Monochrome Casting: Difference between revisions
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* ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'' tried very hard to avoid monochrome casting, in line with Gene Roddenbery's views on race becoming a non-issue in Earth's future. This required deliberate effort on the part of the production staff, as, even in the mid-1960s, the network production system tended to fill all spots for extras with generic, physically fit white males (age 25 to 45) unless otherwise specified. As production values slipped in the second and third seasons of the series, crewmen and civilians fell back on the generic white male Hollywood stockpile.
* Monochromatic casting applied to all segments of American television before the 1970s. When Bill Cosby first appeared on ''[[The Tonight Show]]'' in the 1960s, doing his stand-up comedy act, the only make-up on hand at NBC was a base used previously for Lena Horne, who is so much paler than usual for American blacks that she used to be attacked as a "mulatto" by hostile white (and, occasionally, black) hecklers. Cosby was so pale on screen that night ("Live in black & white!") his family thought something had been done to him or that he was ill.
* The Sci-Fi Channel adaptation of [[Ursula K. Le Guin]]'s ''[[The Earthsea Trilogy|Earthsea]]'' series was an [[Egregious]] mix of Monochrome Casting and [[They Just Didn't Care]]. Leguin intentionally created a fantasy world where a variety of dark-skinned people make up the majority of the populace (she even makes a point of distinguishing between the different shades of brown), with the only white people being barbarians... and the movie starred a bunch of white people and a [[Magical Negro]]. Leguin has some [https://web.archive.org/web/20150907182414/http://www.ursulakleguin.com/Index-EarthseaMiniseries.html choice things] to say about the production.
* ''[[Queer as Folk]]'' is somewhat disappointing since the show is about gay life in Pittsburgh, which has a healthy minority population, yet one has to keep one's eye's peeled to even see non-white ''extras.''
* Parodied by ''[[Mad TV]]'' with the sketch "Pretty White Kids With Problems." It aired when Dawson's Creek was at its prime. A different sketch called "Devon's Creek" was ''Dawson'' with all-black cast members. Problem is, because the entire writing staff, production crew, and executive board were white, the lines sounded like every black-comedian stereotype of white people.
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