PREVALENCE OF COLORISM IN BLACK AMERICAN MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS

By: Cailey Griffin

    It would be extremely difficult to make the argument that the media doesn’t have power. The media has the power to foster a sense of community amongst people by bringing friends and family together to view a television show. The media has the power to regulate the emotions of individuals by creating fictional characters the average viewer will become attached to. The media also has the power to serve as a representation of the different “types” of people in society. In media platforms there’s usually a clear representation of what it means to be a man, what it means to be a woman, what it means to be a person of color, and what it means to be a person from a particular socioeconomic background. These media representations of different groups and types of people are not always incorrect or negative. In fact, I would argue that media representations are largely positive for certain people. However, the group that seems to consistently get the short end of the stick in media representations are people of color in general, and more specifically Black Americans.

    Media seems to operate as a reflection of the values and opinions of the society around it. Many White Americans tend to view Black women as being “loud” and “ghetto”, so that’s how many Black women are represented in the media. Many White Americans also tend to view Black men as violent and dangerous, so that’s what leads to the depiction of Black men as “thugs” and “gangsters” in many media depictions. Black Americans have also been represented in media through the lens of colorism for a long time even though conversations surrounding the issue have just begun.

     In the article Pride and Prejudice: Pervasiveness of Colorism and the Animated Series Proud Family, Catherine Knight Steele addresses the fact that even within a popular cartoon that depicts the strong and positive bond of an African American family, like The Proud Family, colorism still makes its way into character representations in the show (Steele, 2016, p. 53). Steele defines colorism as “a worldwide phenomenon of discrimination wherein people are given certain status and privilege based on the physical features of skin color, facial features, and hair textures” (Steele, 2016, p. 53). The people receiving a particular status and privilege are often people with lighter skin (Steele, 2016, p. 53). This preference towards things like lighter skin, more European features, and a looser hair texture stems from the fact that people view those traits as factors that make a person closer to European ancestry, and in turn superior.

    Steele first addresses the presence of colorism in the characters “The Gross Sisters” from the show The Proud Family (Steele, 2016, p. 60). The Gross Sisters are Penny Proud’s classmates who are considered bullies and all have very deep dark skin that appears to be a shade of blue (Steel, 2016, p. 60). The Gross Sisters also wear their hair in natural styling, specifically cornrows, and they all have a body type not in alignment with the traditional European beauty standard of being thin (Steele, 2016, p. 60). Steele shares that at one point Penny even refers to them as “monsters” when making the point she does not consider them to be one of her friends (Steele, 2016, p. 60).

    The Gross Sisters are a perfect representation of colorism in the show because their role supports the narrative that dark skin Black women are somehow less than their lighter skin counterparts. In the media, dark skin women are often portrayed as being less attractive and more aggressive than light skin women. The Gross Sisters fit this role by being characterized as the school bully and even being considered less than human by Penny.

    Ultimately, the depiction of The Gross Sisters in the show was most harmful to the darker skin black children who watched it. Narratives such as the one depicted by The Gross Sisters leads dark skin Black children to believe that their skin is less than, having the hair that grows out of their head in its natural state is wrong, and being a body type other than thin makes them less attractive. When children feed into these ideals presented by the media, they grow up internalizing this idea and then cause the cycle to keep continue by intentionally or unintentionally instilling the same ideas in their own children.

    To combat this narrative of darker skin black women, without European presenting features, their needs to be an alternative depiction to the one presented of The Gross Sisters in The Proud Family. If The Gross Sisters storyline is absolutely essential to the functioning of the show, fine; however, there should also be a depiction of darker skin black women, who look like The Gross Sisters, and who are also kind, generally considered attractive, and educated to combat the negative narrative in the show.

Words: 813

Keywords: #Colorism #The Proud Family #darkskin #light skin #beauty #european beauty standards #Media

References:

Steele, C. K. (2016). Pride and Prejudice: Pervasiveness of Colorism and the Animated Series Proud Family. Howard Journal of Communications, 27(1), 53–67. https://doi.org/10.1080/10646175.2015.1117028

“The Gross Sisters.” Wickedpedia. Photo [JPG]. disneyvillains.wikia.com/wiki/The_Gross_Sisters.