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Racial Stereotypes Within Television
Racial Stereotypes Within Television
Sena A. Wright
Erin Rogers
Writing 2010
11 March 2019
After a long day, families in the United States spend their evenings retired in the family
room watching their favorite television shows. Although this may be a broad assumption, for
many it has been a reality for the last several decades. Television itself represents individuals
coming together to watch something that the whole family is able to relate to. Whether it’s a
family comedy illustrating teenagers going through high school, to a drama that may evoke
strong emotion, television is a large part of American lives. With that said, the amount of time
that Americans use to sit down and watch television is outstanding, and the influence that those
television shows may have overtime affects Americans more than they would like to admit. By
watching these TV shows, most minds will adopt the type of thinking that those half hour
episodes decide to portray, resulting in nurtured biases against specific types of people. Not only
have evening shows become a large part of media, but they have also adapted into a large part of
pop culture. The stereotypes of specific people on the basis of race have become normalized on
television shows and therefore are a large part of the reason that they have become normalized in
The Office is one of the more well known and popularized American television shows
within the last decade. In the second episode named “Diversity Day”, the workers are forced to
listen to stereotypical racism that has been poorly justified by their boss, Michael Scott. The
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entirety of the episode is focused on racist stereotypes of every single person in the office, with
the exception of Caucasian people. Stereotypical racism within the episode even included races
of people that do not work in the office. The irony of the episode is that pop culture has
normalized racism so largely that the general idea of “racist stereotypes” is being made to laugh
at. Michael Scott in the series of The Office represents society as a whole. Such as Michael Scott,
media and television may not have intentions that are bad, but the blatant stereotypical racism is
normalized. It has become so normalized that most people are able to laugh at the honesty of the
popularized television show. Most adults have grown up with similar television related to
underlying racism. From a young age children grow up watching commercials with little
representation of minorities including lead roles and social interactions. The article states the
starting at a very young age. The article also explains that, “Ethnic portrayal in children's
advertising is an important public policy and self-regulatory topic that may influence children's
self-perception and brand perception”. Though commercials do not speak to children to large
extents, overtime the lack of representation will become abundantly clear to children who are
being underrepresented. This is one of the factors that creates a barrier in pop culture in the issue
Comparison of the Behavior of Both Black and White Television Characters” argues that
television episodes targeted at a specific race portrays stereotypical representation from both
sides. Likely this results in the stereotyping of certain races in real life, and the causes may be
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media outlets wrongfully portraying different groups of people. The racist stereotyping is
continued to be fueled by pop culture and the society that surrounds those ideologies.
Since the age of The Office b eginning in 2005 and ending in 2013, the world of pop
culture has arguably changed tremendously. A new generations of evening sitcoms has arisen
including the new television show named Grown-ish. The series follows a young girl named
Zoey Johnson experiencing college as an incoming freshman. Although she is young, Zoey goes
through difficult life lessons trying to juggle her social life, education, physical & mental health,
and more. The majority of the lead roles within Grown-ish are played by African American
actors. There is no stereotypical black side friend, and the television series defies all stereotypes
including having characters have in-depth characteristics and problems. Since the release of
Grown-ish, the TV show has been praised highly for its characters and storylines. The TV series
has taken a normalized problem of stereotyping otherwise seen in almost any other television
show and led a different type of “normal” into pop culture. Even though Grown-ish is creating a
new “normal”, one study named “Naturalizing Racial Differences Through Comedy: Asian,
Black, and White Views on Racial Stereotypes in Rush Hour 2” believes that racial stereotypes
are created within film to be laughed at by the depicted race. The study showed that “most
participants, regardless of race, found the film's racial jokes inoffensive. Many Asian and Black
participants found a positive source of pleasure in the negative portrayals of their own race and
did not produce oppositional discourse”. Seemingly within the study, the idea of film having an
impact on society and pop culture was not a large factor. In fact, the people used in the study
openly embraced laughing at the stereotypes portrayed about their own races. In contrary to the
article of “Racial Stereotypes in Children’s Television Commercials”, the study argued that
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rather than letting stereotypes in television affect society’s pop culture, to instead be able to
Another television series introduced within the last decade named Sex Education follows
a boy named Otis learning the ways of high school while helping other students with the
education of sex. Despite creating a business and learning to make money off of his knowledge,
Otis still continues to faces challenges within his social life. The significance of Sex Education is
how each character is portrayed individually. The show has incredibly large representation of the
LGBTQ+ community, however still has an African American teenager portrayed as Otis’ best
friend. With that said, Otis’ best friend Eric is not presented as a stereotyped race within the
television show. Instead, he is given incredibly large depth, strength, and intelligence. Eric is a
diverse portrayal of African Americans as well as a representative for the LGBTQ+ community,
creating yet again, a different “normalized” way of portraying races as much less stereotyped.
When relating Sex Education t o the TV series of The Office, a lot has changed within the last
decade. Both television shows have depictions of several different races, but the way that those
races are presented are different. In The Office, the few minorities that work in the office are
constantly pointed out as different by Michael Scott, or rather metaphorically, society, and in Sex
Education t he characters are not as blatantly criticized due to their race. That’s not to say that
there isn’t a problem with racism and stereotypes within film to this day, but slowly different
races have become more normalized in television shows. It’s much more common to see
different races other than caucasian protagonists in film today compared to a decade ago, but
racial stereotyping is still a large problem. As stated in the article “The Effect of Prime Time
Level Study”, “Much is known about the negative consequences of exposure to ethnic/racial
stereotypes in the media, on White audiences”. The issue of racial stereotyping is largely ignored
in film, and because of this, creates negative connotations of races in real life. The previous
study states that there is little to no evidence about the effect on minorities with racial
stereotyping in television, but a very large effect on audiences that are white. This may be the
case because minorities who watch television are able to see in-depth characters portrayed by
Caucasian actors, while Caucasian actors only see stereotyped minorities within television
shows. This gives them a negative portrayal of different races when it comes to representation
societally.
Despite racial stereotyping occurring in the majority of American television shows, more
television series’ have become prominent with the inclusion and depth of characters who are
minorities. The film industry still has decades to go to discontinue racial stereotyping, however,
within the last decade, more and more representation has occurred for many minority
communities. Since the release of The Office, many have either chosen to embrace the irony of
racial stereotyping within the show, or have chosen to create more representation inside of recent
television series’ that give young children a role model to be able to look up to. The study
labeled “Racial Stereotypes in Children’s Television Commercials” decided that children from a
young age are taught that different human beings are a certain way because of how they are
chosen to be portrayed in media. Children are nurtured into believing that the ideas in pop
culture are true, therefore creating a racial standard that puts other human being inside of a box.
However, racial stereotyping in media is changing and with that, also comes the changing of pop
culture. Film, specifically television, has a huge impact on pop culture and the societal standards
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that many are forced to conform to. This may be the case, but the last decade has proven that a
new “normalized” portrayal becoming more dominant and is changing society in a whole new
light. Families will be able to come home, gather in the family room, and watch a whole new era
of television changing the way that families within America view the world.
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Works Cited
Tukachinsky, Riva, et al. “The Effect of Prime Time Television Ethnic/Racial Stereotypes on
Latino and Black Americans: A Longitudinal National Level Study.” Journal of Broadcasting &
Electronic Media, vol. 61, no. 3, Sept. 2017, pp. 538–556. EBSCOhost,
doi:10.1080/08838151.2017.1344669.
Maher, Jill K., et al. “Racial Stereotypes in Children’s Television Commercials.” Journal of
Advertising Research, vol. 48, no. 1, Mar. 2008, pp. 80–93. EBSCOhost,
doi:10.2501/S0021849908080100.
Ji Hoon Park, et al. “Naturalizing Racial Differences Through Comedy: Asian, Black, and White
Views on Racial Stereotypes in Rush Hour 2.” Journal of Communication, vol. 56, no. 1, Mar.
2006, pp. 157–177. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2006.00008.x.
“Diversity Day.” The Office. NBC. Los Angeles. 24 Mar. 2005. Television.