AMC's Learning Some Lessons, Still Has More To Go

AMC's television brand was created by Mad Men and has, up to this point, largely revolved of prestigious antihero dramas and the Walking Dead. Now, AMC's looking to expand into comedy. In fact, it's already tapped both Wyatt Cenac and John Leguizamo for different projects. It's a good step for the network, yet one that also unconsciously highlights one of the networks biggest issues. Cenac, formerly a correspondent for The Daily Show, will bring his show No Money Down to AMC. Here's the description, via Deadline:

No Money Down follows a guy (Cenac) who bottoms out and begins working at an Austin car dealership with a variety of personalities.

And for Leguizamo's new (as of yet untitled) show:

Drawing inspiration from Leguizamo’s real-life three best friends, the untitled John Leguizamo project follows a group of men in Queens, The Bronx and upper Manhattan wrestling with careers, relationships, family, ambition, and getting older.

Both of these sound solid. Promising. Both Cenac and Leguizamo are not lacking in allure, and I'm glad AMC is taking steps to de-whiten its image, because that was needed.

But one thing that AMC has also been, in addition to extremely white? Very, very male-heavy. Mad Men has some great female characters, yes (shoutout to Peggy and Joan). Skylar White is great and if you disagree I will probably fight you on it. But AMC has never really, truly had a show that led by a woman. Breaking Bad and Mad Men had great ensemble casts, but they are ultimately the stories of Walter White and Don Draper. In the modern media landscape, in which studies have proven that gender and racial diversity brings in more viewers and that female-led films brought in more at the box office than their male counterparts?

AMC's still got a few bases left to cover.