Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión
Room 222: “El Genio”
Whenever I am watching an old TV show from the late 1960s, I find it all too easy to focus on the easy stuff: the funny clothes, the eccentric hairstyles, the “hip” dialogue that rings so weird to the ear nowadays that the words might as well have been carved out of tin. What is not so easy is remembering that TV shows back then did not have to deal with the lenient -- almost nonexistent, it sometimes seems -- censors of today’s shows. They had to deal with a more harsher breed of censor.
Moreover, TV shows which tried to do something different back then did not always get the support you would expect. True, there was room for iconoclastic shows like Laugh-In and All in the Family -- but most of those shows were tolerated because they were hits. Even then such shows had to compete against more conventional shows like The Beverly Hillbillies and The Brady Bunch which generally avoided social commentary as much as possible.
Add to that the problem of adequately dramatizing a complicated social situation in half an hour -- minus the time needed for commercials -- and it is a wonder that the first season of Room 222 accomplished as much as it did.
That said, it was hard for me to watch the “El Genio” episode without thinking what a lost opportunity it was. “El Genio” is Spanish for “The Genius” and as you may guess, the episode with that title revolves around a young Spanish-surnamed individual named Salazar* who is a lot smarter than his grades indicated. Salazar was the first Mexican-American character I saw on Room 222 and apart from his girlfriend -- also a Mexican-American -- we don’t see any other Hispanic students on the series at all. An odd circumstance given the fact that even back in the late 1960s, Los Angeles had a substantial Mexican-American population. Even odder when you consider the fact that the Chicano movement was just getting started back then.
Of course, even the best TV show cannot cover everything and for a while, this episode -- which focused on student teacher Alice Johnson’s attempt to keep Salazar from wasting his academic potential by dropping out of high school -- seemed like it was making a valiant effort to deal with a complicated issue.
But then the episode got to the point where Salazar had the chance to get a scholarship from a white non-Hispanic who could not resist taking the time to point out the statistics concerning the large number of Mexican-Americans who drop out of high school. Instead of having Salazar argue against such statistics or point out the many social factors -- including discrimination -- which might have led Mexican-Americans back then to consider dropping out, the show's writers chose to have Salazar act as if the man was personally disrespecting him and then had him give up on the idea of an academic career altogether.
Salazar later gave in and took a college placement test in response to a dare from Ms. Johnson but once he passed the test, he went ahead with his original plan to drop out and marry his girlfriend, leading Ms. Johnson to feel like she was a failure for not being able to inspire him to do better.
Granted, it would have been unrealistic to show the teachers on Room 222 being successful with every student they tried to help but then again, it would have been nice if the first major failure of the show did not involve a Mexican-American student. It also would have been nice if the show had shown more than two Mexican-American students -- both conveniently in a relationship with each other -- if for no other reason than to show that not all such students were potential drop-outs like Salazar. For that matter, the implication that Mexican-American students like Salazar usually give up on higher education because they are too hot-headed or dysfunctional to get along that well with educated people was hardly the type of lesson I expected to see taught on a liberal TV show, even one as old as Room 222.
I would like to think things would be much different if Room 222 were to air today but who am I kidding? There seems to be even less chance of seeing a show like Room 222 on the air today than there was in 1969, much less an improved version, and I doubt that is going to change any time soon. Of course, it would be nice to be proved wrong but I am not going to hold my breath in the meantime.
* A name which was perhaps inspired by real-life Mexican-American journalist Rubén Salazar.
Room 222: “El Genio”
Whenever I am watching an old TV show from the late 1960s, I find it all too easy to focus on the easy stuff: the funny clothes, the eccentric hairstyles, the “hip” dialogue that rings so weird to the ear nowadays that the words might as well have been carved out of tin. What is not so easy is remembering that TV shows back then did not have to deal with the lenient -- almost nonexistent, it sometimes seems -- censors of today’s shows. They had to deal with a more harsher breed of censor.
Moreover, TV shows which tried to do something different back then did not always get the support you would expect. True, there was room for iconoclastic shows like Laugh-In and All in the Family -- but most of those shows were tolerated because they were hits. Even then such shows had to compete against more conventional shows like The Beverly Hillbillies and The Brady Bunch which generally avoided social commentary as much as possible.
Add to that the problem of adequately dramatizing a complicated social situation in half an hour -- minus the time needed for commercials -- and it is a wonder that the first season of Room 222 accomplished as much as it did.
That said, it was hard for me to watch the “El Genio” episode without thinking what a lost opportunity it was. “El Genio” is Spanish for “The Genius” and as you may guess, the episode with that title revolves around a young Spanish-surnamed individual named Salazar* who is a lot smarter than his grades indicated. Salazar was the first Mexican-American character I saw on Room 222 and apart from his girlfriend -- also a Mexican-American -- we don’t see any other Hispanic students on the series at all. An odd circumstance given the fact that even back in the late 1960s, Los Angeles had a substantial Mexican-American population. Even odder when you consider the fact that the Chicano movement was just getting started back then.
Of course, even the best TV show cannot cover everything and for a while, this episode -- which focused on student teacher Alice Johnson’s attempt to keep Salazar from wasting his academic potential by dropping out of high school -- seemed like it was making a valiant effort to deal with a complicated issue.
But then the episode got to the point where Salazar had the chance to get a scholarship from a white non-Hispanic who could not resist taking the time to point out the statistics concerning the large number of Mexican-Americans who drop out of high school. Instead of having Salazar argue against such statistics or point out the many social factors -- including discrimination -- which might have led Mexican-Americans back then to consider dropping out, the show's writers chose to have Salazar act as if the man was personally disrespecting him and then had him give up on the idea of an academic career altogether.
Salazar later gave in and took a college placement test in response to a dare from Ms. Johnson but once he passed the test, he went ahead with his original plan to drop out and marry his girlfriend, leading Ms. Johnson to feel like she was a failure for not being able to inspire him to do better.
Granted, it would have been unrealistic to show the teachers on Room 222 being successful with every student they tried to help but then again, it would have been nice if the first major failure of the show did not involve a Mexican-American student. It also would have been nice if the show had shown more than two Mexican-American students -- both conveniently in a relationship with each other -- if for no other reason than to show that not all such students were potential drop-outs like Salazar. For that matter, the implication that Mexican-American students like Salazar usually give up on higher education because they are too hot-headed or dysfunctional to get along that well with educated people was hardly the type of lesson I expected to see taught on a liberal TV show, even one as old as Room 222.
I would like to think things would be much different if Room 222 were to air today but who am I kidding? There seems to be even less chance of seeing a show like Room 222 on the air today than there was in 1969, much less an improved version, and I doubt that is going to change any time soon. Of course, it would be nice to be proved wrong but I am not going to hold my breath in the meantime.
* A name which was perhaps inspired by real-life Mexican-American journalist Rubén Salazar.
Labels: Mexicano-Estadounidenses, Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión VI, Room 222, Rubén Salazar, Series de Televisión Latinas III
posted by Tonio Kruger at 9:27 AM
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