Now have a look at the image to the right, as you should be able to see this is in black and white. Now we should know that movies are no longer made in black and white (for the most part, I'm sure there are still black and white movies made). So then why are people still represented like they are. In these movies it was very rare for anyone other then white people to be shown. But even to this day the white people are severely over represented.
Now I could not get charts to display to numbers, but I will type the numbers.
Overall on Prime Times TV:
Black people appeared 94 times over 12 TV shows, and were mostly displayed as professionals or law enforcement.
Asians appeared 34 times and were displayed as home makers.
There was only 1 Aboriginal in all 12 shows and was a professional.
Latinos appeared 17 times and were mainly professionals, law enforcement or criminals.
Arabs or East Indians appeared 35 times and were mainly professionals or law enforcement.
But White people were seen 442 times! That is more then all of the other all of the other groups combined, in fact its more then double the number. They also appear as Professions, criminals, Law Enforcement, and Homemakers, but in all those category they out number the other groups, expect home makers where Asians out number them.
Now to give you an idea of how out of whack these number are have a look at the percentages of the ethnic groups on Primetime TV:
White 70.9%
Black 15%
Asian 5.4%
Latino 2.7%
For Aboriginals a staggering 0.16%
But the 2006 US census (because these shows are based in the US and are played on US air waves) says that real life has some different numbers for you
Caucasian: 66.2%
African American: 12.9%
Latinos/Hispanic: 15.2%
Asian: 4.5%
American Indian: 1%
Now is just me or do these numbers seem a little off when you compare them? The Caucasians weren't the only on to be over resented. African Americans are 2.1% overly represented, while Latinos are under represented by over 12%. I'm not even going to talk about the Aboriginals, those numbers are just crazy, they work on a smaller scale, but in that scale are massively unbalanced.
Now that you know the numbers you have to wonder, how does this affect little children who see this? How will this affect their self image? How will they think of their own ethnic group? I mean if a child grows up watching people of that same group doing something, maybe they will think "Oh, since they do it, maybe I should to." It is undeniable that child do work on a I see, I do level.
But the TV surprisingly white now, and the fact that other ethnic groups are slowly fading out on the TV, becoming less and less visible. If things do not start changing on TV things may start going back to the way they where in the beginning, where ever actor except for a few are white.
Women also are severely under represented and stereotyped. Men never show up as home makers, but in all 12 shows there were 10 women home makers, does that mean that no men are home makers? Or the fact that men were also shown much more then women overall, does that men that there are more men then women in the world?
Now isn't TV supposed to be similar to real life? I mean if the real world was populated like the TV world then men would out number the women 2:1 or more. Also the world would be made up of 70-75% white people. These numbers do not seem realistic, so if TV wishes to keep making show that are supposed to be based in a real world like enviroment they better diversify the cast. Now not ever show needs to have multiple ethnic groups, but neither should most shows be over populated by one group. Even if shows didn't need to put more groups in the main cast, they could at lest populate the back group and guest stars with different ethnicities.
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