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Race & Ethnicity On TV

callie lee 29

By callie lee 29
in Everything Else TV

Meredith Quill
Message added by Meredith Quill,

This is the place to discuss race and ethnicity issues related to TV shows only.

Go here for the equivalent movie discussions.

For general discussion without TV/Film context please use the Social Justice topic in Everything Else. 

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DearEvette

DearEvette

4 hours ago, MissAlmond said:

Now why did Sleepy Hollow creator, Philip Iscove take to Twitter streets declaring "Shipping nonsense! and how two people can just be friends blah, blah, blah" about fans shipping some couple on Hulu's The Bear? A show the man has nothing to do with! Guess Iscove thought nobody remembered his name. They did. Tweet deleted but the memory lives again

Yeah the shipping discourse between Carmy and Sydney on The Bear is interesting.  I don't know if any of The Bear creatives have weighed in (they'd be smart NOT to) but the whole thing has a 'been there, done that quality with some people saying 'There is no chemistry' and 'Why can't people just be friends' and 'They are giving sibling energy'  in response to people shipping the couple.

Now, to be fair I am not shipping Syd and Carmy per se I can see an argument for them being this great friend-partnership only, but the shippers are not pulling stuff out of their asses.  I don't know if it is the writing, the directing, the acting choices or just the actor chemistry, but Syd and Carmy have scenes that objectively read as UST. 

Which brings me to the race portion of all this because usually these kickbacks to 'can't people just be friends" and 'they are giving sibling" vibes tend to be loudest when one pair of the shipping couple is a black female. 

Which brings us to Iscove and yeah, he needs to just sit there and eat his food.  He has no credibility here.  Given how they fumbled the bag with their own couple, I would only trust them to tell me how NOT to have nice things.

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jhlipton
jhlipton

I have a lot of friends who are very active in working against racism and sexism and not a single one hates whites or men.  White male ego is so fragile that two women of color on the latest Star Trek

Trini
Trini

I mean, sure; but it would be weird to have everyone on TV look like this:   I personally like seeing people of different ethnicities in my entertainment.

DearEvette
DearEvette

Megyn Kelly doesn't have the charm or charisma to attract a morning talk show audience or any sort of positive attention.  The only time she gets any attention is when she does something execrable.

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MissAlmond

MissAlmond

2 hours ago, Raja said:

Well for a decade he has been hearing from fans that his  not changing plans when he had lighting in a bottle and bulled forward with his initial plot of the 200 year love story. So he snaps back

I know Phil Iscove not out there snapping at anyone when he, himself, changed OG author Washington Irving's Ichabod Crane from a played as a fool by Brom Bones, Katrina, and probably the entire town of Sleepy Hollow.  

11 minutes ago, DearEvette said:

Which brings me to the race portion of all this because usually these kickbacks to 'can't people just be friends" and 'they are giving sibling" vibes tend to be loudest when one pair of the shipping couple is a black female.

Yeah, that was the discussion going on elsewhere when Phil Iscove inadvertently hashtaged himself into the conversation. Guess he picked the wrong day to talk about shipping. 

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Spartan Girl

Spartan Girl

So there was this one episode of the new season of The Proud Family where they tried to tackle colorism. Penny and the girls are all in a tizzy over some teen celebrity named Noah that attends their school, and are baffled that he ignores all of them and asks out Zoey. They hear it’s because he is only into white girls. Naturally, they are hurt and upset, but instead of realizing that Noah is a jerk and not worth their time, they immediately turn on Zoey, acting like she “stole” him from them. Zoey has no idea what’s going on, but that doesn’t stop them from disinviting Zoey from their party. It isn’t until Zoey shows up to their party and confronts them about why they’re being so awful to her that they finally tell her about what they heard…and Zoey automatically assumes that they’re just jealous. Huge fight ensues.

Eventually, it turns out the rumor about Noah’s preferences is true—and Zoey promptly dumps him because she doesn’t want anything to do with someone who would hurt her friends. But I can’t help feeling the message of the episode was kind of muddled. Were we supposed to see Zoey as the villain because her friends turned on her without giving her the benefit of the doubt? It’s understandable that Zoey wouldn’t believe them when they automatically treated her like crap BEFORE telling her what they were—not to mention they were practically asking “why else would he be interested in an nerdy girl like her?” before they found out the truth. Honestly, Penny and Dijonay don’t come off well when you realize that they already HAVE boyfriends while throwing themselves over that jerk.

So again, I applaud the show for talking about colorism, but again, they could have done it differently.

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DearEvette

DearEvette

One of my favorite and imo one of the better tv episodes re: colorism is the Season 1 episode in Dear White People that focused on CoCo. 

In the original movie, Coco was presented as this blonde weave, fake blue eyed dark-skinned girl who was not really given any context (she was played by Teyonah Parris).  Whereas the light skinned biracial Sam (played by Tessa Thompson) was centered in the movie and her embracing of her blackness is given all the nuance you could want.

ironically, of course, this set up is textbook colorism with the light skinned woman given all this agency and centering, and the dark skinned woman is kinda reduced to a self-hating one-dimensional character.

In the tv show, that gets redressed fabulously.  For one, the tv show version of CoCo (played by Antoinette Robertson) is soooo complex and brilliantly conceived.  IMO, she got the best character development and writing.  And her episode (all the characters got their own character centered episode in season one) was about how colorism affected her.  But also it puts into perspective how colorism has benefited Sam (played by Logan Browning) in ways that Sam never realized.  It is a nice bit of writing because CoCo is 100% aware of what is going on but Sam's light skinned privilege blinds her.

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Trini

Trini

Lois Lane is Korean-American in the new animated series My Adventures with Superman (a super cute new take on Superman lore):

Personally, I've always thought that since "brunette" was lois' main physical characteristic, she could be played by a brunette of any race.

And Jimmy Olsen and Perry White are African-American in this version as well, but this isn't the first time DC has 'racebent' those characters.

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Scarlett45

Scarlett45

On 7/22/2023 at 3:50 PM, Bastet said:

Interestingly, the two best discussions of colorism I've ever seen on TV both involved Lorraine Toussaint -- an episode of Any Day Now and one of The Fosters.

I’m not familiar with the one from any day now, but I do remember Lorraine Toussaint in The Fosters! I vaguely remember that conversation. She is a national treasure so I don’t doubt it was brilliant. 

PepSinger

PepSinger

On 8/10/2023 at 8:49 PM, Scarlett45 said:

 

On 7/22/2023 at 4:50 PM, Bastet said:

Interestingly, the two best discussions of colorism I've ever seen on TV both involved Lorraine Toussaint -- an episode of Any Day Now and one of The Fosters.

I’m not familiar with the one from any day now, but I do remember Lorraine Toussaint in The Fosters! I vaguely remember that conversation. She is a national treasure so I don’t doubt it was brilliant. 

 

It truly was. I remember her on both shows. Fantastic.

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Trini

Trini

On 6/20/2019 at 2:38 AM, Trini said:
On 6/19/2019 at 11:26 PM, paulvdb said:

‘Mixed-Ish’: Mark-Paul Gosselaar Joins ‘Black-Ish’ Spinoff On ABC In Recasting

He will play Bow's father

I don't know what it means, but it's kind of interesting that this is the third time in the past few years (after Pitch, and The Passage) that Gosselaar has been paired with a black, female co-star for a series.

... And with Found, make that the fourth time M-PG is starring in a show with a Black, female lead. However, this time it's a very different type of role than the others.

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Trini

Trini

I had read this a while ago and meant to bring it up here, as an example of Black actresses experiences with getting proper hairstylists:

From 'It's Possible: An Oral History of 1997's "Cinderella"':

Quote

Craig Zadan: The one thing we didn’t know would be such a major issue was black hair. We hadn’t hired any black hair dressers. So we had pushback, especially from Natalie Desselle — she was the one who threw up her hands in exasperation because she didn’t want the hairdressers that we had.

Neil Meron: We were like, "Why is she crying? Over her hairdresser?"

Craig Zadan: And we said, "Debra help!"

Debra Martin Chase: We had black hair stylists for Brandy and Whitney. But we didn’t have, well, black hairdresser money. But God knows I understood Natalie’s complaint, so we went and found one.

 

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andromeda331

andromeda331

1 hour ago, Trini said:

I had read this a while ago and meant to bring it up here, as an example of Black actresses experiences with getting proper hairstylists:

From 'It's Possible: An Oral History of 1997's "Cinderella"':

 

I stll don't understand why hairdressers don't know how to style hair for black women. Their whole job is hair. The more styles you know the more customers and money.  

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janie jones

janie jones

On 1/20/2024 at 9:37 PM, andromeda331 said:

I stll don't understand why hairdressers don't know how to style hair for black women. Their whole job is hair. The more styles you know the more customers and money.  

I totally agree and I also don't understand why schools don't require you to demonstrate the ability to work with a variety of hair types in order to complete the program.

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Anduin

Anduin

I don't watch House of the Dragon, I have a low tolerance for scheming and betrayals. Yeah, I got fed up with GOT in season two as well. But it's important to dislike something for the right reason. Two actors talked to the press about the importance of being Black in a fantasy world. Gizmodo never links to the original article any more. That site is dying, and I'd probably give it up if I knew a better nerd news site.

Bethany Antonia said,

Quote

I really wanted to be in something like this, so that there were people who had somebody to dress up like ... I know that might sound really basic, but those are the things that you get to enjoy when you’re in these kinds of fandoms, and it’s one privilege that we just didn’t have. We didn’t have anybody to dress up like! It’s a thing of joy that you get to do, when you go to these conventions and things. Even if just one person gets to see it and go, ‘Wow, that’s somebody who’s like me,’ it was worth it.

Steve Toussaint said,

Quote

When I was a kid there would be science fiction programs, and there were very few, if any, people who look like me, look like us. Me and my friends used to joke about it: ‘This thing’s set in the future and we’re not there! What are they going to do to us?'

I'm white as all getout, but I can appreciate other people having nice things. I really don't understand why some people treat diversity and inclusiveness like a zero-sum game. It doesn't have to be unless you make it that way. There will always be plenty of work for white people, we aren't getting edged out in any way that I can perceive.

Anyway, I saw a promo pic of Steve Toussaint before the show started. Damn, he looks cool. And Bethany Antonia? You see, one thing they don't tell you about ageing, all the hot young things are suddenly a little too young. :( And if I accept two people, even for pretty shallow reasons, why shouldn't I accept others? It's never even a conscious decision, really. Just what occurs to me.

Short version, don't be racist, be shallow instead. :)

 

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Blergh

Blergh

The above sort of reminds me of what Whoopi Goldberg (when she was IMO a likable, thoughtful person) said ages ago about seeing Nichelle Nichols on TOS: when she saw the first latter performer on that prime time network show, she couldn't wait to tell her family and friends because she saw it as proof that African-Americans not only would participate in space travel and exploration in the distant future but would survive!

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Anduin

Anduin

54 minutes ago, Blergh said:

The above sort of reminds me of what Whoopi Goldberg (when she was IMO a likable, thoughtful person) said ages ago about seeing Nichelle Nichols on TOS: when she saw the first latter performer on that prime time network show, she couldn't wait to tell her family and friends because she saw it as proof that African-Americans not only would participate in space travel and exploration in the distant future but would survive!

I've seen that mentioned before, it's always wonderful to read it again. :)

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Mabinogia

Mabinogia

Unless an actor is portraying a real person (I hate when an actor looks nothing like the real person they are meant to be portraying because I find it personally distracting), I really don't care what race/gender/whatever the person is so long as they can do justice to the character and are nice to look at. I'm definitely a I'm a shallowist when it comes to entertainment. I've learned to live with it. :)

But, even as a little white girl I appreciated Lt Uhura and wanted to be her when I grew up. I personally never gave much thought to the fact she was black and I was white when looking at her as a role model, but then, I had the luxury of not really noticing because I was represented all over the place. 

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Trini

Trini

''Jeopardy', 'Wheel of Fortune' under fire: Game shows hit with race discrimination claims'

excerpt:

Quote

Executives at “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune” discriminated against people of color then fired them for raising concerns about a toxic work environment where staffers made disparaging remarks about Black contestants, two former employees allege in civil rights complaints obtained by USA TODAY. 

The two former Sony Pictures Entertainment workers said they were consistently given fewer opportunities than their white colleagues and were routinely subjected to racially insensitive behavior, including crew members mocking a Black contestant’s natural hairstyle.

Shelley Ballance Ellis, 60, said she was the highest-ranking Black production executive on the popular game shows. During her 26-year tenure, she said she was loaded down with extra responsibilities but passed over for promotions. 

Monique Diaz, 48, who is Latina and worked on the shows for 23 years, said she was paid substantially less than a newly hired white colleague. 

In April, Ballance Ellis and Diaz were laid off in what the company said was a corporate reorganization. 

“The truth is that I and others were targeted by Sony because we opposed discrimination,” Ballance Ellis alleged in her complaint.

 

Standard response from Sony in the article, as well.

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arc

arc

Re Interior Chinatown, one more Chloe Bennet piece from Variety:

Quote

Your decision to change your professional last name from “Wang” to “Bennet” came with a lot of strife and backlash, particularly from the Asian community. Now that you are over a decade removed from that decision, how do you reflect on that choice now?

I have really always struggled with that decision. I was 18, 19, and needed to pay my rent. It really did feel like Willis in Episode 2 or 3 when he is trying to walk into [the police station and keeps getting locked out]. I was, in a really naive way, shocked by the way that I was not able to [get work]. I actually wasn’t being given any opportunity. Simply being able to delete Wang and type Bennet was a very cinematic moment for me. I can still see the way the light hit my computer screen — all of it is still very ingrained in my memory. But I’m very aware of the front-facing privilege to be able to do that because then I did get work.

I understand that for a lot of people, they don’t get to just delete their last name and then become white-passing. But I think that the most damning thing of that experience is that you think that it’s a privilege to be white-passing. And obviously, there are logistical privileges to being white-passing in the society that we live in at this point. But you take the outside elements of that away, and what does that do to you psychologically? And I paid a lot of psychological repercussions about who I was the whole time, and really have struggled with that.

Quote

You mentioned that you don’t want “Interior Chinatown” to be reduced to an “Asian show,” but it’s important not to downplay the significance of having so many Asian Americans working on the same project. For you, how different was the experience of making “Interior” compared to your other shows? Has making a show like this put you more in touch with the Asian side of your identity?

It was incredible. I don’t think you realize the absence of something until you see the presence of it and you’re walking on set. I always thought of my Asian part of me as this kind of domestic part of me, in a weird way, and I always thought of my white part as the professional part because that’s how I was forced to view myself for a long time. I didn’t realize the level of comfort, the deep breath I took — and I welled up — when I first walked on the set, and I really saw diversity off-camera. Across the production, there were department heads that were Asian women, and the show meant something to everyone. And not only were people hired just because they were Asian — they’re the best at what they do, and they’re really fucking good. 

It was actually very inspiring for me, as a creative, and as someone who had been toying with wanting to branch out of acting for a really long time and honestly just never felt the confidence to do so. Seeing so many people like me behind the camera was extremely motivating. I was like, “Oh, this is what straight white men get. They have always gotten to see themselves the whole time creating the thing.” So that power of representation for me worked immediately off-camera, and it was extremely motivating. I don’t think that we should just hire people for the sake of hiring people; I think that we need to be really good.

 

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Meredith Quill
Message added by Meredith Quill,

This is the place to discuss race and ethnicity issues related to TV shows only.

Go here for the equivalent movie discussions.

For general discussion without TV/Film context please use the Social Justice topic in Everything Else. 

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