And the Ghost Panel started everything

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Dare to Challenge

5 min readFeb 22, 2021

And the Ghost Panel started everything

Have you ever actually thought if diversity is something common in movies? How often do you see black characters in your favourite genre of films? Or when was the last time a LGBTQ+ character was introduced in the series you binge watch during quarantine? You started thinking about every possible media right now, didn’t you? Well, representation of minorities in media is actually a topic that needs to be taken into consideration, especially now. We live in the 21st century where movies, series and TV are part of our everyday life and through them we learn about cultures and communities different than ours.

As a team, the GhostWriters, we noticed that diversity is not as common in the writing rooms as we thought. That’s why we decided to brainstorm and see what we can do about it. The start was with an online meeting panel (which you can check here) where some of our favourite shows and movies were discussed on the topic of representation of minorities in media. Which shows are a really good example and which kind of media was not so successful on that?

First of all, we made clear how the lack and exception of some communities in many different medium can affect us and especially them. Most of the time the wrong use of words and stereotypes seem to be a favourite thing to do, like the sassy and rough black women or latin x characters used as a ‘comic relief’ for example. That’s why the mistreatment against these minorities is enhanced with the lack or wrong representation of them in the media.This topic is also included in the UNs SDG goals, as it aligns with Goal 5, 10, 16, that talk about gender equality, reduced inequalities and peace, justice and strong institutions respectively.

One big movement that was one of the topics in our panel is the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. In June 2020 it became a global phenomenon and Blackout Tuesday was dedicated to Black Lives Matter. By posting a black picture on social media platforms people agreed to educate themselves on the topic through different kinds of books, movies, series and podcasts. Movies, like ‘The hate you give’ were recommended and many businesses, as Ben & Jerry’s protested against police brutality.

Next on the Ghost Panel we talked about one of our favourite shows. ‘Sex Education’ contains such a diverse cast and gets to touch many different topics. Black actors, mental health, female masturbation, a non-toxic male friendship, asexuality, interracial relationships, feminism are some of the things we noticed while watching it. It was actually one of the first shows we got to watch with so many people from different communities and it was normalising things that unfortunately our society thinks as taboo.

Another interesting series, that we actually recommend you to watch, is ‘Pose’. It’s set in the late 1980’s, in the middle of the AIDS epidemic and it follows a group of black trans women as they go about their lives. It’s such an informative show with an amazing talented cast who are trans women of colour. If you want to learn more about queer community and their history watch it.

One show that grabbed our attention is ‘Brooklyn 99’. Even though it is more light hearted it has a diverse cast, just like in ‘Sex Education’. The main team consists of people of colour, latinas and lgbtq+. It really conveys the difficulties minorities face, despite being in high positions. If you just want to relax while watching something funny that handles serious matters in a delicate way then this show is for you.

As we were talking about light hearted shows we noticed all of us have watched at least an episode of ‘Monster High’, the Goth Barbies of our childhood. You would think why would a kids show think about representing minorities? Well, they actually did. Mattel, the creator of the show, said his goal was to create characters everyone could relate to. While watching the show you can notice straight, black, mexican, hispanic, asian and characters with disabilities. All of these characters are depicted as activists who fight for racism, feminism and mental health problems.

As we continued our panel we got to talk about Marvel’s comic book ‘The New Warriors’. The purpose of this book was to create diverse characters that anyone could relate to, just like Mattel tried to do. Unfortunately, most of them were based on stereotypes, Snowflake and Safespace who were supposed to represent non-binary people are the main example.

One interesting thing we got into while talking was how throughout our school years we were never told about queer historical figures or they would not tell us they were queer. In our books the caption would be something like ‘two best friends who fought together’ but never ‘two lovers who lived and fought together’.

This is how our introducing panel started everything. We got to discuss,learn things we had never heard of before and express some opinions and thoughts. It was a safe space for everyone and that was when we understood how important representation of minorities actually is. Media is a big part of our life, and that’s why we want to give voice to so many minorities through our Ghost podcasts and vidcasts as the GhostWriters.

Marianina Deligianni John Reizis Σοφία Α. evadinou Marina Sol.

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And the Ghost Panel started everything

Written by Alexandra S