(Variety) — We’ve all seen it: the billboard touting a new TV show with a diverse cast of characters — Latino, African-American, Asian, white and so on. But this all-inclusive rainbow casting doesn’t always translate into storylines that reflect the lives of those who have been traditionally underrepresented on television. ”When you hear the dialogue or see the stories, the Asian guy could have been the white guy, the African-American guy the Latino guy. They’re the same characters. They’re just putting a different face on them,” says Christopher Lloyd, co-creator of ABC comedy “Modern Family,” whose characters include a gay couple with an adopted Asian daughter, a Latina mother and son, and an updated “Father Knows Best” white couple with three kids. ”I have been in those meetings where the network executives would say, ‘Look, I’ve got to check a box,’?” Lloyd says. “The public kind of is aware that they’re being manipulated.” No one, including Lloyd, whose show was originally titled “American Family,” doubts that TV should look more like the USA. Sometimes it just struggles to do it in a genuine way.
