Friday, February 12, 2016

An interesting NYT piece on race + TV

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/arts/television/smaller-screens-truer-colors.html?nlid=58631989&src=recpb&_r=0


1 comment:

  1. Ooh, this is too self-congratulatory for my tastes. I find it surprising -- and dismaying -- that a piece on television and race would not make any attempt to address current failures or problems. Offering examples of broader representation is fine, but to not qualify those examples through closer examination of the contradictions and complexities of these portrayals? There is room for plenty of conversation and criticism of Fresh Off the Boat alone, which is here offered uncritically as an example of progressivism.

    The articles seems to belie a kind of "diversity determinism" that's as utopian as technological determinism. 'Screens and audiences are fragmenting and shrinking,' the logic seems to say, 'so the future of screen media will be one of necessarily progressive representation'. The "inevitability" of this future is what allows Morris and Poniewozik (and their presumed audience) to shake their heads at the film industry, who just can't seem to get this picture.

    Essentially every critique of technological determinism also holds true here, yet the comments are almost uniformly enthusiastic rather than critical, from what I've seen.

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