It’s no secret that I love The West Wing. I’ve seen every episode at least 3 times (some a lot more than that), and I often drive Max a little nuts by going all Rocky Horror Picture Show while it’s on (i.e. quoting lines along with the characters).
Unfortunately, right now, the only place and time I can reliably watch The West Wing (due to babies and various A/V setups) is 8pm weeknights on CTS, the Christian channel. This is a little annoying because they not only bleep out every ‘hell’ and ‘damn’, they also tend to remove entire scenes that they deem too racy for their audience (they cut scenes of unmarried people waking up in bed together, for example).
Also annoying is that they seem to have only a handful of advertisers, so you see the same ads night after night after night. For the past few months, we’ve been subjected to this one from Blue Cross, about how ‘the Thompsons’ need supplemental health insurance:
I hate this ad. Not only because it’s boring and involved about the same amount of creativity as a boiled egg, but because its nod to ‘diversity’ is so transparently shallow as to be offensive. The ad addresses ‘Billy’s’ need for new teeth, ‘Mr Thompson’s’ fall off a ladder, and ‘Mrs Thompson’s’ need for new glasses. ‘Grandma Thompson’ (at least, I think she’s supposed to be someone’s grandmother) sits, ignored, in her wheelchair, with only her little dog for company. But what about the little girl? She’s not identified, and her only role in the ad is to hold up a sign (well, and to help Grandma Thompson – perhaps with a Blue Cross plan, that’s as much help as you can expect).
What is she doing in this ad? I’ll tell you: Someone said “We should have, like, some diversity in there somewhere, guys – 32% of our target audience is non-white…”, so they shoehorned this poor girl in to the picture.
I think it’s great when advertising reflects our diverse culture – I love that Cheerios ad (with the ‘white’ mother and the ‘bi-racial’ daughter) that everyone’s been talking about. But just sticking in an older person or a person of colour, without making them part of the action or even referring to them, is the worst kind of pandering.