TV Diversity: Whose Job is It, Anyway?
Posted by UPTOWN on Jul 10, 2012
By Aydrea Walden
When the new ABC Family show Bunheads premiered in May, Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal producer Shonda Rhimes took to Twitter to voice her frustration.
“Hey @abcfbunheads: really? You couldn’t cast even ONE young dancer of color so I could feel good about my kid watching this show? NOT ONE?”
What appears to be a consistent lack of diversity on TV is an oft-discussed topic. While many folks clamor for a wider representation of faces on screen, they are often met with familiar rebuttals to their objection.
“But there probably WOULDN’T be any black people there! It’s a small town/an elite academy/set in 1920s Britain.”
Well, there also aren’t witches and wizards, people with super powers, no hospital staff is made up of models and there aren’t THAT many unattainably gorgeous women who are content to partner with completely unambitious and out of shape men. But that doesn’t stop those stories from getting to the screen.
“Well, they probably just chose the best actors. And the best actors just happened to be white.”
It’s possible that this is sometimes the case, but considering how poorly executed some shows can be, it’s unlikely that the only good actors in Hollywood are non-minorities.
“Black shows just don’t do as well.”
That certainly explains why Tyler Perry was able to get an 80-episode pick up of one of his shows, why Scandal is doing so well and why shows like The Cosby Show, A Different World and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air are so beloved.
Plus, most of the biggest TV flops of all time have had primarily white casts, yet no one suggests that those kinds of shows be ignored.
But despite the fact that arguments against diversity are easy to debunk, does it even matter? Who cares if there are more or less people of color on screen? And if it does matter, whose job is it to make diversity happen on a regular basis?
The shortest possible answer to “does diversity on TV matter?” is “yes.”
Repeatedly showing people images absolutely has an effect on the way they live their lives. It’s the basis for the advertising industry. By regularly marginalizing people of color on screen, it makes it easier for people to marginalize those same populations in real life.
The answer to the question “whose responsibility is it to ensure diversity on TV” is much more complicated. Television is an industry that touches, affects and influences millions of people, yet is responsible to relatively few.
As much as we like to think that our favorite TV shows were lovingly crafted for our personal enjoyment (I mean … period costumes, British hierarchy, horses??? It’s like Downton Abbey was penned from all the stuff I think about all day), TV shows are simply commercial products—no different really than toothpaste or T-shirts.
Studios agree to produce TV shows because networks agree to buy them. Networks agree to buy TV shows because advertisers will pay to run ads inside of them. Advertisers agree to run ads inside of TV show because they think lots and lots of people are watching.
So it behooves networks to purchase easy-to-digest, not-terribly-expensive shows that will instantly appeal to as many people as possible. There are shows that buck this trend (The Wire, anything on HBO, Rescue Me, Dexter, Mad Men, etc.) but the expense and risk incurred by those shows is generally absorbed by simpler programming with broader appeal elsewhere on the network.
Curiously, television seems to ignore some key facts about the audience they tend to ignore. African Americans make up about 13 percent of households in America that watch TV and they tend to watch more television than other groups in the population. Plus, the black population in the U.S. also tends to outspend other ethnic groups. In the last couple of years, African Americans have spent more than $900 billion on goods and services and that dollar amount is expected to eclipse the $1 trillion mark by 2015.
You would think then, that it would behoove networks to cater to the African American population more often.
Some networks do get it right; HGTV for example has been praised for including plenty of regular, middle-class, easily-appealing families of color in its programming and as such, enjoys higher ratings among ethnic populations. Because HGTV is smaller than an ABC or an NBC, they don’t need to reach as many viewers or make as much back from advertisers as one of the giant networks does. So what would be considered a high rating on one network would get a show cancelled on a bigger one.
But even with the responsibility to shareholders, you’d think with the several hundred people a television show employs and the dozen or so powerful key players, that at least some of them might be more vocal in their efforts to make shows that are more representative of the country and that won’t get them flamed in the blogosphere.
Let’s look at some of those key players, what they do and if they should be doing more.
Show Creator – The person who comes up with at least the basic concept for the show. This person might also be a writer, director, actor and/or producer on the show. Depending on the pedigree of the creator, s/he may or may not have much power when it comes to diverse casting or storylines. A proven entity like an Aaron Sorkin, a JJ Abrams, or even a Shonda Rhimes can demand and get much more than a newer show creator or one without a long track record of misses.
Producers – A show will have several producers, with different responsibilities. Some are charged with managing the artistic vision of the show, some are charged with handling production concerns, some stop by to give notes every once in a while, some help fund the project.
Like show creators, producers vary wildly in what kind of influence they are able to exert. So even if someone wants to create a more diverse story, they may not be in a political position to do so.
Working as a producer can also often serve as a proving ground for someone who wants to have their own show on a network. Because they are hoping to curry favor and goodwill, it may not be advantageous for them to rock the boat by pushing issues of diversity even if their own shows they hope to produce one day will be diverse.
Executives – The studio’s representative on the project. Executives are tasked with managing the long term goals of the studio and/or network as they relate to the various shows they oversee. Because they are working for a much larger entity that has a brand to which they need to be loyal, it can be difficult for an executive to push an agenda that doesn’t fit neatly into the ideas of the studio’s shareholders.
Casting Director – Selects actors to appear on the show. Usually the final decisions on cast have to be approved by producers and executives. So, it’s not unlikely that even if a casting director chooses diverse actors to present to the powers that be, a producer or exec might choose a “safer” choice.
Actors can be considered “safe” for reasons other than race. If an actor already has a large fan base they can bring those fans to a new show. If an actor is set to star in an anticipated film, they can bring the fans of that film to the show as well. An actor may also be connected to a producer or director the studio or network is trying to court or they may simply have the most flexible schedule at the time. All of these factors make it harder for ANY actor to get ANY role on ANY show and can definitely stack the deck against diverse casts.
Writer(s) - A writer may describe a character as being a minority in a script, but that doesn’t mean that character will end up that way. Scripts still have to be approved by the head writer, show runner and/or creator, director, producers, executives and in some cases, existing cast members. Naturally, changes will occur—sometimes at the expense of diversity.
In addition to the insane number of people required to make a television show, the extraordinary costs involved and the incredibly high stakes (if your show doesn’t work, you’ve caused several hundred assistants, grips, gaffers, camera ops, makeup artists, actors, writers and producers to lose their jobs) are the bloody crazy schedule that are necessary to bring your favorite shows to life. Twenty-hour days in a writers room, all night shoots, marathon editing sessions, weeks-long publicity campaigns, nail-biting mornings as ratings and reviews come in…and it’s a wonder that any TV gets made at all ever. Finding time to make a program perfectly diverse is hard to do when there’s so much else to get done.
The fact that television is a complicated business does not excuse what seems to be a consistent inability to make diversity a priority. These folks do have time to squeeze in all those meetings and late-night sessions…hopefully they can start squeezing in a little more thought to diversity issues as well.