What a Coinkydink: That the Token White Producer-Director Working on a Virtually all-black TV show should alone be fired for allegedly sexually “inappropriate conduct”

[Re: “Fred Savage me-tooed off wonder years’ reboot.”]

By Jerry PDX
Saturday, May 7, 2022 at 7:12:00 P.M. EDT

From what I’ve read the original Wonder Years was cancelled at least in part because of accusations of sexual harassment against Fred Savage, and Jason Hervy, who played his older brother. A costume designer named Monique Long alleged that Fred and Jason verbally and physically harassed her daily, Fred and Jason made lewd comments toward her, and Fred said he was in love with her and would ask her out over and over. Plus, he tried to hold her hand.

In 2018, costumer Youngjoo Hwang filed a lawsuit against Savage, claiming that he “berated her, struck her arm and behaved aggressively toward female employees.” According to her, he smacked her hand away when she tried to brush something off his outfit and had a habit of using profanity and abusive language in front of women. Fox backed him up on the 2nd allegation, determining after an investigation that there was no evidence of inappropriate conduct.

There aren’t any details about the misconduct allegation on the set of the wonder years reboot anyplace I can find but I wonder how much being a White guy played into this. A near all-black cast, “diverse” behind the scenes support crew, and it’s one of the token White men that gets hit with misconduct allegations? Were they watching him like a hawk, hoping to catch him doing the slightest bit thing untoward? Then they could dump the “harassing White guy on a show filled with all black saints.” I’d be curious to know the details about what really happened, if they ever come out.

N.S.: The segregated show’s imdb.com page still mentions Savage as “trivia” on its main page:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12682076/

“Having rebooted The Wonder Years, this version reimagines the original show from the late 1980s, with the same name, from a black American perspective. Actor and director Fred Savage helps produce this version—he also played the original titular character on The Wonder Years.”