JOUR 4250: Examining Media Portrayal
This week’s class discussion covered portrayals of certain groups in the media and whether or not these portrayals are positive or negative. Often times, journalists, directors, and other people who control how people are portrayed in the media will provide an uninformed depiction or a stereotype of the subject/character being shown. This results in an offensive and flawed representation of people from that specific group, generalizing them as a whole and ignoring individuality and truth. Examples utilized in class were people with disabilities, homeless individuals, and women in the media and we discussed what stereotypes are common when portraying people of these groups.
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In film and news, people with disabilities are often defined by said disabilities instead of being portrayed as a regular person. Sometimes, this is warranted by the person themself, but often it’s a stereotype perpetuated by journalists and filmmakers. Disabilities are portrayed as something the person must “overcome”, as if it’s one obstacle instead of a part of their everyday life. People with disabilities are also commonly depicted as chronically unhappy due to their condition. In Me Before You (2016), the deuteragonist and love interest of the main character is a man who was paralyzed in an accident and is portrayed as miserable and irritable, perpetuating the stereotype that having a disability means one will lead an unhappy life. Portrayals such as these take away from the fact that many people thrive despite their disabilities and lead completely functional lives, maintaining identities separate from their disabilities and refusing to be defined by them.
Homeless people are also often misrepresented in film and news. Predominantly in film, they are portrayed as mentally ill, drug addicted, and living on the streets. In reality, these people are defined as the “chronic homeless” and make up less than twenty percent of all homeless people (Everbach 2022). Similarly to disabilities, poverty is often described as something that can simply be “overcome”, as if it is a one-time obstacle and not a reoccurring condition, and that poverty leads an unhappy and miserable life. Most homeless individuals have jobs and simply don’t make enough to rise above the poverty line and most lead fine lives and have people to support them emotionally.
Stereotypical portrayals of women are so common in film that a test was invented to identify them: the Bechdel Test. To pass the test, a film must follow three rules: at least two women are featured (and named) in the film, the two women talk to each other, and they discuss a subject other than a man. A study conducted 2022 found that less than half of the most popular movies over the past few decades have passed the Bechdel Test (Appel & Gamble 2022). The test shows how male directors struggle to portray good female characters in their films but provides an easy solution — giving the characters depth and more to talk about than just their husbands and children.
