The Negrification of Television

[HUGGY]

Last week, while looking for something to watch on television, I clicked on a "link" to "The Sound of Music Live," which has been promoted rather heavily on the cable system. How can you go wrong with the Sound of Music?

As I watched the opening scene - a convent in Austria around 1938 - the first face shown in the center of the screen had a rather odd "hue." I wondered if my TV was out of adjustment. Within a few seconds as the other nuns came fully on the screen I saw that my television was not out of adjustment, but there was a bizarre casting anomaly. Dumbfounding, actually. The Mother Superior of this convent in Austria was an African American.

Oddly enough, I have been to Salzburg, Austria, and I think I can say with absolute certainty that the probability of any nun in any Catholic convent in this city being of African origin is approximately equal to the probability that I will win the MVP award in the NBA this season.

Gimmeafuckingbreak.

Then a few days later I tuned into a nice "holiday" movie called, "A Snow Globe Christmas." The description in the guide said that the story was about a hard-edged woman who, while cynically preparing for a Christmas pageant, was bonked on the head by a Snow Globe, and found herself in the "idealized world" of the Snow Globe, with her own self ensconsed in a "perfect snow globe life," which she struggled to understand and deal with.

OK.

So I start to watch the story (really, a lame takeoff on Scrooged and other such holiday nonsense). After the snow globe knockout, we come to see that the main character - in the idealized world of the snow globe - is married to a Black guy and has two bi-racial kids.

Jesus. Fucking. Christ. This is the "ideal"? The imaginary perfect world? In whose mind, exactly?

I see a commercial with nauseating frequency - I believe it's from the S. C. Johnson company - of a fairly large group of young people singing a stylized Christmas carol. Not one of the kids is caucasian. There are a few Asians, but basically it is the Harlem Kids Choir - or some variation of it. This is inclusion? This is diversity? I don't think so.

Invariably, in television dramas, sit-coms, and even reality shows, black people are portrayed as more intelligent, insightful, compassionate, reasonable, talented, and patient. With few exceptions, the "Black" people who are cast in these programs have light skin, caucasian features (blue or green eyes, etc), and perfect bone structure. The wide noses and negroid lips that characterize the vast majority of "Black" Americans are rare or non-existent.

Television advertising is amazingly inclusive of mulattos of various shades. A martian viewing nothing but American television would conclude that the American population is 20% gay and 50% bi-racial.

How many people recognize this is a giant propaganda campaign, similar to the ongoing campaign to portray all homosexuals as wholesome and wonderful? I find it quite tiresome.

So you have not discovered the location of the "off" button on your TV? Check your user manual.

 

[Politico]

DGS49 went out of his way to avoid sounding like a racist while bring up a good point. Is it now racist to question anything when it concerns black?

Point or not we all know it's about hating black people. If they were trying to point out an actual problem on tv, it's how every show shoves Adam and Steve down our throats as if half the world is on a Taco and Sausage diet.

 

[katsteve2012]

Last week, while looking for something to watch on television, I clicked on a "link" to "The Sound of Music Live," which has been promoted rather heavily on the cable system. How can you go wrong with the Sound of Music?

As I watched the opening scene - a convent in Austria around 1938 - the first face shown in the center of the screen had a rather odd "hue." I wondered if my TV was out of adjustment. Within a few seconds as the other nuns came fully on the screen I saw that my television was not out of adjustment, but there was a bizarre casting anomaly. Dumbfounding, actually. The Mother Superior of this convent in Austria was an African American.

Oddly enough, I have been to Salzburg, Austria, and I think I can say with absolute certainty that the probability of any nun in any Catholic convent in this city being of African origin is approximately equal to the probability that I will win the MVP award in the NBA this season.

Gimmeafuckingbreak.

Then a few days later I tuned into a nice "holiday" movie called, "A Snow Globe Christmas." The description in the guide said that the story was about a hard-edged woman who, while cynically preparing for a Christmas pageant, was bonked on the head by a Snow Globe, and found herself in the "idealized world" of the Snow Globe, with her own self ensconsed in a "perfect snow globe life," which she struggled to understand and deal with.

OK.

So I start to watch the story (really, a lame takeoff on Scrooged and other such holiday nonsense). After the snow globe knockout, we come to see that the main character - in the idealized world of the snow globe - is married to a Black guy and has two bi-racial kids.

Jesus. Fucking. Christ. This is the "ideal"? The imaginary perfect world? In whose mind, exactly?

I see a commercial with nauseating frequency - I believe it's from the S. C. Johnson company - of a fairly large group of young people singing a stylized Christmas carol. Not one of the kids is caucasian. There are a few Asians, but basically it is the Harlem Kids Choir - or some variation of it. This is inclusion? This is diversity? I don't think so.

Invariably, in television dramas, sit-coms, and even reality shows, black people are portrayed as more intelligent, insightful, compassionate, reasonable, talented, and patient. With few exceptions, the "Black" people who are cast in these programs have light skin, caucasian features (blue or green eyes, etc), and perfect bone structure. The wide noses and negroid lips that characterize the vast majority of "Black" Americans are rare or non-existent.

Television advertising is amazingly inclusive of mulattos of various shades. A martian viewing nothing but American television would conclude that the American population is 20% gay and 50% bi-racial.

How many people recognize this is a giant propaganda campaign, similar to the ongoing campaign to portray all homosexuals as wholesome and wonderful? I find it quite tiresome.

Poor you. If you have cable and get "on demand", cue up some episodes of Hee Haw, Bonanza or The Beverly Hillbillies.

SMGDH.

 

[Peterf]

[...]

Are you just as pissed off when a movie like Gladiator portrays the main star to be ridiculously strong or ridiculously courageous because it's not "realistic enough" for you? Do you make just a big of a stink over that too [MENTION=36589]DGS49[/MENTION]?

Portraying the Gladiator as exceptionally strong and courageous is intended to emphasize the essential nature of a fictional character and is in no way deceptive. Many gladiators have been portrayed in movies as being Black, which has not been disputed. There probably were Black gladiators who didn't all look like Woody Strode.

But to portray Santa Claus as Black conflicts with long-held traditional beliefs. And to portray a 1930s Austrian nun as Black occurs as a deliberate attempt to alter an historical reality and may be thought of as a form of socio-political indoctrination. What other reason could there be for such a deliberate distortion?

What would your thinking be if a play or a movie portrayed Mohammad Ali as a blue-eyed blond?

The woman was chosen for her voice not her color which is something we are supposed to overlook. Although her voice wasn't all that hot.

The whole Sound of Music story is so far from reality anyway, putting in a black mother superior is the least of the falsities.

I agree with your second sentence. In my ideal world casting in fiction will be made purely on ablility, quite regardless of skin tone. Only in documentaries or 'faction', like 'The Kennedys', should shade matter. Though a 'black Jack & Jackie' ..... has its attractions.

 

[Peterf]

I gave up on TV and movies several years ago. I can't say I've missed anything.

I would say you have missed the years when American TV grew up. Rising from worst in the world to some of the best. Masterpieces like Band of Brothers, The Wire and several more.

 

[katsteve2012]

So I start to watch the story (really, a lame takeoff on Scrooged and other such holiday nonsense). After the snow globe knockout, we come to see that the main character - in the idealized world of the snow globe - is married to a Black guy and has two bi-racial kids.

Jesus. Fucking. Christ. This is the "ideal"? The imaginary perfect world?

Why not? As opposed to what?

I guess he's longing for an old Tarzan movie where Cheetah is the smartest thing on two legs in all of Africa.

 

[katsteve2012]

If a White actor stuffed a sock in the mouth of a Black actor's character, took a knife and cut along the top of his forehead, and then ripped his scalp off...all hell would break loose.

Go see "The Butler". Black Son sees his father shot dead before his eyes for picking cotton "too slow" for the white overseer. Based on a true story.

I saw it at a theatre where the packed audience was integrated, and "all hell did not break loose". Just adult people of all types watching a movie, that all went home peacefully after it was over.

 

[katsteve2012]

I gave up on TV and movies several years ago. I can't say I've missed anything.

I would say you have missed the years when American TV grew up. Rising from worst in the world to some of the best. Masterpieces like Band of Brothers, The Wire and several more.

Those were two great series. I still watch them on HBOGO.

 

[Peterf]

If a White actor stuffed a sock in the mouth of a Black actor's character, took a knife and cut along the top of his forehead, and then ripped his scalp off...all hell would break loose.

Go see "The Butler". Black Son sees his father shot dead before his eyes for picking cotton "too slow" for the white overseer. Based on a true story.

I saw it at a theatre where the packed audience was integrated, and "all hell did not break loose". Just adult people of all types watching a movie, that all went home peacefully after it was over.

Why do you Yanks not distinguish between a 'theatre' - real live actors on a stage, and a 'cinema' - actors not present, just projected onto a screen? I had to read your post twice to make sure you were not talking about a play but a film.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

I agree it is historically incorrect to depict a Mother Superior in Austria as "African Austrian" circa 1938. In a play about Nazi influence in the late 30s it kind of deflects the racial times

As to showing a biracial couple in a Christmas special, what will they try to sell next? A biracial President?

What he said ^^

And, a source of happiness to me is knowing that every ignorant backward rw racist is crazy with the knowledge that President and Mrs Obama have been doing IT in every bedroom in the White House.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

One thing you won't see on TV this year is that racist old Bing Crosby song about his "Dreaming of......".

Stupid thing to say.

White xmas was just on TCM yesterday or the day before.

Ya wanna try again?

 

[Luddly Neddite]

Speaking specifically about the Sound of Music, the producers of this film went to great pains to make everything as close to the original as possible. The dialog was exactly as originally written, the scenes and backgrounds were as close to original as practicable. Having a "black" woman cast as the Mother Superior was, in this context, ridiculous.

It would be the equivalent of casting Josh Groban as Porgy in Porgy & Bess. How many Black people would find that offensive? I suspect maybe a couple.

Consider another sort of production. Occasionally, you will see a compilation of music from an opera or a musical and it is produced for the sake of the music only, not as a play or film. The singers stand on the stage and sing, in "street clothes." In that context, it would be perfectly fine to have anyone who is talented enough to sing any music in the show. Have Johnny Mathis sing the songs of Admiral von Trapp. Let Mariah Carey sing "Climb Ev'ry Mountain." Wonderful.

But this production took great pains to be true-to life in every other way. Thus, casting a "black" woman as the Mother Superior was ridiculous and offensive.

Going back a while, I was equally offended when Audrey Hepburn was cast as "Maria" in the movie version of West Side Story. Ridiculous. They couldn't find a Hispanic girl who could sing (ironically, Hepburn didn't sing - she lip-sinked)?

No you weren't.

Besides, as Hepburn did in My Fair Lady, Russian Natalie Wood lip synced to the incredible singing of Marni Nixon.

And, the characters were not "Hispanic". They were Puerto Rican, Boricua from the name the Taíno Indians called their home.

BTW, a while back, someone here said that Puerto Rico is not part of the US. It is.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

If a White actor stuffed a sock in the mouth of a Black actor's character, took a knife and cut along the top of his forehead, and then ripped his scalp off...all hell would break loose.

Well yeah, you're right.

It was whites who started the practice of scalping Native Americans when they first occupied what we now call the US. Sure nuff, the Native Americans fought back.

Don't think they used socks though.

I see you're from Australia. Bet you just hate Aborigines.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

Jesus was Black.

So was Santa.

Don't tell the nutters though.

You know how they get when faced with FACTS.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

I'm just saying that he's a fictional character, and that people aught to have the freedom to change attributes of that fictional character if they want to.

You don't have to accept a black Santa, but if a family wants to tell their kids Santa is black/asian, they aught to have the right to do that without getting criticized for it. No one is suggesting that you be forced to do anything.

No argument. And DGS49 should have the freedom to observe and express an opinion on any such changes without being denounced for "racism."

Personally I don't think calling someone racist for starting a thread entitled "The Negrification of Television" is all that unfair. He clearly has an agenda against black folks.

He complains about the fact that only blacks with perfect bone structure are on TV - as if it's just an issue isolated to black people - and completely ignores the fact that ALL people, black, white, latino, asian, etc are generally beautiful on screen. When was the last time a 230 lb white woman won best actress?

His argument is racist at the core...

.

Very funny the way racists are now saying that being racist is actually proof that they're not racist.

 

[rightwinger]

I gave up on TV and movies several years ago. I can't say I've missed anything.

I would say you have missed the years when American TV grew up. Rising from worst in the world to some of the best. Masterpieces like Band of Brothers, The Wire and several more.

Those were two great series. I still watch them on HBOGO.

I love HBO GO, Watching The Wire right now

It has every episode of every series they have done. Beats cable HBO

 

[007]

The fictional Santa Claus legend is intended for indulgence by children -- not mentally competent adults. The fictional Santa Claus character I am familiar with is a fat, "jolly," White man with a beard. I dismiss any deviation from the traditional incarnation of Santa Claus as either nonsense or purposeful deception.

I'm just saying that he's a fictional character, and that people aught to have the freedom to change attributes of that fictional character if they want to.

You don't have to accept a black Santa, but if a family wants to tell their kids Santa is black/asian, they aught to have the right to do that without getting criticized for it. No one is suggesting that you be forced to do anything.

Change, change, change... WHY put a black woman in the mother superior role... WHY? What MESSAGE were they sending by doing so? Was there no QUALIFIED WHITE women to fit the role? What is it about this never ending NEED to CHANGE things?

Well I think I know as well as YOU do. It's AGENDA DRIVEN, PERIOD. It's POLITICALLY CORRECT. They put a black women in that role so blacks wouldn't feel LEFT OUT. No you say? Then why, recently, was there just a huge stink about no BLACK WOMEN on SNL? Same thing... you BETTER put a black woman in these roles or you're RACIST.

That is what's at the CORE of this issue.

Jesus has to be BLACK
Santa Claus has to be BLACK
obama isn't half white, he's BLACK
NOTHING can remain WHITE. It's RACIST, it's not POLITICALLY CORRECT, and we can't have that.

 

[Lonestar_logic]

If a White actor stuffed a sock in the mouth of a Black actor's character, took a knife and cut along the top of his forehead, and then ripped his scalp off...all hell would break loose.

Go see "The Butler". Black Son sees his father shot dead before his eyes for picking cotton "too slow" for the white overseer. Based on a true story.

I saw it at a theatre where the packed audience was integrated, and "all hell did not break loose". Just adult people of all types watching a movie, that all went home peacefully after it was over.

The truth is The Butler was an inaccurate portrayal of a true story.

The filmmakers took full advantage of their creative license.

 

[Katzndogz]

If a White actor stuffed a sock in the mouth of a Black actor's character, took a knife and cut along the top of his forehead, and then ripped his scalp off...all hell would break loose.

Go see "The Butler". Black Son sees his father shot dead before his eyes for picking cotton "too slow" for the white overseer. Based on a true story.

I saw it at a theatre where the packed audience was integrated, and "all hell did not break loose". Just adult people of all types watching a movie, that all went home peacefully after it was over.

The Butler has no basis in reality beyond the fact that there was a black Butler in the white house. The rest came out of the mind of the writer.

Next year we'll see Sound of Music and all the SS officers will be black.

 

[Asclepias]

If a White actor stuffed a sock in the mouth of a Black actor's character, took a knife and cut along the top of his forehead, and then ripped his scalp off...all hell would break loose.

Go see "The Butler". Black Son sees his father shot dead before his eyes for picking cotton "too slow" for the white overseer. Based on a true story.

I saw it at a theatre where the packed audience was integrated, and "all hell did not break loose". Just adult people of all types watching a movie, that all went home peacefully after it was over.

Have you seen 12 years as a slave? Everyone in the theatre was in tears. Integrated audience as well.