It’s unclear whether this is just me or this is obvious to everyone. Have you noticed that television commercials tend to show an inordinate number of mixed race or gay couples? Granted, historically they only showed Ozzie and Harriet-type families, and clearly there were other families out there who were never seen. But the pendulum has swung disproportionately far the other way.
The purpose, as I understand it, is to normalize the existence of various families and lifestyles beyond the norm, which, as far as I’m concerned, is a perfectly worthy purpose. But then, the majority of families aren’t mixed race or gay, and so this effort at normalization feels forced, wrong. Even TV commercials are now preaching at me. I realize it’s just marketing, whether to sell to the woke or, at least, not to evoke the wrath of the woke for their failure to pander to social justice, but can they force you to care by pushing it at you?
There is a show on Netflix called “One Day at a Time.” I’ve never seen it, which is no big deal as the list of shows I’ve never seen is very long, indeed. But apparently, I’m not alone, so the show is being canceled. That gave rise to an op-ed in the New York Times
In Netflix’s Cuban-American family sitcom, “One Day at a Time,” Rita Moreno’s punchy one-liners are a complete delight. Justina Machado, who stars as single mom Penelope Alvarez, triggers a sobfest every time she delivers an utterly vulnerable monologue. The series tackles issues from homophobia to colorism with sensitivity and insight, and offers Latinos — members of a woefully underserved demographic — the chance to see ourselves, warts and all, while still reliably delivering laughs and earning rave reviews.
The first sentence makes me want to watch it, even beyond my love of Rita Moreno. But the second sentence?
Aside from being a joy to watch, it is a rare example of a television show about the United States-born children and grandchildren of Latin American immigrants. That’s why its cancellation is more than just the loss of a critical darling — it’s an egregious erasure of Latinos at a time when anti-Latino rhetoric floods our political discourse, and it’s a reminder of Netflix’s tepid support for our stories, just when we need them the most.
I guess cancellation of a show is about as close to “erasure” as empty jargon gets, even though it erases only the show, not the people, because they’re physical beings who exist regardless of whether there were enough people watching this show to keep it on the air.
Despite being the largest ethnic minority in the United States and making up nearly 18 percent of the population, Latino roles in digital scripted series constitute a measly 7.2 percent, a figure that’s even lower for broadcast and cable.
The thing about being the largest ethnic minority at “nearly 18 percent” is that it’s still just 18%, meaning that 82% of the potential television viewing audience isn’t Latino. On the one hand, this isn’t a reason to ignore Latinos, to exclude Latino roles from a “digital scripted series.” But it’s not a reason to include them either.
Many years ago, there was a show called “West Side Story,” which included a much younger Rita Moreno. It was, perhaps, one of the best movies ever. And there it was, filled with roles for Latinos and culminating in a message of peace and brotherhood. Damn, it was good. And people loved it. It won a ton of awards, including the Oscar for Best Picture in 1961.
In the mid-1970s, there was a sitcom called “Chico and the Man,” starring an old white man, Jack Albertson, and a young Latino comedian, Freddie Prinze. And people loved it, until the 22-year-old Prinze took his life during the third season of the show. They tried to keep the show running for another season, but without Prinze, it couldn’t maintain its panache and it was canceled.
It’s a loss for Latino audiences that is even more profound than the industry’s diversity numbers reveal. “One Day at a Time” is a show about the lives of Latinos in the United States, with a Cuban-American woman at the helm, at a time when these things are all too rare.
Having never watched “One Day at a Time,” I am fully prepared to accept the premise that it’s a great show. But if so, then it would have tons of eyeballs watching it, because why wouldn’t people watch a great show? But what no one can demand is that people watch a show because diversity demands it. It’s not that Latinos are unworthy of being on television. They clearly are, although neither more nor less worthy than any other ethnic group. But merely putting on a show with Latinos isn’t a reason to watch.
With a slew of upcoming series and movies directed by and featuring African-American, Asian and L.G.B.T.Q. talent, Netflix has received credit from many critics for championing diverse content. An assessment of the number of stories by and about Latinos in the United States paints a very different picture. Netflix has firmly turned its back on us.
The critics may well praise Netflix for their commitment to diversity in programming, but whether any series or movie is a success has to do with whether enough people want to watch. They can meet the demands of social justice all day long, even if it ends up being disproportionate to the relative percentage of the population fitting racial, ethnic or sexual orientation. After all, we white folks had more than our share of air time with the Donna Reed, Patty Duke and the Flying Nun.
But no matter how much diversity ends up on air, whether Netflix or elsewhere, you can’t make people watch it if they don’t want to. Don’t blame Netflix for erasing Latinos. Nobody can erase Latinos. They just canceled a show that didn’t gain the eyeballs. On the other hand, if this op-ed was about what a great show it was, rather than how it “tackles issues from homophobia to colorism with sensitivity and insight,” I might have been persuaded to tune in. I still might, because Rita Moreno is the best.
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Right, it was cancelled because it didn’t gain viewership. Know who was least likely to watch? “United States-born children and grandchildren of Latin American immigrants.” I have vast knowledge on the subject: I’m married to one of them. She don’t like me, but she loves Spanish-language programming. That just makes sense because it’s realer. She wouldn’t watch some anglo, feel-good-about-making-stuff-up version any more than she’d have appetizers ready when I get home.
But I do miss the bumblebee guy.
Has she no ethnic guilt for failing to watch a show that demographically demands her attention? Oh wait, she’s allowed to watch whatever she wants too. Never mind. Sorry about the lack of appetizers.
A Cuban-American family sitcom?
It’s been done.
Luuuuuuuuuuuccccccccccyyyyyyyyyy, you got some ‘splaining to do. But I posted the babalu video yesterday, so I shan’t do it again.
Leave us not forget ¿Qué Pasa, USA?, a sitcom of a Cuban-American family with a mixture of English and Spanish dialogue. It was pretty good, as I recall.
Feelz don’t pay the bills.
The show is ‘meh.’ But Rita Moreno is, well, Rita Moreno!
I’ve noticed more mixed race couples, but not gay couples.
If it sells the product, why not? After all, this is America –
Does it sell more products? Beats me. My personal purchasing decisions are rarely contingent on the actors in a commercial, but that’s just me.
Cheech and Ching were the best. They got plenty of eyeballs, not because they were trying to improve our sensitivities but because they were utterly hilarious. End of story.
And then they went up in smoke.
Forgot to mention: There you go bashing the Times again! Don’t you ever get tired? The Times, on the other hand, will never go up in smoke. Enough already!
Fast Forward: Preet Bahrara now being interviewed by Joshua Johnson on The1A show @ wamu.org. You know who he is. He has a book out now, Doing Justice. This is important. How will the Times review this book? We look forward you your take?!?
Don’t Billy Bully Me!
i see all the integrated and same-sex couples in the tv ads and i think they’re trying too hard – and i’m a liberal with the cancelled checks to prove it, as lenny bruce would say [for the youngsters, he was implying that he was not just ‘saying’ he supported progressive causes, he had actually made monetary donations – he put his money where his mouth was]
by the way, richard ‘cheech’ marin’s partner’s name was tommy chong
yes, i’m an old guy, with the arthritis to prove it
Trying too hard is how I take it as well, and that it feels forced makes it ineffective at normalization. Forced isn’t normal. Sorry about your arthritis. Despite my dotage, my joints are fully functional.
Cheech and Chong, but of course. How could I mess that up? It was my “smart phone”, dumdum, which never heard of them, seriously.
Diversity on TV: They did it right when I was a kid.
The fellow who played Juan Epstein was a guy named Bobby Hegyes, with whom I went to high school. He was neither Jewish nor Hispanic, but a very talented fellow nonetheless.
and, through his italian-american mother, he was a cousin of jon bon jovi and mario lanza – it says at wikipedia – although the editors have asked for a citation
Jon Bon Jovi, who was then known as John Bongiovi, lived around the corner from me on Spear Street.
He is also reported to be related to every single person from central New Jersey who’s last name ends in a vowel.
For all I know, that may be as well.
While I share in the respect for Rita Moreno’s acting abilities, the title of the linked op-ed has me wondering if this is genuine or manufactured outrage.
In the last nine months, Netflix canceled shows featuring a blind criminal defense attorney, a bisexual female private detective, a street enforcer in Harlem with an almost entirely African-American cast, and a military veteran suffering from PTSD.
Yet no op-eds appeared in the Times with “Netflix Is Turning Its Back On (insert marginalized group here).”
You clearly watch more Netflix than I do.
It truly is a Marvel…
I can’t speak to tv ads because I haven’t had cable for several years, but I noticed a lot of internet ads like this. One bank in particular stuck out because there have been enough ads by them portraying same sex and interacial couples that I can’t remember any other kind. So I googled searched images for this bank’s ads and what came up was:
An elderly lesbian couple
A middle aged gay couple
A young interracial gay couple with a baby girl.
An elderly interacial gay couple.
A young lesbian couple.
But I don’t take this as the bank trying too hard. I noticed something different in these ads and it made me think about it. And I’m not the only one. The advertisers can tell that people are noticing these ads, so to them the ads are working. That’s why they keep putting them up.
Did anyone consider the possibility that Latinos weren’t watching a Latino targeted show on Netflix because they were busy watching Univision?
The existence of Univision and BET shows a demand for Latino and Black TV programming exists and it is being met by specialists outside of mainstream broadcasting. While the wokescolds may complain this is ghettoization, it’s giving the people what they want
When I was a kid, they used to show Lucha Libre on channel 13. And occasional bullfighting. Other than that, there wasn’t much to watch on a Sunday morning for a little boy.
This was a reboot of an older sitcom that wasn’t all that great. I didn’t even realize it was a reboot until it had been canceled. I just assumed TV quality had sunk to the point that some idiot was actually re-rerunning the old episodes (the only way to make a poor series even more of a snore than it was at the outset). Maybe everybody thought that and intentionally never watched it for that reason. Maybe some people realized it was one of those snappy, wokey-freshed efforts to revive a snore by changing up the ethnicity and gender identities of the main characters (and intentionally never watched it for that reason).
In any event, it was clearly no great loss. Had it been any good as TV entertainment, word would have gone around and it would have had an audience. This seems not to have happened. But you never know. The original Star Trek bombed too.
Next thing you know, they’ll make Capt. Marvel a woman and demand everyone love it or be a misogynyst. I can’t believe I just wrote this. Never mind.
Don’t forget the new Wonder(if she’s a)Woman.
Or it could just be as the song says.
https://youtu.be/YAlDbP4tdqc
Although I’ve never walked down a street in the USA, watching TV has taught me that Blacks make up a lot more than 18% of the population if the programmers have anything like real life ratios.
Oh, what, they don’t….
Pay attention. Latinos are 18% of the population. Blacks are 13%. Gays are now estimated to be at 4.5% (5.1% are women, 3.9% are men), up from their previous 3%. Transgender people are now estimated at 0.6%, up from their previous 0.3%.
The shoehorning of “diverse” couples into a story doesn’t just just happen in commercials and shows. Every book I read anymore goes out of its way to point out that it has character X in it who is [whatever group is getting the most current attention]. It almost never has anything to do with the plot; it’s just the writer’s way of saying “Look at me! I’m enlightened!” A series I read recently had so many homosexual married couples in it that I’m pretty sure the human race is doomed thru lack of propagation.
BTW: When did this change from being a bad to a good? I may be getting old, but I remember when tokenism was considered insulting.
We’re both getting old.