Women and minority characters historically have been underrepresented and misrepresented in mainstream American entertainment media, including in Hollywood films. Although intended as entertainment, these media have consequences. Entertainment media help socialize audience members’ understanding of the status of different social groups and of the range of acceptable roles and behaviors for members of these groups. Although the overall patterns in media representation persist, several high-profile movie franchises have recently released heavily promoted and widely seen films featuring women or minority protagonists, such as Rey and Finn from the Star Wars film trilogy and Captain Marvel, Black Panther, and Shuri from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. These movies offer opportunities to investigate how women and minority audience members respond to seeing characters who share their demographic characteristics featured on the big screen, as well as to better understand how men and White audience members engage with these representations.
In a recent studyopens in new window published in Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, Alice E. Hall investigated how audience members of different genders and racial backgrounds respond to this new, more diverse cohort of superheroes. She carried out a survey of 145 moviegoers that was timed to occur after the release of several big-budget action films with large, diverse ensemble casts such as Black Panther and The Last Jedi. Respondents identified the character in these films with whom they felt most connected, then completed measures of two well-established types of potential affinity with their chosen character. The first affinity type was identification, defined as taking on a character’s perspective as one views a film. The second was parasocial relationship, defined as a more general interest in and sense of familiarity with a character that extends beyond the duration of the actual viewing of the film. These measures allowed for the investigation of whether a demographic match between a viewer and a character affects (a) the viewer’s tendency to take on the perspective of a character when watching a film and (b) the viewer’s general interest in the character.
Respondents were more likely than would be expected by chance to select a character portrayed by an actor of their own gender or race as the character with whom they felt most connected. This replicates results of previous studies and suggests that a demographic match can cue viewers that a particular character is relevant to them. It is meaningful to have diverse casts even in stories that are set in mythical or fictional realms like the ones that were the focus of this study. The average levels of identification and parasocial relationship of participants who had selected a character of their own gender were compared with those of participants who had selected a character of a different one. Further, the averages of participants who had selected a character played by an actor of their own race were compared with those of participants who had selected a character played by an actor of a different race. These analyses found that a demographic match between the viewer and the actor was not associated with identification levels. However, both men and women respondents reported stronger parasocial relationships when the character they selected was a woman rather than a man. This finding may be attributable to the unusually wide range of appealing and dynamic women characters in this sample of films. Among the characters evaluated by more than one participant, the five characters with the highest average parasocial relationship ratings were women. Furthermore, Black or African American respondents reported stronger parasocial relationships when they were evaluating a character portrayed by a Black actor as opposed to a White actor. White respondents reported equivalent levels of parasocial relationship with characters played by Black and White actors. Black and African American respondents’ interest in characters played by Black actors speaks to the high levels of engagement with Black Panther among these viewers, most of whom selected a character from this film.
Research into audience members’ responses to strong, positive women and minority protagonists in mainstream films has been limited by the scarcity of strong, positive women and minority protagonists in mainstream films. Furthermore, an ostensible reason for the lack of more diverse media casting is that media producers are hesitant to invest in films featuring women or minority characters because they believe that men will not watch films featuring women protagonists and that White moviegoers will not watch films featuring characters of other races or ethnicities. Recent film releases offer a test of what happens when movies featuring diverse characters are presented to a diverse audience. The current findings suggests that beliefs that men will not respond to women protagonists or that White audience members will not relate to non-White characters are incorrect, at least in the context of big-budget, fantastical action films. The inclusion of appealing, dynamic women and minority protagonists in popular action films can be particularly meaningful to audience members of the same gender or race who are drawn to characters who share their demographic characteristics. However, other audience members readily develop affinities for these characters as well. Well-drawn characters and a strong story can and do reach across demographic divides.
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