Samuel Sey, a Black man and Christian writer has condemned Hollywood's "forced diversity," calling every TV show on screen today "an infomercial for the United Nations." He accused Hollywood of being "more interested in producing racial quotas than producing good stories" with the programming available today on the big and small screens.
In an op-ed for the Christian Post, Sey argued that people are now "losing sight of what real diversity looks like" because the "dogmatic attempts to create more diversity are actually creating less diversity."
He compared TV shows such as "Family Matters" and "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," both his favorites, to newer TV shows today. Sey wrote that while he did not have anything in common with the characters on the show except for being Black, he wrote that "these shows didn't attempt to appeal to my skin color - they appealed to my humanity."
Sey wrote that some of his favorite shows were "Road to Avonlea" and "The Wonder Years," which featured White characters and actors, which he could relate to despite the difference in skin color because he "[shares] the same universal human experiences" as them.
"Christians who repeat empty phrases like 'representation matters' do not acknowledge how that restrains individuality and creativity," Sey lamented. "And they do not seem to understand how that phrase promotes the increasingly disproportionate number of homosexual and transgender people in TV shows today."
Sey argued that diversity is not when a TV show has an array of characters from different ethnic backgrounds. Instead, it is when a TV show does not have to submit to "diversity." He argued that while "stories are better told with an ethnically diverse cast," some are also better told with a totally White or totally Black, brown, Latino, or Asian cast. He concluded that today's shows, which all "[look] the same," are "unrealistic and uninteresting."
A Nielsen Report in late 2021 showed that despite representation being at an all-time high on screen, it was still inaccurate. According to Variety, Nielsen looked at the Share of Screen (SOS) of the top 10 recurring cast members in a program and found that "Black women remain largely underrepresented in shows compared to Black men."
Meanwhile, South Asian SOS were above parity in streaming programs at 2.8%. Hispanic SOS was higher on broadcast with 22% and finally, the LGBT had its highest representation on cable programming with 7% and subscription video on demand or SVOD with less than 4%.
Stacie de Armas, SVP, Diverse Insights & Initiatives remarked, "Looking back at the media moments this year, diverse casts and stories have been in the headlines. Yet, according to Nielsen's recent research, almost a quarter of people still feel that there is not enough content that adequately represents people from their identity group."
Nielsen's 2021-2021 TV season data revealed that among the top 1,500 programs, 78% have some presence of racial, ethnic, gender, or sexual orientation inclusivity. But the report highlighted how Hollywood needs to be concerned about the quality of representation on TV and just just the quantity.
Sey's argument on today's forced diversity producing "unrealistic and uninteresting" shows, then, simply holds true.
