Planet Green Shows Some Diversity
by Latoya Peterson
The current state of diversity in television is pretty grim. Not too long ago, Entertainment Weekly reported “Cleveland Brown — a cartoon voiced by a white guy — is the only minority character to anchor a new series in 2008-09.”
The New York Times TV Decoder blog shared this observation:
He notes that of the 26 men nominated for Emmys for lead or supporting actor in a drama, comedy or mini-series, all are white, most of Anglo-Saxon descent. Five of the 25 female nominees are members of minority groups.
So, when I caught an ad caught my eye describing a new show featuring Suchin Pak, I decided to dig a bit deeper.
Planet Green is a new venture by the Discovery Channel, featuring twenty four hour programming on the environment. SuChin Pak co-hosts G Word with Daniel Seiberg. The show asks you to “forget what you think you know about what being green means and get ready for G Word, an hour-long daily show with six segments designed to give you a whole new way to look at, and love, going green.”
There is also another minority co-host anchoring a show. Rapper Ludacris faces off with rocker Tommy Lee on their show Battleground Earth where they compete against each other in challenges like collecting junk mail and coordinating a green funeral.
Has anyone seen either of these shows? What are your thoughts?
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
DEAF FEMINIST PUNK!! wrote:
TV is a thousand times way more diverse than films. Disney is even more diverse than NBC, CBS, FOX and ABC combined together.
Posted 18 Sep 2008 at 10:41 am ¶
Ike wrote:
After looking at the pictures in this post, I’m still disappointed by the gender/race balance. Black men and Asian women are represented, but Asian men and Black women are still left out.
And that happens way too often to be a coincidence.
Posted 18 Sep 2008 at 12:29 pm ¶
SR wrote:
I appreciate how Planet Green seems kills two birds with one stone by presenting representative minorities in television and the sustainability movement.
Posted 18 Sep 2008 at 2:11 pm ¶
lxy wrote:
Not impressed.
Mainstream US media “diversity” is purely cosmetic window dressing.
America loves to promote this kind of domesticated diversity where you have a token racial minority or two subsumed in a sea of Whiteness.
And what do SuChin Pak, Ludacris, or Tommy Lee really know about environmentalism?
Posted 18 Sep 2008 at 6:47 pm ¶
Meranda wrote:
@ Ike,
Jesus Christ, is there any pleasing you?!
I’m mad this trend is catching on,now. How come I knew nothing about it before it got the spotlight. I’m not satisfied just sitting back and being a spectator watching everyone who know anything about it giving me thier watered down version for entertainment. What happend to the hard facts, where were they before it became cool?
And Im also worried, we are playing this down to the ground. Pretty soon, no one will take it seriously anymore.
Posted 19 Sep 2008 at 3:13 am ¶
Ike wrote:
Meranda,
I just detailed two things that would please me – if mainstream American television showed more non-stereotypical Black women and Asian men. That would show progress. There are reasons why Asian women and Black men are more “acceptable” in mainstream media than their same race, opposite gender counterparts.
Am I glad that there is more diversity on this show than there is in other shows? Yes. Are we at any place to be celebrating? No.
Also, each of the pairings shows a POC with a white person. There still won’t be POC/POC pairings.
Your comment reads a bit too much like “Can’t you just be happy with the bone you’ve been thrown?” And that’s pretty opposed to the theme of Racialicious as a whole.
Posted 20 Sep 2008 at 12:03 am ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:
@Ike –
I completely understand all your points, but this is important for two main reasons:
1. The mainstream green movement in the US is still the providence of whites, and many times those who are class privileged. I was reading Fair Weather Vegan’s blog and he made a good point about the majority of shows on Animal Planet being hosted by whites. (When I say majority, think over 95%). This is similar to other shows about greening I’ve witnessed. So, even in this one tiny act, Planet Green is sending a big message.
2. There are other PoCs on these shows in the crew segments or as assistants to the hosts – but the point of this post was to illustrate that two PoCs are getting billing. It’s not quite top billing, mind you – I’m wondering why SuChin Pak is sharing a show when she should get top billing* due to her MTV fame. But it’s a big step, particularly in a movement that is really lacking in diversity.**
Could they do better? Oh yeah – but I’m willing to cut them some slack as they just launched. I am interested in seeing how the network grows over time.
*SuChin may still have obligations to MTV, which could explain why she is co-hosting.
**There are green movements outside of the mainstream that do center PoCs – but it’s more about practical activism (get these landfills/waste sites out of my backyard – where is all the green space for our kids to play in?) than the mainstream movement.
Posted 20 Sep 2008 at 4:52 am ¶