Asian characters on streaming shows were less stereotyped but still largely white-adjacent, a new joint study from USC’s Norman Lear Center and Gold House found.
The study, titled A Balancing Act for Asian Representation in Streaming:
Visibility Doesn’t Always Mean Cultural Specificity, examined the top 100 streaming shows of 2022 and found (after removing titles released outside 2022 and unscripted/international titles) 49 had Asian characters. Of the 347 characters identified as Asian, 6% were categorized as leads, one-third were major characters and the remaining two-thirds were minor characters.
Of those Asian characters, 82% were race-agnostic, meaning race either had nothing to do with the character’s storyline, or was referenced only briefly in relation to the character, like Ethan Spiller (Will Sharpe) in HBO’s “The White Lotus.” Per the study, this suggests that Asian actors have been able to secure visible and prominent roles that are not limited by their race or ethnicity.
The study, titled A Balancing Act for Asian Representation in Streaming:
Visibility Doesn’t Always Mean Cultural Specificity, examined the top 100 streaming shows of 2022 and found (after removing titles released outside 2022 and unscripted/international titles) 49 had Asian characters. Of the 347 characters identified as Asian, 6% were categorized as leads, one-third were major characters and the remaining two-thirds were minor characters.
Of those Asian characters, 82% were race-agnostic, meaning race either had nothing to do with the character’s storyline, or was referenced only briefly in relation to the character, like Ethan Spiller (Will Sharpe) in HBO’s “The White Lotus.” Per the study, this suggests that Asian actors have been able to secure visible and prominent roles that are not limited by their race or ethnicity.
- 11/8/2023
- by Lawrence Yee
- The Wrap
Is mere representation the end goal?
According to the comprehensive diversity in film report released by Annenberg Inclusion Initiative in August, Asians were the only characters of color to see a steady increase in the past 16 years, shooting up from 3% of speaking characters in 2007 to 16% in 2022. With promising progress on the quantitative front, fellow USC research group the Norman Lear Center teamed up with Gold House for a qualitative analysis that could well be considered a lesson in representation 2.0 or even 3.0.
Looking at major Asian characters in last year’s 100 top-ranked series and films on streaming platforms, the researchers found that few of these characters fell into stereotypic roles (except for the one about model minorities, with nearly half of Asian characters shown in intellectual careers like Stem), and most in fact were depicted with very little reference to their race or ethnicity at all.
But that’s not automatically a good thing.
According to the comprehensive diversity in film report released by Annenberg Inclusion Initiative in August, Asians were the only characters of color to see a steady increase in the past 16 years, shooting up from 3% of speaking characters in 2007 to 16% in 2022. With promising progress on the quantitative front, fellow USC research group the Norman Lear Center teamed up with Gold House for a qualitative analysis that could well be considered a lesson in representation 2.0 or even 3.0.
Looking at major Asian characters in last year’s 100 top-ranked series and films on streaming platforms, the researchers found that few of these characters fell into stereotypic roles (except for the one about model minorities, with nearly half of Asian characters shown in intellectual careers like Stem), and most in fact were depicted with very little reference to their race or ethnicity at all.
But that’s not automatically a good thing.
- 11/8/2023
- by Rebecca Sun
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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