Talk about spitting
into the wind.
Both the NAACP and La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy
group, have publicly denounced the television industry for not casting
enough minorities in the new fall lineup.
Television being what it is, you'd think people
of color would be boasting about this, the same way I'm proud to note I
have no Madonna albums. With all the problems confronting American
minorities, it is hard to figure why these leaders are demanding more sitcom
representation.
The organizations should focus on reducing all the
appearances minorities do make on television, as in, "Police investigating
the shooting are searching for two Hispanic males . . . "
There might be less of that type of exposure if
these advocates spent time encouraging their constituencies to watch less
television and open more books. The high school dropout rate in America
for Hispanics is slightly less than 50 percent. They need more watchable
TV like Ally McBeal needs Slim-Fast.
The NAACP cited a study that shows 62% of African-American
and 63% of Latinos felt that TV shows do not represent them accurately.
Someone ought to start worrying about the other third who think television
programming reflects real life.
If television really looked like America, no one
would watch it. Seinfeld may have been "a show about nothing," but
it's hard to imagine a program about dragging oneself out of bed for work,
doing the laundry, chauffeuring kids around, dealing with aging parents
or struggling to pay bills – which is what most people's lives consists
of.
The notion that every venue should be legislated
or litigated into being a cross-section of America is getting out of hand.
Quotas for television shows are not only counter- productive, it
borders on the absurd. Entertainment media rise or fall based on
their own quality and appeal.
If there's a buck to made with a sitcom about life
on the Indian reservation, someone will make it.
Capitalism may or may not be the fairest of selection
processes, but it's why there aren't more short (and white) players
in the NBA, Pakistani tap dancers on Broadway and why action roles in movies
go to Bruce Willis or Will Smith and not fat guys from Iowa in loud
plaid shirts.
If the cast of Baywatch looked like America, it
wouldn't be the most viewed program in the world. There just isn't
an audience for slow-motion scenes of portly middle-aged people jogging
down the beach in hot orange swimsuits.
My sister and her husband have a bit of Luddite
in them when it comes to television. To the horror of their three kids,
they have so far survived to the millennium without cable. It is
probably not an unrelated development that my nephew just scored a perfect
1600 on his SAT's, just barely eclipsing the previous family record held
by his older sister.
The children of well-off educated black parents
do not score as well on the SAT's as their white or Asian counterparts.
It is this test pattern with which the NAACP should be concerning itself
on not the one which comes on late at night (do test patterns still come
on?).
Statistically, African-Americans watch more TV than
white people. A "Turn off the tube and turn on to learning" campaign
would help racial progress a lot more than seeing to it that dumb sitcoms
are an equal employment opportunity.
Granted, it would be desirable to have another "Cosby-type"
show before the networks add another clone of "Friends," whose characters'
biggest accomplishment seems an ability to avoid any minorities in their
lives. But given the problems facing American blacks and Hispanics,
this issue should not even be on the radar screen.
More and more, outfits like the NAACP and La Raza
are becoming as divorced from reality as, well, television. Ignoring
more significant predicaments is nothing less than a betrayal of their
constituencies.
If that Cuban-American and television pioneer Ricky
Ricardo were around today, I suspect he would tell these so-called crusaders
that they've gotta lot of ‘splainin to do.
-end-
August 18, 1999