Did the show have too many white actors?

[ReadyAndWilling]

Anyone else think it was weird how basically everyone was of European extraction? People of European descent are a minority in the world. In fact, they only make up about 8-9% of the world's population and that number is steadily getting lower. For a show that's supposed to encompass the entire world, TNG made a huge mistake with this. Hell, white people will become a minority by the year 2020 in the USA.

It would have been much more prudent to include several Asian/African characters I think.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I've assume this is the result of Hollywood's talent pool at the time, although I imagine the intended audience is pretty WASPy.

 

[Trekker4747]

The series has two men in staring roles. Dorn and Burton, and at least one regular, black, guest star (Goldberg). So... I'd say no. Define "too many" white actors. Did Voyager have too many white actors? It had only one black acyot, Tuvik, a Hispanic (Dawson) and an Asian (Kim) and did Deep Space Nine had one black actor, Brooks with Jake another in secondary cast, and we could probably count Bashir as a "non-white" actor as I believe his ancestoral roots lie in the middle-east or similar ethnicity.

So, you tell me. Did TNG have too many white actors?



It had all the actors it needed and the diversty in it is just fine and better than what you'd find in most shows of the time and even today.

All of the Trek casts have been very diverse, and the original cast was monumentaly diverse for its time. In this day and age should it really matter how "diverse" a cast is? Are we still living in a time where everyone needs their "fair share" or whatever? Sheesh. If you ask me making it falsely diverse would be absurd and insulting. "Ok, we have a new TV series but we need a diverse cast, so get me a black actor, a white actor, a white actress, an Asian actor, a middle-eastern actress and a paraplegic Indian actor who's half-European. Just to be safe."

 

[Itisnotlogical]

There were episodes about Geordi and Worf and Guinan, just the same as there were episodes about Wesley and Data and Picard. They were well-liked characters and were, I imagine, payed at the same rate as any of the white actors. The white characters were never portrayed as being superior to the black characters.

So... what's your complaint?

 

[Finn]

Tell that to Burton. He'd disagree with you. Geordi's love life verus Riker's for one.

 

[Starbreaker]

Most of American TV is still mostly white actors.

 

[Admiral Shran]

Why don't you ask if Doctor Who has too many British actors? It was a show made for a prodominately white audience.

That isn't, however, to say it wasn't diverse. It was. All the Trek series were.

TOS had a black woman, an asian man, and a Jewish man. Even the white cast was diverse. They had a Scotsman, a Russian, and two Americans.

TNG had two black men and a Greek woman. Of the white cast, one played an andriod and another was British (or was he French, that's kind of confusing.)

DS9 had three black men and a Jewish man. Again, even the white cast was diverse. Three of them played aliens and the sole remaining one was Irish.

VOY had a black man, an asian man, a Native American man, and a Hispanic woman. Again, the white cast was diverse. Two played aliens and one played a non-organic hologram. Only three were what I'd call stereotypically "white."

ENT had a black man and an asian woman. Again, the white cast was diverse. Two played aliens, one was British, and the other two were Americans.

 

[RoJoHen]

It would have been much more prudent to include several Asian/African characters I think.

Maybe you should watch the show again.

 

[DevilEyes]

Why don't you ask if Doctor Who has too many British actors? It was a show made for a prodominately white audience.

That isn't, however, to say it wasn't diverse. It was. All the Trek series were.

TOS had a black woman, an asian man, and a Jewish man. Even the white cast was diverse. They had a Scotsman, a Russian, and two Americans.

TNG had two black men and a Greek woman. Of the white cast, one played an andriod and another was British (or was he French, that's kind of confusing.)

DS9 had three black men and a Jewish man. Again, even the white cast was diverse. Three of them played aliens and the sole remaining one was Irish.

VOY had a black man, an asian man, a Native American man, and a Hispanic woman. Again, the white cast was diverse. Two played aliens and one played a non-organic hologram. Only three were what I'd call stereotypically "white."

ENT had a black man and an asian woman. Again, the white cast was diverse. Two played aliens, one was British, and the other two were Americans.

That's a very odd summary. You make it seem like Jews and Greeks aren't white.

 

[bullethead]

This came up on the SciFi and Fantasy board a few months back and it comes down to a bunch of factors, like not a lot of black/Asian/whatever actors showing up for auditions, casting director and director/producer preference, and so on. That said, Trek has managed to keep its casts fairly diverse, so there's no problem there.

 

[iguana_tonante]

I like it how people praise the diversity of the white cast for having one white Brit and two white Americans, yet think one Asian guy (sorry, Asian-American) is more than enough, as if Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Vietnamese, Tibetans, and Indonesians were more or less the same.

Obviously, it just depends on your criteria: the crew was never intended to be a perfect representation of races' percentage on Earth. That would have been silly. Still, it was advertised as representing all Humanity, so I think it's a fair comparison. I don't care about having a higher percentage of white people in one show. What I don't like is that that's true for every show. Statistically, we should have had at least a crew that was mostly Asian, for example.

Almost every incarnation of Star Trek was more inclusive than most shows of their time. It handled racial issues pretty well most of the time (in my opinion). And the availability of actors in Hollywood was also an important factor. No one is denying that. But there are still representation issues, and it's worth discussing it.

 

[indolover]

I think all Trek crews were diverse and multi-racial/ethnic. Which other show in the 60s would have had a black woman and a man of East Asian descent in the cast?

In more modern times, the cast was both multi-racial and across nationalities. Sir Patrick Stewart, Marina Sirtis, Alexander Siddig, Dominic Keating, etc. are not American by birth.

 

[clint g]

The various shows do the best that they can. As far as Star Trek is concerned, I don't consider this an issue because they try to get it right.

 

[JoeD80]

we could probably count Bashir as a "non-white" actor as I believe his ancestoral roots lie in the middle-east or similar ethnicity.

Sudan.

 

[Solarbaby]

There were too many Americans in it. From a multi national/racial crew point of view nearly everyone had an American accent. Even the aliens!.

I know most of the actors were American but surely there were actos who could do accents. I don't think I've seen an australian on Trek. Or a German or a south African.
No matter what humans skin colour everyone was American lol.

This isn't a anti american bash I think it produces marvellous TV- especially sci fi
Good job I could understand them unlike some other US shows.

 

[Trekker4747]

There were too many Americans in it. From a multi national/racial crew point of view nearly everyone had an American accent. Even the aliens!.

Universal Translator.

 

[Kegg]

I'd say the predominance of Americans is a little more statistically galling, but I suppose they're quite closely related. TNG and Star Trek in general often acts demographically like the human race is America Writ Large; with a lot of white people with a number of other races as minorities. TNG's interesting there in the show's protagonist is a non-American white male, though it's an Englishman playing a Frenchman in a peculiar bit of ethnicity-blind casting (with bit-player Colm Meaney being far more on the money, no?)

The comment about Dr. Who hit it in one though, and if you've watched German, Japanese etc. sci-fi endeavours you'll tend to find something similiar (heck, Farscape seems to be in a particularly Australian end of the universe.) Talent is dictated by available actors... but yeah, as true as that is of almost all space opera, it's also a completely legitimate complaint to level against every single one; the union of the entire human race on equal terms could always have been expressed better, I'm sure.

 

[FormerLurker]

For the record, both the male leads on TOS are/were Jewish.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

Yes, it did, but pretty much every other sci-fi show I can think of has the same fault.

 

[T'Girl]

I've assume this is the result of Hollywood's talent pool at the time, although I imagine the intended audience is pretty WASPy.

Given the population of Los Angeles at the time, you'd think that a third or more of the available pool of actors would have been latinos.

Marina Sirtis is Greek (half Greek?), which not all people consider "white." But not all caucasians are white.

A direct answer to the OP, no IMHO.