'Newsweek': 'Undercovers' Canceled By NBC Because America Can't Handle 'Super-Negroes'

To hear Newsweek’s Allison Samuels tell it, the reason J.J. Abrams’ NBC spy series “Undercovers” was recently canceled after only a few weeks on the air is all because of race — is due to the fact that the show’s two leads were — in her words — “super-negroes.” Now, nothing makes me happier than to witness the liberal media rip into liberal Hollywood, and normally I would just stand back and enjoy the cannibalism. But this is not only a grievance-bridge too far, it also easily qualifes as the most condescending and dopey thing I’ve read all year.

Had this published in Newsweek a few months ago, my guess is that the magazine would’ve sold for 50 cents instead of a dollar.

I think it’s possible that a slightly more obvious, disturbing reason could be behind Undercovers‘ failure, and it’s pretty familiar: race. Prime-time audiences just weren’t ready for “super-negros” on the small screen. And that’s exactly what Undercovers was: a show about black people doing very “unblack” things. Before anyone gets upset, let me explain. “Super-negro” was a term my family often used while watching old Sidney Poitier movies back in the day. In Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (our favorite), Poitier portrays a black doctor in love with a white, wealthy young socialite during the ’60s. Pretty early in the film, you begin to realize that Poitier’s character is not just any black doctor (an accomplishment in itself for most people then, and now); he’s a black doctor with degrees from several Ivy League universities, an internationally known scholar behind cures of dozens of diseases in Africa and elsewhere. Overkill. But Poitier portraying a “regular negro” was simply not good enough during those times, so the “super-negro” was born. The same could be said of his character from In the Heat of the Night, a Philadelphia cop with highly decorated awards.

Fast-forward 40 years, and it’s plain to see that Hollywood still hasn’t figured out a way to move beyond that absurd premise. It still can’t just fit us in. Yes, we often appear as sidekicks or backup characters in an array of popular shows in prime time, but rarely do we carry a show as the star or let the viewers come home with us.

For starters, this premise is just factually wrong. Unless Ms. Samuels is going to push her already laughable theory to the breaking point of splitting the fine hair between movies and television, it’s just a cold truth that Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman and Will Smith not only qualify as her “super negroes,” but also happen to be three of the most universally popular and beloved actors in America today. Furthermore, only 6 million people tuned into “Undercovers” in a country where 42 million Black Americans currently reside. With those numbers you don’t need anyone of the Caucasian persuasion to create yourself a hit television show.

If NBC can’t win 20% of that particular demographic, how is the failure of “Undercovers” a race issue? Well, Ms. Samuels has an even more outrageous theory to answer that one. Be sure to pay extra special attention to what’s in bold [my emphasis]:

[I]t appears that the powers that be in Tinseltown feel quite comfortable relegating us to reinforcing every negative stereotype known to humanity in low-grade, embarrassing reality shows like Flavor of Love and Basketball Wives. So exactly how does the television audience (black, white, or other) make the gigantic leap from those constant images of foolery to a show like Undercovers? It doesn’t.

Wow.

Taking Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington and Will Smith off the table as though they alone don’t already completely dismantle this thoughtless line of thought, what Ms. Samuels is saying is that television has so socialized Black America that even Black Americans can’t deal with seeing themselves in fictional roles that don’t fall under her definition of “foolery.”

Of course, there is one exception to this theory; someone uniquely capable of seeing through all of this, someone whose superior intellect can’t be fooled, someone who possesses the otherworldly ability to retain a sense of self-worth even in the relentless face of all this pop cultural racism — ONE incredible human being with the strength and insight to sit back and enjoy “Undercovers” unlike anyone else…

And that someone is, of course, Allision Samuels.

If “elitist” ever becomes a race, I’m becoming a racist.