Feeling seen is a beautiful thing. Unfortunately, not everyone is afforded this visibility equally, but here is why it is important for people to feel seen in visual media.
Representation Matters
The need to feel loved and seen by others is a universal feeling. Despite its universality, not everyone is granted this visibility and love equally.
Marginalised groups suffer when representation is lacking. Low self-esteem and the reproduction of stereotypes have been attributed to poor representation. Visual media that represents marginalised groups appropriately and includes them in the creative process will not only help to break stereotypes, but also improve their self-esteem and confidence.
Representation in visual media is not a new topic. People have been talking about this for a very long time. Recently it has been brought up again in mainstream conversation when Disney released a teaser trailer for the live-action version of The Little Mermaid starring Halle Bailey.
Although the trailer was victim to a lot of negativity (largely due to racism), this article will focus on the beauty of representation.
It quickly became a TikTok trend for black creators to show their child’s live reaction to the trailer which reveals princess Ariel to be Halle Bailey. It was beautiful to see how many children were overjoyed by seeing someone on their screen that looked like them. A character that everyone knows and loves now reaching and touching the hearts of even more children in a personal way.
Others took to Twitter to share theirs and their child’s reactions to seeing Halle as Ariel for the first time.
A Final Note…
When visual media is saturated with cis-gender, white, able-bodied people it is hard for marginalised communities to find something to relate to. Moreover, it can contribute to the misrepresentation of marginalised people which is both harmful on an individual and a societal level.
Representation matters because of these fundamental reasons:
- It helps to break stereotypes and avoid misrepresentation.
- It improves the self-esteem of marginalised communities.
- You get to see the joy in people’s faces when they feel seen.