LGBT Representation in Media

What stood out to me the most while watching The Celluloid Closet was the idea that as humans, we have this inherent need to see ourselves represented in the media we consume. Namely movies and TV shows, but we all listen to certain music for certain reasons that usually have to do with how we are feeling at a certain time in our lives, or read books where we can directly identify with a character or two.

Going to a movie and seeing a character who is just like you has a way of making you feel a lot less alone. It is for this reason that movies like How to Be Single usually come out on Valentine's Day weekend alongside the newest Nicholas Sparks adaptation. The sappy Valentine's Day couples will go see The Notebook 2.0, the best friend group of single girls will go see How to Be Single. (So what does that leave single guys? Deadpool.) And that's not to say there aren't plenty of exceptions. It's just a marketing strategy, but it's one that I'll totally admit to buying into. Me and my equally-single best friend went to see How to Be Single Valentine's Day weekend, not that either of us actually needed a lesson on how to be single. Do something long enough and you kind of become an expert on your own but it's whatever I don't care I'm not bitter. ANYWAY, the movie was good, better than I thought it would be, and it's because I could identify with more than one of the characters. I left the movie feeling like someone out there understood me, understood exactly how it feels to be me. I know that if I'd gone to see the Sparks movie, I wouldn't have left with that feeling. I can't identify with it because I'm not in a relationship right now (I've also never rowed a canoe through a pond of white swans, but I guess that’s life).

But it got me thinking, in relation to The Celluloid Closet, what it must be like to never see yourself represented on screen that way. I can see how damaging it could be, at a time when the “LGBT” label didn’t even exist, at a time when you were already plagued with thoughts of how broken you were, how wrong you were. If the movies depicted what was normal, and they never depicted you, how could you ever see yourself as normal? Since the documentary was made, we as a society have made leaps and bounds in our cultural acceptance of various sexualities. TV shows like Modern Family depict an actual "modern family" (almost to an extreme), and movies like The Perks of Being a Wallflower show characters who are able to unapologetically embrace their own sexuality. This website shows the 2015 stats for LGBT representation on TV and it’s more extensive than ever, so maybe today's LGBT youth have it better. A website like this displays how far we have come as a society in one aspect, but it’s important to remember that we will always have a little farther to go.

Race Representation & Reality TV

Boy bands. Gossip magazines. Karaoke. The breadsticks at Olive Garden.

You might be asking yourself what all of those have in common, and the answer is nothing. I’m just listing a whole bunch of common guilty pleasures in order to make my own seem less embarrassing.

Every Monday night, my sister and I stop whatever we’re doing at 8 p.m. and turn on the TV in our living room, flipping the channel straight to ABC. It’s a tradition we lovingly refer to as “Bachelor Monday,” because nothing can really kick-start your week like watching 20 women cry over the woes that come with dating the same man. (I say this very cynically, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t emotionally invested in the show. And I’m not alone, okay? Because every episode draws over a million viewers.)

There is a slew of problems associated with The Bachelor, including sexism, exploitation, and mental/emotional abuse of the contestants. But the one problem that seems to draw the most attention is the lack of racial and ethnic representation on the show.

Each season, 25 people (all men or all women, depending on the season) congregate in the same place to compete for the Bachelor/Bachelorette’s heart. Producers and cast members alike deny that the show is of any sort of competitive nature, but watching an episode for ten minutes will prove otherwise. In the past, women have manipulated each other in order to stand out, and men have literally fought each other over “alone time.” At the beginning of every season, roughly 5 out of the 25 cast members are minorities. This website explains pretty well how few people of color have been cast on The Bachelor/Bachelorette, including charts depicting how far into the season they lasted. It is a running joke between them on the show that they are the “token black guy” or “token Hispanic girl.” They laugh it off, the producers laugh it off, America laughs it off.

But why are we laughing? Most people have attributed the lack of minority representation to the idea that the depiction of interracial relationships on TV would make people uncomfortable. What does that say about us as a country? We’re totally okay with this white guy kissing 18 women in one day, as long as none of them are black?

The first minority lead of the show came in 2014 (after 18 seasons of hella white people). Juan Pablo Galavis, a Venezuelan soccer player, was cast as The Bachelor. Having not stood out at all the previous season, his appointment came as something of a shock… but he was cast after several weeks of female-dominated fan hype about his good looks. And (surprise, surprise) Juan Pablo is extremely white-passing. His thick Venezuelan accent is the only thing that outwardly identifies him as a minority.

In 2012 a lawsuit was brought against the producers of The Bachelor for “purposeful segregation in the media that perpetuates racial stereotypes and denies persons of color of opportunities in the entertainment industry.” The case was dismissed by a judge on the premise that the producers’ casting choices are protected by the First Amendment. However, since the lawsuit, minority presence on the show has significantly spiked. There has been speculation that producers have to fill a quota of minority cast members, and that the show’s lead is required to keep them around for a certain amount of time. So again, what does that say about us as a country that we have that much of a problem with realistic racial/ethnic representation in the media? The Bachelor is far from realistic anyway, but interracial relationships are so commonplace these days that it amazes me that people have such negative feelings towards them.

The whole Bachelor thing is honestly pretty fucked up, and I’ll be the first to admit that. But right now I have to go because it’s hometown dates week and I am so not gonna miss that.

Political Ideology in Music

In 1989, rocker Neil Young released a song called “Rockin’ in the Free World.” The lyrics were directly critical of the George H. W. Bush administration, referencing Bush’s (in)famous “thousand points of light” speech and his campaign promise for a “kinder, gentler America.” We got a thousand points of light for the homeless man, we got a kinder, gentler machine gun hand, Young sings. It wasn’t the first time that music had shed light on politics, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. And although the song made Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Rock Songs of All Time” list, it was soon forgotten amongst thousands of other contemporary rock songs, some with more time-relevant messages. But recently the song has been getting more press, for another political reason.

In June of 2015, in front of hundreds of people and cameras, Donald Trump announced himself as the newest Republican Presidential Candidate. As he took the stage, “Rockin’ in the Free World” played in the background. It seemed to be a minimal detail, which escaped the attention of many people… but not Neil Young. Almost immediately, Young had representatives contact the Trump campaign to remove the song from its playlist, claiming that they were not authorized to use the song. Young’s frustration is understandable; a song written to critique a republican candidate, however long ago, was now being used to add fire to another republican campaign. Not to mention the message of the song: the government (republican-led at the time) not caring about America’s poor. One could easily understand why a multi-billionaire appropriating such a song would frustrate its writer, especially considering that Young is a well-known liberal and has been a longtime supporter of Bernie Sanders.

It’s interesting to see exactly how many songs are either directly related to political ideology, or have strong undertones of political ideology. This list names many of them, some of which you may be familiar with. And that’s not even close to all of them. There are certainly some songs on this list that I’ve sat in the car and sung along to, completely unaware of the political message. Some songwriters are really good at concealing true meaning behind metaphors and rhymes, and maybe that’s actually kind of the point. It makes it more of a subliminal message.

So, if anyone has actually managed to get to the end of this ridiculously long blog post, I’m curious to know your thoughts on this. Have you ever come across a song with a political message that you strongly agreed or disagreed with? Or have you ever not realized the political message of a song until much later? Can you think of any modern day examples of this? I’d be curious to take a look at them.