Discussion for article #236227
Television is about money and viewers. If viewers aren’t tuning in, I don’t care if it’s a show with a Latino cast (Cristel), a South Asian star (The Mindy Project) or a lily white cast (Revenge), it will be cancelled. Stop trying to make this into some sort of social issue matter when it all comes down to money. If the shows had been drawing in the audience, therefore the advertising dollars, they would have been renewed. Does the system suck? Yes. But I’m waiting for your essay about how tragic it was that Serenity was cancelled despite being a critical darling and how tragic that was. Oh, wait, it had a mostly white cast. Nothing to see here.
8 Likes
The loss of Kaling’s and Alonzo’s shows feels synonymous with the idea that the stories of Indian Americans and Hispanic Americans aren’t as valuable, profitable or worthy of our viewership.
Oh for Pete sake…at least 32 shows have been cancelled going forward including “CSI” and this lady gets all upset because 2 with minorities were cancelled as well? Some people really need to grow up!
3 Likes
Why have liberals become so intellectually lazy recently? It used to be the conservatives consistently making nonsensical arguments, but recently the left has gotten just as bad. “This show was cancelled and it has a minority female lead, therefore racism”, is right up there with “Its snowing outside, therefore global warming is a lie”. This nonsense is detracting from having legitimate conversation about race and inequality in this country by trying to score these bogus and cheap points.
3 Likes
The Mindy Project is just unwatchable.It might get a basic cable pickup, but still seems like a weak effort. OTOH, Shonda Rhimes is still doing well and no one seems to tell her waht to do.
These are two completely different cases. Mindy Kaling’s show never worked. At the beginning no plot and way too much Kaling and not enough good use of some very talented members of her cast. Thus the massive rehab after the first season. The show was initially passed on by NBC, so maybe there was something creaky in the premise. And although Kaling is a proficient user of social media, much like Shonda Rhimes, there is never a note of whining with Rhimes. Kaling got progressively indignant about her low ratings. Even her Nationwide commercial was all about her feeling ignored and invisible. What the…! Just because there are not many women of color on shows does not mean people have to watch, not unless they are enjoying the show. Move on and come up with a better show.
Cristela was a show I really enjoyed watching in the beginning. She has a wonderfully under dog and fighting presence without any sense of self pity. But then I felt like, although the cast was very good (omitting the stunt casting of Roseanne) the arc of the show kind of ran out of gas and became a little too old fashion in it’s sitcom predictability. She will be back, at least I hope.
Yes, the “system” does suck. Even though women and men watch TV in roughly equal numbers, women make up less than a third of writer rooms (and still make 92 cents to a male dollar.) And that includes story writers and is overwhelmingly white women. The reason this article is relevant is that there are only a literal handful of minority female showrunners - though as far as I know there are more than five minority female tv viewers and stories to tell. Of the fifty top showrunners in Hollywood Reporter last year, there were three minority women: Shonda, Mara Brock Akil, (who created Being Mary Jane on BET), and Mindy. I’m not arguing for affirmative action but I think it’s past time we throw up our hands, compare this to the cancellation of a 2005 sci-fi show (a genre which you can’t find underrepresented), and blame the amorphous system. Yes, it’s about money and viewers but in 2015, that metric is a lot more complex than just who’s turning on their TV when that program airs.
Yes, but that doesn’t fit the narrative of whitey keeping everyone down for the sake of being evil.
1 Like
It’s not “liberals” per say. It’s the Internet. The monster we’ve created, that we are a part of, needs new and salacious content 24/7 so we can always, always, always be clicking. You don’t click on well reasoned, thoughtful arguments. You click on nonsense. We both clicked here. We both commented. That tells the site owners to keep on truckin’.
7 Likes
How do you feel about women in construction? Are you indignant that they are underrepresented in the carpentry, drywalling, plumbing, and electrician fields?
1 Like
Hardly, because though buildings have an effect on our lives, they do not shape a public and collective understanding of what it means to be a woman or minority in this country the way television does. Television is an intimate look at someone’s life. Fine, you don’t feel indignant about this - you perhaps feel your story is well-represented in this culture, or you just don’t care. But to complain about the fact that people are complaining - when you clearly lack an understanding of the deeper role media plays in society by comparing it to drywall - is just more of the noise you’re railing against.
So it’s only important if it’s high profile careers? Or only if it’s highly-paid white collar ones?
1 Like
For 60 years my favorite shows have been canceled. I loved Star Trek and somebody cancelled it. I loved Hill Street Blues and somebody cancelled it. I loved Serenity and it got the axe. This year my favorite was Forever and it just got cut along with Revenge which my wife loved. It seems every time I find a favorite somebody in Hollywood cancels it. I could go on and on. The anti-meism in Hollywood is horrible.
Just how does somebody find higher meaning in the cancellation of a low rated show? The author of this piece tried, but I don’t think she succeeded.
1 Like
“You can’t make people get something they haven’t lived.”
Yes, you can. That’s what language and the arts or for. To share experiences and make people “get” things.
Making them understand might be hard. And making them care might be even harder. So that puts minorities at a disadvantage in a world where total number of viewers in a certain age bracket is the only thing that determines if your show lives or dies.
So racism might be a factor in the cancellation of the show. But if you audience didn’t “get it”, that’s your fault.
3 Likes
Hill Street Blues was on for six years - 146 episodes. It set a multistory format used on many subsequent shows like ER. The original Star Trek was on for two years and was cancelled due to low ratings. It spawned 4 spin off Star Treks and 12 feature films. Please stop whining.
2 Likes
I can whine if I want to. After all whining is what the post was about.
They were still my favorite shows and they got cut. 
1 Like
Having just started two streaming service subscriptions while remaining a cable subscriber and Netflix Blu-ray subscriber and becoming an expert on programming in the process (much snark), it’s fair to say that there is too much to choose from. There are only so many waking hours one has to devote to watching something on a screen. There’s work, there’s life, there’s sleeping, there’s also occasional reading, and some programming will inevitably be jettisoned. In this case it happened to female minorities and their programs. It’s not an event worth parsing.
2 Likes
Isn’t this like complaining that fans still attend football games even though minorities are under represented in the front office? Just let me watch iZombie without guilt.
We’re not talking “The Smothers Brothers” here and censorship.
This is about one stupid show not being liked as much as another stupid show.
Who really gives a damn?
3 Likes
“to viewers of color, however, their departure from the airwaves holds far greater significance.”
is it ever intellectually sound to generalize like this? Ratings are in, and it seems like viewers of color also don’t give a shit
1 Like