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Writer's pictureAlyssa DiTomasso

Switched at Birth Review

Updated: Jan 12, 2019

I've reached the dreaded end to an amazing show on Netflix, and here's what I've learned and what I want to share with you!



As many of you know I am a recent college grad, so I've stumbled into a lot of free time while trying to find my forever job. So I have taken it upon myself to document everything I do in my journey to my forever job. So you might be thinking, "What does this have to do with a Netflix show?" Well the truth is I just finished this super cool show on Netflix called Switched at Birth. The show originally aired on ABC Family and was brought over to Free Form once the channel had some branding changes made.



I started watching the show back when it originally aired. I was initially attracted to the show due to the fact that one of the main characters, Bay Kinnesh, was portrayed as a Puerto Rican and Italian/French all things beautiful mixed ethnic backgrounds(which of course I immediately was attracted to due to the fact that I am Puerto Rican/Italian). I quickly stopped because that same character's parents were portrayed as criminals and shady. It was quite upsetting to me at the time because in media, there is a huge lack of representation of minorities on screen and when they are it's always a negative stereotype being reinforced. So here I was thinking, " Finally a character that bared a similar resemblance to me, and was also the same ethnicity as me." I was so excited to finally have some representation in media. It was a huge let down to find out that Bay and her "bio" parents were just another media injustice stereotyping minorities as criminals.




Let me give you all a brief history of how I ended up watching Switched at Birth on Netflix. Somewhere in between 2014 and 2018 I added Switched at Birth to my list of shows to watch on Netflix. The show sat on my watch list for a while and then one day about a month ago I started watching it. I almost immediately remembered why I stopped watching it in the first place; however I pushed myself to get past the obvious racial stigmas the show writers put in place for the minority characters to see what this show could really offer a viewer. Now I know I'm no where close to an expert, but having a degree in digital media and entertainment actually came in handy for a show like this because I was able to identify that Switched at Birth actually falls under the edutainment category versus entertainment.


If you've made it this far don't stop reading! I'll be sharing my list of reasons why this show actually ended up being better than expected, BUT before I really dive into that I just wanted to leave you all with some light reading on the difference between entertainment and edutainment. Click here for an article comparing the two.


Now onto the fun stuff and why you really came to read my latest article:


If you've like this article don't forget to subscribe to my blog to follow my journey through life! You can also subscribe to my Youtube channel to see some of my latest work!


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