The 19-year-old daughter of this president of this United States includes a problem. On a single hand, her relationship with her new boyfriend couldn’t be better. But trouble is brewing.
For Zoey Bartlet (Elisabeth Moss)–the first daughter on NBC’s White home drama, “The West Wing”–the dilemma is that her beau, Charlie Young (Dule Hill), is black colored. White supremacists have already been giving death threats to the White home, and an increasingly worried president (Martin Sheen) blocks the couple intends to go right to the opening of the hot new club. Whenever Zoey tells Charlie, who is also her father’s aide that is personal within a lunch, he storms out of the restaurant.
The scene, which appears in tonight’s installment of “The western Wing,” is merely one of these of a onslaught of prime-time series being aggressively tackling romance that is interracial. Until a few periods ago, such relationships had been a rarity on network tv, considered too controversial and responsive to depict or explore. Now at the very least six prime-time dramas and comedies have tale lines revolving around mixed-race couples.
“There’s this ‘toe-in-the-water’ approach now in television about showing blacks and whites in love on television,” said Robert M. Entman, manager associated with the Department of Communication at vermont State University and co-author regarding the upcoming book “The Ebony Image within the White Mind: Media and Race in the us.”
“Both ‘ER’ and ‘Ally McBeal’ have experienced most of these romances in the previous few periods, and it didn’t result in outrage or have an effect on ranks,” Entman stated. “So now there’s a little more boldness in approaching interracial relationships.”
The tale lines revolving around interracial relationships are blossoming within a television period that’s been blasted by the NAACP along with other minority groups for the lack of social variety regarding the four major sites. Even though “The Jeffersons” of this mid-’70s featured a long-married interracial couple, this season’s focus is on the tension of courtship additionally the societal conflict it could provoke.
Andrew Rojecki, who co-wrote “The Ebony Image into the White Mind” with Entman, suggests the stormy interracial love a few seasons ago on “ER” between surgeons Peter Benton (Eriq LaSalle) and Elizabeth Corday (Alex Kingston) was the main force in tearing down the resistance toward showing black and white couplings.
“That relationship really challenged the social and social taboos on television,” Rojecki stated. “It was done for a top ten show that appeals to both black and viewing that is white, which are apt to have various tastes in just what shows they watch. What’s occurring now with all these other shows is terrific. Whether it is a harbinger of items to come continues to be become seen.”
Delicate Area for Promoting Programs
Manufacturers recommend the trend is primarily driven with a wealth of largely uncharted story lines. Indeed, while audiences seem to be more receptive, such plots stay an area that is sensitive the systems’ promotional machines.
The present industry of relationships cuts across age, social and professional barriers. Sexual and romantic stress has been building on CBS’ “Judging Amy” between Judge Amy Gray (Amy Brenneman) and her black court solutions officer Bruce Van Exel (Richard T. Jones), and a recently available episode showed her dreaming about a steamy erotic encounter with him in her office. On ABC’s “Once and Again,” Grace Manning (Julia Whelan), the high-strung, embarrassing teenage child of Lily Manning (Sela Ward), is dropping deeply in love with 
her black classmate Jared (Robert Richard). CBS’ inner-city hospital drama, “City of Angels,” features a young Jewish resident, Dr. Geoffrey Weiss (Phil Buckman), performing a tight relationship with registered nurse Grace Patterson (Maya Rudolph) throughout the vociferous protest of her dad. College students Shawn (Rider Strong) and Angela (Trina McGee-Davis) are continuing their courtship on ABC’s “Boy Meets World.” Plus the future WB political drama, “D.C.,” about twentysomethings in the nation’s money, has interracial few, television news producer Sarah Logan (Kristanna Loken) and U.S. Supreme Court clerk Lewis Freeman (Daniel Sunjata), that are living together.