NBC ROUNDS UP USUAL STEREOTYPES

OK, the verdict is in. Kingpin, the NBC drama about Mexican drug dealers,
was indeed rife with offensive stereotype.

It was all about stereotype, as a matter of fact. But that is not its worst
offense.

Its worse offense is that it was merely TV as usual, with Latinos in the
starring roles. Oh, it pushed the boundaries with more misogyny and more
blood splattered about, but not much more by today's evolving and
increasingly crass standards. This is really just the same old formula,
except that the bad guys were the good guys. Or would that be not-so-good guys?

But the stereotypes, which have always fit so nicely in TV-as-usual anyway,
were definitely there.

Earlier, I opined that I would keep an open mind about this six-episode
miniseries trotted out with much fanfare. The last episode airs tonight.

The characters, I reasoned, might be fully and richly developed, a la The
Sopranos. The series might show the complexity of the drug trade, how folks
on the demand side - that would be us in the good ol' drug-using USA - are
as much to blame as those on the supply side. Maybe the series would show
that, though Mexican cartels are a brutal fact of life, not all Mexicans
are drug dealers.

It failed on all counts. About the only notable character not involved in
the dirty end of the drug trade in Kingpin was a Mexican-American DEA agent.

But she didn't quite balance out all these other folks. In the second
episode, for instance, she illegally pistol-whipped a guy for demanding she
leave the premises and then threatened to murder the guy who murdered her
partner.

Real good police work, right?

To the extent there was a good guy, it was Miguel Cadena, the frustrated
would-be cartel leader. Let's see, he tortured a corrupt Mexican general.
Earlier, he and his brother offed their uncle.

But hey, he loves his son.

Heck, even the non-Latinos were rotten in this series. There was the
"beautiful American wife," who may have been among the most evil in this
family. Or there was the bumbling, greedy plastic surgeon, in way over his
head. There was the African-American drug dealer and his African-American
hitman/enforcer, who, by the way, was good to his grandmother.

You just got to pick your stereotype in a show that clearly hoped that if
every character of every shade was venal, corrupt, inept or all of the
above, this would smother any criticism about stereotypes.

The problem, of course, is that we have plenty of other roles and life
experiences to choose from to balance out most of these stereotypes.

Most of us know or have known Italian-Americans, for instance. And you know
what? Not a one of them, in my case, is a Mafioso.

"Beautiful American" women - the show's description - abound in television
and real life. Guess what? Not a whole lot of them snort coke and exhort
their husbands to even deeper venality.

I don't know any plastic surgeons but I'm just guessing that not even a
fraction of them are dealing coke on the side. Besides, we have all those
heroic doctors on ER to balance the score.

But, let's see. To balance out the stereotypes here, the other Latinos in
leading roles on NBC shows are . . . Hold on, I'll get it in a sec. Oh,
that's right. There are none.

Yes, NBC has more Latino regulars on air than any network, but nearly half
of these are because of Kingpin. Moreover, none of these other non-Kingpin
regulars approaches the lead status of our cartel regulars.

The calls, e-mails and letters I get convince me that even in real life,
too many are still not acquainted with Latinos with any amount of depth to
balance out these negative stereotypes. The same dynamic, unfortunately,
shapes too many perceptions about African-Americans.

And so we had Kingpin weighing in about Latinos - more specifically, about
Mexicans.

This series did not signal that Latinos have finally arrived. It only
signaled that the paucity of meaningful roles continues unabated.

So, what do we do about it? Boycott? Protest? Send off petitions and demand
apology, as Latinos have done over Dame Edna's recent slam at Spanish and
Spanish-speakers in Vanity Fair?

None of those things. It wouldn't do any good.

The fare offered by Kingpin - blood, guts, suggested and blatant sex,
intrigue and cops and robbers - was enough to get it decent ratings. I
wouldn't be surprised to see more installments.

No. If you're keen to get writer's cramp, do it by simply pressing NBC to
make amends. If anyone is keeping a balance sheet out there, NBC now owes
Latinos, big time.

Hmm. A Latino friend on Friends? Don't bet on it.