minorities and TV series

[Torkuda]

Has anyone else noticed this? Minorities in movies tend to be pretty poorly portrayed, but for some reason Television Shows, while not flawless in this category, seem to be better. Wonder Woman, Xena, Buffy, Static Shock, Kung Fu, X-Men, Avengers, Justice League. All of them have minority leads and all of them are far better at portraying them than most movies. Hell I'd take Sam Carter from Star Gate over Black Widow any time, she's more about being a person and less about being attractive, which she has down pretty good as well. Yes, she's in her thirties/forties and in an action series with a staring role. Let's see Marvel do that with a female hero some time soon. Course that's not fair, Storm is even older and she had plenty of staring episodes in X-Men... completely marginalized in the movies.

Anyone else notice this? Why do you think it might be? Or am I being completely unfair? After all Blade was a pretty good movie series.

 

[skywolfblue]

I would agree.

My guess would be, TV series have much larger casts, meaning minorities get a better chance at playing an important role. TV shows have to rely on character development a lot, so they can't play the exact same "guy meets girl, saves world"* thing every episode, so having characters that promote diverse interactions are more important then they may ordinarily be in a 2hour movie.

*(Perhaps I should amend that to be "Good" TV shows. Damn you captain Kirk!)

 

[Torkuda]

I would agree.

My guess would be, TV series have much larger casts, meaning minorities get a better chance at playing an important role. TV shows have to rely on character development a lot, so they can't play the exact same "guy meets girl, saves world"* thing every episode, so having characters that promote diverse interactions are more important then they may ordinarily be in a 2hour movie.

*(Perhaps I should amend that to be "Good" TV shows. Damn you captain Kirk!)

Not to mince words, but to be honest, whether you like the shows or not, Star Trek had a lot of good female and minority characters too. Captain Janeway, Jordy, Sulu. To be honest I can't remember most of the Star Trek casts right now, but they were pretty diverse.

 

[skywolfblue]

I would agree.

My guess would be, TV series have much larger casts, meaning minorities get a better chance at playing an important role. TV shows have to rely on character development a lot, so they can't play the exact same "guy meets girl, saves world"* thing every episode, so having characters that promote diverse interactions are more important then they may ordinarily be in a 2hour movie.

*(Perhaps I should amend that to be "Good" TV shows. Damn you captain Kirk!)

Not to mince words, but to be honest, whether you like the shows or not, Star Trek had a lot of good female and minority characters too. Captain Janeway, Jordy, Sulu. To be honest I can't remember most of the Star Trek casts right now, but they were pretty diverse.

That statement was more in jest about the fact that pretty much every ST show ends up with captain Kirk romancing a girl and saving the world, and how silly that all is.

Not about StarTrek lacking minorities. It was certainly ahead of it's contemporaries in having minorities in the cast.

 

[Torkuda]

I would agree.

My guess would be, TV series have much larger casts, meaning minorities get a better chance at playing an important role. TV shows have to rely on character development a lot, so they can't play the exact same "guy meets girl, saves world"* thing every episode, so having characters that promote diverse interactions are more important then they may ordinarily be in a 2hour movie.

*(Perhaps I should amend that to be "Good" TV shows. Damn you captain Kirk!)

Not to mince words, but to be honest, whether you like the shows or not, Star Trek had a lot of good female and minority characters too. Captain Janeway, Jordy, Sulu. To be honest I can't remember most of the Star Trek casts right now, but they were pretty diverse.

That statement was more in jest about the fact that pretty much every ST show ends up with captain Kirk romancing a girl and saving the world, and how silly that all is.

Not about StarTrek lacking minorities. It was certainly ahead of it's contemporaries in having minorities in the cast.

My mistake, but even so, bad science and acting aside, Star Trek was pretty good in this category, wasn't it? Jordy never suddenly became a gangster, Janeway never stripped (not that I remember anyway) senior citizens were not rare to see... better than most on the issue I dare say. Before anyone tries to bring up 7 of 9's wonderful costume, I'm not saying they were perfect, just respectable considering.

 

[Baron_BJ]

I would agree.

My guess would be, TV series have much larger casts, meaning minorities get a better chance at playing an important role. TV shows have to rely on character development a lot, so they can't play the exact same "guy meets girl, saves world"* thing every episode, so having characters that promote diverse interactions are more important then they may ordinarily be in a 2hour movie.

*(Perhaps I should amend that to be "Good" TV shows. Damn you captain Kirk!)

Not to mince words, but to be honest, whether you like the shows or not, Star Trek had a lot of good female and minority characters too. Captain Janeway, Jordy, Sulu. To be honest I can't remember most of the Star Trek casts right now, but they were pretty diverse.

That statement was more in jest about the fact that pretty much every ST show ends up with captain Kirk romancing a girl and saving the world, and how silly that all is.

Not about StarTrek lacking minorities. It was certainly ahead of it's contemporaries in having minorities in the cast.

My mistake, but even so, bad science and acting aside, Star Trek was pretty good in this category, wasn't it? Jordy never suddenly became a gangster, Janeway never stripped (not that I remember anyway) senior citizens were not rare to see... better than most on the issue I dare say. Before anyone tries to bring up 7 of 9's wonderful costume, I'm not saying they were perfect, just respectable considering.

Why, whomever is this Janeway you speak of? What is a 7 of 9? These aren't a part of Next Generation or the Original series, so surely you must be recalling some sort of horrid, yet vivid shared hallucinatory experience and not referring to anything to do with Star Trek.

 

[norashepard]

TV shows don't have as much money riding on them, so studios have more will to experiment and do things that might not go over well. Also, in TV shows, the cast of a show can easily be changed whereas a movie's is set in stone. That's my theory anyway.

Also, TV shows tend to handle the topic of race a lot better, because they have a longer amount of time to discuss it, which is important if you want to do it well. Again, movies only have so much time they can talk about something, so oftentimes stuff like race/gender gets cut out in favor of the things that supposedly draw the biggest crowds.

 

[Mossberg Shotty]

I hate to state the obvious, but apparently it isn't obvious to you. Have you ever considered that minorities in TV shows are more fleshed out because they get more screen-time than any one character could get in a movie? The average run time of a movie is about two hours, hardly enough time to take you through someones entire character arc. On the flip side of that, some shows go on for season after season of characterization and growth. Thats pretty much the long and short of it. If you took a single episode from any of those shows you mentioned, the characters wouldn't seem well-represented either, simply because you aren't getting the whole story. Thats ultimately what it boils down to.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn't give this topic much thought before you turned it into a thread, because it's pretty much devoid of content.

 

[Something Amyss]

Why, whomever is this Janeway you speak of? What is a 7 of 9? These aren't a part of Next Generation or the Original series, so surely you must be recalling some sort of horrid, yet vivid shared hallucinatory experience and not referring to anything to do with Star Trek.

What is this "The Next Generation" of which you speak? Some hackneyed fanfic?

My mistake, but even so, bad science and acting aside, Star Trek was pretty good in this category, wasn't it? Jordy never suddenly became a gangster, Janeway never stripped (not that I remember anyway) senior citizens were not rare to see... better than most on the issue I dare say. Before anyone tries to bring up 7 of 9's wonderful costume, I'm not saying they were perfect, just respectable considering.

Define stripped. Janeway stripped down to a sports top or bra in one episode. She didn't pull an Alice Eve or anything, though. I think Kate Mulgrew even called this fanservice in commentary. I could be remembering wrong, though.

Anyway, I'm going with the prior theory that larger cast+more time=more diversity. This isn't a new discovery, it's something that's been pointed to on multiple TV Tropes pages, including the dreaded "Bechdel Test" one.

 

[Torkuda]

I hate to state the obvious, but apparently it isn't obvious to you. Have you ever considered that minorities in TV shows are more fleshed out because they get more screen-time than any one character could get in a movie? The average run time of a movie is about two hours, hardly enough time to take you through someones entire character arc. On the flip side of that, some shows go on for season after season of characterization and growth. Thats pretty much the long and short of it. If you took a single episode from any of those shows you mentioned, the characters wouldn't seem well-represented either, simply because you aren't getting the whole story. Thats ultimately what it boils down to.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn't give this topic much thought before you turned it into a thread, because it's pretty much devoid of content.

Wow... just wow. Dude, take a freaking chill pill will ya?

Yes, I'm aware of a bigger time space. However not having a large time span doesn't mean movies have to portray minorities badly. Honestly, I'm NOT going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you and I would not be friends in the real world as you're a smart ass.

Oh and off hand, no, Sam Carter was a pretty good character in many episodes of Star Gate, by themselves. Also Wonder Woman had many episodes of justice league devoted to just her and she was fine in them in just them. Actually many of the characters I mention almost never, if ever, filled a stereotypical role. Course yea, you're too busy trying to start a fight to have thought of that, right?

Yea, I'm getting the feeling you're going on my block list here pretty soon.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Now that you mention it, yeah...though original Star Trek was decades ago.

I guess maybe because big name movies are always made by the same sort of people, but it's cheaper and easier to make a TV show.

Define stripped. Janeway stripped down to a sports top or bra in one episode. She didn't pull an Alice Eve or anything, though. I think Kate Mulgrew even called this fanservice in commentary. I could be remembering wrong, though.

She did strip off to a tank top (and her normal pants) or something in that episode where she is playing Die Hard, only with alien viruses that grow giant and cant fly and attack people, if that's what you meant. It made sense in context

 

[Albino Boo]

The bigger budgets of film mean they need more than just the domestic US market to make a profit. The other big market for films is Europe and the racial mix is very different. The white guy is the lowest common denominator for the audience to feel a connection with.

I'm also very proud of myself because I didn't make a joke about servicing Alice Eve's fan or anything.

 

[Something Amyss]

Now that you mention it, yeah...though original Star Trek was decades ago

The thing about ensemble casts is that they afford for diversity, though. I mean, it's not just Star Trek. Granted, Trek was considered groundbreaking (which is funny, since the bad guys were frequently racial stereotypes, but at least the good guys were diverse)

She did strip off to a tank top (and her normal pants) or something in that episode where she is playing Die Hard, only with alien viruses that grow giant and cant fly and attack people, if that's what you meant. It made sense in context

It does make sense in context, but it's still a moment in which she "stripped," unless we are specifically defining it as Alice Eve level. sorry to keep using the example, but they did kind of burn the clip into my brain....

But that is why I said it depended on what they meant. Voyager had a bunch of pandering (even excluding 7 of 9), but not necessarily in the same sense and not necessarily to the same level.

 

[Vegosiux]

Say, how are non-American "whites" represented? Mostly as commies, nazis, incompetent surrender monkeys or sex freaks with the sickest fetishes, aren't they?

 

[Torkuda]

Say, how are non-American "whites" represented? Mostly as commies, nazis, incompetent surrender monkeys or sex freaks with the sickest fetishes, aren't they?

Not so sure on that one. After all, Highlander, Gambit and a few others are positive examples. Really I don't think American television concerns itself too much with our European allies. Fitting, since the only time I've seen shows from Europe refer to us, it's always been in a very directly insulting way. Not even making sterio types either, just coming out and saying we're greedy idiots.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Say, how are non-American "whites" represented? Mostly as commies, nazis, incompetent surrender monkeys or sex freaks with the sickest fetishes, aren't they?

Eh, it seems to me more that the Americans will give them terrible, terrible accents, usually make them bit parts, but otherwise not too bad. Lots of sympathetic British and Canadian characters in US movies.

 

[Vegosiux]

Say, how are non-American "whites" represented? Mostly as commies, nazis, incompetent surrender monkeys or sex freaks with the sickest fetishes, aren't they?

Eh, it seems to me more that the Americans will give them terrible, terrible accents, usually make them bit parts, but otherwise not too bad. Lots of sympathetic British and Canadian characters in US movies.

Why do I have this niggling feeling that whenever people say "white" around here, even while not meaning "American", they still mean "Anglo-Saxon"?

 

[Thaluikhain]

Say, how are non-American "whites" represented? Mostly as commies, nazis, incompetent surrender monkeys or sex freaks with the sickest fetishes, aren't they?

Eh, it seems to me more that the Americans will give them terrible, terrible accents, usually make them bit parts, but otherwise not too bad. Lots of sympathetic British and Canadian characters in US movies.

Why do I have this niggling feeling that whenever people say "white" around here, even while not meaning "American", they still mean "Anglo-Saxon"?

Because that's probably what they mean, yes.

In context, because most non-American white people depicted on TV are still Anglo-Saxon, or so I'm led to believe.

 

[hermes]

TV shows don't have as much money riding on them, so studios have more will to experiment and do things that might not go over well. Also, in TV shows, the cast of a show can easily be changed whereas a movie's is set in stone. That's my theory anyway.

That is my theory as well.

Simply put, TV show are cheaper to produce, so the writers can take more risks. Also, they can respond rapidly to character changes that the audience don't respond well and they can expand on characters to make them more than a shallow stereotype.

For example, Buffy in the TV Series grew up to be more than the token blond cheerleader that secretly kicks ass; and Gunn went from being a gangsta style token black guy that hunted vampires with guns to a well rounded character that was part of a biracial relationship. However, it took more than a couple episodes to get them there. If it were a feature length movie instead of a series, Xena would not have been more than the female version of Conan.