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Steps Backward: The Return of All-White Shows
Steps Backward: The Return of All-White Shows
This summer, shows like “Off Campus” and “Sterling Point” ruled the screens of many teenagers and young adults. Both shows broke records and made headlines with “Off Campus” smashing the streaming record on Amazon Prime Video, and Vogue publishing “Forget Off Campus, Sterling Point Is This Year’s Best Teen Drama.”
While these shows were praised for their chemistry, realism and dramatic plots, there is a glaring lack of diversity.
In both TV dramas, no Black actors are listed in the main cast. This lack of diversity is not exclusive to these shows but appears to be a growing trend, as noted in dramas such as “Every Year After" and “Motorhead”.
Moreover, in another Prime Video hit, “The Summer I Turned Pretty”, viewers revisit the disposable Black character trope, a trope Black actors were commonly subjected to in the late 20th century and early 2000s.
This return of white-focused media requires attention because it marks a step backward from a legacy that Black audiences and creators fought hard to build.
From the mid-to-late 20th century, TV dramas were overwhelmingly White, with little to no Black characters. The few appearances of Black characters were often brief or unsubstantial, intended to fill a quota.
Oftentimes, this resulted from a lack of Black people in production and writers' rooms. The lack of diversity was justified by the showrunner's belief that Black characters would not appeal to the broader audience. However, shows like “Living Single,” "A Different World" and “The Cosby Show” made significant strides in challenging this narrative, showcasing that Black-led shows can be TV hits.
The early 2000s were a transitional period for representation in TV media. Many creators began demanding power, creating their own shows and placing other Black creatives in the writers’ rooms. This resulted in the work we have seen from Shonda Rhimes, creator of “How to Get Away with Murder” and “Scandal”; Ava DuVernay, creator of “Queen Sugar”, and Issa Rae, creator of “Insecure.”
In addition to creators breaking boundaries, audiences were demanding representation in media. Viral campaigns such as 2015’s #OscarsSoWhite helped push the needle, along with a societal focus on Black equity during the Obama presidency and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Despite the progress made in presenting diverse TV dramas, we are beginning to regress.
When two of the most popular teen dramas of the summer do not showcase Blackness, we risk undermining the positive effects of representation. Diversity in media is not solicited for vapid reasons but rather because it impacts the lives of many.
Junior Music major Abigail Johnson said, “If little Black girls, little Black boys don’t see themselves, they can’t imagine themselves in acting roles, as music majors [making reference to the main character of “Sterling Point”], as a star of the hockey team, or someone who has a summerhouse in another country. I feel like they aren’t able to fully dream beyond what their reality is currently.”
For many, watching characters who look like you are successful, have families, fall in love and create change instills the belief that you can do all of those things. For many young Black girls, “Scandal’s” Olivia Pope reminds them that they can be impactful in their careers, that they do not need to be afraid and that they should always be themselves, unapologetically.
This regression also signals the return of narratives and realities that gave rise to the “all-white” era of television.
“Adaptations are starting to definitely be more attractive because it already has that built-in audience,” Junior Literature, Media and Writing major Jayla Morgan said. “That’s how studios try to make sure that they are getting the most profit, going to want to make something that already has an audience and will draw in a bigger audience.”
Audiences have a strong voice in determining which types of media are popularized. As it was in the 2010s, it is imperative to remain vocal and insist on representation.
“It’s kind of crazy because with there being such a change and our generation, especially, being very vocal about the importance of diverse representation and everyone being able to see themselves on screen,” Junior Literature, Media, and Writing major Hannah Koonce said. “It’s just kind of wild that this show doesn’t have at least one Black main character."
Moreover, we must examine the forms of representation that demand accurate and nuanced character narratives rather than writers defaulting to common, damaging tropes like the disposable Black character.
“The Summer I Turned Pretty” is an Amazon Prime series, inspired by the Jenny Han novels of the same name. This series follows Belly, a young biracial Asian girl, and her relationship with her childhood friends, brothers Conrad and Jeremiah Fisher.
The narrative primarily centers on Belly and Conrad’s relationship and the several trials they face. Part of this being the relationships they are separately in before ultimately finding their way back to each other.
Belly briefly dates Cam, also known as Cam Cameron, who is a biracial Black boy, and Conrad dates Nicole, who is a Black girl. Both of these relationships have a few things in common. They were brief, their partners were mostly disinterested in continuing the relationships, and the Black characters themselves are two of only three Black characters depicted.
This is problematic because for Belly and Conrad to begin exploring their relationship, they had to discard their Black partners. This series, like many others, follows a similar pattern of dating a Black person once as an “experience,” as something someone “tries out” like food or picks up momentarily like a hobby.
The primarily White female audience is encouraged to root for Belly and Conrad and accept this dismissal of Cam and Nicole. This encourages audiences to approach their own relationships this way while patting themselves on the back for being inclusive.
There is no consideration for the Black characters themselves and their narrative. Once the characters break up, Cam is brought back once through a coincidental encounter and Nicole is never depicted again. This series is part of a larger pattern of Black people being made "disposable."
This pattern, is the "disposable Black girlfriend” trope coined by British writer and cultural critic Yomi Adegoke in a 2019 article, “The rise and rise of the ‘Disposable Black Girlfriend.’”
By portraying Black people as disposable partners in relationships, this reduces them to “phases” or “trials” to overcome before attaining the “right” partner or their “true love.” This is oppressive to Black people because it asserts that they are not proper or suitable partners for long-term relationships.
Furthermore, it is dehumanizing because it reinforces the idea that Black people are property to be commodified when deemed necessary or profitable and can be promptly discarded when they are no longer needed.
Amazon Prime Video and many other streaming platforms need to prioritize creating series or movies with people of color, especially Black people, at the center of the narrative. There is a longstanding decline of Black narratives in many facets, from making all of the Black characters half-white to reinforcing oppressive tropes, or simply not casting them at all. Black people, or any people of color, should not be treated as accessories in the media, or as a quota to fill.
This summer, shows like “Off Campus” and “Sterling Point” ruled the screens of many teenagers and young adults. Both shows broke records and made headlines with “Off Campus” smashing the streaming record on Amazon Prime Video, and Vogue publishing “Forget Off Campus, Sterling Point Is This Year’s Best Teen Drama.”
While these shows were praised for their chemistry, realism and dramatic plots, there is a glaring lack of diversity.
In both TV dramas, no Black actors are listed in the main cast. This lack of diversity is not exclusive to these shows but appears to be a growing trend, as noted in dramas such as “Every Year After" and “Motorhead”.
Moreover, in another Prime Video hit, “The Summer I Turned Pretty”, viewers revisit the disposable Black character trope, a trope Black actors were commonly subjected to in the late 20th century and early 2000s.
This return of white-focused media requires attention because it marks a step backward from a legacy that Black audiences and creators fought hard to build.
From the mid-to-late 20th century, TV dramas were overwhelmingly White, with little to no Black characters. The few appearances of Black characters were often brief or unsubstantial, intended to fill a quota.
Oftentimes, this resulted from a lack of Black people in production and writers' rooms. The lack of diversity was justified by the showrunner's belief that Black characters would not appeal to the broader audience. However, shows like “Living Single,” "A Different World" and “The Cosby Show” made significant strides in challenging this narrative, showcasing that Black-led shows can be TV hits.
The early 2000s were a transitional period for representation in TV media. Many creators began demanding power, creating their own shows and placing other Black creatives in the writers’ rooms. This resulted in the work we have seen from Shonda Rhimes, creator of “How to Get Away with Murder” and “Scandal”; Ava DuVernay, creator of “Queen Sugar”, and Issa Rae, creator of “Insecure.”
In addition to creators breaking boundaries, audiences were demanding representation in media. Viral campaigns such as 2015’s #OscarsSoWhite helped push the needle, along with a societal focus on Black equity during the Obama presidency and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Despite the progress made in presenting diverse TV dramas, we are beginning to regress.
When two of the most popular teen dramas of the summer do not showcase Blackness, we risk undermining the positive effects of representation. Diversity in media is not solicited for vapid reasons but rather because it impacts the lives of many.
Junior Music major Abigail Johnson said, “If little Black girls, little Black boys don’t see themselves, they can’t imagine themselves in acting roles, as music majors [making reference to the main character of “Sterling Point”], as a star of the hockey team, or someone who has a summerhouse in another country. I feel like they aren’t able to fully dream beyond what their reality is currently.”
For many, watching characters who look like you are successful, have families, fall in love and create change instills the belief that you can do all of those things. For many young Black girls, “Scandal’s” Olivia Pope reminds them that they can be impactful in their careers, that they do not need to be afraid and that they should always be themselves, unapologetically.
This regression also signals the return of narratives and realities that gave rise to the “all-white” era of television.
“Adaptations are starting to definitely be more attractive because it already has that built-in audience,” Junior Literature, Media and Writing major Jayla Morgan said. “That’s how studios try to make sure that they are getting the most profit, going to want to make something that already has an audience and will draw in a bigger audience.”
Audiences have a strong voice in determining which types of media are popularized. As it was in the 2010s, it is imperative to remain vocal and insist on representation.
“It’s kind of crazy because with there being such a change and our generation, especially, being very vocal about the importance of diverse representation and everyone being able to see themselves on screen,” Junior Literature, Media, and Writing major Hannah Koonce said. “It’s just kind of wild that this show doesn’t have at least one Black main character."
Moreover, we must examine the forms of representation that demand accurate and nuanced character narratives rather than writers defaulting to common, damaging tropes like the disposable Black character.
“The Summer I Turned Pretty” is an Amazon Prime series, inspired by the Jenny Han novels of the same name. This series follows Belly, a young biracial Asian girl, and her relationship with her childhood friends, brothers Conrad and Jeremiah Fisher.
The narrative primarily centers on Belly and Conrad’s relationship and the several trials they face. Part of this being the relationships they are separately in before ultimately finding their way back to each other.
Belly briefly dates Cam, also known as Cam Cameron, who is a biracial Black boy, and Conrad dates Nicole, who is a Black girl. Both of these relationships have a few things in common. They were brief, their partners were mostly disinterested in continuing the relationships, and the Black characters themselves are two of only three Black characters depicted.
This is problematic because for Belly and Conrad to begin exploring their relationship, they had to discard their Black partners. This series, like many others, follows a similar pattern of dating a Black person once as an “experience,” as something someone “tries out” like food or picks up momentarily like a hobby.
The primarily White female audience is encouraged to root for Belly and Conrad and accept this dismissal of Cam and Nicole. This encourages audiences to approach their own relationships this way while patting themselves on the back for being inclusive.
There is no consideration for the Black characters themselves and their narrative. Once the characters break up, Cam is brought back once through a coincidental encounter and Nicole is never depicted again. This series is part of a larger pattern of Black people being made "disposable."
This pattern, is the "disposable Black girlfriend” trope coined by British writer and cultural critic Yomi Adegoke in a 2019 article, “The rise and rise of the ‘Disposable Black Girlfriend.’”
By portraying Black people as disposable partners in relationships, this reduces them to “phases” or “trials” to overcome before attaining the “right” partner or their “true love.” This is oppressive to Black people because it asserts that they are not proper or suitable partners for long-term relationships.
Furthermore, it is dehumanizing because it reinforces the idea that Black people are property to be commodified when deemed necessary or profitable and can be promptly discarded when they are no longer needed.
Amazon Prime Video and many other streaming platforms need to prioritize creating series or movies with people of color, especially Black people, at the center of the narrative. There is a longstanding decline of Black narratives in many facets, from making all of the Black characters half-white to reinforcing oppressive tropes, or simply not casting them at all. Black people, or any people of color, should not be treated as accessories in the media, or as a quota to fill.