Minorities on daytime

[Leia]

This is sad when the President is African-American and you still can't get African-Americans on tv.

[RomeAt50]

AMC still has a relatively good amount of minorities but they need to give the Hubbards more story.Hopefully the new writers are interested in them.

[Vee]

Interesting topic - especially since I am hoping to attend a screening tomorrow night here in Brooklyn, at the BAM Rose Cinemas, of Bill Gunn's 'avant-garde black soap' "Personal Problems," filmed in 1980. Bill Gunn was a pioneering black filmmaker in the '60s, '70s and '80s who is best known for a horror picture called "Ganja & Hess," and his films are screening at BAM all weekend. "Personal Problems" was co-written by poet Ishmael Reed and is described by Reed as "an avant-garde soap opera...which permitted black producers, a black director, black actors, and black writers and actresses to have control over their work."

Apparently "Personal Problems," which I think may be a lot of compiled footage from a TV pilot rather than a cinematic feature (info is murky), followed the story of a young black nurse and her husband, a transit worker, with the nurse supporting her family while working in a hospital in Harlem, where they shot on location. Naturally, "Personal Problems" was not picked up by any network.

Here's another description courtesy of the University of California:

It'll be interesting to see how it is, and exactly what the format is. The limited information available suggests that they did try to shop the original material around to the networks, or it may have simply been a stand-alone piece of video art. Assuming I can get a ticket I'll post again.