Centennial Honors College
Western Illinois University
Undergraduate Research Day 2014
Podium Presentation
Representation of Ethnic Superheroes in Popular Media
Joshua Jefferson
Faculty Mentor: Erik Brooks
African American Studies
The examples of Heroes of Color in popular media are lacking. While the characters
exist in comic and video game history, they are not being actively utilized or
underutilized. Of those that do exist they are often one dimensional, caricature. While
there have been recent efforts to reintroduce these heroes and fix past mistakes the fact
is that popular media consistently fails to present and capitalize on the opportunities to
present unique stories from a prospective other than that of the predominantly Anglo
outlook. Subjects were interviewed and their responses coded and analyzed to find
commonalities and divergent points. The analysis of the interviews finds that initial
exposure to superheroes are often not of the subjects ethnic background and the
consumption of additional related media is impacted by the lack of identifiably distinct
ethnic heroes. There is a noticeable trend in the study that a market for ethnically
relevant heroes exists and that those in charge of the version mediums either by
ignorance of the audience or by a belief that the audience simply is not there have
limited themselves to representations that creates a self-perpetuating cycle, which
reinforces the idea that ethnic minorities are not interested in popular media like movies,
video games and comic books.