ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, March 28, 1996 TAG: 9603280013
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES
SOURCE: LYNN ELBER AP TELEVISION WRITER
Situation comedy, which has given apartheid a comfortable home on television, is groping its way toward integration.
The likes of ``Friends,'' ``Seinfeld'' and ``Home Improvement'' remain strictly white. ``Living Single,'' ``Martin'' and ``The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air'' are steadfastly black.
But two new sitcoms feature integrated casts and stories to match: ``The Show'' on Fox Broadcasting Co. and ``Buddies'' on ABC are trying to play the race card for laughs.
``The Show'' (8:30 p.m. Sunday), about a white man hired as head writer on a TV series with a black star and staff, is in-your-face burlesque in the Fox style. The producer, John Bowman, had real-life experience as a white working on black shows, including ``In Living Color'' and ``Martin.''
``Buddies'' (9:30 p.m. Wednesday), which focuses on two aspiring filmmakers, one black and one white, is a softer show that plays up the pair's friendship and the low-key style of stand-up Dave Chappelle. It's from the producers of ``Home Improvement.''
Creators of the series say they hope to appeal to a multiracial audience - despite the gap between shows favored by whites, like top-rated ``Seinfeld,'' and ``Living Single,'' a leading show among black viewers.
Their timing is interesting. The sitcoms emerge as the Rev. Jesse Jackson and others have condemned the movie industry's record on black representation.
``The Show'' and ``Buddies'' highlight how differently film and TV treat blacks. Television, unlike the movies, has given visibility to black characters (if not Asians or Hispanics or others).
How those characters are used, however, depends on whether TV wants to move viewers or make them laugh.
Dramas routinely address racial issues, from the civil rights struggle in ``I'll Fly Away'' to school busing in ``Picket Fences'' to last week's ``Chicago Hope'' that saw a white nurse confront a black doctor over his refusal to date her.
In sitcoms, however, the touchy subject of race relations is avoided by the neat trick of creating self-contained black and white worlds - with some critics routinely annoyed by what they see as ``jivey,'' stereotypical portrayals on the black shows.
It's sort of a separate-and-sometimes-equal doctrine avoided by only a few series, such as the multicultural ``John Larroquette Show.''
So do ``The Show'' and ``Buddies'' represent progress? Yes, if they recognize and at least touch on the complexity of race in America, says sociologist Herman Gray.
No, he continues, if they recycle tired TV conventions, diluting or distorting black culture to make it palatable to white audiences.
There are examples to heed, said Gray, an associate professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and author of ``Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for `Blackness.'''
``Frank's Place,'' a 1987-88 CBS series set in a New Orleans restaurant, was a nuanced, authentic depiction of black life that realistically included white characters as part of community life.
Other series - Gray cites ``The Jeffersons'' - have taken what he considers a hackneyed approach to integration, broadly depicting a racial culture, black or white, through an outsider's eyes.
That approach seems to be at the heart of ``The Show,'' Gray said, with predictable results.
``I found it very caricatured,'' he said of the pilot episode, relying on stereotypes to make black culture accessible to whites. It's a gesture that goes unreciprocated by white shows.
```Seinfeld' is a perfect example: lots of [black] friends of mine really like that show - and there's lot of inside humor they don't really get,'' he said. ``It's not important they don't get it. They can still find humor in it.''
``The Show'' and ``Buddies'' may think they can succeed by creating a cultural middle ground between blacks and whites, Gray said. But he insists that's misguided.
``I think you can actually assume a shared kind of comedic sensibility across these audiences. They should take the chance and do it, rather than be tepid and mealy mouthed about it,'' he said.
Gray may have a point: Early ratings for the new series were not overwhelming. But the professor suggests they may yet find a creative groove. ``Let's give them a couple more shots at it,'' he said.
``The Show's'' producer would agree.
The issue of race ``has been swept under the carpet for a long time. This show won't make matters any worse in America,'' Bowman said. ``I can't imagine them being any worse than they are now.''
LENGTH: Medium: 88 linesby CNB