Yesterday I had a conversation with my boyfriend,who's a black man, I'm mentioning his ethnicity because it's very relevant to the subject that I will speak of. He's a black american, who comes from a country known for its long history of prejudice and racism against black people and other "non-white people", while I find myself in a twillight zone living in Sweden. So he mentioned to me that he feels movies are generally dominated by euro-american, euro-australian actors and occasionally have a black, asian or latin american character in the story that rarely plays an important role in the plot. He then continued saying that people will indeed watch a mixed cast in movies and Tv, such as one of my fav series "Boston Public" had done in the early 00's. I don't agree with that argument all the way, because in the REAL world movies and tv only portray a small percentage of the world which is mostly white people. Remember, european/white people represent 20 % of the human population and that makes european/white people a minority. With that said, we all know that Tv productions and movies are mainly made by white people and so therefore it's very understandable that Hollywood has a more narrow view of the world.
My boyfriend mentioned Boston Public, which was a show about a school and it's very important to know that Asian, Blacks, latin american people mostly work in law enforcement in the USA (Law & Order, New York Undercover, CSI Miami, Training Day) or in education and health care (Boston Public, Freedom Writers, E.R, GRAY'S ANATOMY) and because of this we see more mixed casts in movies and tv-shows that deal with those subjects. Of course I can only speak about it from my own perspective, basing it on what I see in my world, which is a middle class household in a mostly white area. Needless to say there might be around 10 households in my part of town, that are either mixed families or high educated immigrants. So by saying that, my world does indeed look very white and that's also how alot of white people see their world.
In the real world a person like my mother, who was one of the first immigrant women at a position of a CEO in my hometown, which I might add is a very rare position for women of non-white background, I can understand Hollywood. She is indeed one of the "different looking" women at those kind of meetings, just like Hollywood more often portrays. Her staff on the other hand is of course very mixed both culturally and ethnically. So what exactly am I saying? Well that the movies portray the reality of our world seen through european eyes. If we want to see a mixed cast, let us watch movies about education, law enforcement or health care because the reality is that, there isnt alot of color in the world of european/Hollywood movies. I would rather see a movie with a mixed cast like in theatre, where the child is chinese, the mother sudanese and the grandmother white but question is if people would relate? Not really. So therefore it's our duty to make colors part of society, through education, work and friends who look different so we can see more diverse movies and be part of european/anglo-american society, but until then, we have to be either content or don't watch movies at all.
Do you ever see a white person in East Asian or Indian(Bollywood) movies? Think about it and give me your answer.
/Miss X
