Discovery Channel
dis·cov·er·y
–noun, plural -er·ies.
- the act or an instance of discovering.
- something discovered.
- Law. compulsory disclosure, as of facts or documents.
- (initial capital letter, italics) U.S. Aerospace. the third space shuttle to orbit and return to earth.
- a cable TV channel for white men.
I’ve been watching a lot of television lately. One of my favorite networks to watch is the Discovery Channel. The Discovery Channel features all sorts of informative shows that keep my post-work/gym brain humming along as I sit eating dinner. The programs on the Discovery Channel slip into my brain like a well-worn pair of slippers. It really is not rocket science as to why this happens. All of the hosted programs on the Discovery Channel are hosted by white men. If I look in the mirror, that’s what I see. If I turn on the Discovery Channel, this is what I see (99% of the time).
I was watching Dirty Jobs when I started to contemplate what it means for a channel called “Discovery” to be so overtly white man centric. I turn on the channel, see people who look just like me and I think, “I can do that too!” Seeing people who look just like me is something that I, as a white man, can pretty much do at any time on the Discovery Channel. I feel that the Discovery Channel is reinforcing the idea that science and discovery is something that only white men can practice, complete, imagine, etc. It is a sexist and a racist ideal that is being overtly promoted on the Discovery Channel.
I recently posted on why a White Entertainment Television channel does not exist. The Discovery Channel is one of many channels that is promoting whiteness and patriarchal supremacy.
Why doesn’t the Discovery Channel have any women and/or hosts of color?
Related posts:
Hi! I found you through “Rachel’s Tavern”.
Anyway, I’ve always loved watching all of the Discovery networks – DiscoveryTime, The Science Channel, Animal Planet, etc. – but for the life of me, I can’t recall a program on any of those channels that has a minority host.
They did a special episode of “Dirty Jobs” where they aired footage of a couple of would-be female substitutes for Mike if he was ever incapacitated(sp?). Unfortunately, all they did was squeal and whine about how “icky” everything was. I was embarassed as a woman. =P
Angel H.
8 Oct 07 at 9:49 am
While you raise a good point, in the same sentence it should be acknowledged that Caucasians represent a vastly greater proportion of outdoor, adventure and discovery enthusiasts in English speaking countries. Discovery could have, and should have, found a woman, but as a skier, backpacker and former outward bound mountaineer, there simply aren’t many persons of color who participate in these activities. Leave the comfort of your urban, multicultural community and head to the mountains and wilderness and you will see for yourself. Therefore, it would be logical to assume that there would not be nearly as many people of color who would be at the level of performance and achievement as those featured on the Discovery channel spotlight. It’s condescending to give attention to someone simply for the color of their skin. It would be, as you would say, privilege.
Adam
(see Inner monologue with Adam)
Adam
10 Oct 07 at 7:46 am
Only white people discover things, because only white people are civilized (and therefore at the center of the known universe). This view is in no way egotistical or self-centered, because God told white people it was not.
Usually we discover brown people.
Then we declare them uncivilized, take their land, kill most of them off, force them to convert to Christianity and/or capitalism, and then wonder why their kids don’t do as well in school as white children.
Sometimes we move them around for apparently random reasons, causing many of them to die off from sickness, starvation, and hardship. Often it turns out later that the territory we removed them from was known to contain valuable resources.
In any case, everyone knows that brown people don’t actually ever want to participate in outdoor activities like skiing or hiking or camping – they just want to deal drugs and get that welfare check, yeah!
I mean, it’s not like any people of color are going to actually watch the Discovery Channel, so why bother?
Barf.
Dennis
10 Oct 07 at 10:08 am
Adam: Yeah, and Black people don’t play golf either. [/sarcasm].
Dennis: See first common. Hello, my race is…
Angel H.
10 Oct 07 at 12:28 pm
Dennis, I think you have your centuries confused and are living in a time warp. to assume that persons of color living in the United States can not adapt or are genetically predisposed to not striving in a western culture is ignorant and stupid. It breaths a sense of superiority if we go by your “racist” measuring stick of financial and academic achievement.
You are right in some ways, though. Much depends on your upbringing and the culture you were raised in, and we live in a multi-faceted society. I would be naive and foolish to think that much of my success (personal and professional) is not credited to my parents and therefore the culture that was around me. Culture instills positive as well as negative traits and habits, and the white, black, yellow and brown people who grew up around me were lucky, in that respect.
Adam
10 Oct 07 at 3:16 pm
Adam – my point is that the history of racism is such that the effects of it can still be felt today by people of color. All people may be created equal, but the wealth of their parents has never been equal.
Also, one would think that the Discovery Channel could attract some viewers of color by producing a show that features a host of color (or a woman, or a woman of color). You know, so people can see someone that looks like them on TV. It’s not rocket science (heck, it smacks of tokenism), but it’s more than they appear to have done thus far.
Dennis
10 Oct 07 at 4:29 pm
Adam said, “Discovery could have, and should have, found a woman, but as a skier, backpacker and former outward bound mountaineer, there simply aren’t many persons of color who participate in these activities.”
And with an attitude like that there won’t be that many people of color flocking to mountaineering, skiing, or whatever else you are talking about. Maybe if these “science groups” (after all discovery is the science channel) stopped being so racist and sexist their ranks would diversify.
FWIW discovery is about more than just outdoor activities like Adam mentioned. In fact, the last white guy pictured goes and discovers people of color, and lives with them for a few days, practicing their culture. Usually his translators and “subjects” are brown folks. I don’t know for the life of me why they can’t have a black person go to Africa or an Native American person go to the Amazon.
Science isn’t only for white guys. I really like that channel, but I would like it a lot more if they diversified.
Eric, you forgot the crab fisherman show–Deadliest Catch. I always think of that show as the quinticessential study of working class white masculinity. In fact, I think the sociology of that show is more interesting than anything else.
Rachel S.
20 Oct 07 at 3:38 pm
Rachel S.,
I agree with you 100% about Deadliest Catch. It’s a sociologist’s dream.
Dennis
21 Oct 07 at 3:06 pm
“the wealth of their parents has never been equal.”
Um, so what does that have to do with anything?
As for diversifying Discovery Channel, isn’t the white guys doing rap bad enough? At least they know when to stop.
dsf
30 Oct 07 at 8:49 pm
Dsf – the wealth of one’s parents almost always provides for greater chances to succeed (tutors, good schools, good colleges) than those of students whose parents have nothing.
To say nothing of access to health care, good food, good rest, a ‘good’ neighborhood, etc.
Dennis
30 Oct 07 at 10:26 pm
dsf: So let me get this straight:
White guys can appropriate Black culture (and do it badly), but Black guys can’t host tv documentaries, i.e. step into “White man’s shoes”?
Angel H.
31 Oct 07 at 7:27 am
I don’t assume that a reason for the lack(pure non-existence) of non-Caucasian hosts is based on a racial discrimination. I’ve fully viewed things from a perspective of there being just a greater selection of qualified candidates that ‘happen’ to be Caucasian, but I can’t help to abstract my perspective to the lack of any ‘positive’ discovery of the ‘black scholar’ and the adventurous spirit that lay within. I sometimes consider it to be a simple product of blacks(should I say ‘African descendants’?) failure to have a proactive role in centuries current(combating for racial equality doesn’t count..). And ( I choose to start sentence with conjunction) it reflects strongly in ‘American culture’, but is it wrong? Really, BET(and media outlets alike) could change from giving into /teaching popular culture what it ‘is to be black’, but from within Black-American perceived culture is broken; better I say, displayed with a highly incorrect bias. Nevertheless, I’m not complaining on the overview in which ‘we are view’, in all honestly MOST of it is correct (statistically, even when view on a global base.) I figure…if blacks want equality in all the different sectors in this age, it/we/they probably needs to start with an infrastructure designed, cultivated, and implemented in the African nation…not from the derived cultures in where blacks find themselves scattered throughout the world today…It may not be fair in social order sense… however fair is not a noun, it is a level of respect bestowed in the arena of competition…and Africans/blacks should put their track record(as a whole)on the table…then ask themselves honestly…to they/we match up. I say we don’t…and the handicap that is assigned to us therein is a fair one…
Did that make any sense…[shrug]
-Flint
Flint J.
18 Dec 07 at 11:54 am