Representation on TV: Highlights for March Include ‘All American: Homecoming,’ ‘Astrid and Lilly Save the World’
Diversity and inclusion are crucial parts of television’s ability to reflect the rich multitudes of experiences and perspectives that make up the communities we live in and beyond.
Because of how much these things matter, every month, we’ll be highlighting representation news from the industry and shows expanding representation on TV.
We’ll also look at a specific topic each month to better understand the state of representation on TV today and celebrate changemakers in the industry.
For the month of March, we have news from HBO Max, we’re excited about All American: Homecoming, and we take a closer look at body type diversity.
In the News
HBO Max and Netflix Launch Year 2 of Their Latinx Short Film Programs
- HBO Max and WarnerMedia OneFifty will partner with six film festivals for their expanded Latino short film competition. Six winners will be chosen to have their films premiere on HBOMax.
- Netflix and NALIP’s NALIP Latino Lens™: Narrative Short Film Incubator for Women of Color will support five writers or directors who identify as Women of Color with $25,000 grants to produce a short film.
WarnerMedia Access Unveils New Showrunner Training Program
- This program will give mid to senior-level writers hands-on training and instruction from established showrunners to prepare them to helm their own shows in the future.
Think Tank For Equity and Inclusion Updates Their Factsheet For The LGBTQIA+ Community
- Think Tank for Inclusion & Equity (TTIE) released an updated version of its Writer Inclusion Factsheet for the LGBTQIA+ community.
- TTIE factsheets are easily accessible starting points to help writers create more inclusive content and avoid harmful tropes about misrepresented and underrepresented groups.
NBCU LAUNCH Is Partnering With Telemundo to Increase Hispanic Female Directors in Scripted Television
- The partnership will expand Telemundo’s Mujeres Imparables (Unstoppable Women) initiative and add a Telemundo track to NBCU LAUNCH’s Female Forward initiative.
- Two participants will shadow on a Telemundo scripted series. They will then be given an in-season directing assignment on the same series.
Netflix Partners with European Producers Club on Female Producer Initiative
- Six winners will be given a chance to pitch their ideas to Netflix. The three best projects will then receive funding to develop them.
- In order to participate, companies must be at least 50% owned by women. Teams must include at least one producer who is a woman and a writer or director who is a woman.
On TV Screens: All American: Homecoming
All American: Homecoming is a spinoff of The CW’s popular and acclaimed series All American. It follows All American character Simone Hicks from Beverly Hills to the fictional HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) of Bringston in Atlanta. There, Hicks hopes to restart her tennis career after being away from the court for some time.
The series’s showrunner, Nkechi Okoro Carroll, told Essence magazine that the series is “a celebration of Black culture and Black excellence across all fronts.”
Off-screen, Warner Bros. Television Group recently announced the creation of a new scholarship inspired by the show and in collaboration with the NAACP. The program will award $10,000 scholarships to 10 students studying at a real-life HBCU.
New episodes of All American: Homecoming air Mondays at 9/8c on The CW.
Spotlight: Body Type Diversity
Recently, there have been a handful of stories about actors speaking out about body shaming and the stereotypes that plague characterizations of people with large body types onscreen.
These stories have brought new attention to a larger conversation about Hollywood beauty standards and deeply ingrained societal biases about weight — particularly for women.
On screen, heavy people are shown as being lazy and as having little self-control. They are continually depicted as irritants because they are abrasive, loud, emotional, needy, or they possess some other excessive trait that makes their presence an annoyance.
One particularly notorious example is Fat Monica on Friends. (Fat Monica was the version of Monica we saw in flashbacks before she lost a significant amount of weight.) Fat Monica encapsulates everything mean and reductive about how people with large body types are characterized in media.
In fact, there is even a “what-if” episode that presents an alternate present where Monica didn’t lose weight. The answer to her “what-if” is she became a thirty-something that was still a virgin and had never been in a romantic relationship.
The scenario still ends with Monica and Chandler together. But the entire joke is that she has been desperate, undesirable, and unlovable because she stayed fat.
Part of the reason examples like Fat Monica hurt so much is that there are few other examples to look to. Most examples of positive representation of people with large body types are supporting characters rather than leads.
According to the Geena Davis Institute’s 2021 State of Representation Report, only 10% of the leads and co-leads on TV were people with large body types.
Recent headlines and data suggest that things haven’t changed significantly from the days of Friends. Nevertheless, the more open conversations about the topic are encouraging. Additionally, there are some bright spots on TV like Shrill and Good Girls, among others.
2022 saw the premieres of Somebody Somewhere , and Astrid and Lilly Save the World. Both series feature leads with large body types that either avoid harmful tropes or directly subvert them.
The stereotypes that have shaped depictions of people with large body types have deep roots. They intersect with biases about race, gender, and a host of other identities.
Tropes resulting from these intersections remain stubbornly consistent. Still, shows like those mentioned above challenge even the most entrenched bias and push the conversation forward. We can do better than fat jokes and mean clichés.
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Sarah Fields
Sarah is an obsessive geek who likes to get into the weeds and over think things. She is passionate about Sci-Fi and comics and is a giant classic film nerd. Sarah cares deeply about media representation and the power of telling diverse stories. When she's not writing or watching her favorite shows she spends her days working in the non-profit world trying to make life a little better for those that need some extra help.
One thought on “Representation on TV: Highlights for March Include ‘All American: Homecoming,’ ‘Astrid and Lilly Save the World’”
Excellent idea, I look forward to reading this every month.
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