"Nowadays, people always say, how come he's doing such young shows? But they never mention The Mod Squad. I was very proud of that show. It's the first time an African-American guy kissed a white girl"
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Spelling is doing two things at once: defending his legacy against a familiar Hollywood diss and quietly reminding you what “mainstream” progress actually looked like when it had to sneak in through the side door of network TV.
The surface complaint is about ageism and relevance: people rib him for producing “young shows,” as if catering to youth is inherently unserious. His rebuttal isn’t a list of ratings wins; it’s a moral flex. He reaches back to The Mod Squad not as nostalgia, but as receipts. The subtext is sharp: you want to talk about what I make for teenagers now, but you don’t want to talk about what I put on your screens then, because that forces an uncomfortable admission about how timid the culture was.
The kiss he cites functions like a cultural timestamp. It’s not framed as a grand civil-rights proclamation; it’s framed as a moment that got past the gatekeepers. That’s how television often changes things: not by speeches, but by normalizing the once-unthinkable inside a story people are already watching. Spelling’s pride is less “look how enlightened I was” and more “I know what risks I took in the only language the industry respects: what actually aired.”
There’s also a small, telling self-protection in the phrasing. He credits “an African-American guy” rather than naming the actor, centering the breakthrough while keeping himself in the frame as the enabler. It’s legacy management with a point: pop TV can be trashy and still be consequential.
The surface complaint is about ageism and relevance: people rib him for producing “young shows,” as if catering to youth is inherently unserious. His rebuttal isn’t a list of ratings wins; it’s a moral flex. He reaches back to The Mod Squad not as nostalgia, but as receipts. The subtext is sharp: you want to talk about what I make for teenagers now, but you don’t want to talk about what I put on your screens then, because that forces an uncomfortable admission about how timid the culture was.
The kiss he cites functions like a cultural timestamp. It’s not framed as a grand civil-rights proclamation; it’s framed as a moment that got past the gatekeepers. That’s how television often changes things: not by speeches, but by normalizing the once-unthinkable inside a story people are already watching. Spelling’s pride is less “look how enlightened I was” and more “I know what risks I took in the only language the industry respects: what actually aired.”
There’s also a small, telling self-protection in the phrasing. He credits “an African-American guy” rather than naming the actor, centering the breakthrough while keeping himself in the frame as the enabler. It’s legacy management with a point: pop TV can be trashy and still be consequential.
Quote Details
| Topic | Equality |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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