“Color blindness” in Entertainment Through the Eyes of Grey’s Anatomy: Helpful or Harmful? You Decide.
Written by: Nikki Sargent
How often have you heard someone say “I’m colorblind” or “I don’t see color” when in a conversation around race? What does it mean to be “color blind”? As defined by the Marriam-Webster dictionary, to be color blind is to be unable to distinguish between one or more monochromatic colors. But when someone talks about staying colorblind to people or in society, they aren’t talking about monochromatic colors, are they? Another definition of “color blind” by the Marriam-Webster dictionary is to not be influenced by the differences of race, or free from racial prejudice (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/color-blind). In theory, this idea doesn’t seem too. bad; but actually, “color blindness” is just the newest form of racism.
Before we can analyze the effect of “color blindness” in entertainment, we must first understand the history and the effects of this racism. At the beginning of the 20th century, it was legal to deny someone housing, jobs, entrance, and more based on the color of their skin. Although laws were in place to prevent segregation, people still found ways to discriminate through social practices and economic disparities. But times have changed, presently, it is socially frowned upon to label oneself as “racist”; so instead, they deny it, even if they practice it. Claiming to be “color blind” lets those of racial privilege close their eyes to the experience of others; it lets them overlook the trials of race and ethnicity given by an apparition of racial harmony. (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/color-blindness-is-counterproductive/405037/)
So how is this relevant to entertainment? As many could recognize, entertainment is a huge part of American culture; fandoms are created to discuss certain shows such as Doctor Who, people declare a criminology major in hopes to be Jason Gideon from Criminal Minds, someone mentions a lightning scar and everyone thinks of Harry Potter. Entertainment is a prominent part of peoples lives as well; taking someone to movies as a first date, having family nights to watch Jeopardy, scheduling your Monday nights to enable you to be able to tune into the Bachelor every week so the next day at school or work you can offer an opinion on who got the rose. Since entertainment is such a huge part of our lives, it would make sense why parents are concerned about what their kids are watching. Do action movies cause our sons to be violent? Does the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show give our daughters a bad body image? Does watching a show where race isn’t embraced make our kids ignorant or racist? (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2792691/)
When creating Grey’s Anatomy, director Shonda Rhimes tried to be progressive by creating a show that is “color blind”; the idea was great, but later had to be modified. In 2006, ABC was awarded an A- on their “diversity report card” given by civil rights groups. A rating this high was rare because it required multiple shows to have a widely racially diverse cast, an idea that was unfathomable during this time. This was because of Shonda Rhimes “blind-casting” technique. When she began casting for Grey’s Anatomy, she purposely left off last names and put no physical descriptions of characters on the script, this was so they could choose actors based on skill and their fit to the character, with no influence by their race. As quoted from Rhimes’ appearance on Nightlife in 2006, she was tired of talent agencies just bringing “blonde and blue-eyed” actors when she asked to see all actors; so she took things into her own hands and had “open blind-casting” to anyone and everyone who wished to audition. (http://mobilityincontextspring16a.qwriting.qc.cuny.edu/files/2016/01/Diagnosing-Drama.pdf)
Shonda Rhimes achieved a heterogeneous cast, with characters ranging from White to African American to Asian to Hispanic and farther. This idea is important to television because society in the media is an idealistic world; it engrains into our minds how humanity should be. Media is an opportunity to redirect and train the people’s minds into a progressive direction, creating an equal, balanced and just world. So it would make sense why some people see a “color blind” television as a good thing; because it is training its viewers to see races as the same. But is there a point where “color blindness” is detrimental to the cause?
Whether or not you’ve ever been in an interracial relationship, you’ve probably seen or at least heard of the hardships of one; whether it’s slurs, violence or even stares, an interracial relationship is seen differently by the public. Because the character’s relationships were written without race assigned to characters, the show resulted in having many interracial relationships. According to Mathew Fogel, many scholarly texts have given attention to interracial relationships, claiming them to not only be beneficial to television’s viewers but important in promoting social equality (https://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/08/arts/television/greys-anatomy-goes-colorblind.html). While it is important to see these relationships, Grey’s Anatomy isn’t known to show the struggles of one. The most infamous interracial couple in the show was Christina Yang and Preston Burke. Throughout the first three seasons, their relationship was seen in the light of both good and bad, it was shown in all its ups and downs; yet, not one of their hardships was race-related. Most of their troubles sprouted from an employee-employer relationship and dynamic personality differences like the desire for a child. Was discrimination avoided in order to suppress reality’s struggles or to show an equal couple?
Another example of “color blindness” in Grey’s Anatomy is the character, Dr. Richard Webber. When introduced in the pilot episode, Dr. Webber was the Chief of Surgery which is the boss of surgery in the hospital. Richard Webber is played by James Pickens Jr. an African American actor. It wasn’t until season 6 when Dr. Webber expressed how being black affected him in the workplace, how people expected less from him and disregarded him due to his race. There were six seasons where his race had no effect on his accomplishments, which is great right? It shows us how we should want society to be, where a black man being the boss is widely accepted and never questioned; but that isn’t our reality. As the saying goes, those who aren’t white have to “work twice as hard to get half as far”, so shouldn’t that be shown in entertainment? (http://web.a.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=5&sid=dd660b22-8f7f-4b09-bdc0-817f9ab4a8e6%40sdc-v-sessmgr01&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#bib6)
There are many more examples of “color blindness” in Grey’s Anatomy and many, many more throughout all media. No one can agree upon whether or not “color blindness” is good or bad in entertainment; whether it would be good to train the viewers to see an equal society or whether it would good to show reality’s prejudice to race. Either way has the same goal, to influence society to view everyone as equals. So the question is: is a “color blind” media helpful or harmful? You decide.
