Have you ever thought of being a police officer? How about one in Germany? In this odd bit of news there may be a decent reason to become one, at least of the moment. It seems that currently there is an APB out, with photos, for a certain pair of breasts.
It seems that a woman, after receiving breast implants, stepped outside of air and has yet to be seen again. Though since the general reason for implants is to be seen I do find it ironic. But I’m sure the German police are happy, as the doctor only has photos of the breasts to identify the woman by (she gave a false name). Crime may not pay but it seems it can be titillating. [bad pun I know]
In other news, this month marks the growth of the nation to 300 million American citizens. Of that total, 14% are Hispanic [I think I will use Latino because I really just don’t like what the term Hispanic represents] and 13% are African American. That’s 27% of the nation. 1 in 4 people in America is a person of color, and yet the number of people of color on television and movies, or behind the scenes, is appalling.
What will it take to get Hollywood and television executives to understand that there are more qualified actors that are African American and Latino than is represented right now. That trying to keep television a fairytale of the nation some 40 years ago only makes it more apparent that they have no clue what people want. Fewer people watch broadcast television than ever, while cable subscriptions reach highs and there are more televisions than people in the average home (2.7 vs. 2.55). Perhaps if broadcast television reflected the reality people in this nation deal with everyday there might be more interest.
Take your choice of programs made by HBO, Showtime, FX, Spike or others. I’m speaking of The Shield, Thief, Blade the series, Eureka, and many others. In each program there is a diversity of race, sexuality and flaws that are just caricatured in broadcast show. There are actually characters that you can identify with as a person of color. And in several of these shows we see leads like Mr. Andre Braugher that show that African Americans, and other minorities, are easily capable of being leads and cores of their respective shows. There is more depth in their performances that the usual limitation to comedy shows and minor secondary characters broadcast television has tried to shove down our collective throats for decades.
Maybe if the execs gave us some credit, and took a moment to focus on more than the cheapest knockoff of a formulaic program, there would be more people watching their networks. If the world on TV seems a little more like what we see in real life maybe we’d care. And maybe pigs will fly.
This is what I think, what do you think?
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