Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/07/06/hawaii-five-0-stars-quit-o.html
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Heard it on NPR last night. Not shocked. Even other AA actors said they were not shocked.
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No doubt the executives regard them as replaceable, as “they all look alike” - it’s not like the audience will be confused by the actor changing.
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Previously on BoingBoing: Leonard Nimoy fought for pay equity for Nichelle Nichols.
It does the Caucasian cast members no credit that we’re not hearing the same from them. And this is especially egregious in the context of a show set in Hawaii, which is majority-Asian.
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“Let’s have a show set in America’s least white state with only white guys in the leading roles”
“Sounds legit.”
“Oh dear, all the nonwhite talent for our show set in Hawaii has quit.”
“We’ll just make it with an all white cast then. That will help it seem more realistic, anyway, so I am sure our ratings will go up.”
“Um, Hawaii Is the least white state in the entire country.”
“Nonsense, I see it on tv all the time and it’s full of white people.”
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Yeah, but you can’t expect 2017 America to be as racially progressive as 1966 America.
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Didn’t think the producers could ever show themselves to be more money grubbing and classless than they did in this particular scene. I have been proven wrong.
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Without all those pesky not-white people in their series they can rename it “Ohio Five-O” at last!!!
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Unfortunately, not everyone can be as wonderful as the great Leonard Nimoy. He was a wonderful human being with a huge heart.
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Meh. Product placement in pretty common in TV shows and films now a days. Some of them aren’t so hamfisted, but they’re pretty much all over the place (even SNL got into the act by having some of their fake commercials be actually commercials). I think there is much less of it in shows on streaming “networks” (Netflix, amazon, Hulu, but even there sometimes…).
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It’s definitely affected my esteem for MR Caan. I can’t believe that he didn’t go to bat for his cast mates.
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I do wonder what the white co-stars’ thoughts and actions on this issue are, i will have to look it up later. I would hope that they were trying to help negotiate equal pay, if they did and said nothing then that’s a really shit thing to do.
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ummm…That would be Ohio one seven, thankyouverymuch.
(Ohio was the 17th state admitted to the union.)
[quote=“Mindysan33, post:10, topic:104103”]
Some of them aren’t so hamfisted,
[/quote] I see what you did there…
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Oh thanks! I didn’t knew that the name was supposed to mean!
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Jon Stewart regularly plugged Arby’s by pretending to insult them and Colbert used to plug some lime-flavored lite beer on the Colbert Report (I feel like I’ve seen him do it once or twice on his new show too).
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I never thought it referred to Hawaii being the 50th state. I always associated it with slang for the police. But maybe it’s both in a play on words.
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Well, the other 2 guys were the stars of the show. There’s always the stars and the supporting cast. I don’t think there’s racism at play here at all. They were never going to get the pay the leads do.
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The slang was created because of the original show in the 60s and 70s.
FWIW, I really dislike this current version of the show, its very much a “CSI Hawaii” so I presume its audience is the same as all the other police procedurals - white, uptight and old. So non-white characters are of lesser concern to the show’s demographics. Maybe it changed, I stopped watching after the first season.
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You beat me to it!
That particular 50-second scene is excessive and embarrassing, even by broadcast network standards. That’s almost one minute out of approx. 44 in the 1-hr drama (the other 16 being traditional 15-30 second commercial spots), and it includes verbal exposition about the product. The funny part is that the character in this police drama is speaking approvingly about what we now know to be a paedophile.
I don’t follow the show, but I remember Grace Park from BSG. Thinking she’s replaceable because “they all look alike” would be the kind of boneheaded error I would expect from CBS executives.
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