TV & Film

Mary Beltrán

When she watches television, it’s with an eye on diversity, as well as entertainment.

Mary Beltrán. Photo: Bryce Richter.

Mary Beltrán. Photo: Bryce Richter.

When the television show 30 Rock won the award for best comedy series at the Golden Globes in January 2009, cast member Tracy Morgan grabbed the trophy from the show’s creator and star. “Tina Fey and I had an agreement that if Barack Obama won, I would speak for the show from now on,” said Morgan, who is black. “Welcome to post-racial America!”

Did the media enter a post-racial era with Obama’s campaign and election? What does that mean? Mary Beltrán MS’93, a UW associate professor of media and cultural studies, and Chicano and Latino studies, is examining that idea as she explores not just what we watch, but whom. Before she earned a PhD in media studies at the University of Texas at Austin, Beltrán was a social worker in San Francisco. Many of her clients were minorities isolated at home with only young children and television, and she started to wonder what they were seeing and how it affected them.

Q: How did you first become interested in the concept of a “post-racial America”?

A: I’ve always been interested in how diversity is represented in contemporary film and television. … So it was interesting that as I was seeing a shift away from TV shows that focused specifically on white or non-white families to more diverse, ensemble casts (on shows such as Lost and Grey’s Anatomy) that this term post-racial was being used quite a bit. It’s kind of a useful, catchall phrase that people put multiple meanings on, but often is put out there to talk about an end of racism in American society.

Q: What questions are you exploring in your research?

A: Is there such a thing as post-racial media representation? Are we really seeing improvement in terms of how diverse Americans are represented in entertainment media, or are we just seeing a shuffling of how things look? One of the questions that comes up with television series that have a diverse cast is, who are the stars, actually? Who do we really get to know?

Q: It sounds like the country’s changing population is being reflected in TV and movies. Are there certain people or shows or movies that show this is taking place?

A: Where we can see the biggest changes is actually in kids’ programming, and it makes sense, considering the [U.S.] Census … Latinos are one in five Americans under [age] eighteen, one in four under [age] five. … A number of ’tween stars are of mixed descent. Someone like Selena Gomez, [who] is the star of Wizards of Waverly Place and she’s half Mexican-American, and Demi Lovato [star of the Disney Channel’s Camp Rock and Sonny With a Chance] is also half Latina. … I think it’s pretty deliberate on the part of studios like Disney.

Q: What are some of the broader lessons we can draw from how race is represented in the media?

A: What it means to be the ideal woman or ideal man is still usually the domain of the white characters, even when we’re seeing more nuanced representations. There have only been a few studies that have looked at American children of different backgrounds and how it impacts them in terms of what they are seeing in the media. … I think things are better than they used to be, but unfortunately for kids of color in the U.S., I think they still can come away from their experiences with the media feeling like there’s something not as good about them because they’re not white.

Q: One of the shows you study is Glee, and you wrote that its portrayal of diversity is both “satisfying and frustrating.” Can you explain what you meant by that?

A: It’s a very interesting show in presenting a very contradictory view of diversity and of notions of equality among people of different backgrounds. One reason is it wants to be modern and, in doing so, it wants to represent a diverse group of teenagers and teachers. … The show likes this idea of mashing up songs that are sometimes from different eras, and I think it’s a mash-up of attitudes towards race and racial equality. But to some degree, it’s meant to be satirical, so maybe that’s enough to allow us to continue watching it without being totally offended all the time.

Published in the Winter 2010 issue

Comments

  • Mark January 15, 2011

    Most of the people I know have lived our lives “post-racial”. So why is this topic still being brought up? What I find not only distrubing but alarming is the way men have been treated in the kids shows. Dad is either absent or an idiot. In the tween and teen shows the stupidity of both parents is really ramped up. Now I admit I haven’t been spending hours on end watching that stuff but I have seen a few epesodes of many shows and I have to say most have a bias against men especially men not of color. Does it not speak to where the society is and headed when in attempting to “entertain” childern they are subjected to attitudes that are in direct contridiction to family unity? Maybe that should be studied. And as far as diversity goes why doesn’t BET have any childrens shows? Maybe because what they see no value in it as black entertainment. Like it or not the attitudes and beliefs we chose to expose children to will help to shape those same things within them. TV like anything in our free market society will live and die by how much people like it. IT changes when people with money make it make a difference.

  • Mitch January 18, 2011

    Professor Beltran,

    What is a “diverse American?”

    Sincerely,
    Mitch

  • Zina January 23, 2011

    Mark,

    I find it disrespectful for you to say that BET does not value childrens shows. It sounds to me that you’re taking a roundabout way of saying that BET does not value children, especially black children, which they do. BET is an adult entertainment network that provides some family appropriate shows, but children are simply not their target audience. Can you say that MTV or MTV2 provide childrens shows and display that they value children? Take a look at this clip that was aired on MTV http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjL0011ORb4 and I think you’re answer will be no. My personal answer is HELL NO! So what type of values are they instilling in our children regardless of color? And why does BET have to be the station to air diverse childrens shows?

    We have a long way to go before we live in a post-racial society; you must have grown up in the future!

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