In a brief essay, discuss why representation matters in the entertainment industry. How does the presence of women and people of color change the types of stories being told and how successful movies and other entertainment are?

What will be an ideal response?

Middle-class and upper-class White male characters are dominant in number and power in movies and television. Management and writing staffs are also overwhelmingly White and male. That means that White male narratives, stories of power, violence, and conflict also tend to dominate our culture. The entertainment industry has found great success when it steps outside of that basic comfort zone. But despite the success of films like Marvel’s Black Panther, the Hunger Games series, and more recently the rom-com Crazy Rich Asians, there are still relatively few people who are not White males in positions to make decisions about which stories get told.