Does it not often feel as if present-day political maneuverings are just rehashing classic sitcom formulas (conflict, disbelief, resolution, forgetting in 22-minute increments)? In all ways possible, yes.
On Tuesday, Vice News reported that until only very recently the website for Arizona’s Republican party featured a cast photograph from Margaret Cho’s 1994 sitcom All-American Girl, accompanied by the caption “Asian Americans.” The photograph resided on a webpage explaining how the GOP loves diversity, a fiction far more outlandish than the TV family it mistook for a real one.
An archived version of the former webpage indicates that it once stated, “Republicans believe strongly in equal rights and we strive to ensure we are creating a better future for our families and the next generations.” Then it uses this sentiment to promote the party’s disingenuous emphasis on building a strong, pro-business economy that keeps taxes on the wealthy to a minimum.
A spokesperson for the Arizona Republican Party told Vice News, “ As soon as this was brought to our attention, the page was taken down. This was obviously a mistake, and we apologize.”
It’s the sort of “mistake” that can’t help but replicate itself so long as the drama of powerful white people remains centered in the staging of national drama, which as it plays so often too affirms white fantasies of American life. Cho’s words of warning, well before Trump was elected, on the reality star’s 2015 SNL appearance are a reminder of this: “Remember Pink Floyd’s movie The Wall, when Bob Geldof becomes this totalitarian leader cum rock star? That’s happening with Trump. A reality TV star becoming president. SNL has never had a single Asian-American cast member or musical act. They had one Asian-American host 16 years ago, which was Lucy Liu. Yet they want Trump, a known racist?”