Race & Ethnicity On TV

[DearEvette]

8 minutes ago, xaxat said:

This criticism is ridiculous. The whole concept of Luke Cage and his appeal is that he is a black man (from Harlem) in America who happens to be a superhero. He's not a POC analog to an existing white hero. (Iron Patriot) He's not a sidekick (Falcon). And he's not a character from Africa that makes it easier to write an ahistorical perspective of the POC experience in America. (Storm, Black Panther).

Heh.  And this was the entire appeal for me.  He's not another dude in tights.  And I admit I like the references to black culture.  I already mentioned upthread the lovely conversation about black male lit,  but there was a line in a recent episode I watched where Misty snarked at her lieutenant who let Mariah go, "You just allowed your soror to skee-wee on out of here."    If it passed you by it doesn't impact the story, but if you got the reference, then it filled in some interesting background information about those three women.  Also the way Misty delivered the line was filled with meaning. 

[Irlandesa]

23 minutes ago, allyw said:

IIRC Kerry started out low only making $75,000 and then there were reports that she had an increase to either $100,000 or $150,000 somewhere between seasons 2 and 3 when Scandal's ratings began increasing so she has renegotiated her contract a couple of times since the beginning of the show. 

Was it a renegotiation or was there something already in her contract that could lead to increases?  She definitely would have had the clout to put something like that in there?

[Minneapple]

11 hours ago, manbearpig said:

I do think Washington and Davis are more recognisable names than Pompeo, but Grey's Anatomy is doing better than both Scandal and How To Get Away With Murder, and it is a much older show that is in reruns. Who knows how well Scandal and HTGAWM would do in syndication since they're both so heavily serialised. I'm sure Washington and Davis got paid a lot more for the first seasons of their shows than Pompeo did, though.

The syndication bit is an interesting point. Maybe actors and actresses get an automatic or negotiated bump in pay when their shows are syndicated? Not just from residuals, but also from their regular contracts. 

So basically that article compares trendy names (Tracee Ellis-Ross, Viola Davis, Taraji P. Henson) with what are basically television stalwarts (Ted Danson, Tim Allen, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss). The trendy actors have just become popular and have not had a chance to renegotiate contracts just yet. Let's revisit the numbers when Kerry Washington and Viola Davis have been anchoring their shows for 10 years or so.

The article misses the point. All these big popular television actors have big contracts because they had long, illustrious careers -- they're all white. Actors of color are just making a name for themselves within the past few years. It illustrates that Hollywood was REALLY REALLY WHITE for a long time. And it still is, but things are changing for the better. I hope. Sometimes I think so anyway.

Edited October 7, 2016 by Minneapple

[Dee]

Tracee, Taraji & Viola are far from trends of the moment. They just aren't/weren't "crossover" famous.

[Chaos Theory]

4 hours ago, Dee said:

Tracee, Taraji & Viola are far from trends of the moment. They just aren't/weren't "crossover" famous.

They also weren't "lead" actors.  It's also a trend with women that I hope is making a change.  People who execs think can "carry"  shows.  Up until the last few years it was virtually unheard of that a POC or a woman for that matter could carry a show.  Then you have shows like Blackish and Scandal and HTGAWM.   Shows white people watch.   I know it seems like a weird condition but unfortunately a necessary one for name recognition and pay equality.

[Neurochick]

14 hours ago, xaxat said:

He's a black dude, from Harlem.

And if people think that's an alienating concept then they need to get out more. 

I agree with this.  I mean if I can watch a TV show where everybody's white and can relate, then a white person should be able to relate to people who aren't white and if they can't...well that's another issue.

Edited October 7, 2016 by Neurochick

[ribboninthesky1]

Tracee was a lead in Girlfriends for several years, and was also a lead in Reed between the Lines. Just because white people didn't watch those shows en mass and are just becoming hip to her in doesn't mean that she didn't pay her dues. Taraji and Viola and Kerry were somewhat different because they transitioned from film, but even Taraji was the female lead on Person of Interest before Empire. I suspect Terrence Howard's character was supposed to be the standout and focal point there, but Henson showed up and wrecked shop with her performance. 

Also, white women have been leads of shows for decades.  Certainly not at the level of white men, but it really chaps my hide that the narrative is usually some distinction of minorities and women, as if minority women have ever had the same experiences as white women in the industry.  

As I wrote earlier, minority actors, particularly women, are rarely given the chance to headline mainstream shows.  Even if they have years of experience, they rarely get the name recognition.

It was a black woman showrunner, Shonda Rhimes, whose production company created Scandal and How To Get Away with Murder.  The cluster of racially diverse shows seem to be concentrated on ABC, with whom Shonda obviously had a lot of influence, and opened the door for other non-whites to get a shot.  But even so, her primary show was and is centered on a white woman.  

[allyw]

13 hours ago, Irlandesa said:

Was it a renegotiation or was there something already in her contract that could lead to increases?  She definitely would have had the clout to put something like that in there?

 

I remember reading it was a renegotiation but what you speculated could've happened as well.

[Neurochick]

This is quite an interesting post I found on Tumblr.  It asks a question as to who is and who isn't black and whose business is it to say who is and who isn't.

I am old and when I was growing up in the 60's, there were not many biracial people; in fact, I never heard the word "biracial" before the 80's.  I guess because there weren't too many biracial people, most of them lived in black neighborhoods and most people just considered them black, case closed.

I have no idea what changed today or why.

But it confuses me.  I mean Kylie Bunbury does not look like Zendaya or Alexandra Shipp or Lauren London or Tessa Thompson.  In fact some women who are biracial have more black features that I do and I have two black parents.  This post mentioned Zoe Kravitz, now both of her parents are biracial, so what does that mean?

As I said, I'm old and I never in my life heard anybody refer to someone as "full black."  I mean if the cops will stop you for driving while black, if you look black, period.

[ZaldamoWilder]

1 hour ago, Neurochick said:

This is quite an interesting post I found on Tumblr.  It asks a question as to who is and who isn't black and whose business is it to say who is and who isn't.

I have no idea what changed today or why.

But it confuses me.  I mean Kylie Bunbury does not look like Zendaya or Alexandra Shipp or Lauren London or Tessa Thompson.  In fact some women who are biracial have more black features that I do and I have two black parents. 

I think that blog author's point is that not much has changed.   The illustration of the Star Wars character is clearly that of a young curvaceous brown skinned woman.   I don't think he's saying biracial actresses are interchangeable more than that filling the role with an actress who's light skinned when there are no shortage of brown girls from which to choose is tone deaf (intended). 

1 hour ago, Neurochick said:

This post mentioned Zoe Kravitz, now both of her parents are biracial, so what does that mean?

As I said, I'm old and I never in my life heard anybody refer to someone as "full black."  I mean if the cops will stop you for driving while black, if you look black, period.

I think (according to the post) it means she's amongst a group of women who shouldn'tve made the final cut if staying true to the comic was important.  Conceptually it shouldn't matter but if a role is based on a real person or an illustration, anything that cements an image in the audience's mind, it shouldn't be changed to accommodate mainstream.   "Sana Starros" is brown on paper, she should be brown on screen, whatever her racial identity.

Ignore me if none of this addresses what I thought the question was, I had to read it a couple times.  ;)

[Dee]

Entertainment Weekly caused similar problems recently when they fancast a group of mostly lightskinned and/or biracial actresses as their choices to play Riri Williams in a future Marvel film.

After they were rightfully called out about their colorist bs, they quietly added Teyonah Parris and Tika Sumpter to their previous choices a few days later.

[Neurochick]

So the issue really isn't that the actresses are biracial, it's more what they look like; for example Kylie Bunbury's mother is white; yet she doesn't look like Jennifer Beals or Zoe Kravitz.  In fact, when I first saw her, I had no idea her mother was white; like I had no idea when I first saw Lauren London, that her father was white, Serayah who plays Tianna on Empire is another example, I didn't know her mother was white either. 

If it's about what the character looks like then I agree, they should cast based on how the character is supposed to look.

[jhlipton]

21 hours ago, DearEvette said:

 "You just allowed your soror to skee-wee on out of here." 

Explain this, please?

3 hours ago, Neurochick said:

If it's about what the character looks like then I agree, they should cast based on how the character is supposed to look.

I don't mind "colorbending", as long as they make up for white-washing first.  Colorbending Gwen Stacy in the new Spiderman movie is a good start (undermined by the Nina Simone and Ghost in the Machine movies..)

[DearEvette]

19 minutes ago, jhlipton said:

22 hours ago, DearEvette said:

 "You just allowed your soror to skee-wee on out of here." 

Explain this, please?

Black college students were barred from pledging white fraternities and sororities, so they established their own.  Typically members of the sororities refer to each other as 'sorors'.  So this tells us that Mariah and the Lieutenant belonged to the same sorority.  The skee-wee reference tells us that they belonged to the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority because Skee-Wee is the call of the sorors in that sorority.  It is the first established of the black sororities and that carries a lot of pride for the members.  The way Misty delivered the line leads me to believe that she herself was not a member of a sorority in college.

Edited October 8, 2016 by DearEvette

[allyw]

3 hours ago, Neurochick said:

So the issue really isn't that the actresses are biracial, it's more what they look like; for example Kylie Bunbury's mother is white; yet she doesn't look like Jennifer Beals or Zoe Kravitz.  In fact, when I first saw her, I had no idea her mother was white; like I had no idea when I first saw Lauren London, that her father was white, Serayah who plays Tianna on Empire is another example, I didn't know her mother was white either. 

If it's about what the character looks like then I agree, they should cast based on how the character is supposed to look.

I don't know if Serayah's mother identifies as white but she was quoted saying she was mixed-raced because she's 1/4 white.

And it's not about the actresses looking like each other but them all being light-skinned with curly hair and more European aesthetics than the average Black woman when the character is supposed to be either Brown or dark-skinned. That blog you posted was a perfect example. The drawing of that character looks to be a dark-skinned Black woman and yet 2/3 of the actresses on the short list are light-skinned Biracials and the other 1/3's (who I thought was a white woman upon first look) link to Black ancestry seems to be an Indian mother who was born in Uganda. 

[Neurochick]

16 minutes ago, allyw said:

And it's not about the actresses looking like each other but them all being light-skinned with curly hair and more European aesthetics than the average Black woman when the character is supposed to be either Brown or dark-skinned. That blog you posted was a perfect example. The drawing of that character looks to be a dark-skinned Black woman and yet 2/3 of the actresses on the short list are light-skinned Biracials and the other 1/3's (who I thought was a white woman upon first look) link to Black ancestry seems to be an Indian mother who was born in Uganda. 

Maybe the issue isn't that mixed or biracial people should not be "allowed" (WTF does that even mean) to call themselves black.  The issue seems to be that casting directors and producers, when casting for a black woman (and this happens a lot more with women than men), tend to cast lighter skinned women.  Now maybe that could be because the person casting prefers that particular aesthetic, and I see this a lot on TV shows and  commercials;  however if the character is supposed to be brown with a large afro, then it's not fair to cast a light skinned actress with straight hair (as what happened in Gem and the Holograms).

What's not fair is there are more opportunities the lighter your skin is, that's a fact.  Jennifer Beals is a good example; I have seen her in three different TV shows (The L Word, Lie to Me and some other show about Chicago that didn't last long) where she played a biracial character.  I also saw her on Motive where her race is never brought up, in that show she was married to a white man with a white looking son; if people didn't know who she was, they would just assume the actress was white.  (which was kind of what she did in Flashdance)  Right now I'm watching Poldark on Masterpiece Theater, and there aren't any black people in that show, this show takes place in 18th century England; and I don't mind that there aren't black people in this show.  This is what I meant when I said the lighter you are, the more chances you have; would a black actress have been considered to play Demelza?  Probably not.  

I guess what the blog is trying to say is that there are so few parts available for black actresses, that when there finally is one, it's given to a lighter skinned actress, even if the character is supposed to be darker skinned.  

[allyw]

4 minutes ago, Neurochick said:

Maybe the issue isn't that mixed or biracial people should not be "allowed" (WTF does that even mean) to call themselves black.  The issue seems to be that casting directors and producers, when casting for a black woman (and this happens a lot more with women than men), tend to cast lighter skinned women.  Now maybe that could be because the person casting prefers that particular aesthetic, and I see this a lot on TV shows and  commercials;  however if the character is supposed to be brown with a large afro, then it's not fair to cast a light skinned actress with straight hair (as what happened in Gem and the Holograms).

What's not fair is there are more opportunities the lighter your skin is, that's a fact.  Jennifer Beals is a good example; I have seen her in three different TV shows (The L Word, Lie to Me and some other show about Chicago that didn't last long) where she played a biracial character.  I also saw her on Motive where her race is never brought up, in that show she was married to a white man with a white looking son; if people didn't know who she was, they would just assume the actress was white.  (which was kind of what she did in Flashdance)  Right now I'm watching Poldark on Masterpiece Theater, and there aren't any black people in that show, this show takes place in 18th century England; and I don't mind that there aren't black people in this show.  This is what I meant when I said the lighter you are, the more chances you have; would a black actress have been considered to play Demelza?  Probably not.  

I guess what the blog is trying to say is that there are so few parts available for black actresses, that when there finally is one, it's given to a lighter skinned actress, even if the character is supposed to be darker skinned.  

I think too many people conflate the issues and the only time I side-eye a bi/multiracial person for how they choose to identify is times like when the actress who plays Hawk Girl on Legends of Tomorrow said she was white but had no problem auditioning for "Iris West"  who's casting call was for an African American.

And I agree with you about the casting directors and producers. A lot of times the Black men and the sons are Brown or dark-skinned and the women and the daughters are either light skinned or bi-racial. 

[praeceptrix]

I apologize for going slightly off topic (movie, not tv, but I have never visited the movie threads & feel more at home here). I just saw the most wonderful movie: The Queen of Katwe. It is set and filmed in Uganda, so it should come as no surprise that there were almost no white people in it (only on the plane to Russia and the scenes in Russia). I am a white Latina, American, and have never been to Africa. The strangest thing for me was trying to understand the chess parts. I have no idea how much publicity the film has gotten, but as far as I am concerned, it can never be enough. Do yourself a favor and see it.

To relate this, a bit, to the discussion of colorism above, the movie was full of the most beautiful, and very dark, men, women, and children. I wonder if some of the colorism issues have to do with technical questions of lighting. With a film full of very dark-skinned folk, the lighting was done to flatter them. I suspect that too many lighting techs and camera operators simply have not learned how to showcase dark skin, especially in a scene with lighter folks (their default setting -- I read an article a long time ago about how color film developing used a template of a white woman, thus screwing up the way pictures of people of color came out).

Edited October 8, 2016 by praeceptrix

[Raja]

17 minutes ago, praeceptrix said:

I apologize for going slightly off topic (movie, not tv, but I have never visited the movie threads & feel more at home here). I just saw the most wonderful movie: The Queen of Katwe. It is set and filmed in Uganda, so it should come as no surprise that there were almost no white people in it (only on the plane to Russia and the scenes in Russia). I am a white Latina, American, and have ne ver been to Africa. The strangest thing for me was trying to understand the chess parts. I have no idea how much publicity the film has gotten, but as far as I am concerned, it can never be enough. Do yourself a favor and see it.

To relate this, a bit, to the discussion of colorism above, the movie was full of the most beautiful, and very dark, men, women, and children. I wonder if some of the colorism issues have to do with technical questions of lighting. With a film full of very dark-skinned folk, the lighting was done to flatter them. I suspect that too many lighting techs and camera operators simply have not learned how to showcase dark skin, especially in a scene with lighter folks (their default setting -- I read an article a long time ago about how color film developing used a template of a white woman, thus screwing up the way pictures of people of color came out).

I am afraid this is not a technical issue. But it does remind me of my high school year book where the color was balanced on the Asian minority faces leaving the majority of Black people darker than we are.

 

The issue is casting lighter skin toned Blacks without the classic West African features when a casting call specifically calls for a Black person. Especially for female roles 

 

The chess film cast with  Africans reminds me of a similar themed true story starring Cuba Gooding Jr as a chess coach in the slums of Washington DC 

[xaxat]

11 hours ago, praeceptrix said:

I apologize for going slightly off topic (movie, not tv, but I have never visited the movie threads & feel more at home here).

Come on over! You'll see a lot of familiar faces!

[Minneapple]

An interesting point about lighting. It could be like makeup artists who simply are ignorant about how to do makeup for dark-skinned models. It's only recently that makeup companies have started to make makeup specifically for dark skin.

I really want to see Queen of Katwe. My dad is Ugandan and was expelled when Idi Amin came to power. 

[Popples]

1 hour ago, Minneapple said:

An interesting point about lighting. It could be like makeup artists who simply are ignorant about how to do makeup for dark-skinned models. It's only recently that makeup companies have started to make makeup specifically for dark skin.

 

This reminds me of a story I heard. In the 60's, Bill Cosby (I know, I know) went on some television show, but when he got there, the make-up crew had only ever done Lena Horne. When his friends and family saw him, they asked if he had been sick because he appeared so much paler than he actually was.

[xaxat]

Color film was built for white people. Here's what it did to dark skin.

Edited October 9, 2016 by xaxat

[Raja]

45 minutes ago, xaxat said:

Color film was built for white people. Here's what it did to dark skin.

That is exactly what happened in  my high school yearbook.

[Kromm]

2 hours ago, xaxat said:

Color film was built for white people. Here's what it did to dark skin.

That video has a lot of truth, but also a little naivety in it at the same time. A lot of the initial forces behind how the film was developed were strictly based on who was buying it (and thus who complained about it if it didn't work), and while it arguably took far too long to correct, the main cultural significance is more what it says about who had money to buy luxuries than about bias per se. When the market demanded a change, it did indeed happen.  The main thing is that the damage from it (generations of darker skinned people looking like crap on color film) was already done.

The continuing problem with facial recognition and tracking is a bit different. It's likely correct that the algorithms that compute a default amount of contrast assume a median that friendlier to white people than black. What's not totally clear (to me at least) is if there's also an aspect that white faces tend to have greater contrast between parts of the head/face.  At the very least most white people have hair that's usually a big contrast to their skin. Facial recognition and tracking rely on contrast, so that could be the biggest part of the problem. So rather than being a bias, it seems more like a technical problem where not enough time has been devoted to solving it. The white person likely ALWAYS will be easier to track/recognize... at least if they have hair. So it's a matter of compensation to adjust to that, an actual physical reason. A reasonable thing for people to expect, but again not inherently based on a bias.

[Raja]

6 hours ago, Kromm said:

That video has a lot of truth, but also a little naivety in it at the same time. A lot of the initial forces behind how the film was developed were strictly based on who was buying it (and thus who complained about it if it didn't work), and while it arguably took far too long to correct, the main cultural significance is more what it says about who had money to buy luxuries than about bias per se. When the market demanded a change, it did indeed happen.  The main thing is that the damage from it (generations of darker skinned people looking like crap on color film) was already done.

The continuing problem with facial recognition and tracking is a bit different. It's likely correct that the algorithms that compute a default amount of contrast assume a median that friendlier to white people than black. What's not totally clear (to me at least) is if there's also an aspect that white faces tend to have greater contrast between parts of the head/face.  At the very least most white people have hair that's usually a big contrast to their skin. Facial recognition and tracking rely on contrast, so that could be the biggest part of the problem. So rather than being a bias, it seems more like a technical problem where not enough time has been devoted to solving it. The white person likely ALWAYS will be easier to track/recognize... at least if they have hair. So it's a matter of compensation to adjust to that, an actual physical reason. A reasonable thing for people to expect, but again not inherently based on a bias.

Curious that I haven't seen the plot where the police/spy agency has had a problem tracking darker people with their amazing CSI technology. Nor those spies countering the programs  choosing a close to their flesh tone baseball cap or hoodie.

[possibilities]

I love the Code Switch podcast, and yesterday was listening to some I'd missed when they first came out. They talked about Nate Parker (of the new "Birth of a Nation" movie) and the controversy over him vs his movie. I had heard about the movie and seen it promoted by cast members on late night tv talk shows, but had not heard about the apparently widespread condemnation of Parker himself, including that a number of serious people have decided to boycott both "Birth of a Nation" and anything else Parker is involved in, and that it's being widely discussed and having ripple effects throughout the industry.

I thought this was a good example of how what media you follow dictates what information you have, and seriously influences how you view various things that happen, whether it's "shows" or "the news" or other happenings.

Obviously, people on the circuit promoting their movie or TV show are not going to go out of their way to remind people that there's a problem, but it reinforces how much it makes a difference what you're exposed to and what you seek out, when it comes to forming an opinion.

This applies to things like "how to do lighting and make up" as well as things like interviews and reviews. Of course there are people who know how to do make up or lighting for POC. If the staff you have doesn't know how to do it, hire someone who does. These things can be figured out if people want to figure them out. It's absolutely a bias to only hire white people or to only develop products and techniques for white people. The moment you either actively decide to exclude, or passively forget to include, an entire population, you're acting from a bias.

Here's the Code Switch podcast, in case anyone is interested: http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch

The Nate Parker episode of Code Switch originally aired in August.

[jhlipton]

On 10/7/2016 at 8:43 PM, DearEvette said:

Black college students were barred from pledging white fraternities and sororities, so they established their own.  Typically members of the sororities refer to each other as 'sorors'.  So this tells us that Mariah and the Lieutenant belonged to the same sorority.  The skee-wee reference tells us that they belonged to the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority because Skee-Wee is the call of the sorors in that sorority.  It is the first established of the black sororities and that carries a lot of pride for the members.  The way Misty delivered the line leads me to believe that she herself was not a member of a sorority in college.

Thanks for the explanation.

Re Nate Parker -- Wow.  No matter what happened in the past, his response has been so tone-deaf as to stagger the mind. 

[ZaldamoWilder]

21 hours ago, possibilities said:

This applies to things like "how to do lighting and make up" as well as things like interviews and reviews. Of course there are people who know how to do make up or lighting for POC. If the staff you have doesn't know how to do it, hire someone who does. These things can be figured out if people want to figure them out. It's absolutely a bias to only hire white people or to only develop products and techniques for white people. The moment you either actively decide to exclude, or passively forget to include, an entire population, you're acting from a bias.

About the early days of her television show and not knowing what she didn't know, Oprah has described having to explain this to her producers.   In the days before she owned production, she said how funny but not funny it was that here she was a black woman hosting her own tv show and how weird (to herself) she looked onscreen.  It was because no one except for her could (or would) figure out that the industry didn't have a standard for "how to light the studio for black people" in 1986.   

The fact that it hasn't occurred to anyone else, like the lighting guy?  Passive exclusion.

[phoenics]

On 10/9/2016 at 1:45 AM, Kromm said:

That video has a lot of truth, but also a little naivety in it at the same time. A lot of the initial forces behind how the film was developed were strictly based on who was buying it (and thus who complained about it if it didn't work), and while it arguably took far too long to correct, the main cultural significance is more what it says about who had money to buy luxuries than about bias per se. When the market demanded a change, it did indeed happen.  The main thing is that the damage from it (generations of darker skinned people looking like crap on color film) was already done.

The continuing problem with facial recognition and tracking is a bit different. It's likely correct that the algorithms that compute a default amount of contrast assume a median that friendlier to white people than black. What's not totally clear (to me at least) is if there's also an aspect that white faces tend to have greater contrast between parts of the head/face.  At the very least most white people have hair that's usually a big contrast to their skin. Facial recognition and tracking rely on contrast, so that could be the biggest part of the problem. So rather than being a bias, it seems more like a technical problem where not enough time has been devoted to solving it. The white person likely ALWAYS will be easier to track/recognize... at least if they have hair. So it's a matter of compensation to adjust to that, an actual physical reason. A reasonable thing for people to expect, but again not inherently based on a bias.

As someone with a PhD in Computer Science, what you are saying kinda misses the point.  The problem is that the people developing this technology (facial rec) didn't properly test it, nor did they consider a proper sample of people to test it on.  It's not about "ease of tracking" it's about creating different methods to track all parts of the population properly.  Meaning, the algorithm they used to create the software was already flawed because their assumptions about the population were too white.  Meaning, their algorithm was incomplete and didn't consider all cases.  Seriously - this NEVER should have happened.

And that's an issue with diversity in the developers, engineers, project leads, and test subjects.  They missed the ball - honestly the assumptions they had to have made about a person's appearance are gross.  They literally just decided dark skinned people didn't exist.  They had to have - because otherwise, this would have fallen out in testing.

I'm saying their algorithm for tracking was seriously flawed.

Engineers already have an issue where they tend to create software for themselves (that's why I have a job - in Human Computer Interaction), this just exacerbated the problem of the lack of diversity in HP (based in Silicon Valley).

So, yes it very much is based on bias - the implicit bias already present in Silicon Valley companies not being diverse enough where someone would have caught this.  The bias may not have been intentional, but it was there.

Someone's head should have rolled over this - just unacceptable for testing not to have caught these flaws.  Or perhaps they did catch them, they simply didn't care.

[topanga]

On 10/7/2016 at 10:26 PM, praeceptrix said:

I apologize for going slightly off topic (movie, not tv, but I have never visited the movie threads & feel more at home here). I just saw the most wonderful movie: The Queen of Katwe. It is set and filmed in Uganda, so it should come as no surprise that there were almost no white people in it (only on the plane to Russia and the scenes in Russia). I am a white Latina, American, and have never been to Africa. The strangest thing for me was trying to understand the chess parts. I have no idea how much publicity the film has gotten, but as far as I am concerned, it can never be enough. Do yourself a favor and see it.

To relate this, a bit, to the discussion of colorism above, the movie was full of the most beautiful, and very dark, men, women, and children. I wonder if some of the colorism issues have to do with technical questions of lighting. With a film full of very dark-skinned folk, the lighting was done to flatter them. I suspect that too many lighting techs and camera operators simply have not learned how to showcase dark skin, especially in a scene with lighter folks (their default setting -- I read an article a long time ago about how color film developing used a template of a white woman, thus screwing up the way pictures of people of color came out).

Have you seen the TV show "Queen Sugar." The black people on the show range from hi-yella (light skinned) to very dark brown skin, and the lighting is perfect. Each skin tone is rich with color and contrast. And so many people of color who watch it get excited because we're not used to seeing brown skin being filmed with such great lighting and cinematography. 

[Trini]

I just found out about this blog, and here's a relevant post:

All The Asians On TV: Fall 2016 Series Premieres - Here are the new scripted shows featuring actors of Asian descent. We counted.

[ribboninthesky1]

6 hours ago, phoenics said:

Engineers already have an issue where they tend to create software for themselves (that's why I have a job - in Human Computer Interaction), this just exacerbated the problem of the lack of diversity in HP (based in Silicon Valley).

Off-topic: one of my favorite professors from college had a PhD in Human Factors psychology.  I sometimes regret not pursuing that line of study, though in interesting turn of events, my recent career evolution allows me to interact with the user experience team members in my department. I doubt I'm intelligent or creative enough to do their jobs, but I'm certainly fascinated by their work. 

5 hours ago, topanga said:

Have you seen the TV show "Queen Sugar." The black people on the show range from hi-yella (light skinned) to very dark brown skin, and the lighting is perfect. Each skin tone is rich with color and contrast. And so many people of color who watch it get excited because we're not used to seeing brown skin being filmed with such great lighting and cinematography. 

LOL at "hi-yella." I've always loved how Ava uses lighting - makes all the difference. 

[galax-arena]

The problem is that the people developing this technology (facial rec) didn't properly test it, nor did they consider a proper sample of people to test it on.

It kind of reminds me of how the health and pharmaceuticals industry is so flawed because so much of their testing is (was) done only on men. Researchers apparently didn't account for the possibility that men and women could react to drugs and treatments differently. It's why what we think of as stereotypical heart attack symptoms is only true for men and not women. I think it's gotten slightly better as we've become more aware, but that's still a long history of medicine to unpack.

I mean, this is obviously a much more serious issue compared to lighting, but still, just goes to show you how much of society is based upon taking the dominant/privileged members of society as the default and not even thinking about anyone else.

[kassygreene]

I seem to remember a couple of stories Nichelle Nichols told about Star Trek - how when she started this Hollywood type came up to her, wearing a beret and carrying a riding crop, examined her face, and said something like I'm going to do wonderful things with you.  Her response was apparently "like hell" and she ran, only to find out he was the cinematographer, Gerald Finnerman (a renowned and Emmy-winning cinematographer), who was mortified to realize she didn't know who he was, and was commenting on her skin tones and how he had plans already for her lighting.  They became good friends, I think.  A later story she told was that he was working on her lighting and kept yelling to his assistant "She's black!  SHE'S BLACK!" causing an echoing silence on the set until he finally realized what he said (black is apparently a lighting term for shadows), and start er-umming, when she said to him "but comely" and the entire set dissolved into laughter.

Anyway, a good lighting director realizes that every skin tone has different lighting requirements, and Jerry Finnerman was one of the best.  And that was 1966.  How is it that fifty years on people still screw this up?

[xaxat]

I just heard an interview with African American comedian Reese Waters. One of the hosts made a reference to his national success, referencing this Bank of America ad.

Waters then took a hilarious shot at the makeup crew for the ad. Saying that they did him wrong and all of his relatives and friends wondered why he looked like Sammy Sosa, a retired Dominican ballplayer who has infamously gone through skin bleaching treatments.

Edited October 11, 2016 by xaxat

[phoenics]

Well, Supergirl aired last night and the writers very poorly axed (we think permanently) the interracial pairing of James and Kara.  This left a very "Saved by the Bell" Zack and Lisa hack job taste in my mouth.

Edited October 12, 2016 by phoenics

[Oracle42]

It was bizarre and abrupt and since the CW has several interracial couples (just within its superhero lineup) it was especially odd

[Silver Raven]

Apparently DC Comics are turning James Olsen into a superhero.

[Ms Blue Jay]

I had no hopes for The Good Place because Kristen Bell and Ted Danson are the ONLY faces I saw in the pre-season advertisements, but I gave it a chance because it was created by Michael Schur of Parks and Recreation.  It is actually so multiracial, surprisingly.  Again, I don't know why they had to make the promotion for the show so white, front and centre.  (I guess Parks was like that at first, with Amy Poehler being the star.  It's like how Shonda Rhimes got so famous with Grey's Anatomy.)

I've commented in the show's thread about the Filipino male character, who I appreciate a lot.  If you get to the fourth episode, he's fully fleshed out, and I find him so non-stereotypical for an Asian character on American TV.  Kristen's "soulmate" is Nigerian and her closest neighbour is Pakistani. Every couple I've seen so far on the show is interracial.  And I'm not talking white with another race necessarily - just lots of interracial couples of different races. If any of you watched The Neighbors, the main family in that show was multiracial and it used supernatural/sci fi elements as this show does as well.

Edited October 12, 2016 by Ms Blue Jay

[galax-arena]

Daniel Dae Kim has gotten 3 shows into development on CBS, ABC, and TV Land.

CBS is developing "Exhibit A", a legal drama based off of a Korean drama "My Lawyer, Mr. Jo". The series will follow a disgraced Korean-American prosecutor who turns his life around as a defense lawyer when he pairs with a young idealistic attorney and the two fight for the underdogs of Los Angeles. The original series premiered earlier this spring.

ABC put in a pilot commitment for "The Good Doctor" (based on a Korean drama of the same name from 2013) which is being produced by Sony. Logline for this show: Centers on a young surgeon with Savant syndrome who is recruited into the pediatric surgical unit of a prestigious hospital. 

TV Land is developing Re Jane based off the novel of the same name by Patricia Clark. It will be a single-camera comedy about a Korean-American woman who becomes the nanny to the adopted Chinese daughter of a Brooklyn couple.

Reinforces how important it is to have diversity behind the scenes, not just on screen. Hope that at least one of the shows gets picked up!

[Ms Blue Jay]

I hadn't been to this thread in awhile before today so I apologize if this was brought up.  NBC ordered a comedy ("comedy") about a Filipino mail order bride, then a lot of people protested and I think it's been cancelled.

So impressed with #AsianTwitter, they got Disney to back down on Mulan having a white interest, and this.  This is all in like the past few weeks.

http://reappropriate.co/2016/09/dear-nbc-the-mail-order-bride-human-trafficking-industry-isnt-funny/

http://www.refinery29.com/2016/09/125003/nbc-mail-order-family-series

(I see now that this was discussed.  This is exactly parallel to me appreciating the Filipino male character on The Good Place.  It's like him, and the characters on The Crazy Ex-Girlfriend that I've seen that aren't stereotypical, lately.  They're real, actual people and characters, and they just happen to be Filipino also.)

Edited October 12, 2016 by Ms Blue Jay

[Kromm]

4 hours ago, Ms Blue Jay said:

I had no hopes for The Good Place because Kristen Bell and Ted Danson are the ONLY faces I saw in the pre-season advertisements, but I gave it a chance because it was created by Michael Schur of Parks and Recreation.  It is actually so multiracial, surprisingly.  Again, I don't know why they had to make the promotion for the show so white, front and centre.  (I guess Parks was like that at first, with Amy Poehler being the star.  It's like how Shonda Rhimes got so famous with Grey's Anatomy.)

I've commented in the show's thread about the Filipino male character, who I appreciate a lot.  If you get to the fourth episode, he's fully fleshed out, and I find him so non-stereotypical for an Asian character on American TV.  Kristen's "soulmate" is Nigerian and her closest neighbour is Pakistani. Every couple I've seen so far on the show is interracial.  And I'm not talking white with another race necessarily - just lots of interracial couples of different races. If any of you watched The Neighbors, the main family in that show was multiracial and it used supernatural/sci fi elements as this show does as well.

Realistically it's because Kristen and Ted ARE the stars, even if they're hardly actually the whole series, and IMO I wish the balance of reality and aspirations about diversity were able to meet in a smoother way.  A desire for diversity shouldn't turn into a repudiation (even if unintentional) of every actor who isn't. The people who market the show have 15 (and sometimes 30) seconds to "sell" the show in an ad typically. And maybe a single image in print or web ads. And so they're going to concentrate on the stars as much as possible.  The fact that half of the main cast is actually non-white? It's a shame that got lost in the process of showing lots of quips and jokes with Bell and Danson in those ads, but I'd posit that if theoretically the role of the Builder/Angel were played by Danson's ex, Whoopi Goldberg (just spitballing about someone the same age and level of celebrity as him), then we'd have had the exact same kind of ads... Bell and Goldberg instead of Bell and Danson. 

None of that is to deny the ideal of better illustrating the hard work and care the show creators clearly took in regards to diversity. Just to acknowledge that "fixing" a societally-wide diversity problem is ultimately a marathon, not a sprint. There are still more Ted Dansons in the business than Whoopi Goldbergs, so more Ted Dansons are going to be the stars in the ads until not only is casting more diverse, but the new wave of stars created by that more equitable casting have been getting those starring roles long enough to be the MAIN stars on the marquee. That's the part which can't be rushed.

The big exception to this are targeted ads. It's easy for example, to make versions of the ads emphasizing Hispanic cast members of shows and air those versions on Telemundo. But there aren't many other ways and places to use targeted ads these days. 

[Ms Blue Jay]

There is no actual reason the two stars of the show needed to be white.  I'm asking why the advertising for the show only shows white faces, you're needlessly explaining that the stars of the show are white.  Yep. I can see that.

Quantico has no problem selling its show with a non-white face, same with Scandal, etc.  Anyone would look at the ads for The Good Place and assume only white people star in it because that's the case with so many shows on American television.

Quote

 

 but the new wave of stars created by that more equitable casting have been getting those starring roles long enough to be the MAIN stars on the marquee. That's the part which can't be rushed.

The "stars" of The Office were all white, too - take a look at any DVD cases for that show.  Jenna, John, B.J., Rainn were ALL unknown actors at the time, they didn't carry any so-called weight like Kristen or Ted.  And I thought it was weird then that you would rarely see a non-white face on The Office DVD covers even though the show is populated by non-whites as well.  Seasons 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 - all white faces on the covers.  Another case of a multiracial show that hesitated to put non-white faces front and centre.  And it wasn't about fame or clout, at all, except in the case of Steve and MAYBE B.J. who was also a writer.  Somebody had ZERO issue giving those 4 unknown white actors a chance on a television show and zero issue putting them front and centre of its advertising.

LOST always had multiracial advertising and the show did well for itself.  

I thought this was the Race and Ethnicity on TV thread....  

Edited October 13, 2016 by Ms Blue Jay

[Kromm]

4 minutes ago, Ms Blue Jay said:

There is no actual reason the two stars of the show needed to be white.  I'm asking why the advertising for the show only shows white faces, you're needlessly explaining that the stars of the show are white.  Yep. I can see that.

Quantico has no problem selling its show with a non-white face, same with Scandal, etc.  Anyone would look at the ads for The Good Place and assume only white people star in it because that's the case with so many shows on American television.  The "big" "stars" of The Office were all white, too - take a look at any DVD cases for that show.  Jenna, John, B.J., Rainn were ALL unknown actors at the time, they didn't carry any so-called weight like Kristen or Ted.  And I thought it was weird then that you would rarely see a non-white face on The Office DVD covers even though the show is populated by non-whites as well.  Seasons 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 - all white faces on the covers.

LOST always had multiracial advertising and the show did well for itself.  

I thought this was the Race and Ethnicity on TV thread.... 

Did I say they "needed" to be white?  

I said that they ARE white, and that the result is that the ads have limited time and so by default show the biggest names associated with the show.

Quantico is not a comparable situation, because the show is sold on a premise and not based on who stars in it. The Good Place perhaps could have tried to sell itself simply on a premise, but it would be foolish to have people with the fame of Kristen Bell and Ted Danson and not show them as much as feasible during the very short commercials and single images of print and web campaigns.

And why does my having a contrary opinion mean the post is invalid for a Race and Ethnicity on TV? Are only certain ones acceptable? I'm not trying to endorse racism. I'm simply pointing out that a process of vaulting a better variety of stars to the top echelon where their names alone help sell a show is relatively young. I even gave an example, Whoopi Goldberg, of a theoretical star on Danson's same fame and experience level who'd have slotted right into the exact same role and who probably could have been substituted frame for frame into the same ads wherever he was.  Was that observation really off topic of Race and Ethnicity on TV as well?

[Kromm]

Also, these ads were pre-Season 1. Comparing this to a show like Lost is also unfair, because we had years of the cast getting known to spread our awareness of their ads around. It's also like Quantico not really a show with dis-proportionally bigger stars involved (Matthew Fox was as close as they got pre-season 1 to an established star). But The Good Place had to sell itself to people who'd never seen it. Season 2 ads will (should) no doubt feature more of the whole cast.

[Ms Blue Jay]

I'm pointing out television shows that only put white faces front and centre of its advertising.  It's a pattern that is noticeable to me.  So I brought it up.  Thanks for all of your explanations of why you felt that it was necessary for this show and that progress can't be rushed.

I gave you the example of The Office that for 5 out of 9 seasons refused to put any non-white actor on the DVD cover.  I disagree, my comparisons are fine.  How is the comparison to LOST unfair.  LOST sold itself to people that didn't know it yet.  When LOST was unknown to us, LOST advertised itself using the ENTIRE cast which we didn't know yet.  When we didn't know The Good Place, it only used 2 faces to sell the show.  It is the same situation with different choices being made.   Matthew Fox was from Party of 5, Kristen and Ted have had their own shows too.  And yet LOST Season 1 advertising featured a lot more faces than just Matthew's.

Edited October 13, 2016 by Ms Blue Jay

[BoogieBurns]

25 minutes ago, Ms Blue Jay said:

The "stars" of The Office were all white, too - take a look at any DVD cases for that show.  Jenna, John, B.J., Rainn were ALL unknown actors at the time

It's easier than you are making it, it was in their contracts. The contracts that were signed when every person at Dunder Mifflin that you didn't name above was a glorified extra. They were considered the leads for 7 seasons. If Stanley was on the DVD cover for Season 6, it was because he got that added in his contract, not because the show became more or less interested in diversity. 

[Ms Blue Jay]

I think it's the chicken and the egg conversation.  I feel like they barely had non-whites speak much dialogue in Season 1 -- remember when Kelly was only used for the Diversity episode?  And her whole character was about being Indian, and slapping Michael for being racist.  So yes, I say that The Office was not much interested in real diversity early on, and then eventually became more interested in it.  The character of Kelly for example, was able to become much more of a real character (outside of just being "Indian", or a Reactor to Racism,) later on.  If the show offers such contracts to 5 white actors, I am not sure why someone would argue that doesn't say anything about the show's feelings towards diversity.  It takes a person to negotiate a contract sure, but it also takes another person to accept it.

Some had a similar discussion about David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson being paid different salaries on The X-Files.  Some said oh well David negotiated a better contract, ho-hum, sexism doesn't exist.  Others thought it was interesting to think about why he was able to command the salary he did.

Edited October 13, 2016 by Ms Blue Jay

[phoenics]

8 hours ago, Kromm said:

Realistically it's because Kristen and Ted ARE the stars, even if they're hardly actually the whole series, and IMO I wish the balance of reality and aspirations about diversity were able to meet in a smoother way.  A desire for diversity shouldn't turn into a repudiation (even if unintentional) of every actor who isn't. The people who market the show have 15 (and sometimes 30) seconds to "sell" the show in an ad typically. And maybe a single image in print or web ads. And so they're going to concentrate on the stars as much as possible.  The fact that half of the main cast is actually non-white? It's a shame that got lost in the process of showing lots of quips and jokes with Bell and Danson in those ads, but I'd posit that if theoretically the role of the Builder/Angel were played by Danson's ex, Whoopi Goldberg (just spitballing about someone the same age and level of celebrity as him), then we'd have had the exact same kind of ads... Bell and Goldberg instead of Bell and Danson. 

None of that is to deny the ideal of better illustrating the hard work and care the show creators clearly took in regards to diversity. Just to acknowledge that "fixing" a societally-wide diversity problem is ultimately a marathon, not a sprint. There are still more Ted Dansons in the business than Whoopi Goldbergs, so more Ted Dansons are going to be the stars in the ads until not only is casting more diverse, but the new wave of stars created by that more equitable casting have been getting those starring roles long enough to be the MAIN stars on the marquee. That's the part which can't be rushed.

The big exception to this are targeted ads. It's easy for example, to make versions of the ads emphasizing Hispanic cast members of shows and air those versions on Telemundo. But there aren't many other ways and places to use targeted ads these days. 

I call BS.  Exhibit Sleepy Hollow - which for the first two seasons, flat out refused to feature Nicole Beharie prominently in its promotion, choosing instead to feather Tom Mison, even though NB was definitely the bigger name and star. Tom was a complete unknown and NB had already starred in 42 and numerous other films.

It's usually NOT the case that the PR people are only featuring stars.  They routinely default to featuring the white characters, even when those aren't even the leads.  And the only time you see the PoC stars featured is if they have become big enough names to "cross over" to white audiences.  Let's just call a spade a spade and not fish for "reasons" why PoC aren't featured more in PR even when they should be.

And we've been running this "marathon" for a really long time - it's high time Hollywood caught the eff up and stopped using "but the PoC aren't famous enough!" nonsense.  How many times have we seen shows do the whole, "And introducing ... " <insert brand new white face here> in their promos?

Plenty.

This line of marathon vs sprint talk is just another way of stalling and creating rules that apparently ONLY the PoC stars/actors have to play by.