Given the whole Michael Richards event, I think it’s important to look to current popular media and what they have to say about the state of diversity.
Ever since I could remember, I have been fascinated with diversity in the programs which I watch. I wish to highlight some of my observations.
A couple of hours ago, I saw my first episode of Heroes online. Fortunately, it was a flashback episode where I could see intricacies and back stories of important characters. In some ways, Heroes seems like a step forward in cultural diversity. But one thing is bugging me, and it may be a step backward. A little thing such as Hiro Nakamura saying “We hab grate powa” could potentially undo all the sincerities and intricacies of a sympathetic East Asian character.
While on the subject of the Japanese, it seems taken for granted that most Japanese media is monocultural. The most recent example I can think of is Studio Ghibli’s Gedo Senki, an interpretation of Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea setting. What strikes me as odd is that Gedo Senki does away with the cultural and ethnic diversity present in Le Guin’s setting, the most poignant feature being that
It is important to remember that many Japanese narratives are full of diversity and cultural issues. The most important example I have found to date is Hiroki Endo’s manga Eden. In one example, the Anglo protagonist is singing “People Get Ready” by Curtis Mayfield, which his mother used to sing to him. He asks his father’s black friend who is fishing with them if it is acceptable for her mother to sing a black song to him. The man explains to the boy that anyone can sing the song because it’s basically about freedom.
Why do I take such issue with diversity? Le Guin has a great quote concerning the issue.
I think it is possible that some readers never even notice what color the people in the story are. Don’t notice, don’t care. Whites of course have the privilege of not caring, of being “colorblind.” Nobody else does.
I throughout my life have had a financial and social sense of belonging with all of my friends, but never an ethnic or cultural belonging. It is something that is very difficult to explain unless you look at your own hands and see a different tone on your skin than what your friends have. That is why diversity in popular media matters so much to me. This is why I notice when Howard Beale in the movie Network says “The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back.” and point out that it only seems ok because he said “the Arabs” and not “the Jews” or “the Blacks”. This is why it seems more vulgar and disgusting to me when an antagonist president in Transmetropolitan throws his press secretary, a black woman, into the mob of cameras as he escapes in his helicopter from a scandal. And that is why it’s so disgusting that Michael Richards brought up race and class when responding to hecklers. He could have easily gone the Bill Hicks way and respond with an indiscriminate and much more poignant tirade on the audience. Hicks seems to have maintained respect and decency of most of us when he did his “kill ’em all” response, so there is no excuse for Richards.