I wrote a letter to Time magazine in response to their article on ABC's Cashmere Mafia and NBC's Lipstick Jungle, Becoming Ms. Big, by James Poniewozik (for which there's also a Tuned In blog entry and an iTunes podcast, Women in Power, and TV) and its sidebar, Reality Check: Women, Work and Money, by Tiffany Sharples, which shows the real-life percentage of women in the professions of the characters on both shows, along with the average salary of the jobs. My question:
Why are there no African American female leads in neither Lipstick Jungle nor Cashmere Mafia? Of all of the aspects for both programs to take from originator Sex and the City, this one is most disappointing.
There are certainly real-life African American female counterparts of the various professions represented, including Mellody Hobson, the UCLA Four Sisters (Felicia D. Henderson, Gina Prince‑Bythewood, Sara Finney-Johnson and Mara Brock Akil), Pam Veasey, Susan L. Taylor, and newly elected New York Junior League president, Gena Lovett.
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The e-mail has bounced back (twice!) because the Time magazine letters@time.com inbox is full--probably full of letters about their Senator vs. Senator cover story on Hillary Clinton's and Barack Obama's presidential campaigns!
It can't be said that the shows neglect actresses of color--Chinese-American actress Lucy Liu stars in Cashmere Mafia, and I don't know whether the character will be portrayed this way, but the mother of actress Lindsay Price of Lipstick Jungle is Korean.
But doesn't it make the shows just all the more unrealistic that it shows a Manhattan so lacking in black women?
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