"Star Trek" will likely always be the gold standard for tokenism on TV. Not only did the bridge crew look like a Noah's Ark of humanity—one of everything—but when we traveled to the remote planets of Romulus or Bajor or whatever, we found white Romulans and black Romulans and Asian Romulans and Puerto Rican Romulans. It always astounded me that every planet in the galaxy has the exact same continents as Earth. Aliens aren't purple or polka-dotted or hairy or scaley. They're Asians. It also astounded me that 400 years from now, humans seem more racially pure, not less. Wouldn't we all just kinda blur together over that kind of time? I'm imagining a utopian future in which we all look like Dean Cain and Rosario Dawson. Don't take that away from me.
I wouldn't go so far as to say "24" practices tokenism, but there's definitely something squirm-inducing afoot. The racial choices made in casting are a peculiar blend of heartwarming and appalling. The series is on its second black president, both of them saintly and wise. This viewer gets the distinct impression that the show is simply too forward-thinking to portray them any other way. Like, say, complex and ambitious human beings. The white president between them, though, was scheming scum on the order of Mussolini. So there's that.
Hmm. That observation didn't really even occur to me until just now. Perhaps I was distracted by the show's treatment of Arab characters. We're battling Islamic terrorists this season, and in order to mitigate the use of Arabs as bad guys, we're given Arabs as good guys. The CTU boss is suddenly Arab, for instance. Except that she isn't. The actress is Mexican. And the Arab kid? He's really Indian.
So on the one hand we have producers ham-handedly trying to present a balanced view of a race, and on the other hand we have them positioning Mexicans and Indians in frame—right next to the other product placements—calling them Arabs, and expecting that the audience won't be able to tell the difference. Now that's progress.
I've suddenly got a notion to talk to a hot Mexic—er, Arab chick on a Nokia phone while driving a Ford vehicle. I don't know why. Perhaps I'll just stream Fox News on my Dell, instead.