TV Tokenism: Body of Proof

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The series stars Dana Delany as Dr. Megan Hunt (the woman in the center), a medical examiner. The show focuses on Hunt's efforts to balance the demands of her professional life (working as a medical examiner) with her personal life (reconnecting with her estranged daughter). Hunt was a top-flight neurosurgeon until she was in a car crash that later led to ruined her career. This resulted in her resignation, and retirement from the profession altogether.

It premiered in September of 2011 and has gotten good reviews. The target demographic

seems women 30-50 (according to the ages of the people commenting on the show's forum).

We see tokenism coming into play with the two black characters who play generally one- or two-dimensional characters. Dr. Brumfeld accounts for the "authority minority" over Hunt, following the 'rule book'. However, he is constantly being sassed by her and undermined as she takes her own initiatives. He is deferred to subplots and witty comments. Detective Baker portrays another token character, the respectable assistant or 'side kick', facing a moral dilemma between which authority (Hunt or Morris) she prefers to work under. She is also delegated to subplots.

Hunt, on the other hand, along with Dunlop and Morris, are morally complex characters that get hefty screen time in comparison to their minority counterparts

Characters:

• Peter Dunlop is the man to Hunt's right, a former police officer and now medico-legal investigator because of a gunshot wound. As partner and confidant to Dr. Megan Hunt, Peter now finds himself investigating Philadelphia's mysterious medical cases.

• Dr. Kate Murphy is the woman to Hunt's left. She is the imperious Chief Medical Examiner and Megan's superior. She is the first female Chief M.E. in Philadelphia's history.

• Detective Bud Morris is the man on the far right and is a homicide detective. A hardheaded, straight-shooting veteran of the Philadelphia Homicide Division, he fights for justice on the streets of Philly while fighting a personal battle at home, mending a crumbling relationship with his wife who just kicked him out of their Center City brownstone. He often clashes with Megan at crime scenes over their different views.

• Dr. Curtis Brumfeld, the first man to Hunt's left, is the administrative glue that holds the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office together. As the Deputy Chief Medical Examiner he is technically Megan's boss but realizes no one is Megan's boss. Still Curtis is a capable and intelligent Medical Examiner whose bluster belies his love for his job. When Curtis isn't busy trying to rein in Megan, you can find him down in the dirt examining his life's obsession: Bugs

• Detective Samantha Baker, the woman to Hunt's right, is Bud's partner but while Bud finds Dr. Megan Hunt's methods irritating, Sam identifies with Megan's hands-on, take-no-prisoners approach. Sam must balance her allegiance to her partner Bud with her growing respect for Megan and the unconventional work of the M.E.O.

*This is an assignment by my American Studies class to analyze a TV network drama and the role of "TV Tokenism" (under a specific definition by our teacher) in the show. 

Reverse Tokenism

I'm a big Tyler Perry fan, despite not fitting into his typical demographic. Nonetheless, I love both this comedic and dramatic movies. I recently went to his newest movie, "Good Deeds", a drama about a highly successful black CEO, Wesley Deeds, who finds himself living the dreams of his family rather than his own. He gets wrapped into the saga of a single mom who recently got evicted for failing to pay rent and restores both her life and his own in the process.

In class, we recently discussed "TV Tokenism", which is defined as (within the context of a network prime-time drama) when the main character is white or white-looking, the center of the story line, morally complex, and receives most of the screen time. The supporting role is a "token" minority, maybe in a prestigious and/or "buddy" position, rarely complicated and with little screen time.

With that definition in mind, I found it hilarious that in a movie dominated by black characters, there were two white friends of Mr. Deed's fiancé and one white executive character that worked alongside Mr. Deeds.

We talk about how networks feel the need to have token black characters to satisfy the "diversity quota" but if the ratio of whites to blacks is so easily flip flopped with films like those of Tyler Perry, who's to say what really constitutes diversity? Can it be measured and calculated to appeal to all types of audiences or should some types of entertainment stay within a certain demographic?

When No One Cares

There is a surprising phenomenon popping up on Facebook after most of the "RIP" statuses regarding Whitney Houston's recent demise have fallen to the wayside. It is pictures that compare the magnitude of attention to Whitney's death to the attention paid to other tragedies happening at perhaps a larger scale.


The comparison is appropriate. Whitney was an extremely wealthy celebrity who squandered her money away on drugs, wasting both her talent and life, which led to her unexpected death. The other people pictured, like the starving children in Africa or people like Lt Michael Murphy, would give anything to keep on living.

However controversial the pictures might be, they're asking the right questions. Why, as a society, do we seem to care more about celebrities and the culture of entertainment than we do to more serious world issues like war and hunger? 


On the homepage of CNN as I am writing this blog, an article about Whitney is featured, titled: "Celebrating Whitney Houston". Just below it, in much smaller font, is the heading "Slaughter in Syria". In terms of which issue is more pressing to world issues, I would think that the Syria story should be more featured. But, the thing is, people don't like to be bombarded with the serious issues.

In 2010, CNN published an article in response to one of Paris Hilton's drug arrests, wondering why, in light of current issues like climate change and war, people were so eager to focus on the most recent celebrity mishap.

Among other things the article discusses, they interview Danny Bonaduce, a former child star, who comments on our appetite for celebrity news: "It's just way more fun than facing what is actually happening out there...The news is bad. Who wants to know that when we can watch Lindsay Lohan drown in a sea of Vicodin?"

How can we expect to combat the problems of today if so many of us are collectively caught up in the trivial and shallow issues of our celebrity culture?

It's Halftime in America

Half the fun of watching the Super Bowl is for the commercials. Companies spend millions of dollars on 30 seconds of airtime to cash in on the huge percentage of Americans glued to their television screens. Commercials can be witty, weird or just plain dull but one that caught my attention was Chrysler's half time spot. It only aired once, before the half time show, when most people are watching.

The commercial featured the gravelly voice of Clint Eastwood, first describing the two football teams discussing their plays for the next half of the game. He then goes on to talk about how America is in a similar situation: we've survived the financial crisis of 2008 and are now getting ready to build for a better "second half".

It reminded me of Obama's recent State of the Union speech. Obama spoke about our hardships as a country, the problems we face now, but most of the the speech was focused on potential plans for a better future. Encouraging businesses to bring back jobs to the the U.S. and stop outsourcing was a major plot point. There was immense patriotism and empowerment in his speech as he repeated that, if given the chance, America would always win.

Chrysler's commercial mirrored the optimism of Obama's patriotic speech, focusing specifically on the city of Detroit and how the auto industry is coming back after years of hardship.

Clint says of Americans, "we find a way through tough times and if we can't find a way, we make one". This patriotic sentiment is one of those 'core American values' that we've built our country on, that even after war and economic disaster, we have always been able to come back fighting. Without being politically bias, this hits home with every American that watched the Super Bowl.

The last image of the commercial were the words, "Imported From Detroit" which immediately harkens back to Obama's encouragement to bring business back to the U.S. When most of our goods are manufactured elsewhere, there's pride in anything that's made on our own soil by our own people. Chrysler targeted that patriotic pride and strategically named itself the "Made in America" car company through this commercial.

What other commercials did you see that targeted patriotic sentiments? What other strategies did the ads use?