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Abstract:
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Colorblind TV : Primetime Politics of Race in Television Casting posits that in our current racially colorblind society , oftentimes actors of color are cast to prove that multiculturalism is important . However , the characters often have little cultural specificity and are only different in terms of skin tone . While this type of sameness on the surface may appear to offer a sense of racial parity , it actually encourages the opposite . Colorblindness works to make race immutable and objective , which inevitably disallows difference and instead outputs “whiteness” as the normative standard . Through a series of interviews with casting directors and actors guild diversity representatives as well as an ethnographic account of an actual casting audition , the dissertation argues that for the media industry , colorblindness is both a way of avoiding the messiness of race and of denying actors of color the ability to be culturally specific . This denial occurs because ultimately the desire to work supersedes the desire to reject role universality . As a case study , I examine the hit ABC primetime show Grey’s Anatomy (2005 - ) as a way of illustrating how the blindcasting process became a part of public discourse that the television industry both praised and disowned . |