Lori Falce: Representation matters in media

Representation is a word that gets a lot of heat and light these days.

You hear it called out in good ways as more people are given more presence in our media and culture. There is greater representation of minorities in films and television than there ever has been before.

Big budget productions of Asian and Latinx and Black stories are being made and are proving to be in demand. Gay and trans characters are getting exposure. So are different religions and body shapes, giving us an on-screen or in-book world that is slowly coming to look more like the American demographic.

That is one kind of representation and it is important. There is another kind, however, and the more the stories are told, the more it hurts when people are left out of them.

The first representation is the story. The character. The audience and the media. But the second kind is the people telling the story. The actors or directors or writers involved, and those people are raising their voices as one kind of representation advances without the other.

Take Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “In the Heights,” which debuted in theaters in the spring. It was a beautiful story and turned a positive, appreciative spotlight on the largely Puerto Rican, Cuban and Dominican residents of the Washington Heights section of Manhattan. But it didn’t take long for some people to realize that most of the people featured were light-skinned, despite the famously varied populations. It was a representation of the people that still skimped on some people’s representation.

Body positivity is another area that has been gaining attention. While larger actresses like Chrissy Metz or Melissa McCarthy have broken through, there are not a great many roles considered open to an overweight performer. When there is, like Metz’s “This Is Us” character, it is usually because the weight is part of the storyline.

That can make it hard to accept when a character is actually larger and a thinner performer is put in a fat suit to do the role, like Sarah Paulson did for her turn as Linda Tripp in “Impeachment: American Crime Story.” I suppose it is a step forward that the Tripp character was not just slimmed to fit Paulson, but did producer Ryan Murphy really not know any fat people? At all?

The latest example comes from actress and comedian Sarah Silverman. She recently expressed unhappiness with the way Hollywood casts Jewish roles with non-Jewish actors. Specifically, she was addressing the announcement of Kathryn Hahn — fresh off a great turn as Agatha in “WandaVision” — being tapped to play Joan Rivers. While voicing appreciation for Hahn and other actors, she criticized the casting decisions as “Jewface.”

This one is more subtle and harder to see but because of the very real damage and danger of antisemitism, still a challenge. I frequently don’t know what the religious background of my favorite actors might be. Is that something that should be considered in casting? And is that even legal? You couldn’t ask someone their religious affiliation or cultural background in interviewing for most jobs. Is acting that different?

It kind of is. The issue here is, like Silverman stressed, not the fault of the actors who accept the work but a failing of producers and directors for not looking beyond what is easy when casting for roles where representation would matter.

Miranda apologized for not working harder to represent the darker side of the Caribbean rainbow in “In the Heights” and committed to doing better in future projects. That’s an attitude more in Hollywood, in media, in plenty of forward-facing fields would do well to represent.