When asked, in a 2002 poll, whether the government should preserve and enhance multiculturalism, 82 per cent of Canadians said yes. So why, asks Lionel Lumb, from Carleton University’s School of Journalism, "are the millions of minorities that are so visible on our streets and in shopping malls, our offices and health care centres, so invisible on our television screens?"

Seventy per cent of the dramas, sitcoms and series that Canadians watch are produced in the U.S. Images of minorities are lacking on those screens and they’re lacking on Canadian screens as well.

The "White-Washing" of Entertainment

Back in 1993, the American Screen Actors Guild (SAG) began to collect statistics on the number of ethnic and minority actors appearing in American television and films. The results were grim. Members of visible and ethnic minorities were significantly under-represented across the whole range of entertainment media. The face of North American entertainment was overwhelmingly white, mostly male and young.

Critics and advocacy groups began to pressure the industry to produce shows and films that adequately reflect the racial and ethnic diversity we find in our communities and there have been significant gains. In its 2000 report, SAG announced a seven per cent increase in industry jobs and record numbers of roles for performers of colour, with African Americans accounting for 15 per cent of all characters in television and film. However, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) pointed out that of the four major networks’ 26 new prime-time shows for the 2000 season, none featured people of colour in lead roles.

Canadian television—both public and private—is well known for creating programming for children and young people that reflects our multicultural society. But critics of our adult programming echo concerns voiced in the U.S. A 1994 study by Magali Dupont and Fo Niemi found that minorities in Quebec-based dramas were cast in secondary roles, usually in poorly paid occupations and unstable domestic situations, and non-white men tended to be less heroic and virile than their white counterparts.

A small study released in 2002 by researchers at B.C.’s Simon Fraser University shows similar patterns. In the nearly 70 hours of Canadian programming examined, visible minorities made up 12 per cent of 1,200 characters—not far below the actual percentage of visible minorities in the national population. But again, it’s the way these minorities are represented that comes under fire.

"What we’re seeing is a very superficial level of inclusion, says researcher Shane Halasz. These characters aren’t too central to the story line," he points out; and the workplace "seems to be a convenient place to include a person of colour for cosmetic purposes—without being obliged to look at their culture or what happens in their homes."

According to Canadian actor Dhirendra, the problem of treating minorities like props is rooted in the producers’ discomfort, behind-the-scenes, with challenging the status quo. Nor, he adds, do writers like to write about things they don’t understand.

Misrepresentation in Video Games

Though television has established a learning curve with respect to fair minority portrayals, the video games industry seems not yet to have got the message. A 2001 study by the U.S. organization Children Now, entitled Fair Play -- Violence, Gender and Race in Video Games examined some of the most popular games to assess the extent of stereotyping. It found that:

• most protagonists (86 per cent) were white males
  
  
• non-white males were portrayed in stereotypical ways—seven out of ten Asian characters as fighters, and eight out of ten African-Americans as sports competitors
  
  
• nearly nine out of ten African-American females were victims of violence (twice the rate of white females)
  
  
• 79 per cent of African-American males were shown as verbally and physically aggressive, compared to 57 per cent of white males

The Impact on Viewers

Entertainment media say a lot to their viewers about who counts in society. Temple University professor George Gerbner is concerned that portrayals of minority characters in entertainment media affect the ways children see themselves and others.

Children Now’s 1998 study A Different World: Children’s Perceptions of Race and Class in Media supports that conclusion. Their research found that children associate white characters with various attributes: having lots of money, being well educated, being a leader, doing well in school, and being intelligent. Conversely, they associate minority characters with breaking the law, having a hard time financially, being lazy, and acting goofy.

Gerbner argues that if you are over-represented, you see many opportunities, many choices. The reverse is true if you’re under-represented. The media can grant legitimacy by including people and showing them respect, he argues, and so fair and equal representation is an essential part of a healthy and tolerant multicultural society.

It Matters Who Makes It

In 2002, a UCLA study concluded that "minorities are even more underrepresented in key behind-the-scenes creative and decision-making positions than they are on the [television] screen." Many analysts are concerned that the dearth of minority executives, producers, directors and screenwriters is fuelling the tendency to ignore or misrepresent ethnic groups.

The NAACP’s 2000 survey of Hollywood and Beverly Hills screen writers found that only 7 per cent of the 839 respondents were members of minority groups. Furthermore, says the NAACP, ethnic writers in the television industry are ghettoized—83 per cent of the black writers surveyed in 2000 wrote for shows starring primarily black people. It was almost unheard of for a black writer to "cross over" into shows with white stars—even though white writers often made the transition to black shows. As one network told black writer Jay Dyer, "This isn’t a black show. I don’t need a black writer."

The dearth of multicultural movie writers and producers can also directly affect how minorities are portrayed on the big screen. Actor Garret Wang reports that a casting director once told him he wasn’t doing a correct Japanese accent until he began using a Cantonese-Chinese accent—"you know … 'I give you two free egg roll if you bring laundry into my store.' And she said, 'That’s it. That’s the one.'"

Many advocates argue that it’s time for significant change. Lionel Lumb reminds us that the face of Canada has changed over the past 40 years. In 1961, visible minorities accounted for 3 per cent of the population of Toronto. By 1991, the figure was 30 per cent and today, it is over 50 per cent.

Lumb concludes, "It’s clear that Canada’s minorities have entered the mainstream, but Canada’s broadcasting mainstream still flows along blindly in some sort of self-created canyon from which it can’t see the Canadian reality… Diversity is not a drawback—it’s a treasure for Canada and Canadians to celebrate. There could be so much more to television and radio programming, and it’s time that broadcasters got the message that reflecting diversity is not a duty, it’s a delight."