Ways in Which Television Representations of Race Have Evolved Over the Last 10 – 20 Years: Creative Film Assignment, UON, UK

Ways in Which Television Representations of Race Have Evolved Over the Last 10 – 20 Years

Over the last 10 – 20 years, television representations of race have evolved a lot and it’s shown through many different TV shows and reports that have been released over the years. There’s been a good rise is ethnic directors, writers, actors, and producers such as Shonda Rhimes who has produced shows like How to get Away with Murder, Scandal, Grey’s Anatomy, Inventing Anna, and Kenya Barris who was the writer and producer of Black-ish and Grown-ish and the films Girls Trip and You People. They have been two of the many directors/writers/producers that have shown an evolution in representation of race through the last 10-20 years.

‘By addressing the persistent racial inequities, the industry could reap an additional $10 billion in annual revenues’ (McKinsey & Co, 2021). While finding research on ways that race has evolved during the years, there were many articles and interviews about the evolution in television for different races. In general, trying to build a sustained career in television is hard as the industry has been a very unwelcoming workplace. This part of the article just shows that if the industry was open in allowing different races in the industry, the opportunity to be in television that the annual revenue would increase by at least 7% (McKinsey & Co, 2021) and even though that doesn’t seem like it’s much, it is and it would make a big difference in the industry if they were more inclusive with other races. In research, it is shown that in the UK in 2019, employees from minority ethnic backgrounds in broadcast channels like BBC, Channel 4, Sky and ITV were made from 13% across the UK TV industry but from White ethnic groups it was 70% (Ofcom, 2019).

There have been many reasons to why minority groups have evolved in the tv industry, one main being that there has been more directors, writers and producers that are from a certain race that want to make films or shows that include actors from their own race to allow the audience to relate to characters and be able to see people that are like them on their screen also to allow the audience to emotionally and mentally be able to identify with characters (Bordow. 2022). It’s also shown that a lot of films and shows would do better with a diverse cast than an all-white cast because the audience want to see diversity and inclusivity and the demand for it was at least 40% but in the last 3 years it has at least double to more than 112%.

Outpacing the growth in the number of shows that have made it to air (more than 42%) (McKinsey & Co, 2021). A big reason why tv representation has evolved over the years is that white directors, producers and writers want to also bring that diversity into their production because times have also evolved and people are not living in an era where only white people get cast for shows or have power to do things in the industry which is amazing because it allows everyone to have hope and follow their dreams in being in the television industry regardless of their race. 

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