A Big Fat Whassup

I can’t claim to watch many shows that have a constant black or gay character, let alone leads. I can really only think of Chef right now, though I’m probably simply over thinking. No, I just paused for a minute and I’m not, I really don’t watch any shows that have much of a minority cast. So be it. Perhaps I don’t watch any show like that because I simply can’t identify with such characters, or perhaps it’s because my target demographic isn’t one that that allows for having a lot of minorities in the cast. I don’t know.

I still think that Will & Grace was only on for as long as it was because of Jack. Critically, the show isn’t ‘gay’ enough, insofar as inclusion of the variety of different sexualities. It has two main homosexual characters, one of which who is very much in agreement with the standard expectations of society with the exception of being gay, and one who’s so flamboyant and effeminate that everything he does is comedic. Network wise, it’s probably still too gay. Still, if the gay-themed shows continue and even have the slighted bit of quality to them, I think that Ellen was right, and in twenty years, a gay character on TV won’t be a big deal. But that doesn’t mean that the representations will be that much better.

It seems like TV’s that entertaining is rarely TV that’s academically acceptable. It just seems to be a thing that needs to be weighed out and properly used. TV shows that are good for helping society grow and move past certain stigmas is most likely not going to be watched a lot and therefore not going to be able to be on TV much. But there’s also some very popular TV that’s pretty damaging on an unconscious social level. The Cosby show may not have been great about actually tackling issues of racism and representation, but the show ran for a long time and was able to familiarize the country with the representation of blacks that aren’t poor and urban. As far as the Whassup commercial goes, I honestly feel that, for as accurate as a lot of the analysis seems, that it was simply over analyzed. Yes, it put forth an all-black cast in an ‘other’ narrative, but in its frame it doesn’t seem any worse than the hundreds of other commercials that do pretty much the same thing.