What a tangled web of unreality

From L.G.B.T.Q. TV Representation Falls for First Time in 5 Years, Glaad Finds by Sarah Bahr.  Being a Classical Liberal, my focus is primarily on individuals and their actions and choices rather than racist and sexist categories which so beguile the Critical Theory knot-heads.  Given that I watch little current television, the Glaad research is in its own right of little interest.

But I am intrigued by a couple of implications and inconsistencies.  

One aspect is that Critical Theory and Post Modernists tend to focus on the importance of historically marginalized minorities being able to see themselves in all environments.  The notional idea is that if a bright female African-American STEM enthusiast student does not see herself mirrored in stories, news, shows and movies, she will be unlikely to enter the STEM field.  A claim without empirical support.  But it is on that basis that so many in academia and MSM/entertainment focus so maniacally on race and sex.  They are trying to be moral by being sexist and racist, i.e. defining people by sex and race and not by individual choices and actions.

In this instance, Glaad is theoretically measuring progress by measuring the presence of actors in roles as determined by their race and sex.

Bahr is alarmed that in Season 2020-2021, LGBTQ representation is down from 10.2% to 9.1%.  

On the other hand, there is this success.

For the first time, the report found, more than half of L.G.B.T.Q. characters on prime-time scripted cable series were people of color (broadcast had already achieved that figure). Streaming was the only platform in which white L.G.B.T.Q. characters (51 percent) outnumbered nonwhite ones.

On the other hand:

Representation of women remained unchanged at 46 percent of series regulars on broadcast television, but they are still underrepresented, as they make up 51 percent of the U.S. population, according to the Census Bureau.

[snip]

The percentage of Black characters on broadcast television remained about the same at 22 percent (slightly down from last season’s 23 percent), while the percentage of Latino characters decreased, to 7 percent from 9 percent. 

Again, I find this indulgence of sexism and racism all immensely divisive and repugnant.  I understand keeping track of numbers as a tripwire to ensure that there are not deliberate acts of racism and sexism or avoidable systemic outcomes, but not this effort to ensure representational outcomes.

The striking thing is, given the desire to see reality in representation, they are celebrating misrepresentation.

African-American - Representation in TV is 22%.  Actual percentage of the population, 13.4%.  In other words they are 64% overrepresented.

Female - Representation in TV is 46% versus 51% of the population.  A 10% underrepresentation.  

LGBTQ - Representation in TV is 9.1% versus 4.5% in the population.  A 102% overrepresentation. 

LGBTQ PoC - Representation in TV is 51% versus 38% in the population.  A 34% overrepresentation.

If the nominal goal is to ensure that everyone sees themselves as they are actually proportionately represented in the population, then this is an abysmal failure.  Indeed, it hearkens back to an older era of tokens, mascots and quotas.  Ugh.  

It is worse that even within the confines of their Critical Theory objectives.  Every over or under representation means that some other group is under or over-represented.  If African-Americans are 64% overrepresented then some among White, Asian American, Hispanic or Native Americans must be underrepresented.  

But the first order objection remains the most fundamental.  We should be judging people by their actions and choices (and performance in this case) rather than their mere existence as tokens of race or sex or orientation.