Summary: The Importance Of Diversity In Hollywood

Introduction

Hollywood is known as the famous film industry that produces several films and TV shows but overall media. Media has been around for years and is there for us humans as a form of entertainment. It’s a platform for talented actors and actresses in which they can do what they love as a job. The actors and actresses that perform for us have quite a big impact. They affect the way we feel during a certain scene and make the film more believable for the audience. Within the film industry, there is a lack of diversity in the casting and it has unfortunately been this way for a while. The absence of minorities within the film industry is a growing problem and I will tell you with numerous supporting reasons.

The Importance of Diversity

Diversity is the state of having a range of different things; a variety. In this case, within media there is a lack of minorities being represented whether that be a racial, ethnic, gender or religion based group. Diversity is important because everyone should have characters or views they can relate to in order to grow and better understand themselves. That representation of individuals can help people feel proud of who they are because there is a positive depiction of themselves being broadcasted for everyone to see. This is especially important for young kids growing up who can look up to constructive role models. A large amount of people of minority groups speak out now saying that when they were growing up there wasn’t much of them on the big screen. An example is Simone Ritchie, a biracial freshman at SUNY Purchase college, who never saw characters on TV “who looked like her.” “When I was asked to draw pictures of myself, I would always give myself a head of blonde hair until I was about six years old. Why did I want to do this? Because I thought that being blonde was way prettier than having dark hair. However, part of me likes to think that if the movies and TV shows I watched showed a more accurate representation of who I was, I might have been more willing to embrace who I was at a younger age.” Since she didn’t have anyone representing who she was, Simone Ritchie never fully accepted her appearance. She was only seeing white blonde characters on her TV growing up so in her head she thought that being blonde and white was a wanted trait that was deemed attractive. If there is no representation of all races, religions, genders, sexualities or ethnicities then there will remain to be stories that go untold. Without this needed equality, there will always be people out there who aren’t feeling like they’re being heard or understood. We live in world with various types of people and we can’t afford