| Ganoncrotch said: [deleted to look nice] |
I don't understand why you're automatically assuming that I'm trying to race-bait you or call you a racist. I haven't even implied that thus far. When I replied to you and pointed out you're only talking about white families, I only did so because I assumed you knew that there actually are a lot of sitcoms nowadays featuring a predominantly one-ethnicity cast, which would refute your argument about diversity. Not because I was trying to paint you as a racist or someone who wanted white-exclusive programming.
When I said that you were "shifting goal posts", I said it because you changed the subject from how it's "positive racism" or "discrimination" to look for specific races in order to have a diverse cast, to talking about how it makes sense to have shows which are specifically one ethnicity. These are not really the same thing being argued here. They are similar, and you can lump them in, but while I did argue against the latter in my original reply, most of what I was responding to originally was the first idea, not the second one.
I either worded my argument incredibly poorly, or you are being far too literal. Personally, I think it's a bit of both. When I say that Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was made because there was a niche that needed to be filled, I don't mean there was absolutely no black shows on television, although maybe it sounded that way. I mean that said niche needed to be represented more, and obviously it was a huge success in that regard. It should be especially obvious that this isn't what I meant, since I literally used a Cosby project as an example for a later argument in the reply you're quoting. In fact I almost switched out Fresh Prince for the Bill Cosby show. I also expected to get a reply about how "everyone loved Fresh Prince", because I knew that my wording made it sound like a minority-exclusive club but ehh ... I thought maybe you would reply sooner than you did, so I didn't edit it further and it was late so I didn't wait long. Yes, everyone loved Fresh Prince, but I think when you look at a television landscape that was as dominated by sitcoms as it was back then ... a big part of success was specific unique aspects. I don't think it was just race, I think it was the different charisma and cultures specific to that sort of community that added flair to the show. By the way now that I've cleared up this stuff, you really should be agreeing with it rather than disagreeing, because you're the one advocating for shows with one ethnicity, not me. So if you don't think that these shows get added value through representation ... than you'd be shooting yourself in the foot.
And I agree with that. But I think a lot of these shows already tackle that, albeit mildly and usually not as a main theme. I also think that Television Dramas have taken a lot of the serious topics away from the sitcoms. Also, and I say this fully acknowledging that this is something I'm not sure about but seems to be stated by experts in the Television world quite a bit, but overall sitcoms are not as prominent as they used to be. Dramas are going over the ratings. And remember I already stated why you usually don't see sitcoms that are about very specific communities - they are about average people. And while average people usually don't have as many ethnically diverse friends as on a sitcom, that's usually more to do with probabilities and less to do with racism or communities. So, a little bit of artistic license is given and a diverse cast is made to appeal superficially to many demographics. Otherwise, you can look up shows that have one ethnicity, I'm sure there's a lot of them.
