The very definition of 1 Picture = 1000 Words

[trinityvixen]

It looks like I was right. I blogged about this before, but this really slam dunks the case I was trying to make in a much, much shorter format.

I'd also like to point out the disproportionate loss of women of color from that map. Every season, you lose at least one female character, usually the non-white female character. They tried to compensate, it seems, by putting in two new female characters in, but one of them always leaves and the others are now all white.

The issue of women on this show is a sore one for me. Every season has, in a list of 11-13 central characters, only 4 female characters AT MOST. Of those four, only two have been around since season one, if you fudge the matter and count Ali Larter as being continuous even though her characters have not been. That's a serious imbalance before you begin to consider how marginalized the women in this list are. The three remaining in the fourth season play the very definite roles of maiden, mother, crone, too. Which helps immensely, let me tell you.

Someone remind me why I watch this again?

Comments

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Someone remind me why I watch this again?
You like pain?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I wish I was that deep. I think I just like the pretty.

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

I suspect the audience has shown a similar shift, though I stopped watching because it simply sucked.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

A lot of sci-fi has this problem of alienating fans of color by white-washing the cast of characters. One of the things that was interesting about Heroes at the start was how foreign and similar a lot of the characters were. They weren't better/worse, they were just different.

Of course, the predominant whiteness of TV writers was going to foul that up some time. (Heroes is an especially bad case, since one of the writers was recently quoted as saying that he--a white, male writer, is discriminated against for being white/male.) It's just disappointing in the extreme to see how bad it got.

[geniusofevil.livejournal.com]

Just like Scrubs

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I don't watch Scrubs, but I'm sure you're right. It's not like Heroes is the worst of it. They're just a big popular show that went that way and is now getting noticed for it.

[geniusofevil.livejournal.com]

And so they should.

I havn't watched scrubs in years, but I noticed their promos last night and all the new characters are white

[saikogrrl.livejournal.com]

Really? I'll admit there aren't many main non-white characters, but I don't think there were more in the beginning who got bleached out like in Heroes?

[geniusofevil.livejournal.com]

that's true.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

But keep this in mind:

It's not really any better to say a show "didn't have that many characters of color to begin with" than to say it got rid of them at an alarming rate.

[bigscary.livejournal.com]

Note that Mohinder drives a taxi then goes crazy and woman-abducty; The Eraser is a BIG SCARY BLACK MAN; wassername from S2's power is literally monkey-see-monkey-do; and that I stopped watching around then because it was terribly stupid.

Also, the white people are the whitest possible white people (include here: whiteness constructed from 16C-19C in USA) they could have cast -- with the exception of Peter, the Petrellis are pretty WASPy for, y'know, Petrellis.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Word, yo.

[saturn-shumba.livejournal.com]

I admire you sticking to Heroes, actually. Your insights are needed--everyone needs to know why that show is bad, as the badness of the show is much deeper than "Wow, that sucks." For example, that chart. And the women. And the fact that Claire's whole existence is defined by how men protect/attack her.

Although...Adrian Pasdar is actually half white/half Iranian. I don't know if that really matters, but as someone who is also biracial (my Mom is Filipino), I think it's important to point out. Although ironically, Pasdar is also getting killed off.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

everyone needs to know why that show is bad, as the badness of the show is much deeper than "Wow, that sucks."

I think this is right. It's one thing to dislike a thing that's poorly made in any way or that's not to your taste. It's another to just dismiss it when it's putting into prime time this "people of color go first" and "women suck" message into the ether.

I note, too, that women don't kill on this show. Claire's ability is to be killed. Jessica killed some, but always offscreen. It might just as well have been the Boogey Man. Tracey, Elle, too. Maya killed people, but only because she was a silly woman who couldn't keep her ability under control! Men butcher each other every other episode. Women? Nope, too gentle (or subtle) to do it overtly. Their powers, too, are typically defensive, or, if not, are used defensively. It's all about women being under assault. ALL THE TIME. Not cool.

Although...Adrian Pasdar is actually half white/half Iranian. I don't know if that really matters, but as someone who is also biracial (my Mom is Filipino), I think it's important to point out. Although ironically, Pasdar is also getting killed off.

This is an important point, and thanks for bringing it up. Obviously, Pasdar is playing white in this. Technically, he's playing Italian-American, which, in America, reads as white even though it's not Anglo-Saxon. But since the show never handled that as if it were distinctive from the lily-white Bennets or Matt Parkman, it's hard to bring in Pasdar's lineage when discussing this.

I would also add that while it's easy to kill him off (and should have been done and over with ages ago), the only other characters currently as useless as Nathan are persons of color: Hiro (and, if Hiro were to go, Ando) and Mohinder. What that indicates about Heroes is that they not only easily knock off men and women of color, they assign the lamest plot lines to the characters of color that stick around. It's as roundly insulting as Claire's story line ever has been.

[saturn-shumba.livejournal.com]

they assign the lamest plot lines to the characters of color that stick around

Ugh, that is so true. Hiro is especially depressing to me. Yes, his plotline has always been the lighthearted one of the group, but in Season One, he still had a goal and he still accomplished it (awesomely, I might add). But in later seasons they've seem to have forgotten that Hiro can (and was) more than the comic relief hero. In a way, I think that his tumor (or whatever it is, I don't follow the show too closely) was an attempt to make his storyline more serious...and it's failing.

my power is apathy...and I've never killed anyone

[hslayer.livejournal.com]

Okay, I wasn't going to chime in when all I had to say was, "Who cares?" but this is a point I always have to wonder about. The "murder is good" point. I've heard feminists make it and I've heard feminists refute it. Personally, it's not a point I understand. Yes, I understand that the ability (and willingness?) to kill has a relation to power, but it is the 21st century here, not the 11th. It could just as easily be argued that they're depicting men as violent homicidal monsters who'll kill with the slightest provocation, which is also not cool. I'm not making that argument, because I think it would be absurd given the context, but the logic (and perhaps the absurdity, but that's clearly more subjective) is exactly analogous to that of your argument.

I'll also note that although Italian-American equals white in America to you, it has been noted by Italian-American groups that they are almost exclusively portrayed in media as either mafiosi or cops (Heroes, actually, being an exception, so yay for cultural awareness there).

I guess my main point is that you can find (or manufacture) stereotyping anywhere if you look hard enough. I mean, the highest-rated show in America, the loathsome Dancing With the Stars, was whiter than Heroes last season (count them yourself on abc.com if you want, but for the sake of your sanity mute your PC before going there). Does that mean something ominous or is it just a thing that happened? I tend to think it falls into the latter category, as does nearly every event in the history of the world. When the pile of things you've dropped into category one grows overlarge, you're a conspiracy theorist.

Re: my power is apathy...and I've never killed anyone

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I'm not making that argument, because I think it would be absurd given the context, but the logic (and perhaps the absurdity, but that's clearly more subjective) is exactly analogous to that of your argument.

It's a fair point--men are consequently portrayed as being more violent than women when they're the only ones allowed to exert violent power. However, in Heroes case, several men can be violent without rendering them monsters. The point I was making was just that we give men the benefit of the doubt--we can make up our own minds whether or not what they did was justified. We just don't get that chance with the female characters since a) there are hardly any that ever even defend themselves, to say nothing of attacking anyone and b) all the women who have killed are immediately villainesses forever.

I'll also note that although Italian-American equals white in America to you, it has been noted by Italian-American groups that they are almost exclusively portrayed in media as either mafiosi or cops (Heroes, actually, being an exception, so yay for cultural awareness there).

Another good point. I agree that stereotypically, this is true. I guess in terms of non-mafioso Italian-American families on TV, they tend to read as white. And this is all a spectrum, obviously. Some people are more "of color" than others. It's just funny that they play the Petrellis as white (and they do--there are no mafia jokes about them, for all that they seem to run things that way at time) and yet Adrian Pasdar is half Iranian...

As for popularity contests, I can't figure out what point you're making with Dancing with the Stars. Is it sexist and retrograde in some way that should alarm me? Is it just stupid?

Re: my power is apathy...and I'%#$6764363#%$%*)$%*

[hslayer.livejournal.com]

Bringing up DWTS (which I chose only because it is, sadly, the highest-rated at the moment) was more in response to the assertion you made in reply to ecmyers that this whitewashing (or whatever you choose to call it) alienates potential viewers. Clearly other things (though again in the case of DWTS, I couldn't begin to fathom what things) are more important to most viewers.