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Americans have come a long way since watching Benson seemed progressive and Archie Bunker was an amusing prime-time racist ... right? Not so, argues Ian Forte at Cracked. He lists five shows "that seem to not just exist in a vacuum, but revel in just how intolerant or ignorant of race they are":
- American Gypsies: This National Geographic-produced “atrocity” aims to dispel myths about gypsies, but depicts them as fortune-tellers or hairy, brutish people who shout at each other over dinner.
- Glee: Yes, the cast is multicultural, but all non-white characters are horribly stereotyped. “Hence the two Asian characters on the show have the same last name” and “the Jew's last name is Ben Israel," writes Forte. Not to mention that an Irish character is “believed to be a leprechaun.”
- WWE Wrestling. No surprise here? True, but the devil’s in the details: Cryme Tyme was a black street gang, Japanese warrior Lord Tensai is played by a “a stocky white man,” and a Texan character sits at the Mexican border and “literally kicks a Mexican back into Mexico.”
- 2 Broke Girls: The show's Asian waiter is such a stereotype that he “speaks like he just rolled out of the fortune cookie factory and is surprised to find a lack of bamboo in our crazy, Western world.” But don’t take Forte’s word for it: the New Yorker and Jezebel have both spotted racism on the show.
Click to read Forte’s take on America’s
Hillbilly Renaissance.
