I’m writing my final paper for my Race Theory in Media course on racial and gender representations in contemporary mainstream television, with a focus on Grey’s Anatomy. Since I know it’s a popular show, it’s interesting for me to hear people’s opinions about the representations. So, if you love the interracial relationship between Burke and Cristina or are intrigued by the fact that the show has women in power, I’d love to hear input.

The show is particularly intriguing in how it interconnects all of the elements of race, class, gender, and sexuality and while it is praised for all of these various representations, the program upholds many ideologies that have negative affects on various groups. The show appeals to a large variety of people because it presents an assortment of races and genders in significant roles. Grey’s Anatomy successfully integrates genders and races into a mainstream, popular show. However, it is interesting that despite the vast representations, the cast’s gender and racial differences are not a central focus. This is acceptable because the characters and the relationships attract audiences and their races are incidental. The cast’s race is not directly addressed and it is embraced by many people who can relate to the various cast members.

While I came home with every intention of working on my project right at 10 pm and putting finishing touches on it tonight, I was, alas, entrapped in this television show that one of the ladies in my apartment was watching and now I have something to blog about, but no real progress on that whole project thing. Either way, I guess it's beneficial for this course, so it's only a little bit bad.

The show was a special investigation done by ABC Primetime News entitled Basic Instincts: What Would You Do? It’s a Candid Camera type show, but with socially taboo or unacceptable situations, not comedic situations. The whole idea is even if people are morally against certain issues in society, most of the time they won’t speak out against them in specific social situations. Here are the examples that I saw from tonight’s show (I guess it is a limited series).

This morning I read an interesting article in the NYTimes that encompasses a number of things we have addressed in class, namely blogging, new media authorship etc. etc.

I am sure being the tuned-in, media-oriented students that so many of you are, you probably are already familiar with the blog TVNewser. If not, this is an interesting article about the kid who started it and the growing influence of the blog with in the television industry.

My favorite line from the article:
"Perhaps this is what the techno-geeks had in mind when they invented the Internet — a device to squash not only time and space, but also social class and professional hierarchies, putting an unprepossessing Maryland college student with several term papers due in a position to command the attention and grudging respect of some of society’s most famous and powerful personalities."