Your Feelings about Television/film or other media portrayals

[bliss_eternal]

What are your thoughts/feelings regarding current media portrayals of IR/multiethnic relationships? Do you feel that any specific thing you've seen on television or in film was particularly well done? Or does a certain show or film piss you off?

Please share!

Personally, I am so pleased when I see a show feature an IR couple but no one even acknowledges or addresses that they are IR. I LOVE that! To me, that is saying that these are two people that love and care for one another-period. No one needs to discuss the fact that they are different somehow.

I also love it when I see a particularly interesting or sensitive portrayal that brings up issues that usually aren't addressed or dealt with honesty in television or film.

For example, I love the show The L Word on Showtime. I liked the way the show dealt with the fact that one couple that was trying to have a baby, and also happened to be IR. The women had a sperm donor that was African American, as Jennifer Beals character is multiethnic and acknowledges her black heritage/culture. To her character it is would be great to have a child that looks like her in some way. While her partner, hadn't really considered her feelings about raising a child with cultural heritage different from her own.

I thought this was intelligent and well written. They didn't fall into any patented, stereotypical television drama situation. It seemed honest to me and true.

Just one example from me. Anyone else?
:)

[kwassa]

1. There still aren't very many IR couples depicted, particularly black/white

I think screenwriters are still too nervous to just inject them into a normal drama, like they would appear in real life. What is all too common is the "politically correct" cast that has one black couple, one asian couple, one hispanic couple, and so on.

Of course, I don't expect realism from Hollywood.

[Lisa0825]

2. Soaps frequently have IR couples.

I have been an active participant on some soap discussion boards for years, and the IR couples don't seem to ruffle any feathers with the fans. For soap fans, all that matters is that the characters have good chemistry together.

Also, fans have wished Amy (Judging Amy) and Bruce would get together for years.

[kwassa]

3. I don't see the soaps ,but yes, I have heard this, too

Soaps make my skin crawl, but we won't go into that!

I am thinking more of primetime mainstream channels more than cable. There is little incentives to take risks there. The cable channels do seem more adventurous, but even then it is rare.

I think Jennifer Beals is aging quite beautifully, by the way. I'm glad to see her recover from "Flashdance". She is 42 now.

[Lisa0825]

4. Yes, she is gorgeous!

I was stunned when I first saw her after so many years. I wish I looked as good at 20 as she does now!

[NewJeffCT]

5. Are there many?

I recall the interracial couple on the Jeffersons.

And, on Ally McBeal, they had a couple - Ally with a black male doctor and Lucy Liu with a black male attorney.

[bliss_eternal]

6. I recall one on Boy Meets World--

The actress that portrayed one part of the couple was actually quite instrumental in seeing that happen as I understand it. She wrote an editorial for the LA Times about racial equality and I think mentioned something about diversity in television.

Here's a few others I recall (from shows I've watched)

Sex in the City (Miranda dates the doctor in her building-portrayed by Blair Underwood)

LA Law (Grace and Victor Sifuentes spelling?)

ER

Scrubs

Friends ( I really liked the way it was treated here, it wasn't oh how do I go out with the 'chick of color'--just she's hot, I wanna' go out with her)

[kwassa]

7. The problem with the Friends portrayal

Aisha Tyler was the black actress in the Friends. I think she has star potential.

What I found irritating in that portrayal is that it is just as unreal to NEVER discuss race as it is to focus on race. Race is an issue in American interracial relationships, even if it is not the major or defining issue. If it isn't touched on in the show, it is a little weird.

in other news:
I saw a new commercial last night that was interesting, where two actresses from Sex in the City were poolside with all these hunky waiters attending to them. Miranda looks over at a muscular young black guy coming towards them carrying a platter of grapes. She says something like "Here comes lunch! And he is carrying grapes!"

I can't remember what the commercial was for, though.

[bliss_eternal]

8. Hi kwassa!

I see your point.

I just liked that in their world, it didn't seem to be an issue and wasn't discussed as one. That was refreshing to me. It was like they were saying, this should not be an issue--hello?! LOL! But I totally understand what you mean.

Oh and I believe the young lady from Bring it On (her name is escaping me at the moment)was also on a Friends episode--granted it was far more brief than Aisha Tyler's appearances.


Thanks for sharing! :)

[kwassa]

9. Hi Bliss ..

The young actress you are thinking of is Gabrielle Union.

She was also in Bad Boys II, Deliver Us from Eva, and quite a few other films.

[bliss_eternal]

10. Yes! Thank you for refreshing my memory--

[jmm]

14. It's for the new 7UP with fruit juice and vitamins in it.

I saw it today.

[Champ]

11. The last one I saw was "Save the Last Dance"

I think it had a good message and parts of it were well written. I think they may have overdone how their relationship was viewed by people on the outside. I don't know, the movie was pretty good that also focused on other aspects such as the woman dealing with the death of her mother and dancing career while the man was dealing with the struggles of the neighborhood and friends that would only drag him down. A pretty good story about strength and percervierence. Maybe not the best movie but it was good.

[grace0418]

12. We were in London about a year ago

And we could not believe how many mixed race families there were. It was almost odd to see two people of the same race together. It was very cool. We noticed too that television shows and adverts alike had mixed race couples all the time. And it wasn't like "here's a show about Joe and Jenny and the problems they face as a mixed race couple." It was as natural as any other couple and was never part of the narrative going on. I was so sad to realize how uptight and racist America is by comparison. And we make fun of the British for being uptight!

[bliss_eternal]

13. That sounds heavenly, grace!

Thank you for sharing this! I've always wanted to travel to London. I just made it an even bigger priority. LOL!

You also reinforced and validated my point from before. I don't think it should be a big deal or stressed in shows the way it sometimes is. I love to see shows that don't even address the issue, because in reality, it isn't. We are still all just human beings, right?

I just recalled Will and Grace had a few episodes where Grace was dating Gregory Hines. I don't believe it was ever an issue of a 'black man' with a 'white woman.' Bravo--to Will and Grace for that!

:)

[Brewman_Jax]

15. The last episode of "Grey's Anatomy"

Sunday night on ABC when Christina Yang (intern, Asian) went in the staff (I think) locker room, and seeing a partially-undressed Preston Burke (Chief Resident, Black) changing clothes, locked the door behind her.

I raised my eyebrows thinking, I didn't see that coming! I don't remember seeing another instance of 2 non-white different ancestry characters together in regular network television.

The recorder is ready for next Sunday. :thumbsup:

[AspenRose]

16. I've heard Seattle is very diverse

Since the show is based in Seattle....that scene seems to be an accurate portrayal of what probably is a common occurence in Seattle. Which is good.

[Brewman_Jax]

22. That may be true, but...

shows don't have to match real life. Don't forget that 3 of the past major sitcoms (Seinfeld, Friends, Sex and the City) were castigated for years for not having any (or the very rare) non-white characters. All were set in NYC, which is hardly 95% white.

[Lisa0825]

17. I thought they had GREAT chemistry!!!

When he set the coffee down next to her hand, and gave her the eye, she she stared back at him, in a mix of disbelief and attraction, I KNEW they were going to get together! I think he's a total hottie!!!

[kwassa]

18. You haven't been watching ER, clearly ......

Ming Na, and the black actor whose name I currently forget (not Omar Epps, who was also on the show at one point). A season or two back. I don't follow the show much, but they clearly had a thing going on.

The other new fashion trend is black actors opposite latino actresses. Much safer than a black/white couple.

[Brewman_Jax]

21. Didn't know that

and you're right, never got into watching ER.

Black and Latino matchups is the new trend? Is that movies, TV, cable, or all of the above?

[kwassa]

23. Black actors and Latina actresses

http://www.urbanmecca.com/artman/publish/article_228.shtml

Eva Mendes Speaks Out About Latina & Black Actresses In Hollywood
By Newsweek (via PRNewswire)
Mar 7, 2005, 11:57

There's something strange going on in such films as the recent Will Smith blockbuster "Hitch": these days African American leading men tend to be cast opposite Latinas instead of black actresses, reports National Correspondent Allison Samuels in the March 14 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, March 7). Why is Eva Mendes, who stars opposite Smith in "Hitch," considered too dark to be paired with a white lead, but just right for an African American? "I don't even know what to say about it anymore," Mendes tells Newsweek. "Certainly I've benefited, because I've got to work with Ice Cube, Denzel and Will. But it's lame. I wish the mentality wasn't so closed."

Apparently Hollywood doesn't think America is ready for, say, Mos Def and Kate Hudson heating up the screen-though out in the real America, more black men are married to white women than to Latinas-and the conventional wisdom is, as actress Nia Long puts it, "two black characters equals a black film and not just a movie about two people."

(more at the site)

[bliss_eternal]

25. Yes, minority to minority match ups--OK w/Hollywood.

:eyes: But I agree, kinda' lame.

Don't get me wrong, I love to see any sort of diversity in terms of casting mixed/interracial couples, but it pisses me off that they are too damned scared to just be real. :mad:

Hollywood for the most part is still too afraid to "offend" anyone. In the forties (or whenever lovely Lena Horne worked in Hollywood), they routinely pandered to their bigoted audiences. Lena Horne has been very vocal about the fact that Hollywood usually only cast her in musical numbers instead of giving her an active role as a character in a film. She stated the reason was that when the films played "down south" her scenes could be easily removed from the film, without disrupting the storyline.

:wtf:

Hollywood seems to me to still be this way. It's such bullshit. Instead of trying to appeal to and not offend it's predjudiced white audience, why not try to represent it's growing diverse audience? Why work to appeal to bigotry?

[jmm]

19. I think I'll faint if

I see a Black woman and an Asian man portrayed as lovers in a film or on TV. A friend who read the book Romeo Must Die was based on told me at the end they kissed but in the film Jet Li and Aaliyah hold hands in the last scene. So basically in an attempt to make a Romeo and Juliet story palatable for the public they turn it into Hamlet, if Hamlet and Ophelia had happier endings.

[Brewman_Jax]

20. Didn't think that I'd get this many replies!

didn't see that coming, either. I learned something new!

[Brewman_Jax]

24. The comic strips

a little acknowledged medium. The only comic strips with IR relationships that I've seen are Jump Start http://www.comics.com/comics/jumpstart/index.html and Stone Soup http://www.gocomics.com/stonesoup/

In Jump Start, there is an IR married couple and in Stone Soup, one of the main character's (Val) boyfriend/regular date is black. It is so downplayed (which is good, he's treated like anyone else) that I had to do a double-take.

[bliss_eternal]

26. This is awesome! I'd love to see more of this...!

Thanks for the links, Argyle!

[Brewman_Jax]

27. Comic book adaptations on Cartoon Network

in The Fantastic Four animated series, Alicia Masters (Ben Grimm's girlfriend, who is also blind) is black, but is white in the comic book. In the Avengers animated movies, Gen. Nick Fury is black, but is white in the comic book.