'Hawaii Five-0' Casting Announcement Doesn't Fix CBS's Larger Diversity Problem
This is the network TV definition of too little, too late.
On Wednesday, CBS announced the names of three new actors who will be joining the cast of its long-running cop drama Hawaii Five-0. To no one's surprise, all three actors are nonwhite: Ian Anthony Dale is half Japanese, Meaghan Rath is half South Asian and Beulah Koale is of Samoan descent.
The announcement comes not long after the series weathered intense criticism when the show's most visible cast members of Asian descent left. Daniel Dae Kim, who is Korean-American, and Grace Park, a Canadian-American of Korean descent, left the program after CBS failed to raise their pay to the same level as the show's white co-stars, Alex O'Loughlin and Scott Caan.
(Another co-star, Masi Oka, who is a Japanese citizen, left the show in January.)
Given that Hawaii Five-0 is set in one of the most diverse states in America, that's kind of an issue. And the headlines were brutal. The Washington Post decried the "racial wage gap" on TV. Syndicated columnist Ruben Navarrette blamed the pay gap on "racism."
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But the real problem here goes all the way back to when CBS first developed the show. And it's not the only drama on the network with this difficulty.
When CBS first created the new Hawaii Five-0, it retained the old show's formula of centering the action on two white male stars, setting up talented actors like Kim and Park to play second fiddle for the life of the series.
"I don't understand why we're dealing with this issue now," says Brenda Ching, executive director of the Hawaii chapter of the performers' union SAG-AFTRA. "Obviously, the success of the show has been phenomenal, and everybody's role has built the show. ... Even if you look back to the original Five-0, what made the show was the diversity of the environment."
CBS has long followed the formula of surrounding white male leads with a diverse group of supporting characters (NCIS: New Orleans, Bull, the MacGyver remake). They have tweaked that pattern occasionally to actually feature women and people of color as co-leads (NCIS: Los Angeles, Elementary, Superior Donuts).
But when CBS debuts its fall season in September, the network will have just one show that features a nonwhite person as the sole lead character: a reboot of S.W.A.T., starring Shemar Moore, who is biracial.
This is why diversity is so important for networks to embrace: Decisions made at the beginning of a show's life have ripple effects that extend throughout the life of the show and across the network for years to come.
Complicating things further is the way Hawaii Five-0 marketing material often framed O'Loughlin, Caan, Park and Kim as equal characters, in some cases putting Park and Kim front and center. For anyone looking to criticize the show for focusing on white characters, the pictures could argue otherwise — but it also could lead fans to assume all four characters were an equal ensemble in every way, including pay.
As the controversy over Kim's and Park's departures grew, Hawaii Five-0 executive producer Peter Lenkov posted a note on Twitter saying the actors "chose not to extend their contracts" after "getting unprecedented raises" in negotiations, listing the diversity of actors elsewhere in the cast. CBS issued a statement praising Kim and Park, noting they "tried very hard to keep them with offers for large and significant salary increases." Variety has reported that Caan and O'Loughlin make about $200,000 per episode, plus a small share of the show's back-end profits; Kim was offered a salary about $5,000 short of the show's leads and a production deal.
Kim issued a statement on Facebook thanking fans, the network and those who worked on the show. He noted, "As an Asian American actor, I know first-hand how difficult it is to find opportunities at all," later adding, "The path to equality is rarel