White Crusaders
The noble white crusader is a familiar fixture in
mainstream U.S. television. But when the NAACP and
other community and political groups raised a mild and
long-overdue ruckus last year, over the lack of
minority representation on tv, the networks promised
to reevaluate and "do better." Following this
declaration, most tv-watchers knew better than to hold
their breath. Still, there was a chance that
something new or different would break through. After
all, for better and worse, someone renewed City of Angels.
So here we are, three weeks into the new fall season,
and the numbers sort of look all right. That is, the
numbers of black (and occasional "other" minority)
characters on primetime network series look
not-terrible. It's true that these numbers comprise
mostly secondary characters — City of Angels,
Gideon's Crossing, and Dark Angel being the
exceptions that prove the rule — but it's a start.
But it's a start, even if it is a few decades late.
Two shows in particular have added black characters in
striking — not to say peculiar — ways. CBS's The District and C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation
feature strategically situated black supporting cast
members. I say "strategically," but I shouldn't be
coy: in both series, the black characters' inclusion
appears cynical, as if they are attempts to preempt
the very sorts of complaints I'm about to make.
In the case of The District, it's hardly surprising
that black characters take up a lot of the on-air
time, considering that it's set in Washington DC, one
of the few places in the U.S. where the majority
population is African American (one school of thought
has it that this is the major reason that the District
still does not have representation in Congress). In
fact, the cast's racial make-up prompted grumblings
before it even aired, specifically, concerns that the
show privileged a newly hired white police chief, Jack
Mannion (Craig T. Nelson, also listed as a "consulting
producer," whatever that is) over nefarious black
characters, namely, a mayor modeled after Marion Barry
and an assortment of corrupt cops. Reportedly, the
network and producers were surprised to hear about
these concerns — perhaps they'd been vacationing on
Mars — but they dutifully took up the task of
altering the show to appease detractors. The
resulting, revamped District features a basically
good black mayor, Ethan Baker (played by the famously
decent and outspoken John Amos, who once quit Good Times because of its racist representations: in a
word, JJ) and snide references to his badly behaved
predecessor. The show also features a DC Chief of
Patrol named Noland (Roger Aaron Brown), who's mad
because he's been passed over for the Police Chief's
position now occupied by Mannion.
Mannion and Noland's essential difference is coded
not as black-white per se, but as new school-old
school policing methods. Mannion comes with computers
and crime statistics, while Noland has an allegiance
to his officers, struggling to forge order and trust
between citizens and themselves, in a city only
recently relieved of the title "Murder Capital of the
World." As well, Mannion faces a two-pronged problem:
the public's understandable distrust of cops and other
officials, and the testy relationship between the
municipal administration and federal government (which
control's DC's budget, and which is most immediately
embodied by the great Michelle Forbes — back from the
Homicide dead — as a congressman's assistant).
Mannion's politics are ambiguous: he believes in a
strong police force, but also has faith in and wants
to help the common folks, not just lock them up. He
tends toward liberal-leaning hard-assness, as when he
frets about gun show firearms-purchase loopholes:
"What kind of crazy country are we living in — I
can't walk into a video store without ID!" As this
eruption suggests, he can be naive, here coded as
coming up with the ideas first. So, he wonders
aloud about his banger constituents, "What war are
fighting in their heads?" or complains about his own
force, "Nobody has the guts to say they made a
mistake!", and the show suggests that he's being
insightful. And if he punctuates every statement with
an exclamation point, he's also charming and literate,
quoting Catch-22 and winning over the
super-efficient Deputy Mayor Maryanne Antonio (Jayne
Brook, in yet another role that does not do her
justice), and a friendly uniform, Nancy Parras
(Elizabeth Marvel), who's on unhappy desk duty because
of a tragic past event she confesses within hours of
meeting Mannion. Let's just say that Nelson's days as
the star of Coach have made him a phenomenal source
of team spirit.
As if to underline this very point, Mannion assembles
a team, with whom he has a power-breakfast at a local
diner each morning. Here we see the Chief at his most
profound, as when he declares, "The people on the
block! That's what we're about!" His team includes
PR guy Nick (Justin Theroux); Ella Farmer (Lynne
Thigpen), records-keeper extraordinaire and newly
single "mom" when her sister is murdered by her own
husband in the first episode (Mannion likes her so
much he has a washing machine delivered to her
apartment so she can come to work on time); good ol'
Irish cop Danny McGregor (David O'Hara), introduced as
he wildly shoots 26 rounds into a bison in the zoo (in
whose cage McGregor is unexpectedly trapped); and
Mannion's earnest young driver, Temple Page (Sean
Patrick Thomas, last seen in Cruel Intentions as
Selma Blair's earnest young lover).
With this coterie in place, Mannion starts turning
the police department's frankly terrible record
around. So far, the plots are putting him at odds with
Noland, who repeatedly looks snarly and underhanded.
Mannion, meanwhile, acts adorably-pugnaciously
"large": he sings "High Hopes" and practices ballroom
dance steps in the office and wears big ugly ties.
When he oversees department meetings, he instructs
Ella to "put up" graphs and maps on a huge screen,
then calls on officers to answer questions they'd
rather not. Whether the officers look uncomfortable
or impressed marks them as good or bad guys, on the
team or not. Whenever Mannion begins a speech about
his goals, the music swells ridiculously: in another
show, this would be a joke, but in The District's
solemn and self-congratulatory universe, it's supposed
to be inspirational.
Mannion's know-it-allness is grating, no doubt. And
like many crusaders before him, he maintains this
attitude no matter what happens, blaming everyone else
for what goes wrong. The show appears to agree with
him, presenting his ideas as if they are innovative,
confounded only by ornery bureaucrats and resentful
cops. Granted, this is not an uncommon view in and of
DC, but the fact that Mannion voices it as if it's his
very own new observation is tedious at best, and more
often offensive. For just one example, in the 21
October episode, Temple is helping Mannion to clean up
a block of crack houses (which Mannion terms, with
his usual bombast, a "smorgasbord of crime!"), when a
scuffle leads to a dealer being hit by a car. You
don't see the event, but witnesses say Temple pushed
him. Mannion believes his driver, which incites
"unrest in the community." To quell it, Mannion visits
a black church, reading to the initially rowdy
congregation Temple's favorite Psalm, 91: "His truth
shall be thy shield." They applaud, appeased.
Meanwhile, Nick arranges for some secular
word-spreading, via an interview for Temple with a
Washington Post reporter: soon, everyone believes
him. This is all good for the significantly named
Temple, yes, but the point, as always, is this: the
godlike Mannion is right and everyone will bend to his
will.
If The District is irksome for its ham-handedness,
C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation is irksome for its
ambivalence — which is not to say that it ever
suggests its crusader is less than right. Set in Las
Vegas so that head investigator Gil Grissom (executive
producer William Petersen) can make pithy observations
about gambling and fate, C.S.I. features a crack
forensics team who must deal with a variety of cases
and personal traumas: it's sort of Profiler meets
HBO's Autopsy, with a friendly nod to Jack Klugman's
antiquated Quincy. The team includes Catherine
Willows (Marg Helgenberger), Warrick Brown (Gary
Dourdan), Nick Stokes (George Eads), and Sara Sidel
(Jorja Fox), brought in to replace a team member
(Holly Gribbs [Chandra Wes]) who is killed in Week
Two.
This unusual plot turn might be one reason for the
series' terrific numbers — it's CBS's surprise hit,
the highest rated drama of the new season, with
Nielsen counting some 15.7 million viewers last week.
Indeed, surprise is thematized each week, with the
primary gimmick being the show's presentation of
multiple explanations for crime scenes: different
scenarios appear in smudgy black and white imagery
during different accounts by different characters (the
investigators, witnesses, perps). It's not a bad
gimmick, as it draws attention to the subjectivity
involved in interpreting "evidence" or other surfaces.
Still, and perhaps needless to say, Gil's reading of a
scene is always right, and the show is more about his
mentoring of a young or otherwise inexperienced staff
than about the actual cases, which can be a tad
parlor-gamey, like Murder, She Wrote.
Gil is apparently fatherly by nature, with an
investment in rules and codes of behavior. And so, he
advises his mentees at moments of potential crisis,
deliberately, with only a hint of compassion. That
Warrick — the team's only black male member — has so
far been the one most obviously in need of paternal
guidance may only be a quirk of fate (perhaps Nick's
"stuff" is coming up in future episodes). But it's
striking that Warrick's "bad" attitude and off-duty
indiscretions have been the cause of major problems
for the team already. The first involves a perp he
recognizes as such, and whom he calls "whitey" under
his breath, referring not only to the guy's race, but
also to his 'burban comfort and blatant presumption
that he can get over on the brainy forensics folks.
Catherine calls Warrick out on his language, but Gil
dresses him down for presuming anything based on
anyone's appearance (i.e., this is a lesson in reverse
racism). That Warrick ends up being right about this
particular presumption is immediately undercut by a
more serious plot point, namely, the aforementioned
death of new girl Holly. Warrick's part in this event
is dire: assigned to watch her dust for prints at a
scene, he leaves her in order to conduct some
not-so-licit business (some gambling scheme). When the
criminal comes back and shoots Holly, Gil plans to
kick Warrick off the team, but at the last minute
decides to keep him on.
While you might think this is the end of it, in fact,
this storyline comes back again to haunt Warrick in a
second major problem. In the 20 October episode, he's
torn between two lessons: 1) Gil's edict that you must
follow the evidence, no matter where it leads, and 2)
Gil's compromise in keeping Warrick on the job. The
case involves an elderly black man and his high
schooler grandson, one of whom is responsible for a
hit-and-run accident which leaves a young
scooter-rider dead. Catherine and Warrick both know
that the grandfather was not driving the vehicle on
the night in question — "proved" when they turn on
the car and loud hiphop comes a-blasting from the
radio (as Catherine says, "Nobody over 19 was the
last person to drive this car!"), but Catherine is
inclined to let him stick to his story, which they
both know he's contrived to save grandson from prison.
You can guess what they decide to do, and that Warrick
suffers some more guilt, since he's had his own second
chance after causing an accidental death.
Such complexities are probably good things, and
certainly more compelling than anything the reductive
world of The District has yet offered. It might be
healthy for Gil to concern himself with such merely
mortal issues. At the very least, it should keep him
from getting too self-absorbed and self-righteous like
Mannion. But if either of these shows really wants to
be "new," it might consider storylines in which
Temple, Ella, and Warrick do not need to be saved by
their crusaders.
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