April 27, 2012

The "Girls" Whiteness Crisis Mounts

From today's New York Times:
Whiteness is too often invisible on television, so much the norm that it no longer begs evaluation, and for whatever advances “Girls” makes in expanding the range of women on television, and the sorts of conversations they’re permitted to have, it certainly lacks for other forms of diversity. All the central figures — four young women scavenging New York for bits of love — are white.

41 comments:

Anonymous said...

What year did the Times jump the shark? Anybody know?

Anonymous said...

I have a feeling this entire outrage was initiated by a handful of people upset they didn't get a job related to the show.

Dr Cattle said...

"All the central figures — four young women scavenging New York for bits of love — are white."


Mike Wallace would disagree with that.

Matthew said...

"All the central figures — four young women scavenging New York for bits of love — are white."

How many of these young women are conservative?

How many of them are devout Christians?

How many of them are Southerners?

How many are from Montana? Or Wyoming? Or North Dakota?

How many have ever even been to North Dakota, or considered visiting there?

How representative are they of the white population in general?

And why, for fuck's sake, does the show take place in New York? Why not Muncie? Why not Montgomery? Why not Salt Lake City?

Looking at the 5 main characters, it appears that at least one was raised in NYC, one is British, and at least three are probably Jewish. Has the Times objected to the fact that 60% of the main characters of this show are Jewish?

Another fucking show with a bunch of liberals that takes place in New York City? Forgive me for not giving a shit when the media engages in its highly selective obsession with diversity. I've seen pictures of Obama's (highly nondiverse) war room during the Bin Laden assassination. I've attended four Bar/Bat Mitzvahs as child or adult, where there was not a single fracking racial minority (excluding the servers, of course).

Also, I grow tired of them stereotyping the white population. The white population of this country is incredibly diverse. Pick a random white and you can't make many assumptions about where he grew up, the kind of music he listens to, his profession (or that of his parents), or his level of education, religion, or political inclination. Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians are far more predictable in those matters.

Anonymous said...

So scots-irish diversity is not enough for these bigots? It should be quite obvious by now that their zeal about color of skin can only be explained as latent color-o-discriminality.
Hopefully the Derb incident will help some of them to come out of the closet.

Anonymous said...

Has it ever occurred to these people that expanding the range of preferred minorities is not really the point of telling stories?

DYork said...

Is this all some kind of weird publicity stunt for this nothing of a TV show and the Newspaper of Record?

The NYTimes hate-hypes (my patent) the show and then parasitically gets attention from it's viewers by hate-hyping it.

All publicity is good publicity, right?

Even Salman Rushdie made a fortune off that crummy book that would have sold 3000 copies without Khomeini's hate-hype.

I realize the NYTimes is essentially a racist paper that demonizes White folks at every opportunity so that's part of their motive. But they also seem to want to get the attention of a younger upscale female demographic that might be ignoring them.

"Hey, over here young ladies. It's the Gray Lady, don't ignore me!!"

Anonymous said...

The critics attack the lack of diversity in the show because it is so much easier to bear than the cold truth that liberal, white women have no desire to deal with minorities in real life.

Anonymous said...

Since when does the media actually portray things accurately?

Jerry Bruckheimer says CSI: Crime Scene Investigation's stories are "ripped from the headlines". Except all the ethnicities get changed:

Episode Title: 'Anatomy of a Lye', Episode Number: 44, Original Airdate: May 2, 2002:

While driving drunk, a white man hits a black man. The black man became lodged in the windshield but was still alive whereupon the white man parked his car in an abandoned warehouse and left his victim to die a slow and agonizing death. The white man then reported that his car has been stolen.

Written by Josh Berman, Andrew Lipsitz; directed by Kenneth Fink

The REAL story Bruckheimer, Berman and Lipsitz "ripped" occurred on October 26, 2001:

While driving drunk and on drugs, a black woman hits a white man. The white man became lodged in the windshield but was still alive whereupon the black woman parks her car in her garage as the white man slowly expires over the course of the next day. She and some friends dispose of the body.

Episode Title: 'Let The Seller Beware', Episode Number: 49, Original Airdate: October 10, 2002:

White suburban cheerleader is eviscerated and cannibalized on a soccer field. The perpetrator is discovered to be another white cheerleader, jealous of a boy with whom she had smoked PCP.

Written by Andrew Lipsitz & Anthony E. Zuiker; directed by Richard J. Lewis

The REAL story Brukheimer, Lipsitz and Zuiker "ripped" occurred on April 10, 2002, 25:

A black woman is eviscerated and cannibalized. The perpetrator is discovered to be a black man who had smoked PCP with the woman's boyfriend, another black man.

Episode Title: 'I Like To Watch', Episode Number: 617, Original Airdate: March 09, 2006:

A Scotch Irish American named McQueen dresses up as a firefighter to gain entry to an apartment where he rapes 3 girls: One Asian, one black and one white.

Written by Anthony Zuiker, Richard Catalani and Henry Alonso Myers; directed by Kenneth Fink

The REAL story Bruckheimer, Zuiker, Catalani and Myers "ripped" occurred on October 31, 2005:

A Jewish American named Braunstein dresses up as a firefighter to gain entry to an apartment where he chloroforms and rapes a white girl.

teqzilla said...

HBO could have largely avoided this 'scandal' if they hadnt made the lead character a writer. It must feel like such a betrayal to the blog scribblers to see HBO make a show like this. HBO is supposed to be on their side and here they are, after the Salons and the Slates had dutifully overrated a whole slew of crap shows, slapping them in the face not only by inadvertently offering a pretty realistic portrait of race, but a pretty realistic portrait of race as it relates to their own profession.

If you are going to imply 90% white Salon is 90% white you should expect some blowback. You cant call a white liberal white and expect to get away with it. I mean, it's not their fault they're white. They didn't choose it. Just like people don't choose to be born with epilepsy. If it was up to white liberals they'd all be black lesbians so you just shut up about it, cracker.

38 strategems to win an argument said...

Would there have been this much noise about it, before, say, 5 years ago? Are we headed for increasing demand for 'evenness of representation' everywhere? Cuz that would be tedious. Though I'd think it would have limits, as there are lots of places where there's natural overrepresentation of one sort or another.

Semi-employed White Guy said...

The Grey Lady is a used up whore. So she's gotta put on some really garish make-up to get any attention.

rob said...

Whiskey must have gone to ground on these "Girls" posts. Here are white women, the ultimate villains in his tales of anti_shiskaism, and they are totes against it. Shocking

Aaron in Israel said...

The real philosophical conundrum underlying all of this is posed in the penultimate paragraph of the NYT article: "What’s a worse fate: clumsy token diversity or honest whiteness?" This is a question that could keep NYT "young-creative" symposiums busy for years.

Propeller Island said...

This show needs a black female computer hacker. Or perhaps a judge or a nuclear scientist.

Pat Boyle said...

Jon Stewart - the most trusted name in liberal political commentary - used to be a stand up comedian. At that time his act revolved around Judaism in much the way that Eddie Murphy's revolved around race.

Stewart's monologs were of the form - Jews do such and such whereas White people do otherwise. His whole career was based on the notion that Jews weren't white.

So if as someone says that most of the girls on this show are Jewish then there is no whiteness issue here at all. Right?

Albertosaurus

Anonymous said...

"Jerry Bruckheimer says CSI: Crime Scene Investigation's stories are "ripped from the headlines". Except all the ethnicities get changed:"

I feel very comfortable saying Bruckheimer is Intellectually Dishonest. Has the New Yorker called him on it?

Anonymous said...

Matthew,
Your fucking post is fucking right on!

Awash in verisimilitude.

You have a subtle, but profane, mind.

Georgia Resident said...

"Whiteness is too often invisible on television"

Except for the token black characters, who are all inexplicably more intelligent, responsible, and civic-minded than the white characters.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

None of them are iguanas, either, or beetles. Those are underrepresented.

Seriously - the majority population is the default "most representative" in all of our minds in every place and time. 97 peasants with ten fingers, three with nine because of bizarre hoeing accidents - which will be the default? A few white players were on all-black barnstorming teams in the 30's. Should each of them be just as eligible to be on the cover of a book about Negro League baseball? Well, I suppose yes - except that's ridiculous.

Is this somewhat limiting and unfair, a bit insulting to those who are not the default? Sure. But it is normal thinking.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

Great comments, BTW. Matthew +1

Anonymous said...

Seriously why does anyone read the NYT, yet, I live in Brooklyn and see SWPL reading it all the time..... Just don't get it.

It's not even 'liberal' in the sense it runs cover for the Jewish elite in NYC - from looting the state coffers (developers getting de facto free public land from bloomberg, bloomberg farming out privatized overpriced city services to co-ethnics.. and on and on..

Anonymous said...

Can't we get back to stories that matter - like why women worth more than $100 million can't become members of Augusta national?

Anonymous said...

"'evenness of representation' everywhere? "
no - only 'evenness' when there is a white gentile majority. Everywhere else gets to be 'vibrant'

Anonymous said...

What year did the Times jump the shark? Anybody know?

I noticed a decline in the quality of its writing shortly after 9/11. Front-page stories and op-eds that were so badly written they might have come from an unedited high-school newspaper. I stopped subscribing shortly after that, so I don't know when it became so obsessed with promoting diversity everywhere.

Anonymous said...

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Episode Title: 'I Like To Watch': A Scotch Irish American named McQueen dresses up as a firefighter to gain entry to an apartment where he rapes 3 girls: One Asian, one black and one white.

The REAL story Bruckheimer, Zuiker, Catalani and Myers "ripped" occurred on October 31, 2005:

A Jewish American named Braunstein dresses up as a firefighter to gain entry to an apartment where he chloroforms and rapes a white girl.


Are you sure that Whiskey was not involved in writing the script?

DYork said...

Jerry Bruckheimer says CSI: Crime Scene Investigation's stories are "ripped from the headlines". Except all the ethnicities get changed:

Episode Title: 'Anatomy of a Lye', Episode Number: 44, Original Airdate: May 2, 2002:

While driving drunk, a white man hits a black man. The black man became lodged in the windshield but was still alive whereupon the white man parked his car in an abandoned warehouse and left his victim to die a slow and agonizing death. The white man then reported that his car has been stolen.

Written by Josh Berman, Andrew Lipsitz; directed by Kenneth Fink

The REAL story Bruckheimer, Berman and Lipsitz "ripped" occurred on October 26, 2001:

While driving drunk and on drugs, a black woman hits a white man. The white man became lodged in the windshield but was still alive whereupon the black woman parks her car in her garage as the white man slowly expires over the course of the next day. She and some friends dispose of the body.


Yes, here's the story.

They even made a movie about it in 2007 with the predictable decepttion.

It was called Stuck and featured White actress Mena Suvari complete with black braided hair and a black boyfriend.

Lots of "Scots Irish" guys behind the scenes writing and directing all these shows which I guess is to be expected.

Alcalde Jaime Miguel Curleo said...

Evidently there's room for much more than just 1 Sasha Frere-Jones, the New Yorker writer who's blacker than you. Caramanica may have the dumbest Twitter posts of that elite clique though.

Anonymous said...

Jon Stewart is not, IMO, the funniest of comedians, and Jewish vs. "Whitebread" was one of the few comedy angles he could convincingly pull off during his stand-up career. That type of routine could work for a lot of culturally differentiated white-ethnic comics, such as Italians or Irish, as well. "White" in this context is really shorthand for non-ethnic Whites.

Whatever the pronouncements of crazy liberals like Mike Wallace or Jon Stewart, whose living in part derives from being noticeably Jewish, most Ashkenazim do not see themselves as non-White.In support of this, the savvy NYT race hustlers, many of them Jewish, complaining about this insipid show certainly consider Jews to be White.

Anonymous said...

An Armenian-American named Sarkisian dresses up like a firefighter ... and puts out a fire!

Anonymous said...

I get that all anyone wants from pop culture is to see themselves, but why would anyone want to see themselves on "Girls"?

Doug1 said...

American television these days hugely over represents blacks in elite and semi elite and hyper intelligent roles. It hugely over represents the amount of black male very pretty white female relationships compared to what’s happening including in cities like NY, where I live.

It would be highly unlikely that one of the team of genius and near genius diagnostic doctors on House’s team would be black, much less the star of that team until he gets promoted to head of the hospital. Nor would he likely have a long term romance with the gorgeous 13.

MTV has black male white female relationships up the yin yang. The latest example is “I just want my Pants Back”, with a black med student shacking up with a pretty white law student. There were zero black white long term relationships in my law school. Admittedly that was a while ago but still.

Matt W. said...

Oh, come on! Of course TV is too white, at least for those who aren't white. Just imagine for a second if TV were like 90% non-white. Wouldn't that reduce your interest in TV, even if all other things were equal? Personally watching a bunch of white people on TV all the time gets boring, even grating at times. I'd rather watch cartoons like South Park and Family Guy and King of the Hill, and The Simpsons before it jumped the shark. I think this is also a reason I like TV series far more than movies: once one gets to know the characters in a TV show superficial characteristics like race* are less important.

And yes I am racist; unlike leftists I know that you don't have to be white or pro-white to be racist. Specifically I'm a white guy who is racist in favor of East Asians, and to a lesser extent other non-whites who are successful.

*Race essentially *determines* the range of possible physical appearances for a person, while it merely correlates with IQ, personality, etc. For example, roughly 60% of worldwide variance in skin color is between races (and this figure would probably apply to various aspects of facial morphology if it were appopriately quantified), while even for IQ it is usually around 10 to 15%, depending on how groups are compared.

For example, if group A and group B differ by a full standard deviation, 20% of variance is between the groups. At 1/2 a standard deviation, this figure falls to 5.9%. When there are more than two groups to compare, one simply averages the figures from each possible comparison.

ATBOTL said...

"It's not even 'liberal' in the sense it runs cover for the Jewish elite in NYC - from looting the state coffers (developers getting de facto free public land from bloomberg, bloomberg farming out privatized overpriced city services to co-ethnics.. and on and on.."

It's not only that. The NYT has long promoted neo-liberal policies that help the rich and hurt everyone else. They can be expected to always take the side of the elites against common people. The "diversity" agenda on the left serves as cover for leftists having sold out to big business and Wall St.

Anonymous said...

"Girls" is about four close female friends living in New York. If the white NY Times writers and editors (and other SWPL media types) making a fuss about this were to look their closest three friends and/or associates/acquaintances, how many of these would be white? Almost all, I reckon. Spread the meme.

Matt W. said...

Sh!t would be so much simpler if people just realized that racism was just another human weakness, rather than *THE* cardinal sin. Unfortunately, since a hyper-racist ideology wiped out a large part of a certain rather verbal ethnic group, the Western world is stuck with the meme of racism as (literally) the Crime of the Century.

Jerry Buckhoarder said...

Exclusively for iSteve readers, my next blockbuster scenario:
White Southerner supremacists throw Molotov cocktails on African refugees shelters to get them to leave the neighborhood.

Whiskey said...

My guess, and its only a guess, is that this is a vendetta against David Mamet since his daughter is on the show. Either that or a brilliant bit of guerrilla publicity designed to bait conservatives into watching/supporting the show.

No one watches this thing, it gets what, less than 2 million viewers?

Whiskey said...

One more add, and this to me says it all. The poster upthread who said young White women don't like non-Whites in their lives (even fictional) is dead on. Consider the path of UPN, WB, and CW. Both UPN (first action-adventure male series, Star Trek shows, then Black stuff like Kevin Hill), and WB (which ran LOTS of really, really BAD black-coms) could not make a go of it. The one bright spot for both were the Buffy/Angel shows which did draw viewers, and Smallville on WB which re-invented Superman as a angsty teen for girls to swoon over. Maybe also Gilmore Girls for a while.

CW, made from the wreckage of both networks, has been successful with very low ratings, but profitable demographics: White TEEN girls, who are the single most profitable demo for networks because advertisers pay huge premiums for them.

Gossip Girl is lucky to get 1.5 million viewers, but its cheap, quite profitable, and set in NYC. So too is Ringer on the CW with former Buffy star Sarah Michelle Gellar. Not a non-White cast member as far as I can see on the show.

What works ratings wise (and see Twilight for this) is to stimulate tween/teen girls (and their moms) with hunky broody anti-heroes, and swooning heroines, all White as can be. And not ethnic White (no Snookies, Situations, Seinfelds, Georges, Elaines, no Irish, Italians, Poles, Jews etc.) No rednecks either (save as bad guys). Just WASPY types like Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart.

heartiste said...

like the question i posed for noah millman during the derb flap, i'll pose the same for the boilerplaters at the times:

can you describe the actual, objective benefits of diversity and vibrancy without using the words diversity or vibrancy?

it's like these guys have never heard of intellectual diversity. or been to a college cafeteria.

Anonymous said...

BTW, I've seen it twice now: there's a new ad on tv, one urging businesses to settle in Fairfax County, VA. What do they tout? Their "diversity."

HAHAHAHAHA. So, one of the most affluent places in America is trying to lure businesses by appealing to progressive sensibilities.

Of course, we know that they aren't advertising for the denizens of South LA to move to Fairfax County, now, are they?