Recently, the movie industry has been under massive scrutiny due to the Oscars' lack of diversity in awards and recognitions, so much so that an apt twitter phrase has spawned, #OscarsSoWhite (Twitter), which speaks to the general cast of nominees and recipients in the Oscars showcase. Under further investigation, there is not only a discreet immorality in the movie industry, but also in mass media and popular culture in its entirety. To elaborate, there is an obscene representation of marginalized communities that actually seems harmless to the untrained eye until one considers the offensive implications that are displayed. In regards to marginalized communities which include ethnic groups, the LGBT community, the physically handicapped, and even women are portrayed as stereotypical views by society. To expand further, these stereotypical views are nothing but prejudicial social labels of people formed through societies' past social norms. Secondary to this argument is an anticipated fact that there is a hefty percentage in the general cast of pop culture personnel that are largely represented by young Caucasian men. Furthermore, there are obvious similarities between popular programs displayed in today's media, whereas there are not many roles casted with ethnic groups, or other marginalized identity groups showing a serious underrepresentation amongst them both. To supplement the two prior assertions, there is a severe deficiency in recognition amongst awards, when referencing identity groups and those who act and direct in today's media. The backlash caused by this was not without merit as the Oscars nominated a Caucasian-concentrated list of actors for two years in a row. Taking everything into consideration, my central argument is that media has a negative portrayal of identity groups in mass media and pop culture, and also demonstrates a constant oversight in acknowledgement ceremonies.

To begin with, pop culture displays the overweight in a very poor manner, in that the obese are shown to be harassed and disrespected by other characters in a show or pathetic in the eyes of an unforgiving audience. Chelsea A. Heuer, MPH addresses these cases and more in her article, "Fattertainment"  --  Obesity in the Media. Heuer also questions why the overweight are actually targeted; " ... why is it okay to make fun of obese people?" The truth of the matter is that it is never okay and that this problem is very common in mass media. To put it in another way, "because obese people are perceived to be responsible for the obesity epidemic, society feels they deserve what they get, including laughter and humiliation" contrasts Heuer. After all, "The news media takes a victim-blaming approach, attributing America's weight problems to poor choices and laziness" Heuer further contrasts. What the research associate concludes is that society is harmful to the overweight in several ways such as creating impediments against losing weight and is slowly becoming a social norm or acceptable, which must not happen. As a result, Heuer has created a plan of action against this situation. Heuer posits a short list of solutions that range from being more empathetic, to featuring the overweight "in regular, non-stereotypical roles".

Weight Bias in the Media: A Review of Recent Research is another in-depth article that continues on the issue of fat-shaming in mass media and was created by Dr. Rheanna N. Ata in conjunction with Dr. J. Kevin Thompson. Although fat-shaming may seem trivial, it is in fact crucial in terms of today's concern over the destructive portrayal of identity groups. This article both confirms and describes this topic by identifying examples used in today's pop culture. " ... characters  --  were first categorized in terms of their physical attractiveness as physically unattractive, average or normal looking, or physically attractive and then coded on other variables ... " the doctors both examine, who further suggests that the outcome of these "Results indicated that overweight characters were almost three times more likely to be classified as physically unattractive than underweight or normal-weight characters ... ". These findings, similarly, support my argument that mass media has destructive views towards any identity group that is not seen as acceptable in the eyes of popular culture. These findings also matter because they may therefore cause audiences to share negative stereotypes about obese persons and then breed more narrow-minded generalizations.

To illustrate a slight change from a general representation of the physically overweight to a more focused idea of the physically handicapped, mass media has only recently begun to incorporate characters with disabilities. However, it should be noted that statistics show that less than 1.4 percent of characters in "primetime broadcast's regular characters ...  are depicted as people with disabilities". These statistics are borrowed from the Where We Are On TV 15-16 report which was published by the organization known as GLAAD. Even though the organization typically focuses on the LGBT community, their report covers other marginalized communities including ethnic and gender groups and how they are shown in current forms of media. With that in mind, GLAAD conversely lists a few shows by creators who "fairly and accurately" share the stories of people living with disabilities "going forward". While it is true that there are some series that don't deface the social image of disability, I still maintain that the majority of media forms still discriminate against disabled persons because statistics from GLAAD's article also shows that 12% of U.S. citizens reported living with a disability but " ... scripted primetime broadcast programming continues to fail to reflect the reality of this demographic". This matters because if series and other media forms would be more incorporative of other identity groups, then steps may be taken towards a more divisive pop culture.

What these two identity groups have in common are that they are either negatively portrayed or discounted from media altogether, based on the evidences. But they are among many other marginalized communities who share the same fate or deal with something similar at least. Many of which are masses of individuals in gender and sexual identity groups such as the LGBT community. These individuals are by far, one of the most discriminated individuals in society and media today, based on more research done by GLAAD. GLAAD insists that pop culture should stop using harmful and archaic typecasts as it begins to include gender fluid narratives into forms of media. These typecasts include, in terms of the transgender stories, "portraying trans characters as tragic victims; depicting the transition process as medically dangerous; portraying trans people as killers, psychopaths, and villains, who are often mentally ill; and portraying the majority of trans women as sex workers". What these stereotypes do is affect an audience's ideas of this community by suggesting that transgender people are either weak, hostile, or are sub-par human beings. Of course, these inaccurate classifications do not reflect well upon the pop culture that created these characters and narratives. This suggests that the pop culture who created these classifications are closed minded and phobic to change or new things. In addition to the gender fluid, homosexual identity groups are also underrepresented in primetime programming on broadcast and cable networks. Studies show, from GLAAD, that gay men represent the majority of regular and recurring LGBT characters in both categories and still their representation dropped since last year's statistics. On the contrary, the bisexual representation rose in both categories. On the one hand, I agree with the report that there has been an increase in some areas of homosexual representation. But on the other hand, I still insist that " ... they", 'they' being networks as stated by GLAAD, "must also do better to reflect the full diversity of the LGBT community". To reinforce this claim, the Where We Are On TV 15-16 report also shows that lesbians experienced a representation drop since the last report. What this information means collectively is that the LGBT community's representation does not accurately reflect their representation in today's society.

Moving on to significantly larger gender groups, there is copious amounts of controversy surrounding the female and male gender. Women and men today, in media, are seen as fulfilling binary gender roles and typecasts, objectified and sexualized, and subliminally setting the social constructs of society. But before divulging any further information, I must discuss what social constructs are. This is just to show how pop culture, which is influenced by general ideas of a social construct, cling to its own form of social structure when portraying various communities in mass media. They are the unspoken, unwritten, and unconscious rules that societies adhere to that affect our idea of self-identity and social relationships. Or as defined by Michael O'Shaughnessy and Jane Stadler in their book, Media And Society, a position that "sees identity as constructed by external social forces such as the media, family, education, religion, and expectations of community members" (O'Shaughnessy and Stadler 351).

Beginning with women, they tend to exhibit patterns in media roles; patterns that generalize women as passive, weak, sometimes maternal, and emotional characters who are usually objectified by their level of attractiveness. Normally, they are supportive additions to a narrative that depicts women using their physical attractiveness to gain power, but this in itself reduces women to their sexuality. To go into detail, historically, the most common advertisements are aimed at men with the idea that women are aesthetically pleasing sexual objects; to give the impression that if you get the product, you get the girl. Examples of this include fast cars alongside attractive women, or jewelry merchants which suggest that jewelry is the only thing women want. Furthermore, in other media forms, women are cast in maternal house-wife roles like cooking and cleaning and showing compassion to other characters. In their discussion of the gender difference myth, yet another method to further separate the female member into a generality, O'Shaughnessy and Stadler quotes Professor Deborah Cameron, who analyzes the suggestion "that men and women are different beings from alien planets and therefore speak different kinds of language" (O'Shaughnessy and Stadler 352). In retaliation, women have taken a stance against these types of portrayals in a movement known as feminism whose goal is total equality to that of a man. But this approach has also seen criticism as it "has taken on negative connotations, including, ironically, that feminists are unfeminine (hairy, power-hungry, butch lesbian separatists who aim to oppress men)" (O'Shaughnessy and Stadler 355). But perceptions like this only acts as a hindrance to feminist goals of equality in pop culture.

Another issue regarding women is that they also experience underrepresentation in pop culture such that women compose the majority of the population, but there is still an absence of women in leading roles on today's sitcoms. Patricia Leavy and Adrienne M. Trier-Bieniek's book, Gender & Pop Culture, coincide with these findings as only "45% of characters on contemporary dramas are played by women", and even more so, "the number falls to 10% for comedies" (Leavy and Trier-Bieniek 113). This means that men are occupying the majority of lead roles in pop culture. Although I grant that women are discriminated against in pop culture, I also insist that men also experience stereotypes to a certain degree. By contrast to their female counterpart, men are typically placed in leading roles and perceived as strong, aggressive, and sometimes paternal figures who are seen as the dynamic character in most situations that progress the narrative's storyline. Normally, media forms show men as athletic, powerful (whether it be social or economic), and usually seeking a woman's affection. Examples of this include the vast majority of action movies where the man endures trials to 'win' the day. O'Shaughnessy and Stadler refer to these findings when stating that "the valuation of physical power can be seen in in sports ... and in films ... that is confirmed in countless media narratives in which the hero proves himself and wins the day through physical contest" (O'Shaughnessy and Stadler 374). What these generalizations do is continue to expand the social void between men and women and spawn even more generalizations about society to audiences. In addition, if members of the audience decide to seek administrative roles in the media industry, they will already be influenced by past stereotypes and continue to perpetuate even more stereotypes, causing a malicious cycle.

Moving on to my last argument, I find that many actors and directors in pop culture are constantly overlooked. Also I argue that there is a serious lack in diversity among the general cast of characters in mass media, whereas the majority of mass media characters do not include ethnic groups. These findings are backed by NPR Staff who did an interview on diversity for their article, Diversity Sells  --  But Hollywood Remains Overwhelmingly White, Male. NPR Staff questioned Dr. Darnell Hunt and Dr. Ana-Christina Ramon on their 2015 Hollywood Diversity Report. NPR staff's article quotes Hunt when he emphasizes "At every level, in every arena,  ... minorities are under-represented in the industry," when referring to mass media, both in front and behind the camera. "And the only question really is how serious, how egregious that level of under-representation is." NPR staff also cites studies that depict Hollywood diversity from the 2015 Hollywood Diversity Report; studies showing how over 82 % of the workforce (lead film actors, film directors, film writers, broadcast TV show creators, and cable TV show creators) behind mass media is inherently Caucasian. These findings matter because predominantly, Caucasian males hold the majority of positions both behind and in front of the camera, marginalizing all ethnic, and identity, groups in the process.

Moreover, the ethnic and identity groups that are present are still overlooked for their accomplishments in pop culture. But periodicals like that of the Horn News would stand to disagree with this type of accusation. The Horn News' article [EXCLUSIVE] The Oscars aren't racist ...  and we can prove it is an opposing an argument to other periodicals like The New York Times' article Hollywood's Inclusion Problem Extends Beyond the Oscars, Study Says. It should be noted that both articles cite Dr. Stacy L. Smith, a co-author of Race/Ethnicity in 600 Popular Films: Examining On Screen Portrayals and Behind the Camera Diversity, along with Marc Choueiti, and Dr. Katherine Pieper. On the one hand Mike McPhate, the author of the Times' article, quotes Smith, who states that there is "a very, very narrow slice of humanity getting nominated because the entire ecosystem has a problem". McPhate is referring to the Academy Awards, and is implying that pop culture's entire industry has a problem. And based on the backlash over the lack of diversity from this year's acting category, one would agree to this implication. On the other hand, The Horn News staff also quotes Smith stating that " ... out of the top 100 films from 2007  --  2014, 12.5% of the actors were black. The difference between 12.5% and 13.2%", 13.2% being the contribution of African American actors to film roles, "is considered statistically insignificant". I concede that the difference between the statistics supplied by The Horn News staff is minimal, however I still stress that the fact that there is even a difference at all is intolerable.

Based on the evidence given, I conclude that pop culture, as an industry, is corrupted by past stereotypes and social guidelines causing a rift in equality as well as representation of both identity and services rendered. Identities such as marginalized communities and services rendered such as those by actors and producers who work tirelessly to create entertainment for the mass media. One sound solution to this epidemic of misrepresentation and oversight is to remain open-minded toward thoughts that include addition and adaptation. Staying open-minded to addition is to encompass various ethnic groups, gender groups, and even embracing more of the physically challenged when casting for a role. Furthermore, addition may not only capture a larger audience, but differentiate casts of actors to answer the problem of inclusion. Adapting, similarly, obtains a larger audience because varying media has the possibility of reaching more than the recurring audience. But the intended purpose of adaptation is to acclimate to modern beliefs and practices that veer from the prejudicial stereotypes that preceded these modern beliefs. A slow blend of addition and adaptation would create a seamless transition to better pop culture, and maybe even society.
