From: rsrodger@wam.umd.edu (Yamanari)
Subject: Re: Blacks on TV (was Re: LET THE BOYCOTT BEGIN!)
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 23:10:23 GMT

In article <1993Jan27.172016.18499@ringer.cs.utsa.edu> sbooth@lonestar.utsa.edu (Simon E. Booth) writes:
>In article <1993Jan26.235828.19843@husc3.harvard.edu> cstone@husc8.harvard.edu (christopher stone) writes:
>>In article <C1H2u8.Cu9@ns1.nodak.edu> green@plains.NoDak.edu (Brad Green) writes:
>>>In article <1993Jan26.025815.8046@wam.umd.edu> rsrodger@wam.umd.edu (Yamanari) writes:
>>>>	Or perhaps the whole idea is absurd.  Who cares is cosby is
>>>>	a hypocrite?  Hell, anyone who didn't figure that out when he
>>>>	started complaining about the media portrayal of blacks on
>>>>	television (meanwhile, he just finished up the last season on
>>>
>>>Well, I think he had a point.  Give me one example of a positive black person
>>>on TV, other than Tibbs on In The Heat Of The Night.  Most blacks on TV are
>>>portrayed as idiots, dumb, worthless, etc.  Look at In Living Color, or any


	Living Color, an all black show written and directed by blacks.. 
	<With a few token whites and now an asian on the cast>..

	One of the funnier shows on TV.


>>>of the other dumb Fox programming.  Look at the major networks.  We used to
>>>have an intelligent investigator on Matlock, but he's now gone.  I usually
>
>Something I've always been offended by (especially when seeing the old
>1970's sitcoms) is the sterotyping of all races depicted.
>
>For example, blacks are unfortuneately either being totally ignorant or
>deliberately bigoted.  Perhaps it's not as bad as it was during the 70's,


	Are you saying that there are no blacks who are racists?

	<And how this ties in with Fox's line up is questionable--
	Martin, In Living Color, etc--I don't see these stereotypes..>


>but it's still a problem on TV.  The irony that the supposedly 'liberal' media
>seems to campaign against racism in the real world while allowing
>blatant racial stereotyping in fictional shows.
>
>I mean, I'm white and I cringe when I see a show like 'In Living Color',
>because it irks me seeing people (any people, any race) being depicted


	I guess we could try to depict people of no race, but this
	seems a little difficult.


>I still believe in the technology.  I get angry when I see it wasted like
>this.  Television IMHO has the potential to be something great to improve
>society, instead all the media has done for us is to exacerbate already
>serious social problems.


	Social engineering is an obscenity.  I hope TV continues to be
	a (ha) news source and an entertainment source.  What next,
	Children of the Rainbow--the series?


>I don't watch much TV because of things like this.
>
>Call me crazy, but what's wrong with making a show depicting people as
>people?


	What's wrong with a show depicting people as they really are?
	Or a show depicting a mokery of people as they really are?

	Or even a show depicting people as some people with they 
	would be (i.e., Star Trek)?


>A good example of this is the NBC program 'Reasonable Doubts'.


	A cheezy soap opera.  Hardly depicting people as anything
	but all-dedicated-whatevers..


-- 
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