Hispanics in television

Television has a huge impact on how society portrays different races and classes. The problem is that tv rarely portray's characters in the right manners. Television is full of stereotypes and misconceptions.
Hispanics make up 12.5% of our nation's population, but they are only represented as 2% of characters on television. Those few times when there happens to be a Latino character, they usually appear as small role characters such as janitors, drug dealers, criminals or simply comic relief.

Venezuelan actor, Wilmer Valderrama, plays Fez on a hit television show called That 70's Show. His character is portrayed as a funny exchange student with poor English who is always saying or doing something stupid.


This commercial is for PSP, although its contents have little to do with the product for sale. It mainly features two talking dust balls that happen to have strong Mexican accents. Why did the director choose to give the dust Mexican accents? This pushes the common stereotype of Mexicans being dirty and unintelligent.



Santiago Cabrera is an actor starring in NBC's new series Heroes. In this show he plays a character named Isaac Mendez. Mendez fits the negative stereotype in being a heroin-addicted artist who experiences premonitions through his dark and violent art work.

On a brighter note, this year's new television show called Ugly Betty actually has a Hispanic actress as the lead role! A young Latino named America Ferrera plays Betty Suarez, a young and slightly over-sized woman working in the fashion industry. This show is getting all kinds of attention from audiences across the nation and has actually been nominated for a Golden Globe Award.

This show is definitely a step up for the Hispanic race in terms of representation in the media. Betty is an intelligent and hard working girl, and not to mention, the main character of the show! The only set-back is that the show is called "Ugly" Betty, and Ferrera is portrayed as being a less attractive and slightly overweight woman. But its a start...

There are also 3 other Hispanic-centered shows planning to air this year. The Ortegas is a sitcom about a Mexican Family that will be shown on Fox. This show is based on a British comedy which features a son's dream to become a television show host and how his family helps him. Fox is also planning to air Luis, another comedy about a Hispanic man who owns a Spanish Harlem donut shop. Lastly, the stand-up comedian Geroge Lopez is starring in a new hit family comedy called, George Lopez, which will air on ABC this fall.

There is alot of excitement on the airing of these new shows. People are thinking maybe Hispanics are becoming stronger in television and getting their big break, just as blacks did with the Cosby Show. However, some are afraid Hispanics won't watch English-speaking shows, regardless of who is casted in it and what their races are. "... Nielsen Media Research's list of the most popular shows in Hispanic households is packed with Spanish-language soap operas (telenovellas), with no English-language shows to be seen, regardless of the stars." (Deggans) It is well known that the spanish community is attracted to their 'telenovellas' but if they hope to see their race represented in television more they will have to check some of these shows out and see what they think.

Representation of Middle Eastern/Arab/Muslims, but first...say what?

The media in the United States has a unique way of portraying Arabs, Middle Easterners, and Muslims, but lets not confuse these terms or assume they all mean the same thing. One might be an Arab without being Muslim, or vice versa (not to mention people were Arabs long before Islam was around). And not all Middle Easterners are Arabs. For example, most Iranians consider themselves Persians and not Arabs, but are still part of the Middle East – there are many other cases, Israel, Turkey, etc (link).

After all, the term Middle East was most likely contrived outside of its geographic location, hence the confusion involved in obtaining a clear definition for it.

Unfortunately, just focusing on the US does not clear anything up. Nearly 1.5 Million Arabs in the US are Christian, a statistic that cannot be ignored , and the media plays a big part in defining these terms (link). There are about 7 million Muslims in America, but only 22 percent of them are Arab. There are about 3 million Arabs in America and the majority, more than half, are Christian, not Muslim (link).

Most television networks have steered clear of including Arabs, Muslims, or Middle Easterners in their programming unless they are involved in some form of terrorism. For example, a new ten-hour series on Showtime called Sleeper Cell takes the viewer into home-grown terrorist cell in Los Angeles. The story revolves around an undercover FBI agent, Darywn al-Sayeed, who infiltrates a sleeper cell of Islamic extremists.

On the oustide, the shows appears to type-cast Muslims in the same light as other networks, but there is more here than meets the eye. Darywn, a practicing Muslim, often questions the extremist interpretation of the Koran, without blowing his cover of course (link). This does well to separate the extremists from a Muslim voice of reason, but the advertising and commercials for the show does little to spread this message.

Fox's more popular 24 also deals with terrorism in the US and has earned a reputation for portraying Muslims in a bad light.

In season 4, terrorist master mind Habib Marwan gives the main character and resident good guy, Jack Bauer, his money's worth when it comes to catching the bad guy. The show also had numerous Muslim terrorists in season 2 as well. Not surprisingly there was an outcry from the Muslim community about the show's portrayal of Muslim characters and their connection to terrorism.

Now, this is only the modern representation, but is it all that than different before the 9/11 era? Both Sleeper Cell and 24 target an adult audience, so what are adolescents getting in terms of representation of Arabs, Muslims, and Middle Easterners?

The answer is in cartoons. Disney's Aladdin received lots of negative feedback from the Arab community. The opening song has some interesting lyrics:

Oh, I come from a land, From a faraway place, Where the caravan camels roam, Where they cut off your ear If they don’t like your face, It’s Barbaric, but hey, it’s home.

While is it comedy, one can certainly see how it paints a picture of a culture that the viewers (children) might have no knowledge of. Another questionable part of the cartoon is that the lead-characters, Aladdin and Jasmine, have Anglicized features and Anglo-American accents, while the villainous guards or merchants all have dark-skin and grotesque facial features (link).

And long before Aladdin there was Arab representation in cartoons. Here we have Bugs Bunny and the infamous Hassan with his turban and handy scimitar. But it is surprising that Hassan, while is represented as a blithering, hulking idiot, is no different from any other Bugs bunny villain, if you want to call him that. Hassan wanting to “chop” Bugs or Daffy with his sword is really no different than Elmer wanting to shoot them with his shotgun. The biggest idiot in the cartoon turns out to be Daffy Duck, who as always is a few dollar signs too greedy and ends up being the butt of most of the jokes.

This cartoon was directed by Chuck Jones, who is known for his exaggerated character traits and goofy comedy. If anything in particular about Hassan or the evil genie's appearance seems out of the ordinary it can be attributed to that. Surprisingly this cartoon appears to be much less offensive that others, like Aladdin, who attempts to Americanize the “good guys” and make the villains appear to be heartless sub-human creatures. It is worthwhile to keep in mind that Disney is not exactly known for being politically correct or racially sensitive when it comes telling the truth (Pocahontis, The Lion King).

Now, while it may not seem that there are many television shows willing to promote Arabs or Muslims in a positive light, Fox's show Lost is one that attempts to do so.

The show is about a diverse group of people who are survivors of a plane crash and are stranded on mysterious island. The character Sayid Jarrah, a former Iraqi Republican Guard member played by Naveen Andrews (who is actually a South Asian Indian) is among the group. Although his character is a practicing Muslin and connected to terrorism on the show, he is not portrayed in a way that is any more negative than the next character (link).

This is not to say that there is a new movement to rectify the portrayal of Arabs and Muslims on television. There is still much to be done when it comes to the skewed representation of these groups and it is mainly in the hands of the ones with the power, the television networks . Perhaps in the future more will be done to build a healthier bridge between Arabs and Muslims in television. And hopefully something will be done to tear down the bridge connecting them just with terrorism.

Asian Representation in Television

In 1972, Kung Fu was a popular television series that went on to last for three seasons. The main character in the show was Caine played by American movie star, David Carradine. However, he wasn't originally cast to be the lead in this hit series. Bruce Lee, legendary martial artist, was the fist choice to portray the character of Caine. In fact, Lee was extensively involved in the development of Kung Fu but the network didn't approve of the idea due to the fact that the American audience wouldn't be ready for an Asian actor to play the lead role in a hit television series.

In 2004, a writer for The Independent Student Newspaper Of The University of Chicago, Joel Lanceta, in an article called "Do not attempt to adjust your television set: There are no Asians here," also stated how ER, apparently set in a Chicago Hospital, has just one Asian doctor as opposed to reality where most of the doctors and nurses in any Chicago hospital are Asian. He attacks the film The Last Samurai starring Tom Cruise, which is ultimately about a white man becoming the last of the samurai, a dying breed of Japanese warriors. More of Lanceta's ideas and opinions can be read about here:

http://maroon.uchicago.edu/voices/articles/2004/06/08/do_not_attempt_to_ad.php

A recent UCLA study declared that Asians are nearly scarce especially on prime time television. Asians make up 5 % of the American population, but only 2.7 % of them play regular characters on television. If an Asian does appear in a show, there's usually no more than one and it's a supporting role; they're usually cast to play a character in a drama series and they work in such places as a law office or a school to name a couple. Also, Asians aren't normally part of any romantic engagements and their personal lives are never touched upon. More of this information can be found here:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/05/02/entertainment/e020023D42.DTL

Usually when an Asian lands a role on television, they play characters that fit the Asian stereotype such as a Kung Fu expert or an extremely brainy person, which are the two labels that Asians mostly receive. Mad TV has many videos called The Average Asian posted on youtube.com about an Asian man who was born in America and acts the same way as anyone else would, but every other character stereotypes him to the extreme. It's meant to spoof on the actual stereotypes that Asians have to deal with when landing roles in television or film. Here's a clip of the video:




The picture is a clip of Jet Li from his latest martial arts epic Fearless. Other famous Asian Hollywood stars are Jackie Chan, Michelle Yeoh, Ken Watanabe, and Chow Yun Fat. However, more than half of these actors are solely in martial arts films. Most of these actors had big careers whether it was in China or Japan, but when these stars came to America, they were still cast in martial arts films.


Quentin Tarantino's recent Kill Bill films contained a great amount of Asian actors and the movie mostly focused on the art of Kung Fu. Pei Mei was a key character in the second segment of the film as the martial arts master who taught Uma Thurman's character the ways of Kung Fu and how to be an efficient fighting weapon. As a result of this stereotype, Asians are represented in this category of characters in film. Apparently the main reason for Asians being portrayed as martial arts experts in films is because the idea of it appeals to the studios and the distributors.

For the most part, the media portrays Asians in film and television as either extremely intelligent or as a kung fu expert for the most part. No television show consists of Asian actors as main characters and if they do, they're not involved in a great deal of the plot, but instead, they play supporting roles usually with little significance.

No Asian television study can go without mentioning the very hilarious show called Most Extreme Elimination Challenge aired on Spike TV. The show originated in 1986 in Japan and it was called Takeshi's Castle. It was about a count who owns a castle and he sets up these crazy obstacles for the players to go through. It became a popular cult television show around the world and it currently remains a big hit. The American version, known as MXC, has all of the contestants dubbed in English making them say obscene and bizzare things as a spoof on the original show. Even though MXC makes Asians look completely ridiculous, it doesn't necessarily include Asian Stereotypes that would normally exist on most television shows and films but all in all, it is a great show to watch for a good laugh. Here's a clip of some of the events from Most Extreme Elimination Challenge:

Hebrew Nation bashing on own Jewish Religion????

Here in America we allow in all different types of races like; Middle Easterns, Asians, African Americans, Hispanics, and also Hebrews. But even though we allow them here does not mean that we respect their lifestyles and religions. For instance, where we show this is in the media and it is mostly from television. For every race the media percieves them as a certain sterotype. One of them being Hebrews and their Jewish religion. The media perceives this religion by stateing that Jews are cheap, own bagel shops, and that they are minorities because of their religion. Sometimes it is other cultures portraying Jews, but most of the time it's actually the Hebrew people that make fun of themselves!!

The picture above shows 2 jewish guys, Bryan Fogel and Sam wolfson, making fun of how people perceive Hebrews as being cheap. Notice the "sale" as if you were a jewish person, you would get 1 cent off. This would be called "being jewish" like "being cheap". Hebrews try to save their money as much as possible even if its only 1 cent. Also notice how they dont light their cigarettes with matches or a lighter. I think this was another way saying why buy matches or a lighter while we can just use our Menorah.



In the picture to the right, is the Tv series "Joan of Arcadia," on CBS. In this primetime show, CBS misinterpeted the Herbrew Scriptures and some of the younger teens viewers that are Hebrew saw this and complained to CBS. One of the characters, had said " I come off alittle easier friendlier in the New Testament and the Koran" and other statements that were untrue about their religion. After the first episode immediatly Jewish teens felt assualted by this because they have just recently learned and grew through their scriptures in bar and bat mitzvahs. Then CBS rebroadcasted the same episode with the scriptures being exactly right.




The video above is another way the Hebrew Nation is represented in television and that is comedy. I feel as if we can get rid of the sterotypes by laughther. In this case Ali G (Borat), being jewish, makes fun of the jews. He states that Jewish people were the causes for all the dinosaurs being killed, that they started all wars, and because of them hurricane katrina happend. Also at the end of this clip he pokes fun at how jews make bagels and that in Katizstan they give the death penalty whoever bakes bagels. Comedy takes away from the hate and anger of these sterotypes and twists it into a hilarous humor.



Once again Adam Sandler does it again on Saturday Night Live when he plays part 3 of this mesmorizng, hilarious, chanukah song. Here he sings a song about the Jewish religion and how they celebrate their Christams. And of course we all know he is part of the Jewish religion too. In this song he cracks jokes about celebraties that are and arent Jewish. It shows that so many people in this world are Jewish and that they are the same as everyone else but just do things alittle differently. Sandler's song, I feel is great to air on national tv because its a joke that everyone can laugh at and take away from their sterotype.

What I find interesting is that the majority of the huge corporations such as; Disney, ESPN, ABC, and Time Warner etc. are all owned by Jewish people. So why are Jews are even portrayed in the media in a negative aspect while they own all these big companies? Below is a link that tells you what corporations are owned by Jews and who those Jews are that run it.

http://sdlusa.com/sdl//mediain1.htm



Above, is part of an episode of the hit FOX TV series, "Family guy" called "Wish upon a Weinstein". Here Peter Griffin, the main character, sings a song about how he needs to find a Jew. He sings about how he needs a jew to do his checking book because it a mess and to try to take care of his constant money problems but he desperatley cant find one. As a joke, a spaceship floats down to pick him up and when it stops it turns into a draidel and shoots off to space. Peter, while still singing, then jumps off the draidel and slides down a Menorah into the stars. At one point in the song he is walking through town trying to find one and he looks into a Bagel shop which shows the sterotype of them owning bagel shops. Also, the other obvious sterotype is that he wants to save money and take care of his money problems so why not get a jew since their known for being cheap. Eventaully the next day Peter's door knocks and its Max Weinstein, a jew, and he comes to Peters rescue throughout the rest of the episode.

These sterotypes are most definitley reflected on how the media, in especially television, represents Hebrews and their Jewish religion. Its the image that is left in the viewers mind that causes these sterotypes to develope. But its not just the Jewish religion that gets bashed upon, its also every other race including White Caucasains. The only way you can get away in society today by making fun of races is through comedy. Plain and simple! Its more of laughing with the audience rather picking a target and laughing at them. It takes away from the sterotype and the hatred that comes along with it. Its just fun, nothing more.