re: #399 Obdicut

There’s so many layers of annoying and offensive, too. There’s subtle stuff like “Where are the Asians?”— most TV shows have incredibly small numbers of Asian cast members, especially in proportion to their representation in the world. Aside from Dexter and Heroes, I can’t think of a major TV show with an Asian in the main cast.

And the whole question of whether having an actor play a different ‘race’ is offensive, or enlightened. Chinese playing as Japanese and vice versa is always kind of darkly funny, given the traditional relationships between those ethnic groups.

The ideal is seeing presentations where a minority (or whomever) is used where it doesn’t matter that they are a minority. And especially if it isn’t played upon either. They’re a person (well, a role) and the fact they’re white/black/asian/Jewish whatever is of secondary importance. Though I presume cultural differences might be used as a plot device at some point - but that could be based on education, upbringing, experience, etc. as well.