One of my favorite shows currently airing is The CW's The Vampire Diaries. It's based on a book series (written well before the Twilight Series I might add), and like most things geared toward the younger crowd on TV today its mostly relationship drama with a perfectly made up cast. Why do I like this show? I don't know, probably because there's at least one fight scene in ever episode and the action scenes are pretty awesome.
Anyway, a cursory glance over TVD message boards and you will quickly find complaints and accusations of racism concerning the show, followed by rebuttals, debates and other such tiring activities. Which brings us back to the question of why do I like this show, and on to the question of do I agree that it's racist?
Well... The reason I chose this topic for today's blog post is because I think it's an issue that plagues most "mainstream" shows today.
The root of the problem is that for some reason, when it comes to Black people (well minorities in general), we take one character and it automatically represents everyone. If there is one Black character on a show, everything that character says, does, and wears is assumed to represent all Black people for some reason. Logically, most people will agree that it this is absurd, but it doesn't stop people from reacting as though this were fact. The first accusations of TVD's racism stemmed from this very fact.
There are only two major characters on the show who are not White/Caucasian (I'm never sure of PC terms these days): Bonnie Bennett, played by Kat Graham and Tyler Lockwood, played by Michael Trevino.
Let's start with Tyler Lockwood:
Tyler starts off as a minor character, filling the role the school bully, jock, and all around pain in the butt. Later (I think around the second season), he is promoted to a major character when it turns out that his family carries the werewolf curse, which he triggers and becomes a werewolf. Eventually he is turned into a vampire-werewolf hybrid. One thing leads to another and behold he has a massive revenge plot for the show's ex-villain and is now M.I.A. with guarantees to appear on the spinoff show.
So what's wrong with his character? Well the standard argument is that Michael Trevino is Mexican, while is character is clearly supposed to be White. What would it hurt to cast family members who were also of Mexican descent and show them as a Mexican-American family? Hmm...well when you add in the fact that Tyler's father and then (in his father's death) mother also play the role of town Mayor, it starts to look a little fishy. Of course if you skip to season 5 they do allow a Black man to take on the role of mayor for about 3 episodes until he's murdered by season 5's villain...
In the case of Tyler Lockwood, very little is said by way of racism--possibly because people are unaware of the fact that Michael Trevino is Mexican. Possibly because if he doesn't mind playing a White character why should we? On the bright side, at least his character isn't forced to speak with a fake accent and speak random Spanish for no apparent reason. Conversely, it looks like his time may be up on the show.
And on to Bonnie Bennett:
The show has caught most of its flack here. Bonnie Bennett is the resident witch, who's only purpose on the show appears to be a "miss-fix-it." In season 1, Bonnie had a grandmother (played by Jasmine Guy), who died trying to help the main characters complete a spell. It wasn't until the middle/end of season 3 that we met Bonnie's mother (played by Persia White) who skipped town on Bonnie to save Bonnie's best friend's life. She sticks around only long enough to be turned into a vampire (also to save Bonnie's friends) and skips town again. Finally in season 4 we meet Bonnie's father, who presumably has been taking care of her since season 2. While the other characters are shown at home with their families often, we don't see Bonnie's home until season 4. The complaint here is the lack of character development of course; she's just tossed to the side for no reason.
For awhile people complained that all the witches on the show were Black. Of course most of the witches on the show have been related to Bonnie, so it stands to reason that they'd be Black. TVD quickly countered this with the addition of White witches, most of whom have disappeared from TVD now but are abundant in the spinoff series. Unfortunately, it didn't change the fact Bonnie's only story lines are about helping her friends. Most recently, she died trying to bring her best friend's brother back from the dead. She covered up her death with the help of the boy she brought back from the dead, and no one missed her until they needed her to fix something. It's quite frustrating to watch actually.
Compound that with the fact that almost all of the Black characters to occur on TVD are lighter skinned Blacks (Robert Ri'chard, Bryton James, Kendrick Sampson, to name a few), and you're bound to have people in an uproar.
I started off pretty much ignoring it. To some extent you can't win in America. If you make the Black girl a witch, it goes back to voodoo and racial stereotypes. If you make her a vampire, it's demonizing. If you make her a werewolf, you turn her in to a beast (again, racial stereotypes). If you leave her as a human, she's not special, she's useless, why can't the Black girl have supernatural powers too? See what I mean? Sometimes it's best to just let it go. But the character of Bonnie Bennett has become increasingly more difficult to watch now that she's dead watching over her friends.
On the one hand, I want to give the studio the benefit of the doubt; as I said early on, why should one character represent what the studio thinks of all Black people? In terms of killing off non-major characters, I don't particularly think Black people die any more than others on the show (pretty much everyone dies). Of course, they haven't brought any Asian characters back on the show since season one... It would be nice to see some more diversity on the show--particular some darker Black people. Though I wouldn't call this racism so much as discrimination/prejudice. As I think about it I realize that it's so much more than a race issue. Everyone on the show is considered "hot" (though I don't agree with many on that topic, most think the leads are all "hot"). Is the lack of diversity a sign that the network thinks minorities are not "hot?" Why does everyone have to be "hot?" And if she made the "hot" list, why can't Bonnie get a decent story line?
*sigh*
The perils of thinking, once again torment me. Perhaps I'll pick up a good book once again.
