How To Ensure That TV Productions Are Culturally Appropriate

From the props you use to the style and format of your production, you will need to be geared up to the audience you want to reach. However, it can be easy to cross some red lines when it comes to cultural appropriateness, so your studio work should avoid this.

The World Cup, jointly hosted by three countries, but mainly the United States, may be a prime example of how not to reach a culturally diverse audience.

A country famous for focusing on its own sports and calling football ‘soccer’, the US brought its own influence to bear on a game with which it has had only a fleeting relationship, with the needs and wishes of American TV executives to the fore. Examples included:

• Mandatory mid-half drinks breaks, effectively turning matches into games of four quarters and generating extra time for ad breaks.

• TV directors repeatedly showing images of celebrities in the crowd, adding to a ‘Hollywood’ style

• The Superbowl-style half-time show in the final, which was curtailed from its original planned length over concerns about player welfare.

Did Americanisation In The World Cup Alienate Global Viewers?

Much of this represented a means of generating more TV viewership and advertising revenue, but happened as part of what outsiders would see as an aggressive

Americanisation of the event, with a particular focus on the high profile of Donald Trump.

This clashed somewhat with the very distinctive expressions of fan culture elsewhere among the other 47 competitors, such as the Norwegian rowing, the Scots with their traffic cones on statues and the English singing some classic Mancunian lyrics.

A key question is: does it matter? On one level, it does not. If TV companies were happy with a production that suited American audiences, they might not care what the rest of the world thought.  

However, even within the US there was much criticism. UFC boss Dana White slated the World Cup final production effort as “the worst in sports history,” with much coarser language than Wayne Rooney’s response to the half-time show.

Another criticism was aimed at the pre-match speech by Tom Cruise for being delivered in English when, for the first time since the inaugural World Cup in 1930, both finalists were Spanish-speaking. 

How To Keep Your Productions Inclusive

Of course, your production is likely to be very different from a World Cup final and you won’t have Donald Trump trying to be the star, but that may make it all the more important that you ask the right questions about your own TV show, film or advert:

• Does it strike the right tone for the audience?

• If you use props, costumes or special effects, are there elements that may cause offence to certain people or reinforce stereotypes?

• Can your post-production work spot and carefully edit out anything that might cause a problem?

  
  

It is worth remembering that if an advert is problematic, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) could get involved, while TV programmes can generate plenty of complaints if they end up offending someone.

For example, in June, which was Pride Month, the ASA issued a warning to advertisers looking to mark the occasion to be wary of producing any material that might unwittingly provoke offence among the LGBT community, giving examples of past transgressions.

Other examples of areas where offence could be caused by ads that the ASA has raised in the recent past include:

• Religion (for example, at Easter)

• Race (for instance, in Black History Month)

• Sex and the sexual portrayal of women

• Gender stereotypes about men and boys

Can Careful Use Of Props And Editing Avoid Inappropriate Productions?

The use of props is a good example of how to be careful. We have a huge array of different props, which means you can easily find something that fits for your ad.

However, choosing costumes carefully does make sense to ensure none of them is geared towards stereotypes based on ethnicity, culture or other stereotypes.

While some of the most obvious examples of stereotypes and exclusionary language seen in the past might have been weeded out (or removed from marmalade labels), it can still be very easy to get it wrong.

Cultural insensitivity or the causing of offence is not just a result of imposing one’s own culture onto something borne of another (as the US has evidently tried to do in the World Cup); It can just as easily be the result of sheer carelessness.

That is why, when choosing props or carrying out editing in post-production, careful consideration needs to be given to sensitive matters.

This way, you can reach a wider audience and avoid, so far as is reasonably possible, causing offence or making certain individuals or groups feel excluded.