Posted: Mon 13 Nov 2006 04:52 Post subject: TV Guide and Genetics
Quote:
TV Guide
Nov. 13, 19, 2006
Column: Is It Just Me? by Rochelle D. Thomas
Have TV writers gone crazy with the genetics? On Men in Trees, producers recently revealed that Buzz (John Amos from Good Times) is Patrick's biological dad. A few days later on House, two strangers suffering from the same illness - one a black woman, the other a white man - turned out to be (surprise!) siblings. Ok. Now back when people toyed with the what-if idea that Dr. Webber might be be Meredith's father on Grey's Anatomy, I argued TV GUIDE's GA specialist Leslie Van Buskirk to the ground, saying "Uh-uh. Couldn't happen." Then the Singerl twins made headlines. So let me publicly eat my words. Yes, if twins can be polar opposites racially, then there's a million-to-one chance that Buzz could sire an Irish-looking Patrick and, heck, Wayne Brady could be Barney's brother on How I Met Your Mother (which, yes, will happen).
Actually, none of the "black and white" twins are "polar opposites racially."
I don't watch any of the TV programs Thomas mentions. Is anyone else familiar with the storylines?
I watch Men in Trees , the show in which the African American Buzz fathered the very Irish-looking Patrick. I can't remember the exact line but when one character expressed suprise at the news, another rattled off the genetic reasons why it could happen and then said something like "what, you didn't know that? Duuuuh!" The biracial character is also not having a "tragic mulatto" moment, which some may consider unrealistic.
Buzz is married to a Chinese woman, who is Patrick's stepmother. Patrick was embracing his "Chinese heritage" and wore a shirt last episode that read "Kiss me, I'm Blasian." His mother noted wryly that the shirt should have read "Kiss me, I'm Blirish."
Anyone complaining about the unlikely premise should really consider the likelihood that any premise presented on this show would be run-of-the-mill reality.
I watch Men in Trees , the show in which the African American Buzz fathered the very Irish-looking Patrick. I can't remember the exact line but when one character expressed suprise at the news, another rattled off the genetic reasons why it could happen and then said something like "what, you didn't know that? Duuuuh!" The biracial character is also not having a "tragic mulatto" moment, which some may consider unrealistic.
Buzz is married to a Chinese woman, who is Patrick's stepmother. Patrick was embracing his "Chinese heritage" and wore a shirt last episode that read "Kiss me, I'm Blasian." His mother noted wryly that the shirt should have read "Kiss me, I'm Blirish."
Anyone complaining about the unlikely premise should really consider the likelihood that any premise presented on this show would be run-of-the-mill reality.
Trees has actually handled things nicely, making the story about family and acceptance. Northern Exposure had a similar character who later learned that his father was African-American.
Some rhetorician or media scholar could probably break this down better, but I wonder whether the remoteness of the location (i.e., Alaska, small isolated towns in the middle of nowhere) on Men in Trees and Northern Exposure are conducive to presenting issues like these in a whimsical rather than confrontational/political way? The characters on these shows are are really chracters; individuals who are allowed to be themselves with no wider social conscience or context. Marin and her editor friend are probably the only symbolic characters with the weight of the post-Sex in the City urban female Zeitgeist written into their dialogue. Has a similar storyline ever been pursued on a show set in an urban area or among a mainstream American suburban area?
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