The Black TV Show is Dwindling, People

A post by "Blake the Megalomaniac" To see more posts click here

“People identify with the individual characters if the characters are written well enough to have the charisma that crosses the lines of class, religion, ethnic background,” echoes Mr. Crouch. “People like Denzel Washington because he’s Denzel Washington. I don’t think people go to see him because they say, ‘Oh, I want to go see a black actor today.’”

As you’ve no doubt noticed by now from the things I’ve written on this forum since February 2008, I possess no superior knowledge on anything.  Simply put, I’m just a simple man who’s arrogant enough to have an opinion.  While I’m no Bill Maher or Rush Limbaugh when it comes to my view of the world and those who inhabit it, I do demand the same level of candor.

After reading the Washington Times article entitled, TV Casts Diversify as Black Shows Dwindle, I began to get nostalgic reminiscing.  I remembered my family being stationed in Fort Bragg (Fayetteville), North Carolina, and eating dinners at the kitchen table with the Cosby Show playing on what had to be an 18-inch, black and white TV.  It had to be 1987. Totally ignoring the positive positions in the article about how the NAACP says that more blacks are working in TV and movies, I began to assess just why the Black Show had wilted.

At first I wasn’t positive I even wanted to hit on the article because it would require me to think too much (a little thinking is never bad but a lot of it might hurt). I tried to pawn it off on some of the other, more intelligent, people associated with the blog, but to no avail; it turned out I was the one to bring up, once again, the word that makes everyone cringe — race.  And why not?…for all the idealism out there that presses us to look at what’s inside, honestly speaking, someone’s color is the first thing we see.  We are a very visual people.

The Cosby Show and its surrounding issues are a superb microcosm.  A quick look at TVguide.com’s weekly primetime schedule and you realize the author of the aforementioned article, Sonny Bunch, wasn’t lying when he/she described black shows as dwindling.  You have to go to cable or dish to find a sitcom featuring more black or African-Americans than any other race or ethnicity.  Tyler Perry and his dynasty is one example.  His niche has expanded from the theatre (classical theatre of course) to the big screen and now to the little screen on TBS with House of Payne and Meet the Browns (I omitted a tasteless joke about viewing Cops or ESPN because I don’t believe in your sense of humor).  Why though has the Black Show dwindled on network tele?  Maybe it’s the growth of reality television.  Obviously that doesn’t explain it all.  Noted film director, actor, and writer John Ridley believes it begins with the boardroom.

“You go into a room to pitch “I’ve done this ” and you’re pitching to white people, the most liberal white people you’ve ever met, but it’s very hard to convince them that their neighborhood doesn’t look like the rest of America,” he says. “You ask for a donation at the end of the meeting, they’ll dig deep into their pockets. But if you ask for a couple of million bucks to put a TV show on, ” Mr. Ridley continues, pointedly leaving his sentence incomplete.

That answer is too complete to even build on.  But I think I can.  Think about it.  If there are few Blacks, Hispanics, Asians and the like at the top, then more than likely there are few people who identify with a minority experience anywhere along the spectrum from executive to screenwriter to stage hand; appropriately, we either see a lack of programing featuring minorities or we see programs that stereotype them.  On the flip side, shows like The Cosby Show, for all of its successes, still get bashed by some because as they put it, the show did not accurately depict the African-American experience. Did anyone hear that line spewed because it’s B.S.?  All seriousness aside, I have not met one person who did not like The Cosby Show and if I have, we quickly parted company.

Just as Eminem can be a highly touted white rapper and Paul Wall can sport platinum fronts in his teeth, a Black man (I know this is obvious) can be a doctor and a Black woman can be a lawyer and they can be married.  Just as celeb politicians like Barack Obama can rise to the forefront from a bi-racial upbringing (I swore to myself I would leave Barry O’Bomber out of this) and Piyush Jindal can denounce his Hindu faith in favor of catholicism and change his name to Bobby, genuinely identifying more with the American experience, we understand that not all White people are hillbillies, not all Asian people are smart, not all African-Americans identify with Jay-Z and finally, not all Blacks can dunk.  It may be true that a role designed with a specific race in mind might ring more true in the mind of the audience, but it might just be more noteworthy to cast outside of that perceived description.  To boot:

Blacks have a harder time fitting into roles than most people in an already-tough acting market, he said.

The Yale and Princeton graduate recalls one occasion when he auditioned for a role as an Ivy League “secret society type.” He figured he’d have a good shot since he’d been in a secret society himself. He didn’t get the role and noticed that it was given to a blond-haired white man.

“They were looking for the stereotypical version of what Ivy League was 50 years ago,” Bailey said. [Black in Hollywood]

Shows like Family Matters, Living Single, A Different World, My Wife and Kids, Fresh Prince, Amen, Hangin w/ Mr. Cooper, In the House, Sister Sister, and The Bernie Mac Show all went to show us another side of Black America.  I could relate to these shows and I know others regardless of ethnicity who could also.  While the WB, UPN, CW (the combo of the two), and BET have shows I like and can relate to, for the most I can’t bear to listen to the cliched language of the “loud black woman” or the ” scheme’n black man”.  The great thing about it is, there are those who can and do consociate with that imagery.  The ultimate point is all aspects of the social economic ladder need to be addressed on TV.  When we hiphopify (borrowing a term from C. Norris there) television shows for some people,  we must also sophisticate them for others.  The only show about poor white people I can remember was Roseanne and that was a successful show.  Quite possibly, TV executives need to reevaluate their programming to be more inclusive of the other people in this country.  Ultimately, this might not be a race thing but a social economic quandary.

If you have something to add because I know I missed something, then “have a take and don’t suck.”

food for thought, u do the dishes…