Why is it still OK to ...
Question: Why is it still OK to gay-bash in America? Mel Gibson and Michael Richards got the wrath of everyone for their racist remarks, as they well should have. But
Grey's Anatomy's
Isaiah Washington can call T.R. Knight the F-word and those in charge are snowing it over. I think he should be fired, but the character of Dr. Burke should stay. Why can't prime-time shows take a page from soaps? When an actor leaves a role, they don't lose the character but hire a new actor. We're smart viewers, we get it. Fire Washington and replace him with, say,
Taye Diggs. Now that
Day Break is off the air, I'd love to see him back on TV.
Answer: Oh, wouldn't Taye Diggs fit right into this show? (Too bad Ellen already coined "McYummy" for T.R. Knight. I can only imagine what nickname the
Grey's writers would give this matinee idol.) Not to disparage the world of soaps, but we're in a different prime-time environment these days. TV and its audience have grown up a bit from a time when you could switch your
Miss Ellie (disastrously, as it turned out), or give
Steven Carrington a new face, or give Fallon a new body and personality (again, not exactly an improvement), and so on.
Grey's has its soapy elements, but it's also part of a new golden age of TV drama, where we can take the characters a bit more seriously, as well as respect the actors who created these roles indelibly, and not render them interchangeable. If it's determined that dropping Isaiah Washington is in the best interest of
Grey's Anatomy, then Burke should also be history. He's not exactly James Bond (which they finally got right in
Casino Royale, to go off on a tangent).
I do agree with you that we're all smart enough to "get it" if they were to recast the role. But that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.
