East Carolinian

Issue date: 1/29/09 Section: Features

Media Credit: staff photo

Barack Obama brought change to Washington. Now, can he bring change to our television sets?

The new president and his family have barely settled into their new Washington digs, but that question is already being pondered by members of the entertainment community. They cling to the hope that an "Obama effect" eventually will lead to richer and more varied depictions of black Americans on the small screen and more opportunities in front of, and behind, the camera.

"The fact that we now have people who we traditionally haven't seen in these kinds of roles should open Hollywood's minds to all kinds of possibilities," said comedian D.L. Hughley. "Hopefully we'll see a case of art imitating life."

Hughley, who dabbles in political humor as the host of CNN's "D.L. Hughley Breaks the News," headlined a family sitcom ("The Hughleys") on ABC and UPN from 1998-2002. It has the dubious distinction of being among the last wave of predominantly black TV shows before the current drought hit prime time.

This fall, even as Obama was becoming the biggest TV star on the planet, the out-of-step broadcasters unveiled a roster of new shows stocked with casts that were alarmingly pale. The drop-off came after a period in which the networks seemed to be making a move toward more diversity - a move spurred by harsh public criticism in 1999 by the NAACP.

"I was shocked to see that not a single pilot had an African-American family or protagonist," said Elvis Mitchell, a pop-culture critic and film producer. "It just seemed obvious. Why not? It's what everybody was talking about. On the other hand, there was no shortage of shows about the travails of rich white kids."

In 1997, the broadcast networks offered 15 black comedies, albeit mostly on the now-defunct WB and UPN, which relied on the genre to carve out an audience. Today, that number is down to two: "Everybody Hates Chris" and "The Game." They air on the smallest network - The CW - where they have been banished to the dead zone known as Friday nights. In addition, basic-cable station TBS offers a pair of black sitcoms - "House of Payne" and "Meet the Browns," both from Tyler Perry.

When it comes to black dramas, television's track record is even more abysmal. The most recent predominantly black network drama was Steven Bochco's short-lived "City of Angels," which aired on CBS in 2000. These days, the only black actors who headline network dramas are Dennis Haysbert on "The Unit" and Laurence Fishburne, who just took over "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation." Both shows air on CBS.

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