The Portrayal of People of Color in Movies

A Research Paper

By
Shandell Thomas-Baisden
Media Research Techniques
Department of Mass Communication

November 2014

Table of. Content

Page

I.
II.
III.
IV.

V.
VI.

Introduction....3
Literature Review.......4
Methodology..5
Findings 6
Limitations.9
Conclusion...10
Works Cited.11

I. Introduction
The purpose of this study is to find out the effects of the way people of color are
portrayed in the media and if that affects their everyday lives. I will look further into how classic
and modern films can perpetuate positive and negative stereotype of black, Hispanic, and Asian
minorities.
Although minorities have made great tries in American culture, from overcoming
segregation to the fight against Jim Crow laws in the south, there are still some things that nonwhites have to struggle to achieve, including representation in the media. Most blockbuster films
have an exclusively white cast with minorities being secondary characters, a trend that has
started after the 1970s. In the classic film, West Side Story (1961), a predominately white cast
portrayed both the Jets, and their rival gang, the Sharks. Although the Sharks were supposed to
be immigrants from Puerto Rico, white actress, Natalie Wood played the lead female, Maria and
George Chakiris played her older brother, Bernardo.
In the media, there seems to be a struggle to have diversity in a cast. In nearly every
movie, there is a white protagonist with a minority actor playing a secondary role of the sidekick,
antagonist, or comic relief. Hispanic women are generally depicted as fiery and over
sexualized beings whereas Hispanic and black men are shown to be violent or even unintelligent.
By the end of this paper, I plan to see the effects of the stereotypes portrayed in films. I
propose that the representation of minorities in films are not accurate and do not promote
positivity of the minority. Because of the inaccurate representation of minorities in films, people
of color in have a lot of preconceived notion that they have to overcome in their everyday lives.
Blacks are notoriously seen as assailants, even when they are clearly the victims. Hispanics

women are seen as sex symbols no matter the content of the film they are in. Asian people, in
general are typically portrayed as academic overachievers.
II. Literature Review
Because we live in a predominately white culture, many minorities can often have a hard
time identifying with people we see in various forms of media such as films, television shows,
and magazines. New blockbuster movies, with the exception of those created by black directors
(Smith 2013), always seem to have a white cast with no people of color in the trailer.
Smith also concluded that out of the 500 top grossing films between the years 2007-2010
and 2012, only 5.8% were black directors. She also saw that there was a 42.7 increase of black
characters with speaking roles.
According to a study done by Dr. Fischoff in 1999 62% of whites did not find racial
tropes in films to be offensive. But 20% of the whites surveyed believed that the EuropeanAmerican Race to be considered racially superior theme as offensive. According to this survey,
the only thing that white people felt offended by was the theme that made them seem like the
bad race in the film whereas minorities found offensive stereotypes across ethnicities other
than their own.
In the same study, Fischoff and other researchers found 36 categories of offensives that
got condensed into ten broader themes including promiscuity, occupational stereotypes, and
deficiencies in intellect. According to these categories, the researchers found that African
Americans most often found offense in films, followed by Hispanics, then Asians, and lastly
European-Americans.

This paper plans to illuminate the negative serotypes that some movies give minorities
and how those stereotypes affect minorities in their day to day lives.

III. Methodology
In order to see the way minorities are portrayed in the media, this paper will use two
different qualitative research methods. For the purpose of my research, the term people of color
(PoC) would be operationally defined as any person who is not white.
The first method that will be utilized is focus groups comprised of about 6 people. One
focus group will be for women, one of men, and one of both genders combined. Each focus
group will have a moderator who will ask questions such as, Do films show an accurate
representation of minority groups? and, Has the depiction of people of color changed over
time? If so, is it positive or negative change? Although the focus groups would primarily focus
on students attending Delaware State University.
In addition to the focus groups, a survey will also be used. The survey will be comprised
of the same line of questions that will be used guide the focus groups discussion. The scale will
use the Likert Scale from 1-5 to measure the answers from the people who took to the survey. In
order to give the survey, I will post it on social media via a website such a Survey Monkey.
My survey was comprised of a total of two pages and 5 questions. The first page was to
find the demographic of the participants, such as their age and race. The next page was a variety
of Likert scales to gauge the participants ideas of the portrayal of people of color in movies
there were also a few opportunities for the respondent to give their own opinion by answering
open ended questions. I chose two different forms of close ended questions so that the survey
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showed variety so that the participants would not get bored with my survey. I submitted my
survey to a social awareness blog on Tumblr and asked the moderators to publish the survey for
their followers to take. As a result of the publication of the link, over 200 people took the survey.
The focus group was comprised of 6 juniors from Delaware State University. During the
focus group, the moderator led the discussion by asking the other participants about the types of
movies they watch, how women of color are portrayed in movies contrarily, how white women
are portrayed in movies.
The purpose of the research is to bring light to the lack of minorities in modern films.
Although people see movies, they may not be aware of the homogeneity off the cast that is
starring in the movie.
IV. Findings
Out of 100 survey results, 40% of the respondents were under 18 years old and 36% were
between the ages of 21 and 29. Because I administered the survey through a blog, I expected a
very diverse population to take my survey, which was my result. As expected, a majority of the

participants were black, followed by white, and people who were from multiple races.

What is your ethnicity?

From Multiple Races; 18%

White; 15%

Latino/Hispanic; 7%

Asian; 13%
American Ind; 4%

Black; 42%

In addition to the basic demographic, I also asked the participants to use a Likert Scale to
evaluate some statements about their thoughts of people of color in films compared to white
people in films. Unsurprisingly, most participants (63.75%) disagreed with the statement, PoC
are portrayed positively in movies. and many also agreed with my hypothesis that movies often
reinforce negative stereotypes. All though the data from this survey question followed a
predictive trend, I was surprised that nearly six of the hundred people who took the survey did
not agree that movies often reinforce negative stereotypes and no one believed that PoC are ever

portrayed positively in movies.

Evaluate the Following Statement

100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%

Strongly Disagree

Disagree

Agree

Strongly Agree

Neutral

In the next survey question I asked the respondents to rank how positively various races
are portrayed in movies. From the bar graph, it is easy to see that an overwhelming majority of
participants agree with white people being portrayed as the most positive race in movies.
Surprisingly, a small amount of people felt as though white people are the least positively
portrayed race in movies. 54% of respondents ranked blacks as being the least positively
portrayed race in movies. According to previous research, I expected Latino/Hispanics to be
ranked as 5 because often times in movies (and television) such as The Road to El Dorado and
West Side Story, the Latino characters were overtly sexual and violent towards the white people
in the film. In The Road to El Dorado Mexican characters Chel and Tzekel-Kan either use their
sexuality or violence to get what they want from the main character Tulio and Miguel whether
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that is the gold or a higher social standing in the Aztec society. But according to the survey, most
of the respondents believed that American Indian/Alaskan Natives are represented as the second
most negatively portrayed race in movies.
Also according to the results of the survey, Asians were seen as the second most
positively portrayed race in movies. This maybe because of the way Asians are perceived in
popular western culture as smart and overachieving. In most films Asian PoC are very rarely
depicted as criminals or thugs the way that blacks and Latinos are, but are portrayed as Ivy
League valedictorians or a student with slightly overbearing parents who stress the importance of
doing well in school and finding a well-paying job after school.

Ranking of Positively Portrayed Races

(1 being the most positive, 6 being the least positive)
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%

White

Black African American

American Indian/Alaskian Native

Asian

Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander

Latino/Hispanic

According to the respondents who answered the opened statement, The portrayal of PoC
in movies effect what I think about PoC the answer was no because they understand that the
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people who are able to make blockbuster movies are not PoC and therefore they only perpetuate
the stereotypes that they believe are true. Although there was a general consensus about why
PoCs portrayal has no effect on how one thinks people of color, some respondents do believe
that subconsciously negative stereotypes effect how PoC are percieved.
V. Limitations
Conducting this research was slightly challenging because in order to have the most
representative views on the portrayal of people of color in films, a large sample would be
needed. One of the greatest challenges was the limitation that Survey monkey gives nonpaying
users. As a basic service, survey monkey only allows access to the first 100 survey results.
Because of this hindrance, data was only gathered from a small percentage of everyone who took
the survey. If the total amount of surveys were available to me I would have been able to have
more accurate data of my population.
VI. Conclusion
Although my research did not provide a lot of new information about the way people
perceive PoC in everyday life based on their representation in movies, I did learn that most
people who participated in my research were unhappy with their lack of representation in the
media. Often times, PoC are often erased in the media and the alternate universe in which movies
take place are not diverse enough to be an accurate representation of the real world.
In order to further my research, I plan to analyze the representation, or the lack there of,
of various minority groups in movies and television. From analyzing the representation, I can
then move on to analyze the portrayal of those minority groups to see how many different racial
tropes for each minority groups are portrayed and if that effects how they are viewed.
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Works Cited

Cort, C. (n.d.). A Long Way to Go: Minorities and the Media. Retrieved September 11, 2014,
from http://www.medialit.org/reading-room/long-way-go-minorities-and-media
Fischoff, Ph.D., S., Franco, A., Gram, E., Hernendez, A., & Parker, J. (1999). Offensive Ethnic
Clichs in Movies: Drugs, Sex, and Servility. Retrieved September 11, 2014, from
http://web.calstatela.edu/faculty/sfischo/OffenseJMP.pdf
Horton, Y., Price, R., & Brown, E. (1999). Portrayal of Minorities in the Film, Media and
Entertainment Industries. Retrieved September 11, 2014, from
http://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/mediarace/portrayal.htm
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Smith, Ph.D., S., Choueiti, M., & Pieper, Ph.D., K. (2013). *Race/Ethnicity in 500 Popular
Films... Retrieved September 15, 2014, from
http://annenberg.usc.edu/sitecore/shell/Applications/~/media/PDFs/RaceEthnicity.ashx

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