Something Uncommon About ‘Law’

In the second episode of his sitcom “Common Law” last week, Greg Giraldo, a Latino former New York lawyer who plays a Latino New York lawyer, won a groundbreaking case against a corporate polluter. But instead of congratulating him on his success or asking how it would help the environment, all anyone wanted to talk about was what it’s like to be a successful Latino lawyer, whether he was ever in a gang and what his winning the case meant for the Latino community.

“This Hispanic-kid-from-Queens thing is making me crazy,” the character moaned. “It’s insulting. The implication is that a Hispanic being a successful attorney is as surprising as a talking foot.”

Giraldo and the writers of ABC’s “Common Law” concocted the episode as a parody of the treatment they received when they faced a roomful of television writers last July at the annual fall season press tour. Question after question dealt primarily with Giraldo’s ethnicity--his father is Colombian, his mother Spanish, he was born and raised in Queens.

Those questions arose in part because shows that feature Latino actors playing Latino characters have been rare on network television and in part because Disney-owned ABC has been targeted specifically by Latino activist groups for failing to hire Latinos both on air and for responsible positions within the network’s work force. Still, the myopic interest of the reporters ticked Giraldo off.

“It undermines your accomplishment,” he said in an interview this week on the set of his series. “Instead of saying, ‘Great, we like the show,’ or even, ‘We don’t think it’s at all funny,’ it automatically became this suspicious thing. ‘Why are you on the air? Is it because you are Hispanic? It’s because of the pressure put on ABC, isn’t it?’

“Now, I’m not totally naive, and I know that all kinds of things can be small factors in getting a show on the air. But believe me, it wasn’t like ABC was screaming, ‘Hallelujah, we finally found this Latino great white hope!’ ”

Giraldo, who graduated from Harvard Law School and worked for a year in a large New York firm before ditching it all to become a stand-up comedian, said that ABC executives initially pushed him to play a non-Latino character in a series they already had in development. But his advisors told him that stand-up comics do best on TV when the show is specifically built around their own persona, a la “Seinfeld” or Tim Allen’s “Home Improvement.”

So, working with writer Rob LaZebnik, “Common Law’s” creator and executive producer, Giraldo presented ABC with a series based loosely on his previous life as a lawyer. Included in that premise were themes he’d mined in his stand-up act, which often skewered all sides of typical Latino stereotypes. On the one hand, he made fun of white people who gave him the thumbs-up because he didn’t look or speak like their idea of the typical Latino. On the other, he bemoaned how his not looking ethnic enough cost him a job narrating a PBS nature show, generating laughs as he impersonated the voice of the stereotypical barrio lowrider describing a lion stalking its prey.

He also succeeded in including other, very different types of Latino characters. Veteran TV actor Gregory Sierra portrays his immigrant father, who speaks flawless English with a Spanish accent and objects to his son’s living with his white, non-Catholic girlfriend (Megyn Price) before marriage. And Diana-Maria Riva plays his loud, large secretary, who is of Puerto Rican heritage.

“It didn’t really start out as this deliberate effort to show the whole palette of Hispanic life in America,” Giraldo said. “Truthfully, I was just struggling to try to do a good, funny show. And then, as we progressed, I thought it would be nice to show a range of Hispanic characters. But it makes me nuts that race and ethnicity is always such a big deal every time we try to do something. That everything has to be labeled. That you have to belong to a certain ethnic group. Maybe if all that ethnicity stuff would get wiped out, perhaps there wouldn’t be any good Italian restaurants, but at least we’d all be one happy family.”

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A nice colorblind fantasy. The only problem is that Latinos so rarely get their own shows that it automatically becomes a big deal when they do. So Latino media activists are watching “Common Law” closely--and so far they like what they’ve seen.

“Usually on television, if they have a Hispanic character, you always see him as a pimp or a drug dealer or maybe a mechanic,” said Jerry Velasco, president of Nosotros, a Latino entertainment organization that has been part of the effort to force the networks to improve their representations of Latinos. “You get tired of seeing that. Not that there is anything wrong with being a mechanic, but it’s good to see a show with a character that happens to be of Latin descent who is also this sort of normal, successful guy.”

But Velasco added that because Latino-based shows seemingly come around only slightly more often than Halley’s comet, the pressure on this show and these actors to succeed and thereby blaze a trail for more of the same is tremendous.

“That’s why it is a must for us as a community, for Hispanics, to support the show,” he said. “We need to continue to pressure ABC to do this, but we also need to help them succeed here because if they make money and see that we are marketable and salable, then we all win.”

While he too approves of “Common Law,” Alex Nogales, chairman of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, which has spearheaded the effort to pressure ABC on this issue, believes that “it’s not enough just to put a Latino character on the air one-half hour a week.

“We are starved for programs that depict us. I like this character,” he said. “He’s a little bit hippyish, but that’s OK. The main thing is that he is a positive role model and I wish them good luck. But one show in the entire spectrum of television shows across the country, over 100 shows on five networks, doesn’t do a lot. It’s just a beginning.”

Nogales’ main complaint, however, is that ABC, in his view, has not reached out to the Latino community specifically in an effort to garner support for “Common Law.” And that, he contends, is because they have failed to hire Latinos for decision-making positions in their marketing, promotional or programming departments--people who understand that segment of the audience and would know to target them.

“Whoever understands that there is big money in this community, whoever commits long term for as long as it takes to include us, will reap huge rewards,” he said.

Giraldo’s goal is simply to do a good show. All the rest is beyond his control.

“I definitely feel a lot of pressure about everything--about acting, about being funny and about this ridiculous idea of carrying a torch for all Hispanics,” he said. “I know there are people even in the Latino community who might say that our show does not really reflect Latino life, whatever that means, and that’s fine and they are certainly entitled to have a show that does reflect their life. And I hope someone will put it on.

“But what I love about the show is that we’re breaking stereotypes. There are Latino people of every shape and size and occupation and socioeconomic background, and that kind of speaks for itself. I’m proud that I can show that a guy like this, like me, does exist in this country, but it seems self-defeating to have to make such a big deal about it. The message is self-evident. I don’t think we need to beat everyone over the head with it.”

* “Common Law” airs Saturdays at 9:30 p.m. on ABC (Channel 7).