TV white washed?

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Has TV become white washed again?

Not since the late 90s & very early half of 00s have we seen much in the way of TV shows featuring black characters/actors in lead roles.

Remember the days of Living Single, Moesha, A different world (arguably a swing show between the 80s & 90s but still)?

I was a huge fan of Living Single & A different World. Was I, a white woman in the minority in that?

Remember the growing outcry over how "Friends" & "Melrose Place" didnt feature a black actor/actress or character in a leading or even reoccurring role on the show for years? & then when Aisha Tyler came on in a reoccurring role as love interest/rivalry between Ross & Joey many ppl, including me felt it was "forced." Aisha was good but she didnt seem to mesh well w/ Joe Schwimmer @ all. There was some chemistry between her & Matt Leblanc. on MP, Jasmine Guy & later Anne Marie Johnson were brought on in reoccurring roles & both of them nailed those roles w/ success. AMJ was offered a permanent spot but balked when she saw the pay disparity between her & other cast members & so she declined.

Lately, when watching Secret Circle, I had a chance to browse around & I just noticed how alot of the shows have casts that are very homogeneous & from what i saw, on network channels, there's almost no offering in the way of shows featuring a black ensemble the way Living Single or A different world did. There's a precious FEW on cable networks but HawthoRNe was recently cancelled so that leaves maybe 2 others @ best.

Why do you think that is?
 
There are several things at work in my opinion.

First the pressure is no longer there. With the election of Obama you find many Blacks on the defensive as the counterattack claim of our society being 'colorblind' and 'post-racial' has reached a fever pitch. I have noticed that any speech about things racial has immediately been rebuffed as playing the race card or whining.

Secondly, with so many channels you can ALWAYS point to a show with a Black cast and, since only a few companies own all of the channels, all of them have cover. CBS can claim BET's shows for example.

Finally, there are a few shows that are integrated and most of them are popular over the past few years. Community, all the CSIs, NCIS, Criminal Intent and now Modern Family have integrated casts. So while there are more homogeneous casts then before, there are actually a few flagships shows that show it can be done.
 
I don't think there's an issue on television. I mean, if you're strictly looking at shows that feature all black actors, then yeah, they're aren't any on the major networks. However there are quite a few black actors in the television shows I watch that are in the forefront. For example, Law and Order SVU, The Vampire Diaries, The Secret Circle, 90210, Private Practice, True Blood [they have quite a few], Gossip Girl [last year they did at least], Glee, and Ringer to name a few. All of them have principle actors who are black.

However, you also need to realize that there are so many other races on television now that might not be black, but are also not white. You have numerous latinos, asians, and muslims that have taken over a lot of the mainstream popular shows. Like Glee, Nikita, The Good Wife, Sons of Anarchy, Modern Family, Desperate Housewives, ect.

While there are prominently a lot of white actors on television, it is hardly whitewished in my opinion.
 
Clara Oswald
Clara Oswald
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Jill Monroe said:
Lately, when watching Secret Circle, I had a chance to browse around & I just noticed how alot of the shows have casts that are very homogeneous & from what i saw, on network channels, there's almost no offering in the way of shows featuring a black ensemble the way Living Single or A different world did. There's a precious FEW on cable networks but HawthoRNe was recently cancelled so that leaves maybe 2 others @ best.
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Perhaps what you're seeing is a lack of "Black" shows, rather than of Black actors? I don't think you can say tv is "whitewashed", because it's not as if Black actors can't find work. Personally I don't think every single show needs to look like a Benetton ad, but from a "fostering quality" standpoint an "integrated" cast rather than something being classified as a "Black" or "White" show seems to work better to me.

And Secret Circle features a Black female as a main cast member, another Black female as a supporting character, and a new Black male supporting character was just added in the last episode. And he may become part of the main cast, I'm not sure.
 
For my part, it just seems like there isnt much diversity on tv anymore. not just in the way of color but ideas & such. it's all dominated by "reality." HawthoRNe & now Secret Circle gave me a reason to tune in to prime time tv again after several years of not watching it.

this was a topic i've heard touched on a couple times on a radio program hosted by an HBCU in the Nashville area & the host, a woman, asked "when's the last time you saw a show like Living Single on the air? or anything like...." & she named some gems from the 70s, 80s & 90s.

she went on to mention that a) "black shows" dont get a shot on networks anymore unless its CW & even then, the shows tend to pander to all kinds of stereotypes. She then spoke about cable networks like TBS which have several Tyler Perry shows or BET which, in her opinion "has become a channel of foolishness & 'coonery'"

I actually hadn't thought about it myself until one of the callers point out how shows like Living Single & Girlfriends or a show featuring all/majority black female leads are no where to be found on network TV.

The last "current" show I've been watching on TV beside B&B (which i actually watch online so i guess i can't count that) was Secret Circle. I was getting into HawthoRNe w/ Jada Pinkett but they yanked that after 2 seasons which is crazy to me, considering it was getting such good reviews & had a strong viewership.

The woman on the show talked about how soaps have lost alot of "the color" in their shows....particularly Y&R & even though there's a 3 or 4 black characters on the show, they're no where near as prominent as they were in the 90s. to be honest, B&B has NEVER had permanent black characters until last year w/ the arrival of Dayzee.

The overall topic was- have tv shows become "white washed" or is it that "no one wants to hire black actors/actresses" OR is it that networks & studios only want to type cast black actors/actresses?

A caller argued that the 3rd possibility was the strongest & that's why Tyler Perry went ahead & founded his own production company (lions gate) & trumpeted how he'd "put black actors & actresses to work in tv & movies" but he seems to catch hell for making tv shows & films that also highlight or exaggerate black stereotypes while 'high profile roles' are still largely inaccessible to top tier black actors & actresses.
 
Well, see, though I really enjoyed Living Single and Girlfriends, those are shows targeted to a mainly Black audience. So in this tv climate (ie, reality bullshit) it's hard for one of the main networks to justify a show that doesn't have a wide-ranging audience. Just the truth. I think you'd almost be more likely to see a Living Single REBOOT than a new show featuring an all Black cast, simply because all the networks are SO FOCUSED on having a "built in" audience for new shows. It's a hard time for everything right now, unfortunately.

It's a different question to say whether it's good or bad - not being Black, I can't really say how important having a show with an all Black cast is to Black America. But just from a, as I said before, "fostering equality and understanding" viewpoint, I feel like anything made now would perpetuate stereotypes so much as to be a giant step backwards. I feel about this the same way I feel about portraying gay characters on television - let's make them just like everyone else, because THEY ARE just like everyone else. Let's stop making every character a stereotype.

I don't think Black actors get typecast, and I don't think that no one wants to hire them - BUT I do think they are being hired in roles that are actually LESS stereotypical or (and I know I'm going to get blasted for this one) ethnic. I think more Black actors are being cast in roles where the race of the character is not pre-defined. So it's less a "Black role" and more a "role played by a Black actor". And I'm sure there are huge segments of Black America who don't like that very much, just from experience of my high school best friend who was a Black man, and used to get beat up all the time because he acted "too white". (Which actually, I didn't see at all lol.)
 
Caroline Forbes said:
Well, see, though I really enjoyed Living Single and Girlfriends, those are shows targeted to a mainly Black audience. So in this tv climate (ie, reality bullshit) it's hard for one of the main networks to justify a show that doesn't have a wide-ranging audience. Just the truth. I think you'd almost be more likely to see a Living Single REBOOT than a new show featuring an all Black cast, simply because all the networks are SO FOCUSED on having a "built in" audience for new shows. It's a hard time for everything right now, unfortunately.
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I agree! & there's the expectation for new shows to TAKE OFF & be wildly successfull straight out the gate & if not then boom cxl'ed. in today's market, Dynasty & MP never wouldve made it so it goes beyond "black shows" or anything like that. & I'd LOVE a Living Single reboot :D that reuinon they had in 2008 was...not what I'd hoped it would be. :sure:

It's a different question to say whether it's good or bad - not being Black, I can't really say how important having a show with an all Black cast is to Black America.
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i feel what you're saying here too. im not black either & even w/ my intimate history in the black community where I grew up etc doesnt substitute. As a woman, we can definitely say that WOMEN are well represented in TV as well as viewing audiences catered to but if you break it down...its probably more geared toward white women of a certain age (18-25).

Caroline Forbes said:
But just from a, as I said before, "fostering equality and understanding" viewpoint, I feel like anything made now would perpetuate stereotypes so much as to be a giant step backwards. I feel about this the same way I feel about portraying gay characters on television - let's make them just like everyone else, because THEY ARE just like everyone else. Let's stop making every character a stereotype.
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that's why i always refer back to Jasmine Guy & Anne Marie Johnson on MP b/c they came on there playing characters who were immediately gunning for the "top bitch" on the show. they were just as big of bitches, enjoyed relationships w/ male characters regardless of the character's race etc. A more current example, is Jada Pinkett's 'Christina' on HawthoRNe or B&B's Dayzee.

Tyler Perry & BET are SO guilty of perpetuating stereotypes w/ their programming & this stuff is pushed to be seen as "mainstream"...it upsets alot of black people that I know.



Caroline Forbes said:
I don't think Black actors get typecast, and I don't think that no one wants to hire them - BUT I do think they are being hired in roles that are actually LESS stereotypical or (and I know I'm going to get blasted for this one) ethnic. I think more Black actors are being cast in roles where the race of the character is not pre-defined. So it's less a "Black role" and more a "role played by a Black actor". And I'm sure there are huge segments of Black America who don't like that very much, just from experience of my high school best friend who was a Black man, and used to get beat up all the time because he acted "too white". (Which actually, I didn't see at all lol.)
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Actresses like Angela Bassett are a prime example of top tier black actresses who are not featured NEARLY enough these days in films but when she is? the characters she plays are imo relatable across the board. she's a good example of "role played by a black actor". Alfre Woodard is another example. Her turn on Desperate Houswives was amazing but I blame the WRITING for the way her character's sudden fizzle & departure came about.

I see what you're saying & i dont think it's insulting. Based on the feedback from callers on the show I was listening to...they largely feel that black actors & actresses, even the top tier ones just arent as visible on the big/small screen as their white counter parts. but the other side of that is some felt the black actors/actresses should represent more "ethnic" roles while others felt that playing characters that had universal appeal was more important b/c it shows that a character played by Blaire Underwood or Angela Bassett will be just as well received as one played by Brad Pitt or Jennifer Anniston.


now that i think about it, i can't recall that many "final characters" in horror films or black characters that survive, period. Wes Craven famously broke ground w/ the character of Kincaid in Nightmare 3/4 & there's Carla from "I still know what you did last summer"....but the only black heroine of a horror film I can name is Resse Wilson (Loretta Divine) from Urban Legend 1 & 2.

Now i know w/ the horror genre, one minute it's hot, the next it's not. & historically, NOBODY w/ a recognizable name wants to be attached to a horror film (even though that genre is an example of a built in audience). horror films usually rely on low budget casting but w/ Nightmare on Elmstreet & later Scream, there came a period when doing horror films was considered a career boost. I'm not sure what the attitudes toward that are now.
 
Jill Monroe said:
As a woman, we can definitely say that WOMEN are well represented in TV as well as viewing audiences catered to but if you break it down...its probably more geared toward white women of a certain age (18-25).
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lol and unlike you, an all-female cast holds zero importance for me lol
 
Lol, i'm with Vil on this one. The cast's gender, sexuality, and race have no factor on whether I watch the show or not. I watch a show if it keeps my interest, has great writing, and great storylines. However, I do admit to being drawn to strong female actresses because i've always been that way, even as a kid. I like to watch them because I want to be one LOL.
 
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