Recently Nellie Andreeva for Deadline posted a much criticised (and rightly so) article about the number of new pilots with “ethnic” casting this year. Unlike us, the writer does not celebrate this minimal increase in representation- in fact she frets and worries at the direction the media is going. Clearly this small increase in the amount of melanin is just going too far.
This piece does seem to be an extremely pertinent example of the power of the societal default. As a society, we see certain people - inevitably the most privileged people (white, straight, cis, able-bodied men) - as the default; the basic human being. There are many things that come with being the societal default, but among them is the ability not to be noticed. Describing someone as, for example, white is often seen as necessary as describing people as not having tattoos. We see this in many books we read where POC are described by race but White people are not because if race is not described we assume the character is white just as, if we do not describe someone as having tattoos we assume they don’t have any
So when we look at statistics that point to a network having only an 18% POC cast, too often we don’t see this and think “82% of the cast on this network is White”, we see this and think “82% of the cast on this network is NORMAL and 18% is OTHER”. That is the power of the societal default, of being considered the basic human being. This applies across minorities and even across marginalisations - we see similar issues that Geena Davis pointed out with the depiction of women: where men perceive a room to be 50% women when it’s actually only 17%, and to contain a majority of women when it actually only has 33%. We notice the “Other”, we do not take note of the default because we expect them to be there and they do not have to justify their presence.
It is why we still get an enormous amount of people demanding justifications or reasons why a character is a POC - or any marginalised group - because you can’t just include the Other, you have to have a REASON.
Or, to put it another way, people act like having an 18% POC cast is as ridiculous as having a network with an 18% elvish cast. Sure they could picture one or two programmes with elves, but they find it really weird when nearly 20% of the network’s characters have pointy ears. If we accepted POC - or any minority - as human beings on the same level as white people then the whole idea of them making up a mere 20% would not be seen as odd or out of place.
This is how a pretty small number of POC characters are seen as an overwhelming wave that is driving out White characters - despite the fact you can turn on just about any channel at any time and still be assured of seeing many white faces - including on most of the protagonists and major roles. We do not see those White faces, they are covered by a veil of perceived normality that we still see as how things should be.
Which is also why I’m not crying any tears over the idea that there are POC “quotas” being “imposed” by big meanie networks that are denying skilled White actors their rightful jobs (with the added implication, of course, that white actors are inherently superior) because that is dwarfed by the huge number of POC actors who are struggling to find roles because of the assumed “quota” of white characters imposed on so many casting decisions - especially of main characters. The quota that will put Friends in a glaringly white New York, that will put Charmed in an extremely White and straight San Francisco and Atlantis in a white Ancient Greece. The quota that will have shows like Game of Thrones decide POC could only be minor occurring, exotic “others”. A network quota that means out of the 87 shows we’ve watched for Fangs, only 6 of them have NOT had a White protagonist or co-protagonist (and some of them are frankly dubious choices - like Z Nation) and virtually none of them are lacking significant White characters. Or a the quota that means Steven Yeun is struggling to find roles despite the success of the Walking Dead.Or the quota that made this year’s (and, frankly, most previous years) Academy Awards whiter than a Klan rally.
