Inequality In Entertainment Examined

SUU student Carlee Jo Blumenthal’s research and presentation of her finding over the course of her study on cultural erasure and biases in entertainment media.

   

It is no secret that historically entertainment media is a medium that has been made for the straight, white, cisgendered men who have an unspoken monopoly on the entertainment market and the products it produces. Despite the ever-growing denial of the modern entertainment industry, the saying that history repeats itself is alive and well and on display since that mindset has not changed. 

 

 Ms. Carlee Jo Blumenthal, a communication major at Southern Utah University, has used this as a jumping off point for her study and research about the entertainment industry and those groups of people who have been marginalized not only in forms of entertainment media, such as movies and video games, but also in the real world we live in. It is this research and analysis that Ms. Blumenthal has used for her EDGE Project at SUU.

 

In order to fulfill their requirements for graduation, undergraduate students at Southern Utah University plan and execute special individual projects, called EDGE Projects, which are meant to be used as a means of gaining more skills that they can utilize in both their personal and professional lives after graduating. The goal of the program is to give graduates of SUU an edge over others in their chosen fields after finishing schooling.

 

As previously stated, Ms. Blumenthal’s study looks at the inequality that is rampant across different forms of entertainment media. The finds of the study have shown that the idea that art imitates life and vice versa is not exactly true with in the communities being shoved to the side lines of entertainment, but rather that if a certain style of story sells then it just gets mass produced to the audience that has been taking it in.

 

  Whether it is in fighting games from mid 1980s or a in a galaxy far, far away we are living in and perpetuating a worldview created by and for one section of society. From the research Ms. Blumenthal has found that it is due in part to this that creative and escapist means of entertainment have become so stagnant and repetitive. As she puts it, “It is this marginalizing of groups and individuals in creative mediums and platforms that is keeping the very things we as a society use for escapism and entertainment chained to a reality that does not represent the true cultural story of the world.”

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For further reading and more information on the research and findings of Ms. Blumenthal’s study you can go to https://cjblumenthal.wixsite.com/mysite. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram at alwayscarleej to keep up with her life and future projects.