Giving the People What They Want

Whenever the media is called out for offensive content, lack of diversity, sexism, etc., they have a golden excuse that never seems to fail. They're just giving the people what they want. If you've got a problem with that, just stop watching. When enough people stop watching to actually affect our business plan, maybe we'll talk to you.

Yeah, right. The problem with this seemingly golden philosophy is
1) People who are offended (and rightfully so, at times) find it hard to rally thousands of other viewers to their cause. People don't want to seem like they're being unreasonable or obnoxiously politically correct, so they're not going to hold marches, and therefore won't attract very much attention.
2) Usually people aren't so offended as to want to stop watching one of their favorite shows (if they care enough to talk to the network, they obviously like the show). They might just have a question or a suggestion i.e. "Was it necessary to the plot of this episode to make the Hispanic guy have an accent?"
3)Not enough people notice any problems to begin with because they're fine with the way things are. I mean, if you sit the average little kid down in front of the TV screen, he's not going to say, "How come all the women on this show are blond and unnaturally thin? This is not an accurate representation of reality. Let's sue."

Desipte the fact that the media is supposedly so liberal, it's actually pretty slow to change, unless profits start to decline, of course. And because profits haven't declined, movies and tv shows are basically in the same place as they were 15 years ago.

The easiest way to describe what I mean is to go the race route (sorry if that makes you uncomfortable, because it really shouldn't).

For the most part, TV is not overtly racist anymore, which is great. However, it's still a Caucasian dominated industry, and it seems to be determined to stay that way, awkward racial overtones and all. Network television seems to think that if a part on a TV show does not have BLACK or ASIAN or HISPANIC stamped on it, then black, Asian, and Hispanic actors aren't an option.

This is particularly true for comedies such as Two and a Half Men and Samantha Who. Two and a Half Men doesn't have any minority cast members, despite the fact that it's set in California, one of the most diverse places on the planet, and Samantha Who has one black character--who is her doorman, who spouts "bluesy wisdom" (thank you Michael Scott) and sass. There aren't any minority bit players either. None of the many girlfriends of the Two and a Half Men are minorities, and neither are any of Samantha's former paragons. Now, is it really so difficult to offer a small 1-2 episode love-interest role to a minority? Or does interracial sex still raise too many eyebrows?

And don't even get me started on medical shows. My biggest beef with them is that 15% (as of 2000, so that's a pretty low estimate) of doctors in the United States are Asian American males and females. An estimated 12% of students entering medical school in 2006 were Indian (from India....duh). So how many Asian American actors are portraying doctors on television?

I can only think of one.

Now let's compare this to the representation of African Americans on medical shows. Every medical show has at least one black character, sometimes two, which is great. But African Americans only compose 4% of America's doctors.

I'm not saying that you should eliminate those roles for African American actors or downplaying the role of African Americans in the medical community, but it's obvious that the media is capable of casting minority actors on TV shows. Which is why it's so frustrating when Asian Americans don't get the roles, particularly Asian men.

A similar thing is going on for shows set in Hawaii (particularly reality shows), which invariably boast a glut of suntanned blondes, when Asians make up over 50% of the population.

Or how about (my favorite) the newest Barbie movie: Barbie Island Princess, in which pretty blond Barbie lives on a tropical island with elephants and red pandas. Well, pretty blond Barbie wouldn't last a day in the Caribbean without succumbing to severe sunburn, even with her magic wand or tiara or whatever it is she's weilding this time. Oh Mattel, when will you realize that blondes don't live on tropical islands. This could be your perfect chance to bring out black Barbie, or Pacific Islander Barbie, but NO. That would be too difficult for you.

Why is Hollywood so reluctant to show things the way they are? Do they really think that they'll lose that much viewership if they put a Hispanic girl on How I Met Your Mother, or an Indian man on Grey's Anatomy?

So Hollywood's giving the American public what they want.

Well, how are they supposed to know what it is they want if they're only given one choice? If you've been eating Cheerios since birth, and you never see anything else, you're not going to get up one day and buy some Honeycomb. How are we supposed to want something we've never seen? How can we miss what's never been there to begin with?

How can you be sure that what you're spooning out is what America wants? Do you know specifically that what I'm asking for is what America doesn't want?

Look, I really don't want to have to march to get what I want this time. I'd much rather you just wire it through my cables.

What Happened to Serendipity?

Everything these days seems to be tailored to our own convenience. iTunes, TiVo, Amazon, Google- the whole internet, really, are all streamlining our personal experiences so that we don't have to sift through all of the junk that's out there in order to get what we really want, whether it be a particular song, the last episode of The Office, a novel or even a credible source for your next research paper (aka NOT Wikipedia).

But what if we don't know what we want?

Technology and the world in general are catering towards a specific kind of consumer, a consumer that fits into a specific mold or stereotype and so can be counted on to like certain things according to some sort of mathematical formula, like when Amazon pops up with related search items that you might be interested in. This approach is very lucrative for companies, as it allows them to market items specifically towards the people who are most likely to buy them.

However, this approach is also lacking in a very important aspect of of human life- individuality. These algorithms cannot take into account all of the ins and outs of human likes and dislikes, because algorithms only work if their subjects make sense. And we all know most humans don't make a lot of sense.

So why does this matter?

Well, companies are marketing this way because it gives you the tools to assemble your own identity. All American society can think about right now is "being uniquely you", so of course we gladly seize upon anything that can aid us in our endeavor. However, when we use these tools, they squeeze us into a sort of box. If at this point in your life, you like emo music and you look for emo music using iTunes, Amazon, Google, etc, all you'll get back is emo music because these tools are designed to give you what you want. So, if you stick to using these tools for the rest of your life, you'll continue to listen to emo-related music for the rest of your life because you're not going to encounter anything else.

Which is fine if you like emo music. But what if you're not really an emo music kind of person and you just think you are because your friends happen to be? What if you're really a country kid and you just never found out because all you ever saw was emo stuff? I know it sounds melodramatic, but when people start implanting computers in their heads (it'll happen eventually), they're going to rely on them to make their lives easier by pointing them towards the things that they need and want according to past preferences, simply because it's much more convenient. Unfortunately, this convenience sucks out all the unpredictability from life, and so pretty much sucks out the essence of life itself.

Take, for instance, Match.com. When you get on Match.com you take a personality and interests test and your results are matched to people in your area. The profiles you get back are the ones that are the most similar to yours, so in essence, you're looking to date yourself in a slightly altered physical form.

Think of all of the successful relationships you've witnessed, or the person you're dating now. Are you exactly like your partner? The answer is probably no. In most relationships people obviously have some sort of common ground, but are also different in substantial ways. If you really wanted to be with someone just like you, you could just buy a mirror.

Now, I'm not saying that Match.com is necessarily bad. It can be great for some people. But if the entire world was looking on Match.com to find their soulmates....well, the birthrate would decline pretty rapidly, just because something like love tends to be random. How many people do you know who married the exact kind of person they always thought they would marry? Haven't you ever liked someone you never thought you would like?

Look, we've all met people who could definitely qualify as living, breathing stereotypes, but you've got to admit that most people just don't fit into a mold. The problem is, when companies give us a mold, we tend to try to smush ourselves into it. They say they're helping us break out of conformity, but what they're really doing is giving a choice in what we conform to. It doesn't seem like a big deal now, but in another ten years, technology and society will have evolved to the point where we don't have to go out and find things for ourselves; they'll just be brought to us via Wi-Fi. And since technology can never be as complex (knock on wood) as a human being, it can never truly bring us what we want, it can only bring us what it thinks we want- and thus what we think we want.

All I'm asking is, what happened to serendipity? What happened to finding a cool band in a record store? What happened to discovering some cute clothes at some random store in the mall? What happened to finding a new favorite book at the library? What happened to channel surfing? And what happened to love at first sight? Did all of these little, everyday things just fade away to be replaced by some math equation?

The way things are going now, there's not going to be any more "expect the unexpected", because the internet is not capable of giving you what you don't expect. If it did, it would have a major design flaw. The internet is a great tool, but it's just being overused.

So, the next time you're looking for something, sacrifice convenience for serendipity. Turn off your iPod and laptop and get up and go find it yourself.

Bring back the magic, people. Bring back some serendipity.