Misleading casting announcement highlights TV's lack of diverse romance

When a tweet from Deadline announced that actors Susan Wokoma and Ronny Chieng were cast in Super Simple Love Story, a new romantic comedy pilot on CBS, it raised hopes that the network was making strides in representing interracial romance on TV.

But the actors featured in the tweet were not cast as the romantic leads of the show and instead have supporting roles as friends of the series' actual romantic leads -- played by actors Elizabeth Alderfer and David Walton.

On Twitter, many people expressed upset that they were led to believe a network show would feature a romance between a black woman and a Chinese-Malaysian man. Many pointed out that casting people of color as supporting, non-romantic leads is a common formula for shows that tend to focus on romances between white characters.

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When they realized the reality of the casting, some Twitter users said they lost interest in Super Simple Love Story.

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Others called out Deadline for pushing a tweet they felt was deliberately confusing.

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Wokoma, a British Nigerian actor, is an award-winning comedic actor whose roles in Crazyhead and Chewing Gum are best known to American audiences. Chieng is a Chinese-Malaysian comedian and actor who appeared in Crazy Rich Asians and is a correspondent on The Daily Show.

It's extremely rare for romantic comedy shows to focus on interracial couples. ABC's Selfie had John Cho and Karen Gillian as romantic leads, but was pulled after one season. The Mindy Project also had diverse casting, but is no more.