On Television, Cinema and Race

wordsmythe wrote:

Holloywood here is portrayed as being focused on viewership. That may be the case, but I argue that a sole focus on drawing eyeballs or ticket sales is wrong. Anyone producing creative work (or even speaking loudly in public) has an ethical obligation to think about how that work or utterance is going to affect those who are exposed to it. Certainly not all effects can be expected, but some care is owed. In that light, it's important for creators to understand that whitewashing reinforces racial divisions and tacitly teaches us that all-white is normal, happy and fun, even in Manhattan between 96th Street and 14th Street (and seriously, if you don't have any non-white friends in NYC, then it's likely that you're actively avoiding friendship with non-white people).

FTFY - Harlem, Chinatown and Manhattan's other ethnic enclaves are largely unrepresented in sitcoms/TV that cover New York.

There are plenty of people in NYC, especially in Manhattan, who only have friends of their own race/ethnicity. Not everyone 'sticks to their own' but that appears to be the norm, instead of the exception. Discovering that NYC was not nearly as 'blended' as it likes to claim to be was one of my more surprising discoveries after moving here.

absurddoctor wrote:

There are plenty of people in NYC, especially in Manhattan, who only have friends of their own race/ethnicity. Not everyone 'sticks to their own' but that appears to be the norm, instead of the exception. Discovering that NYC was not nearly as 'blended' as it likes to claim to be was one of my more surprising discoveries after moving here.

I haven't lived in the city for a while, but when I did the workplace and school involved a lot of integration. It was very common to socialize with whoever you worked with at lunch or after work. Less common to see mixed-race friendships outside of the workplace context.

Funkenpants wrote:
absurddoctor wrote:

There are plenty of people in NYC, especially in Manhattan, who only have friends of their own race/ethnicity. Not everyone 'sticks to their own' but that appears to be the norm, instead of the exception. Discovering that NYC was not nearly as 'blended' as it likes to claim to be was one of my more surprising discoveries after moving here.

I haven't lived in the city for a while, but when I did the workplace and school involved a lot of integration. It was very common to socialize at lunch or after work. Less common outside of the workplace context.

Yeah, workplaces (and I imagine schools) are definitely closer to the 'melting pot' concept. But as you say, everything changes when people leave the office.

absurddoctor wrote:
Funkenpants wrote:
absurddoctor wrote:

There are plenty of people in NYC, especially in Manhattan, who only have friends of their own race/ethnicity. Not everyone 'sticks to their own' but that appears to be the norm, instead of the exception. Discovering that NYC was not nearly as 'blended' as it likes to claim to be was one of my more surprising discoveries after moving here.

I haven't lived in the city for a while, but when I did the workplace and school involved a lot of integration. It was very common to socialize at lunch or after work. Less common outside of the workplace context.

Yeah, workplaces (and I imagine schools) are definitely closer to the 'melting pot' concept. But as you say, everything changes when people leave the office.

There's also a big difference between first generation immigrants and people born here - there tends to be a lot more insularity within immigrant communities, primarily for language reasons.

As a sidenote abut the conversation i've seen about girls, I really loathe the ideas i've seen floating around of "why can't there be a show about white people" or "no wonder she didn't put in minorities, she would've gotten criticized no matter what she did. It's a no-win situation."

Regarding the first point, it's okay to make a show about white people. Making a show about white people isn't groundbreaking. It's not novel. It's the most well-trod ground in television. There have been plenty of shows about white people, and there will be plenty more.

But I really hate the "why even try" mentality. Will someone be criticized for doing a crap job if they include minorities? Of course. But including minorities is not some unbelievable mountain to climb, and even if you are wonderfully well-meaning about it, if you f*ck it up you'll get criticism, and deservedly so. Just because you totally meant well doesn't mean you get a pass. If I, a straight dude, write a show about homosexuals, and even if I intend it to be a positive portrayal, if it's full of lazy outdated stereotypes, I will be criticized, and I will deserve it.

A lot of it ends up in this silly dichotomy. First, people say that we can't judge the show this early, that everyone needs to stay positive, and give the show time to grow. The issue of course being that the vast majority of shows that have done that haven't changed, haven't really addressed any issues, and largely stayed in their own, staid universe. Then, if you get angry, and loudly point out that the show didn't change, nor did it apparently make any attempt to, you're being overly mean and vituperative, at which point people will claim to be "too scared" of attempting to write a different character because of this "no-win" fallacy. Thus, the status quo remains the same. Don't speak, nothing changes, speak up, everyone's scared of changing because you were mean and they want to avoid criticism. It's really frustrating.

I actually caught the first episode, and I really like the feel of the show. But frankly, if Dunham ever becomes "too scared" to write in that diversity solely out of fear of the potential criticism from doing so, she's failed as a writer, and she's a coward.

Prederick wrote:

I actually caught the first episode, and I really like the feel of the show. But frankly, if Dunham ever becomes "too scared" to write in that diversity solely out of fear of the potential criticism from doing so, she's failed as a writer, and she's a coward.

Usually this argument wouldnt hold because writers dont have the final say or control over the changes made that make it to the screen. Since she also directs it she has a bit more control but even so it goes back to what was mentioned before about focus groups and the general need to make a buck and normally that's not up to the writer or even the director.

Prederick wrote:

Don't speak, nothing changes, speak up, everyone's scared of changing because you were mean and they want to avoid criticism. It's really frustrating.

Being accused of racism is a potentially career-ending event for a writer or director. Who needs that sh*t unless you're targeting your show or movie at a racist audience and can make money from being a racist?

Funkenpants wrote:
Prederick wrote:

Don't speak, nothing changes, speak up, everyone's scared of changing because you were mean and they want to avoid criticism. It's really frustrating.

Being accused of racism is a potentially career-ending event for a writer or director. Who needs that sh*t unless you're targeting your show or movie at a racist audience and can make money from being a racist?

And for that we already have Faux News.

Funkenpants wrote:
Prederick wrote:

Don't speak, nothing changes, speak up, everyone's scared of changing because you were mean and they want to avoid criticism. It's really frustrating.

Being accused of racism is a potentially career-ending event for a writer or director. Who needs that sh*t unless you're targeting your show or movie at a racist audience and can make money from being a racist?

It's a potentially career-ending accusation? For who? When?

Two Broke Girls on CBS has been repeatedly, and loudly accused of reducing its minority characters to loud, offensive stereotypes. It's a hit and will be back next season. The Sex and the City movie was accused of reducing Jennifer Hudson's character to the same old "magical negro" trope, they made a second one in the Middle East that was pretty much whatever you can imagine. Michael Bay and the Transformers movies is probably one of the most famous examples of this, and I don't believe his career has been destroyed, or even mildly damaged by the accusations. Avatar was accused of perpetuating the "noble savage" trope, and the Avatar: The Last Airbender movie performed a race-lift on nearly the entire cast.

Every single show or film i'm noting here has been renewed for another season, got a sequel, or will be getting a sequel. Every producer, showrunner, director and writer involved in these films is still working (and doing just fine). It sure doesn't seem like the accusations are a "potentially career-ending event", but more a minor controversy, if that.

It seems to me that doing things society at large clearly recognizes as racist is potentially a career ending event (ie: Michael Richards spouting racial slurs at a comedy show), unless you happen to be somewhat charismatic (Mel Gibson). Of course, the list of things society at large clearly recognizes as racist is limited to 'using the N word or something like it when you aren't from the group in question'.

This is a bit of an aside but I wonder if anyone is watching Key & Peele? It's probably the smartest discussion about racism on TV since the Chapelle show. K&P are two biracial comedians who have an uncanny knack for playing upon the stereotypes present in our culture. Some of the skits are fluff but some are sheer genius.

As far as actual diversity in TV goes I'm not holding my breath. We are increasingly living in an age of catered content. If a sitcom has a mostly black (or latino or asian or arabic or w/e) cast then you can rest assured that it is only going to be picked up by the requisite station. BET or Telemundo or whatever station caters to that particular demographic.

Entertainment is so targeted these days that nobody wants diversity. They want something that can be clearly labeled and marketed. If a show has a mostly latino cast then it is a "latino show".

Hollywood doesn't want diversity. Too hard to market. Sure they will use it for marketing in commercials but that's about the extent of it. Why? That's what our society wants. In general people are much more comfortable with diversity as a concept than in actual function. That's one of the reasons I find Key & Peele to be so refreshing because it really toys with people's expectations.

Prederick wrote:

It's a potentially career-ending accusation? For who? When?

That's a fair point. I put myself in the position of being a writer or producer and being worried about being accused of racism, but I guess it doesn't really matter if your audience isn't bothered by it. And the shows and movies you listed are simplistic works that are going to use a lot of standard tropes and stereotypes, both positive and negative. I don't tend to think of those works as aiming at being "novel" or "groundbreaking." They are commodity products designed with a marketer's eye, not an artistic one, and while overt racism may be less popular today than it once was, you can still attract viewers with subtler forms.

absurddoctor wrote:

There are plenty of people in NYC, especially in Manhattan, who only have friends of their own race/ethnicity. Not everyone 'sticks to their own' but that appears to be the norm, instead of the exception. Discovering that NYC was not nearly as 'blended' as it likes to claim to be was one of my more surprising discoveries after moving here.

Chicago is likely worse as far as ethnic segregation. Still, if I followed someone around for 7 years and saw they only hung out with white people, that would be abnormal.

wordsmythe wrote:
absurddoctor wrote:

There are plenty of people in NYC, especially in Manhattan, who only have friends of their own race/ethnicity. Not everyone 'sticks to their own' but that appears to be the norm, instead of the exception. Discovering that NYC was not nearly as 'blended' as it likes to claim to be was one of my more surprising discoveries after moving here.

Chicago is likely worse as far as ethnic segregation. Still, if I followed someone around for 7 years and saw they only hung out with white people, that would be abnormal.

That's true, following someone around for 7 years would be pretty weird.

An open letter to Johnny Depps Tanto:
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/a...

Finally saw the first episode of Girls and it seems strange to me that people are looking for diversity in a show with an opening plot straight out of

Spoiler:

Soul Man

It's one thing to write a show with a 'normal' generic setting and everyone winds up being white by default. This show, however, seems targeted on telling the story of someone from a very specific background, a background where we wouldn't expect diversity. This isn't about New York City: this is about the kind of New York certain people inhabit side by side with all the other New Yorks that exist. Really, this is the New York created by gentrification.

Of course, that unbelievable Twitter comment associated with the show didn't help things. And like I said, I've only seen the pilot, so maybe this is all moot. However, I think it's a really *useful* show when it comes to race and media to show a contrast between two different kinds of shows and why one can't be about "white people" without ignoring diversity. It's one thing when you have a fantasy show like Friends where you just pretend New York has been on a rent holiday. Girls clearly isn't a show simply set in New York. It's set in New York for a reason, and the characters are selected to fit in with the kind of story being told here. A show like Friends is just (I'm guessing--never watched it: I watch a lot more TV now than I did back then) plopped down in New York because it's convenient for the set-up of a generic sit-com.

I guess the tl;dr is that there's a difference between a lack of diversity in a show that's about the challenges life in New York poses as much as the benefits and which centers on a very specific kind of person, and a show that's just in New York for the lulz and centers on the characters it does to create a zany, madcap mix! of extremely advertiser friendly people, as I think I saw more imperfectly toned flesh on the main character of Girls than I saw on all three of the female members of the cast of Friends combined. A show like Girls, rather than being part of the problem, can be part of the solution: if you can handwave out something like the cost of rent, chances are you've got the wiggle room to fit in some diversity if you want to.

full disclosure:

Spoiler:

I may or may not have a massive crush on Lena Dunham that could or could not be influencing how I see this. Just sayin'.

CheezePavilion wrote:

It's one thing to write a show with a 'normal' generic setting and everyone winds up being white by default. This show, however, seems targeted on telling the story of someone from a very specific background, a background where we wouldn't expect diversity. This isn't about New York City: this is about the kind of New York certain people inhabit side by side with all the other New Yorks that exist. Really, this is the New York created by gentrification.

Oh, this is totally true. I mean, I remember when this topic was first broached, Dunham saying that it happened "by accident", which is and isn't true. It is true in the sense that I don't think for a moment that she made these decisions with a conscious desire not to include minorities. However, it isn't true because... that is her world. It's not an accident her world's all-white, that is the experience for a lot of people, even in New York City. My own experience has been a largely white one, although it's complicated by the fact that I am a lot of my own friends' own "black friend".

Dunham was on Fresh Air this afternoon, and responded very eloquently and reasonably to the criticism, certainly well enough to win my favor. Basically, she said she had heard the criticism, and was genuinely considering them and hoping to rectify things as they moved forward, which is all I can really ask of people at this point.

I've come around a bit, in ways, on Girls, in part due to Ta-Nehisi Coates' own unsurprisingly great writing.

There has been a lot of talk, this week about Lena Dunham's responsibility, but significantly less about the the people who sign her checks. My question is not "Why are there no black women on Girls," but "How many black show-runners are employed by HBO?" This is about systemic change, not individual attacks.

It is not so wrong to craft an exclusively white world--certainly a significant portion of America lives in one. What is wrong is for power-brokers to pretend that no other worlds exists. Across the country there are black writers and black directors toiling to bring those worlds to the screen. If HBO does not see fit to have a relationship with those writers, then those of us concerned should assess our relationship with HBO.

And now comes the part where I must be self-serving. While we are making our complaints to HBO--and it is wholly right that we do--we should take a moment to survey other fields, and other stories. With some regularity, black writers are now producing high quality fiction which reflects the texture and depth of our experience. If you can't find yourself on HBO, perhaps you can in Mat Johnson, Danielle Evans, ZZ Packer or Victor Lavalle. We fight for that ideal world where we represent across genres. But even as we expand our territory, we really should support the gains we've made.

Call me old fashion, but I believe in a beautiful black world unpremised on the random whims of rich white people. We exist--whether HBO adapts our stories or not.

I still believe, as the acting face of this machine, that the criticisms against Dunham's shows are entirely valid. But he is right. It's not really about "Girls". It's about the Hollywood executive who told the maker of "Awkward Black Girl" that they needed to make the protagonist less black, or more ideally, white (no seriously, they said they wanted to make it a TV series, but only if they changed the main character to a white woman. A show called "Awkward Black Girl"). The crux comes that, while one can certainly say that the "the absence of our narratives is not simply a charge to lobby other people, but to speak those narratives ourselves", but one runs into difficulty when the industry that propagates those narratives to the larger culture is either disinterested in doing so, or only willing to do so by pigeonholing you into a niche.

I should also note, the show's freaking hilarious. What has annoyed me most about much of the conversation online, is the hyper-defensive reaction from the show's white knights, who do not understand that you can enjoy a piece of art, and still note and criticize its foibles (I think everyone here, being a video gamer, can absolutely understand that mindset).

But I think those hyper-defensive reactions speak to the fact that we're kind of at a place where the accusation of racism is worse than any actual racist act, and the accusation of racism itself no longer means just you personally being accused of being a racist, but anything you like being criticized along racial issues. That thing you like is criticized, and people feel that they, themselves are being criticized as racially insensitive by-proxy.

All of this said, I do believe the show's come in for extra criticism from some quarters because it is controlled and headlined by a woman. And I do believe that no matter what Dunham does in Season 2, some people will be ready to eviscerate her for being racially insensitive. Still, that does not provide an excuse to wholly avoid the attempt.

EDIT: Or, to put it as a commenter on another site did so succinctly:

I think that the accusations of limited world view, myopia, and racial homogeneity have less to do with Lena Dunham and more to do with HBO and television at large, persistently giving us affluent white New Yorks that function as some kind of revisionist fantasy. So it's understandable when people started hearing about this show there's a sort of "*sigh* This sh*t again?" response from some of us.

No one's asking that Lena Dunham run off and write a story about a black family or young, up and coming Latino women. It's just frustrating that this particular cross-section of society keeps getting shows made about it to the near-total exclusion of any others.

I had to check. Coates really did write "Call me old fashion."

I like Coates, though!

Prederick wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:

It's one thing to write a show with a 'normal' generic setting and everyone winds up being white by default. This show, however, seems targeted on telling the story of someone from a very specific background, a background where we wouldn't expect diversity. This isn't about New York City: this is about the kind of New York certain people inhabit side by side with all the other New Yorks that exist. Really, this is the New York created by gentrification.

Oh, this is totally true. I mean, I remember when this topic was first broached, Dunham saying that it happened "by accident", which is and isn't true. It is true in the sense that I don't think for a moment that she made these decisions with a conscious desire not to include minorities. However, it isn't true because... that is her world. It's not an accident her world's all-white, that is the experience for a lot of people, even in New York City. My own experience has been a largely white one, although it's complicated by the fact that I am a lot of my own friends' own "black friend".

I wonder if in addition to being uncomfortable with the art, we're uncomfortable with that art reflecting our world back at us when we thought we were more progressive than that. Like, just for comparison with an NYC girl-centered phenomenon, I went and looked at the team photographs of the NYC roller derby league. Hmm.

Another thing I wonder is if the hyper-defensive reaction from the show's white knights is about how much people are connecting with the show. If people feel the criticism was threatening to give the show a bad reputation as meaningless. The title has been a lightening rod, and I wonder if it was meant to be "this is the universal experience of girls" or if it was meant to be something more like this from Allison Wolfe:

I definitely went the middle-class "I am in a Women's Studies class in college" route. It was cool, but it didn't exactly speak to me on my terms. It was too academic, it was too, you know, '70's, or whatever. We were forced to use the word 'woman,' and if we ever used the word 'girl' or 'lady' or whatever, that was not okay, that was disrespectful.
http://www.furious.com/perfect/bratm...

especially given the conversation about 'who are The Ladies' and the title of that Bratmobile album. Or maybe it really is just about Britney Spears.

I also think it's interesting that the show got more diverse once it got off that shirtless grandma subsidized carpenter dude's couch and got out there into the city. Once the workplaces in the show stopped being offices for people with photoshop skills and unpaid interns, and started being about paying jobs for people without killer resumes, we got a wider cross-section of NYC. There's a bit of a statement there.

Random Sidenote: I don't know where else to put it, and I don't know why THIS is when I noticed it, but Max Payne 3 seems to be a piece of media that follows the line of White Protagonist Goes to Country of Brown People, Discovers It Is Hell On Earth, Rights Wrongs.

I'm not saying Max isn't a flawed hero himself (in their zeal to make him a Anti-Hero, Rockstar made Max as whiny as you can possibly imagine) or that some of the issues touched on aren't issues Brazil faces, but I feel like i've seen this theme before. A lot.

Also, the Nina Simone biopic. Holy sadpaddles Batman.

Prederick wrote:

Random Sidenote: I don't know where else to put it, and I don't know why THIS is when I noticed it, but Max Payne 3 seems to be a piece of media that follows the line of White Protagonist Goes to Country of Brown People, Discovers It Is Hell On Earth, Rights Wrongs.

I'm not saying Max isn't a flawed hero himself (in their zeal to make him a Anti-Hero, Rockstar made Max as whiny as you can possibly imagine) or that some of the issues touched on aren't issues Brazil faces, but I feel like i've seen this theme before. A lot.

I'd say it's undercut slightly by Max's ineptitude and the fact that much of his wrong righting is just him being punked by his bosses. But, yeah, the line between Stranger in a Strange Land and White Avenger is blurry and moves a lot.

Prederick wrote:

Also, the Nina Simone biopic. Holy sadpaddles Batman.

I defer to the experts when it comes to people of a minority commenting on their portrayals. But I will say I know there was some controversy when Denzel Washington was cast as Malcolm X because of his looks, and, come on, even if there were as many big name black actors in Hollywood as white, surely Denzel would still be among the very best.

But, I have no idea if Saldana is good or not, and at the very least the criticism has enough heft to be worthy of considering. And whose brilliant idea was it to not make sure the estate was happy?

I got into quite the sh*tfest of an argument with a friend of a friend of an acquaintence on facebook a couple weeks ago when a friend posted a link to the Idris Elba as James Bond rumors. He said Bond was supposed to be white, I said he was a stupid douche, and on it went from there.

Made me think of this thread.

Prederick wrote:

Random Sidenote: I don't know where else to put it, and I don't know why THIS is when I noticed it, but Max Payne 3 seems to be a piece of media that follows the line of White Protagonist Goes to Country of Brown People, Discovers It Is Hell On Earth, Rights Wrongs.

I'm not saying Max isn't a flawed hero himself (in their zeal to make him a Anti-Hero, Rockstar made Max as whiny as you can possibly imagine) or that some of the issues touched on aren't issues Brazil faces, but I feel like i've seen this theme before. A lot.

I thought Max Payne 3 turned that convention on its head quite a bit actually. It wasn't like Avatar where the "savages" needed a white savior to save the day. Max himself comes to the realization that he is not a hero and is just a blunt instrument in the hands of local power players. I thought the slum mission starting at the bar was brilliant in that regard. His inability to communicate with locals, the number of times he complete f*cks up, the number of innocent people who die... I thought it was a fantastic look at the white messiah syndrome.

Edit: It struck a chord with me as an expat too I think.

Thin_J wrote:

I got into quite the sh*tfest of an argument with a friend of a friend of an acquaintence on facebook a couple weeks ago when a friend posted a link to the Idris Elba as James Bond rumors. He said Bond was supposed to be white, I said he was a stupid douche, and on it went from there.

Made me think of this thread.

Oh my god, Idris Elba would make the best Bond ever. First I've heard of that rumor.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Oh my god, Idris Elba would make the best Bond ever.

That's what I said!

Supposedly he was considered for it but nothing really happened. Probably because of the exact things that caused the creation of this thread in the first place.

Ugh.

Thin_J wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Oh my god, Idris Elba would make the best Bond ever.

That's what I said!

Supposedly he was considered for it but nothing really happened. Probably because of the exact things that caused the creation of this thread in the first place.

Ugh.

...or Daniel Craig was legitimately a better choice for the role. I have a hard time envisioning anyone better at this point in the Bond cycle, Elba included.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
Thin_J wrote:

I got into quite the sh*tfest of an argument with a friend of a friend of an acquaintence on facebook a couple weeks ago when a friend posted a link to the Idris Elba as James Bond rumors. He said Bond was supposed to be white, I said he was a stupid douche, and on it went from there.

Made me think of this thread.

Oh my god, Idris Elba would make the best Bond ever. First I've heard of that rumor.

It's a terrible idea.

Spoiler:

Because it interferes with my dream of Idris Elba being the next Doctor

Tanglebones wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:
Thin_J wrote:

I got into quite the sh*tfest of an argument with a friend of a friend of an acquaintence on facebook a couple weeks ago when a friend posted a link to the Idris Elba as James Bond rumors. He said Bond was supposed to be white, I said he was a stupid douche, and on it went from there.

Made me think of this thread.

Oh my god, Idris Elba would make the best Bond ever. First I've heard of that rumor.

It's a terrible idea.

Spoiler:

Because it interferes with my dream of Idris Elba being the next Doctor

He's the most awesome choice for a male doctor. I think a female doctor would be great, but I suppose it would make things more complicated. It'll happen eventually.