One thing network shows that are fiction based on existing government agencies are known for are diversity, equity, and inclusion. Fictional government agents come in all colors, creeds, religions and sexes, but I am wondering if the major networks will start dialing back on all that to curry favor with the anti-DEI forces of our current officials. NCIS and company, the FBIs, the Chicago Trilogy etc., are all examples that are flying in the face of current official efforts to eliminate anything hinting at diversity, and I wonder if the networks will fold under the pressure.
They probably will. But it won’t be due to pressure from the government. Television is all about ratings. If getting rid of DEI means more people watching, that is what the network executives will do.
Yep. Same with advertising. Good bet at least some larger internet advertisers are now A-B testing all-white 1960s-looking ads versus the diverse ones they have been running for the very same product. If the former show better results than the latter, and especially if the trendline is growing, we’ll have a much whiter media soon.
If there is to be such an outcome, the effect on internet or billboard ads that are just still pictures plus words will appear pretty quickly. Or those that are pure AI.
The ones that involve shooting real actors really moving (i.e. the classic “everybody happily drinking our beer around their pool party or campfire”) will take months to become noticeably whiter. Just due to the pacing of production versus showing. TV shows like the OP cites have even longer production cycles.
It’s also possible there’s an early bump towards whiter ads, but the general American public is actually less fascist than trumpmusk hopes they will be. So as the IRL government persecution of non-whites gets bigger, eventually even a lot of white folks say “Enough is enough, and that’s just too much!”
Both trump and musk are known for a) extremism, b) a demand for yes-men only in their inner circle, and c) a tin ear to what’s really going on out there. So they could easily get out too far ahead of public sentiment and trigger a real backlash, not just complaints by the persecuted or soon-to-be persecuted.
So you don’t think the government will try to pressure the networks with “If you want any cooperation you’ll have to tone down this DEI crap”?
I don’t think they will need to. If the government did pressure them, they would likely cave immediately. But why bother? I think more than ever with a hate-filled toddler in charge, bigots will be more open, louder, and more active about their prejudice. Networks and other corporations will produce content that sells.
My guess is that the networks and producers will act in whatever way improves ratings and advertiser satisfaction, rather than trying to “curry favor with the anti-DEI forces of our current officials.” If having a diverse cast improves the show’s ratings, that’s what they’ll do.
That’s not how it works. More inclusiveness increases ratings by increasing market share. “White right wing Christian males” are a minority.
Opposition to “DEI” is about sacrificing profits in the name of hatred. It costs money; which is why there’s ranting about “woke capitalism” and so on, the right wing are terrible capitalists who care more about hate than money. The only color amoral profit driven capitalism cares about is green, so it’ll happily pander to people who have dark skin or two X chromosomes, which the Right hates.
So it’ll be about real or perceived pressure from the ascendant Right, or because the executives themselves are motivated by hatred over profit. Not to increase rating or make money.
If they wanted to curry favor with, say, Trump, then wouldn’t they look to the folks he picked for his cabinet? Where they’d see, what, a guy who happens to be black, and a guy who happens to be Jewish, and a guy who happens to be gay, and everyone else from Lori Chavez-DeRemer to Marco Rubio? Should they strive to emulate that sort of assortment?
And have them all take right-wing positions and always defer to the White Guys In Power?
In other words, they’d make shows featuring the modernized likes of The Three Stooges?
Are you claiming that Trump is increasing diversity in the federal government?
I guess I’m claiming that he doesn’t seem to give a crap whether his cabinet happens to involve a diverse bunch, or happens not to involve a diverse bunch — and that, as it happens, diversity seems to have ensued there as a result.
Yes, in any group you can find someone that will do what they are told in the interest of the promise of a shadow of a sliver of reflected glory. They reflect reality about as much as do the Log Cabin Republicans.
I don’t understand what point you are trying to make.
Quoth the OP: “Fictional government agents come in all colors, creeds, religions and sexes, but I am wondering if the major networks will start dialing back on all that to curry favor with the anti-DEI forces of our current officials.”
So I figured: if he’s right, and they in fact wanted to so curry favor, they’d maybe start by looking at the cabinet chosen by the president — seeing whether that group of handpicked government-work types happens to be comprised of folks of different colors and religions and sexes and so on — such that, if someone did want to curry favor by having the diversity of their team of fictional characters mirror the diversity of the real-life team selected by the current president, what would result?
That last paragraph is a single run on sentence that is impossible for me parse.
In any case, Trump’s cabinet is certainly less diverse than previous ones and deliberately so. Diversity is an anathema to conservatives, that’s obvious. If you want the conservative audience you better not have too many colored faces in your main cast.
My apologies; I’m saying that, if one were out to mimic the diversity of the president’s cabinet in a fictional group, one would quickly wind up with a black character and a Jewish character and a gay character and so on.
(Like, you’d maybe think you were finished, but then you’d realize that you’d need to add a Catholic woman of Mexican ancestry to accurately mirror the amount of diversity.)
There is a new show on Hulu called Deli Boys that depicts an FBI office almost entirely staffed with young, white males, the leader of which brags about sucking on the stapler in Nancy Pelosi’s office while participating in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
They’d get targeted for “DEI”, of course. You curry favor with Trump by pandering to him, and by persecuting anyone not a white right wing male.
Having all the non-white males in the story killed and all the women raped to death (on screen, if possible), then all of them replaced with the white men who did it and having the fictional organization suddenly work much better is the sort of thing that would appeal to Trump and company. It’s their ideal of how the world should work.
I understood what you meant the first time. But thanks for this clear restatement. Your proposal makes complete sense to folks like us.
But …
What you’re describing would be called irony. Which takes far more perceptive subtlety than propaganda-besotted racists will appreciate. And as to somebody trying to tweak trump’s nose with this move, remember that rule 1 with odious people like him is pretty much “Do as I say, not as I do.”
So attempt at irony = epic fail.