as the angry Black women and are often hostile as well as emasculating Black men through various insults and sometimes even brutality. Lastly, the Jezebel women, this African American woman personna was created contrasting to the ideals of the Mammy slave woman. This Jezebel women personna is portrayed as a slave woman that satisfied the sexual needs of their white slave masters and is often used to justify the rape of African American slave women. This paper will further discuss these African American women personna through movies and a few different media posts as examples of how media represents the African American women for its audiences.

Orange is the New Black. This is a movie about the life of a Blonde woman called Piper Chapman who was put into jail for being a drug mule. Even though this movie’s main character is a white Blonde woman, this movie also includes a lot of African American women. One of the characters in the movie is Claudette Pelage, an African American inmate in the correction facility where Piper Chapman is serving her time. In this particular movie, Claudette Pelage acts as a “mammy woman” character. Claudette was pictured to begin working at a live-in maid service run by a Creole woman called Tessa in order to pay off her parents’ debt. As time goes, she then became the manager of the maid service and discovered that one of the girls that worked for her was brutally attacked and / or raped by a customer. As the maternal character that she is, she then attended the man’s house and murdered the man.

Next is the Sapphire women, in the movie “Orange is the New Black”, the Sapphire woman personna is portrayed by the character Yvonne “Vee” Parker who is also one of the inmates in the penentranty together with Claudette. In the movie, Vee was pissed when Red goes against her will, she uses threats and extortion to make Red listen to her. She portrays the Sapphire woman because she is the “angry black woman”.

Lastly is the Jezebel woman, as mentioned earlier, Jezebel women are women that are a slave who satisfied the sexual needs of their white masters. This particular personna in the movie “Orange is the New Black” is played by the girl mentioned earlier which Claudette tries to protect. That particular girl plays the role of a Jezebel woman mentioned in Jewell’s paper because she’s a slave to a white master who attacked and / or raped her for his own satisfaction.

The movie mentioned above is just one of the many media examples that represents African American women by using these 3 personas. Why is that so? In order to understand the reason behind the representation of African American women within the media, it is important to understand the historical context behind it. Discrimination has been an issue within the media for a long time. According to Gay (2014), the early years of broadcast media dated back to the year of 1939, the idea of racial segregation is very popular in the United States. Additionally, Kulaszewic (2015) also wrote that during the beginning era of television, the industry was predominantly run by White. This Caucasian dominance in the media industry has caused the Caucasians who run the media company to be able to control what is portrayed about other races and ethnicity. According to Luther et al. (2012), the various forms of mass media have supported the power of the dominant group in the media company by presenting the other public highly negatively.

As usual, people would not believe if there is only one evidence that supports a certain claim. This in mind, another representation of the African American race includes the very early films such as Birth of a Nation from 1915 as well as the Tarzan series from 1932. In these two movies, African Americans were represented as being savage, ignorant, thieves, interlopers and potential rapists (Luther et al., 2012). Why is this depiction very harmful to people’s belief and emotions towards African American in general? The truth is, these movies are both harmful to the beliefs and emotions of the public towards the African American race because these films are successful and often provided a society that is segregated. Additionally, back in the days, “Black” characters were played by White people who painted themselves to look Black, this in the end conveys a symbolic message that African Americans are not “good enough” to represent themselves. This takeover of roles in the media also then creates a subconscious message to the audiences that the “White” race is preferred. As mentioned earlier in this paragraph, the harmful depiction of of Blacks is very influencing towards the general public because the films mentioned above are very successful, but another side of this idea is that the struggle of representing themselves (African Americans), their own stories, beliefs and opinions has also caused a “stereotype” for Black people because by not being able to show the audiences their true lives, the society are only able to get a glimpse into the Black life instead of the whole picture.

Lastly, we as an audience can also see the representation of African American race through the news media. According to Kulaszewics (2015), crime reporting in the media has been pretty much controversial due to its racial bias. According to Entman (1990), accused Black criminals were usually differently illustrated in comparison to White criminals. Entman (1990) wrote that : “... accused Black criminals were usually illustrated by glowering mug shots or by footage of them led around in handcuffs, their arms held by uniformed White policemen. None of the accused violent White criminals, during the week, were shown in mug shots or in physical custody.” This difference in portrayal of what is broadcasted creates a seriously concerning issue because the general public are often directly influenced by the media. This in mind, the action of portraying and broadcasting the arrest of accused Black criminals has caused the stereotype of Black people being violent, criminals and / or a gangster who are always “rebelling” even if it’s not always the case, and white people could also easily do crimes that Black people do. Additionally, the crime reporting that’s being observed in Enmant’s study (1990) also causes the idea of white victimization. Let’s see this through the case of George Floyd. George Floyd was arrested on May 25, 2020 after he allegedly passed a counterfeit $20 bill at a grocery store. During his arrest, Chauvin, a white police officer pressed his knee to Floyd’s neck for nearly eight minutes during the arrest, costing George Floyd’s life. Even though George Floyd is an accused criminal, this doesn’t justify the action of the police officer pressing his knee on Floyd’s neck, hence Floyd despite being an accused criminal became the victim in this incident. Although being the victim in this incident, the media didn’t portray it that way, the news media instead pictured Chauvin as an innocent party. This biased portrayal of race is basically what causes the stereotype of Black people being the violent and gangster personna.

In conclusion, the media in fact does influence or affect the perceptions, beliefs, emotions and behavior towards a particular race or ethnicity. In the case of this paper, media representation of a particular race or ethnicity (i.e. African Americans) has caused the audience to stereotype the Black people into a certain category. Additionally, the negative representation of African Americans in the media has also caused other races or the general audience to think negatively of the race (i.e. gangster, violent etc.). Lastly, these negative representations of a race, African Americans in particular, existed due to the fact that in the beginning era of the media industry, White people dominated the media industry.