<p><span class="p-body">Chyng-Feng Sun is a clinical professor of media studies at the NYU SPS <a href="/content/sps-nyu/about/academic-divisions-and-departments/division-of-applied-undergraduate-studies.html" title="Division of Applied Undergraduate Studies">Division of Applied Undergraduate Studies</a>. She has taught and conducted research on popular media representations of race, class, gender, and sexuality, and their cultural and social impacts. One example is a project in which she led a group of international scholars who surveyed 8,000 subjects in nine countries, leading to 17 peer-reviewed journal articles.&nbsp;</span></p> <p><span class="p-body">She also makes documentary films, which are extensions of her research on media representations and their effects. Recently, the Connecticut State Education Resource Center approved plans to move forward with the dissemination of her 2012 documentary film<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVr2oR9B2jE" target="_blank" title="Latinos Beyond Reel"> Latinos Beyond Reel</a> to the state's 250 public high schools.&nbsp;</span></p>

<p>&quot;Latinos commonly refers to people in the US who were born in, or whose ancestors came from, Latin America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean,&quot; shared Sun. &quot;Although they comprise 19% of the US population and are our largest minority group, Latinos have been largely invisible in the media—in both news and entertainment—and when they have been represented, they were mostly negatively portrayed.&quot;</p> <p>Sun decided to make Latinos Beyond Reel because she felt the need to interrogate many assumptions about latino discourse. She actually needed media materials addressing the problem for her own teaching curricula, but could not find anything appropriate. The film examines how American media portray—and do not portray—Latinos. It uncovers simultaneous patterns of gross misrepresentation and gross under-representation -- revealing a world in which Latinos appear, if at all, as murderers and Mexican bandits, harlots and hookers, gang bangers and welfare-leeching illegals.&nbsp;</p> <p>In the end, the film shows us why media representations matter, pointing to the tragic consequences that result when a narrow range of distorted images are allowed to stand in for an entire population.&nbsp;</p> <p>Latinos Beyond Reel is the fourth documentary film that Sun wrote, co-produced, and co-directed with Miguel Picker, a Chilean-American filmmaker. &quot;My films have always been created by multiracial and multicultural teams,&quot; she explained. &quot;I would not have made the film if I had not been able to work with a co-director of Latin American descent.&quot;</p>

<p>Sun hopes that the film can help shape the worldview and identities of Americans. After all, the vilification of any group in both entertainment and news media has real-life consequences.</p>

<p>&quot;I have heard Latino audiences saying that they always knew about media stereotypes, but my film helped them see the patterns in an objective and scientific way,&quot; she continued. &quot;Audiences of other races, particularly Blacks, remarked that they did not realize that Latinos also suffer media racism just like themselves.&quot;</p> <p>And of course, Sun has witnessed this happen first-hand based on feedback from viewers. &quot;From my observations and reports from professors who showed the film in class, the self-identified Latino children in the film, aged 5 to 12, seemed to elicit the strongest emotional impact from the audience,&quot; she conveyed.&nbsp;</p> <p>&quot;Children pinpointed negative Latino characters in cartoons, could not remember seeing any heroes/heroines in films that look like them, and expressed hurt and anger when they saw free or popular video games or YouTube videos that depict killing or capturing illegal aliens.&quot;</p>

<p>The distribution of her film with the state of Connecticut is a particular source of pride for Sun. &quot;I have no personal connection with the Connecticut school system. In December 2020, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont announced that beginning in the fall of 2022, the state would require high schools to offer African American, Black, Puerto Rican, and Latino studies, becoming the first state in the nation to do so,&quot; she recalled.&nbsp;</p> <p>The film is also available for consumption outside of school, being released and distributed by the Media Education Foundation. Latinos Beyond Reel has actually appeared on the distributor's bestselling lists and has been viewed by audiences (particularly college students and teachers) across the country.&nbsp;</p> <p>&quot;As an educator, it is particularly exciting to conduct professional development workshops for Connecticut high school teachers on how to use the film to engage students in discussion,&quot; she shared. &quot;At a time when public school curricula are so politicized, and critical race theory is so vilified and misunderstood, I hope that more states will follow Connecticut's example to offer similar courses to public school students.&quot;</p> <p>A <a href="/content/sps-nyu/explore/degrees-and-programs/ba-in-social-sciences.html" title="BA in Social Sciences">BA in Social Sciences </a>from NYU SPS can open doors that you may have never imagined were possible. See where you can start the next chapter of your career with a degree from the <a href="/content/sps-nyu/about/academic-divisions-and-departments/division-of-applied-undergraduate-studies.html" title="Division of Applied Undergraduate Studies">Division of Applied Undergraduate Studies</a>.</p>