Heroes Must Be Racist
Joe Illidge over at comiXtreme wonders why there’s no black folks in NBC’s Heroes. C’mon, wake up Joe, this is a problem with television in general. It reaches beyond our lovely little fanboy world.
Read the rest here
Joe Illidge over at comiXtreme wonders why there’s no black folks in NBC’s Heroes. C’mon, wake up Joe, this is a problem with television in general. It reaches beyond our lovely little fanboy world.
Read the rest here
September 18th, 2006 at 9:47 am
Can I just call Joe Illidge “Knee Jerk” instead? Patience…
September 18th, 2006 at 10:19 am
I think if Joe gives the show a chance he will find that an argument can be made for why characters on the show were left off of the initial advertising. I’ll ask Joe to just wait (not that long) and see how stories unfold. Maybe he’ll be surprised and I hope that NBC marketing will capitalize on some great storylines.
September 18th, 2006 at 10:34 am
Yes, Captain Knee Jerk has jumped the gun here. Whether he saw an advance of the pilot or not, the series hasn’t aired and been able to mature or prove its quality over the course of weeks (like serialized telivision is supposed to). I’ll watch the first few episodes and form an opinion then.
September 18th, 2006 at 12:33 pm
That guy rambles on about Heroes being rasist, then mentions the fact that two of the main characters are actualy in fact black.. then he jumps on to some other tangent that is impossible to follow. Seems like he is just using the buzz surrounding a great show to help generate readers. Heroes is going to be a hit and is so NOT racist!
September 18th, 2006 at 5:17 pm
I saw the pilot. *MILD SPOILER ALERT*. The black woman is in it, but if I can recall doesn’t have powers as of yet. The little kid is mixed, his mom is white (Ali Larter) and his dad is missing. That kind of sucks that the black man had to leave his kid-a little stereotypical. Could have been better, but I wouldn’t call it racist. I mean, look at TV. It’s still pretty lilly white,save Grey’s Anatomy and the few “Black comedies” on TV.
September 18th, 2006 at 6:11 pm
Good lord, that guys thought process is a mess. I guess they’ll give anybody a column these days.
September 18th, 2006 at 8:48 pm
I think Joe’s statement may have been premature but he says he looked into the show and found more minority characters. So no need to come down on him. Yeah! I know him. We went to high school together. He loves all things super heroic. He speaks with passion and in a country where almost everyone is comatosed about anything around them, I find it refreshing when someone speaks with some passion.
September 18th, 2006 at 9:18 pm
Damn, small world. It wasn’t my intention to come down on Joe, but the comments became a little inspired. Anyway, that’s all I need to hear. Burrell is one of my boys and anybody he vouches for gets the benifit of the doubt from me.
Heroes airs next Monday, folks. Tune in and we’ll meet back here for discussion.
September 20th, 2006 at 6:03 pm
Hi, Matt.
Thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt. Sincerely appreciated.
The thing that puzzles me is that people calle me ‘knee jerk”, but had they really read the column, they’d see that I investigated and found there were indeed two Black people in HEROES, instead of just taking my friend’s perception as law. I also didn’t call HEROES racist, because that would be RIDICULOUS, since it has, advertised at least, people from three different ethnic groups.
My question, still remaining, is why neither of the Black people were on the print ads?
Now, of course, you COULD say ‘Well, the kid ain’t really gonna make people watch this.”
But the Black woman? Why wouldn’t she be on the ad?
Nonetheless, I watched the first two thirds of the pilot on YahooTV, or somehing like that, before something went wrong with the site. I saw the Tawny Cypress character, and her connection to two other characters.
As Pierluigi Cothran suggested, I’ll see what future episodes reveal as a possible explanation.
And yes, I agree with Jason that the non-present Black male father is stereotypical.
And yes, Ken. Anyone can get a column on the Internet. It’s just unlikely they’ll get paid for it.:)
And props to my friend, burrell, for coming to my defense.
September 20th, 2006 at 6:39 pm
It probably didn’t help that the set-up for Joe’s column, for us here at the Meltblog was “Heroes must be rascist” and “Joe Illidge over at comiXtreme wonders why there‚Äôs no black folks in NBC‚Äôs Heroes.”
So, we’re going in with that perception, which is temporarily backed up by the opening of the column until Joe starts doing some research. If you’ve made it far enough down the column, you realize his friend is mistaken.
ANYway, I find this amusing, because you can see the pilot online and I was watching it at a friend’s computer the other day and a few of the characters in different scenes make comments that could be interpreted as being rascist. Once a pattern of about two or three instances went by, we jokingly decided the show’s writers are clearly rascist and started looking for other examples. It actually became pretty funny, which, at this point… well, doesn’t seem funny at all because none of you were there and now Iook like a fool.
Glad I could share, though!
September 20th, 2006 at 6:42 pm
Oh, and on a more serious note, while I would certainly not disagree with the notion that there is rascism in television, I think the reason that neither of the two black characters were used on promotional posters was probably because neither of them initially have powers, so they’re not seen as part of the core ensemble yet, and therefore don’t qualify for the “something more” statement.
Plus, there is that Japanese guy.
So, it’s more accurate to say that HEROES hates black people.
Just like George Bush, whose hand of white purity must instantly be cleansed once it is sullied by a black person.
But I digress.
September 20th, 2006 at 6:53 pm
Yeah, that headline was just me trying to be cute over morning coffee (brain no workie). It does come off somewhat confrontational. Anyway, I have a legit source that says not to worry — give Heroes a few episodes to build its mythology.
How did you find us Corey? Are you a Meltdown customer?
September 21st, 2006 at 7:31 am
Joe — trust me, there’s a reason why she wasn’t in the poster. And hopefully the stereotypes that people are bringing up will be proven wrong within a few weeks of the show being on the air.
trust me!
September 21st, 2006 at 11:03 am
Miguel tipped me off to the place. I’m a fan of blogs like Heidi MacDonald’s The Beat, so I was excited to hear the west coast comic scene get some time.
Heroes does look kinda cool from the parts of the pilot I saw. Clearly inspired by LOST, but that’s okay.
Pierluigi, do you have some inside connection with the show?
September 21st, 2006 at 11:22 am
Hey Corey — I’m a writers assistant on the show.
welcome to the blog!
September 21st, 2006 at 1:22 pm
Congratulations! I’m kinda frustrated because Monday nights will be tied up for me for the near future, so I probably won’t be able to watch it until the DVDs get released. I hope it does well, though. Like I said, the pilot looked cool.
That mirror bit with the blonde woman was creepy!
September 21st, 2006 at 7:33 pm
Okay, Pierluigi.
Since I’m already hooked on STUDIO 60, I’ll hit NBC a little earlier on Monday nights and give HEROES four episodes (unless I can’t make it that far), so that’s one month.
I’m trusting you, and considering your job, I appreciate your responses.
September 22nd, 2006 at 10:02 am
Joe — I and the rest of the crew over here appreciate anyone giving the show a chance, especially a 4 episode window.
I hope you like it and I think we’ll start a thread on tuesdays to gab about the show if people are so inclined. I’d love to hear your thoughts!
October 3rd, 2006 at 9:01 am
Why are all the “Heroes” photogenic except for the Asian guy who looks like a nerd (reminiscent of the North Korean dictator)? Couldn’t the producers hire someone with image appeal just like all the others?!
October 17th, 2006 at 1:19 pm
Let’s look at this. 1) No black heros. 2) A black female that can only get with white guys (first choice was a drug addict, the blacks make bad choices in romance). 3) One white woman chooses a black man and he’s a criminal.
Whay is it that every time you see a black an whit couple it’s a black woma to a white man and seldom the main point of the show, but if it’s a black man to a white woman it’s a primaty issuse or done for shock value? It it to say that black man can be lloked up to but white men can be?
Additionally, notice tht every commercial that has black people have a dispropotionate number of overweight black people to slim white people?
October 24th, 2006 at 11:37 am
Hmm..
I googled “heroes racist” to see if these keywords would bring up any similar views to what i have after watching this show and now i see i’m not alone. Whether intentional or subconscious, it APPEARS to be a racially skewed show. I love the show and looked forward to it coming on weeks before it aired. It’s the only show I watch and it has replaced my wife’s “reality TV” obsessions and even her Grey’s Anatomy thing.
Anyway, it didn’t occur to me until last night that SO FAR there isn’t one African American hero. Actually, I questioned why the black male characters would be a villain(with no speaking parts) and a criminal that the Caucasian woman blames for her the violence done by her other side LOL… reminiscent of that murder case a while back where the white lady killed her kids or something like that and orignally blamed it on some phantom black guy. Then the black woman is kind of up for grabs sexually.
Now, the absentee criminal black father is coming back with the power to walk through walls… will he become a hero or a villain? I don’t know. I do know that his power sucks. Shadowcat was never my favorite X-man. And the mute black memory sapper isn’t too exciting either.
There are no latinos, right? Or maybe the black lady is. Actually, either of the black men could come from a latin country and thereby be Latino, right? Right. So, who knows.
The Hindu dude…no powers.
The Japanese guy…my wife’s favorite… has an awesome power, but as stated above, he doesn’t quite fit the classic hero phenotype…strong square jaw, tall, muscular. He’s also a little funny guy. He and his partner are like the star wars droids.
No aborigines…lol
I guess you could go on for days on who’s not represented. It’s a shame that it has to matter or that you have to have perfect racially symmetry to tell a story without protests, but the fact remains that there has been a lot of racial inequality, sterotyping, and such that leave people with unfair, inaccurate impressions of others and themselves based on race. This all began with malicious intent and now it’s part of the program running beneath our conscious thinking. So, who knows if the writers meant to write the story that way. Maybe things will even up as the story goes on. But as it looks right now with my SUPER RACE RAY VISION SPECS on, it’s looking bad.
But… the show is entertaining =D. Did you see the way the dominant white alpha male muscular handsome squarejawed charismatic self-assured lady-killing politician escaped the bad guys? He just shot off into the sky…**POP**…did a right angle turn in mid air and landed at a cafeteria in the desert… He’s the greatest…He could be president.
October 24th, 2006 at 12:51 pm
[…] Apparently when you type “Heroes” and “Racist” into Google our good ‘ol Meltblog shows up. It is, or course, because of this post. So even though it’s buried in the archives folks are still posting in the comments section. […]
October 24th, 2006 at 2:05 pm
Yeah, but dominant white alpha male muscular handsome squarejawed charismatic self-assured lady-killing politician also seems pretty damn likely to turn to the dark side before the season is over. It is a little hard to know what is up with DL yet, although I’ll admit the setup isn’t looking too good.
Although when you look at the larger picture, the only guy that comes close to fitting the “white square-jawed hero type” without looking like he might become one of the bad guys is Peter. Sure, the cop is white, but he’s all fat. The Artist is Latino. The politician is a scumbag, and potentially an evil scumbag.
November 3rd, 2006 at 8:32 pm
I noticed the racist subtext of Heroes in the very first episode. It is a common dynamic of American movies and television–Firefly for instance–where all of the black male characters are either villains or marginalized as comatose or celibate clerics and so forth. In recent years, these types of show have included “non threatening” black female characters, but only if they are marginalized from other black people, having no black friends, family and certainly not a black significant other. Usually these black women serve as and exoticized “chocolate fantasy” for one or, frequently, more white male characters. Examples: Xmen, Firefly, Heroes etc… The converse situation is almost never depicted in American mass market media. Again, in heroes, there is a white female character with a biracial child. However, she has no relationship with his father and can’t go 20 minutes without some sort of exposition to virtually everyone that she encounters as to what a bad guy he is.