The Lack of Racial Diversity in the Teen Dramas

Let’s be blunt: The teen dramas are VERY white.

Last December I touched on the issue of representation in my “Being a Jewish Teen Drama Fan” essay. Even though I’ve felt largely unrepresented by the teen dramas in terms of my religion and culture, I’ve at least been privileged to watch the shows and see people who look like me. That is, people who are Caucasian.

But if you are BIPOC, watching the teen dramas is far from looking in a mirror. There is a distinct lack of racial diversity in most of the core six shows, particularly when it comes to regular cast members. And I think it’s time we acknowledge it.

This issue starts, of course, where all of our examinations start: with “Beverly Hills, 90210,” the first of the core six teen dramas to hit the airwaves in 1990. Somewhat impressively, it only takes five episodes for the show to address the topic of race in an in-depth, serious manner. In episode 1.05, “One on One,” Brandon (Jason Priestley) falsely accuses a Black student of being bused in from another district just to help West Beverly’s basketball team look good.

But despite some powerful scenes, the Black character is never seen again. Season 2, the same thing happens: In episode 2.09, “Ashes to Ashes,” a Black family moves near the Walshes, with the daughter played by Vivica Fox. She and her younger brother are new to the ritzy area, prompting issues like racial stereotypes and police brutality to come up. Yet this also ends up being just another standalone storyline with the characters playing no role on the show going forward.

Season 3 brings another new Black character, Herbert (Cory Tyler), and he actually sticks around for a few episodes. But he serves merely as a punching bag for Steve (Ian Ziering) and a tool (literally) to help move Steve’s “legacy key” storyline forward. Racial issues come up again in season 5’s “Hate is Just a Four Letter Word” and “Injustice for All,” the latter of which features a strong performance from Mark Damon Espinoza (Jesse). He was a series regular during that season and that season only, which prompted this 2018 Remezcla article titled, “Remembering ‘Beverly Hills 90210’s Only Latino Lead, a Character Who Deserved Much More.”

And it’s not race that seems to come up between Jesse and Andrea (Gabrielle Zuckerman) in a meaningful way but religion. The focus there, at least sometimes, is on them having an interfaith, not interracial, relationship. Later, the prospect of an interracial relationship is briefly touched on in the season 7 premiere, “Remember the Alamo,” with Brandon crossing paths with an enchanting Black woman played by Maia Campbell. A recurring Black character, Terri (Fatima Lowe), is introduced in season 8 to work with Brandon and Steve at The Beverly Beat. She disappears after nine episodes, though, with the explanation given that she eloped and quit her job.

That exit, however, paves the way for Lindsay Price to join the paper as her replacement, and in season 9, Janet becomes a regular character. The show should arguably be commended for turning a minor Asian character into one of the series’ romantic leads and for doing storylines that address her heritage. But Price herself is Korean-American and they made Janet Japanese-American. There is a difference and it matters.

“Dawson’s Creek” wasn’t as issue-oriented as “Beverly Hills, 90210,” which is why it perhaps felt a bit more natural when Bianca Lawson was introduced in season 3 as Nikki, a fellow high schooler just as obsessed with filmmaking as Dawson (James Van Der Beek) is. Her father Howard Green, played by Obba Babatundé, is the Capeside High principal, and episode 3.16, “To Green, With Love,” largely revolves around the school board wanting to fire him for daring to hold the white and spoiled accountable for their actions. He ends up resigning… and that’s the last we see of his daughter Nikki after a mere four episodes.

As I shared in our recent interview, JaNeika and JaSheika James, co-executive producers on the upcoming “Gossip Girl” spinoff, are huge “Dawson’s Creek” fans who even got to be extras in a season 4 episode. But rarely did they get to see a character onscreen who looked like them. JaNeika explained how she has an “affinity” for the “universality” of the “Dawson’s Creek” characters who “supersede race,” noting she can relate to them “despite their whiteness.” But given the importance of representation, she also said:

“It sucks growing up as a teenager and not being able to see ourselves in those spaces. I remember being so excited — we also were familiar with Bianca Lawson’s work; her dad also was from ‘All My Children’ — so excited when she was being introduced into the show. I remember being so hype about that and ‘Oh my gosh, is she going to be dating Dawson?’, all for it to be such a big letdown.”

I at least appreciate “Dawson’s Creek” executive producer Paul Stupin admitting in a 2018 Billboard interview (timed to the show’s 20th anniversary) that there “absolutely” should’ve been more people of color in the show. “I think if we were doing it again, we would be much more aware of diversity and I think making sure that Capeside was populated with a more diverse group of characters,” he said.

Meanwhile, “The O.C.” was so white and so focused on portraying the privileged white lifestyle of Newport that the show actually made “WASP” jokes over and over. Theresa was the only significant character of color, with Navi Rawat recurring in 13 episodes, but she was an Indian-American actress in a Hispanic role. When you craft ethnic characters without truly caring about the ethnicity of the people you hire to portray them, you are saying you don’t care about authenticity. You are saying race doesn’t really matter.

On “One Tree Hill,” there was a Black character from day one: Antwon “Skills” Taylor, played by Antwon Tanner. Originally introduced as a close friend of Lucas (Chad Michael Murray) and a fellow basketball player, the role started in a recurring capacity before Tanner was made a series regular for seasons 4-6. His character slowly became more fleshed out, with season 4 including a one-episode storyline in which he and girlfriend Bevin (Bevin Prince) worry about their parents meeting and accepting their interracial relationship. The adults’ reaction — that it was no big deal, with some comic relief mixed in — was perfect.

It is interesting, though, and maybe even eyebrow-raising, that during the show’s nine seasons, Skills never dated a person of color. He remained the series’ only significant minority character, but only had relationships with white women. Another recurring Black character, Fergie (Vaughn Wilson), never really had a love interest on the show at all, despite appearing in 45 episodes covering multiple seasons.

There were, however, a few other attempts to incorporate diversity over the years… to varying degrees of success. The high school principal at Tree Hill High, for instance, was Black, with Shawn Shepard in the recurring role, and there was one episode where Lucas and Nathan (James Lafferty) visit the home of Nate’s Black friend Tony (Texas Battle) for a family dinner, where Tony’s supportive father stands in stark contrast to their own.

Season 2 introduced recurring Latinx characters, siblings Anna (Daniella Alonso) and Felix (Michael Copon), who were strongly disliked by the audience and written off the series (as I previously touched on here). A season 3 episode featured a Black friend of Lucas’ named Faith (Mekia Cox) who apparently lived in Tree Hill before moving away. Meanwhile, former NBA star Rick Fox played the villainous Daunte in four episodes of season 4, the same season it was revealed Peyton (Hilarie Burton) had a Black half-brother (played by Ernest Waddell) whom she never previously knew about. He appeared in six episodes spanning two seasons.

Season 5 brought us Quentin Fields (Robbie Jones), who was first presented as a pompous high school athlete before winning everyone over with his heart… only to be murdered early in season 6. His death, though, led to one of the series’ most moving installments, episode 6.03, “Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly,” and allowed us to meet his mother and little brother, both of whom we’d see again in a few additional episodes. In nine seasons, could “One Tree Hill” have done more? Of course. But it was the first of the six core teen dramas to at least have a Black character regularly on the canvas.

“Gossip Girl,” on the other hand, largely fell short. Yes, Jessica Szohr (Vanessa) is biracial — in her own words, she identifies as “Hungarian and a quarter Black” — and she was a series regular in the first four seasons. But her background was never meaningfully addressed. The Afro-Latina Gina Torres played her mom in a mere two episodes. As for other parts, Tika Sumpter’s Raina was a Black character who recurred in 11 episodes of season 4 as a love interest for Chuck (Ed Westwick), with her dad Russell (Michael Boatman) in eight installments.

Blair’s (Leighton Meester) minions were made up of some minority actresses, including the Black Nicole Fiscella and the Asian Nan Zhang and Yin Chang — but even with them appearing in multiple seasons, there’s no denying how small their roles were, with the group largely serving as background decoration and as occasional plot devices (e.g., spilling the beans on this secret, sending that mean text message, generally helping with Blair’s dirty work, etc.). Another actress briefly on the show to consider is the biracial Sherri Saum, who appeared in four episodes of season 3 as a neighbor who comes between Rufus (Matthew Settle) and Lily (Kelly Rutherford).

The show’s failure, however, to truly present a diverse ensemble in New York City, one of the world’s biggest melting pots, is something its producers have occasionally addressed. In 2017, for example, executive producer Joshua Safran told Vulture, “When I look back on ‘Gossip Girl,’ the only things I regret were not as much representation for people of color and gay story lines. Those are the two things I think we probably could have delved into more deeply.” Now Safran is the showrunner of the HBO Max spinoff, and its large main cast features a handful of minority actors. Safran even said on Twitter that one of the biggest differences between the old show and the new that he’s “most proud” of is “the majority of characters being diverse and / or queer.”

I also spoke about this with the James sisters, who said when they first talked with Safran about coming on board the “Gossip Girl” spinoff as writers and co-EPs, his commitment to diversity was one of the first things he stressed to them. “I’m really excited to see how the audience responds to the show,” JaNeika said to me. “It’s just important for it to be reflective of the world we’re in.” Added JaSheika, “Especially in New York.” JaNeika further noted that, in light of everything that happened last year with the racial justice movement, “It’s kind of hard to kind of just ignore diversity and inclusiveness at this point.” (They had A LOT more to say on this subject, so make sure you check out the full interview.)

To bring things full circle, it’s striking how “Beverly Hills, 90210” featured Black characters sparingly while “90210,” which debuted eight years after the original series ended, featured a Black character right in its main cast as part of the show’s central family from day one. Instead of the Wilsons being parents to white fraternal twins (a la Brenda and Brandon on “Beverly Hills, 90210”), they are mom and dad to biological white daughter Annie (Shenae Grimes) and adopted Black son Dixon (Tristan Wilds). That we were given a mixed-race family right off the bat, with Dixon as a key character, is something to be praised. (And Cox, who had the aforementioned one-episode stint on “One Tree Hill,” played one of Dixon’s love interests on the show for seven episodes. Jessica Parker Kennedy, who has a mixed background, portrayed another.)

And Wilds wasn’t the only minority amongst the main cast. Michael Steger is Ecuadorian… but the unfortunate thing is his character, Navid, was Persian. So, like with Price on “Beverly Hills, 90210,” nu90210 deserves credit for hiring a non-white actor as a series regular, but it’s a major fail to pass them off as another ethnicity. Still, Steger did highlight some similarities between himself and his character to the Los Angeles Times in 2009: “We’re both first-generation Americans; our parents were born overseas. We’re both minorities.”

Even with Steger’s own race being different from his character’s, it’s still significant “90210” was featuring an Iranian character at all (and a Jewish one at that), because a lack of them is a criticism “Beverly Hills, 90210” faced given the real-life ethnic makeup of Beverly Hills. As culture critic and USC professor Josh Kun told the Forward about “90210” having an Iranian character in 2008, “At least it’s a nod to what the real storylines are at the school, and an attempt to deal with what is, in fact, a major part of life in the Beverly Hills area itself.”

That doesn’t mean, though, that the show embraced Navid’s background often or accurately, however. One viewer even complained in 2010, “When they show his family, his mother and father’s accents are the furthest thing from Persian. Being Persian myself, I’m offended by the accents the family members have.” Even years later, someone tweeted, “The Farsi that Navid's Family speaks on @cw90210 is atrocious. I'm Iranian and I can’t even understand them... #90210 #whataccentisthat.” (For further evidence of viewer frustration, look at the comments on the YouTube video below. It should also be noted the actor playing Navid’s father, Shaun Duke, was meant to be ethnic here but was also on “The O.C.” in a seemingly white role that had nothing to do with ethnicity.) As for some other instances of racial diversity on “90210,” the Indian Manish Dayal recurred as Raj for 14 episodes, while the Mexican Diego Boneta had a smaller role as Javier.

Looking at the totality of the teen drama genre, two things are abundantly clear: Not only is there a lack of racial diversity among the majority of these shows, but even when the characters are racially diverse, they aren’t necessarily used in strong, truthful, or long-lasting ways. I do think “Beverly Hills, 90210” deserves credit for tackling hot-button racial issues and having, at different points, a Latino and an Asian in the main cast. And I give “One Tree Hill” and “90210” props for having the most diverse ensembles overall. But it’s clear the genre still has a long way to go.

Recently, “Bridgerton,” which has been compared to “Gossip Girl” endlessly for its main conceit with an anonymous gossip writer, has been both celebrated and criticized for the way it incorporates race into the show. (To be fair, the topic of historical accuracy when it comes to race is a whole different issue from what I’ve discussed here, as all the shows above were set in the present day.) But as far as the teen dramas go, diversity always should have mattered and it’s more important than ever today. Now I look forward to seeing how the new “Gossip Girl” advances this cause.

Reminder: Your premium subscription to TeenDramaWhore includes perks like exclusive content (including essays like this), fan interviews, trivia parties, and Zoom chats with the genre’s key players. Pretty cool, right? Help TDW grow and spread the word!