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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 1, 1988)
Page 6BAThe Battalion/Thursday, September 1, 1988 CTWP “Best Prices in Town!” ^ Super Summer Special 8088-2(4.77/8 Mnz.) 512k Ram 360k Floppy 2 hours Free Trailing XTTURBO Now! $750 00 Complete System 1 yr warranty parts & labor At keyboard Monochrome Monitor Monochrome Graphics Parrallel Port 693-8080 2553 Texas Ave. S. College Station MSC CAMERA GENERAL^ MEETING MONDAY SEPT. 5th ROOM 404 RUDDER 7 p.m. Organizational Mesting-Corne joinihe club for all photographers FACTORY- formerly Gumby ’s Pizza Welcome Aggies! —we still honor all valid Gumby’s coupon Try our 2 for 1 pizzas and our new item Italian Sub sandwiches. Fast, Fresh, Hot & Delivered Free!” 1702 Kyle South 76-GUMBY Choosing the Right Drydeaner Is Serious Business if SbouXd Be r it Qfkrvice CXeanef * -> Conveuieoe^ QuaW^ 4 of vou . - J ^ ouls vhax ra.Ve »v e have v\re best. ^ „ vo hnn fe in a n<i picV up " ; rheeriuVness S. P*‘ c ® „« (ApVneSS 4. .,>1 eHoU 'O ■ we t - an he\p'u\ ^ We Lan Villa Maria EANERs Qiiahty Service- 710 V oi a Mari a Road 822-3937 Observers say blacks playing in more TV roles HOLLYWOOD (AP) — More blacks are appearing on prime time television shows, and not just in ste reotypical roles as cute kids, do mestic workers, criminals and jive- talking comedians, according to in dustry researchers and observers. “There has been an improvement in the employment of black per formers and the range of character portrayals has improved,” said Rod ney Mitchell, affirmative action ad ministrator for the Screen Actors Guild. “No longer are they confined to street types, non-professionals, crime victims and crime perpetra tors.” Some credit the success of “The Cosby Show” for opening the doors to more positive black portrayals. A recent Howard University study of 58 black characters in 26 network shows last season found that, instead of the lower class roles that domi nated the 1970s, “blacks on tele vision are generally portrayed as be longing to middle and upper classes.” Women played nearly half of the black roles, compared to previous years when men greatly outnum bered them, the Howard researchers reported. The study also noted more middle-age and elderly black charac ters, fewer obese women and more characters portrayed as competent. Some things haven’t changed, the Howard scholars found. Blacks were still more likely to be cast in situation comedies than dramas and were most often supporting or minor characters. More than half appeared in shows with black themes, such as “Amen,” “Cosby,” “227” and “A Dif ferent World.” “Black characters continue to be cast primarily in all-black settings,” wrote Howard communication re searchers Carolyn Stroman, Bishetta Merritt and Paula Matabane. “Yet there is a notable difference in that these all-black settings tend to be up scale middle class rather than low in- A 1987 study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs in Wash ington, D.C., found that the number of black characters on TV rose slowly from 1955 to 1965, when only one in 20 was black, and more rap idly since 1975, when one character in 11 has been black. Over the 31 years studied, blacks played 6 per cent of all roles. “The civil rights movement . . . opened up attitudes,” Dan Amund son, study co-author, said. “White audiences will watch black perform ers in a wide range of roles, based on “Black characters con tinue to be cast primarily in all-black settings. Yet there is a notable differ ence in that these all-black settings tend to be upscale middle class rather than low income. ” — Communication researchers the quality of the show, rather than the racial question.” SAG’s Mitchell credits union affir mative action pressures, advocacy by minority rights groups and the suc cess of black-themed shows for the increasing number of roles. And new shows such as “Frank’s Place” and “In the Heat of the Night” pro vided dramatic parts for blacks last season, he said. Black viewers have become more important in the 1980s as overall network audiences dropped in com petition with VCRs and cable. But Mitchell said he had never heard in dustry officials say they were im proving black roles to attract more black viewers. More blacks watch television than do other racial groupings, according to Nielsen audience data. A recent Nielsen viewing analysis reported that television usage averaged 10.6 hours per day in black households, versus 7.3 hours daily in all other homes. With just 11 percent of U.S. tele vision homes headed by blacks, view ing patterns would have to change markedly to directly affect program portrayals, CBS television research Vice President Arnold Becker said. Even with more viewing “they’re still a minority group” in the TV au dience, Becker said. “If blacks really viewed dramatically different pro grams than non-blacks then they would have a very substantial effect. But they generally view not all that dissimilarly than the rest of the pop ulation.” Becker, instead of attributing gains in black roles to changing tele vision economics, said white Ameri cans were more receptive to mains tream black characters. “The attitude of the world toward blacks has changed,” he said. “Peo ple out there are predisposed to ac cept this kind of social change.” Official archivist knows the facts from ‘Star Trek’ LOS ANGELES (AP) — When creator Gene Roddenberry has a question about “Star Trek” the man he turns to is Richard Arnold. The information about “Star Trek,” and the lore amassed over the past 22 years, is so vast that only the most dedicated Trekkie could possibly keep track of it. Arnold has been the show’s offi cial archivist at Paramount Studios for the past two years, but for nearly nine years before that he was an un paid but virtually full-time consul tant. “I might get a call from a game show asking which cast member first said, ‘Beam me up, Scotty,’ ” Arnold said. “No one ever said that on any ‘Star Trek’ episode. The fans made it up, like ‘Play it again, Sam.’ “I frequently get calls from mer chandising and licensing. They’ll want to know what actor played such-and-such a character and how can they get hold of him to sign a waiver. Television stations call a lot asking for help in designing a pro motion campaign.” Arnold emphasized, however, that he is not the final word on the show. “I’m a consultant,” he said. “I’m not hanging over anyone’s shoulders. They can consult me or not.” “Star Trek” made its debut on NBC in 1966 and ran for three years. It has also been an animated series, four hit motion pictures have been made and a fifth is in the works, and the new TV series “Star Trek: The Next Generation” is an enormous hit in syndication. “I was 12 years old when ‘Star Trek’ began,” Arnold said. “I’d gone through ‘The Hardy Boys,’ even my sisters’ ‘Nancy Drew’ books, and Ed gar Rice Burroughs had gotten me into science fiction. I remember I spent one summer in a tent in the backyard reading. My mother thought there was something wrong with that. “On TV I’d watched ‘Lost in Space,’ ‘Voyage To the Bottom of the Sea,’ and ‘Time Tunnel.’ Then “I might get a call from a game show asking which cast member first said, Beam me up, Scotty. ’ No one ever said that on any ‘Star Trek 9 episode. The fans made it up, like ‘Play it again, Sam. 9 99 — Star Trek archivist Richard Arnold ‘Star Trek’ came on. The first epi sode intrigued me. The next episode was so good, I cried at the end. After that I scheduled my life around watching ‘Star Trek.’ I watched the shows over and over and over again. My mother couldn’t understand that. I asked her if she ever went back to the same restaurant.” His mother, incidentally, finally began watching and was soon an avid “Star Trek” fan herself. Arnold, who was born in the same hospital in Vancouver, Canada, as Jimmy Doohan (Scotty), ran a “Star Trek” fan club in high school and college. He moved from Canada to St. Louis in 1969 and went to his first science fiction convention with a cousin in downtown St. Louis. “It changed my whole life,” he said. “I went to the first ‘Star Trek’ convention in New York in 1971. I met Gene Roddenberry there and he was very kind to me. But I didn’t know who he was until he was intro duced at the convention.” Next up is the fifth “Star Trek” movie, which was postponed when Leonard Nimoy accepted an offer from Disney to direct Diane Keaton and Jason Robards in “The Good Mother.” The tentative start date for “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier” is Sept. 12. William Shatner will direct. Harve Bennett will produce. I Problem •We listen, We core, We help •Free Pregnancy Tests ( •Concerned! Counsetors I Brazos Valley Crisis Pregnancy' Service We’re Local: 3620 E. 20th Street (next to Medley's Gifts) 24 Fir. hotline 823-CARE y It out in The Battalion Classifiei TubbY's Bar-B-Q "It's more than just Bar-B-Q." 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