I hear a lot of flack online about strong female or minority leads, in particular, most of the postings seem to be about how this IP or that IP should have had a female, or a lead with darker skin (or why DIDN’T it have this kind of lead when it COULD HAVE).

But I don’t hear much about the current examples of these kinds of characters.  Maybe because it turns into cherry-picking (a show might have one good example, but fail dramatically in other areas).  Maybe it’s just a genre thing (it seems to happen more in genre shows than “mainstream”), but when I review the TV shows I am watching right now, I am seeing some remarkable things.  The kinds of things that ought be thrown out as counter examples.  The kinds of things that, in my personal opinion, ought to be shown as examples of what brings in the money every time someone brings up the line that “strong women don’t sell” or “but our target audience isn’t Latino”.

Sleepy Hollow:

Lets take Sleepy Hollow as a recent example.  We have a hit genre show.  A show that, by all accounts should have failed out of the starting gate because “Zombie Washington” is just too far out there.

This show started with only one white lead in it.  Our entire core cast, the female lead (who has become the focus of the story at this point) and the two primary supporting characters are all black (I can’t speak to the actor’s personal ethnicities, I’m trying to speak to the the characters they portray).  Drill down to the next rank and we have the two unrequited love interests, one of whom presents as Latino/Hispanic the other of whom presents as Chinese.  We have John Noble who has become a regular now (and apparently the new Big Bad) to tip the balance back again, but that is a recent development and I’d argue you can’t really call him a “lead” just yet.

Is it perfect?  No, but it is probably the most mixed-race/gender cast for a show that I have ever seen in primetime.  And it is working.  It is working REALLY WELL for the moment.

White Collar:

Yes, heavily whitewashed, no arguments there, but DIANA.  1. A strong, competent female.  2. Openly lesbian AND working for the FBI 3. Single mother AND 4. NOT WHITE.  All of these things come into play for her character without them turning into “Hi we’re so progressive” showcase pieces for a single episode and then dropping them.  She is an awesome, complete character, not just a token “insert minority of choice here”.  Is her character’s life as hard as it would probably be IRL?  No, but if you’re going to call the show on that bit, you can turn that lens on *every* character and show that to be the case.

Elementary:

I’ll be honest, I’m an old-school Sherlock Holmes fan, and I wasn’t AT ALL down with the idea of a female Watson. Then I watched through the first season.  What they’ve done with Joan Watson is fascinating because they have created a strong, female character, but managed to keep some of the foibles many women face, rather than making her a man in a dress.  She was previously a surgeon, but outside of things that require her medical expertise, she shows clear signs of “impostor syndrome” which is a reveal that we don’t see as much when someone is trying to paint a woman as “strong”.