The Witness Files (1999)

A decade since it aired, Shameless (U.S.) has always stuck to its guns (and baseball bats) about character diversity.

Like all modern societal phenomenons, it started with a meme. This one highlighted that when there’s a mom in a Pixar film, she is almost without fail given striking curves that highlight the bottom half of her body following a minuscule waist. From Elastigirl to the skeletal Mama Imelda, the animation giant’s artists seem to have a fixation on making exaggeratedly curvy maternal characters.

By depicting 4 different stories, Director Sergio Tovar Velarde keeps the focus on the shared humanity and search for love (both self and romantic) of various gay Mexican men.

Outer Banks (2020-) knows its audience: young adults in a country that can’t stop romanticizing good ole’ treasure hunts. Add a little of Riverdale’s (2017-) sex appeal, and no one can look away. Forty years after The Goonies (1985) America’s consciousness hasn’t strayed from the same tropes: treasure hunts, a vulnerable white male lead, and the whitewashing of a racially segregated setting.

With This is Us now on its fifth season and A Million Little Things on its third, we have a lot of material to entertain the hypothetical: if these two shows got in the ring together, who would come out victorious? Despite the endless recognition for the former’s success, I dare say I’d put my money on A Million Little Things once all is said and done.

Mulan had to struggle to feel like herself and see herself properly. Some of us have to strive to have our reflection mimic what’s inside. We have to crawl. We have to fight.