Zoey’s Mediocre Reckoning

L.A.M.
4 min readFeb 15, 2021

I am obsessed with “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist.” It is the TV show that brings me the most excitement every week. So after last week’s episode ended with Simon calling out his company for having a race problem, I was thrilled. “YAAASSSSS,” I thought. “We’re going there!”

And after seeing all the social media posts about how this week’s episode was “powerful” and made everyone “so proud” and had everyone’s favorite musical moment, I was ready. There was talk of “difficult conversations” that contributed to the writing process. I was at the edge of my seat, waiting for episode to air.

And it did. And I was disappointed.

Now, I don’t believe a single hour of television will fix the world or systemic racism. I suppose I should be happy that network television is allowing their shows to tackle issues of race, without their being a giant uproar. So perhaps the needle is moving and I should be grateful.

And I am grateful. But I can still be disappointed too, right? Because after all the buildup, it was just another story of the White lead being well-intentioned but totally clueless, and after realizing they were over their head, they went to their Black friend and told them they understood what it felt to be marginalized by “insert fake-marginalized position in a specific context.” And after the Black friend was like, “you don’t get it!”, the White person was like, “I don’t know why you’re so mad at me!”

I feel like I’ve seen this before. Because I have. This is essentially what Zoey’s former companion-show-before-getting-pushed-off-the-schedule-and-shuttled-back-to-Sunday-nights-after-a-lengthy-hiatus “This Is Us” did with Randall and Kate. Which worked better but was also disappointing because Sterling K. Brown is the critical darling of the show, and surely they could have done more. And then they did with when Randall talked about his childhood with Malik, but it was a pretty lame beginning.

But Zoey was a bad boss and a bad friend, and then she still gets to act like the savior, thinking she’s bringing to light the allegations from BIPOC staff around the world to Danny Michael Davis’s attention, when Simon has already been talking it through? And yet, Zoey is still able to march into the Board meeting to watch two of her BIPOC employees talk about what it means to be marginalized within the company because she’s the hero?

And sure, art is supposed to imitate life. But I see enough White people struggling to “get it” in real life, that I don’t want to see it on my screens. This isn’t the escapism that I was hoping for. And perhaps this is what White people who lack friends of color need in their lives. Perhaps they are learning from these TV shows and are doing better. But as a non-Black person of color, I’m exhausted and bored from these outings. They don’t push the conversation forward for me. They allow their White leads to realize that their BIPOC peers experience so much more than they will. Is it enough for White people to learn that they’ll just never truly understand? Does that make for compelling television? These episodes certainly don’t solve racism.

Once again, it feels like these stories are filtered through the White lens, on shows that are predominantly White, with White show-runners. This is why we need more show-runners of color. And network executives. And writers and creators and every other position.

And I get that the focus of this episode was about racism in the tech industry. But it exists in every industry. And in a social media age, when everyone is tagged in every post, it’s hard not to notice that Alice Lee wasn’t consulted and part of any of the “difficult conversations” in building this episode. Do East Asian opinions not matter? (Side note: it bothers me when a show centers on a White family and one of the siblings is married to a non-White person, because it feels like a throwaway to diversity. But I digress) Sure, she’s the only female of color series regular, whatever, her experiences don’t matter!

Maybe I’m asking for too much. Perhaps having these episodes on network TV is all that America can take right now. I mean, a former President just got acquitted for enabling a mob of white supremacists to attack our capital, so maybe understanding that White people don’t know everything is exactly how much the country can handle at this point.

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L.A.M.
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On a good day, I am a neurotic mess.