Starting this fall, TV will look more like life — with more actors of color leading casts than ever before.
The cast of ABC's smash hit Scandal.
ABC
Whether it's because of shifting viewing patterns, desperation to attract larger audiences, or a dawning moral imperative, American network television is finally beginning to look like America. The five broadcast networks unveiled their new shows for the upcoming 2014–15 season last week in New York City to advertisers and the press. And for the first time ever, shows led by actors of colors or with mixed casts rose above feeling like token nods to diversity — that vast and sometimes nebulous term.
While network television has over the years given us The Cosby Show and Ugly Betty, it has more often advanced the idea that white groups of people generally (and begrudgingly) have only one person of color in them — usually on the side as the nerdy Asian, or, as Time's James Poniewozik noted last week, the black best friend. Even Fox's Entertainment Chairman Kevin Reilly said at a press conference in January when talking about diversity, "I'm sorry we even have to have the discussion in 2014."
The insidious consequence of television's tokenism has been creating a world in which people of color do not star in their own lives. It wasn't until Scandal — and its star, Kerry Washington — became a phenomenon last year that both anecdotal and ratings evidence smashed executives over their heads. And the result is the upcoming season's diverse lineup.
It's hard to narrow down which particular new shows represent the most dramatic or important shifts. Or which will even last. Since network television is still a system that rolls out dozens of new shows simultaneously in the fall, only to see many of them die horrible, immediate deaths, most of these shows will end up as cannon fodder, no matter how meaningful or symbolic they are.
But let's get specific anyway. On NBC's thriller State of Affairs , Alfre Woodard will play the president of the United States, and we learn in the show's trailer that Katherine Heigl's character was in a relationship with the president's now-dead son (his death and her grief appear to help drive the plot). Though The CW's schedule is still dominated by white-led dramas, its new show Jane the Virgin revolves around three generations of Latina women (it's loosely based on a Venezuelan telenovela).
Michael Parmelee / ABC
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