An opportunity lost? Multiculturalism and invisible races in The Bridgertons
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24137/raeic.9.18.13Keywords:
multiculturalism, intercultural communication, TV show, race, cultural anthropology, racial prejudiceAbstract
The main power of cinema and television as communication media is not just telling stories, but also reflecting ideas, picturing societies and establishing debates around different topics as the one we are dealing with in this study: multiculturalism. Through analysing a series like The Bridgertons (Shondaland, 2020), where their performers’ race is not linked to the characters they play, we want to test if this fact supports or challenges the concept of race’s invisibility as a support for multiculturalism. To do this, we overview the role that minority races’ (meaning those other than white) actors have played in Hollywood productions, considering stereotypes and limitations they have faced and compare this fact with this series’ changes in the protagonist roles that these actors play. Results prove that, despite minority races’ actors playing roles that would have been banned for them years ago, this option is not available for all races, so we can conclude that the improvement in these actors’ protagonism is just partial. Added to this the incongruencies and differences in the representation and identification of certain actors with cultural stereotypes in first and second seasons.
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