Think about your favorite television show. The one you wouln't miss for anything. Now think about how many different ethnicities are represented on that show. Is it a big or small number? Now think about your favorite show from say, 10 years ago. How diverse was the cast back then?I bet the number from 10 years ago was a lot smaller than it is today.
From 1998-99, the top three highest rated shows on tv were ER, Friends, and Frasier. Three shows with practically all white casts. Now, we have top-rated shows like Grey's Anatomy, Heroes, Ugly Betty and Lost that feature very racialy diverse casts. Grey's Anatomy producers pride themselves on their blind-casting of the show, not giving any character a certain race, but hiring the best actor for the job. Sure, there were a lot of shows in the 90's that featured all-black casts, but is that necessarily promoting diversity?
Today's diversity efforts weren't as prevalent 10 years ago.
However, this is just my viewpoint. I think we've come a long way. Many others still think we're behind the times.
Entertainment Weekly recently released a special report called, "Diversity in Entertainment: Why is TV so white?" and the NAACP is preparing a fourth edition of a report focusing on the lack of diveristy in the media today titled, “Out of Focus, Out of Sync,” to be released later this year.
In a recent article in the New York Times it said, "Consider, as a contrast, what the red carpet will look like at next month’s Primetime Emmy awards ceremony. Of the 26 men nominated for Emmys for lead or supporting actor in a drama, comedy or mini-series, all are white, most of Anglo-Saxon descent." The article is mainly focused on Disney's efforts to promote diversity on their shows, which are all aimed at younger viewers. So basically, older tv stars=all white, younger stars=more diverse.
This is my question- How do you view the current situation of race on TV? Do you think the industry has come a long way in promoting diversity, or are we still stuck in 1999? How long will it be before everyone is happy?
34 comments:
After thinking about the TV shows and movies I used to watch and what I now watch, I can see a huge difference. When I was little my family's favorite shows to watch were Family Matters, Full House, Growing Pains and other similar family sitcoms. These shows were not racest, but it is funny to think how the whole cast of the shows were either white or black.
Today my favorite TV shows are Heroes and 24 both of which have a very diverse cast all working together to produce one great show.
I had always wondered how does someone who isn't white feel in society when most entertainment media ignores them. I think we have come a long way in depicting our diverse society in media's entertainment and will continue to do so as time goes on.
a few shows i'm really into right now is heroes, 24, and the office. and i think those shows have a diverse cast with characters from all over the the world speaking their own languages.
unfotunately, these characters reinforce stereotypes. i will rue the day when people who have never met an asian person ask an asian person if they can bend the space-time continuum and then be confused when they aren't speaking in broken english.(read:heroes) or when people believe somebody from the middle east is a terrorist, or think they can travel to long beach from downtown la under 15 minutes. (read: 24) or when people think that all middle-aged white men are ignorant and insensitive. (read: the office)
but we shouldn't make the media responsible for how we view the world. A certian show is only showing one particular person or group, and we need to realize not every race or people is exactly how they are portrayed to be.
we just need to think and say no, not everybody is like that. unfortunately, a lot of people in the world don't think.
I guess I might not be the most qualified person to answer this question, since I’ve only ever lived in places that are almost all white.
I have noticed what Tara mentioned about some of the more popular shows of today having a more racially diverse cast than the most popular shows of decades past. However, the racial diversity that I’ve seen on television and movies my whole life is much greater than anything I’ve witnessed in real life.
So, to me, TV has always seemed racially diverse.
-- Michael Williams
I think that TV is becoming more diverse, but I agree with the comment that says that this diversity is reinforcing stereotypes.
Take "The Office" for example. There is one episode in which the Michael announces that it is 'Diversity Day.' He makes everyone pretend as if they are a certain race, and then they must associate with each other as if they were that race. Most of the comments made are highly stereotypical and racial. What good does it do to have diversity in TV, if it only serves a purpose to be made fun of.
Since TV has become more racially diverse TV, writers are using this diversity to use racist humor as a form of entertainment, which is more detrimental to existing stereotypes, rather than helpful.
The only drawback is when casting for diversity of overdone. I remember watching a version of Cinderella in 1997 where the cast was so racially diverse it didn't make any sense. Cinderella was black, her stepmother was white, the prince was latino and his parents were black and white. It was so forced that it drew attention to itself.
I do think most TV is still white, though we have come a long way with diversity. I think making TV shows of different cultures adds variety to primetime.
I don't watch much TV these days, but shows like George Lopez and Ugly Betty have brought on new excitement. Even The Office, with Kelly (who is Indian), Oscar (Hispanic), and Stanley (Black), and Daryll (also Black) feels like a more real setting.
There could be that much diversity at any work place these days, possibly more. Not bad for a small Pennsylvania town.
I think we have come a long way. Years ago a TV show had a white cast or a black cast. Today we can watch a TV show that is very diverse. You gave the example of the drama “Grey’s Anatomy” which is a good example of showing diversity. On this show there is representation of many different ethnicities. I don’t know that we can ask the question of how long it will be before everyone is happy, because to me that juts doesn’t seem realistic that everyone can agree with the representation of all race.
The Office television show, which I think serves as a comedic satire that comments on the big issues of our society, has Stanley, the token black man. He is a hardworking salesman with a family, and very much a part of the respectable working class in America. Michael, the office manager, only sees him as someone who is supposed to be versed in ebonics and rap. Though we laugh at Michael's ignorance, I do think that we've come a long way in depicting diversity in the media. Though shows may not be as diverse as we would like or hope, we are able to make fun of the ridiculous sterotypes that once plagued the nineties.
I can see a difference in the casts, but I am not sure that they are actually representative of reality. How many black surgeons are there? Is the number on Grey's Anatomy proportionate to reality? Not that I think they should make everything true to life, but I think there has been an overcompensation for a lack of racial diversity. I don't think anyone wants to be the "token black man" or the "token asian person" in films or TV anymore, but I think that some shows see racially diverse cast members as an ability to check off "non-bigot" on their list. But in fact they cast those people in stereotypical roles which almost work against the fact that they don't have an all-white cast.
I agree with bring the painster. There is a great deal of racial diversity within the media currently but it does reinforce racial steriotypes.
I was thinking about some of my favorite shows and realized how much it is based on steriotypes. Even some of the more reality type shows that I watch solidify these steriotypes.
As for the question about how long it will be until everyone is happy, I don't believe that will ever happen. There is always going to be someone who wants to pick a fight and will complain about the role of race in the media.
I think that TV shows have come a long way, but I think that it's going to take some time still before everything appears "fair". And ultimately it's always going to be unfair for someone.
I wonder though if the tv shows are going out of their way to be more diverse just to be politically correct or if that's the way writers see things. I hope it's the latter.
My favorite TV show from 10 years ago was Boy Meets World. It's phenomenal. :) The cast is primarily white, but an african-american girlfriend was introduced in the later seasons. That's about as diverse as it got. I've never really paid attention to race before in the media, but the discussions in class and the various points made here on the blog have opened my eyes. I'm not racist in the least, and I agree with the young lady from South Africa in our class. (I'm really sorry for not knowing your name!) We really need to quit seeing things in terms of race!
The current shows are reflecting the current politically correct desire to make a show that reflects all people. If you tried to make an all-white show these days people would get very angry. The shows aren't just showing mixes of races because they feel it is right, they do it because the people demand it.
I think that the television world has come a long way in representing different cultures and races. When i flip through the television channels i see different skin colors different accents and diversity. I do believe that there is effort behind the display of different faces, but the idea that there is effort going on to represent different races shows the change of attitude in the industry.
I think that as a society, we are doing much better today than we were years ago. The sad thing however, is that we are trying to correct years and years of the opposite. No matter how hard media systems try, they will never be able to satisfy everyone's wishes and ideals.
After comparing the shows I watch now to the ones I watched ten years ago, I think there has been a pretty good improvement in increasing the diversity in casts. But I agree that even with this diversity, the stereotypes often live on. I'm not really sure when we will find the happy medium...I think there is still a lot of work to be done, and I agree that it's hard to please everyone when it comes to this topic.
i think, for the most part, society is content with the diversity of tv shows because of the diversity in the tv series cast. but you can never please everyone, and that's that; so don't even try. i watched the office last week and in one scene michael scott calls up kelly (an woman of indian descent), and he makes it a point to let everyone know that, even though they could've figured it out. in any case, the fact that she was indian had no purpose in the scene. so it was pointless to even bring up. why could such an event take place on tv, and it be okay?
I never really thought about it, but we have come a long way. Friends was as white as you could get.. The black girls in my high school science class used to call me "Chandler Bing." Even shows like Lost have tried with multiple characters of different elasticities. Heroes is a good example, as was 24. Survivor this season and other seasons have had lots of white, blacks, Asians, and Hispanics. In one controversial season, they even divided teams up by race. I don't think that was offensive, but a questionable decision that actually didn't result in much of anything.
TV Shows are portrayals of our American life - If there was a TV show about myself, it would basically feature an all white cast - just because of who my family is and the demographic I live in. That's why lots of "family comedies" show more homogeneous groups. Shows like 24, The Office, Greys Anatomy, etc have heterogeneous casts because they take place in the work place or the real world. We have come a long way... The real problem is the lack of respect for non-white actors (as shown at the Emmys). There should be more recognition given to the work of minorities.
You know, I don't really buy the all-white argument. What about Family Matters? Steve Urkel was the mantis and he wasn't white, so I don't think there was some conspiracy to make all-white tv shows. But I am personally against tv as a whole, so I don't know too much about it these days. I reckon if they act well, put 'em on tv.
Talking about poor diversity in media, let me tell you a story about one Canadian guy living in my country (which is Vietnam by the way) He happens to know the language and can use it fluently with a lot of slangs (which is pretty common here in the states but instead something quite rare in Vietnam) And what do you know, he wrote blogs in Vietnamese, and got known and became such a big star in the entertainment industry back there. From what I know, he is now a MC/actor/writer/columnist in Vietnam, just because he knows the language!
I think we are in a pretty good current situation with race on television right now. (However, I chuckled to myself when you posed the initial question of what television show we like right now- I thought of "The Hills"... A homogeneous show that reinforces our stereotype of rich, white, Southern CA girls. There is absolutely no diversity in race in that show.)
And agreeing with many of the previous comments, everyone will never be happy, but producers and writers are becoming more sensitive and accommodating to the issues.
I'd say individual shows and networks have become more conscious of diverse casts, but at the same time there is a lack of diversity in main roles. We all watched the all-black casts of Fresh Prince, Hangin with Mr. Cooper and Family Matters, and for a time it seemed as if every show with Africa-Americans in the lead was relegated to UPN or WB. Currently on television it's more difficult to name African-Americans playing main roles on television shows.
It's obviously true that there are steps we need to take in getting more diversity on tv, but maybe as a white person I just don't care. I'm not sure, but maybe my opinion would be different if I were a different race. I think people are taking things too seriously. I have seen shows on BET that only have black people and I don't care one bit. Sometimes it bothers me when people are trying to be so politically correct, it makes me sick.
The first TV show I thought of was Grey's Anatomy, which was later talked about in the original post. If you think about this cast, the producers have done a great job of including several different races. Since this is one of the most popular shows on TV, it goes to show that as a society we are improving. We are used to seeing diversity in the media, and I think as time goes on it will just keep getting better. We are not stuck in 1999. We can witness the changes since we have lived through them. Things will hopefully keep going in the right direction.
I think that the entertainment industry is doing just find. There is enough racial diversity in the industry. There are so many white males up for best actor and supporting actor because the majority of black people are not into acting. I think if you took a poll on how many white kids to black kids want to be actors I think it would be about 10 to 1. But thats just my opinion.
I think we have come a long way, and I think it'll get better. Frankly, I have no problem with the way actors are being cast right now because we have a variety of races and ethnicities on TV. We have really come a long way and it'll keep on improving.
I think there will always be some people that will not be satisfied. However, every little bit counts. The shows that are on during primetime today are very racially diverse as you pointed out compared with 10 years ago. I think it will be great as the media tries to constantly represent diversity in their shows and we will all benefit from it.
Just like brett said... There were tons of shows featuring african americans as mains. Fresh Prince, In Living Color (with the exception of the one and only Jim Carrey), the Martin Lawrence show, and many others. But all were black. Likewise were shows like Full House (except for Michelle's best friends, both of whom were black), The Wonder Years, and one of my favorite shows that no one has ever heard of, Parker Lewis Can't Lose.
So to say that people of color were oppressed is an obbvious misconception (not that anyone is making that claim). But the difference now is the racial intergration in TV. Shows like The Office, House (which even includes an Auzzie), Grey's Anatomy climb over that racial barrier.
Good thing...? Sure! But do i think that they've been more concientious in putting making that changed... not sure. but it is more prevalent!
First of all, I seriously doubt everyone will ever be happy. I do think that television has made strides in the direction of diversity, however. My two favorite shows are The Office and Lost. Both shows seem diverse to me. The one show I love the most that seems to lack diversity is SportsCenter on ESPN. Hardly any of the athletes are white anymore. :)
I think The Office is a great example of diversity of TV today. I think a show that kind of reinforces stereotypes is 30 Rock. Alec Baldwin plays the white-middle aged white collar worker while Tracy Morgan as the slightly ridiculous yet humorous black tv star. However, since this show is a comedy it is meant to be funny and uses these sorts of stereotypes as humor.
Personally I think tv is a form of entertainment, and I don't usually watch my favorite shows because I want to see if they are truly reflecting the racially diverse nature of our country.
I think we've come a long way, but still have a ways to go. It's hard to say when we've "arrived", but i feel like minorities still aren't being represented in an equal light. but the fact that we can point that out humorously on shows like the Office or South Park is saying something.
I am going to reitterate the same point I tried to make in class. The reason the world and America has racial issues- is because people are always classified according to the color of their skin- it is ridiculous! Lets classify males and females, and good actors and bad ones, but counting the number of ethnicities in a show, uncovers nothing of value and perpetuates this cycle of racism. S-T-O-P! Don't worry what color your favorite TV stars are- just worry about how well they portray the character.
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