Hollywood's Whitewashing

This idea that was brought up in the lecture on Friday March 11^th was that most western media is from a white perspective and has shaped the way in which people think about certain groups. I agree with this thought in which Suzanne our lecturer brought up because not only do whites play the role of a different race but also it sends a message to the viewers. It is showing that the Hollywood’s media institutions are being rather overtly racist.  Throughout the years many Hollywood films will only have a white actor/actress to play a certain role within a movie. Shown in films and in some ads, racial difference become commodified as a source of pleasure as Blacks, Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans have all had to fight individual battles against stereotyping and racially offensive programmes and/or advertisements. Reasons as to why the Hollywood industry would do this to certain races is from exactly what Suzanne had mentioned within the lecture. She stated that,

“Race is therefore a highly meaningful social construction because of the impact it has on quality of life and access to resources and social rewards.”

This is very true and some Hollywood industry’s needed to rethink the way they portray certain groups. For example, blacks, the most visible racial minority in network television and general interest magazine advertising, still comprise only a very small percentage of the characters in those media. Asians and Latinos however are still frequently used in mainstream television and advertisements. Therefore, in other words, the stylization of consumption as shown within the western media from a white perspective invites society to imagine that race itself can be bought and consumed.

The western media is a creative business and people push some boundaries and sometimes they get it right and sometimes they get it wrong. The Hollywood films throughout the years have shown that racism is a terrible thing and most consumers would not want to be linked with a film that is believed to be racist. Consequently, it is evident that racism and sexism are still a prominent problem in our society, and our media.

Race is constructed not biological and can be considered as a signifier and the subject of discourse, however, racial difference is central to the images connotations. A lot of the Hollywood films nowadays are however, starting to politically correct films from the olden times. For example, the new movie “Star Wars”, the main character is a coloured skin storm trooper. Which caused a lot of talk, as there were no coloured skin people in the earlier/previous films. By doing this it is showing that colour, race or gender should never matter when filming a movie otherwise it does become quite noticeable when you favour one particular ethnic group.