‘Miss D.’ Meets the PC Crowd

Want an example of well-intended political correctness stampeding amok? Check out the protests over the recently aired pilot for a proposed CBS comedy series based on the stage play and Oscar-winning film “Driving Miss Daisy.”

The theme: Smart, kind, stoical African-American chauffeur works for cantankerous but relatively progressive older white Southern woman in segregated early 1950s. Mutual admiration.

The pilot: Some tenderness, some laughs. Not great. Not bad, either. Prime time could do a lot worse. And based on a sampling of what’s new for fall, in many cases it is doing just that.

With Robert Guillaume and Joan Plowright in the leads, the “Driving Miss Daisy” pilot aired last Friday, drawing unremarkable ratings that leave the project’s future in doubt. However, leaders of a media watchdog group had no doubts when they angrily criticized the pilot based on a reading of its script (they said CBS denied them an opportunity for an advance screening), and they didn’t alter their view after watching the half-hour show on Friday.

Guillaume’s character, Hoke Colburn, has a mind of his own, but as an ethnic reflection of his times, he is definitely subservient. Given the nation’s current cultural disharmony, “I hate to see a black portrayed that way on television,” Sumi Haru, co-president of the Media Image Coalition of Minorities and Women, told The Times.

What bothered some members of the group, in particular, was a scene in which Hoke froze and stayed silent when one of Miss Daisy’s mah-jongg buddies referred to Eleanor Roosevelt as a “nigger lover.” It was Miss Daisy who responded angrily, banishing the bigoted woman from her home.

“To see someone not being able to speak for himself--just watch what’s happening with his head down--made me sick,” said Edie Thomas of the Black Media Coalition, a member of the larger watchdog group.

Amen. And, in most circumstances, you wouldn’t see it happen in a TV story about contemporary African-Americans.

But Hoke is not a contemporary character, a point emphatically evident from the pilot’s historical signposts, including its distinctly period look and references to Harry Truman and Eleanor Roosevelt. Hoke is one of the “invisible” men whom author Ralph Ellison described, a 50-60ish black survivor who lives in an environment of white tyranny and is a product of his era. Are we to believe, after all, that such a man living in the South would be shocked at hearing the word “nigger” or that on many occasions he has not heard that epithet used on him? Of course he has, and, like most African-Americans of his generation, he has survived in many cases precisely by keeping his head down, if only on the exterior.

Thus, no matter his private revulsion, remaining quiet is most likely what Hoke would have done when hearing Eleanor Roosevelt called “nigger lover” rather than speak out and risk losing his job and who knows what else.

The protesters called the pilot “dangerous.” On the contrary, rewriting history to fit today’s political correctness is dangerous. Tailoring Hoke to 1992 would have been as dishonest as reshaping the pilot’s white characters into social libertines.

Based on the script, members of the watchdog group also had objected to some of Hoke’s’ dialogue, which “has no place on American television today,” according to Minnie Lopez-Baffo, president of the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations, which staffs the Media Image Coalition. For example:

“Lawd, it’s a good thing I got patience, cause disyeah woman sho’ tryin’ it!” Elsewhere in the pilot, Hoke tells Miss Daisy: “You needs a chauffeur, and Lawd knows I need a job. Let’s ‘jis leave it at that.”

*

The lesson here is that scripts can be misleading. What jumps out at you on the printed page--and some of Hoke’s dialogue does just that--came across in the pilot as natural black speech for someone of Hoke’s generation in that period and region.

Note, meanwhile, that there’s been no public outcry against “black talk” spoken on new contemporary African-American comedy series, apparently because it’s a product of its age, the present. For example:

* “You all know dat she want me bad!” Or, “Lawd, it’s so hot outside, Mama’s sweatin’ like a Coke bottle at a barbecue.” Those lines are from Fox’s “Martin,” premiering Thursday night.

* “Ain’t you gonna say nuthin? Well, ain’t chu? No, guess you ain’t. And I know wha. ‘Cause you scar. . . . Which means ah could do whatever I want, right? I could kick this chair if I want to. I could smack Everett upside a his haid.” Spoken by a black drug dealer’s kid brother, the preceding is from “Here and Now,” a comedy arriving next month on NBC.

* “You da man! You da man!” That’s from “Up All Night,” scheduled to follow “Here and Now” in NBC’s Saturday night lineup this fall.

The anti-”Driving Miss Daisy” crowd does raise a legitimate question about the wisdom of placing a TV comedy in such grim surroundings. It’s a delicate balancing act, and the proper approach is to make judgments case by case and hope for the best possible scenario: another “MASH”--a series that managed to mix humor and compassion within the context of the Korean War.

In the case of “Driving Miss Daisy,” the framework is Southern racism at a time when merely exchanging glances with some whites could be costly to an African-American. A similar setting--where an African-American housekeeper employed by a somewhat progressive Southern attorney in the late 1950s--is no problem for the NBC series “I’ll Fly Away,” but that’s a drama.

Whether “Driving Miss Daisy” could consistently locate laughs in the same rough turf--while trying to avoid the creative trap of having Miss Daisy each week defend Hoke against whites--may never been known, giving its tenuous status.

But one thing came across very clearly in the pilot: Despite his own cultural baggage and the limitations imposed on him from the white power structure, Guillaume’s Hoke Colburn displayed more dignity, strength and intelligence than exists in most of TV’s ever-growing batch of African-American comedy series. To say nothing of comedies with predominantly white casts.

To heck with political correctness. Whether 1952 or 1992, he’s the man.