Planet Walt

TV Racial Representations

So last night life as we know it was on after a 3 week absence. One of the nice things was that Ben (a White guy) went on a date with bi-racial (Black/White) Sue, and no one even commented on it! Now eventually the producers will find a way to make it an issue, but it was refreshing to see it start out low key.

On the other hand, one of my English professor homies tells me that there's an email circulating on a Modern Language Association listserv about how the "Leon" Budweiser ads are racist because the main character is a caricature of the modern African-American athlete. Stuff like this gives academia a bad name. The ads poke fun at the modern Prima Donna pro athlete in general, regardless of race. While race can be read into anything (like Martin Lawrence in Boomerang calling pool a racist game 'cause the object is for the white ball to knock the black ball off the table), some readings are trivial at best, and at worst distract attention from more important issues...like the overemphasis on sports or entertainment as the avenue for success for young Black and Latino men.