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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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:
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'.
I had to check. Coates really did write "Call me old fashion."
I like Coates, though!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Because it interferes with my dream of Idris Elba being the next Doctor
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.
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