Posted: February 23, 2012 | Author: karel | Filed under: pop culture, race | Let's just get this out of the way: I am not a fan of Zooey Deschanel. She seems to have quite a polarizing effect on people, so I know I'm not the only one. Though I do have to admit that part of my disdain stems from the fact that I will never be able to totally distinguish her from her character in 500 Days of Summer, and the fact that I have a huge fangirl crush on Joseph Gordon-Levitt. And she broke his sweet lil heart, people.
I digress. This isn't really a post about 500 Days of Summer, nor is it really about Zooey Deschanel. It's about her new show, New Girl. I resisted it for a while, solely because she and the show essentially seemed to embody each other, but what can I say? I got bored on Hulu one night. And then the next night, and the next.
Okay, I was enjoying it. Honestly, I'm not sure how much of Zooey I enjoy about it, although since she's the poster girl for the show, I guess it wouldn't be what it is without her. And it's a moderately enjoyable show with an unrealistically beautiful loft apartment and unrealistically beautiful people.
Then I watched the episode entitled "Valentine's Day" and one of the scenes made my stomach churn. Nick, one of the four main characters, is at his lawyer girlfriend Julia's office waiting for her to get off the phone so they can have a romantic V-Day date. She's on the phone with someone in China. How do we know this?
Because of this:
"Get your Chinese head out of your Chinese ass, Ming!"
and
"Confucius say, you work for me!"
… Excuse me? Did I just hear that? Yes, I did. And I instinctively, yet futilely, waited for someone on the show to admonish her. Because sometimes that's how screenwriters think they can get away with including racist dialogue in their scripts. But nothing came. No comment on it.
This week's episode, "Bully," included a scene in which Schmidt, another of the four main characters, takes Cece, his friend-with-benefits to brunch at a Chinese restaurant. He begs her to let him tell people that they're sleeping together, and she reluctantly agrees. He jumps up and in an attempt to get everyone's attention, yells "Stop everything! Stop… whatever it is that you're doing" and there's a shot of some older Chinese men playing Mah-jong.
I'm not sure if I would have taken notice of this subtle jab at the "otherness" of Chinese games had the previous episode not included those brutal racist lines. But I did, and it's really causing me to wonder what the writers' motivation is behind including these lines and settings in the script. Okay, they're in L.A. so going to a Chinese restaurant is probably common. But why are these old men playing Mah-jong at a Chinese restaurant? Why can't they just be… I dunno… eating? Why does Schmidt have to specifically point out that they're doing "whatever it is that they're doing"? Oh, is that supposed to be funny?
Were Julia's lines also supposed to be funny? Because the writers have found plenty of other ways to be funny without delving into the realm of racism. So, I don't get it. And I didn't find those lines funny, not in the slightest.
I had started to feel wary of the show well before the "Valentine's Day" episode, actually. Cece is not White, and just a few episodes in, Schmidt comments on her brown skin. It's then that she discloses that she's Indian, and he rattles off everything he knows about India, which includes "the Taj Mahal" and "anyone named Patel" and "cobras in baskets." Is it funny? I'm not sure. In later episodes Cece is dating some one-dimensional guy named Kyle who yells "I love brown people!!" while drunk, to which Cece responds, "That's racist, Kyle."
Again… why is this a part of the show? Are the writers trying to make some sort of social commentary on how difficult it is to date White guys when you're not White? Are they also trying to say that only people of color call others out for being racist (but still sleep with them)? Actually, my guess is that they're not trying to say anything at all. They appear to have the privilege of not having to think about the messages they convey through racial humor.
This privilege extends into all of the television recap blogs that I've found that review New Girl. As soon as I watched "Valentine's Day" I went searching for every review I could find, to see if I a. wasn't crazy or b. didn't miss some lightning-quick criticism of Julia's racist remarks from one of the other characters. Out of the 15 or so recaps that I read, I found one that was specifically about the racist scene. (Right on, Jenny!) Some of the others recounted the episode in explicit detail, including the scene at Julia's office, and some even mentioned that she was on the phone with someone in China, but completely glossed over the fact that she had been spewing vitriol on the phone. I don't know if all of the recap writers are White, but they certainly showed evidence that they have the privilege to watch a show intently enough to recap it without noting that one of its scenes was marred by overtly racist statements.
The character of Julia is now off the show – she and Nick broke up in this week's episode. Therefore, while we don't have to hear her spouting racism anymore, we also don't have the opportunity to see anyone on the show call her out on it. Not that I was counting on that happening anyway.
Zooey Deschanel, New Girl, FOX, I'm disappointed in you.
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