Television's Hierarchy of Competence

A friend recently observed (well, his wife did) that many (most?) couples in television commercials today are mixed-race. This reminded me of a long-running observation of my own: that the characters in television commercials behave according to a "hierarchy of competence" that mirrors what I've called the grievance hierarchy.

Next time you're watching network or cable TV, pay attention to the identity politics at play. If there are men and women, take note of who's wise, sage, patient, understanding, or correct, and who's foolish, silly, ignorant, clumsy, incompetent, and/or in need of correcting. Amplify this for married couples, and expand this to other identity markers such as race and orientation.

This has been going on for a long time, and it's a step beyond the even longer-running "Benetton trope." Used to be, all commercials required casts like Benetton ads - with representatives of various races. I found this amusing and understandable, given that commercials are, well, marketing, and selling to as broad an audience as possible audience is a good idea.

I also understand the prevalence of "identity diversity" in television programming. While I'm sure a statistical analysis would show that certain identities are substantially over-represented on TV vs the nation's actual demographic breakdown, I'm also of the belief that this happens for defensive reasons. Include Identity_01 in your series or movie, and you're less likely to hear from the scolds who validate their existence by haranguing content producers on social media. The tokenism is often blatant, but I get it. Just business.

The Hierarchy of Competence is a bit of a different matter, though. It's not about promoting an image of an inclusive society (or a color-blind, or a gender-blind, or an orientation-blind). It treats competence as zero-sum, as if the only way to assert that those of certain identity markers are "competent" is to render their counterparts "incompetent." It's condescending, and it contributes to rather than remediating divisions in society. It engenders disrespect and it prompts people to identity-based bigotries. It feeds the worst sort of angry stereotypes and tropes (see: “toxic masculinity).

It also backfires. Much as they like to pretend otherwise, progressive activists are a small segment of the populace, and "get woke, go broke" is more than a conservative wish, and the harder they try to impose these relational structures and hierarchies on mass media, the more people they'll push into a recalcitrant, hardened, or backlash position. People behave very differently when they are pushed vs being invited.

As we've seen with the various mandates surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.

It's a lesson perpetually unlearned - in trying to spoon-feed comity born of tolerance and inclusivity, the social mandarins end up doing more harm than good.