Race and TV shows

This post has been swimming around in my brain since last night when I couldn´t fall asleep :)

One of the things I find curious when I watch American TV shows is the way which race characters represent and how the multiethnic culture of USA is reflected in modern media. USA is the most diverse nation on earth and it stands to reason that all of it´s inhabitants are of various nationalities and races and there is a great diversity going on. And that is in my opinion a positive thing.But viewing how media reflects this fact is very interesting.

When looking at episodes before 2000, most shows had Caucasian actors only (European-American for ethnic reference), But after 2000, a change happened and now almost every TV show has at least one member of a different race (either Latino, Af-Am, Nat-Am or Asian) and most shows have two cast members that represent one or more racial groups other than Caucasian. But very few shows include members of all the racial groups. The general rule seems to be that you need at least one cast member that´s not Caucasian, two is even better but if you have three or more it´s starts to look like you´re trying too much (I am obviously generalizing a lot).

To provide a brief example I will show the race of all the regular cast members on 4 shows - Criminal Minds, NCIS, NCIS:LA and Castle.

Criminal Minds has
Reed - Cau
 Jareau - Cau
 Hotchner - Cau
 Garcia - Cau
 Blake - Cau
 Morgan - Af-Am/Cau (infact mixed-race which I find to be a nice move)
Morgan  - Cau

So their ratio is 6/7 of cast members are Caucasian, 1/7 is Af-Am

NCIS
Gibbs - Cau
DiNozzo - Cau
McGee - Cau
David - Jewish (the actress is infact Latino)
Sciuto - Cau
Vance - Af-Am
Mallard - Cau
Palmer - Cau

Their ratio is 6/8 Caucasian, 1/8 Af-Am and 1/8  Jewish. I am well aware that Jews are not considered to be a special race but their is no denying that Jews have a special history and origins that unite them and Ziva happens to be the only Jewish character I can think of on a show today where her faith is an important part of her identity.

NCIS:LA
Blye - Cau (the actress is actually Portuguese which is pretty neat)
Deeks - Cau (the actor ha a Scandinavian last name - Yeah!)
Hanna - Af-Am
Nell - Cau
Beale - Cau
Callen - Cau
Lange - Cau

Their ratio is 6/7 Caucasian and 1/7 African-American.

Castle

Beckett - Cau (the actress is actually Serbian/Croatian)
Castle - Cau
A Castle - Cau
Rodgers - Cau
Esposito - Latino
Ryan - Cau (the actor is Irish-American!)
Captain - Af-Am
Parish - Af-Am

Their ratio is 5/8 Caucasian,  2/8 African-American and 1/8 Latino.

Considering these ratios the Castle characters represent the most ethnic groups and different races with 3 characters with NCIS following with 2 and CM and NCIS:LA with 1 each.

All these shows have characters that are of either African-American, Jewish or Latino background but not on of them has a character that´s Asian-American (which I find interesting). The only shows I can think of from the top of my head tha have Asian cats members currently are Hawai-Five-O and Bones. That is not to say that these shows don´t have Asian guest members regularly because they do, just not as a part of the regular cast. And not one shows has a Native-American character or Arabic!.

This is a phenomeon I find interesting to observe and provies with lots of material for thought which I will post on later on.

And next up is foreigner characters on those shows.