There’s a film called Sullivan’s Travels which follows the titular protagonist Sullivan, a Hollywood director, as he embarks on a journey sans his money, social status, and “privileges” as an upper-class, white male to try to empathize with those in poverty during the Great Depression. He hopes to use his learnings to make a film about the poor and highlight their struggles, an endeavor which many of the low-mid people he encounters along his journey question. At the end, after he actually loses his memories, his identity, and all his privileges is when he actually realizes how to truly make a movie to cater towards those struggling: comedy. A notable choice of casting/the director was that many of those in poverty were minorities.

There’s a certain representation in many films of the need for a “white savior” in order to make films revolving around minorities. The Last Samurai was a movie revolving around the death of the samurai tradition in a modernizing Japan, but casted Tom Cruise as the male lead. Sullivan felt the need to do the same as one with privileges, but what he did not realize was that efforts to cater towards those in poverty only highlighted his privileges and ignorance to the needs of the people in need. The dangers of the “white savior” complex portrayed in many media is that it identifies many races as incapable of modernizing or handling their own problems without Western influence. These can heighten certain misrepresentations in media and perpetuate the cycle of centering media around a certain race rather than a more holistic approach to media.