'Sleepy Hollow' is Not Sleeping on the Job of Equality

By Eva Hamm on September 22, 2013

This past Monday, the pilot for the new FOX television show Sleepy Hollow aired to an audience of over 10 million viewers, who
were already hyped up by the considerable buzz that had been generated for the show. It did not disappoint; the episode had a near-perfect mix of witty dialogue, plot twists, and chilling moments.

The show provides an interesting twist to the legend of the Headless Horseman. In this new story, the Headless Horseman is not just a ghost, but is actually one of the four mythical Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Ichabod Crane (played by Tom Mison) is not a spurned schoolteacher but instead a British defector in the Revolutionary War. He and General George Washington had been arranging a plot to stop the oncoming apocalypse while simultaneously fighting for the freedom of the colonies, when Ichabod was killed in battle with the Horseman, who he decapitated. When the Horseman was revived, so was Ichabod… except it’s 250 years later. Now Ichabod has paired up with a young policewoman named Abbie Mills to help stop the Horseman as he rampages around modern-day Sleepy Hollow.

Exciting, right? But Sleepy Hollow is so much more than its clever writing and interesting plot. Because of its casting, it’s one of the more progressive shows that are on the air right now. One of the two main characters is Abbie Mills (played by Nicole Beharie), a young professional who is strong-willed, slightly hot-headed, tough and extremely cool. What makes her character progressive is that she is part of the two most grossly underrepresented groups on television: women and people of color. Abbie is a woman who is not characterized by her romantic relationships or her femininity, without being made to look mannish or butch. She has long hair, wears makeup, makes no attempt to look like her male counterparts, and is able to cry, all without diminishing her ability to be a good, strong police officer that is just as good, if not better, than her male coworkers.

She is also African American, but that has little to no effect on the way she behaves. It is mentioned once in the episode, when Ichabod expresses his surprise at a female African American being in the police force and Abbie defensively explains to him that slavery has been abolished for 150 years. Ichabod quickly accepts this, having been an abolitionist himself, and her race is not mentioned again. She doesn’t follow any of the typical stereotypes: she is not the loud, uneducated-seeming, “HOLD MY EARRINGS GIRL!” type that we tend to see in comedies, nor is she the criminal type that we see in most dramas. She is a normal, educated, hardworking policewoman, no different than we might see in shows like Castle and Rizzoli and Isles.

Two of the other characters that play a fairly substantial part in the pilot are also people of color: Abbie’s boss, Captain Frank Irving (played by Orlando Jones), who is also African American, and her coworker Andy Dunn (played by Star Trek’s John Cho) who is Asian American. Again, these characters’ actions are not influenced by their race or their heritage. This is especially important in the case of Andy, who becomes—spoiler!—something of an antagonist later in the episode. What we tend to see of an Asian American or Asian antagonist is some sort of tie to the Chinese mafia, making shady deals in the basement of some restaurant in Chinatown. This is not so with Andy. He is just a man who got into the wrong side of witchcraft.

What makes these roles progressive is that they could be played by just about anyone—and the directors and writers chose to have them filled by minority actors. They could have been just like every other TV show and filled them with generic white, male actors, but instead they chose quality actors that are not only very talented, but can serve as role models and people to admire for other aspiring minority actors, artists, musicians and especially children. A show that displays people of color behaving like average people is, sadly, unusual on today’s television. With shows like Sleepy Hollow, hopefully we can start paving the way for more equal representation on television.

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