The recent posts about race, class, lack of talk about tv and emergence of
talk about MY SO-CALLED LIFE prompted me to write about the way racial
issues have been handled this season by PICKET FENCES.
 
For those of you who haven't followed, early in the season the hugely white
small city of Rome, Wisconsin (in the show, of course) was put under a court
order by a black judge to accept inner-city children from Green Bay.  This
provoked a massive debate in the town, with the ultra-reactionary NIMBY
forces being led by a disgruntled postal worker and the "liberal" faction
being led by Dr. Jill Brock, wife of the town's sherrif and one of the two
leading charactrers in the show.
 
I thought it remarkably audacious how this show dealt with white fears about
black kids, about middle-class blacks in relation to inner-city kids, and
about how racism can poison the most well-intentioned.  Acting Mayor Jill
Brock orders her husband to stop the buses, and he backs down only after
Federal troops intervene (shades of Little Rock!).
 
This whole arc has still been somewhat schematic (it is a tv series, after
all), but I can't really think of any network series that has dared to
dig at the issue of race relations week after week--and it's still not
resolved.
 
One of the things I've long admired about *this* PF is its willingness to
undercut expectations.  Just when you think you have a character neatly
pegged and slotted, he or she reveals another angle to the character.  The
show isn't exactly subtle, but it has far more complexity than most tv--or
movies, for that matter.  It's revealing that the two main characters--
the married doctor and sherrif--are revealed to be not merely flawed, but
deeply mistaken in their actions, and their pre-eminenece in the show is
slowly being replaced by others.
 
In the meantime, that postal worker has just been elected mayor (an example
of life imitating art--this being before the last elections!).  I'm waiting
for him to wade into a crowd of black kids with a semi-automatic rifle or
two in hand.  Then again, PF might surprise me!
 
--Don Larsson, Mankato State U., MN