Representation on TV: Highlights for August Include ‘A League of Their Own,’ ‘Alma’s Way,’ and ‘New Amsterdam
Welcome to August’s Representation on TV Highlights. This month’s highlights include A League Of Their Own, Alma’s Way, and New Amsterdam.
We have some exciting and disappointing news from around the industry, and we’re spotlighting new research from Nielsen on disability representation on TV.
In the News
California Planning To Add Diversity Requirements to Bill Extending Tax credit for TV/Film Production
- The bill would require productions that receive the tax credit to have hiring goals “broadly reflective of California’s population, in terms of race, ethnicity, and gender.”
- Productions that meet their goals or show a “good faith effort” would be eligible for an additional 4% credit on top of the 20-25% allowed under the current law.
PBS Renews ‘Alma’s Way’
- The series — created by Sonia Manzano (who played Maria on “Sesame Street” for 44 years) — follows Alma and her Puerto Rican family living in the Bronx. It highlights Puerto Rican culture focusing on community and teaching critical thinking.
- Season 2 will premiere in fall 2023 and consist of 25 thirty-minute episodes.
HBO Max Cancels Gordita Chronicles
- A spokesman for HBO Max stated that the decision to cancel the freshman series was made as part of the streamer’s move away from live-action children and family programming.
- Gordita Chronicles is the latest of a string of Latinx-led shows canceled since 2020. Others include Gentefied, On My Block, The Baker and the Beauty, Vida, and One Day At A Time.
Netflix and RespectAbility Create New Program for Disabled Children’s Content Writers and Animators
- Participants in the five-week program will be matched with mentors and attend workshops, trainings, panel conversations, networking events, and a talent showcase with table reads of each writer’s project performed by disabled actors.
Pioneering Actress Nichelle Nichols Has Died
- Best known for her trailblazing role as Lt. Nyota Uhura on Star Trek: The Original Series, Nichols passed on July 31st at the age of 89.
- Following Star Trek’s three-season run Nichols worked to diversify the space program, helping to recruit astronauts like Sally Ride, Judith Resnik, and Guion Bluford.
On TV Screens: A League of Their Own
Prime Video’s eagerly anticipated new series A League of Their Own, inspired by the 1992 movie of the same name, made its debut this month.
Like the film, the series follows the Rockford Peaches, one of the All-American Girls Baseball League teams created as an alternative to Major League baseball during WWII.
The series, however, follows a new group of characters and explores themes and topics that the film could only allude to in 1992.
As much as the series is about baseball and this extraordinary part of its history, it’s more about the relationship and identities of the women who made up the league and those excluded from it.
The series a window into the vibrant queer community of the 1940s.
Relying on historical research about the era, the series explores sexuality, gender, race, and the complex intersections of all three of those things.
It brings the stories of those often pushed to the fringes to the center, offering viewers much more than just a new take on an iconic film.
While the series does not shy away from the injustice these marginalized communities faced, it’s more a joyful celebration of the rebels who fought for their happiness despite that.
It’s about finding your people and discovering who you are, even when it conflicts with societal expectations.
Season 1 of A League of Their Own is now streaming on Prime Video.
Spotlight: Nielsen Research on Disability Representation
Nielsen recently released new data about the state of representation on TV for people with disabilities. The general takeaway from their findings is similar to what we’ve seen in research about media representation for other groups.
Strides have been made, but we are still far from where we should be. A closer look at the data shows just how much disability representation specifically has lagged both in terms of quantity and quality.
The data shows that only 4.22 percent of video content had a disability theme, most of which came from feature films.
Just under 81 percent of disability-inclusive content came from feature films, while just over 19 percent came from series.
Another pattern we’ve seen in other research that shows up in this report is that it’s not just a matter of quantity. The quality of representation is also severely lacking.
The small amount of media with disabled characters we see is ripe with tired tropes. Stories about disability that focus on “a cure at all costs” or the “overachiever” are often the norm.
Perhaps even more ubiquitous is the trope of inspiration porn. Inspiration porn uses disabled characters solely as inspiration for a non-disabled audience rather than centering the experiences of the disabled character.
These tropes flatten the identities of disabled characters to cater to non-disabled audiences. It leaves many people with disabilities feeling unseen and misrepresented. Fifty-two percent of disabled respondents said that media representations of their community are inaccurate.
The conversation around disability representation is growing. Movies like Apple TV+’s CODA, the elevation of Sandra Mae Frank to series regular on New Amsterdam, and the handful of disabled characters that have made their debut recently have moved things forward.
Still, disability representation remains on the periphery of many conversations about diversity, equity, and inclusion in the TV industry. Given that over a quarter of the U.S population has a disability, that 4.22 percent is unacceptable.
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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.