Representation in the Netflix show The Society
The Society is a Netflix original that was released in 2019. The show follows a group of teens who after going on a field trip go home to a city where everyone is missing; the only people left are those students who went on the trip. The show has a variety group of characters like Hispanic, black, gay, and even deaf characters. The most notable and best-represented group would have to be the deaf character named Sam who is played by actor Sean Berdy.
Representation of deaf characters isn't often seen
in today's media but The Society decided to go against the grain and include a deaf character, a huge part of "Sam's" life in the show is about being deaf, struggling to communicate with other kids, and being bullied by his peers for being deaf and gay. The reason why The society has been praised for its deaf representation is because rather than having a non-deaf actor play the role they hired a deaf actor. Shows with hearing actors playing deaf characters have received tons of backlash, like The Silent which features actress Kiernan Shipka as a deaf girl. Having a deaf actor play a real deaf character allows for the character to reach its full potential; A deaf person knows what it is like to be deaf and what struggles they go through so they can fully express those thoughts in with their character.
Sean Berdy was very happy to play this role and said that none of his co-starts knew sign language so they had to hire an interpreter but soon all his co-stars were more than happy to learn and some even took extra time to learn more, you can see this throughout the show as most characters learn sign language to communicate with Sam. Overall the reviews for Sam's character were very good and people are glad to see more representation of people with disabilities like being deaf.
Out of all the main characters alongside Sam, 3 main ones offer a representation of different races, cultures or struggles with some kind of issues not commonly represented. Will, Becca, Helena.
Will - Half Black, Foster Care.
Becca- Hispanic, and teen mom
Helena- AsianThey also have other supporting character who represent different groups. Gordie, Bean, and Madison.
Gordie- Hispanic
Bean- muslim
Madison- half Black.One of The Society's main goals is to bring attention to topics affecting teenagers around the world and one of the ways they do that is by providing a variety of different cast members and showing representation some representations being better than others. Although they do a good job at casting characters who are the same race or have the same struggles as their character a majority of the cast is white.
