Black Tv

1 Pages 281 Words

TV is still black and white when it comes to portraying minorities. There are a few roles for Latinos, but the roles have not evolved since the days of Frito bandito. “I’m tired of reading for drug dealer parts,” say Tony Plana, who also plays a lot of Latin American dictators. The pictures even worse on Saturday mornings when a child will watch an average of 123 characters, but only see a Hispanic maybe once every other weekend.

The number of African Americans on TV has increased substantially, but prime time may be one of the most segregated places in America, with most shows cast in all black or all white. “I have a better chance of living near Peter Tortorici (president of CBS Entertainment) in real life than I do on TV,” says noted writer and producer Ralph Farquhar, an African American. Many black actors are still confined to comedies. “There’s a singularity of images of blacks being happy-go-lucky buffoons,” Farquhar says. Since ethnic comedies like Amos and Andy first aired in the 1950’s, Hollywood has tended to turn the real issues and concerns of minorities into humorous plot lines and ethnic characters into caricatures, raises the question of whether these shows ultimately attack or reinforce stereotypes and prejudices. “It’s time to change the formula with a dose of reality,” says Farquhar. And yet, when Farquhar tried to do just that last year with a black drama called South Central, he was told the show “wasn’t funny enough.

But life isn’t always funny. And TV’s picture of the world may be affecting children in ways Neilson ratings can’t measure....