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they identify with, so that they may use them as tools for identity development and social
identity gratification. Grey (2013) states that “Whether they take form in movies, television
programs, news, talk, blogs, tweets, music, mobile connectivity, or Instagram, media are the site
where attachments and belonging arranged in difference seem to matter more, not less.” (13).
This assertion, along with Ellithorpe’s work, stands to reason: we as people learn from television
about who we should, could, and will be. We learn morals and ideals, take on character traits and
opinions. And if, when an Arabic man is on television 90% of the time, he’s a villain, or when a
woman is on screen she’s a seductress, or crying for help, what are we learning? What ideals are
we gaining through the television we watch every day? I will be using This Is Us to answer that
very question. If we learn through television, what are we being taught?

Literary Review
While I would love to naturally find literature that analyses characters in This Is Us, that
seems a bit niche. And while I would love to simply happen upon texts that are studying
representation and how they are represented, that, apparently, is also a bit niche. However, this
provided me with an opportunity. Rather than studying representation in a particular television
program, I found that it would be more productive to find scholars that wrote on varying types of
representation, as well as differing genres and levels of production, so that rather than finding
when someone was represented a certain way through them, I would instead come to my own
conclusion about how and why they were represented in that certain way.
In her study, Tierney (2013) searched for the representation of beauty ideals in Ugly
Betty. She first contextualizes Ugly Betty, and its Spanish television origin, Betty, la fea (Betty,
the ugly). She notes key similarities, such as Betty’s lower economic status, or the similarities in

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