Lena Dunham’s article “Whitewashing on the Small Screen” about the discrimination between white and non- white culture in the media, especially in television programs, is indeed relevant today. The mass media produced in the U.S., as Dunham displays in her brief article, continues to be a reflection of White views regarding non-White communities. Since the dominant white culture in America seeks to subjugate non-white culture, so it constantly strives to expand its dominance while fending off challenges and interventions from non-white classes and groups (Dates 6).
Today, reproduction of the ideological dominance of the white culture in American society enables the mass media to legitimate the inequalities in white and non-white class and race relations. African Americans and Latinos are two minorities that are most misrepresented and underrepresented in the past in the media today. For years, discrimination through not entertainment television and print news has been experienced by African-Americans, Latinos and other non-white minorities. Hence, it is not surprising the white culture has dominated both these mediums and has been structured to communicate the ideas and harbor the needs of the controlling white class.
HBO’s “Girls” is not the only television program with few non-white actors in leading roles. Other examples include “The Wire” and “Modern Family,” both of which happen to be television programs with a lack of non-white leads. Major cultural contradictions have been disclosed by the domination of white culture in the mass media. It is apparent that aspects of the non-white cultures have been appropriated by white producers in entertainment and printed media in order to enrich white culture and mass media mainstream. Although non-white culture is now making effort for equality in entertainment television, ABC’s “Scandal” is a good example of this; however, discrimination of minority, non-white races has yet to vanish.
Works Cited
Dates, Jannette. Split Image, African Americans in The Mass Media. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1990. Print.
Dunham, Lena. "Whitewashing on the Small Screen." The New York Times. The New York Times Co., 25 Apr 2012. Web. 18 Dec 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/04/25/minorities-in-movies-and-television>.
