butterfly | Race, America, Television (Reply)

This week is, apparently, Blog Against Racism Week.

Racism is an area that I do try to question myself in, when watching television or movies. Because, for example, while it's hard for me to picture anyone else as Xander, if someone else had been Xander, then it might be Nicholas Brendon who I would think it silly to imagine being Xander (of course, if Xander had been black or hispanic or asian or native american, then his diminished role in the later seasons might have looked worse than it did, from an outside point of view).

One of the things that I didn't notice about RENT but tickled me pink when someone pointed it out to me is that every single couple in the movie/play is interracial. It's just there and no one in the movie makes any kind of deal about it.

When there are strong/interesting non-caucasian characters, I still fangirl them and fall in love. But there simply aren't the plethora of characters (and character types) out there that you get for the 'white' characters. As Mr. Trick said, Sunnydale really isn't a 'haven for the brothers' (and, much as I love Joss Whedon, commenting on something in the text doesn't excuse the metatexual reasons for those choices). And considering the population percentages you normally find in California... well, let's just say that we should have been hearing a lot more spanish on those shows than we got (and none of that even goes near the subject of the low number of asians in Firefly).

American television is... a lot paler than the towns and states that the shows tend to be set in. And that is a problem -- it's a writing problem, it's a casting problem, it's a network problem. The issues exist and they matter deeply.

Or, as Rev. Al Sharpton said in the first episode of Boston Legal -- 'Give us a black Spider-Man. Give us a black Superman who can leap tall buildings in a single bound. Give us a black Orphan Annie.' (paraphrased) Because these are icons that were created years ago and they are meant to be universal American icons -- universal American icons shouldn't be limited by color, even if their creators were.

And here, I was about to note that Boston Legal's main cast was all-white, but I went to the website and apparently that changes later on. That was a nice surprise. Of course, it's still seven to one, but that's better than eight-zero.