Diversity in Soaps: Black Characters, Gay Characters, Latino Characters

[DRW50]

No major network is going to give time to a how which is minority heavy. They're too scared. The only time they give minority shows a chance is if they have nowhere to go but up and they want to try to get early success. FOX was more than happy to produce shows which were about black people, but as soon as they started becoming "respectable" due to stuff like the X-Files, the black faces went away.

As trite as it was, it's still a shame that the story the press used to sell about Gray's Anatomy - oh look at all these different races together - was blown to pieces by the ugly Isaiah Washington dramas and then the Katherine Heigl dramas, the Brooke Smith dramas. The media coverage turned away from racial integration to backstage chaos. If the talk had stayed towards integration, then more shows might try to cash in on the idea.

Back in the 60s, writers like Agnes Nixon KNEW TV was not integrated, America was not well integrated, and she wanted to do something about it. Today, we get the whole, "Everything's fine! What are you talking about???" backlash, and defensiveness, any time anything is brought up. We either get corny PSAs, tokens, or nothing at all. And any time a minority character does appear on the show, the cries of agenda and PC and jumping on a bandwagon start. In the eyes of many, it's "brave" to have a show which revolves around young, pretty, heterosexual white people.

[Vee]

And IIRC, Brooke Smith was dismissed from Grey's because her character was seen to be too much of a "butch dyke." And then they brought in Melissa George instead, didn't they? Who I like, but that's a real conventional choice. Generally, American television only cares to invest in lipstick lesbians for the titillation factor, and the lack of red state alienation. Stephanie Forrester doesn't count.

[All My Shadows]

Speaking of lesbians, I was watching my Friday Night Lights S1 DVDs Saturday afternoon and was shocked to see that the mayor of Dillon is a lesbian. I consider myself a pretty die-hard fan of the show, but somehow, the issue was treated as such a non-issue that I never really noticed her feeling up her ladyfriend when she had Coach and Tami over for dinner. And now, speaking of FNL, that was a show that did good of job of integrating its lone main minority character (Smash) with the rest of the show, though his major storyline in the first season ('roids!) kinda islanded him. I loved the little touches, though, such as his Mama being the one to tell Tami she was pregnant and Coach making random visits to the Williams home. With the show moving to the "other side of town," this season, I think we may be getting more in the way of black and Latino characters. AMC's Michael B. Jordan joins the show, so who knows.

[alphanguy74]

You know....... now that I'm REALLY thinking about it. When it comes to TV back then, there was almost as much minority presence on network TV in the 70's than today. Think about the shows from THAT time period that starred or co-starred minorities:

1: Good Times

2: The Jeffersons

3: What's Happening

4: That's My Mama

5: Tony Orlando And Dawn

6: Sonny and Cher (Cher's american indian, a TRUE rarity on TV)

7: Sanford And Son

8: Soul Train

9: Gimme A Break

10. Hawaii 5-0

11: Chips

12: Chico and The Man

13: Flip Wilson

It seems that heavily starred minority shows are more and more in the realm of cable TV... such as Soul Food on Showtime, which incidentally, was a black primetime soap that I thought was really good.

[DRW50]

Yes, primetime was much more open to blacks in the 70s. There were mostly sitcoms, which were often attacked for being stereotypical, but they were there. There was also the big TV dramas like Miss Jane Pittman and Roots.

The 80s had the big freezeout and then a return to black sitcoms after the Cosby Show took off.

The 90s had the FOX shows, not a lot else.

This decade has had even less. As you said, cable had more, Soul Food. The Wire. Oz. Oz had one of the greatest TV characters ever, Adebisi.

Donald Bogle's books go into great detail about this stuff.

[DeeeDee]

No.

Just...no.

[DeeeDee]

The Vegas are sorely missed.

I couldn't stand Antonio with Jessica but liked Tonio/Talia a lot & hated how they randomly killed her off instead of giving them a happy ending.

More Carlotta would be nice too with Clint possibly single soon & Markko working at the cafe TPTB should keep Sandra Santiago around.

Plus Tea spending time with The Vegas would let her be fun & get her away from Todd for at least a little while.

Kish is but TPTB need to not whitewash Kyle.

The magic of Kish is the chemistry of their opposite personalities.

Nick's a hottie hopefully TPTB keep him & don't turn him psycho to prop Kish like they do to third wheels in most romantic triangles.

[DeeeDee]

Michael Park & Amelia Marshall? LOVE.

Michael Park & Eva Tamargo? LOVE.

:wub: :wub:

[quartermainefan]

ABC clearly is after a certain demographic, and that is white upscale women. Grays Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, Brothers and Sisters...it is clear all these shows are targeted to the same woman over and over and everyone else can just go watch Law&Order or WWE or something. I find TV underserves men, overserves women and here they come again with that Good Wife show or whatever it is called. But it seems to work for them because this is their niche, and with 500 channels a niche is probably the most you can expect.

[JackPeyton]

This article i cam across is about sitcoms, but i seen someone a few posts up mention sitcoms so i thought id share. I wish it was a more in depth article tho...

[chyti]

I am not trying to be daft here, but scared of who exactly. African Americans share a large percentage of the viewing audience and I doubt that they will be offended if there is some representation of self. Unfortunately even with the attempts at OLTL African Americans are still regelated into the background or isolated from the gen population of the canvas. The Evans had no thought going into the development of this family just throw family members on screen when the need arises, I am still trying to figure out what is behind Sean's anger with his brother. Even with the amount of AA on the show, they still go through the same thing lack of screentime, lack of development, no connection/interaction to core families or characters, no A storylines or even lead in B stories.

It does seem like some state that they add them to the show to appease and then cart them away.

[EricMontreal22]

The Chins were just one of Rayfield's horrific time as HW and his random slew of new characters with no connections to anyone on the show (oh I forgot, we got a scene whee Dr Joe said he'd been eating lunch at the Chinese restaurant for YEARS!). the main story was Henry wanted to be a musician but his parents were pressuring him to a doctor--which is a total cliche story but also one with some truth to it. That said everything about the characters and stories was a mess. (I miss the Santos on AMC--though maybe not perfect...)

However re primetime shows I'm not gonnabe too quick to jump on ABC--they still strike me as more often than not better at diversity than the other networks (I'm not counting cable here, by any means)

[miajere]

I think it's misconceptions such as these that keep the soap community from moving forward. Not that these are anyone's expressed interests, but it seems to be what's accepted from television networks or what we're giving into because, "that's just the way it is." When in most cases, it isn't. Is this what BF was talking about when he spoke about "training viewers"?

"lily white", "ghetto", "white washed" are just a few criticisms expressed that seem to go against people's idea POC. Even for the young actors, there seems to be no room/time to grow- annoying/needs an acting class- there is alot of responsibility and some hard criticism to meet as a POC. But this doesn't just sit with the community, the writers don't seem to understand that there is no way that one, even two characters is going to appeal to an entire audience. Even RJ on OLTL was met with criticism. Is there a reason the Williamsons, Vegas, and the Gannons couldn't exist on the show? When did "too many POC" equal "not enough white people"? They are quickly ushered off and into the back burner, never to catch up with the core of the show.

Which is why the mere sprinkling of characters here or there will never hold as a complete success. We hold diverse characters to standards no one on daytime has to deal with. But these networks seem to enjoy catering to small mindedness, and that's exactly what they get.

[JackPeyton]

Otalia took off. It just shows that good writing and great chem is what soap fans want in a love story.

[UKBoi]

I am currently finding diversity on soaps to be a really big problem. I have been trying to cast the role of an Asian female in her late 20s/early 30s and there is nobody on the daytime landscape for me to select except from the girl who plays Kelly on GH, and I cant find any workable footage of her for my opening, so she's out. There should surely be more than ONE Asian female on contract out of the 7 daytime dramas on the air but evidently not. I never really paid attention to diversity as an issue in daytime but when you look at it closely the situation is pretty ridiculous.