Is there enough diversity in the media?

Diversity is when something is achieved when a range of people are included in something-for example people with different races, ethnicities, ages, disabilities, languages,

cultures, appearances, or religions. The majority of movies that have been released in the past used white men as the heroes and the black men the criminals, so when Marvel released Black Panther Wakanda Forever, groundbreaking opinions filled the media. All of the cast are not white and that is an enormous leap from adding one or two. This topic has sparked interesting discussions about diversity and I would like to talk about this matter because lots of people still don't feel represented.

I would like people to know that there is less representation than you think. In 2021, 5,383 children’s fiction and non-fiction books were published in the UK and only 1,059 of the books featured people of ethnic minorities (around 20%) in 2017 this was only 4%. Of this, only 9% of the books had a main character of an ethnic minority background compared with 1% in 2017. This information is taken from The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE). In football, Sarina Wiegman said in a report for the BBC on 10th November 2022, “We need to do more to improve diversity in English women’s football. I would like to see more black people.”

So, what should be done to fix this matter? Just adding three people from ethnic minorities and one disabled person won’t make a difference. Female leads have been cast in more recent movies like Black Widow and She-Hulk but more must be done. Lots of people around the world feel unnoticed in the media and are feeling left out. Hollywood should hire more people who have different stories and backgrounds so that their stories can be shared and all people will be represented.