White Mountain Puzzles (made in America)

Summer of COVID finds us all binge-watching TV, working jigsaw puzzles and examining our own racial biases.

A fond memory of parenting is hot, humid summer afternoons in A/C, spent assembling jigsaw puzzles with daughter Alison while binge-watching CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. About 10 years ago, we bought White Mountain’s TV History 1000 piece puzzle at a thrift store. I credit this podcast and hundreds of conversations about representation with compelling me to email White Mountain about this 2005 problematic design. The actors of color represented about 10% of the images. Sadly, the percentages would have been higher if they had been a bit more selective in the series that featured white actors. In ranking TV History, even in 2005, Magnum P.I., Hawaii 5-0 and Columbo really don’t stand out. 

Since COVID isolation orders exhausted their supply, I encouraged them to use this time to redesign the theme and offered to assist. And yes, I threw away a perfectly good puzzle because everyone deserves better. Stay tuned.

Reading & Watching

Having completed all the episodes of Mrs. America on FX/Hulu, I advise you to watch it in sync with someone. There’s a lot to digest, beyond feminist and political. You’ll see a 70s and 80s look at persuasion, marketing and approaches to women’s leadership. And there’s a lot to learn about icons Bella Abzug, Betty Friedan and Shirley Chisholm. As I completed the series, I pulled from my shelf Gloria Steinem’s 1983 Outrageous Acts & Everyday Rebellions. It’s a great companion piece, as is the PBS Great Performances telecast of Christine Lahti  (below) as Gloria Steinem in Gloria: A Life.

#RepresentationMatters

When I published the first episode Advanced TV Herstory in June 2015, I didn’t have the language and knowledge to talk about representation. Episodes from the first year reveal my struggle with delivering a message more sophisticated than that of a regular fan or student of TV. My 5th anniversary episode shares more detail about my lessons learned in 5 years. 

Racism

The world boiled over this month with the frustrations of police violence, profiling and outright racism. I examined our podcast archive. About 25% of the total episodes produced feature series, actors of color or topics about race. I’ve tried hard to do more, chasing down a few rabbit holes only to come up empty. It’s difficult to profile Gail Fisher (Peggy from Mannix, first black to win Best Supporting Actress Emmy) when there’s so little to document her life. Esther Rolle wrote an unpublished memoir. Admittedly, I knew my chances of getting response to an interview pitch I mailed to Diahann Carroll in 2017 were slim. 

In this summer of COVID, I chose to take action. I’m collaborating with Ashley Pacini of The Reel Women to develop a podcast series that profiles women TV directors, producers and writers who are on the cusp of writing a new chapter of Herstory.

Share!

Thank your sharing and writing a review of the podcast! Sign up for our e-newsletter (bottom of the home page) or share it with anyone you know who loves to think about TV.

But I’m also curious… what are you watching? How are you watching it – streaming, cable? Is it produced in another country? I’m quite interested to learn what’s caught your attention during lockdown. Send me a note via the contact page.