A White Christmas

Jackson, D.Z. (1991, December 25). A White Christmas. The Boston Globe

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OVERVIEW

 

(Download White Christmas overview as a PDF)

 

Watching children and parents shop for Christmas videos at the Cambridge (MA) multicultural Central Square, Jackson was struck with the unequal promises of available video fare:

White girls will see white girls romance white princes in ‘The Little Mermaid’ and ‘Cinderella’ and adventure with junkyard dogs in ‘All Dogs Go to Heaven’.

 

Children of color get the lump of coal. They see no heroes of their own in videos for boys and girls.

 

The author considers the fact that "America is 76% white, 12% African American, 9% Latino, just under 3% Asian American, and just under 1% American Indian." Yet, of the 533 video boxes in the ‘Family’ and ‘Kids’ sections, the 825 human images (real or animated and discernible from two feet away) provide a gross inequity in role models for minority children. The following are the percentages of the images of available:

White	(768 or) 93%
African American	4.6%
Asian American	1.3%
American Indian	.08%
Latino

.01%

 

 

To put it another way, in this sample there are "one and a half white humans for every box...one African-American for every 22 boxes...one Asian for every 48, one American Indian for every 76, and one Latino for 533." Jackson continues:

The disparity is so bad that after you get past white men (279 images), white boys (200), white girls (162) and white women (1270), the next most numerous images were animals...

While white people, boy or girl, man or woman, male or female were behind no animals, African-American girls were behind bears, dogs, cats, birds, elephants, dinosaurs, lions, deer, horses, mice, cheetahs, monkeys, pigs, seals, fish, camels, chipmunks, rabbits, sheep, hippopotamuses, alligators, moose, squirrels, turtles, bees, penguins and crows.

There was not a single video of science fiction, mystery, adventure or romance where an African American or Latino was the principal, self-reliant hero.

You will never see black children in E.T.’s California or Mary Poppins' Britain. But Africa cannot be Africa without white people on safari....The cover of "Cheetah" shows an African boy sandwiched between two white boys (and reveals): "They taught him how to play video games. He showed them how to survive!"

..."Dirkham Detective Agency" had a white boy, white girl, and black boy looking for stolen dogs...the white boy made the key decisions. The black boy had the mishaps of Buckwheat.

This makes a mockery of viewership patterns. African Americans are Hollywood’s most loyal audience. We are 12% of the U.S. population, but about 25% of prime time television watchers and 20% of paying moviegoers. We watch 70 hours of TV a week, compared with 48 for other households, according to Nielsen ratings.

Hollywood is guilty of intellectual suffocation, seeing to it that children of color see only white people flying through the air on bicycles, dirt bikes, cars, ropes, spaceships and umbrellas. Only white children meet wizards, conquer the wild, solve crimes and computers, rescue friends, scale lofty peaks, walk yellow-brick roads, have romance, and become princes and princesses and queens and kings. Only white children are allowed to feel powerful.

 

Childhood is supposed to be a time of dreams, adventure, invention and not-so-subtle preparation for leadership. In the videos that magic is available for white children...boys and girls of color...find they have been denied their own existence.

 

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

1. How often have you considered or talked to anyone about the disparity of role models offered to minority children and youth in current media?
2. What are some of your feelings and reactions in reading this article?
3. What is most striking from the above information?
4. What is the impact of media role models upon children and teenagers as they are socialized and develop their identities and self images?
5.  

1. What is needed for the youth of each of the aforementioned ethnic groups? What can you and your institutions do about it?

 

IMPLICATIONS

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• Art reflects and affects the growing process and state of a culture. Popular media show us what we are, what some think we are, and shape us into homogeneous consumers. It can also drive thoughtful people to discuss what we—personally and corporately—want to avoid and need to change.

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• In youth groups, classrooms, and homes, young consumers of the video industry should discuss with their friends and adults the impact of gender and ethnic stereotyping in the media. This article could be useful for such discussions.

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• Each young person needs the opportunity to talk about how his or her own quests for personal identity and self-image are affected by role models and media distortion and neglect.

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1. Hollywood and television have been forced to change their offerings by consumer and organizational pressures.

Dean Borgman cCYS