Cultural Representation & Extinction
On its surface the idea that not seeing one’s culture represented in popular media would cause distress or some sort of developmental damage makes superficial sense. In actuality, it is largely irrelevant when contrasted with other forms of cultural erosion.
Much of the hand wringing around cultural representation comes from the belief that “white” culture is a unified cultural force that is winning and in opposition to other cultural forces. This is not true, “white” culture is only the predominant culture as reflected by our society because whites make up the majority of the population creating the illusion that the majority “vanilla” culture is white.
For example, we think of the “Western” trope or “rural ranch family” trope as being representative of “white culture” (think Apple Jack from My Little Pony) when in actuality these tropes are heavily Latin in influenced. This can be seen from their dress like “cowboy boots” and “cowboy hats” to their values like “tight family units that unconditionally love and support each other”. Alternatively, the more “traditional” white American cultures have largely been erased or villainised.
Take my culture, Secular Calvinism, as an example. Calvinists where major forces in the creation of American Democracy, the abolition movement, the enlightenment, and some sources credit them almost entirely for modern capitalism, you could not get more “white” or “American” – yet I can think of almost no media that positively displays my culture, most displaying it as the antagonist of the story (Footloose as an example). In fact, I remember how surprised I was to see a positive depiction of it in media for the first time – it was something only possible in a non-western source (a rather vulgar anime called Goblin Slayer).
However, it is not surprising that a culture that views any form of non-mission directed emotional indulgence as inherently evil does not find itself represented in media. A culture that looks down on art, music, and fiction as the height of self-glorifying navel gazing is intrinsically not going to produce a large quantity of artists and be an antagonistic force in the lives of artists who grow up within it. Sometimes, cultural representation is as much the fault of the “culture” as to society.
As another example, “Quaker culture” despite being critical to American history and a huge factor in many children’s life’s (due to its prolific production of teachers and impact on the education system), produces almost no one who goes into media while Jewish culture, which makes up only a tiny precent of American’s produces an astronomical number of writers and comedians. In the same breath American Black culture, despite blacks only making up about 20% of the American population, is the progenitor of almost all American music varieties (yes, even both Country music which evolved out of Blues and Southern Gospel and Rock music which evolved out of Gospel, Jump Blues, Jazz, Boogie Woogie, and RnB). Well over 60% of almost any song you hear in the radio is a product of American Black culture.
However, and this is the important thing, cultural representation does not equate to power, a sense of belonging, or, most importantly, stave off cultural extinction. Gay culture had an overrepresentation in American media production long before it was accepted and, while black culture is the source of almost all modern music, only the most delusional individual claims blacks are not still discriminated against to at least some extent.
In fact, media representation is largely irrelevant to a cultures health. Calvinist’s despite being one of the most important cultures in the creation of our current society have largely disappeared as a cultural force – not because of their lack of media representation – but because the culture categorises sex as a vulgar emotional indulgence and that love for family is strictly conditional (family members most prove their worth through action) thus produces relatively small families which culturally quickly expel members who don’t live up to the cultures exacting value system. In a similar vein another of the most important early American cultures, the Shakers, have almost entirely disappeared due to similar, though more extreme, views towards sex.
The Shaker culture replicated itself through being the biggest owner of orphanages in early America. As soon as publicly funded orphanages started to compete with the Shaker orphanages the culture lost its ability to replicate and died.
The larger point here being that cultural competition and evolution is far more complex than dominant cultures victimising non-dominant cultures through media.