Talk:Tokenism/Archives/2018

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Tim Scott and the tone of this page

Why is Tim Scott in the “see also”- tab of this article? Are the writers of this article subtle implying that president Trump practices tokenism by including Scott on his tax bill? Also this page seems to be written very subjectivity and the issue is presented from the progressive point of view. Largezo (talk) 10:06, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Page Analysis

As part of my media literacy class, I was asked to do an analysis of this Wikipedia page. Here are my answers so my professor can see: The topic is backed up with very reliable references. The majority of the references come straight from textbooks or published, scholarly reviewed articles. Though the sources are reliable, another thing to note is that they come from a variety of sources. The majority are from textbooks and scholarly articles, but there are also some from newspaper-type websites, the Oxford Journal, an interview with Malcolm X, etc. It’s such a widespread variety and this is greatly beneficial to readers. However, the most recent, up-to-date source cited was from May of 2017. This is quite some time ago since we are nearing December of 2018, almost 2019. I would go in and find more current references to update my information. It’s incredibly beneficial to do so since tokenism is an ever expanding topic. There is the tiniest amount of information on tokenism. It is mainly definition based and there are few examples with real-life information on the topics. I wish there were more instances on the political and media aspects of tokenism since I know for a fact that there is so much information out there that is not being highlighted on the page. The links all work swimmingly and there are no instances of close paraphrasing or plagiarism. Also, there is nothing irrelevant or distracting in the article. The article seems to be neutral, however I still do think there is a lack of deeper information on it. Since there’s nothing current on the page, I feel readers are being deprived slightly. There is so much to report on that seems missing from this page simply due to lack up dates. I don’t think any viewpoints are missing necessarily, but I do think the information is lacking an important modernized scope on the topic. None of the information is necessarily out of date, but there should definitely be edits made to bring the page up to more modern standards. Sydneyadie (talk) 15:20, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Article Edit Draft COM 220

Politics: Tokenism in politics is seen when parties will back a candidate who, though they may not be qualified, is unique and represents a minority group. This then encourages voters to back this candidate because they feel represented, though the political views this token candidate represents may not match those of the voters. The New York Times dives into address tokenism in politics by mentioning Nikki Haley. Haley is first generation American, having Indian immigrants as parents. Despite the fact that she has little experience with foreign policy, President Trump chose her as the current United States Ambassador to the United Nations.

Television: In 2012, Acura put out a casting call for their commercial where they stated that the main actor must be a “nice looking, friendly, not too dark” African American. Sydneyadie (talk) 15:31, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi Sydney! I consider myself to be pretty aware of the misrepresentation of African Americans in media but I had no idea about the Acura casting call. It makes us think of what kind of people they want in certain commercials, movies, etc. 2601:18C:CE80:31DC:38EA:9264:FFB9:E07 (talk) 00:26, 24 November 2018 (UTC)s0316294

"It makes us think of what kind of people they want in certain commercials, movies, etc. "

How is this new information? TVTropes has a page called Nut Not Too Black for several years now. The concept of the trope is the following:

  • "After a long struggle in gaining visibility and acceptance in the entertainment world, ethnically-African actors and actresses have many more opportunities in Hollywood and on television than they ever had before. Some have become huge stars in their own right. Unfortunately, as these new opportunities grew, a new dark side of 'racial' bias emerged. Or should we say: "a new light side." "
  • Fair skin is a common beauty standard by some cultures (meaning every culture that isn't Native American or African there about), one strengthened by Euro-centrism ('the West'note produces or influences the majority of the world's media). However, most of the world's population is possessed of brown skin tones of varying shades. As the trope title states, this hits ethnic Africans particularly hard; some 'Western' casting directors are in the habit of only—or mostly—hiring non-European actors and actresses with lighter skin tones because they assume that they will be more relatable to their largely ethnic-European audiences. Black actresses are hit even harder (as detailed here) due to Eurocentric beauty standards favoring fair skin for women. Essentially, most of humanity has brown/copper skin tones and pale skin ideals of beauty (ironically the opposite of America, which tends to like tanned skin), which causes ethic problems when put against the needs of business and catering to the most normal skins and most common beauty ideals to appeal to the most potential customers."
  • "In a word, this phenomenon has been called "colorism." Colourism can also come down to a latent class bias: worldwide, lighter skin (relative to one's own people) has typically been associated with wealth and lounging around indoors, and darker with poverty and working in the fields.note Not until the post-war period did the trends start to reverse; the only country not devastated by The War, the USA, led a new trend which saw those with wealth being able to afford extended vacations or holidays, and the sun-induced tans that came with them, while the reduced number of people employed in agriculture meant that poor people were more likely to spend their workdays indoors in factories (or later call centres) instead of out in the fields."
  • "Skin colour is only the most obvious manifestation of the underlying theme of casting people on the basis of something other than their acting style and/or ability. For example, an Asian actor might be asked to cover his eyes or a black actress asked to straighten her hair. Colourism is a subset of "degreeism" in which members of a marginalized group rank themselves based on how closely they resemble the dominant group."
  • "Variations of this casting trope are also seen in Latin America, Northern Africa/Western Asia, and East Asia. This trope is a common source of Unfortunate Implications; given this trope's prevalence throughout the world's entertainment industries, there are numerous variations on this trope listed below. Note also how the changing definitions of desirability have resulted in new and/or different hiring biases over time."

Note that, by its nature, TVTropes typically covers matters of racism, sexism, and bias in media depictions. Dimadick (talk) 11:44, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

The following are additions I would like to make to the page for an assignment for my communications class:

One additionally relevant term for tokenism is "hyper-tokenism". Hyper-tokenism is where a person of color has increased screen time, is involved in the plot and in promotional images, but the white characters are still the most significant characters by the end of the film. Another relevant term is "ambiguously brown". Ambiguously brown characters are characters that are white-passing, but not fully white so that whatever they are cast in is not completely whitewashed.

Media Examples:

Hyper-Tokenism: One example of this is Finn in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens". In this movie, Finn (a black male) is knocked out during a big, climactic fight scene and he remains unconscious for the remainder of the movie. Though Finn is advertised as being a huge part of the movie, his character ends up being used as a stepping stone for Kylo Ren to get to Ray, his true target.

Tokenism: The CW show "The 100", though it has a lot of minorities cast, still displays ample tokenism with how these characters are used in the show. Lincoln plays the "scary black man" trope before he's more humanized by his white love interest and then ultimately killed off. Raven Reyes is hypersexualized or tortured during her screen time. Wells Jaha is killed off in season one. On top of this, the only LGBT representation the show includes is when character Clarke and Lexa become an item, but Lexa is soon killed off for shock value. Another show with tokenism is the CW show "Riverdale". In this teen drama, Kevin Keller is the only gay character in the ensemble cast. He has very little significance to the actual plot and has way less screen time than other characters. When he is on screen, he plays a stereotyped flamboyant gay teen.

History of Tokenism:

Black characters being the first characters to die was first identified in Hollywood horror movies of the 1930s, notes writer Renee Cozier. More recently, not a single actor of color was nominated for the 2015 or 2016 Oscars. Around this time, minorities accounted for 12.9% of lead roles in 163 films surveyed in 2014, according to the 2016 Hollywood Diversity Report.

Sydneyadie (talk) 19:57, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

"Another show with tokenism is the CW show "Riverdale". In this teen drama, Kevin Keller is the only gay character in the ensemble cast. He has very little significance to the actual plot and has way less screen time than other characters."

I am not familiar with the show itself, but this may have more to do with the material it was adopting. Archie Comics for many decades featured only heterosexual characters in its Archie series. The character Kevin Keller was added to the series in 2010, as "the first openly gay character in Archie Comics history."

"More recently, not a single actor of color was nominated for the 2015 or 2016 Oscars." That is not Tokenism, as it has more to do with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' peculiar reasonings when it comes to nominations, than the casting decisions of any particular film production company.

The main article on the Academy covers part of the controversy: "In 2016, the Academy became the target of criticism for its failure to recognize the achievements of minority professionals. For the second year in a row all 20 nominees in the major acting categories were white. The president of the Academy Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the first African American and third woman to lead the Academy, denied in 2015 that there was a problem. When asked if the Academy had difficulty with recognizing diversity, she replied "Not at all. Not at all." When the nominations for acting were all white for a second year in a row Gil Robertson IV, president of the African American Film Critics Association called it "offensive." The actors' branch is "overwhelmingly white" and the question is raised whether conscious or unconscious racial biases played a role."

You can check the List of black Academy Award winners and nominees for the Academy's controversial history with black nominations:

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