Misrepresentation in Media

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the relationship between black women and the white families they nanny for. This movie is not the first that has done this, but it is one of the most recent films in a while. Half of the reason for this is it’s usage of the stereotypes like the “Sassy Mammy”. The “Sassy Mammy” is, “almost impertinent to their white families, in the same manner a blood relative might be, to make the case that slavery wasn’t so bad” (Hix). Majority of the women in “The Help” seem to have this kind of relationship with their employers, easily making the film become almost apologetic to the trials and tribulations women faced in these roles. Though of course nowhere near as bad as the time of slavery, a black woman working for a white family could not simply talk back to her employers and still expect to keep her job, yet this is the version of events that the media wants to constantly portray, almost as means of saying, ‘it wasn’t that bad’. In a similar manner, many times these tropes are used in the media as means of humor, the excuse behind it being, ‘if we can all laugh about it then it then it couldn’t have been that bad’. Obviously, they do this as means of attempting to make past incidences seem less cruel and easier for their viewers to take in, but by doing this it is almost saying that these past traumas are not as important as the comfort of their audience, and do not need to be fully addressed or apologized for.

Overall, these movies and television shows have succeeded. For example, when one takes a look at reviews of movies that were made to fully present the horrors of slavery, the most common comment for the films tend to be, “It couldn’t have been that bad. It has been exaggerated for the film”. The most recent popular film this happened to being “12 Years a Slave”. Through Hollywood’s belittlement of slavery, people all over the nation began to believe that these terrible occurrences were actually closer to inconveniences for the people it targeted.

Through media and myths passed along as facts to a public unaware that they have no basis in truth, these stereotypes are being used as a mean of degrading people of color, continuing to shape the way that race is viewed in America. Created through the help of the media, there are existing “groups” that people are meant to be assigned to fit within, and are relegated to “freakish” or an “outcast” if they fall outside of these categories.

It is through lack of representation and misrepresentation that have prolonged these stereotypes to exist through the media. Without representation of all races, genders, sexes, sexualities, body types, etc., there are so many important stories that we are missing from the world. Without equal representation, there are people who are feeling alone, unheard, unseen, and unimportant. In a nation and world as diverse and complex as ours, the last thing we need is to lose the stories of such a large portion of our people.