Tokenism

This week in American studies our class focused on the issue of television tokenism. TV tokenism may be defined as the use of minority actors for supporting character roles which receive little screen time and are often relegated to sub plots. Usually these minority characters are inserted into the show to satisfy network demands for cast diversity. The main character is almost always caucasian. Cast photos from network dramas exemplify this phenomenon.

This photo is of the cast from the TV show "House", a

mature network drama following the story of a genius yet arrogant doctor whose unorthodox

ways of thinking allow him to solve challenging medical mysteries in the hospital. Among the

members of his team is a black doctor, Dr. Foreman, who worked his way up from poor origins.

Foreman's parents are strongly christian, and he is portrayed throughout the series as a resilient

and tough character. Foreman's character is depicted with the common stereotypes held of

African Americans. The cast needed diversity, and "House" fulfilled the requirement. The

leading character, House, is of course caucasian.

While House is only one example of TV tokenism, the phenomenon is common in other shows

and occasionally movies as well. However, shows are businesses. They sell us what we

consume.If television tokenism is common it is only because we as an audience demand it.

Shows are required to feature diverse casts so their audeinces do not jump to conclusions of

racism if the cast is lacks minority characters. Leading role characters are commonly caucasian

because we as an audience relate more easily to such characters and demand that this be the

case. If it were otherwise, shows would assign leading parts to minority actors. If television

tokenism is to be addressed and changed, our own attitudes must change. Businesses

strive to satisfy the customer, and if customer demands change, then so will the business.