Representation of Ethnicity (UK perspective)

The representation of people from different ethnicities has changed massively over the years. This is probably because the population in Britain has become much more diverse recently and current society is much more used to mixing with people from all different cultures and backgrounds.

Here are some examples of very negative generic stereotypes that used to be seen (and in some case still are) in film and tv:

• Black people – often shown as exotic, strange, tribal, criminal, poor, in gangs
• Asian people (Chinese, Korean etc) – often shown mainly as intelligent, submissive, quiet, shy, nerdy, and interested in technology
• White people – often shown as good, pure, heroes, strong, or sometimes racist
• Indian people – often shown as being poor, living in large families, very traditional, working in corner shops
• Middle Eastern people (arabs, muslims etc) – often shown as being terrorists, violent, aggressive, rich
• Hispanic (Spanish, Mexican etc) – often shown as being poor, servants, nannies, into gang crime
• Immigrants – often shown as being a drain on society, criminals, illegal, bad for Britain, taking British jobs

People often note that in TV drama, characters from particular ethnicities have storylines that all centre around their culture. For example, Indian characters often battle with the clash between British culture and their traditional culture eg: arranged marriages etc. They rarely have storylines that don’t have something to do with their ethnicity. People also have commented that often characters from minority ethnic groups (eg non white) are often portrayed in a very negative way.

If you get “ethnicity” as an issue in the exam, you should be thinking about the following things when watching the clip:

• Can I identify what ethnicities people are?
• Are people from different ethnic backgrounds shown as different interests, personalities, attitudes, behaviours? If so, how?
• Is their ethnicity represented as being important in their life?
• Are people from particular ethnicities portrayed as being better, more powerful, than others?
• Are people from particular ethnicities portrayed as being abnormal /weaker/ more pathetic than others?
• How do other characters in the clip treat the characters from different ethnic backgrounds?
• What is the message the clip is trying to portray about ethnicity?
• Don’t ignore the white characters as they need to be analysed too