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Leading Role: Obama's election may affect network casting
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Published: December 2, 2008
It may say something about the state of American television that there is one more black president-elect of the United States than there are black actors with individual lead roles in a network television drama.
But after years of ensemble dramas sprinkled with nonwhite supporting actors, the excitement surrounding the election of Barack Obama could help to open doors for more minorities in leading dramatic roles, executives from television production studios said.
Ben Silverman, the co-chairman of NBC Entertainment and overseer of the network's television studio, said that he and the head of the diversity initiative for NBC Universal, Paula Madison, have been pushing for projects starring minorities.
Silverman said, "We were going after this regardless, but I don't think you can deny the power that Barack Obama brings in magnifying this direction in our world." He added, "We've all been colorblind for years, but the results don't necessarily match up to our intentions."
Madison said that NBC's approach was at least as much about business as about social responsibility. "People are not living in single-race silos anymore," she said.
"We said, ‘Let's try to develop a world that looks like the world we're living in.'"
The evidence seems to indicate that race neutrality has not produced a surge of black lead performers, at least in network dramas. While comedies with black characters have been something of a network staple -- from the much vilified Amos ‘n Andy in the early days of television, through shows such as Sanford and Son with Redd Foxx, The Jeffersons, and Martin Lawrence's sitcom Martin -- historically, blacks in lead television drama roles have been rare.
Bill Cosby, whose 1980s hit sitcom revitalized that genre after a period of decline, famously broke through in drama as the co-star of I Spy in 1965. He won three Emmy awards in the role of Alexander Scott, an espionage agent. Exactly two black actors (and no actresses) have won Emmy awards for drama series since -- James Earl Jones, who played the title role in the short-lived Gabriel's Fire in 1991, and Andre Braugher, who was part of the ensemble in Homicide in 1998.
Dennis Haysbert, who played President David Palmer on the Fox series 24, is featured in the CBS ensemble drama The Unit.
Also this season, the venerable NBC drama ER added Angela Bassett; executives at its studio, Warner Brothers, now identify her as the lead in that show.
But both ER and The Unit are ensemble shows. There is no dramatic series spotlighting a single star -- such as House on Fox, Chuck on NBC, Eli Stone on ABC or The Mentalist on CBS -- now led by a black actor. Hispanic actors have fared somewhat better. Jimmy Smits has starred in several series, and America Ferrera is the star of Ugly Betty.
Cable's recent list of single-star dramas is also notable for its roster of white stars, including shows such as The Shield, The Closer, Saving Grace, Dexter, Monk, Burn Notice, Breaking Bad and Damages.
Tim Reid, who was the star and an executive producer of the Emmy-winning comedy series Frank's Place for CBS in the 1987-88 season, has been outspoken about the continued limited opportunities for minorities in television.
"If the president-elect should have any positive influence over the so-called liberal base of Hollywood, it will be by focusing their attention on the reality of the kind of multicultural world we actually live in," Reid said in an e-mail message.
"This doesn't just mean putting another person of color in front of the camera, but giving them an equal opportunity in having a say-so in what is created for the camera."
"In my opinion," he continued, "we're far more likely to have a black president in my lifetime ... oh, yeah ... I can stop saying that now."
The most significant hiring of a black actor for a television series has been long in the works.
Next month the film star Laurence Fishburne will assume the lead in CBS's biggest hit show, CSI. That move was not connected to the ascendance of Obama, though CBS and studio executives expressed hope that the timing would help in the transition from William Petersen, the current CSI lead, to Fishburne.
David Stapf, the president of the CBS Paramount Network Television studio, which produces CSI, said of Fishburne's selection: "If you have a chance to get an actor like that, you go for him.
"It wouldn't matter what ethnicity he is."
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