Cosby may have been unrealistic, but so are most sitcoms on TV, however most of them don't get called out for it. Shit, "Leave it to Beaver" was unrealistic.

I have seen many fair skinned people with darker skinned parents, as my cousin once said, "if two black people have kids, you never kn ow what you'll get." The movie "The Human Stain" really showed that.



I think this is true, but the issue could be solved easily if these writers actually did real research by oh I don't know...talking to real black people?

Well, maybe not, though. Because Cosby is undeniably black and we are noting that even his show was criticized.

DC, I think your comments have a lot of merit. But then, what is the solution, I wonder? (I'm not asking you to come up with one!) I'm just pondering...does it go back to what I was saying earlier, that black people have to say "thank you thank you thank you" a dozen times before venturing any criticism? That we have to swallow back any impulse to say something is racist, even when we think it might be? Why do we have to tiptoe around and try not to offend anyone with our critiques?

Again, I know these aren't things that YOU are suggesting must be done; I'm just trying to figure out how to get around the issue of "oversensitive ninnies." :-) I'm sure that white people feel like they are the ones who must "tiptoe around," even though from my perspective it seems like they have quite a lot of power. When it comes to TV, they ultimately have the power to SHAPE THE WORLD. You can be a white writer or producer and make a popular, award-winning television show while never having to create any major character that is not like you or someone you know.

Maybe redrobin is right, ultimately; the solution may never lie in getting white writers to learn more about us. It just may be in getting more of us in the right decision-making positions.

True story: I saw Hotel Rwanda by accident.

I went to the theater for another movie (I can't remember which one it was) and walked into the wrong viewing room. When the movie started I remember thinking, "huh, this doesn't LOOK like March of the Penguins" (or whatever it was I was originally planning to see.) I stuck around and watched anyway.

Since the original title, The Frog Princess, might be regarded as a slur on the French, the title has been changed to The Princess and the Frog. The main character, named Maddy -- who was to become Disney's first black princess -- has had her name changed to Tiana, since Maddy reportedly sounded too much like Mammy. She will no longer be seen as a chambermaid working for a rich, white spoiled Southern débutante.
In a statement, Disney, which said that it ordinarily does not comment on its animated films in the early stages of production, observed: "The story takes place in the charming elegance and grandeur of New Orleans' fabled French Quarter during the Jazz Age. ... Princess Tiana will be a heroine in the great tradition of Disney's rich animated fairy tale legacy, and all other characters and aspects of the story will be treated with the greatest respect and sensitivity."

Geez! This was the controversy that Disney had to confront? That was the only pressure?

How about the fact that the first black Disney heroine (first black lead Disney animated character period) is a poor girl from the South who finds love in the arms of a white European prince? They could not come up with an African prince? If the movie had been about a black boy who finds love with a European princess black parents would be outraged. They would complain that this was some biased reinforcement of what the standards of beauty were and that little black girls would be getting a devastating psychological message from such a coupling. But it never seems to matter what little black boys think or what message they are being sent. The black community tends to be far more silent on that front. I've read complaints from black newspaper writers about the more superficial negative implications of this movie (including her original name) but not one of them have brought up the fact that there wasn't a black love interest for the lead character. I am supposed to take this as progress while (if it was reversed) and it was a black boy and white girl I would have to hear the cries from the black community that such a setup would be racist, harmful and stereotypical. How in the world could it be stereotypical when Hollywood (at least in the movies and on daytime TV) tend to always avoid any black male-white female pairing in the first place?


Even more disturbing the only black male character in the movie will be a voodoo doctor who plays the bad guy! What a message does that send black boys because I'm constantly reading comments by black folks about how this movie will or could be a positive model for black children. Well, the black boys who see it will possibly pick up in their subconscious that they aren't good enough to be boyfriends, love interests, princes, etc. Going against the time honored tradition of Disney animated flicks that provide its female leads fathers rather than mothers, this movie won't even give the title character a father. Another great message sent to black boys everywhere, huh? But, hey, you can be the villains of society, my young black men. That's your role!

This is about as bad as the Whitney Houston produced Cinderella TV movie for Disney last decade starring Brandy. Not only did Brandy's Cinderella also have a non-black male love interest, there were also not one single black male character in the cast from what I could recall. And this was a movie co-produced by a black female. Not surprisingly the black community was silent about that because apparently it was too busy showering praise upon that TV movie for providing little black girls a lead character that would give them self-esteem. If only they were ever as worried over the self-esteem of their own sons. I guess black boys don't have a place in fairytale stories.

I can't comment on the Tiana the Princess Froggity Frog movie, but oh is it annoying in many ways.

I just wish Aaron Mcgruder would get the Boondocks back on the air. I love the guy but good grief his art and creativity comes at a high price. We need some good social commentary on a lot of the ideas that are expressed here.

Now who can explain that, how the Boondocks set ratings records and was doing very well with the main characters (though they are cartoons) being black men.

I miss that show so much.

Oh sure. I think it's lazy storytelling 90% of the time, to say "Hey, let's put a guy who doesn't belong, and let the wackiness ensue!" I just don't think it's exclusively a race thing, I think lazy writing happens across the board. Which I'm not excusing, just stating it as reality.



Whoa... I really hope you don't think that's what I was saying. I was making a general statement about this storyline being very common - off the top of my head, there are strong fish-out-of-water elements in Splash, Forrest Gump, Insomnia, The Triplets of Belleville, The Little Mermaid, Crocodile Dundee, Good Will Hunting, Northern Exposure, The Gods Must Be Crazy, Coming to America... not all of which are white-guy-in-minority-culture (in fact in the last two, the "fish" are black). I agree it's quite overused as a plot device, and in a roundabout way I am actually saying the same thing you are: it is not the exclusive preserve of whiteness. So on the flipside, I ask: can the fish ever be white, without it being offensive? I mean, maybe not. Again I ask honestly.



Again, I don't disagree with you, but I think you're getting off on a tangent I really didn't mean to imply. I was referring more to discovery in a personal sense; for example, Lost in Translation (which had its own set of screwy racial issues, but I don't think it fits in with the colonialist paradigm you seem to be setting forth). If there were a film about, say, a Chinese person going to India and having some personal revelation, I think you could consider that a "discovery" film in a psychological sense. This is primarily what I was referring to.

And frankly, I also think we see Western people "discovering" cultures in these scripts because... this is a Western film industry. I wouldn't expect a Bollywood filmmaker to depict Westerners having experiences in foreign cultures, I would expect them to depict Indian people doing that. Obviously that's not an excuse for just sitting around on our asses and not trying to depict other cultures, but sometimes having a limited perspective is simply a practical failing as much as a moral one. Overall I agree with the statement that the way to deal with this is to get greater diversity behind the camera, in the writing room and in the decision-making process. Which I actually do think is happening, albeit more slowly than we might like.

But what do you do? Do you cast the person who's the best actor for the part or do you go for the one who 'looks' the part? And I've seen it said often enough "oh there's X number of actors who can act and would look better for the role than that actor", but maybe they're not the ones trying out for or interested in that role.

I just wish Aaron Mcgruder would get the Boondocks back on the air. I love the guy but good grief his art and creativity comes at a high price. We need some good social commentary on a lot of the ideas that are expressed here.


I never seen the TV show, I've only read the comic strip. My opinion is that McGruder, compared to other cartoonists from the comic strip industry, is a bit lazy. I've never seen any cartoonist who was just a couple of years into his/hers comic strip run (maybe less tha two years) take a break that led to "repeats" of his strip being printed for a week or two until he got back on schedule. And over the years it would happen a few more times. I know he wanted to keep his strip timely but you would think he would have had enough work done ahead of time (involving topics/subjects that did not have to be timely--such as Jasmine's hair) that any vacation he took or any catching up he needed to do would not prevent new strips from appearing everyday. All the other writers/artisst don't seem to ahve this problem.

Plus it was a bit of a sellout for him to quit his strip fulltime to work on the cartoon version that obviously was going to pay him more money. His commitment to the craft of comicstrip production left much to be desired IMO. He left his original fans behind for more glamour and greener pastures.



But what do you do? Do you cast the person who's the best actor for the part or do you go for the one who 'looks' the part? And I've seen it said often enough "oh there's X number of actors who can act and would look better for the role than that actor", but maybe they're not the ones trying out for or interested in that role.

The main issue is that TPTB seem to always cast black daughters whose skin tone, hair and features don't seem the type that would come from any of their parents. I didn't watch that much of that recent Damon Wayans' sitcom "My Wife and Kids", but I noticed with interest when TPTB (which could be Wayans himself) decided to recast the original dark-skinned actress who played the daughter with a more light skinned actress who wasn't any better at delivering lines. In fact she may have been a worse actress. But with her lighter skin, smaller nose and what looked to be natural, long, silky hair she fit the mold that either white producers or black people (maybe both) were more comfortable with. Or perhaps they just found those types of girls to be more attractive. Maybe I wouldn't notice it as much if I didn't notice the typical guys they cast to play the sons. Most times these sons would have dark complexions and short-cropped wooly hair. Now not all the times would the sons look like the TV parents too but in terms of complexion and hair and noses their features were more similiar to the parents.

Take a look at lot of TV commercials and newspaper ads. They are even worse than TV sitcoms. The black daughters always look like some biracial child while the majority of the black boys (not by a wide margin but still a majority) look like more typical children who would come from two black parents. I should also point out that in those areas, especially the newspaper ads, the black mother also looks bi-racial as well. (Hell, I could go further and say that when TV commercials and newspaper advertisements go with the mother-and-a-single-child selection, when they pick black people to be the models of those ads at least 80% of the time the child tends to be a daughter. That's in contrast to when white mothers are used and the sex of the single child is about equally divided from ad to ad. But that's a topic for another day and perhaps another place.).

Getting back to "The Cosby Show" it it a coincidence that the two daugthers who were young children who we were not supposed to think of in a sexual way were dark-skinned while the two daughters who were of the dating age were light skinned? Maybe I'm seeing more than was intended. Perhaps not. Of course Raven came along eventually to play the grandaughter so perhaps that shoots a hole in my theory.

I'm still one of the original fans and I don't mind what Macgruder has done. Well, aside from leaving me fiending, waiting for him to come back like "it's been a long time...I shouldn't have left you."

I love the show and I love how it's a commentary on black life as well as society as a whole. I think (as clearly evidenced by much of our commentary) other comics are not tackling the issues he is, and especially not with such relevance and wit. I mean the stuff he did in the show was just fantastic, to me. Other people just write whatever, and skip over the black experience unless there's some stereotyped shuffler they want to lob in.

The Boondocks was wonderful in its complexity, to me. I wonder when it's really going to come back.

Actually I prefer Darrin Bell's "Candorville" instead. Just as topical, not a sover-the-top angry, just as smart and more consistent day to day (the comic strip "Boondocks" was too often hit or miss because McGruder allowed his frustration to get in the way of storytelling and as a result at times a confusingly angry message would be written without allowing humor to be used as the method to deliver what he was trying to convey.

Plus whether on interviews or on TV appearances McGruder would come across as an inflexible, arrogant, stereotypically angry black man who thought he was right on every stance he took. I don't deny his talents or intelligence and to be honest I agreed with most of his positions. But the bigger he got the more he came off as kind of a prick. At least to me he did.

And I still can't get over the fact that for a guy who has slammed (justifiably) some black celebrities for selling out and choosing money over art and/or political statements, here's a guy who walked away from being able to make political statements everyday to the masses because he was seduced into moving on to make more money to produce an infrequently aired cartoon. Pot meet kettle.

Perhaps Candorville will get a show & we can discuss it. I've never heard of it until just now.

There's that complexity. I think there are competing forces and hypocritical elements in a lot of art, in front of and behind the scenes. The use of "the n word" in the Boondocks, for example, was at once criticizing it and partially celebrating it.

Mcgruder never came off as arrogant to me. I have a few friends who are artists and they're just as weird and annoying at times, brilliant at others and prone to do those contradictory things.

I didn't know he'd won a Peabody award for the MLK episode. While I thought that was a decent episode, it was kind of a retread and not nearly as awesome as a lot of the other shows. But at least the show is coming back this fall....finally. Maybe.

Thank you!

Don't hire oversensitive ninnies.

Seriously. I know we got back to The Wire a lot, but when the white writers have been hit for their characterizations of black men, they've fought fire with fire. They address the specificity of the complaint--if somebody says a character isn't realistic, they trot out the real person it's based on; if somebody says they don't like seeing black men depicted in a bad light, they trot out their more positive characters, and talk about how you can't make a TV show based on theory or propaganda. That said, I don't think they get that much criticism to begin with, and some of it is so sweeping that they don't feel the need to address it in the first place.

Which raises another thing: Sometimes a particular show is hit for the state of television in general, which makes the writers defensive. I've heard people say they won't watch The Wire on principle (principal?) because black men are depicted as violent thugs "yet again." (Forget that the show is infinitely more complex than that; it's their loss.) The only way the writers can respond to that kind of thing is to write the best show they can and not pay much attention to history. It's the producers' and network suits' responsibility to shake up trends and to look at the bigger picture, I think.

I've heard people say that about "The Wire." But in reality "The Wire" is a Shakespeareian tragedy. And when you look at it like that, you see it differently.



I find this comment very interesting. When I was growing up in the 1970's, it was taboo to show an interracial relationship on TV or in the movies. Now it seems like it's being done for one reason, to get as many people in the theater as possible.

Also at that time, most black actresses were not light skinned, in fact, if you were a light skinned actress in the 1970's, you would be told, "you're too pretty to be black," which is offensive on a whole different level.

I also remember seeing the Cinderella movie with Brandy, and I didn't find anything wrong with it. The prince was Asian I believe and I think one of the wicked step sisters was white and the other black. I think the point of that movie was just interracial casting. Sure it would have been nice to see the prince as black but but if a person needs to see this on screen to believe it's can be a reality then they have more issues than seeing a movie can solve.

Disagree. Hollywood does not think (specifically when it comes to movies) that interracial pairings (particularly black-white) get people into the movie theaters. I don't know where you may have read that but the truth is just the opposite. The reason why black and white pairings are so infrequent despite the large number or working black and white actors/actresses is because it still a form of taboo that the industry, right or wrong, does not see bring many financial benefits. However when Hollywood (film industry moreso than TV) feels "bold" to create such a pairing (either through script or casting) for a mainstream film it typically goes the white male-black female route. It has been considered the safest bet of the two and outside of the blaxploitation era that has always been the case. Actually its not really bold about pairing a white man with any woman of any color these days. Its par for the course.



I don't think most light skinned actresses were told that when losing parts in the 70s. I think instead Hollywood itself had a hard time grasping what to do with the lightskinned/mulatto actors and actresses that were seeking work. It was as if the industry wasn't used to those type of black folks. Today Hollywood has gotten very comfortable with lightskinned actresses but lightskinned black males are still rare on both TV and films.



Interesting. This is after all a forum where, for any particular series, if a black, Asian, latino, gay, disabled, etc character isn't given a chance to shine or given screen time at all we remark on how unfair or how behind-the-times it is. In all the articles about "The Frog Princess" and in plenty articles years ago concerning the made for TV Cinderella movie, black folks were relieved that finally little black girls would see a princess that looked like them blah, blah, blah. I suppose those girls and black people in general had a whole lot of issues for even caring about that all those years in the first place.

Maybe its easy for you, as a non-black male, to dismiss the lack of a black male at all in stories like the Cinderella film but if it were your demographic being ignored you may sing a different tune. Boys like to picture themselves as heroes and princes too and what animation or family film does a black boy go to to ever get a chance to see himself i that light? I still hold that if a black male with the clout of a Whiteny Houston had co-produced a Cinderella film with a black prince and not one single black female in the cast he would have gotten a large share of hell from "the community". That's the unfortunate double standard that exists within the black community as far as I'm concerned.

Mainly because WOC are usually presented as sex object(s).




Which was the exact opposite in the 80's, where lightskinned actors flourished (both on film & tv) while darkskinned actors struggled.




That's not fair.

Just because WOC want to be represented positively doesn't mean that they want (or are actively attemptin to) downgrade and/or undercut young brothas.

But WOC face the double whammy of racism and sexism (somethin which MOC don't).

Which isn't to excuse the terrible treatment of brothas in film/tv but it aint like WOC have it any better.


However, ITA that The Frog Princess should absolutely have a young brotha as her Prince.

I have to agree with prophetreturns. I've heard entirely too many black women get angry about a brother dating white women, yet get all excited when a black woman is dating a white man to dismiss this kind of thing. I heard women saying things like "Well, it's not like black boys are going to want to see this anyway." Bullshit.



And a completely different kind of sexism at that - the kind of sexism where we're not seen as women to begin with, and CERTAINLY not as ladies. It's a kind of sexism that white women will never have to face, and seem to have a hard time understanding.

Awww, a white man is butthurt because he didn't like what I had to say about "Frog Princess". My favorite part is that he bitches about a bunch of things that I never even said to begin with. Why would I give a shit that the girl's name was Maddy if she was a MAID?

And for every Black Woman 'angry' about interracial datin is a Black Man sayin negative stuff about Black Women to justify datin outside their race.




It goes both ways.

Cause the "Black Women don't do X, Y & Z, but White Women do" schtick has been utilizied to death too.



Exactly.

Oh, absolutely. I said long ago that black folks were going to lose their minds over FP and I was right. I swear, it does NOT take much.

Pushing back to TV, Kenneth "Why I Hate Blacks" Eng is jumping back in the spotlight, trying to claim credit for the VTech shootings.

DeeeDee, I'm having a hard time thinking of the light skinned black male actors in TV and especially in films of the 80s. If we're talking mainstream stuff I can only recall Mario van Peebles. If you consider Phillip Michael Thomas light-skinned (which I don't) i guess you can throw him in there too. Michael Warren? I could list easily far more dark skinned actors (not that I'm complaining about that) working in both movies and primetime TV in the 1980s. It would not even be close. The only exception would possibly be daytime TV in which the people running those shows have tended to be more comfortable with lighter skin black actors and actresses for quite awhile. You're gonna have to toss some names my way to jolt my memory.




But IMO there is truth to it nonetheless.The black community that I ahve grown up in for my 30 od years have always seem to stress the self-esteem more of the girls than the boys. A great example is how while working at retail I would often run across black mothers who wanted to find black doll babies for their girls. But when it came to their sons getting them any, ol' white G.I. Joe action figure was good enough for the vast majority of them. That's the type of stuff I consistently ran across when working in retail. Now I always heard the explanation that the emphasis was put on improving the self image of black girls because the country had established a white standard of beauty for women and black folks wanted to combat that. Now I get that but there are a few issues I still have:

1)do we spend too much time worrying about superficial stanards of beauty rather than on more pressing concerns?

2)is it that surprising that white people who ran the media placed white women on the pedestal when it came to their standard of beauty? Wouldn't all races of people, including black people, do that if they were in their place?

3)people seem to forget that white society also places white men on an even higher pedestal as being not only the ideal-looking men, but also as the most successful, most qualified to lead, most brave, most honorable, etc men in the nation. Nonetheless there never appeared to be in my estimation some movement by the black community to counter such perceptions on behalf of black boys. And perhaps it wasn't necessary to do so anyway. But the point is black folks didn't seem all too worked about what image their sons had of themselves. And considering the increasingly alarming reports concerning the state of black boys in this country maybe that absence of action is coming back to bite the community in the ass.

Let me also make clear that I'm not just saying black women place more emphasis on working on the esteem of black gilrs in the media. I'm saying the black community as a whole (men and women) seem to do that.

Last of all I do acknowledge that black women have the double edge of being both a female and a minority. But that double edge does not necessarily work against them in some Hollywood scenarios such as black and white romantic pairings. Truth is white guys, who run Hollywood, are much more likely to cast, for films, white men with minority women than they would white women with minority men. And DeeeDee considering that I know you are a fan of some soap operas (which are all about romantic coupling) do you think black females, even with their double disadvantage, are worse off or get less opportunities these days than black males in that genre? Seems to be the reverse.




Lets not get things too confused. Black people unfortunately always have to drag out THE ADJECTIVE when dissing someoen of the opposite sex. By THE ADJECTIVE I mean the word "black". Its all this junk like "black men are dogs", "Black men are no good", "black women are bossy", "black women are full of it", etc, etc. White folks (the majority, not all) tend to go more the non-adjective route. "Men are dogs", "Men are no good", "women are bossy". Its that type of talk from all sorts of black people that disgust me. Too many of us seem too eager to use that adjective in negative situations as if to indicate there is at least always something better out there other than a black man or woman. Its even insulting to em when its used in a supposed positive manner. Such as "he's a fine looking black man". While the ladies may not mean for it to be taken this way it always come across to me as if they are saying for a black guy he's good-looking.

Regardless this was not the major point that I or I believe Loomis was trying to make. I mean afterall wouldn't a black female be just as willing to make a negative remark regarding black men if she chose to date outside of her race? Of course. But that wasn't even the issue being discussed at the time.

Mario, Phillip Michael Thomas, Michael Warren, Clifton Davis, Sherman Helsmley, Haywood Nelson, Taimak, Stoney Jackson, Prince, Laurence Fishburne, Darryl Bell, Tim Reid, Emmanuel Lewis, Earle Hyman, Geoffery Owens, Dominic Hoffman, Roger Guenveur Smith, Cylk Cozart, etc.



It depends on what's considered dark skinned & mainstream.

Cause PMT's definitely lightskinned IMO.




Daytime's actually gone the opposite direction.

The last dark skinned actors they cast were Tika Sumpter, Amelia Marshall & Rodney Johnson.




Only to an extent.




They really don't IMO.

They stress the self esteem of both young brothas & sistas equally.

But with the ongoin Feminist & Womanist Movements, it might seem somehow that sistas may have moved ahead of brothas even though they really haven't.




But there's a difference between a doll & an action figure.

Because Dolls have historically been utilized to reinforce White standards of beauty & outmoded gender roles whereas action figures haven't necessarily been given that same degree of emphasis.

However, ITA there needs to be more MOC action figures.




That is meaningful to WOC, since the degree of internalization & self hatred (even now) is staggering.




A lot of that has to do with the generation gap.

A great deal of Fathers, Uncles, Brothers, Cousins, died in the Vietnam War & they left an entire generation of young Brothas who subsequenty & unfortunately grew up without strong male role models in their lives.

That's what's had the greatest effect on young brothas over the past 30-40 years IMO.




It doesn't necessarily work for them either.

The actresses may get the jobs but more often than not those interracial pairings often end up turnin WOC into nothin more than sex objects or the relationships border on (if not totally become) fetishized.




It depends.

With the ongoin degeneration of soaps, both Black Women & Black Men have suffered a great deal.

Black Women have become almost non existant (especially if they're 40+) while Black Men have been essentially neutered.

And both the Black Men & Black Women on soaps under 40 currently (outside of Devon/BM) are mainly tokens IMO.

Considering that the male romantic lead will probably be spending most of the movie as a little green frog, I think Disney would have still faced criticism if Prince Harry were black. No doubt an animated feature with two black love interests is overdue. (What’s your excuse, Dreamworks?) But a better role model for young black males might be a heroic prince who fights to save his princess instead of one fighting to keep his legs off a dinner menu. Sure, Beast in Beauty and the Beast spent most of the film as a big, hairy monster; and yet he could still defend Belle from harm and share a romantic waltz with her.

Not in my hood. They were too busy telling our girls that we're little fast asses and everything was our fault. Meanwhile little Billy and little Jamal could do no wrong, ever.



They don't need to bring up color. It's already known that white is the default, the "norm" if you will.

There are many Boondocks strips where the characters barely move from one frame to the next. And at one point, he actually hired someone else to draw the comics. He just gave them the words. There was actually a newspaper article about a year ago where old-time cartoonists couldn't believe that such a young cartoonist was pretty much ditching his comic strip to work on the TV version. Especially since the success of the TV show is obviously linked to the comics.

But personally, if I was in that situation, I would totally take the money for the TV show. He can always go back to comics full-time later.



With computer animation, the 'color' of the main characters is just part of a computer file. It would be interesting if they released multiple versions of the movie just by changing the color in the file - they could release a version with white characters in the suburbs, a version with black character in movie theaters in black neighborhoods, a hispanic version, etc.

I'm a Libra so I agree with everyone. :-/ Or at least, I see everyone's point of view. But I see prophet's POV most clearly -- I'll just admit it; I'm not worked up one bit about a Disney movie that is a million years in the future and will change many times before release, I'm sure. But to the extent that I have thought about it, I didn't consider the fact that yet again we are NOT seeing a black prince. And that was a failure in my thinking, and I'll own that. I need to be more cognizant of images of black MEN on television as well as black women.

While not excusing my own blindness in the least, I do think that part of the reason the focus may be on black women in these "image" things is because girls and women in general tend to be more vocal when things bother them...there's still such a premium among men and boys on being stoic. If I may generalize extremely broadly.

I do think the black men are allowed to be the "hero" on TV somewhat often, if only because a safe casting choice for black men seems to be as a cop or other generally noble type, even if the characterization is sketchy. But as for saying "well, if black men need to see themselves as the hero on TV, they have bigger problems than TV can solve" -- not a good argument, imo. Because then why does this thread even exist? Why do we even need to talk about race and ethnicity on TV at all...just cast all white people and let's be done with it, because minorities don't "need" to see themselves on TV to bolster our self-esteem. Right?

The "who has it worse off" argument always seems like a really pointless one to me, especially when we are talking about a media "pie" that hasn't even come close to being divided up fairly in the first place. It just serves to have us squabbling amongst ourselves -- crabs in a barrel -- when it's not like we're talking about a tiny limited universe of roles available to people of color. There is really enough out there for women AND men of color, if TPTB would broaden their thinking. Or if we were to work together to force TPTB to do so.


Oh, the screaming. I scarcely want to imagine it. That would not go over well at all, I fear. But in the case of this particular movie, that couldn't be an option because it'll be "traditionally animated," i.e., hand-drawn.

On Brandy's Cinderella: While many people might believe that Brandy should have been paired with a black actor, they also forget perhaps, that Asian men are not usually seen as a romantic hero/Prince Charming either. OK, so this guy was paired with Brandy (whom I'm not a big fan of), but at least he did get to play a prince, which is rarity for an Asian actor outside of school productions.

Except for in McGruder's case, nobody cares anymore. Ever hear the expression "a bird in the hand beats two in the bush"? Aaron went for the two in the bush, and they both flew away. What an idiot. I'm sorry, but there are cartoonists who have been in the game FOREVER and McGruder basically crashed and burned in all of...what, six years? (Oh, and the cartoon? S-U-C-K-E-D.)

I don't know if this is addressed to me but I'm a black woman. As far as the light skinned actresses are concerned, I have actually READ articles where light skinned black actresses have said that, perhaps though they were not telling the truth.






Loomis has a point there, that's what they said when I was growing up too, and that was in Harlem of the 1970's. I think it's very important to raise the self esteem of girls, because when a girl has high self esteem she's less likely to get involved with an abusive man, which can impact on children, both boys and girls.

I think prophet meant that you are not a "black male," not that you are not black.

I don't think your points are wrong. Just that we can lift everyone up; it's not like black girls "need" positive images more than black boys.

And little black boys DO need positive images. All young boys do. I agree with prophetreturns that when it comes to positive images, little black boys have been all but ignored. This may be because there are way more black males of status and "power" than women mainly due to athletes and rappers, but there are plenty of clumsy, non-rapping little black boys who need some role models as well.

I'm one of them. It's played. It's tired. Characterizing it as Shakespeare doesn't really excite me either. I want to see some Black experience that's just there. No 'hood', no guns around every corner. No danger and violence looming in every scene. No dancing/singing required.

There's seemingly an infinite amount of stories to tell from a black perspective, because not only is it a unique perspective on its own, it often swallows and recontextualizes white experiences.

I want to see a group of black people sit around like on Seinfeld and just do whatever they're doing, and have it be worth something. I want to see black people at work like The Office, just doing whatever they do, the silly power plays and quirky personalities.

I guess in short I want to see black people as human beings. We exist. Our stories are deep and complex and moving and we are full human beings who think, act and react and are deeper than guns and the hood, no matter what the latest rap video has one believing.

I watched "Girl, Interrupted" on AMC's "DVD TV" last night, and while it's just an extension of the "Pop Up Video" concept, it was an astounding, essentially 4-dimensional investigation of the film. The thought that was put into everything - the characters, the scenes, the music, the locations. DVD TV is great, even if it gets tedious at times. I hope they do that with a black film, or at least something non-white. After a while it's just like seeing in monochrome. Nothing against a pasty green, but there are just so many other colors to see.

One thing among many that I read while watching DVD TV on AMC is that Whoopi Goldberg's character was a white woman in real life (the movie is based on a real story). In one scene they needed Winona Ryder's character to provoke Whoopi's, but the subtext DVD TV thing revealed that there were certain words (read: the n word) that Winona would not say.

It just made me recall how productions are such a ... umm... product of the director & actors, as opposed to the initial scripts that are written.

Perhaps the hidden point of construction that isn't materializing in terms of characterizations of non-whites on television or in the movies, is the true creation of the character after the script has been created, after the part has been cast, during the actual production of the show. Perhaps there's a conversation that often doesn't emerge between white writers/directors and non-white actors that seems to exist a lot of times between white writers/directors and white actors?

About this:

Really? That's all it takes to turn someone a different race? I don't think so. I understand the desire behind the statement, but that whole segment is just kind of odd sounding to me.

Anyway, forgive me if my thoughts are jumbled, I watched that DVD TV thing and had thoughts for hours, and I probably only remembered half of what went through my head.

DVD TV:

I don't see any black films on their list yet, but it will be interesting to compare and contrast the treatment once they show one, if they do. But really, just to see it. I suspect a Spike Lee joint will be the selection.

This appears to be what they've done so far on AMC's DVD TV:
March - Scent of a Woman, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Back to the Future.
April - The Blues Brothers, Halloween, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Basic Instinct.
May - Never Been Kissed, Girl Interrupted.

Honestly if you consider people like Tim Reid and Emmanuel Lewis to be light-skinned then you might as well considered the majority of African Americans to be light skinned too. Dark skinned isn't just defined by Wesley Snipes IMO. There is a middle ground. I think we'll both agree that there are various shades in both the dark and light categories. Maybe you're right it comes down more to how we as individuals determines what classifies as dark and light. My mom is Tim Reid's complexion and she was definitely considered to be dark skinned growing up. In fact when she was a girl she was hidden away at times by my grandmother when visitors came over because of her complexion. Yes, that's a true sick family fact.

I recall one episode of the great series "Frank's Place" when Tim Reid's character was invited to join an exclusive New Orleans club. A creole club which Reid's character, Frank, had been historically exclusive to light skinned blacks and Frank (again without his awareness of the fact) was being used as a kind of a guinea pig by the younger members. They were trying to get dark skinned African Americans invited into the club and Frank, being an Ivy League trained graduate, was the ideal person to use to break down those barriers. Later one of the waitresses of Frank's restaurant exposed to him what was going on and even gave him the bag test. That test was, a some black people know, was one in which you held up a brown paper bag to a black person's face. If their shade was lighter than the bag they were invited inside an establishment or a club. If they were darker than the bag they were denied access or entry. Frank didn't pass the test when the waitress held up the bag to his face. Reid isn't very dark but I've always seen him as a dark skinned person and Reid, who was executive producer of Frank's Place, appeared to saw himself in that way too.

A bunch of the people you included in that lists would not pass that bag test either IMO. To me you are light skinned when your complexion takes on a bit of a pale quality or yellow tone. A guy like Phillip Michael Thomas has a brown complexion. Its not an ebony complexion, but it isn't light either. Take away his light eyes and curly hair and I don't think many people would even consider the possibility he was light skin. But a guy like Michael Ealy of "sleeper Cell" is truly light skin, even if you take away the blue eyes.

Anyway eve if I conceded all the guys in your list as qualifying as "dark skin" their numbers would still pale (pun intended) in comparison to the number of more dark-skinned actors used on TV and film in the 80s and early 90s. I mean using a guy like Cylk Cozart for example proves my point because he has never gotten many job opportunities. Which further reinforces my belief that Holywood overall is not sure what to do with lighter black dudes.

When will Hollywood figure out that there are more ways to piss off black people than calling us niggers? They couldn't go with the dialogue that was already in the damn book!?

Well the DVD TV thing showed that they took huge liberties in order to express the themes shown in the book. It was my first time seeing Girl, Interrupted, so it was actually kind of tough to watch it and the subtext at the same time. But anyway, I think that scene where they needed to provoke Whoopi was a construction of the director's (it wasn't in the book). The time period was the 60's.

Lipstick Jungle, based on a Candace Bushnell novel, is to be a mid-season replacement on NBC. The show will star Lindsay Price, Brook Shields and Kim Raver.

Yahoo Article

I don't think I've seen an actress of Asian descent in an SATC type role outside of well, Asia.

I can see your point somewhat, although the guns and violence is only a part of the story, it's about politics and how the working class is being destroyed.

But Seinfeld...ugh, I hated that show and to do a black version of it or The Office wouldn't make a damn bit of difference to me, the show would still suck.

I remember that episode of "Frank's Place" because of the paper bag test because I was surprised they actually had that on a TV show. To me Tim Reid wasn't light skinned, Michael Ealy, though (I LOVED Sleeper Cell) is.

quote] I'm one of them. It's played. It's tired. Characterizing it as Shakespeare doesn't really excite me either. I want to see some Black experience that's just there. No 'hood', no guns around every corner. No danger and violence looming in every scene. No dancing/singing required.[/quote]

Its also arguably the best show on TV. Dismissing it as played without apparently watching it seems prejudicial. Now I understand being tired of the street scene when it comes to black shows. But that's like an Italian American being sick of mafia representation amongst Italian characters and choosing to ignore "The Sopranos" as a result. And there are indeed Italian Americans who will not watch "The Sopranos" for that very reason. I don't blame them. Nonetheless they are missing out on great TV which delivers rich, complex three dimensional Italian American characters. "The Wire' delivers the same thing for black characters (though its not really a black show). Again I can understand some black folks being put off by the idea but in truth the show is fantastic. And unlike "The Sopranos" you get more of a balance because the black cops, black politicians, black working class, black residents caught in the middle are also spotlighted along with the black dealers and black junkies.. We take issue with underdeveloped black characters who don't get a true voice and never get any interesting storylines. David Simon, though, has delivered us a show that shows black people in their complexity. He doesn't show us all of black society but what he does deliver are fully formed black people. That includes his black gay characters too. As I've written before with "The Wire" Simon has created more three dimensional and interesting black characters than all white TV writers in the history of the medium have created combined! I stand by that belief and because of it I will support Simon's projects for the rest of my life even if he did a remake of "The Birth of A Nation". Never before have black characters benefited from such amazing writing. I know some people who thinks that distinction belongs to "Greys Anatomy" but IMO its not even on the same level. Not even close. It’s a shame some people will judge a book by its cover while others are simply turned doff by the subject matter because the acting and writing are exceptional. But, hey, different strokes for different folks. Enough of me plugging that show.





To me this is making a mistake in assuming that doll baby pull over young girls is ultimately more important than whether there are heroic action figures/leaders for boys to identify with. What study proves that there is less of an effect on young boys if they don't see themselves in such action figures? Who is to say it does not work on the subconscious of minority boys if all figures of soldiers, firemen, astronauts, etc are dominated almost exclusively by white action figures?

Closed while everyone remembers what TV is and how to confine their comments here to TV and TV alone.

Looks like this thread is back. Yay!

Not sure if anyone saw this.

The story has been making the rounds on the internet, and many people are up in arms about the fact that the national media hasn't covered it. Snopes had to confirm it's authencity before most people outside of Knoxville believed it.

I wonder why this wasn't covered nationally. CNN is picking up on it, what, 4 months later? There's got to be something to it.

I wonder why this would be covered nationally. What is so unusual about these murders that would make this a national story? People get carjacked and murdered in every major city in this country all the time, and the stories don't make the national news.

Oh, wait. The victims are white and attractive and relatively affluent. Silly me, of course that would make it national news.

From what I understand, white supremacist groups have made completely false claims regarding this case and have turned it into a "hate crime" against white people when zero evidence of a hate crime exists. That's the only reason CNN is covering it now, because they've received a ton of e-mails asking them why they aren't covering it (and the white supremacist rally just happened, which has turned this into a story where it wasn't much of one before). The white supremacists demand "equal time" for coverage of crimes against white people. Apparently CNN covers mainly crimes against black people, but I must have missed most of them when I saw all those stories on Laci Peterson and Natalee Holloway.



So the mainstream media "intends white genocide" in its refusal to cover stories about white crime victims. Uh-huh.

I know. It's a shame that the OJ trial received so little attention and media coverage.

Yeah, I don't even think I want to even try to waste my breath--or tire my fingers--with that one.

I don't know, you guys. I think the fact that they were both raped repeatedly, and the sheer brutality of the crime, was enough that I would think FOX News at least would have jumped on it. That's what I'm surprised about. Natalie Holloway and the stupid Runaway Bride were all over my TV, all the time, but not even conservative FOX news or any of their talking heads mentioned it at all? And I just know they've been getting emails from supremacists, so why no mention? This is exactly the type of story I would expect to see.

We're back! We'rebackwe'rebackwe'rebackwe'reback! WE'RE BACK!

Anyway....
Fox probably hasn't been covering it because they've been getting lots of e-mails from white supremecists. Fox knows it's considered to be a conservative outlet, and mostly doesn't care, but also considers itself to be a responsible news organization and no reponsible news organization wants to be manipulated, expecially by the bad guys. I've had people call me trying to get a story published, and I've resisted, even when they had a point and it was a valid story, because I didn't want others to think they could call the shots.


I know I should have, but I laughed a little bit at that. What kind of crime is "the opposite" of a hate crime? Does he think there is such thing as a "love crime"?

Well, there is a danger in loving somebody too much.

TV related:

On the latest version of The Bachelor, had Bevin had the same qualities as Tessa, and Andy chose Bevin, do you think their "relationship" would be criticized as much? I'm seeing a lot of "Andy chose Tessa for her family's money" posts over on the ABC boards.

I asked this on the Bachelor/Bachelorette thread but did not get many responses. Maybe there'll be more response here?

From June 4-June 8, BBC will air "Soul Deep: The Story of Black Popular Music" on VH1 from 8-9pm.


I agree with Doom. Whether or not the shows sucks in the opinion of one, few or many, the point is shows like The Office or Seinfeld with predominant or all black casts would exist, which would be a good thing.

I commented to Mr. Nice the other day that of all the shows I watch, none of them feature a lot of minorities or the cast is all minorities. Part of the reason is shows like GA and Girlfriends, I gave up on b/c IMO they suck now and I don't have HBO to watch The Wire. (Watching it on BET just isn't the same.) The other part of it is, the shows just don't exist no matter how hard I search for them. I've been reading about the fall lineups for the networks and so far I've been disappointed.

So I was wondering if any of you have been watching the Riches on FX. It seems to be a love it or hate it show for the most part and I know it came up in this thread in the context of of how it portrays the Travellers as a group (and possibly an ethnic group) before it started. But one thing it has done that I'm finding interesting and cool is create the character of Aubrey. She is a black woman studying to become a lawyer while working as a paralegal for the company that Eddie Izzard's character "works for" (he's impersonating a dead lawyer).

We haven't learned much about her character yet other than hints but I feel that with her, the show has done a good job of creating a non-stereotypipcal character, noting her ethnicity in a way that is realistic but not heavy handed, and given her some interesting things to do in her supporting role (I personally, suspect that she is onto the main characters as being not quite on the up and up). Plus the actress who plays her is absolutely striking.

On the flip side of that we've also had the guest character of "Chunky Kay," who was MInnie Driver's cellie in prison (she got out in the pilot episode). Now Chunky was shown to be a bit more of a stereotype; prison and drugs. But even there, I felt that this was a character and not a caricature.

Any thoughts from others on the racial issues on the show?

This does seem like a much more powerful (and horrific) story than a missing spring break co-ed and a "kidnapped" bride.

I wonder if part of it is the suspense angle, though. Holloway was never found (right?) and the RB was self-reported kidnapped for several days before the police figured out what had happened. (Subsequent coverage was more related to the outrage people were feeling at her actions.) So after the story broke there was drama about what exactly had happened. Same with Laci P. This couple went missing together - so no one was overly alarmed at first. They were reported missing the next morning and his body was found that day. Still, the state of his body and the fact that she was still missing should have sent up media coverage - which I guess it did locally. And then she and her "alleged" killers were found fairly shortly after.

So the cases we hear a lot about are the cases where the crime is unsolved and the family is courting the media to get coverage. I guess?

Also - When we had a hostage/murder/rape situation in my city, the coverage all centered on the primary couple - the estranged husband and the murdered wife. The man who ended up being taken hostage with her and who was raped got little to no media coverage. I am guessing (again) that this was at his request.

My people!

I am wondering whether anyone saw Bury My Heart... on HBO and how they felt about the modification of the story to focus on someone that white people can more readily identify with? I read a review that said Adam Beach was very good.