That's right, I'm not talking about an "Miss Representation." I am talking about being so severely underrepresented in mainstream media that at times I wonder how it is even possible to dismiss and erase the experiences of non-white, non-straight people in mainstream media. Sometimes I find myself having a sort of existential crisis when I am watching one of my favorite scifi shows where you have all sorts of fantastical creatures, magic, and a total disregard for silly rules like gravity, every so often between the action scenes and suspense I realize that there is no place for me even in that fantastical world where seemingly all things are possible. There may be talking dragons, but there are absolutely no strong, nuanced characters of color. Teleportation, time travel, no problem! Well, come to think of it, queer characters of color are almost never a problem ever because we simply fail to exist!!!!!!!!!
Oftentimes it's just a game where my wife and I place bets on how long before they kill off the only character of color. Our half-joking remarks are nothing more than an attempt to lighten the horribly depressing fact of the matter: that characters of color are formulaically expendable and disposable.
While I continually find myself shocked (though I really shouldn't be at this point) and appalled (I refuse to desensitize myself to sexist, racist, and heterosexist representations) in television and films, I have pretty low expectations in terms of mass media. However, seeing these same patterns perpetuated in young adult literature under the guise of providing girls with strong role models makes my blood boil.
P.S. The above is a post I drafted but never published about a year ago. Now Sleepy Hollow exists and I have newfound hope! Characters of color, standing around talking to each other! And not just as token stock characters, as real dynamic characters with complex histories who drive the plot! I feel warm fuzzies like that time when Gina Torres was kicking as on Firefly :-D
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