GQ South Africa — May 2017

74 GQ.CO.ZA MAY 2017

networks, minorities are

underrepresented 11 to one.

The increased viewership among

people of colour arrives at a moment

when companies are offering money and

opportunity in unprecedented amounts.

Outofthiscornucopia,onlinestreaming

platformslikeAmazonPrimeandNetflix

• which shelled out $5bn on scheduling
  last year – have emerged as the new
  gatekeepers, holding the keys to a more
  idyllicTVtopography.It’stimetoask
  ourselveswhatnewstoriesshouldbe
  told and how creators will go about
  telling them.
  Shows likeEmpireandPowertraffic
  in a one-sided notion of black affluence:
  their protagonists acquired wealth
  through illegal means – selling drugs.
  Even Aziz Ansari’sMaster of Nonewas
  criticisedforits‘markedabsenceofSouth
  and East Asian American women’. The
  US’s middle class is rapidly dissolving, yet
  few shows engage the country’s working
  poor (though Donald Glover’sAtlanta
  capturesavisionofmiddle-classatrophy
  in brilliant fashion). Despite TV’s current
  gold rush, shows fail to portray the full
  plurality of our day-to-day existence.

In 2015, Shonda Rhimes – creative

architect behind ABC’s scheduling block

of Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal and How to

Get Away With Murder – gave a speech

at the Human Rights Campaign gala in

which she voiced her contempt for the

way in which we describe shows that

offer more radiant interpretations of

the human experience.

‘I really hate the word diversity,’ she

said. ‘I have a different word: normalising.

I’m normalising TV. I am making TV look

like the world looks.’

When I think of Rhimes’ speech, I think

back to UPN and the crop of shows that,

to a young black kid growing up, felt

like the world – my world. And I have to

wonder how this era of T V will look to us

in another two decades. Will it seem as

inclusive in hindsight as we professed at

the time? Or will it prove to have been

just a momentary gain?

Wagner Moura as

Pablo Escobar in

Narcos

Aziz Ansari created

and stars in Master

of None

It’s time to ask

ourselves what new

stories should

be told