Blacks In Soaps or How To Be On a Daytime Drama For Years and Never Have a Real Storyline

[DeeeDee]

It's awesome that Shonda has as much power as she does but she's as bad (if not worse than) her White peers.

Her Women (except Bailey...to an extent) are uniformly weak, her Minority Male characters are thoroughly emasculated and/or virtually non existant & her constant propping of/obsession with the White Heterosexual Male toxic duo that is "McDreamy" & "McSteamy" is disgusting.

+1.

So underrated.

Both of which he let be constantly undercut until they were canceled.

It was (as was The Bernie Mac Show & George Lopez).

None of which were treated with any kind of respect by their respective networks.

[xtr]

I would say that "Everybody hates Chris" is probably the best black sitcom that's been around in the last decade. (I would put The Bernie Mac show as #2 behind it). But unfortunately there really isn't hardly any good black sitcoms around nowadays or sitcoms centered around/ featuring a lot of minorites who get decent storylines. (Though I think that dramas have gotten a lot better at having diverse casts.)

I thought that "My Wife and Kids" was okay when it was around. And I thought that "All of us" originally had an interesting premise. But I think it went downhil after Elise Neal's character left the show, and they got rid of the original premise of the show. I really liked "Half and Half" when it was around but it didn't really get that much attention.

I haven't ever really seen George Lopez. There really hasn't been that many successful sitcoms about minority characters in the last decaade. And it seems like there aren't as many sitcoms in general as there used to be. Stuff like "The Office" and "Modern Family" seems to get good reviews and there are people that definitely seem to like those shows. I really haven't seen either one of them. Though I'm not really interested in watching "The Office". And I haven't liked what I have seen of "Two and a Half Men"

A lot of my favorite sitcoms from this decade have already ended ("Everybody Hates Chris" "Everybody Loves Raymond" " The king of Queens" and "Arrested Development")

[alphanguy74]

So what category would you put a movie like "Angel Heart" in... good or bad?

Fox in it's infancy was very diverse, and some shows that you would NEVER see on the big three, but then they got all mainstream. I think the CW is trying to fill that voice of niche programming now. But I wonder if you would EVER see a show like this on the big three networks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ssgOyL0JLM&feature=related

[DeeeDee]

I would reverse that order (if only because Bernie Mac was able to shift between tones so effortlessly) & cause EHC got overly locked into a formula in later seasons.

Not that there were that many on before

And unfortunately a lot of "mainstream" shows that featured Minorities were canceled recently (Law & Order, The Unit, Ugly Betty, 24, Prison Break) with only The Game being brought back (which doesn't provide much balance).

I liked MWAK but making George Gore a Father was a definite shark jumping moment.

I also liked AOU but didn't care for Elise being dumped & the show's focus being moved to Duane/LisaRaye.

Half & Half was pretty good but had some of the worst dialogue writers ever.

You should try when you can.

It's not bad (too bad ABC didn't think so).

[DeeeDee]

The Absolutely Terrible. :lol:

Fox originated the formula (which was followed by The WB, UPN, MTV & The CW) for building a network on minorities then tossing them aside in desperate bids for "mainstream" acceptance.

[R Sinclair]

There's no "hook" to be let off of. It's free enterprise, freedom of expression. These people have a right to tell whatever kinds of stories they want. They can choose to listen to you or not. You can choose to watch it or not. The question is, how many times are you going to keep bashing your head against an unyielding brick wall before making attempts to figure out another way around it? That's why I say minorities "are to blame for not taking control," because those that hate it still watch, even though they feel it's insulting, they still watch, even though they feel it's a misrepresentation, they still count for viewership and advertising dollars.

I hate BET.

I hate Tyler Perry.

Since I hate both, I refuse to watch, support, promote any product either entity puts out. I'll be damned if you find me sitting through a Tyler Perry movie at will, complaining about how I feel it's a ridiculous depiction of my people and be surprised when nothing changes.

The way I look at daytime is simply the case of a lack of representation -- as in, far too few characters. Because, really... even the white characters are horrible caricatures. ABC soaps alone: Carly Corinthos Jacks, Tessica Buchanan, Krystal Carey, etc. It's not as if the white characters are being portrayed as realistic, fleshed out, relatable, human characters... while the blacks are shuckin' and jivin' in the watermelon patch. They're ALL coonin' to some extent. So I take it for what it is. "Hmmm... would I really wanna see Krystal Carey giving a doctor a blow job if she were played by a black actress?"

So, I really have to ask, what are you really expecting from a genre that, in all honesty, doesn't even do right by white characters?

[DeeeDee]

Victim Blaming.

Classy.

[All My Shadows]

*watches*

Aw....well....thanks again for posting, Carl

[DeeeDee]

LOL

[marceline]

I expect them to improve or die but they can't improve without input. Whether they choose to use that input or not is on them.

[EricMontreal22]

I'd love to see that too, but please not Tyler or Shonda. I dunno, it's easy to say "they should do it for themselves" but it's not exactly easy to get a soap on network tv (and wasn't back then) or to become a headwriter... And I mean how many gays have worked behind the scenes in soaps--yet it hasn't meant much more of a gay presence on screen (I know that's a somewhat different issue, but...) I do think soaps moving to an hour helped somewhat just because they needed more characters so it was easier to give actual material to minorities. But it doesn't explain the current situation.

[EricMontreal22]

I've only seen two of his movies--and to me there's a diff between being soapy and being talked down to. And don't get me started on his TBS sitcom (though I guess he only overseas that). But I aknowledge Perry's stuff really does connect to an awful lot of people... Quincy Jones was doing some tv production work for a while--(the Oprah question made me think of that)--but seems to have stopped.

[EricMontreal22]

Spot on. Though it's odd--Joy Luck Club was a big success, and I know most of Amy Tan's followup books were bestsellers--yet no one seems interested in filming another adaptation. I read an article that mentioned despite Brokeback Mountain's success, it hadn't led to anyone in Hollywood greenlighting any major gay themed motion pictures (and I don't mean the plethora of indie gay films we now get--pandering stuff like Eating Out 3, along with a few gems). That's where I get really frustrated--you have these successes but the mainstream industries are SOO slow to learn from them.

[DRW50]

I think a lot of the industry is more comfortable with the idea of white, straight men being a major presence, and if something outside of that realm is a success then it must be a fluke, and is treated as such. When something is made outside of that realm it's often done as cheaply as possible.

[EricMontreal22]

HAHAH I forgot about that sitcom. Dolly Parton was a producer... Sadly I didn't find it that funny, but you're right Fox tried a lot of, well interesting stuff early on. And it is true that these networks when starting off (like UPN and the WB, pre CW) target minorities because they don't think they can compete for the "mainstream" (whatever that is) the big networks do, and then when they get big liek Fox they seem to drop that...