Awake: NBC's new show and another male fantasy

I watched the pilot episode of NBC’s new drama, Awake, created by Lone Star writer Kyle Killen. In the show, Jason Isaacs plays Michael Britten, a police detective who is in a serious car accident and then wakes up to two different realities - one in which his wife dies, and another where his son is killed. Now, Isaacs is a fine actor, but I am sorry to say I will not be watching that show again and here’s why.

The first time we see Laura Allen, who plays Isaacs’s wife, Hannah, she is wielding a paintbrush. Is she an artist? No, she’s doing a spot of home decorating. Later, we see her wearing a suit but we have no idea what work she does. When Hannah turns up for a dinner date wearing a red dress, I got it. “Okay, so we’re living in fantasy world here,” I thought.

Killen has created a world in which a white man gets to maintain a relationship with two attractive women, while very much playing the hero. Talk about having your cake and eating it. And it’s a world in which people of colour are relegated safely to the sidelines. I didn’t really see the point of either Steve Harris’ or Wilmer Valderrama characters - except to make the lead look good.

And I’d like to ask Killen a question: is he aware that there are a number of women on the police force throughout the US?

What’s interesting - and more than a little disconcerting - to notice is that just as women and people of colour make greater strides in the workplace and other spheres, there seems to be a growing backlash. Thus we have Rush Limbaugh calling a Georgetown student a “slut” and a “prostitute” for daring to request that health insurance cover birth control - and not backing down until advertisers pulled their sponsorship. Then there are the Obama critics who repeatedly describe him as “Kenyan”.

That Hollywood is the preserve of white, middle-class males has been the industry’s dirty little secret for decades. But here’s the thing: the world is changing. Television and film are now global concerns. When you consider that 98 per cent of the world’s population is not white and the TV audiences are predominantly female, for industry bosses to continue to offer up such a white, phallocentric world view simply doesn’t make any sense.

No wonder audience numbers are down.