Alternative Media and Ownership

The Boys Club Tradition of Media 

By Kafaya Shitta-bey

Media conglomerates control the images that we see

Thirty-One years ago, the majority of mainstream media was controlled and distributed by fifty media corporations. Currently, in 2014 those fifty companies have been drastically cut down to six and at the head of these huge media conglomerates are men. 51% of the U.S. population is made up of women but this is not represented within mainstream media. Having men at the top tier of these conglomerates effect women in regard to ownership, content and representation. In order to effectively tell the stories of women it is more women owners, producers, directors and writers that are needed in mainstream media.



Men dictating what is profitable in regard to content about women mainly end up perpetuating a one-sided and narrow guideline that stems from the male perspective. Human beings are layered but in comparison to women, men have much more diversity in terms of images within the media. Men can see themselves on any level of representation but women are still fighting to get there. Julie Burton, president of Women's Media Center stated, “Only when women are equal partners in the multi-layered work of deciding what constitutes a story and how that story might be told can we paint a more textured, accurate picture of the worlds that we all, male and female inhabit.” 

One could argue that mainstream media is only giving the public what they want, what works and what is deemed to be profitable. In Reel to Real, bell hooks, references Jeanette Winterson, who stated, “Strong texts work along the borders of our minds and alter what already exists. They could not do this if they merely reflected what already exists.” (2) Meaning, that our minds want to be challenged by stimulating and new things. Women want to see different representations of themselves, whether it is something that they can relate to or something that shows the lives of other women. 

In the Crooked chapter of Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America, Melissa Harris- Perry stated, “Craving recognition of one’s special, inexchangeable uniqueness is part of the human condition, and it is soothed by the opportunity to contribute freely to the public realm.” (38) The repetition of the same images in mainstream media completely cancels out a demographic that has proven to have strong viewership, which in turn equals profits for media companies.

Besty Beers and Shonda Rhimes

In 2014 television producers, Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers, won the Diversity Award from the Director’s Guild of America. When asked how she felt about receiving the award Rhimes stated, “We’re a little pissed off because there still needs to be an award. There’s such a lack of people hiring women and minorities that when someone does it on a regular basis, they are given an award,” Rhimes continued to say, “It’s not because of a lack of talent. It’s because of a lack of access. People hire who they know. If it’s been a white boys club for 70 years, that’s a lot of white boys hiring one another…different visions make for something original. Original is what the public is starving for.”



Women of Color in Media 

Men in media already vastly outnumber women, this means that women of color are outnumbered even more in the decision making process within mainstream media and are also misrepresented as consumers of media. In Sister Citizen, Harris-Perry conducted focus groups comprising of African-American women from different cities in which she asks participants to list stereotypes that they feel other people have about them as black women. The results of the focus groups resulted in 3 categories: the mammy; being hypersexual and displaying emasculating anger. Although there have been some strides made in media showing the diversity of black women, the stereotypes of mammy, jezebel and sapphire are still very profitable and popular within mainstream media.    

Jezebel: Love and Hip Hop is a reality show
that follows the lives of people in the hip hop industry

Mammy: Viola Davis, plays a maid during the
Civil Rights Era in The Help

Sapphire: Monique plays an abusive mother
that is jealous of her teenage daughter in Precious

“An individual who is seen primarily as a part of a despised group loses the opportunity to experience the public recognition for which the human self strives. Further, if the group itself is misunderstood, then to the extent that one is seen as a part of this group, that “seeing” is inaccurate. Inaccurate recognition is painful not only to the psyche but also to the political self, the citizen self.”  (3)

When there are not many representations of black women in film, popular music, television, advertisements and magazines, black women may feel left out and misrepresented, leaving them with images that continually perpetuate negative stereotypes. 

These stereotypes remain popular because black women invest their time and money into them. “When they confront race and gender stereotypes, black women are standing in a crooked room, and they have to figure out which way is up. Bombarded with warped images of their humanity, some black women tilt and bend themselves to fit the distortion.” (29)                                            

In Film Fatales, Debra Zimmerman, of Women Make Movies feels that all women should not look to mainstream media to represent or distribute their content. In regards to film, she explains that women should create their own movies and work with independent filmmakers to get there movies exposure. “So the real problem is not how do we get more women working in Hollywood, but how do we get films that represent women’s visions out. It’s not our job per se to make Hollywood an environment that is more sympathetic to women. We specifically have to mandate work with independent filmmakers…who are not working within the television system or the Hollywood system.” (264) I think that this example of not waiting for mainstream media to reflect the diverse, complex and layered content that women want to see is why alternative media is effective and is becoming more and more popular for women who want to share there stories.  




Alternative Media

Issa Rae

In 2011, at the age of twenty-six ,Issa Rae, a New York City film student created and starred in a web-series comedy called The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl. During an interview with HelloGiggles, Rae stated,“The Internet is where you can find what you’re not seeing in TV and film. I’m a fan first;I didn’t see any content of color that I could relate
to.” 

Using YouTube to publish weekly episodes, Rae took to Facebook to promote her show. Word of mouth of the series about Jay, an awkward black woman living in L.A., spread and the show became a hit. Rae used Kick Starter to fund the completion for season one of Awkward Black Girl and the second season of the series was funded and hosted by Pharrell Williams’ IamOther YouTube channel. The web series ended in 2013. 

The success of Awkward Black Girl led Rae to meetings with network executives in which she stated wanted to recast her as the star of the show “Executives don’t think black people are mainstream enough. The black turns people off. Someone said, 'Call it Awkward Girl'. Just the idea that someone not watching something because of the black in the title is a rejection."

                                                                     
                                                      New York Times Off Color Comedy: interview with Issa Rae 
Visit:Color Creative

Watch series here: The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl

Rae has a book that is set to be coming out in 2015 titled the Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl and she is currently co-writing a pilot of Awkward Black Girl for HBO with television producer, Larry Wilmore. Rae will co-executive produce and star in the show. She has also founded and is the CEO of Color Creative, a production company for writers of color and women. The objective of Color Creative is help minority writers develop and produce pilots to be sold to networks. “We’re including people that have been shut out by network studios and the Hollywood system, we’re including people of color…women…and the LGBT community. We’re including all of the people that have been told that they don’t have an audience, when in fact…they are the most vocal and have the most buying power,” said Rae.





Works Cited:

Harris-Perry, Melissa. Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America. Yale University Press, 2013

hooks, bell. Reel to Real: Race, Sex and Class at The Movies. New York: Routledge Classics, 1996

Reading, Judith M. Film Fatales: Independent Women Directors. Seattle: Seal Press, 1997

Interview with Internet Sensation Issa Rae retrieved from:
http://hellogiggles.com/interview-with-internet-sensation-issa-rae

Shonda Rhimes on her DGA Diversity Award retrieved from:
http://insidetv.ew.com/2014/01/26/shonda-rhimes-dga-diversity-award/

The Status of Women in the U.S. Media 2014 retrieved from:
http://wmc.3cdn.net/2e85f9517dc2bf164e_htm62xgan.pdf