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Apparently people like us don't exist on TV unless it's to send a "message"...
I meant to blog about this earlier, but author Jim Hines posted this rant about an interview with Bunheads and Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino. What happened was that Shonda Rhimes, the creator of Grey’s Anatomy, posted on Twitter, "Hey… Bunheads: really? You couldn’t cast even ONE young dancer of color so I could feel good about my kid watching this show? NOT ONE?"
Sherman-Palladino gets defensive and instead of addressing the issue, attacks Rhimes for not showing enough female solidarity: "As far as the women thing goes, I've always felt like women have never supported -- in a general sense -- women to the level that they should." Sure, women should support each other, but it's ridiculous to imply that a woman can never disagree with or criticize a female colleague without becoming a traitor to feminism. As for the issue of diversity, Sherman-Palladino doesn't address it directly, but said she had only a limited time (a week and a half) to cast the show, and went on to say, "I don't do message shows. I don't give a shit who you learn your life from. Someone said, 'Oh god, I hope we don't see the eating disorder show. You won't because I don't give a flying f--- about that."
Hines says:
That pretty much sums up how I feel, too. And I have to say that I'm especially disappointed because I used to watch Gilmore Girls from time to time, and I liked the characters and the show, and I do remember that one of the supporting characters, Rory's best friend Lane, was Korean-American. Hines cross-posted the rant on his website, and a commenter named Cindy said, "when i play Spot the Asian in any film or television show, even an extra is a good thing. it’s sort of sad how little i’m asking for. (and how often i’m disappointed.)" I must admit, I do that too, although as Cindy says, it's kind of sad and frustrating that even a minor sighting of an Asian character/actor is enough to get me excited. Still, Gilmore Girls got points from me for having an Asian-American character, so it really stung to hear the producer imply that there's no reason to cast non-white actors unless you're telling some kind of "message" story.
That reminds me of the time when I went to a Star Trek convention years ago, and Garret Wang (who played Harry Kim on Star Trek: Voyager) talked about the challenges and frustrations he encountered as an Asian-American actor--including that when he would audition for a role that wasn't specifically listed as "Asian," he would be turned down with something like, "Sorry, we're not looking for someone ethnic."
Things have gotten a little better since then, but not nearly enough, since I'm still playing Spot the Asian. I want to see more characters like Cho on The Mentalist, or B.D. Wong's psychiatrist characters on Law & Order: SVU and Awake, where the characters just happen to be Asian and there's no need to justify their Asian-ness. I play Spot the Asian in music, too, btw--Smashing Pumpkins first caught my attention, not so much because of Billy Corgan's singing and songwriting (though I do like their music), but because "Wow, there's a Japanese-American guy (James Iha) playing rock guitar!"
It's a little sad that the most racially diverse show I can think of offhand is Hawaii 5-0, which my sister regularly mocks for its sometimes ridiculous plots and the utter flouting of police procedure. (Though to be fair, the show plays it mostly tongue-in-cheek rather than seriously.) But three of the regular cast are Asian (Daniel Dae Kim, Grace Park, and Masi Oka), the recurring character of the Governor (Richard T. Jones, formerly of Judging Amy) is black, and a large number of the recurring and guest roles and extras are played by actors of varying ethnicities (mostly Asian and Polynesian) that represent Hawaii's racially diverse population pretty accurately, although little else about the show is realistic. I enjoy the show because I like the characters and the chemistry between the actors and I'm a little bit in love with Daniel Dae Kim, but another big part of the appeal is being able to watch a show where I can see people who look like me--and not just as yakuza or martial artists or illegal immigrants, but as cops and judges and just plain ordinary people. (Growing up as a child, I was very aware that there were very few people on TV or in the movies who looked like me.) I remember seeing a couple of different interviews with Daniel Dae Kim and Masi Oka, where they (separately) talked about how they enjoyed working in Hawaii because they felt like they fit in there. Kim said he wanted to continue living in Hawaii even after Lost was done because it would be a good place to raise his children, where they could fit in and not look "different." And Oka said that he liked being able to walk down the street and have people assume that he was local, without anyone coming up to him and saying (in a surprised tone of voice), "Oh, you speak good English." (My sister boggled a bit that aside from him being famous, people would make that kind of automatic assumption in a city as big as L.A., where Oka presumably spent most of his time prior to 5-0, but apparently they do.)
Anyway, getting back to Bunheads, which is a show about ballet dancers, people did point out in the comments of Hines's post that there are plenty of non-white dancers out there. I can to some extent understand how easy it is to fall into the trap of default=white, because we all make unintentionally biased assumptions at times. I'm still really embarrassed about the time that my doctor added a new partner to his practice and I automatically assumed that "Dr. Smith" was a man, until she walked out and I saw that she was a woman! Fortunately, I never voiced my assumption out loud, but it was rather mortifying to realize that even though I'm a woman, I made a sexist assumption. So I could have had more sympathy for Sherman-Palladino if she had said something like, "We only had a limited time to cast the show, but we're going to work on making it more diverse in future episodes" rather than (essentially) saying, "Don't bug me with all your PC crap!"
In the interest of fairness, I should point out that a few of the commenters, while they felt that the criticism was fair, wondered if Sherman-Palladino was being held to a higher standard than male producers, as in this thread: "Where is the same scrutiny about a male showrunner's casting balance? I love Leverage, but where's the conversation about John Rogers and casting Asian Americans? Why is the one other woman showrunner being held to a standard that men aren't being held to? Why haven't we had this conversation about Aaron Sorkin or David Simon or Jeff Pinkner?"
To be honest, I'm not always aware of which shows are produced by men and which are produced by women, although I assume that most producers are male. I do remember criticisms about the all-white cast of Friends in the past and sarcastic comments about how there don't seem to be any non-white people in New York, judging by the show. (Looking it up on Wikipedia now, it seems that there were two male and one female executive producers.) And I do know that whenever a new cast member is added to CSI or one of my other favorite cop shows, I wistfully think, "It sure would be nice if the new character was Asian" (or black or Hispanic, or something else other than white).
While I don't think that it excuses Sherman-Palladino's remarks, I do think it's fair to say that we should be asking these questions of all producers and not just her. I'd like to see more diversity in TV and movies--and in leading roles too, and not have to settle for being happy just to see an Asian character in a supporting role (even one as awesome as Cho).
Sherman-Palladino gets defensive and instead of addressing the issue, attacks Rhimes for not showing enough female solidarity: "As far as the women thing goes, I've always felt like women have never supported -- in a general sense -- women to the level that they should." Sure, women should support each other, but it's ridiculous to imply that a woman can never disagree with or criticize a female colleague without becoming a traitor to feminism. As for the issue of diversity, Sherman-Palladino doesn't address it directly, but said she had only a limited time (a week and a half) to cast the show, and went on to say, "I don't do message shows. I don't give a shit who you learn your life from. Someone said, 'Oh god, I hope we don't see the eating disorder show. You won't because I don't give a flying f--- about that."
Hines says:
Wait, what? The original question is why nonwhite characters aren’t represented, and you’re talking about “message shows”?Every story has a message. Some stories are blatant and clumsy about it, but as the author of some rather silly stuff, I can tell you that even the the fluffiest, lighthearted tale has meaning. When someone like Sherman-Palladino chooses to limit diversity in her stories and justifies it with this kind of rationale, she’s damn well sending messages. Messages like:
- White people are normal. Nonwhite people require justification to exist.
- My target audience does not include people different from myself.
- My world is small and narrow.
That pretty much sums up how I feel, too. And I have to say that I'm especially disappointed because I used to watch Gilmore Girls from time to time, and I liked the characters and the show, and I do remember that one of the supporting characters, Rory's best friend Lane, was Korean-American. Hines cross-posted the rant on his website, and a commenter named Cindy said, "when i play Spot the Asian in any film or television show, even an extra is a good thing. it’s sort of sad how little i’m asking for. (and how often i’m disappointed.)" I must admit, I do that too, although as Cindy says, it's kind of sad and frustrating that even a minor sighting of an Asian character/actor is enough to get me excited. Still, Gilmore Girls got points from me for having an Asian-American character, so it really stung to hear the producer imply that there's no reason to cast non-white actors unless you're telling some kind of "message" story.
That reminds me of the time when I went to a Star Trek convention years ago, and Garret Wang (who played Harry Kim on Star Trek: Voyager) talked about the challenges and frustrations he encountered as an Asian-American actor--including that when he would audition for a role that wasn't specifically listed as "Asian," he would be turned down with something like, "Sorry, we're not looking for someone ethnic."
Things have gotten a little better since then, but not nearly enough, since I'm still playing Spot the Asian. I want to see more characters like Cho on The Mentalist, or B.D. Wong's psychiatrist characters on Law & Order: SVU and Awake, where the characters just happen to be Asian and there's no need to justify their Asian-ness. I play Spot the Asian in music, too, btw--Smashing Pumpkins first caught my attention, not so much because of Billy Corgan's singing and songwriting (though I do like their music), but because "Wow, there's a Japanese-American guy (James Iha) playing rock guitar!"
It's a little sad that the most racially diverse show I can think of offhand is Hawaii 5-0, which my sister regularly mocks for its sometimes ridiculous plots and the utter flouting of police procedure. (Though to be fair, the show plays it mostly tongue-in-cheek rather than seriously.) But three of the regular cast are Asian (Daniel Dae Kim, Grace Park, and Masi Oka), the recurring character of the Governor (Richard T. Jones, formerly of Judging Amy) is black, and a large number of the recurring and guest roles and extras are played by actors of varying ethnicities (mostly Asian and Polynesian) that represent Hawaii's racially diverse population pretty accurately, although little else about the show is realistic. I enjoy the show because I like the characters and the chemistry between the actors and I'm a little bit in love with Daniel Dae Kim, but another big part of the appeal is being able to watch a show where I can see people who look like me--and not just as yakuza or martial artists or illegal immigrants, but as cops and judges and just plain ordinary people. (Growing up as a child, I was very aware that there were very few people on TV or in the movies who looked like me.) I remember seeing a couple of different interviews with Daniel Dae Kim and Masi Oka, where they (separately) talked about how they enjoyed working in Hawaii because they felt like they fit in there. Kim said he wanted to continue living in Hawaii even after Lost was done because it would be a good place to raise his children, where they could fit in and not look "different." And Oka said that he liked being able to walk down the street and have people assume that he was local, without anyone coming up to him and saying (in a surprised tone of voice), "Oh, you speak good English." (My sister boggled a bit that aside from him being famous, people would make that kind of automatic assumption in a city as big as L.A., where Oka presumably spent most of his time prior to 5-0, but apparently they do.)
Anyway, getting back to Bunheads, which is a show about ballet dancers, people did point out in the comments of Hines's post that there are plenty of non-white dancers out there. I can to some extent understand how easy it is to fall into the trap of default=white, because we all make unintentionally biased assumptions at times. I'm still really embarrassed about the time that my doctor added a new partner to his practice and I automatically assumed that "Dr. Smith" was a man, until she walked out and I saw that she was a woman! Fortunately, I never voiced my assumption out loud, but it was rather mortifying to realize that even though I'm a woman, I made a sexist assumption. So I could have had more sympathy for Sherman-Palladino if she had said something like, "We only had a limited time to cast the show, but we're going to work on making it more diverse in future episodes" rather than (essentially) saying, "Don't bug me with all your PC crap!"
In the interest of fairness, I should point out that a few of the commenters, while they felt that the criticism was fair, wondered if Sherman-Palladino was being held to a higher standard than male producers, as in this thread: "Where is the same scrutiny about a male showrunner's casting balance? I love Leverage, but where's the conversation about John Rogers and casting Asian Americans? Why is the one other woman showrunner being held to a standard that men aren't being held to? Why haven't we had this conversation about Aaron Sorkin or David Simon or Jeff Pinkner?"
To be honest, I'm not always aware of which shows are produced by men and which are produced by women, although I assume that most producers are male. I do remember criticisms about the all-white cast of Friends in the past and sarcastic comments about how there don't seem to be any non-white people in New York, judging by the show. (Looking it up on Wikipedia now, it seems that there were two male and one female executive producers.) And I do know that whenever a new cast member is added to CSI or one of my other favorite cop shows, I wistfully think, "It sure would be nice if the new character was Asian" (or black or Hispanic, or something else other than white).
While I don't think that it excuses Sherman-Palladino's remarks, I do think it's fair to say that we should be asking these questions of all producers and not just her. I'd like to see more diversity in TV and movies--and in leading roles too, and not have to settle for being happy just to see an Asian character in a supporting role (even one as awesome as Cho).