#Racial ambiguity vampire diarie tv

Oh yeah, and there’s the token Asian friend, but other than that, just another show with a mostly all-white cast dealing with their white-people problems. Lessons Learned: Some white women like Lorelai Gilmore are lucky enough to have wealthy parents that can help with their daughter’s education and can be sent to prep school. Oh okay, never mind, this is not my cousin’s lives. Lorelai is a single mom but she was still a rich, white privileged kid growing up. Sounds a lot like half my older cousins who got pregnant as teens.

Gilmore Girls: Wow, a single mother trying to raise her only daughter, how noble.Despite this sad truth, there are tons of important life lessons and observations I’ve learned thanks to watching some of the teen-centered dramas listed. While these numbers are quite disappointing, they are not surprising. The Writers Guild of America have conducted studies that also show that about only 13% of non-white writers make up the writer’s room. There are plenty of white writers selling scripts or working behind-the-scenes, but what about the voices of non-white writers or directors or producers? Where are they? Are they just non-existent? Are they not good enough or strong enough story-tellers?Īccording to Variety, the 2016–2017 season line ups consisted of 90% white showrunners, and almost 80% were male. So what does this say about entertainment and television?

John Hughes movies on the white teen experience dominated the 80’s (I still love you Molly Ringwald), and even horror movies like Friday the 13th and Scream were told through the viewpoints of a mostly - if not all - white “teen” cast.

#Racial ambiguity vampire diarie tv

Well, it’s really quite simple: there has always been a lack of diversity in the entertainment industry, and after all these years, there still is.įor decades, white stories in movies and on TV - whether they center around adults or teens - have been at the forefront of entertainment. In the early 2000’s there was the The O.C., One Tree Hill, Gossip Girl, Veronica Mars, and The Vampire Diaries, to name a few.Įven newer teen-centered shows like 13 Reasons Why, Pretty Little Liars, Riverdale, Stranger Things, or upcoming Netflix originals like Insatiable ( now receiving backlash for fat-shaming) all have one major element in common: they’re told through the viewpoints of a mostly all white cast, and all the main characters are also typically white. Growing up, I remember teen dramas on the air like Dawson’s Creek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Gilmore Girls, 7th Heaven, and Beverly Hills, 90210.