Thirty Years Later: Shaft In Space?

The Outer Limits was my second favorite television show when I was a kid. (The first was Twilight Zone) and last night I was, for the first time in maybe forty years, watching the episode that first knocked my socks off, “The Zanti Misfits.” Still holds up, and an early appearance by a batshit Bruce Dern just makes it all sweeter. Anyway, I’ve been watching that early television stuff, and in the back of my head it occurred to me that my younger self had pretty damned good taste in television. But also that that young kid had to filter a LOT.

No black people. Anywhere. I could watch a dozen episodes of either of them and never see a single black face. Oh, they popped up occasionally here and there, but back then I could watch television for WEEKS and see nothing. I remember asking about this, and was told it was just the way it is. Black people felt a little uncomfortable talking about it. White people shrugged. They, personally, of course, had no problem. It was “society.” Or “the television people.”

But I remember being told: it doesn’t matter. What difference does it make? Color doesn’t matter, right? Smiling at me as if there was something wrong with me for even noticing.

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The movie “Goldfinger” came out in 1964 and I loved it. About a year later, Harold “Oddjob” Sakata appeared in a cold tablet commercial, karate-chopping his way through sneezes or coughs. I thought it was very funny. But then it occurred to me: I’d never seen an Asian in a television commercial…