Social Acceptance: More than Just Labels by Kaley Beck

One of the most important things that is easily forgotten today is social acceptance. There are thousands of different types of people in the world, and yet we tend to find the ones that fit a certain criteria most appealing. This is shown in nearly every type of pop culture out there: movies, books, music videos, magazine covers, etc. The question is why, in today's times, where we are more culturally diverse than ever, do we continue to separate each person from one another? Why do we continue to put people into diminutive boxes with enormous labels over them to limit the person's depth and character?

We see this every day.  The cheerleader becomes simply the cheerleader, the member of the school band is labeled as just that, and even those who do not belong to a category get put into one. In movies, the popular football player goes for the shy girl. While this creates a misconception that producers are defying stereotypes, it is actually doing the exact opposite. Viewers have already put these characters into their labeled boxes, which is why we love it when the couple ends up together. This applies to gender stereotypes as well, even in things as small and insignificant as colors and hair styles. Most of the time in movies and books, the females are thin with long hair and typical beauty features. These are the stories that appeal the most to viewers because they are seen as ideal. Whether we notice we are doing it or not, we are playing into the stereotypes and labels.

Imagine this: A couple falls in love, but plot twist: they are just an ordinary couple. This could be a boy and a girl, a girl and a girl, or a boy and a boy, but it doesn't matter. The author/movie producer chooses to focus on their personalities, stories, and connection as opposed to the stereotypes that they are somehow (but not really) defying. Instead of focusing on labels, the book/movie completely ignores them, making the characters into people with more depth than one or two labels.

This could cause either nothing or everything, but both would be extraordinary. The reader/viewer could possibly not react at all, and maybe even feel as if they have wasted a fraction of their life watching/reading.  Or another possibility: they could  relate to the beauty of the piece simply because they were able to experience a genuine story. In this scenario, you learn to love the characters, and not because they defied the stereotypes that they were introduced as. You learn to love them for their humor, kindness, and wit. You are able to look at them as more than a label and as an authentic human being. If more pop culture did this, then maybe in real life people could adjust to seeing each other as human beings as well. Insignificant characteristics such as sexual orientation, appearance, and gender roles could become... well, insignificant as they should be.
 

My personal favorite examples of pop culture that overlook labels are books written by Ellen Hopkins. Hopkins writes in the form of free-verse poetry; the books revolve around controversial issues of realistic teenagers, which are utterly and completely beautiful. Many of her books show several points of view from a wide spectrum of characters. Examples of these are Impulse, Perfect Tricks, Tilt, and Identical. Within these novels, readers hear the stories of people of different sexual orientations, social groups, races, religions, upbringings, and personalities. In each book, the characters have immense depth, showing them as truly human. Despite their uniqueness, one thing that each character has in common is that they all carry struggles and baggage, just as every person does. That is one of the only aspects of life that every human being can relate to. In these books, the characters always intertwine into each other's stories, showing their humanity in comparison. The teenager struggling with her sexuality and identity is shown with equal significance to the female pageant queen. The "perfect," sporty boy struggles just as much as the girl with a broken family who self harms. The girl who comes from a conservative, religious family has a hidden story just like the girl with the drug addiction. Despite their differences, the characters are all represented as equally important, and the reader grows to love and connect with each of their stories. The reader has the view that each character is more than the stereotypes that tear them down; this is achieved because Hopkins writes in such a way that allows the reader to forget the stereotype all-together, rather than drawing attention to it.

Diversity is what makes up humanity, and our society would be much less divided if we stopped dividing it by things that do not define a person. We are each so much more than one single adjective. If we started accepting our differences rather than pointing them out, people would have freedom to be themselves without fear of feeling persecuted and unaccepted. If pop culture did not focus so much on peoples' differences and focused more on their positive qualities, people could have the ability to do this as well. Ultimately, the world would be a better place if we could all accept that our differences are what collectively make us human beings; we should start using words of sensitivity that do not degrade each other of worth or depth.

  For a similar book review about Ellen Hopkins' IMPULSE, go here.