Politically Correct History / Live-Action TV

• Hogan's Heroes showed anachronistic ethnic equality views by characters, with the only major implication of Kinchloe's blackness being that he can't impersonate Germans in person (although he's great at it over the phone). This may be excused by the idea that being in prison together forces them to ignore such issues to fight the larger enemy, and that the group has very strong unity. The Germans also never have much reaction to his race, though Nazi antipathy toward Africans was far more downplayed than that against their favored targets (however, Germans of mixed ancestry were forcibly sterilized by the regime, and they planned to colonize Africa again). African-American soldiers were not even in the same units as white ones at the time (although they would be held in the same POW camps), and this didn't change until 1948, after the war was over. A lot of films and TV shows at the time ignore this, or the other racism prevalent against them.
• Though Star Trek is usually pretty good at pointing out the errors of our past, this is played straight in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Time's Arrow", where Guinan (a Human Alien who is played by Whoopi Goldberg and thus is indistinguishable from a human of African descent) is depicted as a wealthy socialite in 1893 who goes to parties with white people who don't seem to have a single problem with her. In fact in the episode she's extremely well-liked and respected by pretty much the entire town. Probably helps that Guinan is a highly-empathetic, centuries-old alien with experience to match, so she might just be that good at making friends. It doesn't hurt that she's best buddies with Mark Twain, who was a huge backer of Civil Rights for women and African Americans. In addition, San Francisco was more tolerant than the rest of the United States... of everyone except Asians.
• Discussed in-universe in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang", in which Sisko, who is black, is annoyed at the popularity of Vic's holosuite program, which gives a politically-correct depiction of 1962 Las Vegas which leaves out the 1960s USA's racial segregation. Sisko points out that in real 1962 Vegas, neither he nor his also-black girlfriend Kasidy would have been allowed into the casino except as performers or menial staff members. Kasidy argues however that it's defensible as being how that era should have been in reality. It's also somewhat justified, as Vic is a blatant expy of Frank Sinatra, who was way ahead of his time when it came to race relations. His entire group would boycott hotels who didn't desegregate.
• The CBC Mockumentary Jimmy MacDonald's Canada, despite being about a 1960s-era conservative pundit with pseudo-fascist views on children's hockey, never has him make any ethnic slurs, beyond a dismissive reference to Italians. The character probably is a monstrous racist, but it wouldn't be very funny to present.
• Zig-zagged in M*A*S*H. Black people are referred to by the historically correct term "Negroes" on the show, even by the good guys (this was rather less politically incorrect when the show premiered, in the early 1970s, than it is now, the shift from "Negro" to "black" having taken place in the late sixties). However, later episodes gave Major Houlihan second-wave feminist views, even though the show is set more than ten years before The Feminine Mystique was first published. You could chalk this up to Houlihan being ahead of her time, except that the episode "Inga", written by Alan Alda as a love letter to the feminist movement, seems to have all the characters acting as though the 1970s women’s movement already happened, breaking any illusion that the show is really set in the early 1950s. (That episode won an Emmy, of course.) There's also the black Dr. Jones, who was Brother Chucked halfway through the first season, supposedly because the producers discovered that no black doctors served in the Korean War (they were wrong: the real M*A*S*H unit that was the basis of the original novel and by proxy the series itself had a black surgeon among its medical staff). However, it was played as a joke that he was nicknamed "Spearchucker" because he threw the javelin in college. Of course, it was also tongue in cheek, in that everyone knew it also had racial connotations. In another episode, Hawkeye permanently turns down imminent sex with a beautiful woman, because she complains about "those gooks (Koreans) marrying our (white) people." He gives her a speech as well. In another episode, Hawkeye "schools" a redneck soldier who complains about getting a transfusion of "black blood," by painting him brown and claiming that he ordered watermelon for dinner, etc. Not to mention repeating the urban legend that Dr. Charles Drew, the African-American surgeon who started the US blood bank, was refused care at a Southern hospital after being in a car accident and thus died from his injuries (false, though he did protest against segregation of the blood supply).
• The BBC's Robin Hood
  • Tuck & the Abbess of Rutherford can seem like this, but Black people have lived in England since the Roman Conquest. While Black members of monastic orders and nunneries would have been quite rare, it's not impossible.
  • And then we have Djaq, who is at least given a reason why an Arab Muslim woman would be in Medieval England. However, after her introductory episode almost no one remarks upon the fact that a) she's obviously not English, b) she's a Muslim in a time and place where that would be intolerable, c) she's a woman who dresses and acts like a man, and d) she's from a nation who the King of England is currently fighting for Palestine.
• In an episode of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, Kimberly travels back in time to Angel Grove of the 1800s. At the local saloon, the Identical Ancestors of her fellow Rangers, who are white, Latino, black woman, and Korean, respectively, are casually sharing drinks with one another. In another episode, Tommy's clone was also casually accepted in 1700's Angel Grove after the morphed White Ranger uses a magic artifact to put him in ye olde clothing.
  • In the later season Power Rangers Time Force, the character of Katie (a black woman) ends up going back in time ^note further, as she is originally from the year 3000, having already traveled to the year 2001 to an undefined period roughly two hundred years prior. At no point is there any reference to her skin, or the fact that slavery even exists, and she's able to sit in a bar and have an arm wrestling contest with men with no particular problem.
• Little House on the Prairie has some examples. Filmed in the 1970s and set in the 1800s, some of the characters are anachronistic:
  • When Charles finds out a local boy is beaten by his father, he takes action to help the boy. Social attitudes in the 1800s regarding parental discipline were much different from those in the 1970s.
  • In "The Long Road Home", Charles and Mr. Edwards get a job hauling explosives with Henry (played by Lou Gossett, Jr.). In the episode, only one person shows any form of racism against Henry, although later in the episode, Henry is told he can't ride in a passenger car with the other passengers because of his color. It's not clear whether the porter is racist or is just enforcing the rules. The same porter was just as mean to Charles and Mr. Edwards in the beginning of the episode when they tried to ride in the same passenger car, but were railroad employees, not paying customers. In the end of the episode, the one racist has a change of heart and jokingly claims he was kicked out of the passenger car because he was Irish.
  • In "The Fighter," black boxer Joe Kegan goes up against local white men in almost every fight. The only time race is mentioned is when he explains to Charles that the reason he got into boxing is so he could punch white men without getting "hung." No one ever mentions his race, not even when he and his manager are renting a room.
  • Female teachers such as Eva Beadle, Alice Garvey and Laura are allowed to teach after getting married, even though married women were barred from teaching until the 20th century.
• An episode of The Suite Life of Zack & Cody which involved a dream wherein the characters lived in the Revolutionary War era involved the African-American character Moseby being the proprietor of an inn, which would be unusual but not impossible in the late 1700s. The Asian-American (a racial group which did not exist in the colonies at that time) London Tipton was also shown as some sort of rich heiress. It can be excused by the fact that the character having the dream is not the smartest character on the show to begin with, and the fact that it was All Just a Dream in the first place, though.
  • Esteban blatantly points out how they would make a democracy (America), but how Carey and Maddie (women) or Zack and Cody (children) would not receive a vote. However, he does not anticipate that he (Hispanic) or Arwin (the hotel engineer whose salary would not have allowed sufficent land ownership) were to be similarly disenfranchised.
• Zig-zagged in Doctor Who with Reality Is Unrealistic:
  • The show regularly has black characters in historical settings, but these are often either based on real life (such as black Secret Service agents in the 1970s) or due to episodes being set in fairly cosmopolitan places (e.g. Renaissance Venice) where one might actually have seen races mixing together. In one episode, Martha asks if she should be worried about being a black woman in old-time London, but the Doctor points out that there are other black people walking around unmolested (which was Truth in Television, as Elizabeth I's unsuccessful attempts to expel the "Moors" from London indicates the presence of substantial numbers of black Londoners).
  • Played straight in "The Fires of Pompeii", where Caecilius' family has a mysterious lack of slaves. The episode also avoids characterizing the city's loose sexual mores, without any erotic artwork or references to brothels. Also, the wife and children in the family are much less subservient to their paterfamilias than would have generally been tolerated by Romans in that era.
  • Played straight in "The Eaters of Light", in which Classical Roman concepts of sexual orientations and attitudes to same-gender sexual activities are somewhat simplified and idealised to make them more palatable to modern viewers. (The episode depicts Roman soldiers as completely unfazed by Bill being a lesbian, and having an Everyone Is Bi attitude within their unit. In reality, Romans defined two basic sexual orientations: "male top" and "everyone else", with the latter being viewed as significantly inferior.)
  • There is some evidence to suggest that The Doctor and/or the TARDIS creates a Weirdness Censor in their vicinity. They only rarely don period appropriate clothing, but it's usually only mentioned in passing by the locals and The Doctor's ability to simply step in and take over any situation with little or no identification or authority are hints at this. It wasn't until a Fourth Doctor story where one of his own companion realizes she's hearing the Italians speaking English. Her noticing is used as a sign that her mind has been tampered with.
• The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. takes place in a steampunkish, deliberately anachronistic Old West where we see very little evidence of racism. The part-black, part-Cherokee Lord Bowler is treated respectfully by most of the characters (only in the pilot does one character call him a "half-breed"), and various episodes feature nonwhite characters who are treated more or less as equals to the whites, including a black woman set to become the mayor of a town.
• The Vampire Diaries has several flashbacks to the American South during the American Civil War. Though black servants are shown, they are never referred to as slaves and are never shown being mistreated. This is discussed in detail here and here.
• Merlin:
  • The show has a black Guinevere, along with her brother Elyan, as well as the black knight, Pellinore. While there may have been Africans in Arthurian Britain, and 13th century romances have the Saracen (Arab) Sir Palamedes and the Moorish (North African) Sir Morien, it's unlikely that there were many Afro-British knights or queens.
  • All the angsting over Arthur being in love with a servant girl. Love marriage only became very common beginning in the 19th century, especially for royalty. A true prince of that (or most) ages would marry for politics and have Gwen on the side for romance. This is brought up in the show itself by the ghost of Uther, who's outraged at Arthur for marrying her after he died.
  • Merlin reveals to Arthur that his parents weren't married (he doesn't meet his father until much later in life). Neither is at all perturbed by this, but though attitudes varied being a "bastard" was generally not viewed as good (certain positions were barred to you, for instance, along with social stigma).
• Sleepy Hollow:
  • The show stars a Revolutionary War-era British soldier who had a change of heart and joined the American side, and fully supported an end to slavery, as if having an anti-American racist for a main character was deemed too challenging for their audience.
  • While there were people opposed to slavery back then, Icabod's remarkably progressive attitudes do seem a little convenient.
  • He also doesn't bat an eye at homosexuality. He mentions that von Steuben was homosexual, which is accurate, but that doesn't mean most people would be completely unfazed by it (the general view being same-sex relations were a sin and crime, with the law reflecting this- it was punishable by death then).
  • Perhaps in an attempt to counterbalance this, he makes a remark about women wearing pants.
  • He is also entirely unfazed by Abbie as the sheriff, an unheard of thing for any woman then (even white ones), assuming she's a former slave (free black people weren't unknown though) and holds no racist views (although even abolitionists usually viewed other races as being inferior, just not to the point that they supported slavery).
• Downton Abbey zig-zags its handling of politically sensitive issues. It would seem that whilst the series' creators are prepared to present attitudes towards pre-marital sex in a realistic way, they are not quite brave enough to depict their characters having a realistic, period-correct attitude towards sexuality and race — most likely for fear of offending a contemporary audience's sensitivities, and to ensure the series' hero characters remain likeable. We can all cluck our tongues in guilty amusement at Violet's out-dated, ultra-conservative views, but to show her as an actual "racist" would kill her character, no matter how realistic that may be. Examples follow:
  • Jack Ross, a black jazz singer. When Jack comes to Downton, Carson is rather awkward around him and makes rather innocently insensitive comments, but the Crawley family is accepting and enjoys his singing at Lord Grantham's party in a manner that is unrealistically blasé. Only Edith and Rosamund voice any kind of realistic (for the period) concern about his presence, but both Robert and Violet are unfazed, in spite of Violet's established patrician ideals.
  • Jack has a romantic relationship with Lady Rose, and frequently goes out in public with her, which would be a major scandal in the 1920s. Rose doesn't care about his race and doesn't think other people should. Mary, who was horrified of a (white) Irishman dating her sister, appears to be okay with it on a moral level, if not on a practical one:
  Jack: If we lived in even a slightly better world, I wouldn't give in.
  Mary: It may surprise you, Mr. Ross, but if we lived in a better world, I wouldn't want you to.
  • While it's true that class lines were blurring by the time the show is set, overall the Crawleys are unrealistically friendly and familiar with their staff.
• In Atlantis, the world with Atlantis in it is based mostly on Greek Mythology and culture. However, many of the characters seem to find public violent games, tournaments, public executions, etc. horrible. In ancient Greece, people would pay to see these. Why else would they exist? Generally this is sometimes subverted though, as said violent games and such are always shown drawing huge crowds who often cheer and clap when someone kills another. Even hero Hercules talks happily about all the food available during one such tournament, usually when the heroes voice concern about them its more out of somebody they care about might die or the methods of execution are legitimately incredibly cruel even for the time period (most famously the brazen bull that cooks people alive).
• Zig-zagged in the Canadian period crime drama Murdoch Mysteries, set in late-Victorian/early-Edwardian Toronto. While the racial and sexual biases of the era are prominent in the background, and often inform the cases being investigated, the central characters seldom espouse them, and if so only during subplots that require introspection and are resolved by learning the corresponding 21st-century value:
  • Murdoch, a Catholic, initially receives some stick from Brackenreid for being a "Papist", but this is dropped relatively early.
  • Murdoch also must come to terms with Dr. Ogden's abortion, both as a moral dilemma and because she's his One True Love.
  • In one episode, Brackenreid worries that his son might be gay because he wants to play a female part in a play. This leads to the boy getting hurt badly in rugby trying to impress his dad. While the boy's ultimate reasoning for wanting the female role (she had more lines) is later revealed and accepted, it doesn't come before Dr. Ogden has to talk Brackenreid into accepting his son's possible sexuality. In an episode set nearly seventy years before the decriminalization of homosexuality in Canada.
  • Justified in the cases of Dr. Ogden and Dr. Grace, as two rare female physicians and pathologists during that period. Indeed, Dr. Ogden's unabashed statements of progressive views led to marital strain during her first marriage to Dr. Garland. In later seasons, we see her start an underground women's health clinic teaching birth control (which she was briefly arrested for), and vehemently object to the Marital Rape License of the period. Dr. Grace, meanwhile, engaged in a same-sex relationships. Both were involved in the nascent suffrage movement of the early 1900s.
• Timeless:
  • Very much subverted, as Rufus is quick to point out that as a black guy, "There is literally no time in American history that would be awesome for me." In the bar, several of the patrons appear ready to jump and lynch him right there, and at the police station he nearly gets beaten with batons for protesting being called "Boy".
  • Traveling to 1865, Rufus notes how "my people's history sucks" and has to put up with being looked down on even when he's posing as a soldier. Rufus ends up saving Andrew Johnson's life, and when he returns to the present, he is disappointed but unsurprised that his actions were credited to a white soldier who just happened to be wounded in the struggle.
  • Rufus uses this in a trip to 1962 Las Vegas, able to get some information as no one looks at a black waiter. "I'm invisible. It's like my superpower."
  • In "Space Race," Rufus shines a light on the plight of Katherine Johnson, a black woman who was the linchpin of the Apollo 13 project, but was relegated to the basement and ignored by history. She's happily surprised when Rufus calls her his hero, but utterly gobsmacked when an elderly white man (who is another time traveler) says the same thing.
  • Lucy has less pronounced problems, but they are still present. Rufus reacts to the constant racism with little more than weary resignation, but Lucy is always surprised when she is reminded of the rampant and unquestioned sexism of the past. In "Space Race" she poses as a secretary and given drink orders with casual sexual harassment, and in "Last Ride of Bonnie & Clyde" she tries to open an account at a bank and is asked if she has the permission of her husband or father.
• Dead of Summer, which ostensibly takes place in 1989, has the openly, flamboyantly gay Blair working as a counselor at Camp Stillwater, and facing little real issue over it. While this wouldn't be at all unusual in 2016, in 1989 gay people were still acceptable to mock in the popular consciousness, and the idea of a summer camp hiring a gay man to work with children would've been met with complaints from parents furious that the camp was "endangering" their sons, to say nothing of the attitudes he would've faced from his fellow counselors (especially Alex, a walking '80s Jerk Jock archetype). The fact that Drew has difficulty coming out as transgender to his family and peers, whose reactions are far more mixed than they are towards Blair being gay (even Blair himself, who'd been attracted to him, gets squicked out upon learning that Drew was assigned female at birth), is more believable, but even then, this reflects the time in which the show was made, when trans rights had replaced homosexuality as the controversial, hot-button sexual issue of the day.
• Parodied in a sketch from the first episode of With Bob And David, in which a white filmmaker creates an extremely sanitized movie about American slavery, where black slaves (or "helpers") are treated with respect and compassion by their white masters.
• Vegas (2012) featured one half of a lesbian couple as a Body of the Week in a Period Drama set in 1950s Las Vegas. On the one hand, the victim was disowned by her father, but Sheriff Lamb exhibits no problem at all with this relationship, regarding the decedent's partner no less sympathetically than he would any other grieving widow.
• The 2008 miniseries adaptation of Sense and Sensibility emphasizes that Eliza Williams, the girl that Willoughby impregnated and abandoned, was just fifteen; Brandon and Elinor are outraged by it and it makes Willoughby's later attempt to deny any fault especially reprehensible. This is due to the modern understanding of the age of consent; a 25-year-old having sex with a 15-year-old is rape even if either party claims it was consensual (the 1995 film dealt with it by aging Eliza up to 20). In Austen's time it was uncommon to marry so young, but not considered immoral or illegal.
• Similarly, in the 1995 Pride and Prejudice, Wickham trying to elope with Darcy's sister Georgiana. In his explanatory letter, Darcy's voice over is a somber "she was then but fifteen years old," compounding Wickham's offense. In the book, Darcy's letter reads "she was then but fifteen years old, which must be her excuse," because she would have been considered responsible for such a disgraceful marriage but she wasn't experienced enough to know better. That said, Wickham pursuing young ladies who are just barely out in society still reflects badly on his character, much like older guys who exclusively date 18 to 20 year old women.
• Zig-zagged in Legends of Tomorrow, depending on how serious a given episode wants to be. For example, when traveling to the mid-20th century, the only one who finds himself at home is Martin Stein. The others quickly point out that it only happens because he's a straight white male. Similarly, when they end up in the South during the Civil War, Jax and Amaya have to deal with being treated as someone's property. Played straight in season four, when Mona (Asian), Charlie (black), and Zari (Middle-Eastern) have no trouble walking around in Regency England.
• Everybody Hates Chris: Oh so averted. The massive racial tensions that existed in New York City are front and center. Chris has to deal with the virulent racism from both his classmates and teachers alike.
• One episode of Bunk'd has Destiny, Mateo and Fin sent back in time to the 17th Century and encountering lookalikes of their counselors. The Zuri lookalike holds a position of power in the town despite being a black woman and the Ravi lookalike, as an Indian, even being part of their society, much less running a business, stretches belief. While it's briefly suggested it's All Just a Dream, the ending seems to suggest it actually happened, meaning Old Moose Rump must have been very progressive for its day.
• Dickinson: It's mostly averted, but East Asian people are shown as friends and fellow students of the majority white young people on the series, which wouldn't have happened.
• Why Women Kill: Nobody bats an eye at Dee and Vern being together, or saying that they are. In reality, at the time in California attitudes were so violently racist toward interracial couples that even Sammy Davis Jr., a popular celebrity, had to marry a Black woman to protect himself from mob violence for having a White girlfriend. That said, Vern does deal with street harassment for his race and Alma condescends to him on her meeting with him, asking him if he works in blue-collar jobs.
• Miracle Workers: No one bats an eye at interracial marriage, adoption and White people happily follow a Black man who claims he's a prophet, while in the real US of the 1840s these things would be highly controversial at best (along with very rare). Of course, the series isn't really claiming to be accurate, more parodying Western films and TV shows.
• Once Upon a Time: The Enchanted Forest appears to be somewhat medieval, although the lands of story exist parallel to the Land Without Magic, allowing for example several residents of Camelot to be played by people of colour.
• Once Upon a Time in Wonderland: Justified since, according to Word of God, Alice's Victorian London is a separate "land of story" that exists in parallel with our world rather than the actual historical Victorian London. This allows Jafar, played by an Indian actor, to pose as "Dr. Sheffield" without anyone batting an eyelash.
• The Quantum Leap (2022) episode "Salvation or Bust" takes place in the Old West town of Salvation, which is seen to be a melting pot of several different races and backgrounds who all seem to treat one another with respect. It's discussed several times in dialogue that main reason the town is so important to everyone there is because they don't face the same prejudices there as they would in the rest of the country.
• John Adams: The trial of the Boston Massacre soldiers hinges on Adams' belief that mob rule cannot be allowed to ignore the facts of the case, and his defense hinges on the eyewitness testimony of a black freedman. In reality, Adams' defense relied heavily on race-baiting, arguing that the mob was composed of "saucy boys, negroes, and molattoes, Irish teagues^note An old slur for the Irish, based on the Irish name Tadhg and outlandish Jack Tarrs^note Sailors, with "outlandish" having the connotation of ''gay'' sailors." He also characterizes Crispus Attucks, a man of black and American Indian ancestry who was one of the five dead, as a Scary Black Man who incited the mob and was only shot after he physically assaulted the soldiers. Prosecution witnesses claimed that Attucks was fifteen feet away from the soldiers when they opened fire.
• Derry Girls: For a show set in a Catholic community in Northern Ireland in The '90s, everyone has a surprisingly acceptance of gay people, be they actually gay like Clare and Deidre's cousin Rob, or the (repeatedly) Mistaken for Gay James. Show creator Lise McGee has stated that this is partly wish fulsilment, and to avert Values Dissonance.

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