I had another great idea (how presumptuous of me to think that my current idea is great, right? Whatever I'm awesome so it has to be.) for a final project, but I completely lost track of it at some point between yesterday and today, so I'm rather bummed about it. If anything I'll add it to this post when or if I think of it. On to my idea:
I shared in class what I had in mind, and I really want to make it happen because it's something that I've been wanting to share with people; something that everyone needs to hear about and be aware of because no one seems to take notice of it and it makes me sad.
Like I said at the beging of the semester, one of my guilty pleasures (not guilty because I'm ashamed, but guilty because the shows that I watch on this particular channel are extremely problematic) is watching quite a few CW shows. The three shows that I will be focusing on to try to make a point are: Veronica Mars, The Vampire Diaries and The Secret Circle. Three of those shows have a person of color as a recurring or main character:
- In VM, we have Wallace, Veronica's best friend and helpful sidekick.
(Veronica & Wallace)
- In TVD, we have Bonnie, Elena's Best friend and trusty (and helpful!!) sidekick.
(Wow, yeah Bonnie me too)
- In TSC, we have Melissa, a powerful witch and another helpful and level headed sidekick (although it could be argued that she's one of the ~main~ characters of the show.
(Same, Melissa. Same.)
All these characters have something in common: they are all of color, all friends of the main character (they're never the friend, always the friend of (a white girl to be specific)), they get little to no story line throughout the seasons, at some point they are given a poor excuse as to why they're not in an episode without much depth, and, obviously, they are all teenagers and supposedly represent teenagers in the media.
I like to call this the Melissa/Bonnie Effect, because it was when I watched TVD and TSC that I started noticing this twisted trend. For my final project, I want to talk about the Melissa/Bonnie Effect and shine light to the lack of representation of people of color in these shows. I think it's important to talk about something like this because as a person of color, I barely get fair or accurate representation of who I am.
A lot of the time in the media, what we see is something that can potentially shape who we are and what role we play in society (after all, Youth is a Culturally Constructed Category (see what I did there?)). So what happens if we're always the ones who are always the friend of a white folk; and always the ones assisting in tasks and always summoned when we're needed for a task; and only have our stories told partially as if they don't matter as much; and never being as powerful and never being the hero? We grow up with that mentality. I think it could easily influence anyone to believe that they are always the sidekick and never the hero and that our sole purpose is to assist and that's it. I think this speaks a lot to that third course assumption and I'm sure that at some point I can find other things that can relate to the other assumptions, even if I have to dig a little deeper than I originally thought.
I hope I can make this work because I really want to do it.
If not I'll just write about Buffy (◕‿◕✿)
i like this, when you brought it up in class i was intrigued and then while watching mad men noticed how they used people. This is very deep thinking :)
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