Gladiators

https://mediandidentity.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/ea3b8-scandal-abc-graphic.png

Ah, Scandal. My go to favorite TV show to talk about. Scandal is an ABC show on Thursday nights at 9pm and has just started their fourth season. According to IMDB.com, “When you get into trouble there’s only one person to call, Olivia Pope. Olivia is a professional ‘fixer’ who makes problems go away before anyone even knows they exist. For the moneyed, the powerful and even the President, Olivia is a legend in her field. Her spectacular success is mostly due to her unbreakable rule of always trust your gut. No matter how careful you are, when you do damage control for a living, you’re bound to cause some damage to your own life. She and her crew eat, sleep, live and breathe crisis. Each week, as the team races against the clock to defuse intriguing new problems before they become full-blown disasters, they also have to deal with their own personal issues. They may call themselves ‘gladiators in suits’, but little by little, Olivia and her crew begin to reveal the chinks in their armor,” this is a summary of Scandal.

Olivia Pope is Scandal. Played by the wonderful Kerry Washington, the show and the characters, including the President, revolve around Washington’s character, Pope. Kerry Washington has also made history with this role. Washington is second black female lead to be the lead in a prime time TV series. The first black female lead was in 1971. Within the article, Why Network TV Still Stars White Americans, they explain how often stereotypical characters are placed into network shows and I think that Scandal, and it’s creators, have done a fantastic job at breaking the mold and casting a strong black female lead for Scandal.

http://stagebuddy.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Olivia-pope-pleated-blazer.jpg

Within the world of Scandal, Olivia Pope, as stated, is legend. She is an extremely strong and powerful woman within the political world of Washington D.C. One of my favorite things about Olivia Pope is that she never has had to prove herself. Looking at the hierarchy of our society, white males hold the post power, especially when it comes to politics, and Olivia Pope is the exact opposite, yet she never had to prove herself. No one has ever questioned Olivia Pope and her ability to do her job. The President often goes to get lengths to see that Olivia Pope is the one handling things within the White House and his personal life. I like that Olivia breaks the stereotypical role. Even one of her other ‘gladiators’, Harrison, is another black character, and like Olivia, he doesn’t have to prove himself to clients.

Yet, later on in the show of Scandal, in season 3, you meet Olivia Pope’s dad, Eli Pope. He has mentioned a few times to Olivia about how hard they have had to work due to the fact that they are black. He has stated that since Olivia was little he always told her that she had to work twice as hard to get the same things in life. Eli made sure that Olivia went to the best boarding schools and attended the best colleges to be at everyone else’s level. I think it was interesting that the only one to really point out Olivia’s race was her own father since he is talking about experience.

I can easily relate to Olivia Pope, other than the fact that we share the same name, but that I feel like sometimes I have to work twice as hard to get equality being a female. I know class is irrelevant mainly in Scandal but within my own life growing up in Mason which was a very wealthy area and being a lower middle class family was another difficult obstacle within itself. That is how I can relate to Olivia Pope.

Big Bang Indian

I picked The Big Bang Theory and I picked to follow the Indian character in the show. In this show he is the only guy of color. All the other people in the show are white male or female but an interesting fact to notice is that most of the whites in this show are ones that are not dominate in there race. Meaning they could be consider as an outcast. Right away you can tell that there are race ranking that are already starting to happen. Mostly because Indians are mainly seem as really smart but this guy is not and because of that he fits in with this group of outcasts. But at the same time he is not a part of the group. One because they do mention his race and make fun of the way he says certain words. Then at the same time he will mention his own race and be like “do not make fun of me and the way we say certain words”. He also is always setting himself for racial comments later down the road. For example, he refer to a stick he was using and said “well that’s now not my only favor brown stick to touch,” talking about himself. He added in the word brown, instead of just saying stick. Because he saw himself is not a part of the group or different, so he was able to make that a joke. And the end of the show to I was very shocked because they were all sitting around a table but they made the Indian sit on the floor and at first he was not going to but the he realized he would not be a part of the group so he sat on the floor while everyone else sat in chairs. I was really stunned by this behavior because you think that a character in the real world would not be okay with that action but in a show it is okay, parallels are starting to form. Implying that what we see we do as humans. Furthermore, Monk-Turner talks about how Hispanics will talk more with a heavy accents and have more of a smart background associated with them. Now this man was not Hispanic but they gave him all the same traits they would to a Hispanic; mostly because his skin color is closest to them which is another stereotype within itself. Us labeling something without giving it the right label. On the other hand, I connect with the character because I have been in a situation where I am the outcast. People make you feel included by treating you like a friend or something but then at the same time why would they make you sit on the floor. It was hard to see because I think everyone can feel that way at times but no one ever says anything about it being right or wrong. And in the Monk-Turner reading it talked about TV being the way people learn these days and with TV teaching us it is okay to treat certain people in that way, well that is why we have all the problems, in most cases it is probably because people do not even see that it is wrong yet.

Be “blackest” version of yourself.

 

New Girl, a show staring Zooey Deschenel is considered the millennial generations version of the show Friends. There is debate, however, about some of the characters in the show- Winston and Cece. Do these non-white characters bring a sense of diversity, or is their purpose in the show to be objects of humor due to their race? Both view points could be seen equally, where as they are portrayed as “white-ish” Majority of the time, but they are also often used as objects geared toward humor and in some cases, sexuality. There is ony character in the series who always making the race jokes, and that is Schmidt ironically enough, since he is Jewish and in the day the Jewish considered themselves a different race other than white.

Winston- Winston is the black male lead character in the series.  in the first season is introduced as an ex pro basketball player. He moved back to the united states after being cut off from the team and is having a hard time getting back on his feet. Why is it that the first black male we are introduced to in the series is a pro basketball player? Is this trying to play off the stereotype of black men being good at sports, or just coincidence? Also, why is he unemployed for so long in the first season where as everyone else has established careers? Later in the series, Winston is having some trouble being happy and Schmidt, a White- Jewish character, thinks that the solution to making Winston happy again is to help him find his race and culture. Schmidt thinks winston isn’t “Black” enough and tells winston that he is going to help him find his black self- no matter what it takes. Schmidt goes to all sorts of measures such as to attend all black events, talk “black” and even agrees to smoke crack with winston so he feels more at home. Although none of this is actually stuff Winston would do, he plays along to mess with Schmidt, Winston takes Schmidt to the hood and he gets scared. Finally winston tells schmidt that being “black” doesn’t mean all of the things he thinks and that he doesn’t live in those stereotypes.

Cece- Cece is an indian woman who happens to be Jessica Day’s, the lead female character, best friend. Cece and Schmidt have a love connection for a while until it unravels. Although Cece walked away from schmidt, she still wanted a partner and decided to try Indian men so that her family would approve of her marrying within her culture. She attends an Indian Marriage Convention and of course- Schmidt shows up to ruin it dressed in Indian attire, under a fake name that sounds Indian as well. In other episodes He refers to her as an Indian Beauty, also showing his subtle racist comments

below are quotes from Schmidt. In bold are the racist aspects of his humor:

–Schmidt: Look, Jess. The truth is I don’t go out on Valentine’s Day. There’s no thrill. All these bars filled with emotionally vulnerable women — I’m like a Dominican teenager playing Little League. It’s just not fair for everybody else.

Schmidt: “Get your crap together, India! (said while at the Indian wedding convention)

Schmidt: I don’t celebrate Christmas. Or, as I like to call it, ‘White Anglo Saxon Winter Privilege Night’

Speaking Out Against Racism: Family Guy

Neil Skinner

Media & Identity

Blog #4

6 October 2014

Speaking Out Against Racism: Family Guy

Race has been an ongoing issue for the United States for many years. While relations have significantly improved in the past 50 years, problems continue to exist even to this day. Stereotypes for each race are still present; they even pop up on primetime television. While many of them portray race in some type of way, I have chosen the popular animated sitcom, Family Guy for my analysis of race on primetime television. The show airs on the channel, Fox. Family Guy has been on television for many years now, it follows a middle-class white family and their comedic adventures. Most episodes are told through the perspective of the patriarch of the family, Peter Griffin. While Peter has three best friends, I will be examining his African American friend, Cleveland Brown.

Cleveland is often the butt of ongoing jokes throughout the show and often speaks from the perspective of African Americans. Cleveland is portrayed as a family man and has a nice home on the show. He is also the only main character in Family Guy who is African American which makes him unique compared to others. In an episode where Peter finds out his distant relative was a slave; Cleveland is seen expressing his racial pride for being African American. In other instances, if another person is racist, Cleveland sticks up for his race and acts as the voice of reason. His character is often seen as going against racial stereotypes by being the complete opposite of what people would normally believe.

Family Guy differs from other shows in that it gives other races a fair say and does not only give people who are white a chance to push their beliefs. For example, from the article, May the Circle Stay Unbroken, “much of the rhetorical power of whiteness is founded in its ability to avoid any explicit statements about or claims to racial centrality” (Chidester, 158). This show goes against this finding. Family Guy and the character of Cleveland Brown can have beneficial implications because they help other races speak out about their issues at the same time poking fun at the fact that racism is still an issue in civilized society. We should all relate to the character of Cleveland Brown, because he is a kind-hearted, normal guy who thinks racism should not be an issue within our culture anymore.

Race Representation in Modern Family

The ABC program Modern Family is a comedy series that focuses on the lives of three families, all of which are interrelated. The show centers around every day life activities such as family functions and neighborhood activity. Eight of the 11 characters are white, and the show heavily displays white, suburban culture. The character Gloria is an attractive Colombian woman who lives with her older, wealthy white husband and her son (from her first marriage to a Colombian man). Their race history is discussed enough for the audience to know that Gloria and her son Manny are Colombian and appreciate their roots, but besides for an episode or two their culture is not heavily discussed. The only other main non-white character is Lily, the adopted Vietnamese daughter of the gay couple Cameron and Mitchell. Again, while Lily’s heritage is mentioned it is not a major topic in the show.

The three non-white characters interact with the rest of their white family without their race being a topic or an issue. The biggest way Gloria’s culture comes through is with her accent, which provides continual comic relief throughout the show with her mispronunciations. Other than that, the characters assume roles within the “white culture” and the topic of race is not discussed. Even though there are some characters of different races, race is never really discussed. This can relate to the Chidester article about the show Friends and how the show does not strongly depict any other racial groups or bring up the topic of race. There is a closed, pure circle of whiteness and with the absence of any other races a message is send to the audience that other races are not welcomed or accepted in the friend group. Modern Family sends a message by having Gloria’s cultural difference (her accent) as a source of comedy. Her personality is also stereotyped as the dramatic, loud Latina. Her white family members are portrayed as the “normal” ones, framing her as an outsider even though she’s family. She aligns with her family’s cultural expectations instead of her own from Colombia.

It is also interesting that the show barely depicts any African American characters, despite being a show about modern day life. Again, there is a circle of whiteness being portrayed that ethnic minorities are not a part of. The fact that there are no black characters sends a message to the audience that they do not belong there.

So while Gloria, Manny, and Lily’s races are not completely avoided, they are still portrayed in comparison to their white, suburban family and have to fit into the lifestyle of their family’s white culture.