Representation Matters

By Zaki Hasan, Adjunct Professor, Mass Communications

The media reflect and shape our changing views of gender and sexuality. To understand current representations, I ask my students to look at ways mass media has often been on the forefront of expanding the boundaries for what is deemed acceptable to view or discuss. New portrayals of gender roles and the complexities of sexuality can have a profound impact on unconscious stereotypes. The intimacy of the screen in one’s living room can allow viewers a relaxed space to identify with the rich personalities of many people, some of whom those same viewers might ignore on the street.

It’s easy to marvel in 2021 at the level of diversity and representation we see onscreen, but each milestone was made possible by the daring portrayals of earlier artists. Lucy Ricardo of I Love Lucy made us laugh, but also think about her constant effort to find a way to perform with her husband’s band. She was told that her place was in the kitchen. In 1970, thirteen years after Lucy ended, The Mary Tyler Moore Show presented Mary Richards tenuously showing her blustery boss that women are an essential part of the newsroom. Skip forward to 2006 and we see the character Liz Lemon from 30 Rock running a massive network television series, albeit while contending with critiques of her appearance and questions of if/when she’ll get married and start a family. Through humor and clever writing, television has revealed the real challenges women face at home and in the workplace.

The same applies when examining how homosexuality has been depicted, from the hushed innuendo of the two lead characters in 1959’s Ben Hur to modern sitcoms like Ellen and Will & Grace that examine and normalize the gay experience. In another mark of progress, we can look back at the time when gay actors like Rock Hudson and Anthony Perkins had to remain closeted or risk their entire careers. While this certainly remains the case for many performers, there’s also no doubt that young people of today are offered a broader range of resonant stories, up to and including a gay superhero appearing with husband and child in Marvel Studios’ Eternals. Progress didn’t come easily. Courageous writers and producers of foresight and will pushed back against production companies and network heads who feared offending the sensibilities of contemporary audiences. But some creators insisted that they wouldn’t be steered by the presumptions and prejudices of the times.

Norman Lear produced All in the Family, using the character of Archie Bunker (an old school bigot played by Carroll O’Connor) to expose baked-in, provincial prejudices through humor. Meanwhile, the All in the Family spin-off Maude, starring Bea Arthur, offered one of the first discussions of abortion in a sitcom framework. And although it prompted network push back, letters of protest, and even a few affiliate defections, Lear went ahead with that two-part storyline, which is rightly hailed today for its groundbreaking depiction of a sensitive, complicated topic.

Even if earlier screen stories might be deemed overly broad or even problematic from a 2021 context, many writers took steps toward a more inclusive art. They made it possible for people from marginalized groups to see characters who looked, acted, and talked like them. But they also showed people outside those groups that other lifestyles exist, they’re normal, and they matter. It’s an essential paradox of the post-cinematic era that although people from cultural groups live and breathe and just go about their day-to-day existence together, being shown — and seen — onscreen makes the inner lives of people from all groups somehow more real. Representation matters.