My 15-hour Wednesday-to-Thursday flight from Buenos Aires to Sydney wasn’t as abhorrent as I apprehension it would be. The aliment was absolutely adequate (yes, even in coach); the bank beside me was empty, so there was affluence of leg room; and the Quantas Airlines in-flight brawl adjustment offered added watchable options than a ceremony night of prime-time TV ashamed home. Some bodies like to blot connected flights sleeping (I’m in and out of activity in my own bed, so cold like a babyish if I’m up in the air is a channel dream), some acquire to apprehend (I’ve yet to accommodated a book that can ascendancy my assimilation for an complete all-embracing flight), I abide for in-flight entertainment.
En access to Sydney, I did a lot of catching up. Admitting I’m a music guy ancient and foremost, as usual, I skipped the song selections. I already had my two iPods with me, and why acquire to music I can apprehend anywhere if I can assay out movies and TV shows I usually wouldn’t watch anywhere else? I saw Sex and the City 2, which wasn’t as abhorrent as I’d heard, two episodes of Modern Family, two of How I Met Your Mother, two of Two and a Half Men, and one of Accidentally on Purpose. A allotment of the mostly white faces, I saw a drop of array on the miniature screen: two Colombians, three gay couples, an Asian guy, altered hunky Middle Eastern men, a bra-less lesbian, and Liza Minnelli. What I didn’t see: a abandoned notable atramentous character. (Though I did spot, for a aperture second, a admirable atramentous toddler who had been adopted by a scarily bookish white gay brace on Modern Family.)
I shouldn’t acquire been suprised. Outside of Tracy Morgan on 30 Rock, Chandra Wilson and James Pickens Jr. a allotment of the balloon amalgamation on Grey’s Anatomy, and several added shows that awning a atramentous face or two in predominantly white accoutrement (True Blood, Private Practice, Glee), prime-time TV lacks a cogent atramentous presence. A allotment of the agilely different annual of 90 or so 2010 Emmy acting nominees (a Colombian, an Indian winner, a lesbian winner, three gay actors in one category!), abandoned one, Men of a Certain Age‘s Andre Braugher, was black.
What irony! The U.S. has its ancient atramentous president, and as a whole, blacks are far bigger off than they were if I was growing up in the ’70s and ’80s. Still, ashamed then, I couldn’t changeabout on the TV afterwards seeing bodies who looked like me, on shows like Sanford and Son, Good Times, The Jeffersons, What’s Happening!!, Diff’rent Strokes, The Cosby Show, A Altered World, Amen and 227. I address to God I’m overlooking something, but aback the abandoning of Everybody Hates Chris and The Game, I can’t ahead of a non-cable-network alternation that actualization a predominantly atramentous cast. (Thanks to Tyler Perry, TBS has Tyler Perry’s House of Payne and Meet the Browns.)
On the way to Sydney, it wasn’t until I affronted on Date Night – a adventuresome brawl starring Tina Fey and Steve Carell, stars of, respectively, 30 Rock and The Office, two of the few TV shows featuring atramentous bent — that, at last, I saw atramentous people. The cine didn’t affect me about as abounding as it did critics and audiences — if Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler, or Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler, had been the leads, it would acquire been ripped to shreds — but acclamation to the casting abettor for including The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Oscar appointee Taraji P. Henson and rapper Common in a acknowledging mix that had anybody from Mark Wahlberg to Mark Ruffalo to Mila Kunis to Ray Liotta to James Franco.
Blacks abounding even added acutely in Mother and Child, a atramentous brawl starring Annette Bening and Naomi Watts as a mom and bairn distant at address by adoption. But then, Samuel L. Jackson has been in acutely every added cine for years, and the actualization of the arresting Kerry Washington abandoned served to advise me that if she were a few shades lighter, she’d allegedly be one of the hardest-working actresses in Hollywood.
In the end, though, the movies are kinder to atramentous thespians in Hollywood than television. And on the babyish screen, atramentous actors acquire it easier. During the attainable abatement season, Blair Underwood (The Event) and Terence Howard (Law & Order: Los Angeles) will accompany 2010 Emmy presenters LL Cool J (NCIS: Los Angeles) and Laurence Fishburne (CSI: Crime Scene Investigations) on the abridge annual of major-network shows featuring atramentous actors in basic roles.
But for atramentous actresses, bigger luck next season. (Did I blink and absence one of them on the Emmy date this year?) If HBO, Showtime and TNT can physique shows about Toni Collette, Edie Falco, Laura Linney, Mary Louise-Parker and 2010 Emmy champ Kyra Sedgwick, why not a actualization based about a able atramentous capricious character? If there’s a address for Liza Minnelli in Sex and the City 2, isn’t it about time anyone gave Angela Bassett something abounding to do?
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