Representation on TV: Highlights for September Include ‘Reservation Dogs,’ ‘SNL’ and ‘Rutherford Falls’
Welcome to September’s Representation on TV Highlights! This month’s highlights include Reservation Dogs, Saturday Night Live, Rutherford Falls, Queer as Folk, and more.
We have news from around the industry, and we’re spotlighting new research on Muslim representation on TV from the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at USC. Here are all the details.
In the News
Rutherford Falls and Queer as Folk Canceled on Peacock
- NBC Universal announced the cancelation of Queer as Folk after one season and Rutherford Falls after two.
- Rutherford Falls creator Sierra Teller Ornelas stated that she hopes to find a new home for the series.
Peppa Pig Introduces Its First Same-Sex Couple
- After 18 years the hit children’s program introduced its first same-sex couple.
- The new characters are the parents of Peppa’s classmate, Penny Polar Bear.
Thomas & Friends Franchise Introduces First Autistic Character
- The new character, Bruno the Break Car, was introduced on September 12. He is voiced by autistic actor Chuck Smith.
- Series creators collaborated with the Autistic Self Advocacy Network and Easterseals Southern California, as well as writers and spokespeople with autism to create the character.
SNL Adds First Non-Binary Cast Member
- Saturday Night Live has cast Molly Kearney for its upcoming 48th season. Kearney is the show’s first non-binary cast member.
- Kearney, who uses They/Them pronouns, previously played Dannely on Amazon Video’s A League of Their Own and appeared on Disney+’s The Might Ducks: Game Changers.
On TV Screens: Reservation Dogs
This month, Reservation Dogs wrapped its stellar second season. The series has been a breakout hit since its first season and has only gotten better in its second.
Reservation Dogs has received nearly-universal critical acclaim both for its brilliant writing and groundbreaking representation on-screen and behind-the-scenes.
Every writer, director, and series regular on the show is Indigenous, giving the show an authenticity we are only just beginning to see in Indigenous representation on TV.
Filmed on location in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, Reservation Dogs follows the lives of four Indigenous teenagers.
After the death of their friend, Daniel, the group sets out to earn enough money to complete Daniel’s dream of going to California while dealing with their grief over his death
Reservation Dogs Season 1 focused on that effort. By the end of the season, though, their plan falls apart. Season 2 finds the teens adrift and their relationships frayed.
Without the goal of California driving things, Season 2 dives deeper into each character’s individual emotional journey and expands beyond its four leads.
One of the best series on TV, Reservation Dogs is a vibrant slice-of-life comedy. It is also a poignant coming-of-age story told with sly humor and tremendous warmth.
Reservation Dogs was recently renewed for a third season. Seasons 1 and 2 are available to stream on Hulu.
Spotlight: Muslim Representation in Media
This month USC’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative released a new report examining the representation of Muslims on episodic TV. The findings were, to put it mildly, not good.
The report, Erased or Extremists: The Stereotypical View of Muslims in Popular Episodic Series, shows episodic TV failing viewers at every level in regards to Muslim representation.
The research showed that while Muslims are a quarter of the population, they were only one percent of the speaking parts on the 200 shows reviewed. Of that one percent, only 12 were series regulars and spaned just five shows.
Put more starkly, 87 percent of the shows reviewed had no Muslim characters with a speaking role. Most of the shows that did only had one.
The numbers were even worse when looking at the data intersectionally. The ratio of male Muslim characters to female Muslim characters was 174 to 1. There was only one Muslim LGBTQIA+ character and none with disabilities.
Just as distressing was what the report found about the portrayal of the Muslim characters on TV. In particular their relationship to violence and criminality. According to the report, 30.6 percent of Muslim characters were perpetrators of violence, while 38.8 percent were victims of it.
12.2 percent of the Muslim characters evaluated in the research died. More than half of the Muslim victims of violence on these shows were antagonists themselves or affiliated with the villains in some way. 37.2 percent of Muslim characters were shown to be involved in criminal activity.
Another consistent theme was that Muslim women were often depicted as fearful and in physical danger from men. Once again portraying Islam as a culture of violence and oppression.
The snapshot of Muslim representation on TV provided by this report shows a media landscape where series consistently lean into harmful stereotypes that others Muslim characters. It depicts men as violent threats and women as long-suffering victims.
If there is a silver lining in anything from the report, it’s that the shows examined were all from 2018 and 2019. Since then, we have seen a handful of critically acclaimed, high-profile shows premiere that directly respond to many of the report’s findings.
Shows like Ramy, Mo, We Are Lady Parts, Sort Of, and — most recently — Ms. Marvel are all little glimmers of hope in an otherwise bleak picture.
It’s a small glimmer relative to the vast amount of TV produced each year, but it’s something to build on moving forward.
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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.