First Interracial Kiss- UK

The first interracial kiss on TV in the UK occurred four years before the kiss in the United States.  It was between a White man and an African American woman, on the soap opera "Emergency Ward 10".

Google Family

This is a screen shot of what came up when we searched Google for "family."  While there are some families of different race, and there appears to be a few single parents in there, most of what came up were 'nuclear families'.  One mom, one dad, two to three kids, and possibly a dog in there somewhere.  There are few interracial families, and NO same sex families.  Our hope, through this project, is to prove that increased presence in the media does increase levels of acceptance of diverse families, and that if we increase the presence of diversity in families on TV, we may see a very different, and more diverse result when we put in the same search 5-10 years from now.

Disney Diversity

     Though this specific example is from a movie, and we are choosing to focus on television media, I thought it is important to point out that even cartoons geared at very young children are beginning to show interracial couples.  Disney's "The Princess and the Frog" is a great example with an African-American princess and a Brazilian prince, living happily ever after (of course!).  There was still some backlash over this movie, mostly because the prince was not African-American as well, which made some of this population feel that it was showing discrimination against men of color.  In our opinion, a great depiction of a diverse, happy couple.  To Disney, we say Nice Work!  You are showing our younger generations that diversity is okay.  You can't please them all, but this sure is a great start!

Celebrity Couples

Whether we like it or not, celebrities act as role models for not only the youth, but the majority of our nation.  When we see celebrities doing something, we often come to think of that something as acceptable or 'cool'.  Participating in interracial relationships are no different.  Celebrity couples such as Lamar Odom and Khloe Kardashian, Heidi Klum and Seal, and Zoe Saldana and Keith Britton show the world that interracial couples can be successful, and if they are not, it is not because of racial differences, but just your average couple complications.
            
            Khloe and Lamar                              Heidi and Seal                               Zoe and Keith

A Brief History

In the late 1600's, Virginia, along with many other southern states, enacted laws against marriages of different races.  Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter (pictured above) sought to change this, after being criminally charged in Virginia for their marriage to one another.  On June 12, 1967, their efforts were successful when the Supreme Court ruled in their favor, deeming laws against interracial marriage unconstitutional.  This was a turning point in history for interracial marriage, and we expect to see similar findings in the future for similar laws concerning same sex marriages.  

Swedish Commercial- Divorced Parents

Never mind the title...but Ikea makes another commercial (they have others with gay parents and interracial couples) portraying a differing family style.  She/He are co-parenting due to a divorce, so neither is a single parent, but this type of family once again is not normally shown in US commercials. 

UK Commercial- Single Parent Families

A commercial shown in the UK for a flooring company.  It showcases some of the struggles a single parent faces, but while including the daughter, in a fun and childlike way, almost to show both sides of parenting.  The mother points out she is a single parent, something usually hidden or unseen in United States commercials.  More single parents are included in US television shows than commercials, if they were shown more frequently in this form of television would acceptance increase even more within the community? Or are sellers too afraid to lose customers to be this daring?