For decades, Western media has horribly lacked accurate representation for West Indians in both TV shows and movies. Many people don’t even know what it means to be West Indian which is a lot of the problem. West Indian refers to the ethnicity of the people in the West Indies; depending on your view through a geographic, historic or cultural perspective, that can include a variety of different countries. For simplicity, I am only talking from a geographical perspective, which is solely those from Caribbean descent.
For years I have tried to look for good representation, but it is consistently hard to find. Whenever I see a new show or movie, I am excited to give it a try but I always end up disappointed. For example, when “Ocean’s Eight” was released, I was ecstatic to watch it. That excitement ended the second I heard Veronica’s (Nathanya Alexander) Jamaican accent in contrast with Nineball’s (Rihanna) Bajan accent. How the directors thought these accents were the same is beyond me. For those who are unfamiliar with these accents, it’s like a person from the South and North of the United States pretending to be siblings. This is an inconsistency I have seen happen time after time, and I am quite sick of it.
Similar to the United States, the countries of the Caribbean have similar but distinct accents and it’s ridiculous to pretend they are the same. A more recent example of this happening is in the TV show “Outer Banks.” While there is discourse on whether Cleo (Carlacia Grant) is supposed to be from the Bahamas or Barbados, she uses well-known Bajan slang during many of her scenes. It unfortunately does not surprise me that her accent is subpar, and I feel that this is mostly the producer’s fault. First, a Bajan accent is one of the hardest to understand for English speakers and secondly, Grant is Haitian-Jamaican. Why change her accent? Just make the character the same ethnicity or just cast an actress from the Bahamas.
Teen Vogue actually addressed this issue and claimed that most producers opt to make their own interpretation of what the accents sound like. This not only erases the dialects of many countries, but it also affects their identities. By making one stereotype of the Caribbean people, the many traditional foods, music genres, festivals and languages (including Spanish, French and Dutch) specific to each country are lost. One of the biggest suggested fixes is to just add subtitles or to slow down what they are saying in order to preserve the linguistic integrity while also helping Americans understand.
Additionally, the Hollywood ethnic stereotype of English Caribbean characters, usually Jamaican, has led to a lot of misinformation and it’s honestly quite racist and lazy.
In the original animated version of “The Little Mermaid,” Sebastian (Samuel E. Wright) was the only character to have a Caribbean accent, and was treated as comic relief. While this in itself isn’t entirely problematic, there have been many TV Shows and movies such as “Cool Running,” “How Stella Got Her Groove Back” and “The Mighty Quinn” that have Caribbean characters with an inaccurate accent and are portrayed as either dumb or shallow. It’s so rare to see complex Caribbean characters in the media nowadays and it’s quite disheartening. When I heard Disney was coming out with a remake of “The Little Mermaid” I was excited that maybe they would improve on their representation, not that the movie was obviously set in the Caribbean. On top of most of the animated movie’s problems, Sebastain’s accent was incredibly inconsistent and honestly even worse. That being said, I am glad that the movie added a variety of people to the ensemble to showcase the diversity in the Caribbean.
While it is really annoying to see the constant Caribbean character stereotype in the media, it has a much darker side to it. I cannot say how many times I walk around school and hear students use an inaccurate Jamaican accent to “be funny.” This has also led to people dressing up in “Jamaican costumes” for Halloween, which is cultural appropriation.
Unbeknownst to most, Latino countries such as Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and many more are a subgroup of the West Indian ethnicity. But Latinos are not safe from Hollywood’s misrepresentation either.
In the recent addition of “West Side Story,” the issue is with the actors that play the main cast of Puerto Rican characters. While some are from Latino descent, rarely are they actually Puerto Rican. The same goes for many of the Dominican characters that are not played by true Dominicans. Latino West Indians get very little representation compared to their non-Latino counterparts and it’s sad to see that even when they do, it’s not entirely accurate.
The biggest problem due to the misrepresentation in Hollywood has led to such an increase in misinformation about the Caribbean. I can’t tell you how many times teachers and students have made fun of my cultural food or have just directly insulted my heritage because of how ill informed they were.
Since the announcement of “Bob Marley: One Love” I have cautiously brought up my hopes again. I am happy to watch a singer I have listened to since I was little have a biopic about them. Music like Reggae, Reggaeton, Merengue, Salsa, Soca and Calypso have shaped many aspects of West Indian culture and it’s so nice to see it being appreciated on the big screen. I hope that not only will this movie provide accurate representation but also invoke a movement to produce movies with better representation in Hollywood.
