International Films Exploring Indigenous Roots

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Reading Responses
The readings present intriguing facts about the representation of various groups in film and television productions. Several issues stuck out to me after reading these three articles. The first is that Hollywood is interested in what the audience like and not creating a balanced society. The articles show that African Americans, Asians, Latin Americans, and Native Americans are underrepresented in film and TV productions. This is despite their population being overwhelming. The second issue that stuck out to me is that production firms are interested in pop culture-driven ideas. This has denied a chance to stories oriented on indigenous people's way of life. Thirdly, the articles outline the discrimination seen in Hollywood. The whites have personalized all aspects of film and TV productions, from on-screen, executives and directors to writers. Astonishingly, a group like the Latin Americans make up around 18% of the US population, but its composition in the film industry is less than 5% (Martinez & Xylanan). The percentage includes actors, editors, directors, writers, and executives in the sector.
The groups that make up the subjects of these articles have several common issues. They include under-representation in the film industry, negative portrayal when given airtime to feature, and all make up the lowest population in the United States. Latin Americans, African Americans, Asians, and Native Americans are all under-represented in Hollywood movies. Their cumulative population makes up more than 40% of the US population; thus, a handful of the audience, but Hollywood disregards this. The second similarity is that the groups are negatively portrayed when they appear on screen in movies. African Americans are often portrayed as criminals and playing negative roles (Variety). Asians are used to playing sexual roles, a negative projection (Venkatraman). The third similarity is that the groups addressed in the articles are the minority in the US. African Americans, Asians, Latin Americans, and Indigenous Americans separately make up a smaller population in the United States. This could be one of the reasons they are discriminated against in the film and TV production sectors.
After reading the reports, the Hollywood production company should be versatile enough to accommodate all the groups without discriminating. The best way is to have everything done in the ratio to the population. This means that the Latin Americans can get 18 % representation and the rest follow in the order of their population. This way, the production will not appear as discriminative. Secondly, the production should not follow the traditional stereotypes when assigning roles to characters from any of these groups. For example, African Americans should not always be used to playing roles of thieves and robbers. Instead, they sh...