Page 6BAThe Battalion/Thursday, September 1, 1988
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GENERAL^ MEETING
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Organizational Mesting-Corne joinihe club for all photographers
FACTORY-
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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.
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