Race Tokens

It's currently 9:30 on a Wednesday night, so be honest, how many of you are curled up on your couch watching your favorite Network TV drama air in prime time. I know I would be if I wasn't sitting here typing this blog post. But while you are watching, consider this, is there a minority character in your TV show, and if so are what is their role in the show and how are they portrayed?

My new favorite obsession is a show that ended a just a year ago called 90210 and it is set in an almost all white neighborhood with its plot centered around the Beverly Hills High School. The main character is the girl pictured in the brown ruffled shirt in the center. She is a high school student named Annie and her brother Dixen is the African American boy pictured at her right. He was actually adopted into their family when he was eight years old because of his troubled family life.

I did not realize this until we discussed "TV tokenism" or the rare gesture of offering equal opportunities to the minorities as to the majorities, but these "token" minorities are often added into shows as a way for Networks to prove to their buyers, the advertisement companies, that they can appeal to viewers in minorities and will not seem racist. 

In class we talked about how these "token minorities" often find themselves being deliberately cast in the prestigious "buddy" role that is to always keep the main character in line. This is because the networks are afraid of being criticized for playing the minority in anything less than a prestigious and well respected character because of the fact that in the past the minorities have only received roles as thugs or gang members. This "buddy" character does not usually have that much of a complex background story or different problems in his life. This is exactly how Dixen's role in 90210 plays out. He is always helping Annie out when she goes off the deep end and does something rash. Also, for the first season and a half we do not learn anything about Dixen's life before Beverly Hills, all we are told is that he was adopted.
You can even see this "token minority role" displayed in the cast photo above because Dixen is pictured above Annie's right shoulder, which is where you normally would see the good angel on someone's shoulder guiding them to do the right thing. 

Dixen is Annie's good conscience.

I think the minority character is too often stuck in this role of the token, and that is the role that no actor wants to be cast as. The sad thing too is that no one in society notices it, and I think to myself that I wouldn't have noticed it either if I had not been told. We need to open our eyes and be more critical as a society in America today of our media and the affect it has on certain minority groups and everyone watching as well because that is the first step to change: awareness.