Where is the diversity?

I recently visited the cinema and we got there early to watch the adverts. I haven’t been to the cinema in a long time so wanted the full experience. Unfortunately, the experience made me feel left out. It left me angry and disenfranchised.

Out of the 5 adverts for movies that we saw, I don’t remember seeing any equal mix of ethnicity. I didn’t feel represented in the media that was being advertised to me. One film had a mix of White Brits and they were in what I think was India where there were many Indians, well a few. This film was about elderly Brits wanting to move to India, so we would expect to see some ethnic faces. However in the other 4 adverts, only one had a black person playing a lead role, and he was the only ethnic person I saw in that advert. The other adverts had very few, like one or even no ethnic people in them whatsoever and one was about a break dancer, dancing to music of black origin which had no ethnic people in.

Is this the western world? Are we living in a society where the colour of people’s skin around us can be of all different shades but when we watch movies, we see a white world?

Would having a white lead role make the movie more appealing to more crowds of people?

I have no problem with white people, I have no problem with white people being in movies or dancing to black music. What I do have a problem with is that I’m not seeing a true representation of the diverse world we live in when I consume the media provided to represent our world.

This doesn’t just stop at the cinema and movie adverts, when we watch the news, talk shows, question time, Eastenders and so much more,they really do not reflect the diversity of the western world. The best they seem to do, is keep us ethnics running the news agents, in the background and if we’re lucky fitting right into the stereotypes they seem to think we love.

Are ethnic people represented in media? I don’t feel that we are. Lenny Henry launched a campaign to get diversity in Television, because the problem isn’t only in films and the campaign is that if we don’t get a change then we will boycott the TV License. ( http://www.thetvcollective.org ) I think we need to do this with movies, why does it take an ethnic man to make a film, for him to get another ethnic man to star in it?

We need to challenge Hollywood and the UK Film Industry by telling them to become inclusive to all, Asian, African, Caribbean, Oriental, South American, Disabled, Trans-Gender, Gay, Lesbian, everyone. We are a mixed society and interact with people of different backgrounds every day, we need to see this in our media. If we don’t? Maybe we should boycott Hollywood as well.