Two of my favorite shows have added new characters to their line ups. Morgan Brody, a plucky young CSI from LA joins the Las Vegas Crime Lab and a Lori Westin, the leggy NSA (?) Agent who joins the Five-0 team. Both are obviously additions to up the male viewership of their respective shows but both are used in different ways. Well, different way really. One is a full fledged character and the other one is only placed in the show to be a potential love interest for a main character and to attrach more male eyes.
Morgan Brody, the CSI audiences met last season in LA, is the estranged daughter of Ecklie, the sometimes misguided leader of the LV Crime Lab. She's plucky (There's that word again), feisty and altogether up for anything. She's a charming addition to the team. A little annoying sometimes, like in the recent episode where she was dumb enough to say she'll place the altogether very injured and very crazy victim into custody on her phone right in front of the guy who was regaining full consciousness and letting his hand fall near her gun. Now I know she probably didn't think he was going to go full Rambo on her but that doesn't mean she shouldn't have been on her guard at all times. Really, it was partly her fault that everyone ended up dying. But that doesn't mean it wasn't acted well. Elisabeth Hanois gives her character a cheerfulness and a gung-ho attitude that makes her not...painful to watch. And her whole character arc with a bit of flirting with Nick and a bit of competition (her side) and flirting (his side) with Greg gives the show a little bit more of a personal touch in a show that is notoriously known for keeping characters' private lives under wraps until the very last moment (CoughSaraGrissomCOUGH). The character centric episode was alright, seemed a little forced at trying to get the audience to like her (practically begging for the audience to like her, please like her) but overall well acted and just a little heartbreaking. Especially at the end when Morgan loses it because of her stressful day. She walks away from everyone, keeping up a strong facade until far enough away to let her emotions catch up. You gotta respect that.
Lori Westin on the other hand is a mystery. A one-note mystery. She's introduced as a blonde-haired object of flirtation for the strong-armed macho man that is Steve McGarrett. She's in a nice blouse and pencil skirt for her meeting with the acting Governor and she looks like she would break in half let alone be able to hold a gun. The Governor assigns her to the team and McGarrett puts up a hissy fit and so on and so forth until she's working in the same blouse and pencil skirt and one wonders if she just didn't have enough time to change or if that's just how she's gonna be for the rest of the season. Running after a suspect in heels is even worse and then one sighs because it seem like it will be. But the place where the writers' ask us to suspend the most disbelief is when she disarms the man that has a shotgun on her. Really? Really? She's half the size of that guy and you're telling me that her arm strength is enough to disarm him. Sometimes I feel like that with Kono too, where the suspension of disbelief is just too much. I can understand if she kicked the guy, women's legs are usually stronger but with her arms? No way unless she's got some Kung Fu moves that I don't know about. Unless her arms are the size of my cousins and she can bench press more than a hundred pounds will I believe it. Or maybe she just has wiry muscles? (More like...no muscles....) When will TV shows pick actual actors that look like they can do what they do on camera? Not just stunt work but someone who actually looks like they can punch you out? Why does she have to be so stick thin? The actress in Captain America said in an interview that she tried to look like she could actually pick up a gun and shoot it, that she wanted to have the physique of someone who could throw a punch and the bad guy would stay down. That's the kind of body type these women need to have to make it believable.
And so the episodes go on and she's believe it or not really hard to pin down. As an audience member, you're not quite sure if you even like her. She's not very friendly or cheerful, not charming, doesn't have an interesting backstory like Jenna, not an overeager rookie or a witty drawling veteran. And then the ahah moment comes when one realizes, she's just there to look pretty. There's no need for the writers' to be consistent with her because she can be whatever they need her to be. It's not a complexity of character, it's more like a lack of character. They don't know what to do with her. She's stoic and distant in one episode, witty and smirking in another, and then, the most out of character, gossipy and flustered. Just because she's a woman doesn't mean she shouldn't be given something more substantial. I don't know what angers me more, the fact that she's just placed as eye candy or the fact that she's not a minority.
Which brings me to another point. Why are both these new characters blond and white? Can't people from other ethnic backgrounds be love interests too? I guess the majority of people are white, oh wait...it's not the FREAKING 18TH CENTURY. America's got a lot more diverse if anyone hasn't noticed. How come the other ethnic groups aren't really being shown in TV land? Most title characters are white. Most more ethnic characters are relegated to the asian mob, the hokey sidekick, the real sidekick or just second best. The only mainstream movies I know where the main characters are not pale white is the Harold and Kumar series. Is it really that hard to get other races as main characters? Yes, yes it is.
Take John Cho for instance. He's a great actor, diverse, versitile, funny, dramatic, he's been around since '97 with 67 titles to his name and yet only recently has he been in the spotlight. Now, people might say things like, oh but that's just the business, a lot of actors have that if not more. And that's true, it partly is the business of being an actor but he's had to be "Parking Valet" or the "Sales House Man #1" in more mainstream stuff. Or be in comedies where he might get an actual name or in some indie movie about a specific culture where he'll actually get a name. Even now being the more household name he is for Star Trek and FlashForward, he's still not getting more title parts. Which again, might just be the business but compare his acting chops to Channing Tatum and I'll ask again, which is more fair? (GI Joe was a horrible movie and no one can convince me otherwise.)
Now one could say, Sandra Oh made it. She's been in more substantial movies than American Pie and Harold and Kumar and she's in a hit TV Show. Which is true, but that's only one out of, what, more than 2 billion Asians (and that's just counting India and China's populations) in the whole world? Sort of a sad statistic I would think.
We need to do something about it. And I think people are. Websites like youtube and tumblr make it easy for budding filmmakers to post videos and gain popularity. Wong Fu Productions comes immediately into mind. People from all ethnic backgrounds (even "white" people), joined together to express their outrage at the casting announcements for The Last Airbender. Hopefully we can get to the point where anyone, no matter what color their skin, or what race they're from or their ethnic background, will be able to be as popular as the next person based on what really matters, talent.
It's nice to see Asian people in the spotlight for once. Hopefully it'll keep going.
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