The reason HBO Looking Got cancelled show was too white

[blackbeltninja]

I am not saying white gay people should not be able represented on tele. All I am saying is it would be GOOD to see more LGBT people who are NOT WHITE IN A LEAD. That's it. I think someone needs to do it. Also I think if more non white LGBT people were on tele this would mean it might help people to see not all queer people are white.

I think the flaw in your thinking here is assuming that someone wants to burn money. A gay-themed show, or a too in-your-face gay character on another show, is an expensive gamble. The demographic one might assume to be interested in either is minute - stats on The Wik suggest 25% of the US is non-white, and only 4% is gay, meaning the potential pool of viewers is tiny, and that assumes everyone in that demographic would watch the show.

This also precludes any notion that the writing, acting or directing might be woeful and thus the show might not be that good, just like most of Looking turned out to be.

Either way, anyone who is slightly cautious is probably going to err on the side of trying to get a return on investment and go for mainstream, and that I think is what a lot of these complaints about too-white-gay TV simply don't take into account.

Also I think if more non white LGBT people were on tele this would mean it might help people to see not all queer people are white. In many non white spheres gay people are not talked about.

Surely it is up to the gay guys in those spheres to be more visible. Why rely on television - and the niche audience it caters for; that being people who watch gay-themed tv - to allow you to exist in your own world?

-d-

 

[bankside]

I think the flaw in your thinking here is assuming that someone wants to burn money. A gay-themed show, or a too in-your-face gay character on another show, is an expensive gamble. The demographic one might assume to be interested in either is minute - stats on The Wik suggest 25% of the US is non-white, and only 4% is gay, meaning the potential pool of viewers is tiny, and that assumes everyone in that demographic would watch the show.

-d-

Look at you trying to use "statistical privilege" to make a point.

http://www.indiewire.com/article/television/are-there-too-many-tv-shows-some-producers-argue-yes

"I don't know that people are aware of this, but if you think about it, for 50 years there were three broadcast networks," said Landgraf. "So there were probably at any given moment 60 or 70 scripted original series in America. When the fourth [network] came on, probably 80. Best count I have is there will be about 350 scripted original series produced and marketed in the American television market this year... And I think that 350 will probably push to 400 next year."

Okay then, by BBN's math, we'd expect to see the US TV industry produce 400 shows x 25% x 4% = 4 shows starring a gay non-white lead.

THAT's not too much to ask for. In fact that's not even too much to demand.

But be aware that show will probably be cancelled along with most of the other 399 shows coming out, and a thrillingly huge audience share would be 1 or 2% of people's awareness. And several of those shows might have already come and gone and we'd likely never know it.

In fact you might even have to look outside the US TV market. I know, it's scary. A really big step - even if you don't need subtitles you might end up having to listen to people speaking Canadian or something...

This was a good one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godiva's

 

[IamNoah]

When the crazy brown person repeatedly says that diversity sells just fine in United States, it just doesn't register, eh?

 

[IamNoah]

The show was not cancelled because it was too white. It was still too white, far whiter than any life lived in a major urban area of this country at this time is apt to be. Expecting and demanding the presence of more brown people in queer media is not, in my country, some crazy pie in the sky/PC scheme (I'm on record as thinking PC is non-aggressive, non-assholish, and utterly delightful right?) that will never come to fruition. to ask for more brown people in queer media is merely to ask it to represent reality. I do not know exactly what's real in other places, but no one as close to my age as this Patrick person, in a city like San Francisco lives a life that is as white as the fictional universe these characters inhabited. And yes it is a problem that queerness consistently imagines itself as and aspires to monolithic exclusive whiteness as normative. once again maybe social realities, demographics, who will watch what are different in South Africa and Canada, but here the failure to see brown folk in queer medias is a creative failure that can and will be solved. Why? Because my country gets less shitty on the subject o race everyday, because people my age have angsty deep long conversations about this shit, and near universally agree it's weird that to be a gay boy on television is to be white and upper middle class.

 

[bankside]

Surely you're aware that TV markets go beyond the top few "major urban areas" that come to mind, right?

Surely you're aware that white queers are not monolithic in their aspirations of community, right? When the crazy white person repeatedly explains exactly that, says there isn't even a "white community" to misdirect resentment toward, says "I don't even know those racists or care if they're happy so stop lumping us together and reducing us to Monolithic Whiteness when we're happy to build a community with people of any colour," it just doesn't register, eh?

 

[IamNoah]

Surely you're aware that TV markets go beyond the top few "major urban areas" that come to mind, right?

Surely you're aware that white queers are not monolithic in their aspirations of community, right? When the crazy white person repeatedly explains exactly that, says there isn't even a "white community" to misdirect resentment toward, says "I don't even know those racists or care if they're happy so stop lumping us together and reducing us to Monolithic Whiteness when we're happy to build a community with people of any colour," it just doesn't register, eh?

Had I used phrases like white community or if I felt resentment towards this community there might be some point to this. But since I didn't /don't I'll assume you're using me as a kind of proxy for some conversation you'd like to have with a brown person who thinks those things.

 

[IamNoah]

Surely you're aware that TV markets go beyond the top few "major urban areas" that come to mind, right?

como? i literally have no idea how you think this relates to my post.

 

[bankside]

Had I used phrases like white community or if I felt resentment towards this community there might be some point to this. But since I didn't /don't I'll assume you're using me as a kind of proxy for some conversation you'd like to have with a brown person who thinks those things.

Not in the least. I want to have a conversation with the person who insists the queer community both is, and aspires to, monolithic whiteness. Since I don't aspire to that I don't know if I'm being disenfranchised on account of my gayness or my whiteness. I need to know if I'm not white or not gay.

 

[IamNoah]

No, no I don't think Queerness is monolithically white. I think gay men (race here is irrelevant but I do mean most gay men in my country) imagine and aspire to whiteness (again I don't just mean most gay white men aspire to whiteness I think most gay men, including gay men who are not white). As for whiteness itself of course it's not monolithic--there are many whitenesses. I can't speak into the context in which you live with any particular credibility. I am not Canadian. My guess would be that if you are disenfranchised then your experience of this is primarily a function of your sexual orientation. But if you were 20, black, American and wanted to put a bullet in your skull (like I wanted to and very nearly did when I was 20, brown, and American) I could predict that things you experienced from gay culture itself were at least as responsible for you reaching that state as all of these exterior threats the movement obsesses over.