Although the times of segregation laws have passed, racism is still an issue today that television seems hesitant to tackle seriously, experts said.

Using different comedic devices, some television writers have figured out effective ways of attempting to spark discussions on race, while others simply ignore it completely or scribe to longstanding stereotypes.

David Hinds, an assistant professor of African American Studies at the School of Social Transformation, said even though society has come a long way in getting rid of racist laws, progress still has to be made in talking about issues.

“We tend to want to wish race away,” Hinds said. “I think that that is a disservice.”

Americans often try to convince themselves that race is no longer an important issue, he said, adding that white people are generally more uncomfortable than black people in talking about race.

“It’s white guilt that makes it uncomfortable for most or a lot of white people to talk about race,” Hinds said. “On the black side it’s really black shame.”

Film professor Joseph Fortunato worked in television production before teaching at ASU and said that addressing racial issues using television or movies, which can sometimes be seen as offensive, actually breaks down barriers between races.

“Being so concerned about offending certain races not only stifles creativity possibly, but it also stifles discussion,” he said.

He said that presenting race-sensitive material properly could spark discussion among viewers, which would lead more people to talk about issues instead of passively watching them play out.

Television’s history

Television standards have drastically changed over the years, Fortunato said.

Coming from the days of “I Love Lucy” and “All in the Family,” there were certain things that were once deemed unacceptable that we now see every day, he said. At the same time, there are quite a few words that aired on “All in the Family” that would not meet TV standards today.

When TV shows were first created, viewers never saw a married couple in the same bed. Today, most people wouldn’t be surprised to see couples not only in bed together but talking about or taking part in sexual activity.

“Lucy giving birth to Little Ricky was a big moment,” he said. “We’d never seen a pregnant woman on television. Every sitcom worth its salt now has a birth episode.”

While standards have changed dramatically in terms of sex, some standards have gone in an entirely different direction.

“There was stuff being discussed in ‘All in the Family,’ or in the ’70s in general on TV, that would never in a million years get on network TV today,” he said. “Those tend to be more the politically correct-type things rather than the dirty words-type things, but it’s so interesting how our sensibilities have changed.”

Before television came on the scene, families would gather around their radios and listen to programs together. Once television came along in the 1940s, they would sit together and watch the only three channels available: NBC, ABC and CBS.

“If there was something that was unacceptable to that family, they could talk about it because they were all there and present,” Fortunato said. “That doesn’t happen at all anymore. The audience is so fractured that the communal aspect of watching a show doesn’t happen.”

Today’s television

Television as a teaching tool has been almost entirely lost to modern audiences, Fortunato said. Parents aren’t watching TV with their kids anymore, so they can’t encourage them to question what they are seeing and teach them why an action or word is wrong, Fortunato said.

One major example of modern television taking on racial issues Fortunato mentioned was an episode in the first season of NBC’s “The Office” where manager, Michael Scott, played by Steve Carrell, holds Diversity Day.

In the episode, Scott made the employees at his paper company wear cards on their foreheads indicating a different race and encouraged them to treat each other as stereotypes of that race in hopes of encouraging diversity.

This was a perfect example of a good way to bring up discussion about race through TV, Forunato said.

“The problem is, just as any other form of television, [comedy] has to be done responsibly.”

“The Office’s” Diversity Day episode is an example of using comedy responsibly, he said.

“Not only is it funny and witty, it presents different sides,” he said. “People don’t get away with things without some kind of reaction.”

Michael’s idea was that everyone should embrace diversity to the point where it became ridiculously racist, Fortunato said.

Stereotypes on TV

Film junior Matthew Levy said he agreed that using characters like Michael Scott as a scapegoat for racism works to make such an episode acceptable.

“It was hilarious, but if a boss really did that, everyone would just kind of be in shock,” Levy said. “Because we’re witnessing it but we’re not there, we understand that it’s not acceptable.”

Psychology sophomore Joseph Lao said he agreed comedy makes it easier to talk about issues like race.

“By mentioning things in comedy we kind of get away with it in a more relaxed, safe environment,” Lao said. “For the most part, if it’s situated and understood as comedy, we kind of give it a little more leeway, just because it’s one of the only realms where we can talk about subjects that we’re really uncomfortable with talking about.”

As an Asian American, Lao said that he feels somewhat underrepresented in the television and film world.

“During primetime shows you don’t really see any Asian Americans at all on television,” he said. “I’ve always kind of grown up seeing the hilarity of being an Asian person in Western films.”

Lao said he could not think of any primetime TV shows in which an Asian American was portrayed in a non-stereotypical way.

“They’ve never actually had a serious actor with any level of ethnicity other than Caucasian or African American,” he said. “Perhaps Hispanic origins have gotten a few more, but when it comes to Asians, even with Jackie Chan, it’s all in the funny.”

Levy said that one important example of Hollywood breaking Asian stereotypes is the “Harold and Kumar” movies.

While the story of the first film, “Harold and Kumar go to White Castle,” is mostly about two pot-smoking friends needing a snack, they break the mold of how Asian-American and Indian-American people are normally seen, Levy said.

“It had more of a message that these guys are not what you think that they are,” he said. “It was rare to see a movie with a guy who is obviously Asian and one who was obviously Indian doing something where they would just talk normally.”

A new era

Levy said he has also been surprised about how often he has heard racial jokes since coming to college.

“Ever since I got to college it seems that making jokes about race is way more acceptable than it was ever, before in my life; not just in film but just in general conversations with friends,” he said. “I hear the N-word more than ever and I never did in high school. It really obviously isn’t a joke for white people to say it. Even if we’re removed from [segregation] we still have to respect what it means.”

Since the majority of college students today weren’t born until the late ‘80s or early ‘90s, there aren’t any students that were around to experience segregation and see what the country looked like at that time.

Comedy may be one of the ways to get past the many obstacles in talking about race issues, Fortunato said.

“Comedy is, in my opinion, the best medicine for some of the things that ail us as a culture,” he said.

The trick to writing a good TV show is to know how to entertain people while teaching them a message on the side, Fortunato said.

“If our medicine is learning about diversity and we’re laughing fo
r 22 minutes at ‘The Office,’ and don’t even know we got a lesson, somewhere in the back of our heads that’s rattling around,” he said.

“Television comedy is more important in the learning process than drama is quite frankly because it doesn’t taste like medicine.”

Reach the reporter at vajones2@asu.edu.