Time for TV to channel true diversity
Black-and-white awards show reflects television industry’s narrow ethnic view
When cameras pan across the faces of eager, anxious Emmy Award nominees at Sunday’s ceremony, TV viewers will see a record 12 African-Americans vying for comedy and drama series acting honours. But it’s a lopsided outcome in the struggle for diversity.
Master of None star Aziz Ansari, who is of Indian heritage, is the sole Asian-American to be nominated for a continuing series lead or supporting role. Not a single Latino is included in the marquee acting categories.
An Emmy version of the 2015-16 #OscarsSoWhite protests would miss the point: Academy voters snubbed worthy films and performances from people of colour, while insiders say the scant Emmy love for non-black minorities largely reflects closed TV industry doors.
“There are a lot of us, but because we haven’t gotten the opportunity to shine you don’t know we’re around,” said Ren Hanami, an Asian-American actress who’s worked steadily on TV in smaller roles but found substantive, award-worthy parts elusive.
“TV has never been ‘brown-ish,”’ said actor-comedian Paul Rodriguez. He starred in the 1984 sitcom a.k.a. Pablo, one of the handful of Latino-centred series.
“They don’t put us on television enough for them to even know if it’s not working,” Rodriguez said. “They just assume it won’t work. And it goes on year after year. Our population keeps growing, and so does our frustration.”
It’s reached critical mass, said Alex Nogales, president of the National Hispanic Media Coalition. In 1999, the coalition joined with the NAACP and others to demand action.
“I’m tired of being the nice Mexican. It hasn’t taken us anywhere,” Nogales said. His new plan: Make sure networks and increasingly popular digital platforms such as Netflix know when Latinos — nearly 18 per cent of the U.S. population and with an estimated buying power of about $1.5 trillion — are unhappy with their programming.
A recent report suggests the number of Hispanics that TV reached monthly in the first quarter of 2017 exceeded African-Americans (50.7 million compared to 39.3 million). Blacks still spend more viewing time weekly than other ethnic groups (43 hours vs. 23 hours for Latinos and 14 hours for Asian-Americans), but with smartphones and other viewing devices favoured by young people the gap narrows or disappears.
There’s been some progress but not enough, says a six-university study released Tuesday. Researchers examined a year’s worth of broadcast, cable and streaming shows and concluded that Asian-Americans are under-represented and “tokenized.”
Brooklyn Nine-Nine actress Stephanie Beatriz knows what can happen when those with power are part of the solution.
The sitcom’s creators, Daniel J. Goor and Michael Schur, assembled people whose stories aren’t part of their own experience, she said, “but they want to help tell them. As straight white men, they are the strongest allies that under-represented groups could ever have.”