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Sena A. Wright

Erin Rogers

Writing 2010

11 March 2019

Racial Stereotypes Within Television

After a long day, families in the United States spend their evenings retired in the family

room watching their favorite television shows. Although this may be a broad assumption, for

many it has been a reality for the last several decades. Television itself represents individuals

coming together to watch something that the whole family is able to relate to. Whether it’s a

family comedy illustrating teenagers going through high school, to a drama that may evoke

strong emotion, television is a large part of American lives. With that said, the amount of time

that Americans use to sit down and watch television is outstanding, and the influence that those

television shows may have overtime affects Americans more than they would like to admit. By

watching these TV shows, most minds will adopt the type of thinking that those half hour

episodes decide to portray, resulting in nurtured biases against specific types of people. Not only

have evening shows become a large part of media, but they have also adapted into a large part of

pop culture. The stereotypes of specific people on the basis of race have become normalized on

television shows and therefore are a large part of the reason that they have become normalized in

pop culture as well.

The Office is one of the more well known and popularized American television shows

within the last decade. In the second episode named “Diversity Day”, the workers are forced to

listen to stereotypical racism that has been poorly justified by their boss, Michael Scott. The

entirety of the episode is focused on racist stereotypes of every single person in the office, with
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the exception of Caucasian people. Stereotypical racism within the episode even included races

of people that do not work in the office. The irony of the episode is that pop culture has

normalized racism so largely that the general idea of “racist stereotypes” is being made to laugh

at. Michael Scott in the series of The Office represents society as a whole. Such as Michael Scott,

media and television may not have intentions that are bad, but the blatant stereotypical racism is

normalized. It has become so normalized that most people are able to laugh at the honesty of the

popularized television show. Most adults have grown up with similar television related to

underlying racism. According to an article named “Racial Stereotypes in Children’s Television

Commercials”, Americans have grown up with children’s commercials revealed to have

underlying racism. From a young age children grow up watching commercials with little

representation of minorities including lead roles and social interactions. The article states the

importance of representation through television because it teaches self importance to children

starting at a very young age. The article also explains that, “Ethnic portrayal in children's

advertising is an important public policy and self-regulatory topic that may influence children's

self-perception and brand perception”. Though commercials do not speak to children to large

extents, overtime the lack of representation will become abundantly clear to children who are

being underrepresented. This is one of the factors that creates a barrier in pop culture in the issue

of stereotyped minorities. Another article named “Racial Stereotyping on Television: A

Comparison of the Behavior of Both Black and White Television Characters” argues that

television episodes targeted at a specific race portrays stereotypical representation from both

sides. Likely this results in the stereotyping of certain races in real life, and the causes may be

media outlets wrongfully portraying different groups of people. The racist stereotyping is

continued to be fueled by pop culture and the society that surrounds those ideologies.
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Since the age of The Office beginning in 2005 and ending in 2013, the world of pop

culture has arguably changed tremendously. A new generations of evening sitcoms has arisen

including the new television show named Grown-ish. The series follows a young girl named

Zoey Johnson experiencing college as an incoming freshman. Although she is young, Zoey goes

through difficult life lessons trying to juggle her social life, education, physical & mental health,

and more. The majority of the lead roles within Grown-ish are played by African American

actors. There is no stereotypical black side friend, and the television series defies all stereotypes

including having characters have in-depth characteristics and problems. Since the release of

Grown-ish, the TV show has been praised highly for its characters and storylines. The TV series

has taken a normalized problem of stereotyping otherwise seen in almost any other television

show and led a different type of “normal” into pop culture. Even though Grown-ish is creating a

new “normal”, one study named “Naturalizing Racial Differences Through Comedy: Asian,

Black, and White Views on Racial Stereotypes in Rush Hour 2” believes that racial stereotypes

are created within film to be laughed at by the depicted race. The study showed that “most

participants, regardless of race, found the film's racial jokes inoffensive. Many Asian and Black

participants found a positive source of pleasure in the negative portrayals of their own race and

did not produce oppositional discourse”. Seemingly within the study, the idea of film having an

impact on society and pop culture was not a large factor. In fact, the people used in the study

openly embraced laughing at the stereotypes portrayed about their own races. In contrary to the

article of “Racial Stereotypes in Children’s Television Commercials”, the study argued that

rather than letting stereotypes in television affect society’s pop culture, to instead be able to

laugh at the stereotypes that are portrayed.

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Another television series introduced within the last decade named Sex Education follows

a boy named Otis learning the ways of high school while helping other students with the

education of sex. Despite creating a business and learning to make money off of his knowledge,

Otis still continues to faces challenges within his social life. The significance of Sex Education is

how each character is portrayed individually. The show has incredibly large representation of the

LGBTQ+ community, however still has an African American teenager portrayed as Otis’ best

friend. With that said, Otis’ best friend Eric is not presented as a stereotyped race within the

television show. Instead, he is given incredibly large depth, strength, and intelligence. Eric is a

diverse portrayal of African Americans as well as a representative for the LGBTQ+ community,

creating yet again, a different “normalized” way of portraying races as much less stereotyped.

When relating Sex Education to the TV series of The Office, a lot has changed within the last

decade. Both television shows have depictions of several different races, but the way that those

races are presented are different. In The Office, the few minorities that work in the office are

constantly pointed out as different by Michael Scott, or rather metaphorically, society, and in Sex

Education the characters are not as blatantly criticized due to their race. That’s not to say that

there isn’t a problem with racism and stereotypes within film to this day, but slowly different

races have become more normalized in television shows. It’s much more common to see

different races other than caucasian protagonists in film today compared to a decade ago, but

racial stereotyping is still a large problem. As stated in the article “The Effect of Prime Time

Television Ethnic/Racial Stereotypes on Latino and Black Americans: A Longitudinal National

Level Study”, “Much is known about the negative consequences of exposure to ethnic/racial

stereotypes in the media, on White audiences”. The issue of racial stereotyping is largely ignored

in film, and because of this, creates negative connotations of races in real life. The previous
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study states that there is little to no evidence about the effect on minorities with racial

stereotyping in television, but a very large effect on audiences that are white. This may be the

case because minorities who watch television are able to see in-depth characters portrayed by

Caucasian actors, while Caucasian actors only see stereotyped minorities within television

shows. This gives them a negative portrayal of different races when it comes to representation

societally.

Despite racial stereotyping occurring in the majority of American television shows, more

television series’ have become prominent with the inclusion and depth of characters who are

minorities. The film industry still has decades to go to discontinue racial stereotyping, however,

within the last decade, more and more representation has occurred for many minority

communities. Since the release of The Office, many have either chosen to embrace the irony of

racial stereotyping within the show, or have chosen to create more representation inside of recent

television series’ that give young children a role model to be able to look up to. The study

labeled “Racial Stereotypes in Children’s Television Commercials” decided that children from a

young age are taught that different human beings are a certain way because of how they are

chosen to be portrayed in media. Children are nurtured into believing that the ideas in pop

culture are true, therefore creating a racial standard that puts other human being inside of a box.

However, racial stereotyping in media is changing and with that, also comes the changing of pop

culture. Film, specifically television, has a huge impact on pop culture and the societal standards

that many are forced to conform to. This may be the case, but the last decade has proven that a

new “normalized” portrayal becoming more dominant and is changing society in a whole new

light. Families will be able to come home, gather in the family room, and watch a whole new era

of television changing the way that families within America view the world.
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Works Cited

Tukachinsky, Riva, et al. “The Effect of Prime Time Television Ethnic/Racial Stereotypes on
Latino and Black Americans: A Longitudinal National Level Study.” Journal of Broadcasting &
Electronic Media, vol. 61, no. 3, Sept. 2017, pp. 538–556. EBSCOhost,
doi:10.1080/08838151.2017.1344669.
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Maher, Jill K., et al. “Racial Stereotypes in Children’s Television Commercials.” Journal of
Advertising Research, vol. 48, no. 1, Mar. 2008, pp. 80–93. EBSCOhost,
doi:10.2501/S0021849908080100.

Reid, Pamela Trotman. “Racial Stereotyping on Television: A Comparison of the Behavior of

Both Black and White Television Characters.” Journal of Applied Psychology, vol. 64, no. 5,
Oct. 1979, pp. 465–471. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1037/0021-9010.64.5.465.

Ji Hoon Park, et al. “Naturalizing Racial Differences Through Comedy: Asian, Black, and White
Views on Racial Stereotypes in Rush Hour 2.” Journal of Communication, vol. 56, no. 1, Mar.
2006, pp. 157–177. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2006.00008.x.

“Diversity Day.” The Office. NBC. Los Angeles. 24 Mar. 2005. Television.

Grown-ish. ABC. Los Angeles. 3 Jan. 2018. Television.

Sex Education. Netflix. Los Angeles. 11 Jan. 2018. Television.