ABC Family features shows such as “Greek” about frat/sorority life, “10 Things I Hate About You” about high school life and it’s most popular show, “The Secret Life of an American Teenager,” featuring a teen who has a baby.
Then there’s “Lincoln Heights,” in its fourth season. It’s a show about family and features three teen-age kids. That fits very much into the ABC Familiy rubric. But it’s grittier than your typical ABC Family series. Eddie Sutton is a cop who moves back to a rough neighborhood he covers even though he could afford to live in a nicer place. The family struggles to adjust but it’s a loving, blue-collar black family, one that is seldom seen on TV in a drama.
In fact, it’s arguably the only family drama on TV featuring a black family. Ratings have been down this season so ABC Family sent some of the actors to major markets to promote the show. I had lunch with the three female main leads at Ted’s Montana Grill earlier this week.
The show was originally going to have a white family moving into the tough mixed-race neighborhood. "That would have been pandering," said Nikki Micheaux, who plays Jenn Sutton, Eddie's wife "It's a black family moving back in and committing to the community. We are self motivated and self interested. This is about people stepping outside of that."
But the show is not like “Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns,” which draws a majority black audience. “Lincoln Heights” brings in a broader audience though it’s mostly younger white teen-agers and older black women. The goal: get more black teens and older white women to watch.
The Suttons are “similar to any family,” Micheaux said. “Race doesn’t have to do with it.” Perception, she said, is more on the sellers’ side. “How can we sell to a non-black audience?”
She also said she appreciates that the show features a truly nurturing family with a father who does heroic things as a cop. “There’s none of that clown buffoonery,” she said. “You take the husband and wife seriously. Look at this love and how beautiful it is. This requires a shift in perception.”
Erica Hubbard's character Cassie, the oldest daughter, has been dating a white guy for three seasons. "People have welcomed it," Hubbard said. "They don't see black and white. It's true love. I wish I was in love like that!" Cassie and Charles will take it to a new level and she starts looking at colleges.
Her younger sister Lizzie, played by Rhyon Nicole Brown, entered high school this season and has her own love interracial love interest after dating only black guys before. Brown herself is taking inspiration from the executive producer Kathleen McGhee-Anderson. At age 16, she already aspires to be a producer of some sort down the road.
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