TV writer asks: Who are we protecting when racist content is removed from old shows?
Download mp3 (11.57 MB)In a time when a lot of people in Hollywood are trying harder to tell stories in a more culturally sensitive way, our next guest says we’re not protecting the right people by scrubbing racism out of past media.
Alex Zaragoza is a journalist and TV writer covering culture and identity for De Los, the LA Times’ Latinx section. In a column she describes her own evolution with how TV writers — which she has been in her career — might better address the issue. She talked about it with The Show.
Interview highlights
ALEX ZARAGOZA: I had rewatched the Tijuana episode of "The OC" for a column that I was writing for the LA Times. De Los, I think it was the 20th anniversary. And so I was like, "Oh, let's like rewatch this mess. Let's see how I feel about it at like age 39 as opposed to like 19."
And so I was watching it, and I mean, it's completely ridiculous. It's super problematic, but also like kind of hilarious. And well, I did, did an interview on it, and the interview like talked about like, "Oh, this just like, wouldn't happen now." Or like, "Now the, the writers would add, like the characters would have a person of color, that would be a Latinx character."
And also just sort of implying that this wouldn't happen now, but also that we don't want it to happen anymore. We don't want people, especially white rich kids, talking this way about Latinos or about Mexico, about Tijuana about anything. And so in that interview, I was like, "Well, like if that's how they talk, I like that's how they talk."
Like, if this is how these people talk about these, this other community, why do we need to pretend that they don't? So to me, I was like, well, here we have these characters, they are very wealthy white kids and nothing is ever challenged. So to me it's like, OK, what would happened really is like, you'd need somebody to challenge like, "Hey, man, this is not so bad, like, hey, that's kind of racist, my guy" — or however they would write it, right?
And so — wow, I'm such a good TV writer. But like, I think it was interesting to me to have somebody position it that way of like, oh, this shouldn't happen or this is not how people should talk about it. But yeah, that conversation got the wheels turning, for sure.
You're seeing a lot of streaming services, a lot of networks scrubbing shows from not that long ago — like "30 Rock" wanting to remove from streaming services all the episodes where characters were in blackface. Like there are many examples of this and the editing of things. It sounds like you're saying, like we need to just tell the truth even though it might not be great.
ZARAGOZA: Yeah, I think this gets to the central question of my column is like: Who are we protecting? Because if we know like, I as a Mexican person that was raised on the border, raised in both sides of the border, I know why people say really messed up stuff about Mexicans. I hear it all the time. Telling me that like acting like this is not how they speak, doesn't do anything for me. It only serves to shield them and protect them, and it serves to cause like a deniability. "This is not how people actually talk." And I'm like, "But no, I hear it, I hear it all the time."
I think it's also interesting in the case of like "30 Rock" where it was like, you know, removing black face, which, you know, obviously like — not great. It wasn't great then, you know. And I understood like at the time what they were doing with in terms of the comedy, and it was a very subversive show. An yeah, I mean, it's, there's some thing to be said about how much as a society and as a culture, our perspective has shifted. And how much we've come to realize the ways that we have harmed people — especially people from underrepresented backgrounds, you know, black, brown, Indigenous people, Asian people, et cetera. And so I understand wanting to fix your wrongs. It makes sense. I just don't see like in doing it this way, it just, it feels like a very easy, like — you know what we could do? We could just get rid of it and then pretend it never happened. Make a statement and say how sorry we are. And then it's never there.
As opposed to like, let's educate people, let's throw up a card at the beginning of an episode. Like, hey, this has these images, here's this website you should go to to like, you know, understand why this is like, not great, whatever. I believe like Disney+ has been doing something like that.
... So much of the stuff we we watched growing up, that was so formative, had imagery and dialogue and storylines that were really, really bad. They were super problematic, right? And maybe we didn't think about it then. But now in hindsight, we are. And it's an opportunity to like learn for yourself, but also like your children or your siblings or whoever it is.
At the end of the day, the larger issue that needs to be addressed is not being addressed. Like, removing something from an episode or pretending people don't speak a certain way, doesn't actually change the systemic racism we face within Hollywood, within the world, within everywhere. It doesn't change the fact that this is actually how people talk and this is what people believe.
