The Clyde Fitch Report: Lately, we’ve been starting to see more women of color in lead roles on television. There’s Viola Davis as the beautifully messy Annalise Keating on ABC’s noirish legal drama How To Get Away With Murder. There’s Nicole Beharie as Abbie Mills on Fox’s supernatural investigation show Sleepy Hollow. There’s Taraji P. Henson, also on Fox, playing Cookie Lyon on the quasi-Shakespearean hip-hop drama Empire. There’s also Meagan Good on Fox’s Minority Report and Priyanka Chopra on ABC’s Quantico. Not to mention Mindy Kaling on The Mindy Project. (The irony of so much diversity on Fox is not lost on me.) I’m sure there are more that I’m not listing here, but I’m sure you get the picture.
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This is actually something I was talking about the other day, in regards to none other than Hamilton. There's been a lot of discussion lately on including people of color into Fantasy games, with defenders of the genre saying things like "this wouldn't be historically accurate!" and other nonsense of that nature. Writers, you are literally creating a world that doesn't exist. The rules are yours to create and what are the statistical odds that everyone in your fictional world is white? it seems very unlikely, yet people continue to defend the all-white worlds on the basis that including people of color wouldn't be historically accurate. The way you gain a following is by writing people that the audience can relate to. If no one can relate to your show, then your audience isn't going to connect with it and tune in every week. There's a lot of research floating around that including just plain women in your show ups your female viewership. News flash- people like seeing people similar to them on TV. How hard is it really to cast a woman of color in your TV show?
Interestingly enough, I don't really watch fantasy, science fiction, and especially horror TV shows. Thus, I didn't know about the lack of women of color in any of these genres. The TV shows I watch, such as Grey's Anatomy and Orange is the New Black, all have complex and sophisticated characters played by women of color. Although I think "historical accuracy" does impact casting to an extent, it is used as an excuse way too often than it should be. TV and film is supposed to be a place where we allow our imaginations to fly, and people watch them precisely because they are not reality (although they can reflect reality to some degree if the director chooses to do so). Ironically, genres that should be the most imaginative and has the least restrictions are the ones here on this list lacking diversity - fantasy, science fiction and horror. Countries such as Korea, Japan and Thailand all have a great horror movie culture and many classic horror movies are made by these countries, so I don't see why the casting of these genres have to be so restricted.
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