Race in American Television: Voices and Visions that Shaped a Nation [2 volumes] 9781440843068, 1440843066

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Race in American Television

Race in American Television Voices and Visions That Shaped a Nation

VOLUME 1: A–L

David J. Leonard and Stephanie Troutman Robbins, Editors

Copyright © 2021 by ABC-CLIO, LLC All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Leonard, David J., editor. | Robbins, Stephanie Troutman, 1977– editor. Title: Race in American television : voices and visions that shaped a nation / David J. Leonard, Stephanie Troutman Robbins, editors. Description: Santa Barbara : Greenwood, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020027802 (print) | LCCN 2020027803 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440843051 (set) | ISBN 9781440849220 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781440849237 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781440843068 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Race on television—Encylcopedias. | Minorities on television—Encyclopedias. | Stereotypes (Social psychology) on television—Encyclopedias. | Television programs—United States—History—Encyclopedias. Classification: LCC PN1992.8.R24 R33 2021 (print) | LCC PN1992.8.R24 (ebook) | DDC 791.45/652900973—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020027802 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020027803 ISBN: 978-1-4408-4305-1 (set) 978-1-4408-4922-0 (vol. 1) 978-1-4408-4923-7 (vol. 2) 978-1-4408-4306-8 (ebook) 25  24  23  22  21   1  2  3  4  5 This book is also available as an eBook. Greenwood An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC ABC-CLIO, LLC 147 Castilian Drive Santa Barbara, California 93117 ­w ww​.­abc​-­clio​.­com This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America

Contents

Alphabetical List of Entries  vii Guide to Related Topics  xi Introduction xvii

A–Z Entries  1 About the Editors and Contributors  779 Index  789

Alphabetical List of Entries

VOLUME ONE African Americans and Television All-American Girl Allen, Debbie All in the Family Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, The American Crime American Gypsies Amos ‘n’ Andy Anderson, Eddie Ansari, Aziz A.N.T. Farm Arabs, Muslims, and Middle Easterners and Television Arnaz, Desi Asian Americans and Television Atlanta Banks, Tyra Barney Miller Benson Beulah Big Bang Theory, The Black Entertainment Television (BET) Blackface Black-ish Black Mirror Black Twitter

Bratt, Benjamin Burton, LeVar Carroll, Diahann Cartoons Chappelle’s Show Chi, The Chico and the Man Children’s Television Children’s Television Workshop Cho, Margaret Civil Rights Movement on American Television, The Civil Rights Pressure Groups Coleman, Gary Colorblind Racism and Television Colorism and Television Cooking Shows Cops Cosby, Bill Cosby Show, The Cox, Laverne Cristela Davis, Viola Daytime Emmys Dear White People Different World, A Diff’rent Strokes

viii

Alphabetical List of Entries

Doc McStuffins Dora the Explorer Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman Duck Dynasty DuVernay, Ava

Hip-Hop Holocaust on American Television Horror Shows on Television House M.D. How to Get Away with Murder

Emmy Awards Empire Equal Justice ER Everybody Hates Chris Eyes on the Prize

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings I Love Lucy In Living Color Insecure In the Heat of the Night I Spy Italians, Italian Americans, and Television

Fame Family Matters Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids Flip Wilson Show, The Food Network FOX Foxx, Redd Frank’s Place Fresh off the Boat Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The George Lopez Show, The Gimme a Break! Girlfriends Glee Gomez, Selena Good Times Greene, Graham Green Hornet, The Grey’s Anatomy Groundbreaking TV Shows Gumbel, Bryant Hall, Arsenio “Harvest of Shame” Harvey, Steve Haves and the Have Nots, The Hawaii Five-O and Hawaii Five-0 HBO

Jane the Virgin Jeffersons, The Jews and Television Jones, James Earl Julia Keeping Up with the Kardashians Kenan & Kel Key & Peele Kung Fu Latinx Communities and Television Law & Order Lee, Bruce Leguizamo, John Liu, Lucy Living Single Longoria, Eva Lopez, George Lopez, Jennifer Luke Cage VOLUME TWO Mad Men Magnum, P.I. Marin, Cheech Martin



Alphabetical List of Entries ix

M*A*S*H Master of None Miami Vice Mind of Mencia Mindy Project, The Miniseries Minstrelsy Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl Mod Squad Morita, Noriyuki “Pat” Murphy, Eddie Native Americans and Television Native American Television (NATV) News Media New Television Night Of, The Ni Hao, Kai Lan Northern Exposure Obama, Barack, Election of One Day at a Time Orange Is the New Black Oz Perry, Tyler Police, Detective, and Crime Dramas Queen Sugar Rashad, Phylicia Reality Television Redface Rhimes, Shonda Roc Rock, Chris Roots RuPaul Sanford and Son Scandal Science-Fiction Shows on Television Sesame Street

Sexism and Television Sheen, Martin Simpson, O. J. Sitcom Smits, Jimmy Soap Operas South Asians and Television South Central Star Trek Takei, George Telemundo The 1970s The 1980s The 1990s The 2000s 227 Ugly Betty Underground Univision UPN Vergara, Sofia Waithe, Lena Waters, Ethel Wayans Brothers, The Webster Welcome Back, Kotter Westerns West Wing, The What’s Happening!! / What’s Happening Now!! Whiteness White Shadow, The Winfrey, Oprah Wire, The Wrestling Yellowface Yo! MTV Raps

Guide to Related Topics

BROAD TOPICS Television Concepts, History, Themes, and Tropes Blackface Black Twitter Civil Rights Pressure Groups Colorblind Racism and Television Colorism and Television Daytime Emmys Emmy Awards Groundbreaking TV Shows Hip-Hop Miniseries Minstrelsy Redface Sexism and Television Whiteness Yellowface

Television by Decade 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s

Television by Demographic African Americans and Television Arabs, Muslims, and Middle Easterners and Television Asian Americans and Television Italians, Italian Americans, and Television Jews and Television Latinx Community and Television Native Americans and Television South Asians and Television

Television by Genre Cartoons Children’s Television Cooking Shows Horror Shows on Television New Television Police, Detective, and Crime Dramas Reality Television Science-Fiction Shows on Television Sitcom Soap Operas Westerns

xii

Guide to Related Topics

Television by Network Black Entertainment Television (BET) Food Network FOX HBO Native American Television (NATV) Telemundo Univision UPN

TELEVISION GENRES Children’s Television Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, The A.N.T. Farm Children’s Television Workshop Doc McStuffins Dora the Explorer Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids Ni Hao, Kai Lan Sesame Street

Comedies All-American Girl All in the Family Amos ‘n’ Andy Barney Miller Benson Beulah Black-ish Chappelle’s Show Chico and the Man Cosby Show, The Cristela Dear White People Different World, A

Diff’rent Strokes Everybody Hates Chris Family Matters Flip Wilson Show, The Frank’s Place Fresh off the Boat Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The George Lopez Show, The Gimme a Break! Girlfriends Glee Good Times Green Hornet, The I Love Lucy In Living Color Insecure I Spy Jane the Virgin Jeffersons, The Julia Kenan & Kel Key & Peele Living Single Martin M*A*S*H Master of None Mind of Mencia Mindy Project, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl Mod Squad One Day at a Time Roc Sanford and Son South Central 227 Ugly Betty Wayans Brothers, The



Guide to Related Topics xiii

Webster Welcome Back, Kotter What’s Happening!! / What’s Happening Now!!

White Shadow, The Wire, The

Reality Shows and Real Life Dramas American Crime Atlanta Black Mirror Chi, The Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman Empire Equal Justice ER Fame Grey’s Anatomy Haves and the Have Nots, The Hawaii Five-O and Hawaii Five-0 House M.D. How to Get Away with Murder In the Heat of the Night Kung Fu Law & Order Luke Cage Mad Men Magnum, P.I. Miami Vice Night Of, The Northern Exposure Orange Is the New Black Oz Queen Sugar Scandal Star Trek Underground West Wing, The

American Gypsies Civil Rights Movement on American Television, The Cops Duck Dynasty Eyes on the Prize Keeping Up with the Kardashians News Media Obama, Barack, Election of Wrestling Yo! MTV Raps

Television Movies and Miniseries “Harvest of Shame” Holocaust on American Television I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Miniseries Roots OTHER CATEGORIES Actors, Directors, and Producers Allen, Debbie Anderson, Eddie Ansari, Aziz Arnaz, Desi Banks, Tyra Bratt, Benjamin Burton, LeVar Carroll, Diahann Cho, Margaret

xiv

Coleman, Gary Cosby, Bill Cox, Laverne Davis, Viola DuVernay, Ava Foxx, Redd Gomez, Selena Greene, Graham Gumbel, Bryant Hall, Arsenio Harvey, Steve Jones, James Earl Lee, Bruce Leguizamo, John Liu, Lucy Longoria, Eva Lopez, George Lopez, Jennifer Marin, Cheech Morita, Noriyuki “Pat” Murphy, Eddie Perry, Tyler Rashad, Phylicia Rhimes, Shonda Rock, Chris RuPaul Sheen, Martin Simpson, O. J. Smits, Jimmy Takei, George Vergara, Sofia Waithe, Lena Waters, Ethel Winfrey, Oprah Latinx Television American Crime Arnaz, Desi Bratt, Benjamin

Guide to Related Topics

Chico and the Man Cristela Dora the Explorer George Lopez Show, The Gomez, Selena “Harvest of Shame” Jane the Virgin Latinx Communities and Television Leguizamo, John Longoria, Eva Lopez, George Lopez, Jennifer Marin, Cheech Mind of Mencia One Day at a Time Sheen, Martin Smits, Jimmy Telemundo Ugly Betty Univision Vergara, Sofia Westerns

African Americans and Television African Americans and Television American Crime Amos ‘n’ Andy A.N.T. Farm Atlanta Banks, Tyra Benson Beulah Black Entertainment Television (BET) Blackface Black-ish Black Mirror Black Twitter



Guide to Related Topics xv

Burton, LeVar Carroll, Diahann Chappelle’s Show Chi, The Civil Rights Movement on American Television, The Civil Rights Pressure Groups Coleman, Gary Cosby, Bill Cosby Show, The Cox, Laverne Davis, Viola Dear White People Different World, A Diff’rent Strokes Doc McStuffins DuVernay, Ava Empire Everyone Hates Chris Family Matters Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids Flip Wilson Show, The Fox Foxx, Redd Frank’s Place Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The Gimme a Break! Girlfriends Good Times Groundbreaking TV Shows Gumbel, Bryant Hall, Arsenio Harvey, Steve Haves and the Have Nots, The Hip-Hop How to Get Away with Murder I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings In Living Color

Insecure In the Heat of the Night I Spy Jeffersons, The Jones, James Earl Julia Kenan & Kel Key & Peele Living Single Luke Cage Martin Miniseries Minstrelsy Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl Murphy, Eddie News Media Night Of, The Obama, Barack, Election of Orange Is the New Black Oz Perry, Tyler Queen Sugar Rashad, Phylicia Reality Television Rhimes, Shonda Roc Rock, Chris Roots RuPaul Sanford and Son Scandal Simpson, O. J. South Central 227 Underground Waithe, Lena Waters, Ethel Wayans Brothers, The

xvi

Guide to Related Topics

Webster Welcome Back, Kotter What’s Happening!! Winfrey, Oprah Wire, The Yo! MTV Raps

Asian Americans and Television All-American Girl Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, The Ansari, Aziz Asian Americans and Television Cho, Margaret Fresh off the Boat Green Hornet, The Hawaii Five-O Kung Fu Lee, Bruce Liu, Lucy Master of None Mindy Project, The Miniseries Morita, Noriyuki “Pat” Ni Hao, Kai Lan Reality Television

South Asians and Television Takei, George Westerns Yellowface

Native Americans and Television Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman Greene, Graham Miniseries Native Americans and Television Native American Television (NATV) Northern Exposure Redface Westerns

Whiteness and Television All in the Family Big Bang Theory, The Colorblind Racism and Television Duck Dynasty Glee Mad Men Reality Television Westerns Wrestling

Introduction Stephanie Troutman Robbins and David J. Leonard

“Art may imitate life . . . but life imitates TV.” —Ani DiFranco, 1996 “The revolution will not be televised.” —Gil Scott-Heron, 1970 We are the television generation. Whereas, our parents were the first generation to have televisions in homes across the United States, we were born into a society immersed in television culture. Our memories, our precious moments with family and friends, and our own stories are inevitably connected to the television. According to Leo Bogart, television watching “represents one of the family’s principal shared experiences” (qtd. in duCille 2018, 52). For Ann duCille, television changed America’s families, altering their ways of living, learning, communicating, and interacting—especially when it came to race, gender, and nationhood. “I’m struck by how profoundly the box interceded in our everyday lives” (duCille 2018, 59). We are not the generation who saw the invention of the television or its ascendance as a cultural fixture. We are the generation immersed in its expansion. We are the 24-hour news generation; the 300+ channel generation; the sports all day, every day generation; the generation that not only wanted MTV but got it  .  .  . along with the Food Network, HGTV, and an endless supply of shows from the Law and Order franchise available all day. We went from a handful of channels growing up to hundreds that have produced incessant political coverage, sports programming, music videos, movies, and reruns of our childhood favorites. We are the generation that witnessed and demanded that television become omnipresent and more diverse. The rise and expansion of television meant multiple televisions in many households; it also meant televisions in restaurants, gyms, dentist’s offices, waiting rooms everywhere, and airplanes. We fought for BET and greater racial inclusion on television. Building on the struggle, on the movement of past generations, we demanded representations that saw the humanity of marginalized communities while giving voice to experiences so often deemed irrelevant, insignificant, and undesirable.

xviii Introduction

We are the television generation. Whereas, our kids are growing up in a post-television world defined by streaming platforms, binge watching, and DVRs, they’re not watching television as we know it: they’re viewing their favorite shows on their devices—laptops, phones, or iPads/tablets. Whereas, our lives have been marked by moments in front of the actual television screen: the final episode of The Cosby Show (1994–2002) or M*A*S*H (1972–1983); finding out who shot J.R. or if Dwayne and Whitney would finally kiss; the world premiere of Madonna’s (controversial) “Like a Prayer” video; the O.J. chase and trial; the election of Barack Obama and any number of sporting events. They too are fighting for change, with respect to whose voices and experiences are made visible, are included in the cultural landscape, but the tools for their struggle have changed. Social media and the power of streaming has not only altered the televisual landscape but the toolbox for change. Television is bigger than those memories of watching history unfold. Television also gathered us together with family and friends to experience our favorite shows. It is those moments where television exposed the violence and inequalities that define our society. From the Civil Rights Movement to Vietnam, from 9/11 to any number of police shootings of African Americans—television has transported war, inequality, hate, and injustice into our homes. At the same time, we have witnessed the ways that television, through myriad genres and forms, has sought to provoke conversations about race from Roots (1977) to Eyes on the Prize (1987–1990), from “Harvest of Shame” (1960) to Holocaust (1978), from Good Times (1974–1980) to A Different World (1987–1993), from Chico and the Man (1974–1978) to Fresh off the Boat (2015–2020). As a genre, comedy has long been an important site for discourses around race. Two prime examples can be seen in In Living Color (1990– 2006) and Chappelle’s Show (2003–2006), each of which used sketch comedy, satire, and biting commentary to engage in critical conversations about race, identity, White supremacy, stereotypes, and persistent inequality. Television is a contested space, whereupon our identities, privileges, and experiences shape our relationship to what we view. This is one of the many ways that television and television watching is a political act. “For a black viewer like myself, however, watching American movies and television can never be a casual affair. Too much of what we see seems too poorly defined,” writes Donald Bogle in Blacks in American Film and Television (1988). “On the one hand, we can be dismayed, shocked or angered by the black images Hollywood has hoped we’ll believe to be true, images, more often than not, which are little other than formulas and stereotypes. Yet, on the other hand, we find ourselves invigorated, excited, and moved by the undeniable power of individual black performances” (ix). Television is about hopes and dreams, about fantasy and being seen. It is about opportunities both within the entertainment industry and in society as a whole. As Kristal Brent Zook notes, “The stakes here are about more than entertainment. They’re about who we allow to dance inside our imaginations and why” (Beltran 2010). You need look no further than our own relationships to television to see how different experiences, and the ways race, gender, class, sexuality, nationality, privilege operate to shape and influence lived reality. For David, a middle-class cis-gender heterosexual White male, television was always a place of joy . . . of

Introduction xix

escape . . . of happiness, and of the imagination. It was seeing possibilities, from the legal battles of L.A. Law (1986–1994) and Law and Order (1990–2010); it was learning about medicine and thinking about possibilities of a career in medicine with ER (1994–2009) and countless other shows. It was about seeing himself as a college student, president, and everything in-between. It was an experience where he saw himself in the heroes and never in the villains. For him, television was never a place where he was judged or where he was invisible. For Stephanie, a Black/biracial girl growing up in New Jersey, television was both a space of possibility and of pain. She remembers the excitement and possibility she felt when watching Fame (1982–1987) and the matrilineal bonds formed by watching and discussing CBS soap operas like the Young & the Restless (1973–) with her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. But she also recalls the sadness and discomfort she felt as her White family members watched the NY-NJ evening news—with its endless stream of Black men portrayed as criminals; she recalls the awful racism of Archie Bunker on All in the Family (1971–1979), which her White family members watched regularly via reruns throughout the 1980s and 1990s. She remembers struggling to see herself reflected in The Cosby Show (1984–1992) because though the show featured smart, sassy, and independent Black girls—they were middle class . . . and they had a dad who lived with them. The television landscape, for Stephanie, was a complicated one. Our experiences cut across generations even as television continues to change not only in terms of content, but in terms of diversity, aesthetics, economics, and technologies that define television culture. In terms of representation, the television landscape has always been complicated and nuanced. Not so much “new” as different, shifting television technologies, alongside demands from communities of color, have resulted in more and more shows that explicitly take on issues of race, gender, immigration, sexuality, and other social issues. Insecure (2016–), Black-ish (2014–), One Day at a Time (2017–), Dear White People (2017–), The Watchman (2019), Atlanta (2016–), The Chi (2018–), Handmaiden’s Tale (2017–), American Crime Story (2016–), Seven Seconds (2018), Orange Is the New Black (2013–2019), Master of None (2015–), Queen Sugar (2016–), The Carmichael Show (2015–2017), Cristela (2014–2015), and Being Mary Jane (2013–) represent a sample of shows that found a place on television in the last decade or so. These shows reveal the ways in which streaming services like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu have created space to tell the stories of communities that have been historically marginalized; they demonstrate the ways that artists, writers and actors of color have demanded their voices be heard and that their experiences be seen in and through twenty-first-century television. Additionally, these shows highlight how television has changed even as the privileges of whiteness persist. They also illustrate how artists are using the platform of television (and the small screen) to engage in critical conversations. The politics of television are not limited to news and the shows that explicitly engage in racial discourse. It can be seen in the ways that commercials sell the “American Dream” and American Exceptionalism; it can be evidenced by how race is used to stage America as not only a multicultural democracy but also one where the neoliberal logics of consumption will facilitate diversity. Television is a

xx Introduction

space where diversity sells and where diversity is imagined as having little to do with racism, inequality, history, or identity but instead markers of difference seen as culture, as food, as clothing, as style, and as other things that can be marketed, bought, and sold. The politics of race and television are on every channel: HGTV with its endless shows imagining primarily White American families moving to “exotic locations” around the globe; Food Network, which imagines race, ethnicity, and nationality as meaningless since food brings people together even as it celebrates “authentic” food cultures from distinct communities; Bravo and MTV, each of which have become the homes of reality television—places where racial and gender differences (Real Housewives) are as central to the story lines as any other aspect of their premise. The politics of race and gender factor heavily in any number of channels showing Cops (1989–2020), Live PD (2016–2020), or countless reality cop shows alongside those airing their dramatic counterparts from Law and Order to Chicago PD (2014–), from Hill Street Blues (1981–1987) to C.S.I. (2000–2015), each of which not only narrate stories of law and order, of the police making our streets safe from criminals who threaten our safety and security but also of a world where crime and danger is marked by blackness. It displays a justice system that is imperfect but not as broken as it truly is. It creates a world where the heroes are always police and where those who threaten (White) safety and security are disproportionately people of color. The racial implications are clear, made further evident in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd whereupon activists and commentators demanded a reckoning of the place of police on and off television. Despite a worldview that sees all forms of popular culture as just distraction, as entertainment, and as fun, television is situated within existing political paradigms, which it simultaneously supports and interrupts . . . television helps to shape and reinforce particular representations, but it can also challenge and reimagine these representations too. Simply put, the politics of television are everywhere. Our own lives and the life of U.S. society as a whole are indexed by the history of television. In other words, television, while a constructed world of stories, actors, images, and so much more—is also a reflection of lived realities within our society. Just as racism is central to the organization of American life, it is central the history of television. Race is at the center of American television. From the early days with shows like Amos ‘n’ Andy (1950–1961) and The Jack Benny Program (1950–1965), television depicted African Americans as inferior, undesirable, and as responsible for persistent inequality. Throughout history, the representation of Black America on television has been defined by antiblack stereotypes of African Americans as lazy, stupid, criminal, culturally dysfunctional, and otherwise not fully human. A similar story can be found for the experiences of Latinxs, Asian Americans, and Indigenous communities on television. Often relegated to the background, as sidekicks likes Tonto in The Lone Ranger (1949– 1957) or Kato in The Green Hornet (1966–1967), as sources of comic relief, and as walking stereotypes, television has always been about more than entertainment. Whether through the dissemination of long-standing racial ideologies or through the absence of representation, television has been a primary source of America’s racial education.

Introduction xxi

Television has been a teacher of racism. It is through television that we have been taught about purported racial differences, those very stereotypes that justify inequities, normalize segregation, and rationalize injustice. According to Chauncey DeVega (2015), “Television offers a distorted image of reality. It—and other types of mass media—are the primary means through which unreal and false representations of human social relationships are learned by the public. The family drama and situation comedy both provide excellent examples of this phenomenon.” We can see this history of racial stereotypes on television. While television has always functioned as a teacher of racial difference, it would also exist as a space to counter narratives and discourses that would undermine the dehumanization, marginalization, and Othering of marginalized communities of color. Ann duCille describes the role of television as part of a larger systemic project that stigmatizes blackness and other racialized identities as suspect and contemptable (2018, 59). Television has been the source of entrenched racial stereotypes that consistently represent African Americans as criminals and undesirables, Asian Americans as exotic and foreign, Latinx as undocumented immigrants and unintelligent laborers, Muslims as terrorists and religious extremists, and Indigenous communities as savage and uncivilized; these stereotypes not only define communities of color as different, as less than human, but do so in ways that normalize whiteness as civilized, desirable, and heroic; as “normative, valorized, and exulted” (duCille 2018, 59). Paradoxically, television isn’t just a teacher of racist stereotypes that have historically depicted Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) in dehumanizing and harmful ways; it is also a cultural space that sees racism as a historic relic, as a marker of the past, and as something America has overcome. In post–civil rights America, television has attempted to create or imagine a post-racism world. Since the 1980s, networks have aired countless shows with multiracial casts where race is either insignificant or unmarked. In other words, while audiences see racial differences, these shows do little to comment on how race, ethnicity, nationality, or gender shape the lives, identities, or experiences of the diverse characters. Like black-and-white television sets, or 3 channels, racism is a relic of a different time in America. The paradigm of post-racial television was popularized by The Cosby Show. Depicting an upper-middle-class African American family living the American Dream, The Cosby Show found success because it simultaneously offered representation historically unavailable to African Americans and story lines that convinced White America that racism was a thing of the past. If Cliff and Clair Huxtable could make it as a doctor and as a lawyer, anyone could succeed in America. Success was about cultural values, hard work, and merit. While The Cosby Show would stage the blackness of the Huxtables in terms of art, food, and history, racism was not part of the story line. “Popular culture is inherently political and ideological. While the depiction of a wealthy and ‘functioning’ black family was superficially transgressive, The Cosby Show channeled a particular understanding of race, capitalism, ‘success,’ and ‘middle class’ identity that more often than not reinforced dominant American cultural norms and rules basically in line with the Horatio Alger myth,” notes Chauncey DeVega. “It offered to viewers a harmless

xxii Introduction

type of ‘diversity,’ where blackness and the ‘Black experience’ were massaged down into a throwaway mention of the March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., or the struggle to end Apartheid, or simple guest appearances for accomplished black musicians, artists, and actors” (2015). In other words, while The Cosby Show and the many shows focusing on the Black middle-class and other middle-class families of color, looked different from a history of grotesque and dehumanizing stereotypes, the question remained as Henry Louis Gates Jr. (1989) asked, “Has TV managed to depict a truly ‘different world’?” To illustrate this point, and the fact that The Cosby Show may have introduced White America to “traditional black cultural values, customs and norms” (Gates 1989) in absence of elucidating “a different world,” Gates quotes Mark Crispin Miller who noted: By insisting that blacks and whites are entirely alike, television denies the cultural barriers that slavery necessarily created; barriers that have hardened over years and years, and that still exist—barriers that produced different cultures, distinct worlds. And while “Cosby” is remarkably successful at introducing most Americans to traditional black cultural values, customs and norms, it has not succeeded at introducing America to a truly different world. (Gates 1989)

Not surprising, given the economic and cultural success of The Cosby Show, other shows followed suit by creating a world of flattened diversity, middle-class values and aspirations, and celebrations of racial progress as defined and governed by Black and BIPOC folks’ adherence to narrowly scripted respectability politics. This was not limited to comedies but would also define talk shows and other genres, as evidenced by the success of Oprah Winfrey, soap operas, reality television, and dramas beginning in the 1990s. Prime-time dramas would become important in the creation of a diverse but racially unremarkable world where people of different racial backgrounds come together in spite of (not because of) their varied backgrounds. In fact, their diversity becomes a source of strength as they battle crime, illness, or any number of issues. Shows like L.A. Law, ER, Glee (2009–2015), The West Wing (1999–2006), Grey’s Anatomy (2005–), and How to Get Away with Murder (2014–2020) are but a few examples of the ways that television uses multiracial casts in the absence of substantive story lines or discussion to create a world with race but without racists (Bonilla-Silva 2003). Not only did these shows continue a long-standing trend whereupon television shows would ascribe “positive” and “desirable” characters of color to middle-class settings and those where whiteness was equally present (if not more prominent) but would do so through characters and story lines that made race surface-level and insignificant. Writing about Homicide: Life on the Streets (1993–1999), Chicago Hope (1994–2000), The Practice (1997–2004), Third Watch (1999–2005), and several other 1990s shows, Donald Bogle notes “Yet as good as these programs were, Black viewers often yearned to know more about the black characters” (1988, 435). In these shows, and in others in the 1990s and into the twenty-first century, characters of color were “deracialized” (Bogle 1988, 435), as were story lines that “rarely commented on race as a factor in their lives” (Bogle 1988, 435). These racially diverse ensemble shows that simultaneously erase race and celebrate the beauty and power of racial diversity contributed to a television culture

Introduction xxiii

defined by colorblind casting. According to Kristen Warner, colorblind casting is “the practice of writing characters without including race in the description” (2017). For television creators like Shonda Rhimes, colorblind casting is not only a remedy to television’s lack of diversity but a step toward authenticity and realness. Explaining why she embraced colorblind casting with Grey’s Anatomy, Rhimes noted, “My friends and I don’t sit around and discuss race. . . . We’re post–civil rights, post-feminist babies, and we take it for granted we live in a diverse world” (Bastién 2015). For others, colorblind casting is not progress but more of the same. Noting that colorblind casting “is a helpful start but not the realization of progress,” Warner argues that “while [it is] certainly beneficial to people of color in terms of gaining employment, [it] ultimately produces normatively white characters who happen to be of color” (2017). In other words, the erasure of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and other markers of identity contributes to tokenism and to a world that denies the ways that race shapes all of our experiences. Furthermore, in so doing it normalizes whiteness and other dominant markers as the expectation, as the universal experience, and as the most desirable representation and story. Describing this process as “plastic representation,” Warner concludes, Plastic representation operates as a system that reifies blackness into an empirical system of “box checking.” It is a mode of representation that offers the feel of progress but that actually cedes more ground than it gains for audiences of color. When audiences, cultural critics, and even industry professionals buy into the subtle but popular belief that social progress occurs when the focus of representation is placed solely on the racially visible difference of above-and-below-the-line talent, it means that for industry gatekeepers and executives, less time has to be devoted to developing and appreciating the meaningful cultural and historical differences of those bodies. (2017)

The illusion of progress continues a long-standing television practice. In other words, while television programs have increasingly constructed a world of racial diversity, it has always been a place defined by whiteness. “We know that whiteness often masquerades as a kind of baseline experience without inflection or inclination in American life,” writes Gene Denby (2015). As with the culture at large, television has added to a worldview that normalizes whiteness and the experiences of White America all while imagining BIPOC as the Other. In fact, across generations, the efforts to normalize White, middle-class, heterosexual families have come through television. From Father Knows Best (1954–1960) to Leave It to Beaver (1957–1963), from Happy Days (1974–1984) to Mad Men (2007–2015), from Friends (1994–2004) to Sex and the City (1998–2004), television has always created worlds of whiteness, a world where whiteness is desired and is the norm, where the absence of people of color is both remarkable and a source of simplicity, joy, and nostalgia. Writing about Friends and the whitening of New York City, Rebecca Carroll (2019) spotlights this television tradition: And like at least many of the black folks I know, especially those of us who actually live in New York, I struggled with how to enjoy a show in which my experience as a black twenty-something New Yorker was pretty much erased entirely. As an ensemble cast of semi-ambitious young white people trying to make it in New York City, Rachel and Ross and Phoebe and Joey and Monica and Chandler were

xxiv Introduction ultimately able to live in delusion and thrive in ways that black and brown people never could or can. In doing so, they also perpetuated a racist myth that doubles as a white intellectual fantasy. This is not a new phenomenon, of course, nor is it one that has stopped happening. The list of popular TV shows that take place in New York City and feature all white casts is long. From Mad About You (which is about to get a reboot) to Seinfeld, Sex and the City, and Girls, the latter of which took place in gentrifying parts of Brooklyn of all places, there are swaths of white show creators who clearly feel a sense of entitlement about how to accurately depict a city that is over 65 percent black and brown.

Yet, television is also a place of resistance. It is a place where activists have demanded opportunities for not only artists, long excluded in front of and behind the camera, but for stories otherwise erased from dominant television culture. This has been a consistent theme throughout television with activists demanding an end of the systemic racism and sexism that both undermines opportunities and results in dehumanizing representations. For example, in the 1950s, the NAACP protested against CBS for its airing of Amos ‘n’ Andy, a show that consistently depicted African Americans as lazy, unintelligent, and otherwise inferior. Scholars, critical viewers, and audiences have questioned the ways that cartoons and commercials depict communities of color. More recently, activists have pressured Pepsi for its depiction of the Black Lives Matter movement and demanded the firing of Paula Dean following reports of her use of the N-word. Other groups have pushed for the removal of Bill O’Reilly, following accusations of sexual harassment, and Tucker Carlson because of his racial politics. Activists successfully fought for the cancellation of Cops and Live PD in the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement all while pushing for increased representation, inclusion, and participation from BIPOC actors, directors, journalists, and others within television industry. The culture wars, the struggles for social justice, and the struggles for inclusion, diversity, and equity, have always been waged on and through television. This fight has not simply been (only) about opportunities but about the types of representations available to marginalized communities. Television has also been used as a tool for protest movements since its invention. For example, Black activists and organizers leveraged television to galvanize participants, to pressure White politicians and liberals, and to shame America for its racism. By 1962, more than 90 percent of American families had a television set within their home (it was less than 1 percent in 1946), mandating greater use of this technology. Civil rights activists “understood the medium and the role that the press could play, if they chose to highlight the injustices of Jim Crow. But they were not naïve: they knew that the country had never taken Black people’s word for the horrors that they had endured. It would not be enough to talk about the Black experience of America. White Americans, through their televisions, would have to see, with their own eyes, some of those horrors enacted” (Madrigal 2018). From police dogs to water hoses, from the March on Washington to Selma bridge, the horrors and the courage of activists and organizers who were the Civil Rights Movement would reach homes through television. In a similar vein, antiwar activists, women’s rights advocates, and other freedom fighters sought to use television to spread their message, dramatize injustice,

Introduction xxv

and otherwise educate the public about their movements. Even with the growing power of social media, television has remained instrumental in the history of American protest movements. And this is where we hope this book enters into the conversation: as part of the longer story of discourses, television shows, technology and representational politics that demonstrate over and over again that the history of television is one of great significance. This book provides readers with the knowledge and tools to understand the importance of television. It reflects on the history of television, illustrating the ways television has taught us about race; it has been a space where stereotypes have been created, shared, and also challenged. It has been a source of knowledge about the histories of racism, from slavery to the Holocaust, from model minority myth to racial profiling. In offering a series of entries that tell the stories of various shows, themes, key contributors, and the overall history, we hope to not only inform critical conversations about the history of television and about its current moment but also to add to a level of cultural media literacy. To watch television requires critical engagement. It requires an understanding of history and necessitates developing a level of literacy in an effort to reflect on the origins and significance of different types of representations. To watch television in active ways is resistance in itself. It is our hope that as readers digest the knowledge about a plethora of shows, actors, and television themes not only will they garner a better understanding of the importance of television within a broader story of race in America but also that they will develop a new or greater level of literacy in relation to television culture and politics. To watch television, especially when it comes to race, gender, class sexuality, and nationality, also requires a toolbox that allows for and empowers viewers to see the themes, stereotypes, and tropes that bridge across generations by shining a spotlight on those voices, story lines, and communities historically marginalized on television. The entries included in this book are a starting point for the development of this toolbox and the critical cultural and media literacies necessary for evaluating the role of television (and its related platforms) in our lives and worldviews. Further Reading

Bastién, Angelica Jade. 2015. “The Case against Colorblind Casting.” The Atlantic, December 26. ­https://​­www​.­theatlantic​.­com​/­entertainment​/­archive​/­2015​/­12​/­oscar​ -­isaac​-­and​-­the​-­case​-­against​-­colorblind​-­casting​/­421668​/. Beltran, Mary. 2010. “Meaningful Diversity: Exploring Questions of Equitable Representation on Diverse Ensemble Cast Shows.” Flow Journal, August. ­https://​­www​.­flow journal​.­org​/­2010​/­08​/­meaningful​-­diversity​/?­print​= ​­print. Bogle, Donald. 1988. Blacks in American Films and Television. New York and London: Fireside Publishers. Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. 2003. Racism without Racists: Colorblind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America. New York: Rowan & Littlefield. Carroll, Rebecca. 2019. “Why ‘Friends’ Is the Wrong Show to Celebrate in the Trump Era.” Gothamist, September 6. ­https://​­gothamist​.­com​/­arts​-­entertainment​/­friend​-­tv​-­show​ -­criticism​-­t rump. Denby, Gene. 2015. “Making the Case against ‘Colorblind Casting.’” NPR: Code Switch, December 29. ­https://​­www​.­npr​.­org​/­sections​/­codeswitch​/­2015​/­12​/­29​/­461306924​ /­making​-­the​-­case​-­against​-­colorblind​-­casting.

xxvi Introduction DeVega, Chauncey. 2015. “How ‘The Cosby Show’ Duped America: The Sitcom That Enabled Our Ugliest Reagan-Era Fantasies.” Salon, July 12. ­https://​­w ww​.­salon​ .­c om​/ ­2 015​/ ­0 7​/­12​/ ­h ow​_ the​_ cosby ​_ show​_ duped​_ america​_ the​_ sitcom​_ that​ _enabled​_our​_ugliest​_reagan​_era​_fantasies​/. duCille, Ann. 2018. Technicolored: Reflections on Race in the Time of TV. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. 1989. “TV’s Black World Turns—But Stays Unreal.” New York Times, November 12. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­1989​/­11​/­12​/­arts​/­t v​-­s​-­black​-­world​ -­t urns​-­but​-­stays​-­unreal​.­html. Madrigal. Alexis. 2018. “When the Revolution Was Televised.” The Atlantic, April 1. ­https://​­www​.­theatlantic​.­com​/­technology​/­archive​/­2018​/­04​/­televisions​- ­civil​-­r ights​ -­revolution​/­554639​/. Warner, Kristen J. 2017. “In the Time of Plastic Representation.” Film Quarterly 71 (2) (Winter). ­https://​­filmquarterly​.­org​/­2017​/­12​/­04​/­in​-­the​-­time​-­of​-­plastic​-­representation​/.

A African Americans and Television Through much of the history of television, African Americans have been reduced to stereotypes. Scholars have argued that television has dehumanized, demonized, mocked, and otherwise portrayed African Americans as inferior. Television has given voice to White supremacist ideologies, normalizing and justifying inequalities. Television has given voice to stereotypes that were entrenched in American culture for centuries. During slavery, enslaved Black women were forced to care for White families, often to the detriment of their own. Popular culture sought to normalize these injustices with the construction of the Mammy role. Heavy, dark-skinned, and without a sexuality of which to speak, the Mammy symbolizes the ideal African American woman in her relationship to the White man because she was sexually nonthreatening and served the master’s family faithfully and obediently. Originally in minstrelsy and in film, this stereotype persisted into the television era. Scholars have identified Florida (Esther Rolle), a domestic from Maude (1972–1978), who would later be main character in Good Times (1974–1979), Nell (Nell Carter) from Gimme a Break! (1981–1987), and Mabel Thomas (Mabel King) and Shirley Wilson (Shirley Hemphill) from What’s Happening!! (1976–1979) as a continuation of the long-standing history of not representing Black women as domestic but as overweight, undesirable, asexual, and less than human. A similar image, the Matriarch/the Sapphire became popularized through media texts through characters such as Sapphire in Amos ‘n’ Andy (1951–1960) and Esther from Sanford and Son (1972–1977). This overbearing, aggressive, and unfeminine mother emasculates and belittles the African American men around her. Because of her focus on working outside of the home and being in control, she spends too much time neglecting her home and the domestic duties associated with it, such as her children. Her unfeminine behavior contributes to the failures of the African American community. She sees no need for romantic relationships and feels she needs a man only for his seed. Cruel, bossy, loud, and angry, she is often seen rolling her head around on her neck in an aggressive fashion, rolling her eyes or pointing and/or snapping her fingers at her (more often than not) male target. This representation contributes to narratives that blame African American mothers for the failures of American capitalism, supporting racial oppression. Content analyses have also found examples of African American women being portrayed as hot-tempered. The Welfare Mother stereotype involves a single, economically disadvantaged “breeder” with a poor work ethic. Instead of working, she threatens the sociopolitical

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stability of the United States by receiving government assistance. She has many children out of wedlock; beyond lacking a male partner, she also has no job. Ultimately, she is dependent, waiting on others to support her neediness. The image of the Welfare Mother has its roots in slavery, which generated the myth of African American women’s over-fertile nature. The Ronald Reagan Administration and news media throughout the 1980s and 1990s further popularized the Welfare Queen stereotype, which could be seen not only in news coverage but in reality television, in dramas, and throughout popular culture. While representations of Black women have historically erased their sexuality, television and popular culture as a whole has equally represented Black women as hypersexual, as jezebels. This stereotype is lusty, sexually aggressive, and deviant. In appearance, she is young and exotic, often possessing a face considered pretty by Eurocentric standards (e.g., straight hair, thin lips and a thin nose), light skin, and a shapely body, which she shows off with immodest clothes that bare her breasts and buttocks. She uses her sexuality as social capital, willing to participate in amoral sexual activities. Her sexual desires are not for African American men, but for White men. White men are, thus, just powerless weaklings who fall victim to her plans. In this regard, African American women are often categorized as sexually aggressive, while such behavior is usually frowned on by mainstream society. This is because it is “natural” for men to be sexually aggressive, not women. This image helps to construct African American women as the Other because the legend of her supposed raw sexuality contrasted so greatly with the myth of the chaste White woman. Furthermore, such animalistic behavior implies African American women cannot be raped because they are always willing. Embodying a similar history, African American men have been consistently reduced to stereotypes on and off television. A prominent character has been that of the Black Brute, little more than a savage. He is dangerous, conniving, and sexually threatening, especially to White women. His behaviors include lurking and unleashing his animalistic rage on those around him. He acts on impulse, performing criminal and brutal acts of terror. This stereotype came to popularity during the Reconstruction period after slavery. Pilgrim (2001) argues that this myth was created to keep the races—more specifically, African American men and White women—separate upon the abolition of slavery. The supposed violent tendencies of African American brutes against White women were also used to justify lynching, which was used to keep African Americans in White control. Physically, the Brute is muscled, powerful, and often seen bare-chested, serving as evidence of his purported wild nature. Research of television news provides evidence that this medium often airs news stories that refer to criminal, African American men, so much so that this Brute-ish behavior is often attributed to African American men, even if race is not mentioned in a story. Along with the news, television, from reality television to any number of dramatic police shows, have furthered this stereotype. Comedies have also been central to the history of racism on television. Although an adult, the Coon character is less intelligent than a child. He spends most of his time avoiding work, and his hedonistic ways make him unreliable and useless to



African Americans and Television 3

Whites, who have to physically abuse him to get him to do any work. In spite of his occupational deficiencies, he desires to be in control like Whites and attempts to mimic them. He desires to be in a position of power although he cannot figure out how to do so. This is because the Coon is illiterate and inarticulate, and he can never hope to be anything more than a buffoon. He is especially superstitious and easily scared. If he is married, his wife (often physically) dominates him. In appearance, he is often young, tall, and skinny, with a bald head. He wears gaudy, ill-fitting clothes. His large, white eyes stand in stark contrast to his black skin. According to Pilgrim (2001), the most well-known Coon is actor Stepin Fetchit, who played basically the same role as the African American dimwit in many movies between the late 1920s to the 1940s. With the advent of television, this caricature could be found in shows like Amos ‘n’ Andy (1951–1953), and The Jack Benny Show (1950–1965). Even today, scholars ask whether the representations on reality television continue this long-standing stereotype. Similarly, the Sambo myth was used as a rationale for slavery: if African Americans were happy during slavery, then it must not have been “that bad” for them. Similar to the Coon, he is a perpetual child, as well as stupid, lazy, and superstitious. However, unlike the Coon who can never achieve his childish plans, the Sambo is ultimately harmless and requires white supervision to keep him out of mischief. Older than the Coon in appearance, he also differs from the Coon because he serves Whites happily. Dependent and loyal, he rejects freedom from White control and knows his place. He can be slothful, but he is careful to never disrespect Whites. Like the Sambo and the Mammy, the Tom is also used to justify African Americans’ working in positions of submission to Whites. Physically, the Tom is old and often an asexual, physically weak character with poor eyesight who depends on a cane. He is dark-skinned with large eyes and smiles often. Although he is harassed and abused by his White master, he maintains love for his master and his family; like the Mammy, he is happy to serve them. His psychological dependence on and love for his master is crippling, rendering him loyal, docile, and accepting of all forms of ill-treatment. He is stoic, refusing to ever leave his master’s side. He is kind, gentle, humble, and selfless to a fault. He is often of Christian faith. While rarely shown on television, the limited inclusion was marred by dehumanizing representations, storylines that depicted African Americans as unintelligent, criminal, threatening, and undesirable, and otherwise a continuation of the images seen on film and throughout American culture.

POST–CIVIL RIGHTS TELEVISION In the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement, which saw demands for inclusion and equality, television has undergone changes. This more recent history (excluding the long-standing histories of stereotypes, erasure, and dehumanizing) of African Americans on television can be divided into three phases: assimilationist, pluralistic, and multiculturalist (Gray 2000).

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African Americans and Television

Assimilationist Television Representative of the assimilationist perspective, or the discourse of invisibility, programs in the aftermath of the Black freedom struggle embraced a colorblind approach; racial categories and interracial problems are ignored, or at least inconsequential for the majority of TV episodes. If characters do deal with racism, for instance, the situation is portrayed with either a bitter African American person who has been a victim of racism (and gets over it by the end of the episode) or a White character who is ignorant of African Americans (and becomes informed by the end of the episode). Therefore, racism is not seen either as a societal issue or as personal prejudice but only as a personal problem. If people can just change their minds about African Americans, problems can be resolved. Programs such as I Spy (1965–1968), Mission: Impossible (1966–1973), and Designing Women (1986–1993) fall under this perspective. In these shows, African Americans do not perform their race in a stereotypical manner, but act in ways similar to White, middle-class characters. Shows indicative of this lens are not likely to feature stereotypical portrayals of African Americans because such portrayals could make race an issue—the exact opposite of the underlying characteristic of these programs, which pretend as if race did not exist. Roots (1977) aired during the time period when most American television programming that included racial discourses featured an assimilationist perspective. Based on historian Alex Haley’s book by the same name, the miniseries aired for eight consecutive nights on ABC. Although the miniseries portrayed slavery in a matter that made many viewers uncomfortable, regardless of race, it still reflects a desire for the American Dream. Although the book and the series are now regarded as works of fiction with regard to Haley’s family history, they comment on the racial history of the United States.

Pluralist Television The second framework is that of pluralist, or “separate but equal” programs. These television shows posit African Americans are just like Whites, with just a few (often comedic) differences. Several studies support this perspective, as the majority of African American characters in the 1990s were members of the middle class; in addition, African American characters discussed issues also important to White characters, such as business and social concerns. These shows also focus on elements of Black life that assimilationist series often ignore, such as the importance of the Black church to the African American community. Although many of these programs have primarily African American casts, the problem is that like assimilationist programs, pluralist shows promote the viewpoint of the White middle class. They also tend to essentialize blackness, suggesting that all African Americans experience similar life situations. Programs of this perspective include Webster (1983–1987), 227 (1985–1990), and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990– 1996). Gray (2000) argues recurrent themes here include that of knowledgeable, paternalistic, and affluent Whites (or in the case of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, affluent African Americans) who adopt ignorant and/or impoverished African



African Americans and Television 5

Americans. Such portrayals invoke the idea that poor African Americans are a social problem, a burden on (white) America. The Cosby Show: Categorical Ambivalence While imagining a Black world, where African American culture, history, and institutions (Historically Black Colleges) were on full display, The Cosby Show (1984–1992), fits within this colorblind history of television. The Cosby Show portrayed the happy life of an African American obstetrician-gynecologist, his attorney wife, and his five children. Cosby himself was careful with the construction of the characters on the show, rejecting what he regarded as the ignorance of other shows featuring African American casts. Episodes focused on day-to-day trials of life presented in a comical fashion, such as discouraging one’s children from drinking alcohol, celebrating the older generation in the form of grandparents and other extended family, and spending quality time with one’s spouse. The Cosby Show has also been explored through audience reception studies. For example, research explored the reaction of middle-class African Americans to The Cosby Show. Overall, the researchers found mixed responses to the program. More specifically, some of the viewers regarded the show as unrealistic. In spite of these critiques, other viewers felt the show positively reflected their own experiences as members of the African American middle class, and some believed the Huxtables were positive role models for younger audiences. Another audience reception study not only explored how viewers felt about the portrayals of African Americans on television but also discovered examples of contemporary racist beliefs held by participants. Although White audiences welcomed the Huxtables into their homes, this same courtesy would not necessarily be extended to other African Americans. This is because these viewers did not see Bill, Claire, and their children as African American, but as “normal.” Cosby and his television family were constructed as colorless—or at least not othered as African American. In fact, the majority of these participants did not enjoy African American-centered situation comedies, such as Amen (1986–1991), The Jeffersons (1975–1985), and 227 because, in their estimation, the characters acted too stereotypically Black. Simply, these programs did not allow White viewers to forget about or ignore racial tensions or issues. By contrast, The Cosby Show allowed many to claim that racism was over. A Growing Range of Possibilities for African American Portrayals During the mid-1990s, TV programming also provided striking presentations of the manner in which White and African American characters related to one another. Entman and Rojecki (2001) explain that one way to improve race relations in America would be with racial comity, which they explain as a normative ideal; this “empathic understanding” (12) would allow African Americans and Whites to see themselves as both similar and different, which would produce a desire for people to work together to achieve the self-interests of all. However, because of persistent racial segregation, which limits interaction, people, especially White

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Americans, use mediated stereotypes to gain information about others. Therefore, the researchers analyzed patterns of interracial interactions and the qualities of African American characters in a two-month sample of the highest-rated TV programs during the 1996 season. This analysis of sixty-six shows—NYPD Blue (1993–2005), ER (1994–2009), Seinfeld (1989–1998), Mad about You (1992– 1989)—revealed that the relationships between characters at work explained the majority of interracial relationships. Perhaps it was also the portrayal of an African American doctor on NBC’s ER that signaled African Americans have progressed into stage four of ethnic portrayals on television. This stage includes members of an ethnic minority being portrayed as “normal” members of society, rather than as the Other. In addition to the depiction of interracial romance, the growing range of possibilities for African American portrayals, both stereotypical and otherwise, suggest programming representative of the multiculturalist perspective. For example, African American women and men are currently more likely to play major roles in TV. For instance, UPN, followed by the CW, aired Everybody Hates Chris (2005– 2009), and Girlfriends (2000–2008), both of which featured mainly African American casts. African American criminals can still be found however, often in the company of African American detectives and other members of law enforcement, on shows such as NBC’s Law and Order: SVU (1999–), and CBS’s Criminal Minds (2005–2020), providing examples of TV shows that display regulation.

Multicultural Television The third and final lens is multiculturalist, or one where the experiences of African Americans are not only made visible but also presented in a way that captures the diversity, the humanity, and the intersectionality of the Black community. While the first two lenses privilege the White middle class, this lens reflects what is meant to be both of African descent and an American. This lens also deals with issues of racism, sexism, and classism head on. Gray resists placing The Cosby Show in this category. He states the series was unable to deal with issues faced by the majority of African Americans, such as everyday racist practices that rationalize the underprivileged status of African Americans in America. By contrast, Gray is more comfortable placing shows that regularly challenge the White middle-class perspective in this category, including Frank’s Place (1987–1988), Roc (1991–1994), and In Living Color (1990–1994). For many scholars, these shows demonstrate the depth of the Black community, demonstrating the possibilities of life. A Different World (1987–1993), along with these classic multiculturalist programs, would pave the way for a generation of shows in this regard. A Different World originally centered on Denise Huxtable’s life as a freshman at Hillman College. With her classmates Maggie Lauten (one of the few Whites at Hillman), played by Marisa Tomei, and Jaleesa Vinson (Dawnn Lewis), she came to learn lessons regarding life away from her family, illustrative of “the different world” sung about in the show’s opening credits. Starting with season 2, however, characters Whitley Gilbert (Jasmine Guy), Dwayne Wayne (Kadeem Hardison),



African Americans and Television 7

Freddie Brooks (Cree Summer), Charnele Brown (Kimberly Reese), and Ron Johnson (Daryl M. Bell) took center stage with an exciting cast of faculty and staff for the duration of the revamped series. Gray (2004) argues A Different World was remarkable because of “the specific ways that the producers, directors, writers, and cast used existing television conventions to construct the world of black life at Hillman College” (95). The cast, plotlines, characters, setting, and narrative themes presented a multiculturalist view of African American life by exploring topics and characters in ways not presented by previous television shows. These new and different portrayals of African Americans could be attributed to the nearly all-female writing and production crew, which focused on gender and racial diversity issues. Although a fictional setting, Hillman College (including its dorm rooms, classrooms, The Pit hangout, and even basketball courts) was used as a site to explore issues tangible and of consequence to African Americans. For example, plotlines included critique of sexual harassment and violence against women, in addition to thoughtful explorations of Black masculinity and interracial global politics, such as apartheid in South Africa, AIDS, and slavery. TV shows representative of this lens acknowledge and challenge racial stereotypes, such as sketch comedies Chappelle’s Show (2003–2006) and Key and Peele (2012– 2015), as well as Black-ish (2015–) and Grown-ish (2018–) The efforts to increase opportunities across television and generate institutional power also defines this phase. In 2011, media mogul Oprah Winfrey ceased her popular and influential talk show to embark on cable with her channel, OWN. This impacted the landscape of television and also bolstered Darnell Hunt’s argument that the occurrence that has the greatest impact on the number of African Americans featured in TV is the number of them that work behind the scenes in production. Although the Black Family Channel closed its doors in 2007, TV One, along with BET, continued to provide cable programming to millions of viewers. Other African Americans found success in broadcast television. In 2005, executive producer Shonda Rhimes began her run of successful TV programs, known as Shondaland (ABC), starting with Gray’s Anatomy (2005–). In addition, Rhimes’s Scandal (2012–2018) and How to Get Away with Murder (2014–2020) featured African American women with top billing of their casts. In 2015, writer/director/producer Lee Daniels debuted Empire (2015–2020) on Fox, which also has a primarily Black cast. While some critics have criticized the show for its perpetuation of long-standing stereotypes, others have celebrated its efforts to spotlight diversity, give voice to issues such as mental health, and for embrace of the spectacle of the soap opera. African Americans also put forth stories reflecting the intersectionality of their experiences in this time period. For instance, Orange Is the New Black’s (2013–2019) Laverne Cox is the first openly transgender woman to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in acting.

PORTRAYALS OF AFRICAN AMERICANS ON TELEVISION Within three phases, we see the distinct ways that African Americans have been represented on television, all of which has furthered marginalization and

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dehumanization. Television viewers have witnessed African American portrayals change from that of lower-class domestic workers to that of members of the middle class. Programs that aired in the 1950s presented African Americans as domestic and service workers, as opposed to being employed in white-collar professions and members of the police force. TV shows of this time presented African American women as nothing more than a Mammy, while African American men were represented as the Tom. Television shows of the 1960s and 1970s showed African American homes in slums and ghettos, and the African Americans who lived in such areas held service or blue-collar employment and other low-status positions. African Americans were regularly overrepresented in these jobs; only a small number appeared in professional positions. Presenting African Americans as members of a lower social class gave rise to images of the Welfare Mother. In spite of these earlier portrayals, a content analysis conducted of programming that aired about twenty-five years later found that the majority of African American characters were members of the middle class. Although African Americans had moved into the middle class, these characters often existed in spaces separate from Whites. In addition, in many instances, African Americans had underdeveloped backstories, unclear family situations, and unknown occupations, echoing earlier patterns. Further, while African Americans were portrayed in more serious and complex situations, they also continued to be presented in a humorous manner, reminiscent of portrayals of the ridicule stage (Clark 1969). The 2000s provided viewers with images that have become familiar: currently, African American men and women are more likely than Latinx characters to be members of the middle class. They are also portrayed with mid-levels of social and job authority. Content analyses of television texts tend to primarily utilize cultivation theory as their theoretical framework. This theory explains that television is society’s main storyteller; in spite of the range of options as a result of cable, satellite, and other niche markets, television viewers receive repetitive messages about the world around them. In addition, those who watch more television than lighter viewers do are more likely to believe that these portrayals are accurate. Summaries of content analyses of prime-time, fictional television programming usually report that African Americans are underrepresented in television when compared to the general population. The initial underrepresentation of African American characters in television is illustrative on the nonrecognition stage of ethnic minority portrayals, during which these characters do not appear often (Clark 1969). However, there has been progress in this regard, especially in comparison to other marginalized groups. African Americans regularly outnumber Asians/Asian Americans, Native Americans, and other people of color, including Latinxs, on television, although there continues to be limitations in terms of the types of representations . As television transitioned from the 1960s to the 1970s, the population of Black characters steadily increased. There is some evidence that suggests, however, that an increase in African American characters was coupled with a decrease of other characters of color. In spite of this increase, African Americans were still underrepresented in TV shows when the numbers are compared to real-world statistics



African Americans and Television 9

from this time. African Americans were more likely to be found on situation comedies followed by Saturday morning cartoons, during the late 1970s. These findings imply African American portrayals had moved from nonrecognition into the second stage of minority portrayals, ridicule (Clark 1969). In addition to portraying their African American characters in humorous situations, these shows often focused on the importance of family and changing neighborhood dynamics. In the 1980s, the number of African Americans on television continued to grow considerably, repeating trends from earlier decades. In the mid-1990s, 16 percent of the sample of television characters was African American, and they remained the largest minority group. Although this number reflected an increase, African Americans remained underrepresented during the early 1990s. On the other hand, an analysis of the broadcast networks programming during the 1996–1997 season found that the percentage of African Americans featured in television was actually slightly larger than the percentage of African Americans according to the U.S. Census of 1997. African American characters were mostly supporting characters and continued to be seen primarily on situation comedies as well as on crime shows. The pattern of African Americans being more likely to appear on crime shows than other programs continued into the new millennium. Mastro and Behm-Morawitz’s (2005) study of the five broadcast networks from October to November 2002 also found evidence of African American progress in televised roles: African American men were more likely to possess major roles than White men were, and African American women were more likely to play major roles than White women were. When appearing, African American women were regularly seen in medical roles; African American men were often portrayed as officers of the court. During the stage of regulation, African American characters made more regular TV appearances and also became members of forces that maintain law and order (Clark 1969). In addition to the common pattern of fictional television programming underrepresenting the African American population, African American men tend to outnumber African American women, though some studies have found equal numbers of African American men and African American women in fictional programs. With specific regard to the ages of African American television characters, another tendency noted in content analyses is that younger African Americans, such as children and young adults, are overrepresented when compared to population statistics; in addition, older African American characters are underrepresented in comparison to current Census records. In sum, though usually underrepresented when compared to the real-world population, the number of African American characters has increased over time. Although initially within the bounds of nonrecognition, African American characters appear more frequently now than they did during television’s earliest offerings. In general, content analyses have provided evidence that fictionalized television tends to portray African Americans as stupid, comical, and slow, or devious and dangerous. Some of the earliest content analytical research of televised portrayals reports that African Americans were presented positively: few were portrayed as morally deviant or criminal, and most were presented in a sympathetic light.

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Programs of the 1980s and 1990s, like those of the 1970s, portrayed African Americans in a polarized fashion, with steady progress being made toward the regulation phase of minority representations on television. For example, the trend of African American characters being more likely to appear on situation comedies than dramas during the mid-1970s (Greenberg et al. 1980) continued into the 1980s. African Americans were also portrayed in a “positive” manner on series such as The Cosby Show, but not on crime dramas, which still presented African Americans as mostly antagonistic toward law and order. The gradual increase of African American police officers, lawyers, and other members of legal agencies signaled progression into the regulation phase of minority portrayals. Viewers continued to receive mixed messages about African Americans: there were positive changes, such as African Americans being found to be less aggressive than earlier portrayals; however, they were still portrayed as lazy and were ridiculed for the amusement of viewers. In the mid-1990s, discussions held by African American characters were more likely to focus on business interests, personal relationships, and social/ leisurely issues, than on criminal activities, showing growth in this area. Mastro and Greenberg’s (2000) study of the televisual landscape compared African American, Latinx, and White characters, finding that the majority of African American men and women were portrayed as more motivated than Latinx characters, more intelligent than both Latinx and white characters but were also portrayed as less articulate and more hot-tempered than their white contemporaries. African American women were portrayed as the Sapphire stereotype. CONCLUSION The history of African Americans on television is the story of America, of racism, and of popular culture. It is a history of grotesque stereotypes that demonized and dehumanized African Americans; that justified, sanctioned, and normalized segregation, inequality, and injustice. It is a history of the Mammy, the unintelligent Coon, the criminal Brute, the hypersexual Jezebel, and the lazy underclass all of which embody and perpetuate racism. It is a history of change, of greater visibility, and of efforts to portray a range of experiences. Yet, these changes have also brought shows that render race invisible, perpetuating narratives of post-raciality and colorblindness. It is a story of protest, demands for change, and efforts to bring to life the humanity of black lives. It is a tale of resistance from viewers and artists, who demand complexity and diversity in the ways that television brings the experiences of African Americans to life. Siobhan E. Smith-Jones Further Reading

Bogle, Donald. 2001. Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films. 4th ed. New York: Continuum. Clark, C. C. 1969. “Television and Social Controls: Some Observations on the Portrayals of Ethnic Minorities.” Television Quarterly 8: 18–22.



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Collins, Patricia Hill. 2000. Black Feminist Thought. New York: Routledge. Collins, Patricia Hill. 2005. Black Sexual Politics. New York: Routledge. Entman, Robert M., and Andrew Rojecki. 2001. The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Gray, Herman. 2000. “The Politics of Race in Network Television.” In Television: The Critical View, 6th ed., edited by Horace Newcomb, 282–305. New York: Oxford University Press. Gray, Herman. 2004. Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for Blackness. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Greenberg, Bradley S., Dana Mastro, and Jeffrey E. Brand. 2002. “Minorities and the Mass Media: Television into the 21st Century.” In Media Effects: Advances in ­Theory and Research, 2nd ed., edited by Jennings Bryant and Dolf Zillmann, 333–351. Mahwah, NJ: Sage. Greenberg, Bradley S., Katrina W. Simmons, Linda Hogan, and Charles Atkin. 1980. “Three Seasons of Television Characters: A Demographic Analysis.” Journal of Broadcasting 24: 49–60. hooks, bell. 2000. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. London: Pluto Press. Hunt, Darnell. M. 2005a. “Black Content, White Control.” In Channeling Blackness: Studies on Television and Race in America, edited by Darnell M. Hunt, 267–302. New York: Oxford University Press. Hunt, Darnell. M. 2005b. “Making Sense of Blackness on Television.” In Channeling Blackness: Studies on Television and Race in America, edited by Darnell M. Hunt, 1–24. New York: Oxford University Press. Mastro, Dana E., and Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz. 2005. “Latino Representation on ­Primetime Television.” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 82 (1): 110–130. Mastro, Dana E., and Bradley S. Greenberg. 2000. “The Portrayal of Racial Minorities on Primetime Television.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 44: 690–703. Pilgrim, David. 2001. “New Racist Forms: Jim Crow in the 21st Century.” Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia. ­http://​­www​.­ferris​.­edu​/­jimcrow​/­newforms​/. Stephens, Dione P., and Layli D. Phillips. 2003. “Freaks, Gold Diggers, Divas, and Dykes: The Sociohistorical Development of Adolescent African American Women’s Sexual Scripts.” Sexuality & Culture 7: 3–49. Walker, Alice. 1983. In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

All-American Girl(1994–1995) All-American Girl is the short-lived, trailblazing 1994 sitcom featuring stand-up comedian Margaret Cho as the rebellious college-aged daughter in a traditional Korean American family. It premiered on September 14, 1994, and was cancelled on March 14, 1995, following nineteen episodes and a failed attempt by ABC to reboot the series. The show suffered from unoriginal story lines, stereotypical characters, and poor audience reception but is heralded as being the first television sitcom show with an all-Asian cast.

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All-American Girl

When it first aired, it was met with a large mainstream audience and great expectations. The show was supposed to be based on Cho’s stand-up comedy and was created during a time in television when many successful shows starred comedians such as Roseanne Barr, Brett Butler, and Ellen DeGeneres. However, unlike the stars in these more successful shows, Cho was allowed little creative input regarding the content of her show, becoming an amalgamation of all things wrong with representations of Asian Pacific Islanders in the media. The framework and even the show’s title highlight the limitation with the show. “The very fact that the show is called All-American Girl implies that it’s still peculiar for a young woman with Asian features to be considered a ‘true’ American” (Tucker 1994). The show is set in San Francisco and centers on Margaret Kim (Margaret Cho) who is the eldest daughter in a traditional Korean household, which consists of her parents, bookstore owners Katherine (Jodi Long) and Benny Kim (Clyde Kusatsu), her older brother Stuart (B. D. Wong), her younger brother Eric (J. B. Quon), and her grandmother Yung-hee (Amy Hill). Cho and Quon are the only actors with Korean heritage (Ono and Pham 2009), and the fact that Chinese and Japanese actors were cast to play Korean characters was criticized because it would reinforce the stereotype of a “monolithic Asian” community. It further perpetuated the idea that all Asians are basically the same or interchangeable. Critics not only lamented the lack of Korean actors, but the ways the show represented Korean Americans. With rare exception, the show’s characters recycled long-standing stereotypes, offering little in terms of depth and humanity. For example, Katherine, the mother, is portrayed as a “tiger mom.” Her ridiculous expectations, demands of academic and professional excellence, and extreme notions of discipline fulfill dominant narratives about overbearing Asian parents. She speaks with a forced Asian accent and distorted English. Benny is the emasculated husband and understanding father. Stuart is an overachieving and successful physician, and obedient and respectful eldest son. Margaret is the most Americanized of all the children, which causes tensions within the family, and young Eric looks up to his elder assimilated sister and her rebellious antics. The grandmother, Yung-hee, is the least assimilated member of the family, refers often to the “Old Country,” and has a pet cricket. The keeping of an insect as a pet in America is odd, and it further marks the family as outsiders in contemporary society. The bulk of the episodes deal with Margaret’s love life. Margaret is portrayed as a typical boy-crazy American twenty-something. Yet, she is stuck between the demands of traditional Korean values and the allure of contemporary American society. She enjoys the company of White bikers and musicians, but her mother wants her to date Korean men who are white-collar professionals. Each potential suitor only lasts one episode long, which doesn’t allow much time for character growth. The tension around “fitting in” and tradition is encapsulated within Margaret’s style and personality. She dresses in short skirts, speaks in a high tone, and tries to act feminine by giggling, which is in direct contrast to her more outspoken and independent on-stage presence. Despite being the show’s star, Cho was given limited power in All-American Girl, resulting in not only some of the show’s problems but also a negative



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experience for Cho. “Network interference took its toll on Cho’s health . . . and the show’s creative direction, dulling Cho’s cutting edge” (Amazon 2006). Cho describes her harrowing experience with the show in her critically acclaimed concert film, I’m the One That I Want (2000), saying the network pressured her to lose thirty pounds in two weeks, triggering kidney failure and encouraging her to abuse drugs such as diet pills, speed, and alcohol (Daily Motion, n.d.). Network representatives criticized her “Asian features,” such as the width of her face. At times, network executives complained that she was “too Asian.” In other moments, she was “not Asian enough,” even assigning her an Asian consultant so she could act the part of an Asian American more convincingly (Daily Motion, n.d.). “In asking Cho to perform their concept of Asianness, the network effectively had her play yellowface and subjected her to psychosocial damage” (Ono and Pham 2009). Near the end of the season, ABC attempted to reboot the show by firing all the Asian actors except for Cho and Hill, who played the quirky grandmother, and made the character of Margaret the manager of a fledging rock band. “When the show was in decline and receiving harsh criticism from all sides, the remedy was to repackage the product in efforts to normalize the Asian ethnic identity and appease viewers” (Cassinelli 2008, 131). The last episode was supposedly a pilot for ABC with a new cast and locations, which was not picked up for development. The concept of a young Asian American woman trying to negotiate life between traditional conservative Asian values and contemporary America is a promising one, and the show was welcomed by a large and enthusiastic mass audience of both Asian and non-Asian viewers. However, by overrunning the production with network consultants and writers with little input from Cho’s brilliant insight, cutting humor, and social criticism, All-American Girl became a cautionary tale about what happens when an effort to examine real and meaningful cultural issues is whitewashed beyond recognition. Still, its legacy is preserved as it will always remain the very first television sitcom to focus on the lives of an Asian American family played by Asian actors. Paying homage to its cultural predecessor, Fresh off the Boat (2015–2020), the second sitcom with an all-Asian cast, which aired twenty years after All-American Girl, would include a clip of this trailblazer, emphasizing its historic and cultural importance. Jean A. Giovanetti Further Reading

Amazon. 2006. All-American Girl: The Complete Series. Editorial Reviews. ­https://​­www​ .­amazon​.­com​/­All​-­American​- ­Girl​-­Margaret​- ­Cho​/­dp​/ ­B000BXJ1Y2. Cassinelli, Sarah Moon. 2008. “‘If We Are Asian, Then Are We Funny?’: Margaret Cho’s ‘All-American Girl’ as the First (and Last?) Asian American Sitcom.” Studies in American Humor, New Series, 3 (17): 131–144. Daily Motion. n.d. “Margaret Cho: I’m The One That I Want.” ­http://​­www​.­dailymotion​ .­com​/­video​/­x3hodr9. Ono, Kent A., and Vincent N. Pham. 2009. Asian Americans and the Media. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press. Tucker, Ken. 1994. “TV Show Review: ‘All-American Girl’” Entertainment, October 7. ­http://​­ew​.­com​/­article​/­1994​/­10​/­07​/­t v​-­show​-­review​-­all​-­american​-­girl.

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Allen, Debbie

Allen, Debbie(1950–) Known for her dancing and chorography, Debbie Allen has altered the landscape of television through her work as both a director and producer. She has spent a career fighting against discrimination and the limited opportunities afforded to artists of color both on screen and behind the camera all while producing and directing some of the most important shows of the late twentieth century and early parts of the twenty-first century. Born in segregated Houston in 1950, Allen grew up in a middle-class family (her dad was a dentist) that emphasized the arts (her mom a Pulitzer prize winning poet) and creative expression. “I was the entertainment for the family,” noted Allen “I would be in the back yard, performing to the birds and trees and clouds” (Fales-Hill 2018). Yet, American racism proved to be an obstacle to the cultivation of her talents and the fulfillment of her dreams. “As an African-American girl born in segregated Houston, Texas, her opportunities didn’t match her aspirations as a dancer and performer,” writes Elisabeth Finch (2019). “Movie theaters were off limits. Parks, too, with the exception of Juneteenth.” In response to the absence of a ballet school that would enroll Allen, her mom created a studio in their dining room, hiring a private coach. Her family would also move to Mexico so that she, her brother Tex (who would become a jazz artist), and her sister Phylicia would have opportunities to excel as performers and artists. After returning from Mexico, Allen trained at the Houston Ballet Foundation. She would then graduate from Howard University with a degree in Theater, eventually moving to New York with hopes of a career on Broadway. After a brief appearance in Roots: The Next Generation (1979) as Nan Branch Haley and a successful performance as Anita in a Broadway revival of West Side Story (1980), which landed her a Tony nomination, Allen had her breakthrough with the film Fame (1980). Cast as Lydia, a dance instructor, Allen stood out among the various artists and performers who would star in a show about the School for the Performing Arts in New York City. Two years later, she was cast to play Lydia in the television spin-off. Alongside of her acting, she also served as the show’s choreographer, leading to three Emmy nominations. Fame (1982–1987) would be instrumental for her career as not only an actress and dancer (she would open the Debbie Allen Dance Academy in 2001), but behind-the-scenes as a director (eleven episodes) and producer (six episodes). Her background as a choreographer and her experiences working with actors, dancers, and other performers proved to be important preparation for her career behind the camera. According to Allen, “I developed as a director, choreographer and producer on Fame. It was like going to film school. I had to manage those young people on camera and off. There was no show that could teach me all of that. It became a whole career” (qtd. in Sewing 2009). After the cancellation of Fame and a short stint on Broadway, which earned her a Tony for her performance in Sweet Charity, Allen would return to television with A Different World (1987–1993). Her sister Phylicia Rashad, who played Clair on both The Cosby Show (1984–1992) and A Different World, would encourage Bill Cosby to hire her as an executive producer and a director. Struggling with its



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story line and with ratings, Rashad knew her sister would bring the necessary guidance to the show. “Phylicia Rashad, my sister, had been a guest on the show because she played Denise Huxtable’s mother,” recalled Allen. “She didn’t like how it was being directed, how people were being treated, and the next thing I knew, I got a call from Bill Cosby, saying, ‘Dust off your boots, Miss Thing. You’re going to take over this show’” (qtd. in Finch 2019). She would serve as producer from 1988 to 1993, overseeing the production of 122 episodes. During this time, she would also direct eighty-three episodes. While she would serve as the producer for My Parents, My Sister & Me (2009– 2010) and Grey’s Anatomy (2015–), starting in 2015, her work as director would soon define her career. Since A Different World, she would direct seven episodes of The Sinbad Show (1993–1994), two episodes of The Jamie Foxx Show (1996– 2001), five episodes of That’s So Raven (2003–2007), forty-four episodes of All of Us (2003–2007), nine episodes of Girlfriends (2000–2008), and ten episodes of Everyone Hates Chris (2005–2009). She would become a fixture on Shonda Rhimes various shows, directing one episode of How to Get Away with Murder (2014–2020), three episodes of Scandal (2012–2018), and twenty-two episodes of Grey’s Anatomy. She would also serve as a director for Empire (2015–2020), Insecure (2016–), and Jane the Virgin (2014–2019). Allen continued to act, appearing on many different shows, including A Different World in 1991–1992, In the House (1995–1999) in 1995–1996, All of Us in 2004, Everyone Hates Chris in 2006–2007, Jane the Virgin in 2016, and S.W.A.T (2017) in 2017–2018. With Grey’s Anatomy, her duties were not limited to directing and producing. She would play Dr. Catherine Fox (Avery) in fifty-seven episodes over eight seasons. Allen’s impact on television is not only evident in the countless shows she has both directed and produced, and in her efforts to popularize dance within television, but also in the doors she opened up for others. She broke down barriers, paving the way for directors and producers of color. Citing Debbie Allen as the reason for her own success, Shonda Rhimes reflected on Allen’s impact on so many people and the televisual landscape. “She put people of color on television and displayed them in ways that they hadn’t been seen before. She told stories that hadn’t been told before. She gave people opportunities who hadn’t been given opportunities before.” Celebrating her as a pioneer, Rhimes further remarked, “Debbie is a woman who makes all of her own opportunities, because maybe they weren’t available to her, so she was like, well, I’m just going to create them,” says Rhimes. “It is unimaginable to me that I could accomplish as much as Debbie has accomplished in her life” (qtd. in Finch 2019). Her legacy can be seen not only in the many shows she has worked on but also in the stories and voices she has brought to television and in the ways that she has helped foster greater diversity behind-the-camera and in the producer’s room. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Fales-Hill, Susan. 2018. “How Sisters Phylicia Rashad and Debbie Allen Have Raised a Powerful Family of Artists.” Town and Country, October 17. ­https://​­www​

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All in the Family

.­t ownandcountrymag​.­c om​/ ­leisure​/­a rts​- ­a nd​- ­c ulture​/­a 23832010​/­d ebbie​- ­a llen​ -­phylicia​-­rashad​-­family​-­daughters​/. Finch, Elisabeth R. 2019. “Debbie Will Determine.” Elle, February 20. ­https://​­www​.­elle​ .­com​/­culture​/­a26360352​/­debbie​-­allen​-­greys​-­anatomy​-­interview​/. Sewing, Joy. 2009. “Debbie Allen’s Claim to Fame Comes Full Circle.” San Francisco Chronicle, September 27. ­https://​­www​.­chron​.­com​/­entertainment​/­movies​/­article​ /­Debbie​-­Allen​-­s​-­claim​-­to​-­Fame​-­comes​-­f ull​-­circle​-­1584626​.­php. Wagmeister, Elizabeth. 2015. “Debbie Allen Discusses Her Many Roles in ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Season 12.” Variety, September 10. ­https://​­variety​.­com​/­2015​/­t v​/­features​ /­debbie​-­allen​-­greys​-­director​-­anatomy​-­executive​-­producer​-­season​-­12​-­1201585698​/.

All in the Family (1971–1979) Many scholars have observed that All in the Family (1971–1979) fundamentally changed the television landscape. Although themes of racial difference, prejudice, and injustice were not new to television, this CBS sitcom was the first to make bigotry the central source and target of its humor. Set in Queens, New York, All in the Family depicts the squabbles of a White working-class family: conservative patriarch Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Connor), his wife Edith (Jean Stapleton), their liberal adult daughter Gloria (Sally Struthers) and son-in-law Michael (Rob Reiner). Many of the people involved in creating the show, including producer Norman Lear and star Carroll O’Connor, publicly expressed hopes that All in the Family’s satirical treatment of racial bigotry would help eliminate it. Tragically, the bigoted Archie Bunker was lovingly embraced by those whose views he parodied. By appealing to audiences who laughed at Archie, as well as those who lauded him, All in the Family became the most watched show on network television in its second season, holding that distinction for five consecutive years. Its success inspired CBS to develop and air seven spin-offs, including The Jeffersons (1975–1985), Maude (1972–1978), and Good Times (1974–1979). The show spearheaded an onslaught of “relevance comedies” that deployed similar tactics to make social, political, and racial conflict funny. All in the Family presented viewers with a family whose struggles and rifts could not be resolved or mended by the end of each episode. Archie Bunker continually found himself beset on all sides—by family members, neighbors, coworkers, bosses, the government, and the world in general—as his racist, sexist, and jingoistic views were challenged at every turn. Sharing the house with Gloria and Mike, whom Archie referred to as “Meathead,” proved endlessly frustrating for him. Mike especially vexed Archie because, instead of working to supplement household income, he was a full-time college student. Just as pig-headed as Archie, Mike felt compelled to continually challenge his father-in-law’s views. Additionally, Archie’s anxious wife Edith refused to take his side in these intergenerational battles. Instead, she pushed for compromise or timidly endorsed the opposing side. Edith, Gloria, Mike, and others continually struggled to deal with Archie’s ignorant intractability. The first season was slow to earn high ratings. In part, this stemmed from the fact that the show was scheduled after Hee-Haw (1969–1971) and before



All in the Family 17

60 Minutes (1968–). All in the Family didn’t have much in common with either of these shows and, thus, was not well-positioned to draw an audience from its neighbors. On the other hand, the show did generate a lot of buzz among journalists and media professionals. Within weeks, editorials and reviews appeared to both praise and condemn Archie Bunker’s ignorant and buffoonish bigotry. The Los Angeles Sentinel, an African American newspaper, published a review from Pamela Haynes praising the show’s “non-cosmetized portrait of the ‘master race’” (qtd. in Tueth 2004, 105–106). Rather than a well-groomed, distinguished father, All in the Family offered viewers “a fat, ignorant, angry middle-aged pig.” Whitney M. Young Jr. provided a contrasting evaluation: “While the show tries to satirize bigotry, it only succeeds in spreading the poison and making it—by repetition—more respectable” (qtd. in Tueth 2004, 105–106). Others observed that the show could both critique and affirm racism, depending on the preexisting attitudes of audience members. Many journalists, particularly in the mainstream white press, discussed Archie as a “loveable bigot,” and this characterization took hold in popular discourse. Archie’s resemblance to Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleeson) from The Honeymooners (1955–1956) seems to have evoked feelings of warm nostalgia. Writers also conveyed pity for Archie, as a put-upon husband and father trying to cope in a world where his status and authority were repeatedly threatened. Rather than representing anti-blackness and misogyny to these commentators, Archie’s trials reflected beliefs that the status of White men was not just under threat but in serious decline, provoking sympathy for the character. All in the Family was widely praised for its representation of a “real” family dealing with “real” issues. Many factors combined to generate this sense of “realness.” First, the show depicted the ideological conflict faced between members of different generations, which had not before been shown in a family comedy. Also new, for a sitcom, were the contemporary social issues around which the conflict stemmed: race and integration, sexual mores, gender equality, and class mobility. These themes, as well as the fact that it was taped on video rather than film, tied the show to the content and aesthetics of news programs. In this way, All in the Family became linked with the television genre most understood as “real.” The show also broke with the trend, common in 1960s family sitcoms, of depicting affluent families living in upscale homes. Not only were the Bunkers less harmonious than past TV families, they were also less economically secure. Their working-class status—which was communicated through their worn furnishings, clothing, multigenerational household, Queens accent, and Archie’s malapropisms—aligned the Bunkers more closely with more viewers’ standards of living than other sitcoms of the era, making the show more “real” in the sense that it depicted a seemingly average household. The fact that it was taped before a live studio audience, suggested that “real” people found the show funny, validating home viewers’ own laughter. Even the camera’s deep-focus made All in the Family seem even more real because it replicated the experience of viewing the show in person. Active commentary in the press and slowly rising ratings positioned All in the Family favorably for the 1971 Emmys. The show was nominated in multiple

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categories, winning Best New Show, Best Comedy, and Best Actress in a Comedy (Jean Stapleton). Ratings surged after the awards, and this marked the moment the program began to dominate prime-time programming. For the fall 1971 season, CBS moved the show’s time slot to 8:00 p.m. on Saturdays, which increased its share of viewership in profitable demographics. By its second season, All in the Family garnered the highest ratings on American television. Over the coming years, audiences watched the Bunkers argue about a range of racial topics. The second season episode “Sammy’s Visit,” for example, features Archie making racist comments to Sammy Davis Jr., who responds with sly wit and sophistication. The so-called “loveable bigot” was delighted to meet the celebrity when he rode in his cab, so he enthusiastically recounts this experience to his family. According to Archie, Mr. Davis was, “just like a regular person. In fact, if it weren’t for the rearview mirror, I would have thought he was a white guy.” The studio audience laughs, and viewers at home watch Mike roll his eyes. Suddenly, the Bunkers receive a phone call from Mr. Davis. As it turns out, he left his briefcase in Archie’s cab, and he needs it back. The Bunkers can barely restrain their excitement when Sammy agrees to pick up the briefcase from their own home. After hanging up the phone, Archie exclaims, “He’s in a limousine right now with a phone in it! Oh, I wanna tell ya, some a these coloreds are real classy!” This time, Mike cannot let it go. He demands, “Why do you always have to label black people this or that?” Archie responds, “Because when they deserve a compliment once in a while, I don’t hold it back.” Laughter from the audience nearly drowns out the last few words of the sentence before the episode pauses for a commercial break, leaving Archie with the last laugh. When Sammy arrives, Archie falls all over himself to offer his famous guest the best of everything he has. Since the briefcase still needs to be delivered from the dispatch office, the household has several minutes to bask in Mr. Davis’s presence. Mike, Gloria, and neighbor Lionel Jefferson (Mike Evans) sit on the couch, expecting Archie’s embarrassing remarks and anxious about how Sammy will respond. Sitting in Edith’s chair, Archie tells Sammy that he considers the celebrity to be the “greatest credit to his race.” A reaction shot reveals that Sammy is a bit taken aback by the comment, but he wittily responds, “Thank you. I’m sure you’ve done well for yours.” Another reaction shot shows that Archie finds Sammy’s response confusing, but he keeps up his attempt at conversation. Archie continues to make offensive comments that he seems to believe are pleasant and complimentary. Although Sammy continues to turn those comments back on him—much to the pleasure of Mike, Gloria, and Lionel—Archie appears largely oblivious to the jabs. It’s not until Sammy offers his glass to Archie that the patriarch finds himself uncomfortable. He does not want his lips to touch the same glass as a black man’s, even if that black man is Sammy Davis Jr. When the briefcase arrives, and Sammy prepares to leave, the celebrity makes a final jab. When asked to pose for a picture, Sammy invites Archie to join in the frame. Just as the camera is about to take the picture, Sammy grabs Archie’s face and kisses him on the lips. The audience explodes with laughter, and though Archie seems thoroughly taken aback, he ultimately shrugs it off. Sammy Davis Jr. can be an exception to his retrograde attitudes about race, gender, and sexuality.



Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, The 19

This episode epitomizes the way that All in the Family mined racial conflict for comedic effect. While much of the laughter is aimed at Archie’s bigotry, his snappy retorts and the very nature of the genre undermines the notion that he is simply a villain or fool. Every main character in the show is a target of derisive humor, and that weakens the power of their critiques of Archie. All the characters are shown to be equally laughable, but so too are they shown to be equally lovable. Archie never changes, but neither does he ever get a break. As a symbol of white working-class manhood, his struggle for economic security frames him as a victimized underdog even while his bigotry, inappropriate behavior, and narcissism invite viewer contempt. This tension is key to what made All in the Family such a success across the political spectrum as well as what kept it from effectively embarrassing people out of their racial prejudice, as writer/producer Norman Lear had hoped. Wherever a viewer stood on a political issue, All in the Family could be interpreted as a confirmation of that position. Ami Sommariva Further Reading

Ozersky, Josh. 2003. Archie Bunker’s America: TV in an Era of Change. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Staiger, Janet. 2000. Blockbuster TV: Must-See Sitcoms in the Network Era. New York: New York University Press. Taylor, Ella. 1989. Prime Time Families: Television Culture in Postwar America. Berkeley: University of California Press. Tueth, Michael V. 2004. Laughter in the Living Room: Television Comedy and the American Home Audience. New York: Peter Lang.

Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, The(1972) The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan was a children’s Saturday morning cartoon show on CBS featuring a large Chinese family who solved mysteries. The show lasted only sixteen episodes, yet its cultural importance given its dissemination of stereotypes extends beyond its single year. The show would be produced by Hanna-Barbera, which also produced Scooby Doo: Where Are You? (1969–1970) and followed a similar format of kids solving cases and riding in fun vehicles. The Chan Van becomes a character in its own right as it has the ability to change function and shape with the push of a button, much like Hong Kong Phooey’s “Phooeymobile” (1974). The show’s patriarch finds inspiration in Charlie Chan, a fictional detective who first appeared in the 1929 film Behind That Curtain, and would appear in several films throughout the 1930s and 1940s. In addition, Chu-Chu, the family’s nondescript small longhaired dog, was central to several capers. Joining them would be the Chan Clan kids. Several of the ten older brothers and sisters in the Chan Clan also played music and sang in a rock band called “The Chan Clan,” a common addition for many main characters in children’s cartoons at the time. “Every episode featured a song, either being played over the action or with the characters playing various instruments and performing” (Hanna-Barbera Wiki, n.d.).

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The show was very much about cross-marketing. Gold Key Comics released a comic book based on the series at the same time, but it ran for only four issues. Characters of the show were also featured on lunch boxes, but little else was done with merchandizing at the time. The show is notable because it was the first time the main character would be played by an ethnically Chinese actor. Keye Luke voiced Mr. Chan. Previously Mr. Chan was played by actors of Japanese descent in 1920s silent films (George Kuwa and Kamiyama Sojin) and a White actor (Warner Oland) in talking films (Charlie Chan Family Home, n.d.). In this case, Luke also played the famed detective’s eldest son (“Number One Son”) in the 1930s films produced by 20th Century Fox. In addition, for the first few episodes, Asian American actors voiced all ten of the children’s characters in the Chan Clan. As a result, eleven Asian actors worked on the show, which was exceptional at the time. After complaints that they were too hard to understand, the actors voicing the Chan characters were all replaced with the exception of those voiced by Brian Tochi and Robert Ito. White actors, most notably Jodie Foster who played Anne Chan, the third oldest mid-teen, would take over. After the recasting, Mr. Chan is the only one in the clan who speaks with any kind of discernible accent, which make his children seem to be much more “Americanized.” Despite the fact that white actors voice the characters, the children all have their own personality traits, which helps to develop them as characters. Mr. Chan is the divorced or widowed patriarch who is dressed in a suit and tie. Henry, the eldest, works closely with his younger brother Stanley and in typical elder-brother fashion is irritated by his younger brother’s playfulness. Stanley, the second oldest, enjoys joking around and happily wears disguises to help move the case along. Suzie, the oldest mid-teen, is considered to be the most attractive of the girls. Alan, the second oldest mid-teen, is a stylish dresser and is credited with inventing the Chan Van. Anne, the third oldest mid-teen, is not afraid of the rough stuff and often wears a cap, sports shirt, and scruffy jeans. Tom, the youngest mid-teen, is an intellectual with the most impressive vocabulary who wears glasses and a sweater vest. Flip, the oldest preteen, often says what the audience might be thinking and jumps to the most obvious conclusions first. Nancy, the second oldest preteen, wears a long ponytail, and tends to make things, including herself and other family members, fall over. Mimi, the youngest girl and the second youngest in the clan, is the bossiest, especially to her self-appointed ward, Scooter. And six-year-old Scooter is the youngest, most impulsive, and perhaps, because of his age, funniest of them all. As a result, the show has been lauded for featuring eleven individualized Asian characters at a time in television when most shows featured white characters or Asian characters in stereotypical roles. However, the cartoon can also be seen today as promoting the idea of the “model minority” including the notion of Asian Americans excelling in American society mainly through education, which had its roots in the late 1960s. Alan, the inventor of the Chan Van, and Tom, the intellectual, are the characters who most fit this idea of the super-smart “nerdy” Asian American. The problem with the model minority status, as complimentary as it sounds, is that these portrayals of Asian Americans emphasize work and school so much, “that other aspects of life



American Crime 21

seldom appear. For example, Asian models are overrepresented in business settings and relationships and underrepresented in home settings and family or social relationships” (Taylor and Stern 1997). This short-lived animated series still made serious headway with its depictions of Asians within television media. By sheer number of Chinese characters alone, it helped to promote Asian presence on TV. The Chinese main character was played by a Chinese actor, bucking decades of traditional casting with non-Chinese or white actors, and each of the Chan kids came complete with his or her own interests and personalities, contributing to the idea that Asian characters can be complex and more than surface deep. The fact that all the kids in the clan spoke without discernible accents also furthered the notion of the Americanized Asian, and helped to dispel some stereotypes about Asians in general. Jean A. Giovanetti Further Reading

The Charlie Chan Family Home. n.d. “The Films of Charlie Chan.” ­http://​­charliechanfamily​ .­t ripod​.­com​/­id73​.­html. Fetters, Jason. 2015. “The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan.” Crazed Fanboy, January 14. ­http://​­www​.­crazedfanboy​.­com​/­2015​/­the​-­amazing​-­chan​-­and​-­the​-­chan​-­clan​.­php. Hanna-Barbera Wiki. n.d. “The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan.” ­http://​­hanna​-­barbera​ .­wikia​.­com​/­wiki​/­The​_Amazing​_Chan​_and​_the​_Chan​_Clan. Ono, Kent A., ed. 2004. A Companion to Asian American Studies. Hoboken, NJ: WileyBlackwell Publishing. Taylor, Charles R., and Barbara B. Stern. 1997. “Asian-Americans: Television Advertising and the ‘Model Minority’ Stereotype.” Journal of Advertising 26: 47–61. ­http://​ ­w ww​.­tandfonline​.­com​/­doi​/­abs​/­10​.­1080​/­00913367​.­1997​.­10673522. TV Tropes. n.d. “Western Animation/The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan.” ­http://​ ­t vtropes​.­org​/­pmwiki​/­pmwiki​.­php​/ ­WesternAnimation​/ ­T heAmazingChanAnd TheChanClan.

American Crime(2015–2017) Airing from 2015 to 2017 on ABC, American Crime gave an intimate view of American life and the criminal justice system. The show’s creator, John Ridley, producer of 12 Years a Slave (2012) and Three Kings (1999) continued to interrogate themes at the intersections of race and nation in American Crime. Each season, the anthology crime drama explored the aftermath of a new crime from the perspectives of the victims, the accused, and their families. Season one (2015) emerged from a home invasion gone wrong. Season two (2016) started with a high school student’s sexual assault being posted online. Season three (2017) began with the body of a suspected undocumented migrant worker found floating in the river. The critically acclaimed ensemble cast of American Crime, included Regina King, Felicity Huffman, Benito Martinez, and Timothy Hutton, taking on new roles each season. Season one is set in Modesto, California. It opens with a young, White, middle-class couple becoming victims of an apparent home invasion. The husband

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Matt Stokes is murdered, and his wife raped and left for dead. The show focuses on Matt’s parents, Russ (Timothy Hutton) and Barb (Felicity Huffman), and their struggles with the death of their son and the resulting investigation. Early on, Barb talks to a reporter, setting up her son as a military veteran and her daughter-in-law Gwen as a beauty queen. The media eagerly focuses on the sensational story of an idyllic White couple being brutally murdered by a person of color, and how this violence had shattered the perception of safety in a community. This sets the tone for the season’s examination of implicit and explicit racism. The narratives of the various people connected to the crime are intricately developed and woven together: the interracial homeless and meth-addicted couple Aubrey (Caitlin Gerard) and Carter (Elvis Nolasco), whose devout Muslim sister Aliyah (Regina King) becomes his advocate while encouraging him to break his bond with his white girlfriend; Hector, a Mexican gang member; and Tony, a Mexican American teenager whose widowed father Alonzo (Benito Martinez) struggles to support him, misguidedly relying on the “justness” of the U.S. criminal justice system. The season goes on to interrogate implicit and explicit racism, by disrupting the assumptions made about the victims and the suspects based on race. The police reveal that they found a large quantity of drugs in the couple’s home, making the crime a drug-deal gone bad rather than a home invasion. When details emerge about the couple’s lifestyle, and Gwen’s sexual history, even the rape is called into question. Barb’s rhetoric stokes the flames of racism and xenophobia throughout the season, including accusations of reverse racism because the lead detective is a Black woman. Ethnic and racial tensions come to a head at a rally organized by Aliyah for her brother. The season ends in additional tragedy and declines to reconcile the anxiety of American life as it intersects with race and the criminal justice system. Season two is set Indianapolis, Indiana. It opens with a 911 call reporting a rape. Seemingly unconnected, Taylor (Connor Jessup), a White scholarship student at the private Leyland High, is suspended after photos of him intoxicated with his pants down at a party are circulated online. Taylor’s mom, Anne (Lili Taylor), relentlessly pursues the truth about what happened to her son. When the newspaper reports allegations of sexual assault by members of Leyland’s basketball team, Headmaster Graham (Felicity Huffman) is more concerned about protecting the school and the team than the unnamed victim. She conspires with the coach, Dan Sullivan (Timothy Hutton), to salvage the season, particularly it’s Black star player, Kevin (Trevor Jackson), who was named in the article. Fearing that simply being a Black male is enough to be found guilty of a crime against a White girl, Kevin’s mother, Terry Lacroix (Regina King) immediately hires a lawyer. The entire community is unprepared for the revelation that the victim was, in fact, Taylor. Critics would note that the story line was marked by classism, elitism, toxic masculinity, homophobia, and racism, the characters and community reach a boiling point, and the season climaxes with a school shooting. As it did with its first season, American Crime refused to neatly resolve the original crime. Tragedy again serves as a poignant reminder of ugliness under the surface of American life



American Gypsies 23

as the season unpacks masculinity and sport at the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality. Season three is set in Alamance County, North Carolina. It opens with a body floating in water and a 911 caller saying “Es un muerto.” Audiences are introduced to Luis (Benito Martinez), an accountant in Mexico, who pays a mule to cross the border and enters the migrant workforce in search of his son. Alongside of Luis is the White family that runs Hesby Farms: Laurie Ann (Cherry Jones), her sons JD (Tim DeKay) and Carson (Dallas Roberts), and his wife Jeanette (Felicity Huffman), who in an effort to undercut their competitors employ migrant workers. Isaac (Richard Cabral), who works on the Hesby farm, recruits Coy (Connor Jessup), a strung out and homeless White man; Shae (Ana Mulvoy Ten) a teen sex worker, and the overworked and underpaid social worker Kimara Walters (Regina King) trying desperately to save her from her pimp. The nearly bankrupt White businessman Nicholas Coates (Timothy Hutton), his wife Clair (Lili Taylor), and their Haitian au pair Gabrielle (Mickaëlle X. Bizet) round out the cast. The final season of American Crime explores the exploitation of labor all while spotlighting the intersection of race, class, gender, and nation. Commentators have noted how in the story’s arc murder serves as a reminder that Black and Latinx bodies are disposable. While the narrative spotlights the difficulties facing every community, the White characters become less sympathetic victims of American capitalism. The Hesbys ignore their role in the exploitation of immigrants. Coy brags about how many times he has been brought to life after a drug overdose, suggesting he does it on purpose. Clair verbally and physically abuses Gabrielle and confiscates her passport. In the end, the overwhelming amount of criminality of sex trafficking and forced labor leave American Crime unresolved. Nicole Files-Thompson Further Reading

“‘American Crime’: A Series Packed with ‘Emotional Honesty’ about Race.” 2015. NPR, March 24. ­https://​­www​.­npr​.­org​/­2015​/­03​/­24​/­395092626​/­american​-­crime​-­a​-­series​ -­packed​-­with​-­emotional​-­honesty​-­about​-­stereotypes. Braxton, Greg. 2017. “John Ridley Hopes the Immigration Story in ‘American Crime’ Can Cut through Hate to Find Humanity.” Los Angeles Times, March 10. ­https://​ ­w ww​.­latimes​.­com ​/­entertainment​/­t v​/­la​-­et​-­st​-­american​-­crime​-­season​-­three​-­feature​ -­20170311​-­story​.­html. Nussbaum, Emily. 2017. “The Disciplined Power of ‘American Crime.’” The New Yorker, April 24. ­https://​­www​.­newyorker​.­com​/­magazine​/­2017​/­05​/­01​/­the​-­disciplined​-­power​ -­of​-­american​-­crime.

American Gypsies(2012–) American Gypsies, premiering on National Geographic Channel in July 2012, chronicles the lives of the Johns family. The program followed a trend of reality shows that promised insider perspectives on hidden and/or misunderstood cultural communities. Critics deemed the series overproduced while depicting crude, loud, violent, xenophobic, attention-seeking, and/or opportunistic individuals. They

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likened the show to cultural exploitation and questioned the impact of the program on future perceptions of Romani and on National Geographic’s reputation. The Romani (or Romany; also called Roma) have been nomadic peoples with rich and diverse histories. The label Gypsy, considered by some a slur, was Middle English for Egyptian, a misnomer as the group likely migrated from the Indian subcontinent; Irish nomads called Irish Travelers are also labeled Gypsies. The Johns family, who lived in New York, identifies as Romani. One of the first popular images of a Romani was a fortune-teller painted by Dutch painter Bosch (The Haywain Triptych, 1510) and early European representations of Romani depict dark skin, long hair, earrings, and colorful clothing. For some, the decision to air this show on National Geographic represented its desire to challenge a history of long-standing stereotypes directed at the Romani community (e.g., exotic nomads, child marriages, chronically unemployed, child stealing, carnival fraudsters). For others, it continued a larger tradition. Dr. Ian Hancock of The Romani Archives and Documentation Center in Austin, Texas, publicly stated that American Gypsies had set the cause of the Romani peoples back by centuries. Television often depicts Gypsies as romantic criminals and nomads (e.g., The Riches, FX, 2017–08) or uses the moniker to characterize a non-Romani person who is wayward, deviant, and/or sexualized (e.g., Gypsy, Netflix, 2017). The Romani have been historically persecuted (e.g., the Holocaust) and the culture receives a disproportionate amount of voyeuristic media attention thus many Romani eschew publicity out of fear of attracting negative attention. American Gypsies was produced by Stick Figure Productions for the National Geographic Channel with Steven Cantor, Daniel Laikind, Terry Clark, Toby Faulkner, and Italian-American actor Ralph Macchio (The Karate Kid, 1984) as its executive producers. It focuses on the Johnses, a family of New York based entrepreneurs (e.g., palm reading, scrap metal, food stalls), who both operate within a tightly knit Gypsy community and non-Gypsy society. The show explores cultural traditions like the Kris (a.k.a. the Gypsy Court) said to be used by Vlax Romani for resolving community disputes. The Johnses’ public image has been criticized as loud, aggressive, and outspoken; however, the Johnses have said they do not claim to speak for all Romani. Some argue that the visibility by families like the Johnses is a strategy for renegotiating “their perception and to claim their right to coexist within specific spaces and communities” when invisibility has not allowed them to maintain their culture and place in society (Pusca 2015, 341). My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding (MBFAGW) premiered three months before American Gypsies in 2012. While the latter features a people of a higher socioeconomic class than the former, many critics argue the distinction is moot due to the poor standards for personal behavior reflected in both shows and makes them both akin to other exploitative reality shows that feature housewives or people from New Jersey. Critics argue that such shows are premised on “exoticising voyeurism” for the sake of ratings and thus are following formulas using “broad stereotypes, artificially constructed conflicts, unidimensional characters, set-up scenes and scripted lines” versus attempts at cultural understanding (Nicoară 2012).



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As a result of programs such as American Gypsy, some have stated that the National Geographic brand has lost it prestige and respectability. Howard Owens, a founder of Reveille Productions, was appointed National Geographic Channel’s president in 2011. As Owens was charged with improving the network’s profitability, he thus made some programming choices like American Gypsies that did not connect with viewers, although media critics claim Owens and the network learned from this experience. Executive producer Macchio has compared the Johnses to popular Italian-American mafia characters like the Sopranos and has said what is depicted is their reality. Alternately, The Pittsburgh-Post Gazette called out the Johnses for their contemptible behavior and xenophobia and deemed the show “dreadful” (Huffington Post 2012). Anca Pusca (2015) argues that reality shows MBFAGW and American Gypsies show a shift by some Romani people to choosing a fluid medium like film to depict themselves in specific moments in time, and this has generated public fascination with previously hidden aspects of their cultural lives (i.e., home, family, livelihood, and cultural community). Arguing that some Romani’s choice to participate in a filmed series to represent themselves as a way of capturing specific times in their cultural lives is a significant observation, as popular culture industries often present marginalized cultural groups and non-Western cultural practices as static, unchanged across time and history (e.g., Middle Eastern and North African women, Native Americans/Aboriginal peoples, South Asian arranged marriage, Islamic faith/culture). A representation of Romani/Roma people that has been received more positively is Our School (2011), a documentary filmed over five years following three Roma children who are taken from their crumbling segregated elementary school and integrated into a Romanian school in Transylvania; the documentary aims to explore mainstream culture’s contribution to cultural marginalization and emphasizes the shared humanity between the Roma and their fellow Romanians. Mona Nicoară (2012), a filmmaker, argues that feature films such as her documentary Our School offer more progressive representations of Roma culture while television still lags behind in this regard. However, media critics have recently questioned whether feature film is so progressive in its portrayal of the Romani in relation to BBC Films’ plans to adapt Romany writer Mikey Walsh’s well-received autobiographical novel Gypsy using non-Romani actors like Benedict Cumberbatch and suggest that such casting projects are akin to whitewashing. American Gypsies has been unsuccessful in correcting public misconceptions of the Romani or addressing social problems in the culture. The program is perhaps more successful in pursuing the goal of many reality shows, that being to use “the material of personal lives to intervene in the economies of celebrity culture” (Kavka 2012, 146). Problematic representations of marginalized cultural groups can exacerbate the racism, intimidation, and abuse suffered by members of those cultures in daily life, and one scholar notes that this is also true of American Gypsies because a day after its premiere “online comments were rife with racial slurs and no small number of sympathetic references to Hitler” (Nicoară 2012). Producers hoped that American Gypsies would boost viewership for National Geographic Channel, thus it seems that this program, like other reality television, relied heavily on stereotypical characters and showcasing “anti-talent” that Kavka defines as

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“ignorance, malapropisms, turning one’s bottom to the camera and slapping it” (Kavka 2012, 159). One could interpret bottom-slapping behavior as a literal act or a figurative expression meaning any attention-seeking behavior offered by reality performers who are self-consciously attempting to appear nonchalant and/or unconcerned with negative public reactions. Bottom-slapping media performances, like those that arguably appear in American Gypsies, can reinforce negative impressions and therefore increase the marginalization experienced by Romani peoples who lack the economic resources and social status that can insulate a family like the Johnses from some of these adverse effects. Gordon Alley-Young Further Reading

Alley-Young, Gordon. 2014. “Bigger, Fatter, Gypsier: Gender Spectacles and Cultural Frontlines in ‘My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding.’” In Reality Television: Oddities of Culture, edited by Alison F. Slade, Amber J. Narro, and Burton P. Buchanan, 123–141. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Bauder, David. 2013. “A World of Change at NatGeo Channel.” Washington Post, Regional Business News, April 13. Costanza, Justine Ashley. 2012. “Does ‘American Gypsies’ Reinforce the Same Stereotypes it Aims to Dismantle?” International Business Times, July 17. ­https://​­www​ .­ibtimes​.­com​/­does​-%­E2​%­80​%­98american​-­g ypsies​%­E2​%­80​%­99​-­reinforce​-­same​ -­stereotypes​-­it​-­aims​-­dismantle​-­725686. Genzlinger, Neil. 2012. “A Turbulent Romany Family Working as Psychic Healers.” New York Times, July 16. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2012​/­07​/­17​/­arts​/­television​/­american​ -­gypsies​-­on​-­national​-­geographic​-­channel​.­html. Huffington Post. 2012. “‘American Gypsies’ Premiere: Families Throw Down over Gypsy Law in New York City.” July 18. ­http://​­www​.­huffingtonpost​.­com​/­2012​/­07​/­18​ /­american​-­gypsiespremiere​-­gypsylaw​-­video​_n​_1682152​.­html. Kavka, Misha. 2012. Reality TV. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press. Newland, Christina. 2017. “Outrageous Portrayals of Gypsy Culture Are Cinema’s Last Acceptable Bigotry.” The Guardian, September 15. ­https://​­w ww​.­theguardian​.­com​ /­film​/­2017​/­sep​/­15​/­romany​-­gypsy​-­traveller​-­portrayal​-­in​-­film​-­benedict​-­cumberbatch. Nicoară, Mona. 2012. “‘American Gypsies’ Needs to Catch up with the Reality of Roma People’s Lives.” The Guardian, July 28. ­https://​­w ww​.­theguardian​.­com​ /­commentisfree​/­2012​/­jul​/­28​/­american​-­gypsies​-­reality​-­roma​-­lives​?­CMP​= ​­twt​_fd. Pusca, Anca. 2015. “Representing Romani Gypsies and Travelers: Performing Identity from Early Photography to Reality Television.” International Studies Perspectives 16 (3): 327–344.

Amos ‘n’ Andy(1951–1953) Originally a radio show, with white actors giving voice to the show’s black characters, and then a television show, Amos ‘n’ Andy was immensely popular throughout the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. It provoked widespread debate about the types of representations available to African Americans as well as the destructive consequences of dehumanizing portrayals that showed African Americans as immoral, stupid, shiftless, and otherwise incompatible with a free society.



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Created and voiced by two white actors, Freeman Godsen and Charles Correll, Amos ‘n’ Andy was an immediate success on the radio. Building on the history of minstrelsy, whereupon White performers in blackface mocked and ridiculed Black America, the show portrayed Amos and Andy, two southern Black men who moved from the South to Chicago (and then Harlem), as “bumbling, stumbling, dim-witted souls who had problems thinking straight and who constantly misused the English language” (Bogle 2002, 27). In 1951, the show found a platform on television. While Godsen and Correll were replaced with Black actors, the show’s racist portrayal of African Americans continued in this postwar environment. Amos Jones (Alvin Childress) was the classic “Uncle Tom,” subservient and “complaint” in hopes of satisfying whites. He, along with his wife Ruby (Jane Adams), continually sought to domesticate and “civilize” their Black neighbors. At the other end of spectrum was Andy, played by the classically trained Shakespearean actor Spencer Williams. While Amos was the “Uncle Tom,” Andy was “an easy-going dimwit, who always had an eye for a pretty girl” (MacDonald 1990, 28). He was easily manipulated and tricked by his friends; his ignorance often became a source of laughter. Alongside of them was George “Kingfish” Stevens (Tim Moore), who was “presented as the stereotyped scheming ‘coon’ character whose chicanery left his pals distrustful and the audience laughing” (MacDonald 1990, 28). The cast of characters was rounded out by: Sapphire Stevens (Ernestine Wade), a “domineering, aggressive, and emasculating shrew” (Pilgrim 2008) who consistently emasculated her husband Kingfish and the other men on the block; Ramona Smith (Amanda Randolph), Sapphire’s domineering mother; Lightnin’ (Nick Stewart), the dimwit janitor; and Algonquin J. Calhoun (Johnny Lee), the morally and ethically bankrupt attorney. Giving voice to long-standing racial stereotypes, Amos ‘n’ Andy also sought to tell stories that appealed to White viewers. Melvin Ely concludes that alongside of the explicit racial denigration was an effort to tell universal stories and even avoid certain racist language that might make certain viewers uncomfortable. “Unlike most blackface characters, those in ‘Amos ‘n’ Andy’ reflected many values common to lower middle-class Americans,” writes Mel Watkins (1991) in a discussion of Melvin Ely’s The Adventures of Amos ‘n’ Andy: A Social History of an American Phenomenon. “White audiences could empathize with the universal aspects of the experiences of the black people depicted on the program—financial problems, personal relationships, even reactions to contemporary events—while laughing at their supposed ethnic traits.” Angered by the persistent representation of Black people as shiftless and lazy, as immoral and unintelligent, as inhumane and unworthy of integration into American society, as backward and lost in the modern city, and as servants and maids for White people, the NAACP passed a resolution in condemnation of television in 1951. It specifically took aim at Amos ‘n’ Andy and Beulah, concluding: “The new television show Amos ‘n’ Andy depicts Negroes in a stereotyped and derogatory manner, and the practice of manufacturers, distributors, retailers, persons, or firms sponsoring or promoting this show, the Beulah show, or others of this type is condemned” (qtd. in MacDonald 1990, 29).

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Not satisfied with simply passing a resolution condemning Amos ‘n’ Andy, Beulah, and the long-standing denigration of black people, the NAACP also filed a lawsuit against CBS in 1951. Specifically, it argued that (1) the show furthered prejudices against Black people as “inferior, lazy, dumb, and dishonest”; (2) every Black character was “either a clown or crook”; (3) Black doctors are either “quacks or thieves”; (4) Black lawyers are “slippery cowards, ignorant of their profession, and without ethics”; and (5) Black women were consistently portrayed as “cackling, screaming shrews, in big-mouthed close-ups using street slang, just short of vulgarity” (qtd. in MacDonald 1990, 29). As with the protests against Stepin Fetchit, Rochester, Gone with the Wind’s Mammy, and countless other minstrel characters in Vaudeville, Hollywood, and on television, the NAACP expressed outrage at the portrayal of Black people as subservient and as incapable of living outside the control of benevolent White people. According to the NAACP, these shows contributed to a belief that lack of morality, intelligence, and a work ethic was evidence of an uncivility and pathological failure within Black America. For them, and others, these representations had consequences in the daily lives and future opportunities for Black America. Amos ‘n’ Andy provided a bridge between the history of radio, and minstrelsy and television. With its recycling of representation of Black people and culture as immoral, uncivilized, and representing the worst in people and with its deployment of the “Uncle Tom,” “Coon,” “Mammy,” and “Sapphire” characters, Amos ‘n’ Andy furthered long-standing racist imagines. Producing widespread protest and eliciting outrage from the Black Press, civil rights organizations, and the broader Black community, it also reveals how television became a site for the battles over how communities are portrayed in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Bogle, Donald. 2002. Primetime Blues: African Americans on Network Television. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Ely, Melvin Patrick. 2001. The Adventures of Amos ‘n’ Andy: A Social History of an American Phenomenon. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. MacDonald, J. Fred. 1990. Blacks and White TV: Afro-Americans in Television since 1948. Chicago, IL: Nelson-Hall Publishers. Pilgrim, David. 2008. “The Sapphire Caricature.” Ferris State University: Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia. ­https://​­ferris​.­edu​/ ­HTMLS​/­news​/­jimcrow​ /­antiblack​/­sapphire​.­htm. Watkins, Mel. 1991. “What Was It about ‘Amos ‘n’ Andy’?” New York Times, July 7. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­1991​/­07​/­07​/ ­books​/­what​-­was​-­it​-­about​-­amos​-­n-​ ­andy​.­html.

Anderson, Eddie(1905–1977) Born 1905 to Ed and Ella Mae Anderson, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson grew up in the entertainment industry. Both of his parents were vaudeville performers—Ed performed as a “minstrel” character and Ella Mae as circus tightrope walker. Breaking into the business as a teenager, Anderson performed first on vaudeville



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in various “all colored reviews” and then in Hollywood, appearing in films like White Price Hollywood (1932), Show Boat (1936), Green Pastures (1936), Jezebel (1938), Man about Town (1939), Gone with the Wind (1939), Buck Benny Rides Again (1940), and Love Thy Neighbor (1940), Brewster’s Millions (1945), and many others. It was television, however, where Anderson left his legacy. Anderson came to be known for his performance, first on radio, and then on television as “Rochester,” the valet and chauffer in The Jack Benny Show (1950– 1965). Replicating historic stereotypes of Black servants, and shown often talking about gambling, women, materialism, and other mundane issues when not singing and dancing, for some Anderson’s portrayal of Rochester reinforced racist views about Black America. At its core, Rochester’s popularity was tied to his subservience to Benny and the joy he exuded in being his singing chauffer. According to Robert Thomas Jr. (1977), “From his first radio appearance on Easter Sunday in 1937 to the last of the television ‘specials’ that followed the formal demise of Benny’s television series in 1964, the surest laugh in show business was the one that renewed itself every time Mr. Anderson summoned a full measure of skepticism to his throat and punctured the ultimate poseur’s latest pretension with a rasping, ‘What’s that, boss?’” Moreover, “it was a line that exposed Benny for what the whole world knew him to be, a vain, penny-pinching charlatan who could not even fool his own servant” (Thomas 1977). Benny’s decision to omit Anderson’s last name from the credits furthered the power of his representation as he was presented as a “real person” rather than an actor. Read alongside of long-standing stereotypes about black intelligence and the utility of black entertainers as a source of comic relief for white audiences, his signature raspy voice became part of his act, furthering his place as an Other, as foil or source of difference to the dignified and civilized Benny. For many, Anderson’s rendering of Rochester was more of the same in Hollywood; he was a singing servant whose inscription of stereotypes was further both degrading and harmful to Black America. His portrayal was the embodiment of the antiBlack racism that plagued both Hollywood and society as a whole. For others, Anderson brought something new to radio, Hollywood, and television. Unlike representations on Amos ‘n’ Andy (1951–1953) and The Little Rascals (1929–1938; 1955), or from characters like Stepin Fetchit, each of whom continued a history dating back to Blackface minstrel shows that portrayed Blacks as savage, uncivilized, moronic, lazy, morally reprehensible, silly, and perpetually scared, he brought depth and humanity to African Americans within popular culture. “Rarely was he forced to go through some of the excruciating demeaning types of antics that a Stepin Fetch had to perform,” writes Donald Bogle. “He had an almost serene self-control, striking audiences as a man blessed with awareness that in time everything would work out. Often slyly sardonic, he exuded . . . a carefree, indestructible independence. His gravelly voice reverberated with self-confidence” (1988, 355). The debates over Anderson’s Rochester characters during the show’s run, especially at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, and retrospectively, speaks to the history of African Americans on television and the quest for portrayals that were empowering and challenging to the racist images that were commonplace inside and outside of television.

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While known for a stint on The Jack Benny Show, Anderson made many appearances on televisions comedies and in various movies. He revived his role as Noah in two different television releases of Green Pastures (1957 and 1959), a film that brought to life various stories of the Bible with African American characters. He also appeared on other shows throughout the 1950s and 1960s as Rochester as well as in other roles in shows like the Harlem Globe Trotters (1970–1971) as Bobby Joe Mason and The New Scooby-Doo Movies (1972–1973) as Bobby Joe ‘B.J.’ Mason. Anderson’s legacy rests not simply with his television credits and his portrayal of Rochester, a character who both replicates and deviates from long-standing representations of African Americans as lazy and stupid servants exceedingly loyal to their white bosses, but also in the history of racism within and beyond television. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Bogle, Donald. 1988. “Eddie Rochester Anderson.” In Blacks in American Films and Television, edited by D. Bogle, 354–356. New York and London: Fireside Publishers. O’Brien, Daniel. 2017. “Also Known as Rochester: Eddie Anderson, Black Stardom and World War II.” In Black Masculinity on Film, edited by D. O’Brien, 71–85. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Thomas, Robert, Jr. 1977. “Eddie Anderson, 71, Benny’s Rochester; Gravel-Voiced Comedian Noted for ‘What’s That, Boss?’ Line Played Valet for More than 30 Years.” New York Times, March 1. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­1977​/­03​/­01​/­archives​/­eddie​ -­anderson​-­71​-­bennys​-­rochester​-­gravelvoiced​-­comedian​-­noted​-­for​.­html.

Ansari, Aziz(1983–) Aziz Ansari, a stand-up comedian, actor, writer, executive producer, and secondgeneration Indian American, has carved out a powerful place within American popular culture, importantly speaking to issues of identity, culture, family, and community. Born to first-generation immigrants originally from Tamil Nadu, India, his family’s experience shapes his work. While his father Shoukath Ansari is a gastroenterologist and his mother Fatima Ansari is a medical assistant, he decided on a career within the entertainment industry. His professional choices, like the conflicts around assimilation, culture, and identity, anchors his stand-up and television work. For example, during an appearance on The Late Night Show with Conan (1993–2009), Ansari chronicled a story of a pork feud within his Muslim family. Ansari told Conan about his family’s reaction to his preference for pork. This is emblematic of his use of televisual culture as a space to discuss and engage larger discourses. Through comedy, Ansari demonstrates how he negotiates his identity. Language also shapes his work. Ansari engages his audience with the help of humor, “mild self-deprecation,” and relatable immigrant stories that touch upon marriage, work, and family life. Ansari often switches to the South Carolina accent



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when he talks about his childhood. As Shilpa S. Davé (2013), writes in Indian Accents: Brown Voice and Racial Performance in American Television and Film, a performer’s diction, speech, and delivery in English helps South Asians to transition and integrate into modern society. Ansari’s story is different than the typical first-generation immigrants. Still Ansari also speaks to issues that define the experiences of South Asians and communities. During a 2015 live performance at Madison Square Garden, Ansari discussed racism as part of his parents’ experience. In this televised performance, Ansari utilizes satire to call attention to the persistent stereotypes of South Asian Indians in the United States. He recalls the prevailing prejudice at his father’s workplace in South Carolina. Here he addresses the effects of racism, highlighting widespread stereotypes felt by Asians. In 2008, he joined the cast of Parks and Recreation (2008–2016). Ansari plays Darwish Sabir Ismael Gani, a government employee who changes his name to Tom Haverford in an effort to fit-in. Tom Haverford is a sarcastic and corrupt government bureaucrat who is eager to advance his own career and project himself as a successful entrepreneur. Critically celebrated, his success in the show elevated the place of South Asians within television all while highlighting issues surrounding identity, assimilation, and race. Ansari has utilized multiple mediums to tell his story. In 2015, he and Alan Young created the Netflix comedy television show entitled Master of None (2015–). Cast as Dev Shah, Ansari also plays the show’s main character whose life experiences mirror that of his own. Master of None touches upon issues faced by Indians and other minorities in the American television industry. For example, in one episode, Dev faces a dilemma whether he should take up the acting role of a typical Indian with an accent. The episode further speaks to the challenges faced by many people of color that don’t fit into prevailing American racial categories. While critically acclaimed and widely popular, Ansari noted in 2017 that he wasn’t sure if they would make a third season of Master of None. The uncertain future was further complicated in 2018 after it was alleged “that he had pressured a woman to have sex with him while they were on a date” (North 2019). Recently, Aziz Ansari responded to this allegation of sexual misconduct during his stand-up show. He told the audience that “there were times I felt really upset and humiliated and embarrassed, and ultimately I just felt terrible this person felt this way” (North 2019). Aziz Ansari added that it had been a learning experience for him and that he has taken a step forward in his life. Across multiple shows and mediums, Aziz Ansari has consistently brought a unique perspective to his work, fusing comedy and personal anecdotes to both educate and entertain audiences about his experience and that of many other South Asians. Television has afforded Ansari a platform to reach other second-generation Americans with similar backgrounds, being a source of pride. Shilpashri Karbhari Further Reading

Ansari, Aziz. 2015. “Aziz Ansari on Acting, Race and Hollywood.” New York Times, November 10. ­http://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2015​/­11​/­15​/­arts​/­television​/­aziz​-­ansari​-­on​ -­acting​-­race​-­and​-­hollywood​.­html​?­_r​= ​­0.

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Davé, Shilpa. 2013. Indian Accents: Brown Voice and Racial Performance in American Television and Film. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Kellison, Daniel. 2012. “Dinner with Daniel: Aziz Ansari.” Grantland, April 5. ­http://​ ­g rantland​.­com ​/­features​/­qa​-­parks​-­recreation​-­star​-­aziz​-­ansari​-­kanye​-­west​-­favorite​ -­foods​-­more​/. North, Anna. 2019. “Aziz Ansari Actually Talked about the Sexual Misconduct Allegation against Him Like an Adult.” Vox, February 13. ­https://​­www​.­vox​.­com​/­2019​/­2​ /­13​/­18223535​/­aziz​-­ansari​-­sexual​-­misconduct​-­allegation​-­me​-­too. Sanneh, Kelefa. 2010. “Funny Person: Can a Hardworking Cult Favorite Make It as a Mainstream Star?” The New Yorker, November 1. ­http://​­www​.­newyorker​.­com​ /­magazine​/­2010​/­11​/­01​/­f unny​-­person. Yuan, Jada. 2017. “Aziz Ansari Is from a Red State, Too.” Vulture. ­https://​­w ww​.­v ulture​ .­com​/­2017​/­04​/­aziz​-­ansari​-­master​-­of​-­none​-­season​-­2​.­html.

A.N.T. Farm (2011–2014) Initially airing May 6, 2011, A.N.T. Farm (2011–2014) represented an effort by Nickelodeon to bring diversity to the tween airways. Telling the story of a group of highly talented and capable high school students, A.N.T. Farm tried to replicate the success of previous shows that used television as a launching pad for its stars. A.N.T. Farm tells the story of three prodigy middle schoolers whose genius, skills, and talents are both a blessing and a curse. Attending the Advanced Natural Talent Program (A.N.T.) at a San Francisco high school, the show both spotlights their brilliance as well as the challenges that result from seeing the world through their gifted minds. While bringing to life the cleverness and goofiness of the group, some of which plays on stereotypes of nerds and geeks, the show uses the group’s positioning inside a high school to highlight themes of acceptance, diversity, and inclusion. With plotlines consistently focusing on how these prodigies navigated, negotiated, and balanced their genius with their yearning to simply be teenagers and on their challenging exacerbated conflicts with older and less talented high school peers, A.N.T. Farm resembled so many tween shows. While chronicling the school life of gifted teenagers trying to live and leverage their genius in productive ways, A.N.T. Farm was an attempt to spotlight the diverse talents of China Anne McClain, who starred as Chyna Parks. Trying to replicate the successes that Disney had with Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, and Demi Lovato, and that Nickelodeon had with Miranda Cosgrove, Ariana Grande, and Victoria Justice, all while bringing some diversity to tween programming, A.N.T. Farm was designed as a platform to launch the career of China Anne McClain. Similarly, Brooks Barnes, in the New York Times, argued that McClain and A.N.T. Farm matched the successful formula Disney had established with their other tween stars. Disney, scouring audition tapes and the Web, looks for various elements: presence, a genuine interest in show business and raw talent in acting, singing or dancing. . . . Tween viewers gravitate toward actresses who they think have best-friend potential;



A.N.T. Farm 33 the slightest mean-girl whiff can prevent a star-in-the-making from reaching the stratosphere. (Barnes 2011)

McClain offered Disney all of these qualities, plus immense musical talent. She also brought diversity to Disney and into tween programming that had long been dominated by White characters over the years. “The backing of Ms. McClain, who is African-American, comes at a time when children’s channels are working harder to find minority stars,” noted Barnes. “It’s shrewd marketing, signaling to parents that diversity is a priority. But Nickelodeon and Disney also want to hold a mirror to a diversifying viewer base” (Barnes 2011). Alongside of Chyna were two other leading characters: Olive (Sierra McCormick), whose photographic memory and propensity to share random facts brought her to the A.N.T. program; and Fletcher (Jake Short), whose brilliance as an artist was not matched by either success in other subjects or socially. The rest of the cast consisted of a number of supporting characters who served as foils for the various story lines each of which chronicled the daily adventures of the trio who anchored the A.N.T. program: Lexi Reed (Stefanie Scott), Chyna’s rival who was more obsessed with materialism and her own looks than acquiring knowledge or being creative; Cameron Parks (Carlon Jeffery), Chyna’s older and less intelligent brother; Angus Chestnut (Aedin Mincks), an overweight member of the A.N.T. Program, whose awkwardness, size, and obsession with video games and computers embodied all the stereotypes of a nerd; Paisley Houndstooth (Allie DeBerry), Lexi’s unintelligent and ditsy friend; Gibson (Zach Steel), who despite serving as the teacher for advanced students was a bit slow and clueless; Susan Skidmore (Mindy Sterling), the school’s principal, who like every other adult on the show was neither smart nor concerned with serious issues; and Darryl Parks (Finesse Mitchell), the overprotective, clueless, and generally confused father. Despite building a show around an African American tween actress and centering the show’s plotlines on the Parks family, rarely did the show delve into issues of race, identity, or difference. Using conflicts surrounding “gifted” versus “regular” student, or nerd versus jock as a vehicle for talking about diversity and the harm of stereotypes and prejudices, A.N.T. Farm shied away from discussions of racism. One episode (“influANTces”), however, not only focused on Black History Month but also spotlighted Chyna’s Blackness by having her sing the songs of legendary black singers Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin, and Janet Jackson. Unable to come up with the perfect Black History Month project, Chyna finds inspiration in a dream where she sings the songs of these legendary singers. Her dream-induced history lesson results in her writing and successfully performing “Exceptional,” a song that pays homage to “Black Girl magic.” This episode would be rare in its commentary on Chyna’s identity and the larger African American experience. While A.N.T. Farm created an unrealistic world where race didn’t matter and where race didn’t infect the daily lives of kids, teachers, and parents, the importance of the show rests with audiences craving for diversity on the Disney channel and in children’s programming. Meghan Harvey praised the show’s focus on challenging stereotypes, especially as it relates to girls and African Americans: “Smart

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is Cool—The girls on these shows are all smart girls who make good grades and school a priority, yet they are all cool. . . . And with A.N.T. Farm it’s also great to see a super smart African American girl back on the Disney channel! It’s about time.” Not alone, Kimberly Seal Allers, in “Will A.N.T. Farm Help My Young Black Girls,” wrote about the importance of the show, writing, “As a mother, trying to raise a young black girl with positive self-esteem and self-love for her hair, her body and her mind, it’s frustrating that my daughter doesn’t see many images of herself on her own favorite channel.” She noted further, “So I was really happy to see the new Disney show starring the very sweet and lovely, China Anne McClain” (qtd. in Leonard 2013, 215). Yet, the show’s representations would also raise questions about its perpetuation of stereotypes. By imagining Chyna (along with Olive and Fletcher) as brilliant, as prodigies, and as exceptions, the show built on various stereotypes about race, gender, and body. In constructing them as “exceptions,” as “odd” and “unusual,” A.N.T. Farm continued a long-standing tradition in popular culture of telling stories that appeared to undermine existing narrative, all the while reinforcing those entrenched beliefs. While only lasting three seasons, A.N.T. Farm proved successful in launching McClain’s successful film career and for helping to lay the groundwork for Disney’s widely popular and influential kids’ show Doc McStuffins (2012–2020), a cartoon about a six-year-old African American girl who “emulates” her Dr. mother “by opening a clinic for dolls and stuffed animals” (Barnes 2012). Adding representations of African Americans into children’s programming, all while challenging media stereotypes that gained cultural power through Disney itself, both A.N.T Farm and Doc McStuffins ushered in a new era for Disney television. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Barnes, Brooks. 2011. “Tween Stars Wanted: Must Be Primed for Pressure.” New York Times, May 10. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2011​/­05​/­11​/­arts​/­television​/­t ween​-­stars​ -­wanted​-­must​-­be​-­primed​-­for​-­pressure​.­html. Barnes, Brooks. 2012. “Disney Finds a Cure for the Common Stereotype with ‘Doc McStuffins.’” New York Times, July 30. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2012​/­07​/­31​/­arts​ /­television​/­disneys​-­doc​-­mcstuffins​-­connects​-­with​-­black​-­viewers​.­html. Harvey, Meghan. 2011. “A Few Good Role Models—From Disney?” July 12. ­http://​­www​ .­sheheroes​.­org​/­2011​/­07​/­a​-­few​-­good​-­role​-­models​-%­E2​%­80​%­93​-­f rom​-­disney​/. Leonard, David J. 2013. “Blackness and Children’s Programming: Sesame Street, A.N.T Farm, and The LeBrons.” In African Americans on Television: Race-ing for Ratings, edited by David J. Leonard and Lisa A. Guerrero, 207–228. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.

Arabs, Muslims, and Middle Easterners and Television Tracing through the history of American television, Arabs, Muslims, and Middle Easterners have received limited coverage. Despite this erasure, critics have noted that across multiple generations, Middle Easterners have been represented as the “other,” as terrorists, and as undesirable foreigners on television and within popular culture as a whole. According to these same commentators, since 9/11, this



Arabs, Muslims, and Middle Easterners and Television 35

demonization has increased, albeit alongside increased visibility in the form of token efforts to depict Arabs, Muslims, and Middle Easterners as friends, as allies, and as people who have assimilated into the (White) mainstream.

MAKE ROOM FOR DADDY: TV SERIES IN THE 1960S–1970S Although African American actors have been increasingly visible on prime-time television since the mid-1960s, the television industry has remained dominated by White casts and story lines. Television continued to imagine the “quintessentially American” story through whiteness, denying the place to Middle Easterners and other communities of color from the public imagination. Not many television series depicting Middle Easterners were popular in the 1960s and 1970s. With rare exception, television offered minimal representation of Middle Easterners. One of the few shows that had a Middle Eastern character was Make Room for Daddy (1953–1964), which would be renamed The Danny Thomas Show after three seasons. While the show focused on the experiences of Danny Williams (Danny Thomas), who was Lebanese American, it also featured Uncle Tanoose, the show’s Lebanese patriarch, played by Hans Conreid, a White actor. Although not a main character, Uncle Tanoose, as one of the few Middle Eastern characters, was granted much attention for the ways that his character challenged invisibility even as it perpetuated stereotypes. For example, in one episode, he shared how women of color were voluptuous compared to their White peers. The episode furthered a narrative that imagined the Middle East as distinct from Western culture. Long-standing Orientalist stereotypes were evident in the ongoing televisual representation of the Middle East. Television contributed to imagining Arabs as foreigners with thick accents and darker skin tones, and this continued through the 1970s. M*A*S*H One of the first Arab American actors to appear on television was Jamie Farr, who gained national attention playing Corporal Max Klinger on the widely popular M*A*S*H (1972–1983). Born Jameel Yusuf Abud Farah in Toledo, Ohio, Farr’s televisual career predates his ascendance with M*A*S*H, with credits including The Red Skelton Hour (1951–1971) in 1956, 1959, 1960, and 1961; The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961–1966) in 1961; The Danny Kaye Show (1963–1967) in 1963; Gomer Pyle (1964–1969) in 1965 and 1968; F Troop (1965–1967) in 1966; I Dream of Jeannie (1965–1970) in 1966; The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968) in 1966, Get Smart (1965–1970) in 1968; Emergency (1972–1979) in 1972 and 1973; The Love Boat (1977–1987) in 1978, 1982, 1983; and countless other shows. It was M*A*S*H that not only propelled his career but also elevated the visibility of Middle Easterners within the cultural landscape. In early seasons, Klinger, a Lebanese American, spent most of his time trying to get out of the military by wearing women’s clothing. Not central to his character, his Lebanese heritage, and connection to the Toledo Lebanese community was rarely mentioned on the show. Both Klinger and Farr had grown up in Toledo, Ohio, and

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therefore cultural references were part of Klinger’s presence on the show. When M*A*S*H went off the air, there was an effort to keep the story of his character going with the creation of After Mash (1983–1985), which focused on his marriage to Soon-Lee (Rosalind Chao), a Korean woman he meets during the war. Eventually moving back to the United States, the show focuses on the couple’s struggles with life after the war. In one episode, “Klinger v Klinger,” conflict results from the initial resistance of Klinger’s family to his Korean bride. Critics have noted how the show reduces racism to individual prejudice, focusing on its impact within his Lebanese family. Such narrative focus reflects the types of representations available during this period. Amid widespread invisibility and commonplace stereotypes, amid efforts to both erase Middle Easterners as a homogeneous ethnic group that was White yet not White, Farr’s presence on M*A*S*H offered a level of exposure and humanity to Middle Easterners otherwise unavailable on television. TONIGHT SHOW AND “THE BEL-AIRABS”: 1970S TV SHOWS Through humor and stereotypes, mainstream television, especially comedy, often differentiated between various Middle Eastern groups. Arabs were unfairly targeted during the ABSCAM controversy in the 1970s. James Zogby, founder of the Arab American Institute and an expert on issues in the Middle East reported that “FBI videotaped the fake ‘sheikhs’ offering envelopes of cash to Senators and Congressmen seeking their assistance with a range of illegal activities” (Zogby 2014). Further, even on the Tonight Show, Arabs were profiled and ridiculed. In one show, a politician openly made references to “Abdul Enterprises,” and Johnny Carson’s response to that was “never accept a bribe from an Arab who asks you to talk into his camel’s hump.” These were practices that reflected the further tokenizing and profiling of Middle Easterners on television. Saturday Night Live’s (1975–) “The Bel-Airabs,” which aired during the 1979– 1980 season, portrayed Arabs as “stupid and unattractive, with crude manners” (Shaheen 1984). The satirizing of Arabs was evident in the early and later TV shows. This SNL bit was a spoof of The Beverly Hillbillies (1962–1971) as it portrayed newly arrived Arabs as paranoid and wanting to fit-in within a world where they were out of place. The skit references an Arab named Ahmed, who fled from his country after the oil spill and has arrived in the United States. Commentators have questioned the ways that the SNL sketch perpetuates stereotypes that negatively depict Arabs as being “barbaric and uncultured” (Semaan 2014). Despite the persistence of stereotypes, shifts in American television were underway. In the pre–civil rights era, American television offered few representations of the Middle Easterners. The limited visibility on television showed this community as Others, and different from White Westerners. ALICE: THE 1980S TV SHOW Alice, a popular sitcom that was aired on CBS from 1976 to 1983, chronicles the everyday experiences of Alice (Linda Lavin), who works at Mel’s Diner in



Arabs, Muslims, and Middle Easterners and Television 37

Arizona. While centered on Alice’s relationship with two other waitresses, Florence Jean “Flo” Castleberry (Polly Holliday) and Vera Novak (Beth Howland), much of the show’s plotline focused on her interaction with Mel Sharples. Played by an Arab American actor named Vic Tayback, the show’s portrayal of Mel did little to spotlight his identity. Still, stereotypes of Arabs were visible within Alice. For example, in one of the episodes, a rich Sheik proposes to Flo, the waitress. Underlying his proposal of marriage is his intent to acquire her as a part of his harem. Critics noted this as example of how Alice contributed to the stereotypical image of rich, male Arabs intent on luring White women and trapping them into marriage.

POST-9/11 ERA AND TELEVISION After 9/11, reflecting and contributing to widespread fear and anxiety, televisual representations increasingly imagined Middle Eastern communities and Islam through discourses of terrorism. Television dramas and sitcoms offered story lines about 9/11, its political impact, and the consequences within American society. Scholars have argued that television perpetuates the belief that Middle Easterners, Arabs, and Muslims are a threat to the United States because of their hatred. TV shows, including 24 (2001–2014), Sleeper Cell (2005–2006), and Homeland (2011–2020), alongside of other shows—Law & Order (1990–2010), Everybody Loves Raymond (1996–2005), The West Wing (1999–2006), and Third Watch (1999–2005), that have offered post-9/11 story lines, have collectively produced fictionalized representations of terrorism. These shows included the portrayal of Muslims not only as terrorists and but also as victims, as targets manipulated by European terrorist and other organizations. In other words, while some shows furthered stereotypes, others highlighted the dangers of racial profiling and the costs and consequences of a culture of racism, fear, and war. 24 is a popular TV drama that focuses on the most pressing issues including the War on Terror. The show portrays Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland), a counterterrorism agent and his efforts to curb terrorism. The show focuses on torture, bioterrorism, nuclear attacks, and other casualties. 24 depicts terrorists as coming from the Middle East, albeit from unnamed or fictionalized places. For example, in season four, the terrorist enemy is said to come from an unnamed part of the Middle East. In season eight, the terrorist threat emanates from a fictional country named “Kamistan.” Critics have noted that these techniques allow the shows to inform viewers about the threats facing America in 9/11 through racial, national, and religious narratives all while reinforcing beliefs that the United States is a post-racial society where racism no longer will be tolerated. Sleeper Cell too focuses on the impact of fundamentalist Islamist groups on non-Arabs and Arabs, furthering story lines about the War on Terror and those that reinforce binaries between “good” and “bad “Arabs. Since 9/11, fear of Muslims and Arabs has become commonplace on television, within America’s political discourse and in society as a whole. Shows like The

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West Wing (1999–2006), 7th Heaven (1996–2007), and The Practice (1997–2004) have attempted to document the Islamophobia since 9/11. 7th Heaven exposed the routine harassment visited upon Muslims in contemporary America. In “Suspicion,” Ruthie (Mackenzie Rosman) defends her friend, Yasmine Halawi (Ashley Soloman) and her entire family, who are subjected to anti-Muslim racism. In one of the episodes of The Practice, the authorities detain an innocent civilian because he is Arab American. Yet, for some commentators, the episode’s focus on a White attorney working to protect him reinforced long-standing narratives of White saviors and the benevolence of America. In other words, while this show represents Arab Americans as a threat to national security and therefore subjected to intense scrutiny by the authorities, it equally imagines America as a space of justice. Post-9/11 TV has also reflected on Islamophobia and the widespread nature of anti-Middle Eastern xenophobia, offering narratives and representational interventions that challenge dominant images. For example, Dick Wolf and Aaron Sorokin captured the prevailing reactions to terrorism in the West Wing’s “Isaac and Ishmael,” where in one episode the White House staff were under lockdown in the presence of a suspected terrorist working in-house. The episode also offers a discussion of terrorism. The dual images of being anti-American and American are made visible through fiction and drama. In the aftermath of the September attacks on the World Trade Center, American television played a central role in the articulation of terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism. The increased presence of Middle Eastern characters since 9/11 has not necessarily produced increased job opportunities for Arab or Muslim actors. On television, actors who “look” or “appear” to be Middle Eastern irrespective of their background often secure these parts. For example, Oded Fehr, the Israeli Jewish actor appears as the leader of the terrorist unit. In the fourth season of 24, Arnold Vosloo, a South African actor, plays the role of Marwan Habib, the Arab Muslim terrorist. Sleeper Cell includes Bosnian, French, Euro-American, Western European, and Latino actors.

COUNTER-NARRATIVES Several shows, including Whoopi (2003–2004), Aliens in America (2007–2008), Community (2009–2015), Little Mosque on the Prairie (2007–2012), and All-American Muslim (2011), have moved beyond narratives that construct good and bad Muslims, which create storylines about Arabs and Muslims in varied contexts that expand the representation beyond terrorism, religious fundamentalism, and extremism. Among them is Whoopi, which aired for one season. Whoopi Goldberg, the producer, hired Omid Djalili, an Iranian actor to play the part of an Iranian handyman named Nasim on the show. Although Nasim is profiled as a terrorist, in one of the episodes, he uses humor to refer to the U.S. government’s undue interference in investigating an ordinary personal family problem. Critics have noted how Nasim and the surrounding story lines reflect Goldberg’s strategy of spotlighting the impact of racism in post-9/11 America all while providing humanizing representations.



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Aliens in America focuses on a White, Christian, middle-class family living in Wisconsin. The Tolchuk family decides to host an exchange student. Despite Franny Tolchuk’s (Amy Pietz) efforts to host a European student, a Pakistani Muslim boy named Raja Musharraf (Adhir Kalyan) is placed in their home. Speaking with an accent, dressing in “ethnic” clothes, refusing to kiss a girl until married or lie, and otherwise showing extreme deference to his host family, Raja’s character embodies and challenges existing stereotypes as part of the “fish-out-of-water” narrative. In an exchange with the Tolchuk family, Raja exclaims: “You are such good people to open your home to me. Thank you, Allah for the Tolchuks” (“Pilot”). Critics note that the show focuses on the interactions between Raja and Justin Tolchuck (Dan Byrd), the family’s sixteen-year-old son, highlighting the relationship between two boys from different racial and ethnic backgrounds in mainstream society. Using humor, the show elucidates the tension that manifests at an interpersonal level following 9/11. At the same time, the show makes visible the connections between social issues, humanity, and emerging tensions after 9/11 in the United States. Community, an NBC sitcom that aired in 2009, focuses on youth in the United States. The show introduces Danny Pudi who is cast as Abed Nadir, a Palestinian American student. Nadir is socially awkward and obsessed with popular culture. He is portrayed as weird and very committed to following his family falafel business. This sitcom illustrates representational efforts by its producer to articulate the experiences and realities of Arab American youth on commercial television. Little Mosque on the Prairie, a CBC show, ran from 2007 to 2012. Produced by Zarqa Nawaz, a Muslim Canadian woman of Pakistani descent, this sitcom revolved around Muslims living in a small Canadian town, who come together to build a mosque and community center. Using humor, Little Mosque on the Prairie focuses on the day-to-day experiences of the Muslim community. While a comedic sitcom, Little Mosque on the Prairie attempts to educate viewers about the Muslim community in Canada, about culture, the role of Islam, debates between conservative and liberal Muslims, racial profiling, homophobia, and terrorism. All-American Muslim (2011), a reality television program that highlights the experiences of a range of people, including a police officer, a football coach, a county clerk, and a federal agent, works to present story lines of patriotic Arab Americans. The everyday lives of Arab American families are portrayed, challenging those representations that see Arabs and Muslims as interchangeable with terrorist. The series also offers a glimpse at discrimination. In one episode, a married couple from Dearborn, Michigan, has breakfast in another town only to be refused service. Since 2015, a number of young Muslim Americans have found greater visibility on television and within the wider media culture. Asif Mandvi and Hasan Minhaj both gained recognition for their work as comedians, specifically on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show (1996–). Minhaj also produced his own show on Netflix entitled Homecoming King (2017). In this show, Minhaj reflects on his experience as an Indian American of Muslim heritage. In 2018, Minhaj launched Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj (2018–), a Netflix talk show where he blends commentary and comedy to touch on issues of racism, gentrification, racial profiling, health care, student debt, and a myriad of culture issues.

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CONCLUSION This history reveals dynamic and continuously fluid representations of Arabs, Muslims, and Middle Easterners on U.S. television. In the mid-1960s and 1970s, television offered limited representation of Middle Easterners, Arabs, and Muslims on television with the exception of a few shows including Make Room for Daddy. In the few representations, Arabs appeared as the “other” in television. According to Blauvelt (2008), “Arabs and Muslims in general have been culturally coded as ‘others.’” Beginning in the 1980s and most significantly, since 9/11, television programs and popular culture as a whole has consistently demonized, ridiculed, and otherwise stereotyped Arabs, Middle Easterners, and Muslims. Homogenized in ways that erase ethnic, national, political, and religious diversity, these communities have been rendered as little more than terrorists within television culture. According to Jack Shaheen, author of Reel Bad Arabs, “today’s reel Arabs are more stereotypical than yesteryear’s, I can’t say the celluloid Arab has changed” (2001, 2). From both the erasure of the diversity of Arab, Muslim, and Middle Eastern communities to the persistence in narratives that imagine these communities as foreigners, as terrorist, and as perpetual threats to (White) America, today’s televisual representations mirror those of previous generations. The emergence of 24 and Quantico (2015–2018), alongside the increased visibility of actors like Hasan Minhaj, Aziz Ansari, and Yasmin-Al-Massri, embody the shifting terrain as television has moved from a post-9/11 moment characterized by increased xenophobia and demonization to a new era of representation defined by greater visibility and depth. Although the representation of Middle Easterners, Muslims, and Arabs remains a contested space, a number of artists are engaged in serious efforts to counter the dehumanization that characterizes this history. Shilpashri Karbhari Further Reading

Alsutany, Evelyn. 2013. “Arabs and Muslims in the Media after 9/11: Representational Strategies for a ‘Postrace’ Era.” American Quarterly 65: 161–169. Alsutany, Evelyn. 2014. “Representations of Arabs and Muslims in Post-9/11 Television Dramas.” In The Colorblind Screen Television in Post-Racial America, edited by Sarah Nilsen and Sasha Turner, 140–166. New York: New York University Press. Blauvelt, Christine. 2008. “Aladdin, Al-Qaeda, and Arabs in U.S. Film and TV.” Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media Jump Cut, no. 50. ­https://​­www​.­ejumpcut​ .­org​/­archive​/­jc50​.­2008​/­reelBadArabs​/. Edgerton, Gary R. 2007. The Columbia History of American Television. New York: Columbia University Pres Gandhi, Lakshmi. 2015. “Young Muslim Women Weigh in on the Hijabi Character in ‘Quantico.’” Code Switch, NPR, December14. ­https://​­www​.­npr​.­org​/­sections​ /­codeswitch​/­2015​/­12​/­14​/­459670190​/­we​-­asked​-­young​-­muslim​-­women​-­to​-­weigh​-­in​ -­on​-­quanticos​-­hijabi​-­character​.­ Nurullah, Abu Sadat. 2010. “Portrayal of Muslims in the Media: 24 and the ‘Othering’ Process.” International Journal of Human Sciences 7 (1): 1021–1046. Semaan, Gaby. 2014. “Arab Americans: Stereotypes, Con Àict, History, Cultural Identity and Post 9/11.” Intercultural Communication Studies 23 (2): 17–32.



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Shaheen, Jack G. 1984. The TV Arab. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Press. Shaheen, Jack G. 2001. Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People. New York: Olive Branch Press. Zogby, James. 2014. “What American Hustle Doesn’t Tell You about ABSCAM.” The Huffington Post, January 4. ­https://​­www​.­huffpost​.­com​/­entry​/­what​-­american​ -­hustle​-­does​_b​_4541307.

Arnaz, Desi(1917–1986) Born Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III in 1917 to a prominent Cuban family, this first-generation Cuban immigrant went on to become one of the most prominent early Latinx film and television stars of the 1940s and 1950s. Following the Cuban revolution of 1933, which saw the jailing of his father and the confiscation of his family’s property, Arnaz and his family fled to Miami where he soon began his career as a singer, dancer, and actor going by the name of Desi Arnaz. Following a successful stint on Broadway with Too Many Girls (1939), a musical comedy that was later a film starring his soon-to-be wife and business partner, Lucille Ball, and several Hollywood films, including Bataan (1943), Arnaz turned his attention to television shortly after the conclusion of World War II. During the war, after being reclassified for limited service because of a knee injury, he served in the United Service Organization (USO), where he entertained wounded soldiers at the San Fernando Valley, California, hospital. This work continued following his discharge from the Army, as he and his newly formed Orchestra, whose members eventually joined him on television with I Love Lucy (1951–1957). Teaming up with his real-life wife, Lucille Ball, Dezi Arnaz played a Cuban-American bandleader by the name of Ricky Ricardo whose marriage to Lucy was marked by comedic escapades and their lives inside and outside of show business. I Love Lucy soon became must-watch television; Arnaz and Ball quickly became national treasures. “Monday nights all across America, people gathered in front of what was usually the first television set in the house and watch the continuing adventures of Lucy and Ricky and their good-natured landlords and best friends, Fred and Ethel Mertz, portrayed by William Frawley and Vivian Vance,” writes Tim Page in the New York Times. “Lucy and Ethel were partners in comedic mischief; whenever Ricky became particularly exasperated, his broken English degenerated into a torrent of Spanish epithets.” While critics celebrated the show for its courageousness, tackling important issues surrounding pregnancy, parenting, and marriage, its decision to portray the marriage between a Cuban American man and a white woman was revolutionary in the 1950s. A show chronicling the lives and comedic moments of an “interracial” couple challenged existing representations on television, which rarely brought to life mixed-ethnic marriages, much less one defined by love and partnership, and based in reality. In fact, CBS, and its sponsor Phillip Morris, initially resisted the inclusion of Desi’s Ricky as Lucy’s husband. “They said that the American public would not accept Desi as the husband of a red-blooded American

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girl” (qtd. in Karlin 2017). A certain segment of the nation was clearly ready for Arnaz and his partnership with Ball on screen. The show was not without its critics. While some condemned the show for its perpetuation of stereotypes of the Latinx community as perpetual foreigners marked by strong accents, superstition, and hypersexuality, others celebrated the show for its challenge to American racism. Ricardo’s Latinness was neither a source of laughter nor “forced. He played himself, a successful Cuban immigrant entrepreneur who married an amazing comedic actress” (Latino Rebels 2014). There were no “ethnic jokes” with Ricardo becoming the source of laughter. Whereas Latinos were both rarely seen in media culture and when seen were presented as criminals, agricultural workers, or as lazy undesirables, Ricky Ricardo was a smart business man whose intelligence, intellect, and level-headedness anchored his family on television. According to P ­ BS​.­com, “Ball and Arnaz worked to ensure ‘I Love Lucy’ didn’t perpetuate ethnic stereotypes. Arnaz’s Ricky Ricardo was an intelligent, successful businessman, the rational, levelheaded counterpart to Lucy’s offbeat, goofball persona” (“Breaking Barriers,” n.d.). Under the leadership of Arnaz and Ball, I Love Lucy challenged television in other ways. While other shows were performed live at this time, I Love Lucy was filmed, allowing not only for edits but rebroadcasting. This invention led to the common practice of reruns and television syndication that allowed future audiences to watch shows of previous generations. Yet, Arnaz and Ball didn’t want to abandon the tradition and the power of live audiences, so they figured out a way to film in front of a live audience. Their contributions to television didn’t end with their comedic interventions and their challenges to existing representations of Latinness but can be found with their technological interventions, including their use of multiple cameras, their use of music, and with their bridging between the world of acting and production. Arnaz, along with Ball, formed a production company, named Desilu Productions, in 1950. Through this company, Arnaz served as executive producer for both Those Whiting Girls (1955–1957) and The Ann Sothern Show (1958–1961). He and his production company also played a role in several other shows, including Sheriff of Cochise (1956–1959), Whirlybirds (1957–1960), and The Untouchables (1959–1963). Desilu Productions, which Arnaz left in 1962, developed several shows, including Star Trek (1966–1969, Mission: Impossible (1966–1973), and Mannix (1967–1975). After leaving Desilu, and a short hiatus from television, which followed his divorce from Ball in 1960, he formed Desi Arnaz Productions. He later coproduced The Mothers-in-Law (1967–1969) and developed several other shows that never aired, including Without Consent, a legal drama starring Spencer Tracey. Arnaz’s career was ultimately defined by his role in I Love Lucy. While reflecting his limited success elsewhere, his connection to I Love Lucy speaks to the importance of the show and his performance within a larger history of Latinxs on television. Challenging long-standing stereotypes, while bringing a level of depth and humanity unavailable within American popular culture, Arnaz opened up doors for Latinxs on screen and behind-the-scenes, and in the continued fight for both opportunities and diversity of representations. David J. Leonard



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Further Reading

Arnaz, Desi, 1976. A Book. Cutchogue, NY: Buccaneer Books. “Breaking Barriers.” n.d. PBS. ­http://​­www​.­pbs​.­org​/­wnet​/­pioneers​-­of​-­television​/­pioneering​ -­programs​/ ­breaking​-­barriers​/. Harris, Warren. 2016. Lucy & Desi: The Legendary Love Story of Television’s Most Famous Couple. Los Angeles: Graymalkin Media. Karlin, Lily. 2017. “Why Lucille Ball Was More Revolutionary Than You Think.” Huffington Post, December 7. ­https://​­www​.­huffingtonpost​.­com​/­2015​/­04​/­26​/­lucille​-­ball​ -­revolutionary​_n​_7138476​.­html. Latino Rebels. 2014. “On What Would Have Been His 96th Birthday, Our Five Favorite Desi Arnaz Moments.” Latino Rebels, June 27. ­http://​­www​.­latinorebels​.­com​/­2012​ /­03​/­02​/­on​-­what​-­would​-­have​-­been​-­his​-­95th​-­birthday​- ­our​-­five​-­favorite​- ­desi​-­arnaz​ -­moments​/. Page, Tim. 1986. “Desi Arnaz, TV Pioneer, is Dead at 69.” New York Times, December 3. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­1986​/­12​/­03​/­obituaries​/­desi​-­arnaz​-­t v​-­pioneer​-­is​-­dead​-­at​ -­69​.­html. Sanders, Coyne S., and Thomas W. Gilbert. 2011. Desilu: The Story of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. New York: IT Books.

Asian Americans and Television The history of Asian Americans on television is one of dehumanization and stereotype, erasure and invisibility, and the model minority myth. It is a story of actors and actresses battling an industry that has provided few opportunities and hired White actors to perform as Asian Americans. It is a history of Asian American artists fighting to be seen and heard, and to give voice to the experiences of Asian Americans. It is a history of shows that employ not only stereotypes and dehumanization but also efforts to highlight the diversity, humanity, and lived experiences of Asian Americans. Embodying a history of racism, “Yellow Face” is central to the history of Asian Americans on television. “Yellow Face” refers to when a White actor is made to Table 1  Asian Americans and television 1950s The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong (Anna May Wong) 1960s Green Hornet Star Trek (George Takei) 1970s Happy Days Kung Fu M*A*S*H Mr. T and Tina (Pat Morita) The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan (Keye Luke) (continued)

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Table 1  Asian Americans and television (continued) 1980s Gung Ho Happy Days Ohara (Pat Morita) 1990s All American Girl (Margaret Cho) Davis Rules Jackie Chan Adventures (James Sie) King Fu: The Legend Continues Martial Law (Sammo Hung) The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo (Irene Ng) Vanishing Son (Russell Wong) 2000s American Dragon: Jake Long (Dante Basco) Cashmere Mafia (Lucy Liu) Inconceivable (Ming-Na Wen) Samurai Girl (Jamie Chung) 2010s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Ming-Na) Andi Mack (Peyton Elizabeth Lee) Brown Nation (Majority of the cast) Beauty & the Beast (Kristin Kreuk) Dr. Ken (Ken Jeong) Elementary (Lucy Liu) Fresh off the Boat (Majority of the cast) Into the Badlands (Daniel Wu) Marry Me (Lucy Liu) Master of None (Aziz Ansari) Nikita (Protagonist portrayed by Maggie Q) Sanjay and Craig (Maulik Pancholy) Selfie (John Cho) Sullivan & Son (Steve Byrne) Supah Ninjas (Ryan Potter) The Mindy Project (Mindy Kaling) Quantico (Priyanka Chopra)



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appear on screen to be (East) Asian in bodily appearance and/or dress and attire. Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) is a classic example of this racist and xenophobic practice. Mickey Rooney, who is White, plays Mr. Yunioshi, a bucktoothed, squinty-eyed man whose voice is Japanese-accented. Doobo Shim writes, “During the 1920s, American screens were filled with Chinese crime-and-gangster characters. Chief among these villains was arguably the best-remembered figure, Fu Manchu” (1998, 389). Television shows have also produced Yellow Face portrayals of Asians. The Adventures of Dr. Fu Manchu was a syndicated American television series that aired in 1956. It was produced by Hollywood Television Service, a subsidiary of Republic Pictures. Glen Gordon, White, played Dr. Fu Manchu. Yellow Face continued to occur in television after The Adventures of Dr. Fu Manchu. Shim writes, “The TV program Kung Fu (1972–75) could have produced the first Asian heroic character played by an Asian actor. Action star Bruce Lee originally was to have starred in Kung Fu but was later denied the role because it was assumed that audiences were not ready to watch an Asian physically humiliating whites” (1998, 402). Scholars have written that television has historically been where anti-Asian American sentiments have been filtered through an imagination of whiteness. As scholars note, Yellow Face and television have long denied Asian Americans’ full humanity. Alongside Yellow Face is the practice of “Yellow Voice,” which is when a white actor performs “mock” East Asian, Yellow English, or Asian-accented English when s/he speaks. There are four hallmarks of Yellow Voice: 1. Substituting “L’s” for “R’s” 2. Omitting articles and particles like “the,” “this,” “that,” and “it” 3. Adding “ee” to the end of nouns or replacing the actual final consonant with “ee” (“ticket” becomes “tickee”) 4. Dropping the leading “A” from words (“about” becomes “bout”; “across” becomes “cross”; “away” becomes “way”; and so on) Yellow Voice is a form of linguistic dehumanization. What makes the practice so humiliating to Asian Americans is that it is supposedly done in humor or in jest. But the anti-Asian humor hurts Asian Americans because it makes them an “Other.” A similar history can be seen in the impersonation of South Asians. The Simpsons debuted during the 1989–1990 television season on FOX and remains wildly popular. The voice of Simpson character Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, an Indian immigrant, is played by Hank Azaria, a White man, who has won three Prime-time Emmy Awards for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance. While The Simpsons announced plans to change who was voicing Apu in 2020, Azaria has been rewarded professionally by the institutions of television and visual media for his racist voice-over. Apu’s accent, performed by Azaria, is a classic form of “Brown Voice.” The unfortunate truth is that Apu has stood the test of time. The South Asian owner of Kwik-E-Mart has been an integral part of The Simpsons cast, and his voice is what makes him easily identifiable. According to Shilpa Davé, “The performance of

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brown voice is adopted and used by South Asians and non-South Asians (most famously by Hank Azaria as the voice actor of Apu)” (Davé 2017, 143).

MODEL MINORITIES AND TELEVISION While historians have noted a decline in Yellow Face and other dehumanizing representations, other stereotypes have persisted. Asian Americans are now typically presented as “model minorities”—as smart, hardworking, and ideal immigrants. This is not unique to television as scholars have long noted that within dominant discourses Asian Americans are represented as model minorities. What this means is that Asian Americans are perceived in a more positive light than other minorities, such as African Americans or Latinxs. This “model minority” stereotype is commonly (mis)understood to be “positive” because Asian Americans are applauded for many of their actions and accomplishments that are seen positively. However, a body of research has established that the model minority myth has a negative impact on all races of people because it reinforces existing racial and cultural stereotypes and tropes. Important research has also delineated ways that the popular medias, including movies and television, reinforce this negative impact. For example, research has found that because movies and television represent Asian Americans in narrow and stereotyped ways, it is more difficult for Asian American actors to be cast for diverse acting roles. This same phenomenon has been found in television advertising (Taylor and Stern 1997). Taylor and Stern conducted a content analysis of more than 1,300 prime-time television advertisements to assess the frequency and nature of Asian American representation. They found that Asian Americans are more likely than members of other minority groups to appear in background roles and that Asian American women are rarely depicted in major roles. Dana Mastro and Susannah Stern analyzed the frequency, context, and quality of 2,315 speaking characters in a one-week sample of prime-time television commercials. They found that Asians appeared most commonly in ads for technology. They also found that while both Black and Latinx characters were most often located outdoors, Asians were most often found at work and Whites were most often at home. Scholars conclude that not only do the limited types of representation deny the diversity and humanity of Asian American communities but also limit opportunities for Asian American actors. Streaming Television has provided Asian Americans with increased exposure. Critics have celebrated shows like Master of None because they are providing opportunities for Asian Americans not only to star in but also to write and direct television shows that question and resist dominant paradigms and discourses. Moreover, shows like Master of None inspire discussion and dialogue. Commentators have argued that Master of None subversively breaks down emasculating stereotypes of Asian American males. For instance, in several episodes Dev Shah sleeps with white women. In “Plan B,” the first episode of season one, Dev has sex with a girl named Rachel. His condom breaks during sex, and he takes Rachel to get “Plan B.” In the fifth episode of season one—“The Other Man”—Dev sleeps with Nina, a food critic. Dev and Nina get caught in the act by Nina’s husband,



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“The Other Man.” Showing South Asians in relationships challenges long-standing representations of Asian American men as feminine, asexual, and not fully human. This new wave of television is also challenging other long-standing stereotypes. As Shilpa Davé points out, “in The Mindy Project and Master of None, neither of the main characters speaks with an Indian accent” (2017, 144). Yet, despite such changes, the lack of representations of Asian Americans on television persists, so does the infrequency of opportunities for Asian American artists, both in shows and behind the scenes. A 2016 report from the University of Southern California School for Communication and Journalism entitled “Inclusion or Invisibility?” found “at least half or more of all cinematic, television, or streaming stories fail to portray one speaking or named Asian or Asian American on screen” (Smith, Choueiti, and Pieper 2016, 7). Asian Americans still comprise only 1 percent of leading roles. Nicholas D. Hartlep and Nicholas Ozment Further Reading

Antony, Mary Grace. 2013. “‘Thank You for Calling’: Accents and Authenticity on NBCs Outsourced.” Journal of Intercultural Communication Research 42: 192–213. Chin, Christina, Meera Deo, Faustina DuCros, Jenny Lee, Noriko Milman, and Nancy Wang Yuen. 2017. Tokens on the Small Screen: Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Prime Time and Streaming Television. September. ­http://​­w ww​ .­aapisontv​.­com​/­uploads​/­3​/­8​/­1​/­3​/­38136681​/­aapisontv​.­2017​.­pdf. Dalisay, Francis, and Alexis Tan. 2009. “Assimilation and Contrast Effects in the Priming of Asian American and African American Stereotypes through TV Exposure.” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 86: 7–22. Davé, Shilpa. 2012. “Matchmakers and Cultural Compatibility: Arranged Marriage, South Asians, and American Television.” South Asian Popular Culture 10: 167–183. Davé, Shilpa. 2013. Indian Accents: Brown Voice and Racial Performance in American Television and Film. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Davé, Shilpa. 2017. “Racial Accents, Hollywood Casting, and Asian American Studies.” Cinema Journal 56 (3): 142–147. Farhi, Paul. 2011. “Asian Americans Face New Stereotype in Ads.” Washington Post. August 23. ­https://​­www​.­washingtonpost​.­com​/­lifestyle​/­style​/­asian​-­americans​-­face​ -­n ew​- ­s tereotype​- ­i n​- ­a ds​/ ­2 011​/ ­0 8​/­11​/­g IQAiMzvZJ​_ story​. ­h tml​? ­u tm​_ term​= ​ .­043b3830b58a. Gottschlich, Pierre. 2011. “Apu, Neela, and Amita: Stereotypes of Indian Americans in Mainstream TV Shows in the United States.” Internationales Asienforum 42: 279–298. Hamamoto, Darrell Y. 1994. Monitored Peril: Asian Americans and the Politics of TV Representation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Ito, Robert. 2014. “‘A Certain Slant’: A Brief History of Hollywood Yellowface.” May 2. ­http:// ​­b rightlightsfilm​.­c om ​/­c ertain​-­slant​-­b rief​-­h istory​-­hollywood​-­yellowface​ /#.­Wg37fLaZMdU. Kahn, Coco. 2017. “Goodness Gracious Me—Why Are There Still So Few Asian People on TV?” The Guardian, March 9. ­https://​­w ww​.­theguardian​.­com​/­commentisfree​ /­2017​/­mar​/­08​/­asians​-­on​-­british​-­t v​-­no​-­progress​-­actors​-­or​-­programmes. Kwak, Audrey. 2004. “Asian Americans in the Television Media: Creating Incentive for Change.” Boston College Third World Law Journal 24: 395–420.

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Mastro, D. E., and S. R. Stern. 2003. “Representations of Race in Television Commercials: A Content Analysis of Prime-Time Advertising.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 47 (4): 638–647. Popp, Olivia. 2017. “The Growth of Asian-American Representation through Streaming TV.” April 9. ­http://​­www​.­stanforddaily​.­com​/­2017​/­04​/­09​/­the​-­growth​-­of​-­asian​ -­american​-­representation​-­through​-­streaming​-­t v​/. Ramasubramanian, Srividya. 2011. “Television Exposure, Model Minority Portrayals, and Asian-American Stereotypes: An Exploratory Study.” Journal of Inter­cultural Communication, July. ­http://​­www​.­immi​.­se​/­intercultural​/­n r26​/­ramasubramanian​ .­htm. Shah, Hemant. 2003. “‘Asian Culture’ and Asian American Identities in the Television and Film Industries of the United States.” Studies in Media & Information Literacy Education 3: 1–10. Shim, Doobo. 1998. “From Yellow Peril through Model Minority to Renewed Yellow Peril.” Journal of Communication Inquiry 22: 385–409. Smith, Stacey L., Marc Choueiti, and Katherine Pieper. 2016. “Inclusion or Invisibility? Comprehensive Annenberg Report on Diversity in Entertainment (CARD).” ­http://​ ­a nnenberg​.­usc​.­edu​/­pages​/~​/­media​/ ­M DSCI​/­CARDReport​%­20FINAL​%­2022216​ .­ashx. Taylor, Charles R., and Barbara B. Stern. 1997. “Asian-Americans: Television Advertising and the ‘Model Minority’ Stereotype.” Journal of Advertising 26: 47–61. Wang, Grace. 2010. “A Shot at Half-Exposure: Asian Americans in Reality TV Shows.” Television & New Media 11: 404–427. Washington, Myra. 2012. “Interracial Intimacy: Hegemonic Construction of Asian American and Black Relationships on TV Medical Dramas.” Howard Journal of Communications 23: 253–271.

Atlanta (2016–) Premiering on September 6, 2016, on FX Networks, Atlanta was the brainchild of its creator Donald Glover. The show ended its second season on May 10, 2018, and was renewed for its third season soon thereafter. Donald Glover serves as executive producer alongside his brother Stephen Glover, Dianne McGunigle, and Paul Simms. The show has received widespread praise from critics and the Television Academy, winning two Primetime Emmy awards in 2017 for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and Outstanding Directing in a Comedy Series, both for Donald Glover. Atlanta also won the Golden Globe for Best Television Series— Musical or Comedy and Best Actor—Musical or Comedy in 2017. The show follows Earnest “Earn” Marks (Donald Glover), a Black Atlanta-raised Princeton dropout, as he reconnects with his cousin, Alfred Miles (Bryan Tyree Henry), who is experiencing a modicum of fame for his song “Paper Boi,” which is also his rap alias. Paper Boi is joined by his cerebral and sanguine friend, Darius Epps, played by Lakeith Stanfield. Rounding out the main cast is Vanessa “Van” Keefer (Zazie Beetz), who is his occasional bedfellow and the mother of Earn’s daughter, Lottie. The half-hour episodes resist formula, often dedicating entire episodes to only one of the major characters. The show’s pacing feels almost as if it is in real time,



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lingering on pauses in conversation and tracking its characters from one scene to the next. The show is also marked, though, by palpable surrealism. The pilot opens up with Darius experiencing déjà vu, and sure enough later in the episode the viewer is looped back to that opening scene, conveying a sense of the uncanny. Some critics have tied the show’s surrealism explicitly to the Black experience of being minoritized and, at times, experiencing erasure in a dominant white society; it can all feel like a dream. In the show’s pilot, Earn is seen riding the bus as he encounters a tall man dressed in a light brown suit sitting across from him who then, intuiting Earn’s preoccupations, wills Earn to speak to him of his troubles. The man then offers Earn some poignant advice before aggressively offering him a bite of his Nutella sandwich. As Earn is distracted by sirens, looking out the window momentarily, the man disappears. The scene is unsettling and comedic, and begs the question—was it real? The overall effect conveys a surrealism that sustains in tone throughout the show. Later, in episode seven (“B.A.N.”), viewers are taken to a fictitious talk show called Montague where Paper Boi appears as a guest. Interspersed throughout the interview (the episode) are fictitious infomercials, one of which features Ahmad White, the prophetic, Nutella sandwich-eating rider (Season one, episode seven, “B.A.N.” 2016). In this regard, Atlanta seems to honor the careful viewer but never goes to great lengths to explain away the surreal moments, leaving it as a signature of the show. On that same bus ride, Earn appeases the man in the suit and tells him how he is feeling: “I just keep losing,” he says. “I mean, some people just supposed to lose? A balance in the universe. I mean, like are there just some people on earth who supposed to be here just to make it easier for the winners?” [sic] (Pilot, “The Big Bang” 2016). It comes off nearly rhetorical, but Earn is searching for answers to his condition. Here and throughout the show’s tenure thus far, Atlanta links racial experience to capitalism, an economic system of winners and losers (i.e., racial capitalism) (Kelley 2017). From the onset, Atlanta is about money and the hustle to obtain it. Money is a constant force in the show; it is the underlying logic motivating characters and action. The show takes painstaking efforts to convey this, many times comically—like when Earn takes Van on a date to a restaurant and the server persistently encourages them to spend more money to the point Earn has to call his cousin to transfer some cash into his account; in another instance, Alfred goes to get a haircut at the barbershop and his barber, Bibby (Robert S. Powell), takes him along a prolonged adventure through the city in order to run some “errands” (the likes of which include cutting a boy’s hair and stealing some money from the mother’s purse and stealing lumber from a home construction site) to earn some money. Other times the action around the pursuit of money is dramatic and violent. The second season—dubbed “Robbin’ Season,” for the time before Christmas in Atlanta when robberies increase—highlights the strain of a capitalist economic system on its characters. Paper Boi’s longtime weed dealer in the second episode of the season robs him at gunpoint and, in episode eight of season two, three men who recognize Paper Boi as a successful rapper also physically threaten and assault him before he escapes.

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There exists a deep sense of economic malaise and underemployment in the show’s landscape. In the final scene of the show’s first season’s finale, we see that Earn is actually homeless and living in a friend’s storage unit. When Earn does work it is to promote Paper Boi as an artist. Using Atlanta, the eponymous city, as its landscape already invokes particular notions—a popularized hip-hop scene, a black majority city, a history moving from the plantation system of the antebellum South to the civil rights era—in many ways Atlanta is the star of the show. Reflecting this history and current demographics, nearly everyone in the show is black. White characters are few and far between, and when they do appear their class position in relation to the main characters’ is ever present. In season one’s “Juneteenth” episode, Earn and Van attend a Juneteenth celebration—the June 19th holiday celebrating the news of the Emancipation Proclamation reaching the state of Texas—at the estate of Monique (Cassandra Freeman), a rich Black lady whom Van knows and is using for her wide and well-to-do network, and her husband Craig (Rick Holmes), a White optometrist with an obsession for all things African diaspora. Earn and Van pretend to be more successful versions of themselves, lying that they are married and that Earn finished his Princeton degree. In one telling scene, Monique confesses to Van that the reason she puts up with Craig’s odd fetishism of black culture is because she gets “this big-ass house and he gets the Black wife he always wanted” (Season one, episode nine, “Juneteenth” 2016). The episode shows, again, that even Monique’s Black wealth is adjacent only to Craig’s. Van and Earn leave the party suddenly once Earn is discovered as Paper Boi’s manager by the valet, and Earn calls the party and its guests “dumb” as Monique insults Paper Boi and the rap industry as a whole. Some critics have discussed the ways in which Atlanta highlights the racial politics of the music industry, showing how American society “fetishizes ghetto cool but marginalizes the men who embody it” (Nussbaum 2016). Its importance in the show is not surprising given the success, importance, and popularity Glover has shown in hip-hop under the alias Childish Gambino. Childish Gambino Donald Glover performs music under the name Childish Gambino, mixing hip-hop, soul, and R & B. Childish Gambino was awarded the 2018 Grammy Award for Best Traditional R & B Performance for his song “Redbone.” On May 5, 2018, he released a music video for “This Is America,” directed by his longtime Atlanta collaborator, Hiro Murai, that showed Childish Gambino dancing alluringly in a large industrial space, distracting from the various people—mostly Black—being shot and killed. The gun violence gets increasingly deadlier, shots coming first from a small handgun and later from an automatic weapon. The video has been discussed as commentary on racialized gun violence in the United States, depicting scenes echoing the 2015 Charleston church shooting, where twenty-one-year-old White supremacist Dylann Roof shot and killed nine Black people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. After announcing his This Is America tour in 2018, Glover said he would be retiring his Childish Gambino act.



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Paper Boi’s rising stardom allows the show to depict how the productive forces of capital persist within the music industry. White people in the show are the owners of music as property. In the pilot, Earn tries to get Paper Boi’s song on the radio by going down to the station and talking to his friend Dave (Griffin Freeman), a White DJ who casually uses the N-word around Earn. When Dave refuses to take Paper Boi’s track from Earn and to play it, Earn uses a black custodian to help sneak him into the studio and slip the track under the door for Dave to play while on air. Dave does play it but is also surprised that Earn got through the doors. In the show, access to the airwaves and, later, streaming services and tours, are largely embodied by people like Dave, white gatekeepers involved in the monetization of rap music. Atlanta also allows its viewers to think about race anew. In the first season’s “Nobody Beats the Beibs,” Austin Crute, a black actor, is cast as Justin Bieber, the infamous white Canadian pop star. There is no explanation or discussion about his race and Crute performs Bieber as a tantrum-ridden, arrogant star. In another episode in the second season, “Teddy Perkins,” rife with slow-paced horror, Darius travels far outside the city’s center to pick up an old piano from an odd, soft-spoken man, Teddy Perkins, played by Donald Glover in whiteface. The uncanny valley invoked by Glover’s white minstrelsy reveals something intrinsic about how we think of the ocular element of race. Much of Atlanta allows viewers to think about what exactly race signifies, intricately playing with racial tropes all while placing race at the forefront. At its core Atlanta is a show about blackness in contemporary American society. It’s original style, pace, and themes will add to an oeuvre of television that narrates racial experience. Talib Jabbar Further Reading

Fernandez, Maria Elena. 2018. “Why Atlanta Season Two Is Called Robbin’ Season.” Vulture, January 5. ­http://​­www​.­v ulture​.­c om​/ ­2 018​/­01​/­a tlanta​- ­s eason​- ­t wo​- ­r obbin​ -­season​-­how​-­it​-­got​-­its​-­name​.­html. Kelley, Robin D. G. 2017. “What Did Cedric Robinson Mean by Racial Capitalism?” Boston Review, January 12. ­http://​­bostonreview​.­net​/­race​/­robin​-­d​-­g​-­kelley​-­what​-­did​ -­cedric​-­robinson​-­mean​-­racial​-­capitalism. Nussbaum, Emily. 2016. “The Slo-Mo Specificity of ‘Atlanta.’” The New Yorker, September 19. ­https://​­www​.­newyorker​.­com​/­magazine​/­2016​/­09​/­19​/­the​-­slo​-­mo​-­specificity​ -­of​-­atlanta. Stephen, Bijan. 2018. “Atlanta Dreaming.” Dissent, Summer. ­https://​­w ww​.­dissentmagazine​ .­org​/­article​/­atlanta​-­review​-­donald​-­glover​-­dreams​-­black​-­life​-­america.

B Banks, Tyra(1973–) Tyra Lynne Banks was born in Inglewood, California, on December 4, 1973. Banks made a name for herself as the first African American woman to be featured on the cover of GQ magazine and the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated. The supermodel has become a popular television personality best known for creating the successful reality competition program and worldwide franchise America’s Next Top Model (UPN, 2003–2006; The CW, 2006–2015; VH1, 2016). Through the series and other business ventures, she has become one of the most enterprising and influential Black women moguls of the twenty-first century by cultivating a globally recognized lifestyle brand. TV viewers first caught a glimpse of Banks on the small screen in her appearance in the final frames of icon Michael Jackson’s 1991 Black or White music video. Her television acting career began two years later with a guest starring role on episodes of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990–1996) as Jackie Ames, Will Smith’s childhood friend from Philadelphia. On the sitcom, she showed off her comedic talents as Smith’s sparring partner-turned-potential love interest. The role led to other bit parts in television programs and also films such as John Singleton’s Higher Learning (1995) and Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Love and Basketball (2000). She then went on to be featured opposite Lindsay Lohan in the made-for-TV Disney movie Life-Size (2000). The movie follows middle-schooler Casey (Lohan) as her Barbie-like doll Eve (Banks) is magically brought to life. Banks portrays a nearly perfect woman who must navigate her newfound humanness and her performance benefits from her experience as a model. Banks would become a television star as host and primary judge on the reality television series America’s Next Top Model (ANTM). The show was developed by the supermodel, who also served as executive producer of the series for over ten years. Each season or “cycle,” the program brought together a group of aspiring models who all competed for the title of “America’s Top Model.” Every episode featured a themed photoshoot that was judged by a panel of experts; over the years, the panel included supermodels such as Janice Dickinson and Twiggy, photographer Nigel Barker, fashion magazine editor André Leon Talley, and, most notably, runway coach J. Alexander (Miss J). Along with creative director Jay Manuel, the judges provided critiques of the contestants and also sometimes got into heated arguments among themselves over feedback. Despite the entertaining ensemble, the show revolved around Banks and her quest to impart knowledge of the cutthroat fashion industry to the fresh-faced modeling hopefuls. Such knowledge included not only giving advice about networking and booking gigs but also learning Banks’s own modeling techniques. Indeed, she taught models her playful

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lexicon: how to “smize” (smile with one’s eyes) for the camera and to “booty tooch” (push one’s butt into the air) in photoshoots. Overall, she considered herself a mentor to the women in their professional and personal endeavors. From the start, ANTM championed diverse representation across race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and gender. Notably, the show embraced body positivity through the concerted effort to incorporate plus-sized models. While the reality television series continually attempted to chart new ground around questions of identity, a memorable moment during Cycle 4 speaks to the potential pitfalls of Banks’s political agenda. When Tiffany Richardson, one of the aspiring models whose storylines focused on her being a young Black mother, appears to be unfazed by going home after her elimination, Tyra explodes in anger. She screams: “I have never in my life yelled at a girl like this! I was rooting for you; we were all rooting for you. How dare you! You go to bed at night, you lay there, you take responsibility for yourself, because no one will take responsibility for you!” The scene admonishing the contestant reflected Banks’s desire to enrich the lives of those deemed less fortunate through tough love. Her performance of blackness, complete with a noticeable change in accent, signified her relationship to African American culture for viewers. Yet she also promoted a sense of individualism that did not recognize systemic issues that affect Black experience. The series and Banks also made headlines over a controversial racially charged photoshoot during Cycle 13. In the ninth episode of the petite-model-focused season, Banks herself photographed the contestants in a shoot in Hawaii that required them to portray two different ethnic heritages as a purported “homage” to Hawaiian mixed-race culture. Thus, most of the remaining models had to don makeup that darkened their skin. After public criticism, Banks apologized during a monologue on her syndicated daytime talk show: “What we thought was a celebration turned out to be . . . very negative in some of the press and a lot of them were even saying that it was a form of racism. I want to be very clear—I, in no way, put my ‘Top Models’ in blackface.” This offense among other sensitive situations reflects the tension between the show’s often transformative goals and propensity to fetishize particular identities. For her part, Banks is confident in her own racial and gender identity. She stated further: “I’m a black woman. I am proud. I love my people and the struggle that we have gone through continues and the last thing that I would ever do is be a part of something that degraded my race.” Her continued celebrity exhibits such a labor of self-presentation that takes into account categories of difference. Banks frequently utilized The Tyra Banks Show (2005–2010) as a platform to discuss social issues, the politics of inclusion and exclusion, and the diversity of beauty: “Her show often dwells on race and race relations, especially when and where those subjects touch on the lives of women, and it often cuts against convention” (Guterl 2013, 50). The program won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show Informative two years in a row with its Oprah-like interview approach. Banks became a voice of inspiration to an array of young women dealing with relevant issues concerning relationships in a variety of contexts such as school and family life.



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In addition to ANTM and The Tyra Banks Show, her Bankable Productions company developed three short-lived television series: the reality programs Stylista (2008) and True Beauty (2009–2010) as well as the lifestyle talk show FABLife (2015–2016). Banks returned to acting in 2016 with a guest starring role on the hit sitcom Black-ish (2014) as pop star Gigi, the childhood best friend of Dre (Anthony Anderson). In 2017, she replaced entertainer Nick Cannon as host of NBC’s America’s Got Talent (2006). Rejoining ANTM for its twenty-fourth cycle, Banks solidified herself as a lucrative presence on television and as an African American woman whose ubiquity across media forms is a testament to her entrepreneurial spirit. Brandy Monk-Payton Further Reading

“The Girl Who Pushes Tyra over the Edge.” 2005. America’s Next Top Model, season four, episode seven, April 13, on UPN. Guterl, Matthew Pratt. 2013. Seeing Race in Modern America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. “Let’s Go Surfing.” 2009. America’s Next Top Model, season thirteen, episode nine, directed by Allison Chase, October 28, on The CW. “Tyra Banks Finally Addresses ‘Top Model’ Bi-Racial Photo Shoot Controversy.” 2009. Access Hollywood, November 19. ­https://​­www​.­accesshollywood​.­com​/­articles​/­tyra​ -­banks​-­finally​-­addresses​-­top​-­model​-­bi​-­racial​-­photo​-­shoot​-­controversy​-­78957​/. Weber, Brenda. 2009. Makeover TV: Selfhood, Citizenship, and Celebrity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Barney Miller (1975–1982) Barney Miller was a U.S. television situation comedy set in a New York City police department in Greenwich Village. Its ratings were substantial enough to keep the show on the air from January 23, 1975, to May 20, 1982, on the ABC network. The network claimed they had a sympathetic audience, comprised of many police officers. The show’s “action,” such as it was, took place almost totally within the confines of a fictional detectives’ squad room and in Captain Barney Miller’s office, situated next door. Most episodes featured the detectives bringing in suspects to the squad room. There were varied subplots, usually focusing on one or two detectives in any episode. There were no speeding car chases, shoot-outs with bad guys, or courtroom dramas. Generally, once or twice a year, an episode would feature some of the detectives working outside the precinct, at their homes or perhaps on a stakeout. The cast was led by Hal Linden as Captain Barney Miller. Almost as prominent was Abe Vigoda as Sgt. Philip Fish. Viewers might feel like Vigoda was on the show from beginning to end, but he left after the third season to pursue a spin-off of his character. He returned from his show to appear with some regularity on Barney Miller, insisting that retirement just wasn’t for him. Gregory Sierra was on

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the show for one season. Regulars on the show included Steve Landesberg, Max Gail, Ron Glass, Jack Soo, and Ron Carey. The show relied heavily on stereotypical portrayals. There were three Jewish American actors in the cast: Linden, Vigoda, and Steve Landesberg. Vigoda and Linden played Jewish American characters as well. Linden was the captain of detectives and was like the rabbinical, gentle advisor to the other characters when they were having personal or professional problems. Almost as an aside, his character worried about a promotion, which eluded him until the final season. Abe Vigoda, with his facial appearance similar to a worn-out bloodhound, played the old, Jewish kvetch. Everything in life was a target for complaints, from bathroom habits to his aching back and, of course, his marriage. Viewers never saw his wife but felt they knew her from Sgt. Fish’s one-sided telephone conversations with her. Steve Landesberg played Sgt. Arthur Dietrich, a man with a very dry wit and maddingly endless supply of information on every topic that came up in conversations. Dietrich was a German American but that was one topic that rarely, if ever, garnered any notice. On the show, he was pegged as the intellectual in the bunch, although the character played by Ron Glass could give him a run for his money on occasion. A fourth officer, played by Italian American Ron Carey, was supposed to be a Jewish character named Officer Carl Levitt. He was painfully aware of his short stature (5′4″). He believed his lack of a regular height was the cause of his failing to pass promotional exams. He was always begging Captain Miller for a promotion but doing it in a mildly passive-aggressive manner. Levitt was depicted as a fat, dumb, racist Irish cop. Eventually Levitt morphed into a hard-working officer, and finally, near the end of the show, he was promoted to detective. Max Gail played detective Stanley Thaddeus “Wojo” Wojciehowicz. Promotional material from ABC stated Wojo was a White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP). However, Max Gail’s character was played as Polish Catholic. Gail was rather intimidating physically, and viewers were sometimes reminded that his character was an ex-Marine. He was not particularly obnoxious in his view of the world but could seem to be disconnected from real life. Wojo was the classic “dumb Polack,” slow on the uptake and seemed to often be mystified by situations and people in the squad room. He took the Sergeant’s exam four times, finally passing on his fifth try and was promoted in the fourth season. He really thought a hooker just needed an offer of life off the street to be happy and was bewildered when the one in question turned down his suggestion that he could be her knight in shining armor. Wojo struggled with his overt homophobia, worrying that being in the same room as a homosexual might affect his own macho self-image. The homophobic jokes hung around for several seasons, although Wojo seemed to soften his stance considerably as the show progressed. In keeping with the times (mid-1970s), one of the funnier episodes involved Wojo’s girlfriend baking brownies for the squad and lacing them with hashish. The predictable jokes ensued. Ron Glass played the character Sgt. Ron Nathan Harris, the black officer who dressed in “uptown,” somewhat pimpish outfits, yet openly prided himself on being a terrific dresser by pointing out his clothing to others, and by strutting



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around like a peacock. Sgt. Harris could give Sgt. Dietrich a run for his money on the intellectual circuit but rarely cared to do so. Harris was a bit flaky, sometimes more focused on the book he wrote entitled Blood on the Badge than on his day job. The erudite Sgt. would use prim and “proper” English when needed but then would use a kind of black street vernacular, depending on the situation. His character was an amalgam of contradictions, probably stemming from the Jewish writers on the show, who seemed never to meet a stereotype they didn’t love. Jack Soo, a Japanese American, played Sgt. Nick Yemana. Yemana did not escape the stereotypical portrayal of his character. He was a philosophical man (break out the fortune cookies), very laid back yet contributing wise-cracking jokes when needed. Yemana had a gambling problem, was unbelievably bad at filing paperwork, and traditionally made horrid coffee for the squad. Soo was on the show from the beginning but died from cancer on January 11, 1979. The cast broke from their characters at the end of season five and delivered eulogies to Soo for a half-hour retrospective of “best of” clips of Soo on the show. Hal Linden said the show would go on but would be difficult with Soo gone. The show ended with the cast raising their coffee cups in tribute to Soo. In real life Soo was interred, with his family at the Tanforan Assembly in San Francisco, later moving to the Topaz Relocation Center in Utah. Gregory Sierra was not a regular in the show, but from 1975 to 1976, he played Sgt. Miguel “Chano” Amanguale. Sierra, a Puerto Rican, had the rapid-fire delivery and has been described as a beleaguered sergeant, but his character was not well developed. He was described by the network as very emotionally attached to his job. Again, his short tenure on the show did not allow viewers much time to get to know Sierra’s character. There were a number of guest stars who appeared on the show, among them were a very young Todd Bridges, Marla Gibbs, Roscoe Lee Browne, Linda Lavin, and Barbara Barrie. Barrie played Barney Miller’s wife, Elizabeth, from 1975 to 1976, then was seen sporadically. She had a recurring role as heard, not seen, when Barney calls home from time to time. Lavin is a gung-ho Detective Wentworth. She acts like the rookie she is, very eager to please Barney and proves to be competent as a cop. While the network bragged about the overall kindness of the show, stating that this racially diverse crew never directed racist jokes at one another, and others celebrated the show for its progressive thinking, still others questioned the show for the absence of representation of women and persistent stereotypes. Yet, the show’s significance can be seen in how it served as a bridge between an era that focused on socially relevant shows and those that were simply about entertainment. Maria Elena Raymond Further Reading

Associated Press. 2016. “Ron Glass, Emmy-Nominated Actor Best Known for ‘Barney Miller,’ Has Died at 71.” NPR, November 26. ­https://​­www​.­npr​.­org​/­2016​/­11​/­26​ /­503456787​/­ron​-­glass​- ­emmy​-­nominated​-­actor​-­best​-­k nown​-­for​-­barney​-­miller​-­has​ -­died​-­at​-­71.

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Cooper, Gael Fashingbauer. 2011. “They Don’t Make Cop Shows Like ‘Barney Miller’ Anymore.” Today, October 24. ­https://​­www​.­today​.­com​/­popculture​/­they​-­dont​-­make​ -­cop​-­shows​-­barney​-­miller​-­any​-­more​-­1C9434326. Ghosh, Palash. 2014. “Barney Miller: Forty Years Later, the Most Intelligent, Literate US Sitcom Ever.” International Business Times, February 19. ­https://​­www​.­ibtimes​ .­c om​/­barney​-­m iller​-­forty​-­years​-­later​-­most​-­i ntelligent​-­l iterate​-­u s​-­sitcom​-­ever​ -­1556406. “Jack Soo, 63, Actor in ‘Barney Miller’ He Was Sgt. Yemana in Television Series— Appeared in Movies.” 1979. New York Times, January 13. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​ .­com​/­1979​/­01​/­13​/­archives​/­jack​-­soo​- ­63​-­actor​-­in​-­barney​-­miller​-­he​-­was​-­sgt​-­yemana​ -­in​-­television​.­html.

Benson (1979–1986) Benson premiered on September 13, 1979, concluding its prime-time run on ABC on April 19, 1986. Benson was the sophomore outing for the Witt-Thomas-Harris Company, after their groundbreaking television series Soap, which aired from 1977 to 1981. Benson starred celebrated Broadway actor Robert Guillaume in the title role that originated on the series Soap. Guillaume is one of a few actors who has won Primetime Emmys in different categories for playing the same character on different series. Guillaume won an Emmy in 1979 for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy for playing Benson on Soap, and another in 1985 for Outstanding Leading Actor in a Comedy in the series Benson. The role of Benson attracted controversy during the run of Soap, as he and the show were criticized for perpetuating the stereotype of the Black servant. Others argued otherwise, claiming a paradigm shift with the Benson character. In fact, Susan Harris, the show’s creator, imagined Benson (and all the characters on Soap) within the context of a highly stylized genre—a biting, satirical parody—in the experimental vein of early modernism. Benson, a Black butler who is ostensibly a “straight man” to a household of dysfunctional comic characters, still provoked the controversy through the Benson years. Several publications continued to refer to Benson as a butler, despite narrative evidence to the contrary: In episode thirteen of the first season, Benson was faced with an uprising when the domestics went on strike. The German chef Kraus (Inga Swenson) barks, “He’s management. Don’t trust him.” Yet, these debates and notoriety speak to the courage and the ways that the show embraced its artistic role within this post–civil rights movement. Benson deliberately made viewers self-consciously aware at all times of the show’s conceits and devices. Therefore, the show’s status as a “sitcom” was always in question, due to its reflexivity and subversion. Benson was a striking departure from Soap. It was a traditional screwball sitcom, with self-contained storylines that were brought to a conclusion each week, in contrast to Soap’s serialized format. The premise was contrived to segue-way the character into a new environment without much exposition. In the wake of the unexpected demise of the First Lady, Benson takes over as Director of Household Affairs for a governor who is a relative of his ex-employer on Soap. Today, the



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position might be called “mansion superintendent” or “residential manager.” Most important, Benson’s new job was one in which advancement is likely. For Robert Guillaume, this was a central message of the series. “In all honesty and candor and modesty, I always wanted the character to have that kind of upward mobility, because it mirrored the American dream” (Kastor 1985). Benson was television’s first buppie. In addition to Kraus, surrounding Benson are the clueless Governor Gatling played by James Noble, his adolescent daughter (Missy Gold), and the conniving Chief of Staff Clayton, played by Broadway veteran Rene Aubérjonois beginning in the second season. When Benson arrives, the Governor’s mansion is awash in red ink, and it is up to him to establish some order. The environment of Benson is different from Soap’s. The manic Tate household was for Benson a comic version of Sartre’s hell in the play No Exit, with its infamous the last line: “hell is other people.” Conversely, the Governor’s mansion is place of hope and possibilities, where its wacky inhabitants have an outward concern, i.e., the state of the State, compared to the self-absorbed inmates on Soap. In Benson’s third season, Governor Gatling appoints Benson as the State Budget Director. For the next three seasons, financial malfeasance in politics becomes a recurring theme, with Benson battling corruption. In season six, Benson discovers that the lieutenant governor is taking bribes, which prompts his decision to run for the newly vacant position. Race is always part of the discussion when scholars and critics examine Benson. While the show itself offers little context for it, the sum total of its characters, narrative elements, and the trajectory of the African American main character synergized discussion of race into dramatic form, typifying McLuhan’s maxim that “the medium is the message.” When asked about the social purpose of the series, Guillaume replies, “If for no other reason than to simply say that we’re not all the same.” For six years, Benson held onto solid ratings, despite its difficult timeslot. Still, its star was not adequately compensated. Guillaume’s salary was staggeringly less than that of other leading actors on hit network shows; some of his peers made ten times what he earned for each episode. In the interview for this entry, Guillaume recounts that his attorneys advised him to “go on vacation” until they renegotiated his contract. Not moved, the production company sued Guillaume, although they eventually paid the actor a salary commensurate with his status as star of a hit series, leading him to return to work. Soon thereafter, with the seventh season, the show’s focus turned to Benson’s run for governor. However, with Witt-Thomas-Harris’s sale of its next series The Golden Girls to NBC, ABC abruptly cancelled Benson, severing of all ties with the producers. The election night episode never aired. In 1986, after seven seasons, Benson ended in limbo, proving that network politics are the strangest bedfellows of all. Dianah E. Wynter Further Reading

Beck, Marilyn. 1980. “‘Benson’ Star Surprised by ABC Suit.” San Bernardino County Sun, August 2.

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D’Addario, Daniel. 2014. “Surprise! ‘Benson’ Filmed Three Endings—Find Out Which One Was Most Likely.” March 19. ­http://​­www​.­salon​.­com​/­2014​/­03​/­19​/­surprise​ _benson​_filmed​_three​_endings​_find​_out​_which​_one​_was​_most​_likely​/. Kastor, Elizabeth. 1985. “Benson, off the Laugh Track: Robert Guillaume: Caution, Character & Now, an Emmy.” Washington Post, B1. McKelvey, Wallace. 2014. “Life inside the Governor’s Residence: A Look Behind the Doors of the First Family’s Home.” ­PennLive​.­com, December 14. ­http://​­www​ .­pennlive​.­com​/­politics​/­index​.­ssf​/­2014​/­12​/­life​_inside​_the​_ governors​_resi​.­html.

Beulah (1950–1952) Beulah was a situation comedy that aired on ABC television for three seasons from 1950 to 1952. The show originally ran as a radio program on CBS radio from 1945 to 1954. Hattie McDaniel became the first African American woman to star in a network radio show when she took the role of Beulah on CBS radio. McDaniel then played the character on ABC television. However, Ethel Waters would play the role during its first season, making Waters the first African American actress to star in a network television show with Beulah. Louise Beavers was the third actress to play the television part of Beulah, after McDaniel left the show due to illness. Beulah, along with The Amos ‘n’ Andy Show (CBS, 1951–1953), transitioned from radio to television and featured Black actors and actresses for the first time in network history. In the television series, the character of Beulah Brown worked as a housekeeper and cook for a white married couple, Harry and Alice Henderson. According to historian Franklin Hughes (2016), “Beulah depicted a common stereotype of a Mammy domestic whose life and situations revolved around her service to white households and her comedic relief to white Americans.” The character, in fact, was created and first portrayed on radio by White male actors such as Marlin Hurt and Bob Corley. J. Fred MacDonald, in Blacks and White TV, maintains that Beulah was simply “a portly, conscientious, and lovable stereotype of the black domestic” (1992, 24). For some historians and cultural critics, Black sitcoms were considered spaces wherein whites could assuage concerns over Black achievement. While the stereotypical underpinnings of the Beulah character are seldom disputed, a number of scholars highlight the context in which actresses had to portray Beulah. In his article, “From Blackface to Beulah,” Mack Scott comments that at the same time that southern whites would only tolerate stereotypical portrayals of black Americans on television, national organizations, such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), rejected such portrayals and pressed for more “positive” depictions. This context was challenging for Black actresses, with some people maintaining that the task for these performers was actually to instill humanity into characters clearly written to be stereotypical. In this regard, Scott notes that Hattie McDaniel’s depiction of Beulah showed a woman who was “not the slow-witted deferential character of black women prevalent in contemporary American media” (2014, 744). Instead, McDaniel deployed “subtle acts that repudiated long-standing racial stereotypes of black life.” The



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fact that many Black Americans, in addition to White Americans, watched and enjoyed the show supports Scott’s view of the character, for as he notes, “the reality [was] that early black sitcoms communicated much more than racial degradation to their mixed audiences” and “supporters found something redeeming and universal in the characters” (2014, 745). In this light, others point out that within her role as domestic worker, Beulah was known as “the queen of the kitchen” and that she was able to solve problems that the white family could not. These facts also place her outside of a simple stereotype. Regarding Ethel Waters’s performance as Beulah, Donald Bogle remarks that she “endowed the show with a subtext that made Beulah far more than it appeared on the surface” (qtd. in Scott 2014, 745). Finally, Scott cautions that “to simply dismiss early black sitcoms as racist reverence to antiquated ideologies . . . not only misrepresents the differing ways in which many people interpreted these shows, but it also ignored the assertiveness of the black actors” (2014, 750). Sitcoms featuring black actors in the 1950s broke ground for the black family sitcoms that appeared next in the 1970s. These shows included Good Times (1974– 1979), Sanford and Son (1972–1977), and The Jeffersons (1975–1985). In 1974 alone, these three shows were among the highest ranked on network television (all ranked in the top ten). While these shows were also open to particular racial critiques, they nonetheless stand as some of the most popular and impactful shows in American network television. Mary K. Bloodsworth-Lugo Further Reading

Bogle, Donald. 2002. Primetime Blues: African Americans on Network Television. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Coleman, Robin R. Means. 1998. African American Viewers and the Black Situation Comedy: Situating Racial Humor. New York: Routledge. Hughes, Franklin. 2016. “The Marlin Hurt and the Beulah Show.” Jim Crow Museum, May. ­https://​­ferris​.­edu​/ ­HTMLS​/­news​/­jimcrow​/­question​/­2016​/­may​.­htm. Jones, Jae. 2017. “Ethel Waters, First Black Actress to Star in a TV Sitcom ‘The Beulah Show.’” Black Then, March 15. ­https://​­blackthen​.­com​/­ethel​-­waters​-­first​-­black​ -­actress​-­to​-­star​-­in​-­a​-­t v​-­sitcom​-­the​-­beulah​-­show​/. MacDonald, J. Fred. 1992. Blacks and White TV: African Americans in Television since 1948. 2nd ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing. Nittle, Nadra Kareem. 2018. “7 Network Television Shows Starring Black Women.” Thought Co., March 23. ­https://​­www​.­thoughtco​.­com​/­network​-­television​-­shows​ -­starring​-­black​-­women​-­2834722. Scott, Mack. 2014. “From Blackface to Beulah: Subtle Subversion in Early Black Sitcoms.” Journal of Contemporary History 49 (September 8): 743–769. ­http://​­journals​ .­sagepub​.­com​/­doi​/­abs​/­10​.­1177​/­0022009414538473.

Big Bang Theory, The CBS piloted The Big Bang Theory (TBBT) in 2006. After it officially went on air in September of 2007, it quickly became one of the network’s most successful, internationally syndicated sitcoms to air in prime time. In this smash hit, writers

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and creators Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady provide viewers with a glimpse inside the lives of four young scientists named Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki), Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons), Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg), and Rajesh (Raj) Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar). As part of the “Nerd Chic” trend, which glamorizes all things “nerdy” or “geeky,” TBBT features these four socially inept, unconventionally attractive, and otherwise emasculated men living in Pasadena, California. The group is often shown patronizing the local comic book store, playing video games, designing science experiments in their offices and homes, and occasionally interacting with celebrity scientists and sci-fi actors such as Stephen Hawking, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Wil Wheaton, and Leonard Nimoy. During the pilot episode, a young, attractive, street-smart, aspiring actress named Penny moves into the apartment across the hall from Leonard and Sheldon, and an unlikely friendship blossoms between her and the four guys. This is just one example of how opposites often attract in sitcoms. While their story has captured the hearts of U.S. Americans and fans worldwide, some have come to question the show’s portrayal and representation of women, people of color, and other marginalized groups. In the early seasons of TBBT, Penny (Kaley Cuoco) is the only major female character to make a regular appearance in the show. Some critics argued that her portrayal highlighted sexist and misogynist perspectives, as she was often characterized as being an ignorant and sexually promiscuous airhead. In an attempt to correct this imbalance, characters such as Leslie Winkle (Sara Gilbert), Stephanie Barnett (Sara Rue), and Priya Koothrappali (Aarti Mann) were introduced into the cast as love interests for Leonard between 2007 and 2010, but their presence was relatively short-lived. In 2009, microbiologist Bernadette Rostenkowski (Melissa Rauch) came to the show as a friend of Penny’s and a potential love interest for Howard. Shortly thereafter, neuroscientist Amy Farrah-Fowler (Mayim Bialik) was introduced as a love interest for Sheldon. Both Bernadette and Amy are portrayed as highly intelligent and strong-willed career women, and they became part of the core cast, bringing some balance to the cast that was otherwise dominated Comedy, or Casual Racism? Rajesh (Raj) Koothrappali, in addition to being the only person of color in the main cast, is also singled out in other ways throughout the course of the series. Romance is one key theme in TBBT, with a majority of screen time devoted to displaying and discussing the relationships between Penny and Leonard, Howard and Bernadette, and Amy and Sheldon. While all three other men in the original main cast find and maintain a love interest, Raj is often portrayed as being straight, single, in an unhappy/unfulfilling relationship, and/or in a “bro-mance” (a sex-less romance between two men) with Howard. Additionally, Raj’s social group often overshadow and negate his career achievements, question his sexuality (often calling him “gay” and making homophobic jokes about him), and assign him to portray the least popular super-heroes (like Aquaman) at Comic-con, thus reaffirming his status as “other.” While some critics argue that these are just examples of comedic storytelling, others argue that they are examples of casual racism.



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by men. Some critics still argue that their presence reaffirms harmful gender stereotypes regarding heteronormativity (the assumption that everyone is straight, which guides social interaction), body image, and whiteness (the privilege afforded to people perceived to be white). Others have challenged the show for its lack of diversity and for its “punch-line racism” (Manavis 2018). Although strides have been made to diversify the gender composition of the main cast, the cast remains almost exclusively White and straight. Raj, an Indian-American, is the only main character who is a person of color, and a majority of the other characters of color have a direct, familiar relationship to Raj. As previously mentioned, Raj’s sister, Priya, is introduced as a love interest for Leonard during Season 3, but Raj’s parents also make occasional appearances (via Skype, as they still live in India) throughout the series to instruct Raj about how he should be living his life in the States. In addition to this lack of racial and ethnic diversity, all characters (main or otherwise) are explicitly declared straight. Indeed, the cast appears to be relatively homogeneous as they are shown living and working in Pasadena. Despite this lack of diversity, Big Bang Theory has enjoyed significant critical acclaim, largely due to its ability to balance novel topics like sci-fi and science with more universally relatable topics like love, family, and work. Amanda N. Brand Further Reading

Carr, David. 2007. “Nerd Chic Arrives on TV.” The New York Times, October 8. ­https://​ ­w ww​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2007​/­10​/­08​/ ­business​/­media​/­08carr​.­html. Manavis, Sarah. 2018. “The Big Bang Theory Is a Plague on Society – We Should Rejoice in Its Overdue End.” The New Statesman, August 23. ­https://​­www​.­newstatesman​ .­com​/­culture​/­t v​-­radio​/­2018​/­08​/ ­big​-­bang​-­theory​-­plague​-­society​-­we​-­should​-­rejoice​ -­its​-­overdue​-­end. Sharma, Meg. 2018. “Casual Racism in TV Affects All of Us.” Gair Rhydd. ­http://​ ­cardiffstudentmedia​.­co​.­uk ​/­gairrhydd ​/­casual​-­racism​-­in​-­t v​-­affects​-­all​-­of​-­us​/.

Black Entertainment Television(BET) Launched January 25, 1980, by former cable lobbyist Robert Louis Johnson, Black Entertainment Television (BET) has been an important source of Black representation, voice, and institutional power. Yet, bearing the burden of blackness in a television landscape routinely devoid of such representations, the network has also faced ample criticism over the years. Black Americans spend more time watching television than any other group of television consumers (Hunt 2005, 21). Nielson Rating numbers consistently demonstrate that black people watch a lot of television. Historians have noted that the rise of BET demonstrates the ways that representation matters. More important, the precipitous rise of the cable network and its eventual sale to media giant Viacom in 2000 for $3 billion dollars suggests that representation and the successful pursuit of Black audiences and broader audiences interested in Black culture can be monetized and holds significant value.

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Black audiences represent 14 percent of households consuming television, or nearly thirty-eight million viewers aged two and older. Black television usage far outpaces viewing in other households throughout the United States, and Black households have a higher percentage of multiple television sets. Most germane to the rise of BET, 72 percent of viewing for Black children goes toward cable. Black teens and Black men of all ages watch a disproportionate amount of cable programming relative to their market share. Observing the successes in both print and radio of capturing Black markets, Robert Johnson sought to reproduce a similar business model through cable television. Johnson often cited the success of magazines like Ebony in harnessing the potential of Black buying power for outlets willing to cater to Black audiences who had been historically ignored and underrepresented as well as their advertisers in explaining the logic behind BET. With the clear potential of Black buying power evident in other mediums, Johnson procured a $15,000 bank loan and enlisted the help of white cable magnate John Malone who provided an additional $500,000 as well as business advice that Johnson followed throughout his career with BET. Viewing himself primarily as a businessman, Johnson achieved his primary goal of becoming a billionaire. Johnson did in fact become the first Black billionaire in the United States. In addition, BET became the first Black-owned company on the New York Stock Exchange in 1991. Although he created the first Black owned-and operated cable company, Johnson had little interest in raising the quality of the programming that BET offered to Black communities, despite their loyalty to BET according to Forbes editor and biographer Brett Pulley. Cheap programming and much programming that many critics suggest advanced antiBlack stereotypes served as useful vehicles for profit. Publicly heeding and espousing the mantra of “get the revenues up and keep your costs down”—without concern for potential social and cultural consequences permeated BET and, for many scholars, explained its growth. Following the advice of Malone, BET found early success by purchasing broadcasting rights to reruns of Black sitcoms like The Jeffersons (1975–1985), and more importantly, a heavy reliance upon the airing of free music videos of Black recording artists. BET routinely projected itself as a laboratory for up-and-coming and often off-color comedy as well as airing music videos that were widely criticized for their debasement of women, the glamorization of conspicuous consumption, and the advancement of antiblack stereotypes. In order to profit, BET relied primarily upon the rotation of music videos and other low-cost, recycled programming in order to offset relatively low subscriber and advertising rates. The BET model worked financially, but the social costs of the model are now central to the network’s contentious legacy. To be sure, BET entered a media apparatus and successfully navigated a landscape that undervalued black audiences and consumers. The confines of media shape and limit what audiences consume regarding representations of blackness. In fact, Johnson and BET have long held up this limitation as a defense for their business model and choices in programming. That Johnson changed the original name from Black Entertainment Television to BET to appease cable operators is instructive. Critics point to the network’s willingness to acquiesce as part of the



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problem, while Johnson and BET executives have repeatedly argued their choices were necessary in order to survive and thrive in a media landscape long inhospitable to media targeting or representing Black people. Johnson contended that BET bore an unfair burden: “We are the only Black network in town, so everybody has poured their burdens and obligations on BET” (Warner 2013, 318). However, because BET served as the primary vehicle for Black culture and representation on television, many have asked what it owed its Black audience that undergirded the network’s success. Critics argue that BET ignored the social and cultural costs at the expense of the audience and culture that built the network into a highly coveted, multi-billion-dollar commodity by 2000. Beretta E. Smith-Shomade interrogates and critiques whether BET fulfilled what many perceive as an obligation to black communities and audiences since the network’s inception in her pathbreaking work, Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy: Selling Black Entertainment Television. Central to her critique is the paradox of Black expectations for BET set against the realities of market capitalism and BET’s business model. Smith-Shomade poses questions that are central to the contested legacy of BET: How did BET define and portray blackness? Has it changed the way black citizens see themselves and the way others see them? Does the financial success of the network built on a model that many contend succeeded in large part via representations deemed offensive and problematic by many Black communities come at the expense of the network’s Black audience and Black communities more broadly? As one might guess from the title, Smith-Shomade is especially critical of BET programming and its reliance on music videos that “visually excluded other African American cultural practices” in favor of “the beat, bling” and “bodies” (Smith-Shomade 2012, ix). Indeed, 70 percent of BET’s lineup came from free music videos supplied by record labels (Warner 2013, 316). Despite this, BET thrived as so little representations of blackness on television left Black audiences hungry for representation of any kind. While BET appeared at first to the hopeful as a visual savior and provided “mirror moments,” especially for Black youth, the reflection cast by BET rarely provided representations that fit long-held traditions and expectations of respectability in projecting blackness publicly. As a result of this programming, some view BET as betraying the interests and needs of the Black community, instead using black bodies in problematic ways in the pursuit of profit. Such criticisms were amplified after Johnson sold BET to Viacom in 2000. Criticisms and frustrations further intensified after the firing of Tavis Smiley in 2001, as BET subsequently moved away from the minimal news coverage that had been offered and valued by Black audiences. BET Tonight, formerly anchored by Smiley, was also cancelled in 2001. The contentious legacy of BET is best understood through the pursuit of Black audiences, and above all, profit. Johnson and others saw an untapped market given the dearth of Black representation on television, opportunity in the rise of cable, and innovated through niche marketing—what is now commonly referred to as narrowcasting—by targeting Black audiences hungry to see reflections of themselves and their community, despite consistent criticisms of the representations provided by BET programming since its founding.

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Despite this contentious legacy, BET did fill a crucial need for Black people to see and be seen. BET drew from this need successfully as well as from a long history of sacred spaces for Black talk and understanding to garner Black support for the creation and growth of the network. BET’s growth also cannot be explained without tying it directly to the mainstreaming of hip-hop culture as popular culture. While BET capitalized on this shift in culture, critics suggest that the network failed to use their success to interrogate issues of central concern to Black audiences and communities or provide meaningful, nuanced representations of blackness. Per Smith-Shomade, “pimpin’ resembles BET because of its duplicitous nature,” simultaneously offering the “love and the slap” to black audiences through the network’s business model and choices in programming (Smith-Shomade 2012, xvi). Ultimately, BET’s success relied on a variety of factors that include the broader void in black representation, the rise of cable, and the centrality of music in black culture and a willingness to fill market needs without concern for the burden the network carried, fairly or unfairly. Michael J. Durfee Further Reading

Hunt, Darnell M. 2005. Channeling Blackness: Studies on Television and Race in America. New York: Oxford University Press. Pulley, Brett. 2004. The Billion Dollar BET: Robert Johnson and the Inside Story of Black Entertainment Television. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Smith-Shomade, Beretta E. 2012. Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy: Selling Black Entertainment Television. New York: Routledge. Smith-Shomade, Beretta E. 2013. Watching While Black: Centering the Television of Black Audiences. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Warner, Kristen. 2013. “Ratchet Responsibility: The Struggle of Representation and Black Entertainment Television.” In African Americans on Television: Race-ing for Ratings, edited by David J. Leonard and Lisa A. Guerrero, 314–323. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.

Blackface Throughout the history of American television, programs have used blackface, perpetuating long-standing stereotypes, dehumanizing African Americans, and otherwise finding laughter in mocking blackness. Blackface has maintained an enduring presence in U.S. popular entertainment since the nineteenth century, and its longevity is traceable from antebellum minstrel shows to modern television. Blackface is a style of performance that uses burnt cork or other cosmetics to darken the skin, especially the face, and create a caricature of African Americans, often for comic effect. Such performances often also include particular music, dialect, dance, and contexts associated with stereotypes of Black people—such as the happy slave. Although the popularity of blackface declined significantly by the 1950s, blackface practices continued into the twenty-first century in Halloween costumes and elsewhere.

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Blackface in America was first popularized nineteenth century. This was an era of contending social forces for and against slavery, and blackface entertainment become a popular expression of that debate. Although blackface was used in Medieval European theater to represent evil or damnation, it was on the American stage where the practice became exceedingly popular and the dominant form of entertainment. In 1828, Thomas Dartmouth Rice gained wide acclaim with his “Jump Jim Crow” routine, the first widely popular blackface performance. Rice, a White man, reportedly created the caricature by imitating the dance, speech, and dress of a disabled black man in Louisville, Kentucky, and later spawned a bevy of imitators. In 1843, the Virginia Minstrels staged the first full minstrel show with comedy skits and musical numbers by white actors in coal-black makeup. Minstrel performers often also featured exaggeratedly large painted lips, woolen wigs, and white gloves. After the Civil War, “Charles Barney Hicks, a black man, organized, financed, and managed the first all-black minstrel show in about 1865, which toured American under the banner of the Georgia Minstrels” (Sampson 2014, 1). Many White actors, and some Black ones, continued playing blackface minstrel characters into the twentieth century. As the twentieth century progressed, movies, radio, and later television replaced theater as the dominant medium of entertainment. Despite the technological advances, blackface continued to entertain American audiences. Both the first full-length major motion picture, The Birth of a Nation (1915), and the first movie with sound, The Jazz Singer (1927) starring Al Jolson, used white actors in blackface. Both movies were highly successful, and many Hollywood stars of the 1920s and 1930s appeared in blackface: Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Bing Crosby, Betty Grable, and others. American animation, including characters like Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny, was another part of early cinema with ties to blackface minstrelsy. Mickey’s “white gloves, black face, exaggerated mouth, and wide eyes” highlight his connection to the blackface tradition (Sammond 2012, 170). Moreover, early Mickey cartoons used minstrel music, like the song “Turkey in the Straw” in 1928’s Steamboat Willie (Sammond 2012, 169). Bugs Bunny would emerge later but also wore blackface in Any Bonds Today (1942) and again in Fresh Hare (1942), where his singing of “Dixie” transformed the scenery into a cotton plantation. These cartoons and many others where shown in movie theaters and had limited TV distribution. On radio, the Amos ‘n’ Andy show was an immensely popular program that extended the minstrel tradition. Originally called Sam ‘n’ Henry in 1925, the comedy was based on a vaudeville blackface act by white comedians Freeman Fisher Gosden and Charles James Correll. In the radio show, Gosden and Correll imitated African American dialect and portrayed the two main eponymous characters. After of an extensive run on radio, Gosden and Correll helped convert the show to television in 1948. Breaking partially with the minstrel tradition, the TV version of Amos ‘n’ Andy (1951–1953) used an all-Black cast and no blackface makeup. However, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored

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People (NAACP) felt the show was demeaning, and the show was cancelled due to protests. Despite the controversy, Amos ‘n’ Andy reruns continued to air on television for years and other 1950s television programs used blackface on occasion. During a 1952 broadcast of The Colgate Comedy Hour (1950–1955), Eddie Cantor and Robert Clary wore blackface and white gloves during the show’s finale. Concluding the variety show, Cantor and Clary sang a duet of the jazz song “I’ve Got Rhythm.” Five years later, blackface was used on a 1957 episode of The Lone Ranger (1949–1957). This show, starring Clayton Moore as the Lone Ranger and Jay Silverheels as his sidekick Tonto, focused on a crime-fighter cowboy. In the episode “Outlaws in Grease Paint,” the Lone Ranger wore brown makeup to disguise himself as Shakespeare’s Othello. Unlike on The Colgate Comedy Hour, Moore’s makeup is not the charcoal color of the traditional blackface and does not include exaggerated lips, white gloves, or any song and dance. However, the Lone Ranger’s light brown makeup was meant to represent a person of African descent and was therefore part of a larger tradition of blackface. A contemporaneous episode of I Love Lucy (1951–1957) also used makeup to represent blackness, although it too strayed from the traditional minstrel type. I Love Lucy was a situation comedy (sitcom) that focused on the lives of Lucy (Lucille Ball) and her husband Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz). In “Lucy Goes to the Hospital,” a pregnant Lucy went into labor while her husband was performing a new “voodoo” number at his nightclub. Learning the delivery had begun, Ricky rushed to the hospital still wearing his “voodoo” costume and comedy ensued. Like the Lone Ranger, Ricky was not in a traditional blackface costume. Instead his makeup was tan with white circles around the eyes, a crudely drawn white cross on forehead, a clownishly drawn mouth with fangs, and an unkempt Afro wig. Thus, Ricky was portrayed as a primitive African rather than a plantation slave, somewhat different but still representing Black people as inferior, uncivilized, and “savage.” Scholars have argued that the episode reinforces this interpretation as the audience sees Ricky looking at a book of African masks and comically contorting his face to imitate the ugly faces, clearly part of the genesis of the “voodoo” getup. In the 1960s, there was a brief respite in the use of blackface on television, but the practice resumed in the 1970s and continued in the following decades. In 1975, two episodes of All in the Family (1971–1979) included prominent, albeit satirical, usage of blackface. All in the Family was a sitcom centered on Archie Bunker, a White, middle-aged, bigoted but lovable man played by Carroll O’Connor. In “Birth of the Baby, part 1,” Archie Bunker’s fraternal lodge brothers pressured him to perform in a minstrel show. Part of the humor is that Archie has stage fright. Thus, the audience sees Archie grudgingly rehearsing in blackface with his lodge brothers, before he later happily avoids the performance because his daughter is in labor. In “Birth of the Baby, part 2,” the story continued with Archie arriving at the hospital still wearing blackface. At one point, amid various comedic interactions, Archie enters the wrong hospital room and a medicated White woman fears he is a Black rapist. In general, All in the Family was known for mixing comedy and progressive social critique, and its treatment of blackface fit that pattern.

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Another situation comedy, Diff’rent Strokes (1978–1986), used blackface in a 1980 episode called “Skin Deep or True Blue.” Diff’rent Strokes chronicles the household of Philip Drummond, played by Conrad Bain, a White, wealthy business tycoon who adopts his deceased Black housekeeper’s two adolescent sons—Arnold (Gary Colman) and Willis (Todd Bridges). In “Skin Deep or True Blue,” Drummond’s teenage daughter Kimberley (Dana Plato) had a new boyfriend who was prejudiced against African Americans. Therefore, to teach the boyfriend a lesson about racial tolerance, Arnold and Willis help Kimberly darken her skin to appear African American In 1984, Gimme Me a Break! (1981–1978) also used blackface to make a statement about the racist history of minstrelsy. This show starred Black actress Nell Carter, who played Nell, a live-in, surrogate mother for the family of her deceased white friend. In “Baby of the Family,” the youngest daughter, Samantha (Lara Jill Miller), became angry with Nell as she was more attentive to Samantha’s little brother Joey (Joey Lawrence). In a prank intended to hurt Nell, Samantha had Joey put on a traditional blackface costume to look like Al Jolson for a performance at Nell’s black church. Infuriated, Nell confronted Samantha and lectured her on the impropriety of blackface, comparing its usage to saying the N-word. Samantha is deeply apologetic. Historians note that, like with the episode of Diff’rent Strokes, the message was clear: racism is a harmful part of America’s history, and blackface is not only part of this story but also unacceptable. Several 1980s segments of the sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (1975–) included White actors in blackface, of varying shades of brown, portraying African American celebrities. In 1983’s season nine, episode four, Joe Piscopo portrayed Jesse Jackson. Later that same season, Billy Crystal played Sammy Davis Jr. in two different episodes. In addition, Crystal was Muhammad Ali in 1984. In these instances, the white actors wore dark makeup in an apparent attempt to enhance the realism of the impersonations. In the 1990s, more examples of blackface were seen in TV comedy and professional wrestling. A 1994 episode of Seinfeld, a sitcom about four friends in New York City, featured recurring character Kramer in blackface. In “The Wife,” Kramer (Michael Richards), who is dating a Black woman, tried to tan in preparation to meet her family. Kramer then fell asleep in the tanning bed and came out unusually bronze. When meeting the girlfriend’s family, they are outraged at what they took to be a white man in dark makeup. Although the plot of the show framed the scene as a tanning mishap, the actor Michael Richards is wearing dark makeup to look black, much like many of the examples previous described. In the HBO sketch comedy series, Tracey Takes On (1996–1999), Tracey Ullman plays several recurring characters that include men and women of various races, ages, occupations, etc. One of Ullman’s recurring characters was a Black, thirty-something, airport security screener named Shaneesha Turner. Ullman, who is white, wore dark makeup as part of the Shaneesha costume, although the character was no more or less comical than the other characters. In the world of professional wrestling, two specific instances are notable. Broadcasted on pay-per-view in 1990, WrestleMania VI included “Rowdy” Roddy Piper appearing with his face and body painted half-black. Piper (Roderick

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George Toobs), a White wrestler, was set to wrestle Bad News Brown, a black wrestler played by Allen James Coage. During the match and pre-fight promo, the right side of Piper’s face and body was in coal-black paint. Piper, known for using racial stereotypes to insult other wrestlers denied that his blackface stunt was racist. Later in the decade, a similar incident occurred when a group of white wrestlers, D-Generation X (or DX), wore blackface to imitate and mock a rival posse of black wrestlers, Nation of Domination. This aired on broadcast television’s Monday Night Raw in 1998. The Nation of Domination was then led by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and during the skit the leader of DX, Triple H (Paul Michael Levesque) impersonated Johnson. There was no attempt at critical commentary, instead the use of blackface sought to challenge ideas of “political correctness.” More recently, blackface has continued on television. Echoing skits from the 1980s, Saturday Night Live again used dark makeup to help nonblack actors portray African American celebrities. In 2005, Horatio Sanz wore brown makeup to portray singer Aaron Neville. Then, from 2008 to 2012, Fred Armisen portrayed Barack Obama on the show. The initial sketch featured Armisen in light brown makeup as Obama, sparking controversy about blackface, about casting, and about the show’s broader lack of black actors. The Sarah Silverman Program (2007–2010), a Comedy Central sitcom, prompted criticism in 2007. In “Face Wars,” Sarah (Sarah Silverman) became black for a day to test her belief that Jews, like her, encounter more day-to-day prejudice than African Americans. To effect the transformation, she went to a makeup artist who covers her face in obvious, coal-black blackface. Laughter ensues as strangers react to her blackface costume. Silverman takes these reactions as evidence of the types of treatment afforded to African Americans, satirically concluding that “blacks do have it worse.” A 2009 episode of Mad Men (2007–2015) and a 2010 episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2005–) both used blackface in an effort to comment on the legacy of race and blackface minstrelsy. In Mad Men, a show about a 1960s NYC advertising company, blackface was framed as a regrettable artifact of a bygone era. In “My Old Kentucky Home,” one of the advertising executives named Roger Sterling wears blackface, singing a minstrel song as he entertains his party guests. Reflecting what the TV audience is supposed to feel, the main character, Don Draper (Jon Hamm) is clearly disgusted. In It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, a sitcom that follows five friends who run an Irish Pub in Philadelphia, the message about blackface is less clear. In “Dee Reynolds: Shaping America’s Youth,” the show spoofs the 1987 film Lethal Weapon. Mac (Rob McElhenney), in blackface, portrays the movie’s black cop, Sargent Robert Murtaugh. Dennis (Glenn Howerton) insists that their use of blackface was racist, while Mac and Frank (Danny DeVito) disagreed. To settle the argument, they showed their film to a multiracial group of teenagers. The teens enjoy the movie, suggesting that blackface is increasingly acceptable, especially to younger people. Yet, at the end of the show, one of the teens is briefly shown sitting in the principal’s office wearing blackface—presumably in trouble for doing so. Thus, the debate about the propriety of blackface remains unresolved.



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The show Community (2009–2015) was a sitcom about an oddball cast of characters at a community college. “Advanced Dungeons and Dragons” (2011) features Chang (Ken Jeong), made up to look like a Dark Elf—an actual character from the Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying game. Dark Elves, also known as “Drow,” have coal-black skin and white hair. As such, Chang’s costume is effectively using blackface. Chang is not intentionally caricaturing African Americans, but his appearance alludes to minstrelsy; and several characters made note of this by facetiously referring to him as “hate crime” and “Al Jolson.” The following year, an episode of 30 Rock (2006–2013) referenced the history of representations of African Americans on television. “Live from Studio 6H” includes scenes of a fictional TV show, Alfie and Abner, loosely based on Amos ‘n’ Andy. Alfie is played by a Black actor (Tracy Morgan). While Abner is portrayed by a White actor (Jon Hamm) who speaks with a caricatured black dialect, wears an Afro wig, and has makeup that resembles blackface. Critics have noted that while Hamm is not in actual blackface, his performance and the sketch is clearly meant to decry past representations of African Americans as buffoons. While no longer as prominent as previous generations, blackface on television and elsewhere continues to spark debate, outrage, and protest on television. Its presence on television illustrates the history of race and racism, one where stereotypes and dehumanization has remained a fixture of popular culture. Marc Arsell Robinson Further Reading

Cohen, Adam Max. 2013. “Blackface Minstrelsy.” In St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. Detroit: Gale. Biography in Context. Farhi, Paul. 2008. “Did ‘SNL’ Go beyond the Pale of Fauxbama?” Washington Post, February 29. Sammond, Nicholas. 2012. “Gentleman, Please Be Seated: Racial Masquerade and Sadomasochism in 1930s Animation.” In Burnt Cork: Traditions and Legacies of Blackface Minstrelsy, edited by Stephen Johnson. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. Sampson, Henry T. 2014. Blacks in Blackface: A Sourcebook on Early Black Musical Shows. 2nd ed. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. Shoemaker, David. 2013. “A (Very) Concise History of Racism in Wrestling, 1980–Present.” Grantland, November 6. ­http://​­grantland​.­com​/­features​/­excerpt​- ­david​-­shoemaker​ -­new​-­book​-­concise​-­history​-­racism​-­wrestling​/. Thompson, Katherine D. 2008. “Blackface.” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA.

Black-ish (2014–) Black-ish is an American sitcom that first premiered on September 24, 2014. Centered on a middle-class Black family who lives in the Los Angeles suburbs, Black-ish chronicles the experiences of an upwardly mobile and affluent Black family living and working in predominantly white settings. “The program follows Andre ‘Dre’ Johnson, a wealthy executive, and his family through the usual

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sitcom misunderstandings, squabbles and moral dilemmas,” writes Homa Khaleeli (2017). “But Black-ish’s creator, Kenya Barris, has made a small tweak that sets the program on to an altogether more groundbreaking track. Race is not treated as an incidental background detail but part of the show’s identity.” The show’s title “Black-ish” encapsulates its focus: conveying how their experiences are often seen as both representative of the Black experience and supposedly antithetical or exceptional to that experience. Exploring the use of the N-Word, contemporary racism, LGBTQ experiences, police brutality, mass incarceration, the election of Donald Trump, and race relations, Black-ish uses the story of a Johnson family to stage conversations about important contemporary issues. The family consists of Andre (Anthony Anderson), the father of the Johnson family, who works as an Senior Vice President at an advertising firm; his wife, Rainbow (“Bow”) (Tracee Ellis Ross), who works as a doctor; the children—Zoey (Zara Yahidi), Andre, aka “Junior” (Marcus Scribner ), and Diane (Marsai Martin) and Jack (Miles Brown), who are fraternal twins; and Earl Johnson (Lawrence Fishborne), the kid’s paternal grandfather. Other members of the cast include Charlie Telphy (Deon Cole), Dre’s closest friend and work colleague; Josh Oppenhol (Jeff Meacham), another coworker; Leslie Stevens (Peter Mackenzie), Dre’s boss; and Ruby Johnson (Jenifer Lewis), Dre’s Mom and Bow’s nemesis. Black-ish follows the template of many other family sitcoms, chronicling the everyday struggles with relationships, work-family balance, and other life challenges. “This show is not about an opinion. We’re not about trying to answer a question. We’re trying to explore issues through the family and make you laugh,” notes Tracee Ellis Ross. “Honestly, that’s really it—the show is entertainment” (qtd. in Ryan 2016). At the same time, much of the plot revolves around race, identity, and navigating predominantly White spaces as Black people. This focus on race often leads to lessons about history, racism, and issues. Many episodes highlight how Dre is striving to maintain a certain level of cultural awareness in his home. He fears that as the family continues to climb up the socioeconomic ladder, they may be in danger of losing aspects of their black identity. In the very first episode of the show he says, “when brothers start getting a little money stuff starts getting a little weird.” Implying that class mobility has the potential to foster change in one’s identity or result in questions about one’s identity as a black person. To combat this, he works hard to educate his family (and the show’s audience) about Black history, culture, and experiences. He also expresses his concern that in an effort to get ahead in socioeconomic stature. In the show’s pilot, Dre notes, “Black folks have dropped a little bit of their culture and the rest of the world has picked it up. They even renamed it urban.” This complex is depicted in the first episode when Dre is promoted to Senior Vice President. While he is ecstatic about breaking down barriers at his firm, he expresses frustration when he is automatically placed in charge of “urban affairs.” This is an example of how the show seeks to spark conversations about racial issues. Whether dealing with racial tokenism or microaggressions, Black-ish focuses on the everyday realities of racism still experienced by all African Americans, regardless of class status. Dre’s fear that with more money comes farther proximity from cultural roots is complemented by the instances where he, Bow,



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and the children experience tokenism in the workplace and in their daily lives. To combat this complex, he continuously encourages his family to engage in culturally and sometimes “stereotypically Black” things while simultaneously encouraging integration of themselves into “White spaces.” Additionally, the show depicts moments where Dre and his family are forced to have difficult conversations regarding race, culture, and identity. For instance, in one episode, Dre announces to a few of his coworkers that the family is expecting a baby boy and will possibly be naming him “Devante.” He and his coworkers (Charlie, Josh, and Leslie) discuss the meaning and history behind “Black names” as well as the social consequences of owning them as a result of racial bias. His Black coworker makes the comment that if he were on a plane and heard “Welcome aboard I’m your captain Devante Johnson, I’m no longer on board” (season three, episode fourteen). While his comment is obviously meant to be a comedic moment for the audience, it is also meant to depict an actual phenomenon in society where people with typically Black names are regarded with suspicion, denied opportunities, treated as incapable before they even have the chance to prove themselves as capable. Dre then asks his coworkers whether they understand how racist they sound. He further attempts to educate his coworkers on the importance of names within Black heritage and culture. This instance opens the discussion of the politics of Black names and the presumptions that are associated with those names in the scope of the larger society. It plays into the grander theme within the show of creating a liaison between their place in the dominant society and their proximity to “blackness.” The show also touches on the politics of colorism and the ways in which it shows up both within the family and in larger society. In one episode, Diane confronts the family on the way they regard skin tone. She expresses that no one in the family is as dark as her. She accuses the family of skirting around the fact that she is the most dark-skinned member of the family rather than discussing it head on. Diane then goes on to recant that although they may not think much of it, she is forced to confront the reality that her complexion is not always a welcome feature. Some examples that she presents to viewers include anytime that she has to wear a band aid, being told that certain cosmetic colors would not compliment her skin tone, and hearing comments about being “gorgeous for a dark skin girl.” This scene helps the show’s audience to experience multiple perspectives on the complexities of black identity. Even within a Black family, there are disconnects and moments of self-doubt as it pertains to identity. Over multiple seasons, Black-ish has spotlighted the realities of being Black parents to Black children in modern-day America. In “Crime and Punishment,” Dre and Bow struggle over the best way to discipline their youngest child for playing a prank on the family. While spanking is a common but controversial punitive measure used by many parents, particularly for black parents, Dre and Bow debate on whether it is the best mode to use in their family. They end up having a difficult time following through on their threat to spank their youngest child for misbehaving. For them, it is a conflict between being stern and holding their children accountable and seeing their child in pain by their own infliction. In the end, they are unable to follow through with the spanking and decide on an alternative

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measure for correction. This moment showcases diversity of parenting styles that exist in African American families. It conflicts with the stereotypical narrative that all Black parents structure their families in the same manner. Critically acclaimed, Black-ish has received widespread support for its representation of the middle-class Black experience and for its willingness to foster difficult conversations about race. Maureen Ryan describes the show’s successes as resulting from innovation and courage: “No matter the issue, ‘Black-ish’ offers a mosaic of opinions with a wide array of entry points for all kinds of viewers, whatever their backgrounds or races” (2016). The show gets its palpable and engaging energy from debates, not necessarily from resolution, and prefers to come at any topic “from different angles so that most people can relate and feel engaged, and not be turned off,” noted Jenifer Lewis, who plays Dre’s mother, Ruby. Similarly, Kweli Wright celebrates Black-ish for its willingness to encourage conversations about race through its storylines and writing: “What’s so refreshing about Black-ish is the same thing that’s rubbing some people the wrong way: the spot-on social commentary” (2014). It has received numerous nominations and awards for writing, acting, and show, including the American Film Institute, the NAACP Image Awards, Screen Actors Guild, and the Primetime Emmys. Its success is equally apparent in the development of two spinoff shows: Grow-ish, which follows Zoey to college; and Mix-ish, which chronicles the childhood of Rainbow and her experiences growing up in a mixed-race family in the 1980s. Basheera Agyeman Further Reading

Genzlinger, Neil. 2014. “A Family Rooted in Two Realms.” New York Times, September 23. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2014​/­09​/­24​/­arts​/­television​/ ­black​-­ish​-­a​-­new​-­abc​-­comedy​ -­taps​-­racial​-­issues​.­html. Khaleeli, Homa. 2017. “Obama Loves It, Trump Called It Racist: Why Black-Ish Is TV’s Most Divisive Show.” The Guardian, February 25. ­https://​­www​.­theguardian​.­com​ /­t v​-­and​-­radio​/­2017​/­feb​/­25​/­series​-­creator​-­kenya​-­barris​-­on​-­abc​-­sitcom​-­black​-­ish. McNamara. Mary. 2014. “ABC’s ‘Black-Ish’ Gamely Takes on Racial Identity.” Los Angeles Times, September 24. ­https://​­www​.­latimes​.­com​/­entertainment​/­t v​/­la​-­et​-­st​-­blackish​ -­review​-­20140924​-­column​.­html. Ryan, Maureen. 2016. “‘Black-ish’ Is the Ideal Sitcom for the Age of Black Lives Matter.” Variety, February 23. ­https://​­variety​.­com​/­2016​/­t v​/­features​/ ­black​-­ish​-­abc​-­kenya​ -­barris​-­anthony​-­anderson​-­1201711794​/. Wright, Kweli I. 2014. “So Just How Cosby-ish Is ‘Black-ish’?” Ebony, September 25. ­https://​­www​.­ebony​.­com​/­entertainment​/­so​-­just​-­how​-­cosby​-­ish​-­is​-­black​-­ish​-­343​/.

Black Mirror(2011–) Black Mirror is a U.K. sci-fi series that premiered on Channel 4. The series of self-contained episodes explores how technology and digital media use or consumption impacts our relationships, identities, psyche, and appetites when taken to extremes. The series has been critiqued by some for underexploring race while



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others argue that insights from the futuristic settings and scenarios speak to race and related issues, though perhaps in coded or symbolic ways. The series features diverse international actors, writers, and directors. Black Mirror premiered on U.K.’s Channel 4 in December 2011 and spread internationally. Netflix USA bought the first two series and contracted executive producers Charlie Brooker, also show creator, and Annabelle Jones for additional series. Brooker, raised Quaker in Oxfordshire by socially aware parents, admired Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected (U.K., 1979–1988) and Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone (U.S., 1958–1964). Serling used science fiction to discuss racism, paranoia, and McCarthyism without directly implicating U.S. society, thus evading censors. Brooker created ­www​.­TVGoHome​.­com (1999–2003), a bimonthly gallows-humor TV schedule mocking the BBC’s Radio Times Magazine; “GoHome” came from xenophobic graffiti that Brooker read, and some see ­TVGoHome​.­com as Black Mirror’s precursor. Channel 4 was initially hesitant to proceed with the series and its pilot episode “The National Anthem.” Some argue Black Mirror has avoided discussing race or racism directly until the sixth and last episode of series four titled “Black Museum” (Addawoo 2018). Here Nish (Black British actor Letitia Wright’s Emmy-nominated performance) visits the “Black Museum” to free her father from an exhibit that allows visitors to electrocute him. Nish substitutes curator Rolo (White British actor Douglas Hodge) for her father thus killing him. Nish frees other victims and burns down the museum. While the episode explores the impact of violence and trauma on the Black body and psyche, critics argue that the episode also capitalizes on black suffering just like the popular culture industries it critiques. Others argue that the series tackles a similar theme in the second episode of series one (“Fifteen Million Merits”) where Bing (black British actor Daniel Kaluuya) and Abi (white British actor Jessica Brown-Findlay) survive by constantly cycling bikes to earn merits (credits/money). The riders live surrounded by screens containing games and media content. Bing loves Abi, so he buys her an audition ticket for the reality competition show Hot Shot; Abi aspires to be a singer but is tracked into a pornography career to Bing’s disillusionment. Bing cycles endlessly to earn merits to purchase an audition where he threatens to slice his throat for the judges and audience. As a result, Bing earns a life of luxury by repeatedly performing his death monologue for audiences. The episode critiques the White judges and predominantly White audiences for their compulsion to watch violence against Black bodies but also Bing for exploiting his own victimhood for material gain. Black Mirror has been praised for providing a beautiful, cinematic portrayal of an interracial lesbian romance portrayed by Black British actor Gugu Mbatha-Raw, awarded an Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth, and white Canadian actor Mackenzie Davis in episode “San Junipero” (series three, episode four). In the episode, the couple is undeterred by homophobia, patriarchy, racism, time, or place as they use technology to be together forever in the virtual afterlife. Previously mentioned episode “Fifteen Million Merits” also presents romance between actors Daniel Kaluuya as Jessica Brown-Findlay as unremarkable for its biracialism.

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Other episodes address race via symbolism or allusion. In “Nosedive,” Lacie’s (white American actor Bryce Dallas Howard in series three, episode one) social media ratings determine her social standing and livelihood (Deggans 2016). The episode implicates social media rating systems for perpetuating beauty myths (e.g., preference for light skins, thin bodies, and signs of visible affluence) and oppressing nonconformers (e.g., people of color, people of size, and the economically less advantaged). In “USS Callister” (series four, episode one), Robert (White American actor Jessie Plemmons) uses virtual reality to make himself a spaceship captain where he forces his cloned coworker Shania (Black British actor Michaela Coel) to kiss him against her will. In 1968, Star Trek showed the first interracial kiss on television by having White Canadian actor William Shatner and African American actor Nichelle Nichols kiss while under mind control. Black Mirror’s reinterpretation of the Star Trek kiss raises questions of how black women’s bodies are exploited sexually by white males in popular culture. In addition, Black Mirror has featured several actors of color in addition to those noted already (e.g., Black British actor Malachi Kirby) and writers of color (e.g., Bengali British actor and writer Konnie Huq, African American actor and writer Rashida Jones). Reflecting on how “White Bear” (series two, episode two) does not reflect on Black British actor Lenora Crichlow’s race directly but instead surveillance as a key theme, Tanja Valsted Jørgensen argues, “Because surveillance is one of the most efficient forms of power, the technology with which we surveil people, can be used to enforce racism or other oppressive agendas” (2016, 27). The episode raises the questions of whether society ever gets closure by seeing perpetrators punished and also whether those convicted of crimes, particularly people of color, are ever forgiven in a digital media world where evidence of their guilt is presumably permanently accessible to anyone with access to technology. The series has been lauded internationally by writers and intellectuals. Baratunde Rafiq Thurston, U.S. author of the New York Times best-seller How to Be Black, urged readers, “Watch Black Mirror and be reminded that we apply the word progress to undergird what is more objectively change” (Thurston 2013, 164). Jamaican British writer Zadie Smith, author of White Teeth, which was named one of TIME’s 100 Best English-Language Novels from 1923 to 2005, compliments the series and its innovative qualities noting that it “reminds me of TVGoHome in that it’s formed out of a sort of exquisite rage, but it’s also so terrifically and fully imagined—the speculative fiction element is sublime” (Harvey 2016). U.S. thriller author Stephen King tweeted, “Loved Black Mirror. Terrifying, funny, intelligent. It’s like The Twilight Zone, only rated R” (Collis 2014, 103). Black Mirror received a 2014 Peabody Award “for its brilliantly dark reflections of our captive gaze,” and many argue “The Waldo Moment” (series two, episode three) both predicts real life (e.g., Trump’s presidency, the rise of U.S. populism) while reminding us via allusions to our cultural past that their plotlines are inspired by real life, albeit amplified. An enduring theme of Black Mirror is how we participate in our own domination and create our own isolation and oppression via technology and digital media. Some argue that the series needs to work harder to represent the interplay of racial



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relations in society with technology as often the topic is handled as subtext to be interpreted. Others note how science fiction commonly eschews direct discussions of sociocultural oppression instead choosing to explore oppression and outsider status via characters who, for instance, undergo genetic mutation or exist in parallel worlds. Either way Black Mirror frequently puts the onus on viewers to interpret their own critical messages based on their own standpoints. It is hard to predict what direction future episodes will take or whether they will continue as self-contained episodes connected by a thematic focus that explores a different troubling aspect of the human-technology interface. This is both intriguing and exciting for viewers. Gordon Alley-Young Further Reading

Addawoo, Lindsey. 2018. “‘Black Mirror’ is Obsessed with Black Suffering.” Vice, January 8. ­https://​­www​.­vice​.­com​/­en​_us​/­article​/­mbp9my​/ ­black​-­mirror​-­is​-­obsessed​-­with​ -­black​-­suffering. Brooker, Charlie. 2011. “Charlie Brooker: The Dark Side of Our Gadget Addiction.” The Guardian, December 1. ­https://​­www​.­theguardian​.­com​/­technology​/­2011​/­dec​/­01​ /­charlie​-­brooker​-­dark​-­side​-­gadget​-­addiction​-­black​-­mirror. Collis, Clark. 2014. “Black Mirror Serves Up Christmas Hamm.” Entertainment Weekly 1343/1344: 102–103. Day, Charles. 2016. “Our Black, Imperfect Mirrors.” Computing in Science & Engineering 18 (1): 108. Deggans, Eric. 2016. “‘Black Mirror’ is Back, Reflecting our Technological Fears.” NPR, October 21. ­http://​­www​. ­n pr​.­o rg​/ ­2 016​/­10​/ ­21​/­498734538​/ ­black​- ­m irror​-­i s​- ­b ack​ -­reflecting​-­our​-­technological​-­fears. Gilbert, Sophie. 2016. “Black Mirror’s ‘Shut Up and Dance’ is a Horrifying Thriller.” The Atlantic, October 21. ­https://​­www​.­theatlantic​.­com​/­entertainment​/­archive​/­2016​/­10​ /­black​-­mirror​-­season​-­three​-­review​-­shut​-­up​-­and​-­dance​-­netflix​/­504929​/. Harvey, Giles. 2016. “The Speculative Dread of ‘Black Mirror.’” The New Yorker, November 28. ­http://​­www​.­newyorker​.­com​/­magazine​/­2016​/­11​/­28​/­the​-­speculative​-­dread​ -­of​-­black​-­mirror. Jørgensen, Tanja Valsted. 2016. “Black Mirror: Technology, Technostruggles, and Anxieties.” Master’s thesis, Aalborg, Denmark: Aalborg University. Murray, Terri. 2013. “Black Mirror Reflections.” ­https://​­philosophynow​.­org​/­issues​/­97​ /­Black​_Mirror​_Reflections. Sola, J. C., and J. Martínez-Lucena. 2016. “Screen Technologies and the Imaginary of Punishment: A Reading of Black Mirror’s ‘White Bear.’” Empedocles: European Journal for the Philosophy of Communication 7 (1): 3–22. Thurston, Baratunde. 2013. “Reflections on the ‘Black Mirror.’” Fast Company 181: 164.

Black Twitter Twitter is a social media platform where users can read current news and trends, interact with celebrities, and express opinions. For people of color, Twitter has become an important tool of modern sociopolitical activism. For Meredith Clark, Black twitter represents a “network of culturally connected communicators using

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the platform to draw attention to issues of concern to black communities” (qtd. in Reid 208). Similarly, André Brock concludes that “Black hashtag signifying revealed alternate Twitter discourses to the mainstream and encourages a formulation of Black Twitter as a ‘social public’; a community constructed through their use of social media by outsiders and insiders alike” (2012, 530). Black Twitter is a digital space where Black people can express themselves and create a virtual community to discuss current events and advance social protest. From racial crises to pop culture and interests of the Black community, Black Twitter is there to broadcast events in real-time conversations. Black Twitter has been responsible for focusing America’s attention on Black concerns and things that matter to the Black community.

WHAT IS TWITTER? Evan Williams, Noah Glass, Jack Dorsey, and Biz Stone founded Twitter on March 21, 2006. A microblogging site, Twitter enables users to send messages of 140 characters to each other, known as “tweets.” Users can interact publicly with others through retweeting (as indicated by the abbreviation “RT”) or by talking directly to another user using the “@” reply feature. Twitter is known for its usefulness in keeping up on trending topics by using the hashtag, which is denoted by the “#” symbol. Users can find and track trending topics by searching hashtags (i.e., #Oscarssowhite, #TheWizLive). As of 2018, Twitter had amassed 330 million monthly active users worldwide, arguably making it an important social media platform. Since its inception, people have used Twitter to express their opinions, to engage in public discourse, and advance social causes. Black Twitter refers to black presence on Twitter. In 2012, a Pew study found that African Americans are among the top three groups to whom Twitter is most appealing. Despite constituting 13 percent of the U.S. population, Black Twitter users represent 26 percent of those using this platform. Meredith Clark describes Black Twitter as operating on three distinct levels: personal community, thematic notes, and the intersection of personal community and thematic notes. Personal community refers to the people that you are connected with outside of Twitter. Thematic notes refer to when individuals tweet about certain topics (i.e., sports, presidential election, etc.). That intersection between personal community and thematic notes is evident in conversations around hashtags. Despite the moniker, Black Twitter is not monolithic nor does it represent a monoculture. Just as there is no “Black America” or single “Black culture,” there is no unified Black Twitter. Black Twitter is a collective of Black and nonBlack users who have similar concerns, experiences, and cultural practices and participate in real-time discussions. This continuous collective dialogue provides social change. Angela Rye, then director of Strategic Partnerships at IMPACT, an organization that provides tools for young professionals of color to create civic change in their communities, describes the importance of Black Twitter: “We don’t need a whole bunch of background information to fight injustice—if you tell us about a problem, we can fact check online within minutes to verify, and be down the road on tackling inequality” (Jones 2013).



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BLACK TWITTER AND SIGNIFYIN’ To understand the ethos of Black Twitter, it is crucial to understand black culture, as Black Twitter does not explain to outsiders the usage of their language or references. Some people may not understand terms like “throwing shade” or “sips tea,” making engagement and participation difficult. This sense of community and the centrality of oral tradition highlights the place of Black Twitter within a larger cultural history. Sarah Florini argues that “Signifyin’ serves as an interactional framework that allows Black Twitter users to align themselves with Black oral traditions, to index Black cultural practices, to enact Black subjectivities, and to communicate shared knowledge and experiences” (2014, 224). Signifyin’ is a form of wordplay that has various meanings. What makes signifyin’ unique is that it’s practiced in the African American community and is only accessible to those who share similar cultural values. Florini argues that “Signifyin’ on Twitter allows Black users not only to reject colorblindness by actively performing their racial identities but also to connect with other Black users to create and reify a social space for their ‘Blackness’” (2014, 235). Signifyin’ has been a long-standing practice in the African American oral tradition. From “spirituals” to hip-hop and the usage of Ebonics (BEV), generations of Africans Americans have used signifyin’ as a space for the expression of black cultural knowledge, as a vehicle for social critique, and as a means of creating group solidarity (Jones 2013). African Americans have utilized Twitter as another medium to create grassroots movements to organize and mobilize efforts to achieve freedom and equality but also to tell their stories and lived experiences.

BLACK TWITTER WITH TELEVISION Technology and social media are reviving the old medium of television, and Black viewers are leading these trends. According to a Nielsen report in 2013, Black audiences watch 37 percent more television than any other group and are the most active on Twitter (Williams and Williams 2014). Little has changed in recent years, as African Americans watch 50 hours of “live and time-shifted television a week,” which is 10 hours more than the larger population (Umstead 2020). Forty percent of African Americans have a Netflix subscription. In other words, despite the history of racism and limited diversity on television, African Americans have always watched, participated, consumed, and critically engaged television. Television and streamlining services have become a powerful site for storytelling. Twitter has become a “second screen,” an interactive screen for opinion, observation, and views. Viewers do more than watch a television show; they also become a part of it by interacting with other viewers, the cast, and producers on Twitter. This practice is known as “Social Television” or “Social TV.” Social television has enabled viewers to have creative conversations that were not possible before. “BlackSocialTV” is a pop cultural phenomenon where Black audiences engage on social media while watching television shows that engage or are targeted

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toward Black audiences. The television show Scandal, which found its success largely due to Black Twitter, is one of BlackSocialTV’s most beloved and engaged shows. Each week, tweets and user-generated memes discussing the most provocative moments keep Scandal trending for days. Every week, viewers tune in to see if Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) can fix the nation’s most controversial scandals. Scandal’s storyline not only lends itself to deliberation but also the show has purposely produced an online social environment conducive to discussions. Clever hashtags like #WhoShotFitz or #WhatTheHuck streamline conversations for fans. The entire cast live-tweets with fans, known as “gladiators.” Even customized commercials are broadcast to advertise details of the Twitter party. Watching a television show like Scandal during its first run allows the audience to watch and view other’s reactions on Twitter during the broadcast. Memes, videos, and hashtags are created in real time in response to what is happening on the show. By live-tweeting as the show airs, it pushes audiences to view it live instead of watching it later on DVR, VOD, or Hulu. The social media play-by-play draws more than 12 million viewers and 700,000 tweets weekly, according to ABC. Black Twitter and the uses of BlackSocialTV are revolutionizing television in profound ways, with Black audiences leading the way. BlackSocialTV empowers it viewers to communicate directly with the cast of the show and with other audience members. Networks, producers, and actors are trying to replicate the social media success of Scandal. Black Twitter has captured their attention, and they are now “cashing in” by giving power to Black audiences by creating content that they wish to see. TRAYVON MARTIN From the very beginning, Black Twitter was a major force behind the Trayvon Martin story. It was responsible for the story taking off the way that it. There was no mainstream media reporting about the story until discussions on Black Twitter forced media outlets to talk about it. The advocacy for Trayvon Martin is one example of how Black Twitter created change in real time. In 2012, America was awoken to the murder of Trayvon Martin by the power of Black Twitter. Martin was a seventeen-year-old African American high school student in Miami Gardens, Florida. On February 26, 2012, Martin was unarmed when he was murdered by former Neighborhood Watch captain George Zimmerman on his way home from a local convenience store (CNN 2013; Jones 2013). Zimmerman called 911 to report a “suspicious person” in his neighborhood. Despite being instructed not to get out of his sports utility vehicle or approach the person, Zimmerman continued to do so. An altercation between Martin and Zimmerman ensued, leading to Zimmerman shooting and killing Martin. Zimmerman claimed self-defense through the “stand your defense” law. Zimmerman at first was not arrested or charged by Sanford Police (CNN 2013). It would take over six weeks before Zimmerman arrested and charged. Without national media coverage, Black communities used Twitter to bring their concerns before the nation. When Black Twitter heard about the Martin story,



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people organized protests and vigils within forty-eight to seventy-two hours using Twitter as the outlet to spread the message. A ­Change​.­org petition from Martin’s parents circulated through Twitter and received 2,278,988 signatures. The petition saw support from artists such as Janelle Monaè and MC Hammer. The pressure from the signatures led to charges being filed against Zimmerman (Jones 2013). Other protests, such as “A Million Hoodies,” were held. Created by Daniel Maree, million goodies sought to leverage social media to protest the lack of national coverage. Maree wanted to shine a lot on how it felt to be profiled in America: The big impetus for Million Hoodies for me was reading about the Trayvon Martin case and noticing that there was no national news coverage of the story, noticing that the police hadn’t arrested George Zimmerman and feeling that I have been in that situation before. I spent two years in Gainesville, Florida, as a high schooler, and I personally had experiences walking home from school sometimes. I would get stopped by the police for no reason other than I was an African American in a predominantly white neighborhood. (qtd. in Ehrlich 2013)

The protests encouraged marches across the country, and on social media people were encouraged to post pictures of themselves wearing hoodies. The #WeAreTrayvonMartin movement spread throughout the internet garnering support from basketball player LeBron James and Dwayne Wade. The Miami Heat team donned hoodies in support of Martin, which got the attention of media outlets and created discussions about race in sports on television sport shows like ESPN’s First Take (2007–). The movement even made it to the White House with President Barack Obama making a reference to it during a press conference saying: “If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon” (Ehrlich 2013). Zimmerman went to trial and was acquitted in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. In wake of the acquittal, Twitter again became a space where people could not only express their anger and grief but also collaborate and organize grassroots rallies and protests (Jones 2013). The day after the acquittal, Black Twitter had spread the word of rallies being held in New York City, Los Angles, Chicago, and Washington, DC. Twitter users flooded the site, posting information about policing and images and videos of protestors marching for justice. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) also used Twitter to circulate a petition to urge the Department of Justice to open a civil rights case against Zimmerman. Within seventy-two hours, the petition amassed a million signatures. The Department of Justice launched an independent investigation into the death of Trayvon Martin but had found insufficient evidence to bring charges against Zimmerman (U.S. Department of Justice 2015). Although charges were never filed, it is argued that Black Twitter led to the advocacy of Trayvon Martin. BLACK TWITTER AND REPRESENTATION #Oscarssowhite is an example of how Black Twitter created dialogue and change about the misrepresentation and the lack of representation of people of color in Hollywood, especially in comparison to the diversity found on television. The hashtag #Oscarssowhite was created by April Reign in 2015 to shed light on

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lack of Oscar nominations featuring people of color. In 2014, only 2 percent of Academy voters were Black, while 94 percent were White. Between 2015 and 2016, the last forty nominations all have been White. During the 2015 Oscars, the critically acclaimed movie Selma (2014) was largely snubbed by academy voters despite widespread praise for director Ava DuVernay and actor David Oyelowo. The movie, which had an all-Black cast, chronicled Martin Luther King Jr.’s campaign to secure equal voting rights by organizing a march from Selma to Montgomery Alabama. The hashtag became more popular in 2016 when again, there were zero Oscar nominations featuring people of color. Black people were hopeful that Idris Elba would score a nomination for his performance as an African Warlord in Beasts of No Nation (2015), but it was passed over. Other hopefuls such as Concussion (2015) with Will Smith, The Hateful Eight (2015) with Samuel L. Jackson, Creed (2015) with Michael B. Jordan and writer-director Ryan Coogler, and the cast of the N.W.A biopic Straight Outta Compton (2015) were also ignored. Black Twitter was in an uproar because filmmakers and actors of color were being ignored by Hollywood. People tweeted their frustrations using the hashtag #Oscarssowhite, and media outlets took notice. Conversations and protests over lack of representation became widespread even making it to a skit on Saturday Night Live (1975–). With much protest due to the power of Black Twitter, the Academy Awards is now implementing ways to diversify their voter membership by 2020 to quell the Twitter firestorm. The power of Black Twitter can be seen during the airing of any number of television shows, sporting events, or award ceremonies, whereupon the critical engagement, dialogue, and collective watching are on full display. Black Twitter is not a hashtag or a website. You cannot visit ­www​.­BlackTwitter​ .­com to find what you are looking for. Black Twitter is a group of individuals who have come together to have conversations on pop culture, race, and identity. Black Twitter is a cultural force in its own right by allowing its users to directly communicate to people about their issues. Moreover, Black Twitter is a connected community where users can facilitate conversations in real time with memes, GIFS, and videos. It is a multifaceted platform that gives the user the autonomy to speak out about injustices, poke fun at their life experiences, “drag” their opponents, and promote Black characters in television and movies. Amir Asim Gilmore Further Reading

Brock, Andre. 2012. “From the Blackhand Side: Twitter as a Cultural Conversation.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 56: 529–549. Carlson, Nicholas. 2011. “The Real History of Twitter.” Business Insider, April 13. ­http://​ ­w ww​.­businessinsider​.­com​/ ­how​-­t witter​-­was​-­founded​-­2011​- ­4. CBS San Francisco. 2013. “‘Black Twitter’ Credited with Torpedoing Zimmerman Juror Book Deal.” ­http://​­sanfrancisco​.­cbslocal​.­com​/­2013​/­07​/­18​/ ­black​-­t witter​-­credited​ -­with​-­torpedoing​-­zimmerman​-­juror​-­book​-­deal​/. CNN. 2013. “Trayvon Martin Shooting Fast Facts.” Updated February 16, 2020. ­http://​ ­w ww​.­cnn​.­com​/­2013​/­06​/­05​/­us​/­t rayvon​-­martin​-­shooting​-­fast​-­facts​/. Cox, David. 2016. “#OscarsSoWhite: Who Is Really to Blame for the Oscars’ Lack of Diversity.” The Guardian, February 26. ­https://​­www​.­theguardian​.­com​/­film​/­2016​ /­feb​/­25​/­oscarssowhite​-­right​-­and​-­wrong​-­academy​-­awards​-­audience.



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Ehrlich, Brenna. 2013. “Trayvon Martin: How Social Media Became the Biggest Protest.” MTV News. July 15. ­http://​­www​.­mtv​.­com​/­news​/­1710582​/­t rayvon​-­martin​-­social​ -­media​-­protest​/. Florini, Sarah. 2014. “Tweets, Tweeps, and Signifyin’: Communication and Cultural Performance on ‘Black Twitter.’” Television & New Media 15: 223–237. Garcia, Courtney. 2013. “How ‘Scandal’ Became the Biggest Drama on Television.” The Grio, May 17. ­http://​­thegrio​.­com​/­2013​/­05​/­17​/­how​-­scandal​-­became​-­the​-­biggest​-­drama​ -­on​-­television​/. Griggs, Brandon. 2016. “Once Again, #OscarsSoWhite.” CNN Entertainment, January 14. ­h ttp://​­www​.­c nn​.­c om​/ ­2 016​/­01​/­14​/­e ntertainment​/­o scars​- ­s o​-­w hite​- ­p rotest​ -­nominations​-­feat​/. Jones, Feminista. 2013. “Is Twitter the Underground Railroad of Activism?” Salon, July 17. ­http://​­www​.­salon​.­com​/­2013​/­07​/­17​/ ­how​_twitter​_fuels​_black​_activism​/. Prasad, Pritha. 2016. “Beyond Rights as Recognition: Black Twitter and Posthuman Coalitional Possibilities.” Prose Studies 38: 50–73. Ramsey, Donovan X. 2015. “The Truth about Black Twitter.” The Atlantic, April 10. ­http://​ ­w ww​.­t heatlantic​.­c om​/­t echnology​/­a rchive​/­2015​/­0 4​/­t hetruthaboutblacktwitter​ /­390120​/. Reid, Whitelaw. 2018. “Black Twitter 101: What is It? Where Did It Originate? Where is it headed.” November 28. ­https://​­news​.­virginia​.­edu​/­content​/ ­black​-­t witter​-­101​-­what​-­it​ -­where​-­did​-­it​-­originate​-­where​-­it​-­headed. Sicha, Choire. 2009. “What Were Black People Talking about on Twitter Last Night?” Medium, November 11. ­https://​­medium​.­c om​/­t he​- ­awl​/­what​-­were​- ­black​- ­p eople​ -­talking​-­about​-­on​-­t witter​-­last​-­night​- ­4408ca0ba3d6. Smith, Aaron, and Joann Brenner. 2012. “Twitter Use 2012.” Pew Research Center, May 31. ­http://​­www​.­pewinternet​.­org​/­2012​/­05​/­31​/­t witter​-­use​-­2012​/. Statista. “Number of monthly active Twitter users worldwide from 1st quarter 2010 to 1st quarter 2019).” ­https://​­www​.­statista​.­com​/­statistics​/­282087​/­number​-­of​-­monthly​ -­active​-­t witter​-­users​/. Umstead, R Thomas. 2020. “More Platforms, More Content for African-American Viewers.” February 10. ­https://​­www​.­multichannel​.­com​/­news​/­more​-­platforms​-­more​ -­content​-­for​-­african​-­american​-­viewers. U.S. Department of Justice. 2015. “Federal Officials Close Investigation into Death of Trayvon Martin.” August 26. ­https://​­www​.­justice​.­gov​/­opa​/­pr​/­federal​-­officials​ -­close​-­investigation​-­death​-­t rayvon​-­martin. Williams, Sherri, and Lynessa Williams. 2014. “#BlackSocialTV: How Black Viewers Are Dominating on Two Screens.” The ­Li​.­st at Medium, May 5. ­https://​­medium​ .­com​/­t helist​/­blacksocialtv​-­how​-­black​-­v iewers​-­a re​-­dominating​-­on​-­t wo​-­screens​ -­7ef0afff5b66​#.­o3w1sognf. Williams, Stereo. 2015. “The Power of Black Twitter.” The Daily Beast, July 5. ­https://​ ­w ww​.­thedailybeast​.­com​/­the​-­power​-­of​-­black​-­t witter.

Bratt, Benjamin(1963–) Born in San Francisco, California, to an indigenous Peruvian-mother and a GermanEnglish father, Bratt grew up in a family committed to both the arts and activism. He received his BFA from University of California, Santa Barbara, and spent time at the American Conservatory Theater. Known for his performance in Law and Order (1990–2010), he has appeared in sixty-five television shows and films.

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Performing in several television shows, including Knightwatch (1988–1989), Nasty Boys (1990), Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–1999) over multiple years (1996, 1997, 1999), Bratt would get his big break when Chris Noth (Detective Mike Logan) left NBC’s hit series Law and Order in 1994. On Law and Order, Bratt would play Rey Curtis, a smart, handsome, and technology-adept cop, who teamed with Lenny Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) as the principal detectives on the prime-time staple. Whereas Lenny, the gruff alcoholic with family troubles, is a clichéd veteran cop, Curtis is portrayed as the all-American mostly perfect cop, father, and husband. While rarely mentioned, the positioning of polar-opposite Briscoe and Curtis as partners builds on the long-standing interracial buddy trope, where their racial differences are overcome through shared goals, trust, and friendship. Yet, the show rarely interrogated racial issues. His racial and ethnic identity was rarely part of the narrative. In some instances, he would speak Spanish with Latinx suspects; in a couple episodes he would confront racism. Yet, his identity, his experiences with coworkers, and what it might mean to be a Latinx cop in New York City was rarely explored. Reflecting the approach of many other prime-time shows that sought to embrace diversity without ever mentioning race or racism, Bratt’s portrayal of Curtis offered little in terms of Curtis’s Latinxness. Bratt left Law and Order after five seasons, acting in several Hollywood films, including Traffic (2000), Miss Congeniality (2000), and Catwoman (2004). Throughout the early part of the twenty-first century, he appeared in a number of television movies and on the big screen, ultimately returning to dramatic television as Dr. Jake Reilly, a reproductive endocrinologist married to Dr. Addison Montgomery (Kate Walsh), on ABC’s Private Practice (2011–2013) and then as Steve Navarro, a CIA agent, on 24: Live Another Day in 2014. In 2010, Bratt joined the cast of Modern Family (2009–2020) as Gloria’s (Sofia Vergara) ex-husband, and Manny’s (Rico Rodriguez) father. Appearing over several seasons on the widely popular sitcom that seeks to highlight the diversity and difference within contemporary families, Bratt’s character in Modern Family differed from his previous television roles. His heavy accent, his character’s “wild ways,” and his embrace of superstitions left some critics and commentators disappointed by his performance in its perpetuation of long-standing stereotypes. In 2016, Bratt joined the cast of Star (2016–2018), a Fox musical drama created by Lee Daniels. Exploring the music industry, Star brings to life the trial and tribulations of three aspiring singers. According Moisés Zamora, a writer on Star, Bratt requested that his character be explicitly Peruvian. For Bratt, the show’s embrace of diversity and its willingness to tackle a wide-range of issues speaks to its power and progress within television. “I love the fact that Lee [Daniels] is principally motivated by reflecting the world as he knows it. Its eclecticism. Its quirks. Some of the social ills that afflict our communities, especially the world that he reflects in Star and the intersectionality that he draws between black and Latino culture,” notes Bratt. “The good news is that with Lee’s shows and other shows that are on the air and other content being created on the internet, finally finally finally we’re in the dawn of a new age where American-made film and television content is beginning to reflect the diversity—and I hate to use that word but there’s



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no other word for it—and eclecticism that we all know exists and actually enjoy daily” (qtd. in Betancourt 2016). Yet, for some, this visibility, and the effort to bring greater representation of Peruvian Americans on television can come at a cost if the inclusion furthers existing racial stereotypes. Janice Llamoca argues that Bratt’s character falls into this trap: “There’s just one thing—Bratt doesn’t exactly play a redeemable character. Jahil Rivera is a charming, but shady, Atlanta-based talent manager who starts off the series by becoming the manager of a hot new girl group, and spoiler alert, loses his position due to unforeseen events. . . . Jahil has no interest in trying to kick his cocaine habit, and continually deals with money problems” (2017). Given the televisual landscape, Bratt’s performance as Jahil Rivera continues a long-standing history. In 2016, the Columbia Media and Idea Lab found while roles for Latinxs had increased in recent years, so had the number of stereotypical representations. “The raw numbers  .  .  . show that Latino roles defined as ‘stereotypical’—think maids, cops, gang bangers, drug addicts—actually increased from 34.1% to 52.5% between the 2008–2009 and 2014–15 seasons” (Vargas 2016). For his critics, Bratt’s role in Star speaks to the limited opportunities afforded Latinx actors on television, a fact worsened over their careers. In “Hispanic Images in the Media: The Curious Case of Benjamin Bratt,” Stephen Palacios argues that Bratt’s career reflects the lack of progress for Latinxs on television: “But to see Ben Bratt, who in the 1990s was repeatedly Emmy nominated for his portrayal of a determined and moral detective, adopt the Ricky Ricardo accent and portray his character as someone who can ‘see the soul of the horse in his eyes,’ feels, well, regressive” (2012). Throughout his career, Bratt has broken down barriers for Latinx actors both on television and in Hollywood. Embodying the ongoing struggle for representation, one that acknowledges Latinx identity and experiences while challenging long-standing stereotypes, his acting resume and the debate surrounding his characters point to the importance of race on television. Seeking to give voice to Latinx—specifically Peruvian American—experiences on-screen, all while engaging in social activism off-screen, Bratt is an important artist in American television history. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Betancourt, Manuel. 2016. “Benjamin Bratt on How Lee Daniels’ New Series ‘Star’ Reflects the Shared Black & Latino Experience.” Remezcla, December 16. ­remezcla​.­com​/­features​/­film​/ ­benjamin​-­bratt​-­interview​-­star​-­fox​/. Llamoca, Janice. 2017. “How Benjamin Bratt Changed the Representation of PeruvianAmericans on TV.” Remezcla, December 4. ­remezcla​.­com​/­features​/­film​/ ­how​ -­benjamin​-­bratt​-­changed​-­the​-­representation​-­of​-­peruvian​-­americans​-­on​-­t v​/. Palacios, Stephen. 2012. “Hispanic Images in the Media: The Curious Case of Benjamin Bratt.” The Huffington Post, March 11. ­w ww​.­huffingtonpost​.­com​/­stephen​-­palacios​ /­hispanic​-­images​-­in​-­the​-­me​_b​_1195485​.­html. Vargas, Andrew S. 2016. “Latino TV Roles Are Getting More Stereotypical, According to This Columbia University Report.” Remezcla, July 22. ­remezcla​.­com​/­lists​/­film​ /­columbia​-­latino​-­disconnect​-­report​-­f rances​-­negron​-­muntaner​/.

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Burton, LeVar(1957–) Television and stage actor LeVar Burton is well known for his portrayal of Kunta Kinte in Roots (1977). Building on his televisual success in Roots, he would dedicate his life to his craft, directing, producing, and acting in a myriad of programs, including hosting the beloved PBS children’s series Reading Rainbow and joining the Star Trek canon as Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994). Levardis Robert Martyn Burton Jr. was born on February 16, 1957, in Landstuhl, West Germany, to Erma Jean Christian and Levardis Robert. Soon thereafter the couple separated, and Erma resettled Burton and his two older sisters in Sacramento, California, where she found work as an English Teacher. In his early to mid-teens, Burton attended a Roman Catholic seminary and flirted with the idea of becoming a priest before rejecting this path and turning his focus to acting. He enrolled in the theater program at the University of Southern California (USC), where he was noticed and recommended for the role of Kinte that would change his life forever. In 1977 on the evening of January 23, at least 100 million television viewers tuned in to the ABC television network for the first installment of a miniseries based on Alex Haley’s historical novel Roots, and this is when LeVar Burton was introduced to the world in the central role of Kunta Kinte, a West African youth taken from his home and sold into the Atlantic slave trade. For the first time on network television, the historic South was depicted from an African American perspective, following the story of Kinte as he passes on to his descendants an African identity that gives them the strength to survive the brutality of slavery through emancipation and the racism they face afterwards. The miniseries was twelve hours long and aired over eight consecutive nights for which the sizable audience faithfully returned, earning on the final night a 51.1 rating with a 71 share, becoming the most watched entertainment event in television history at that time and for years to come. While television executives had initially feared that Black-centric programming would not draw a sizable audience, it is hard to overstate the impact Roots the miniseries had, not just on the history of television but also on how Black Americans thought about ancestry as well as reframing how all Americans examined the history of slavery. Immediately following Roots, Burton played the title roles in two television movies, One in a Million: The Ron LeFlore Story (1977) and Billy: Portrait of a Street Kid (1977) as well as a supporting role in the film Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) starring Diane Keaton. In the summer of 1983, PBS broadcast a half-hour series hosted by Burton for children’s television called Reading Rainbow (1983– 2006). In each episode, Burton would introduce a book written for children, which was then narrated by a guest celebrity. Burton would then extract and explore the theme through different segments, with the intention of promoting summer reading for kids. Reading Rainbow was an immediate success and widely celebrated by book publishers, librarians, teachers, and parents. It would become the basis for library programs across the country. The series would run over twenty-one seasons with 155 episodes, garnering a Peabody Award, twenty-six Emmys, and



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more than 200 other broadcast awards. Under Burton’s stewardship, it would become the third longest running children’s show in American television history. Burton’s career would take on an entirely new dimension in 1987 when Gene Roddenberry cast him as Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge, who served as the ship’s engineer in Star Trek: The Next Generation. This series was the first television follow-up to the original Star Trek (1966–1969) and ran for seven years earning eighteen Emmy awards before being spun off into four feature films. A consistent feature throughout the Star Trek canon is the diversity in both cast and characters. Burton often refers to the importance to him personally of having seen Lieutenant Uhura played by Nichelle Nichols in the original cast: First of all, as a student of culture and popular culture and the impact that it has on us all, I know this to be true: Seeing yourself represented in the popular culture is really critical in terms of forming your own self-image. I’m old enough to have been around before seeing black people represented in the popular culture in diverse ways. When I was a kid, it was a big deal to see a black person on television. So that’s why it was important in a science fiction thing—in “Star Trek”—it was huge. I read a lot of science fiction books as a kid. As a kid of science fiction, “Star Trek” was important to me and seeing a person of color in a command position was hugely important to me. (Day 2012)

Burton’s portrayal of a blind Geordi La Forge contributed to this tradition of diversity by expanding it to include people with disabilities. From 2001 to 2005, Burton turned his attention behind the camera directing nine episodes of the series, a feat unmatched by any other cast member. These episodes were: “Terra Nova” (2001), “Fortunate Son” (2001), “Cogenitor” (2003), “First Flight” (2003), “Extinction” (2003), “Similitude” (2003), “The Forgotten” (2004), “The Augments” (2004), and “Demons” (2005). In 2016, the History Channel aired over four nights a rebooted version of the television miniseries Roots for which Burton served as a co-executive producer and made a cameo appearance. When comedian and television host W. Kamau Bell discussed this new production with Burton he stated that “if you deconstruct the DNA of people my age and generation, Roots is in there,” affirming the cultural significance of the original production (qtd. in Bell 2015). While it would be hard to measure the influence Burton has had on children’s literacy, that he has had considerable impact is without question. Working on Star Trek: The Next Generation both behind and in front of the camera was a third act for Burton that reshaped how audiences perceived him. Taken as a whole, Burton’s career in television is both distinguished by broad cultural consequence and unique in its variation. Todd Simpson Further Reading

Bazilian, E. 2014. “Interview: LeVar Burton.” Adweek 55 (October 6): 31. Bell, W. Kamau. 2016. “The Star of the Original ‘Roots’ Explains Why the Remake Is Must-Watch Television.” Mother Jones, May/June. ­https://​­www​.­motherjones​.­com​ /­media​/­2016​/­05​/ ­history​-­roots​-­2016​-­remake​-­levar​-­burton​-­kamau​-­bell​/. Burton, LeVar. 2016. “Roots: The Next Generation.” Mother Jones 41 (3): 60–62.

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Day, Patrick Kevin. 2012. “‘Star Trek: TNG’: LeVar Burton Engineers New Career Chapters.” Los Angeles Times, February 27. Holloway, Daniel. 2014. “Standing Ovation: LeVar Burton: On ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation.’” Back Stage, National ed., 55 (22): 56. “Reading Rainbow Presents LeVar Burton’s ‘The Rhino Who Swallowed a Storm.’” 2014. Entertainment Close-up, September 23.

C Carroll, Diahann(1935–2019) Born in 1935, Carol Diann Johnson grew up in Harlem, adopting her professional name as a teenager when she began modeling and performing as a professional singer. The legendary composer Richard Rodgers cast her as the romantic lead opposite a white actor in his Broadway musical “No Strings,” for which she won a Tony award for her performance in 1962. She also appeared in a handful of movies and television shows. However, she was best known as a singer and stage performer who could be seen in prime-time variety shows including The Hollywood Palace (ABC, 1964–1970). Despite her earlier successes, her stardom emerged with her casting in a television show. In its first season, Julia (NBC, 1968–1971) became one of the top ten most watched shows; it was also the most discussed and debated program of the 1968 season. Diahann Carroll was not the first choice to play Julia Baker, a widowed nurse raising her young son in Southern California. In fact, writer-producer Hal Kanter thought that Carroll was too glamorous for the role. Carroll successfully pursued the title role in Julia in part because it was understood to be a groundbreaking opportunity. She was not the first African American actress to star in a television series; Ethel Waters, Louise Beavers, and Hattie McDaniel all played the title role in Beulah (1950–1952). Carroll, however, would be the first black actress to star in a television series since its cancelation. Unlike Beulah, which critics argued furthered stereotypical representations of Black womanhood, Julia challenged dominant images, portraying her as a hard-working professional and loving mother, who also found time for romance. Julia demonstrated that a show about a Black woman raising a child could draw a huge audience (and sell a lot of licensed merchandise). By season three, Julia’s ratings declined significantly, leading to its cancellation. While a conventional family sitcom, Julia was controversial; some critics praised her for challenging stereotypes of Black womanhood, bringing a level of humanity and depth uncommon to American popular culture. She received the 1968 Golden Globe for Best Actress in a television series. Yet, other critics took issue with the premise of the show, claiming that it was an unrealistic representation that downplayed the impacts of prejudice and discrimination. Carroll responded nimbly at the time, defending the series as a family sitcom that was designed to appeal to a mass audience, most specifically White viewers who would be uncomfortable confronting the realities of American racism. An avid supporter of the Civil Rights Movement, she later wrote about how difficult it was to defend the show to other black performers and activists. Yet, she concluded that the show was unfairly scrutinized because of the dearth of representations of Black identities on television. Critiques of the character’s socioeconomic class status and

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comfortable interactions with White America only pointed to the need for greater representations, depicting a wider range of experiences. In 1972, at the conclusion of Julia, Carroll returned to Broadway and touring, taking relatively few roles in films and on television. She appeared in one segment of Roots: The Next Generation (1979), the follow-up to the original television miniseries sensation. She also performed in several television films, including Death Scream (1975) and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1979), and as a guest star on The Love Boat (1977–1987) and several other television shows. In 1985, she took on the role of villainess Dominique Deveraux on the hit prime-time soap opera Dynasty (1981–1989), which marked her reemergence as a television star. Aaron Spelling’s hit series was ending its fourth season when Carroll joined the cast; almost half of the top ten shows on the air were prime-time soaps, but none featured a recurring black character. Carroll told the press, “I want to be the first black bitch on television” (Haller 1984). Seemingly responding to criticism of Julia as being too perfect, Carroll sought an opportunity to play her opposite: a wealthy, scheming antagonist. Playing Dominique, half-sister to Blake Carrington (John Forsythe), one of the show’s White protagonists, Carroll appeared in four seasons of Dynasty, and occasionally on The Colbys (1985–1987), a less successful spin-off. Her character was positioned as an enemy of Alexis (Joan Collins), the soap’s central villainess. This allowed the two women to face off in the “catfights” for which Dynasty was famous. Dominique and Alexis were typically costumed to signify excessive wealth; their opulent gowns, fur coats, and sparkling jewels were part of the appeal for fans of the series. Carroll left the show after season seven, expressing pride in the role, noting how she sought to demonstrate that African American actresses could play any type of character. While Carroll has continued to work in television throughout the 2000s, notably appearing as Jane Burke in Grey’s Anatomy (2005–) and in a recurring role on White Collar (2009–2014), her legacy remains tied to her role as Julia, her performance in several Hollywood films, including Carmen Jones (1954), Porgy and Bess (1959), and Claudine (1974), a role she received a best actress nomination for, and her successes on Broadway. Carroll died on October 4, 2019. Caryn Murphy Further Reading

Acham, Christine. 2005. Revolution Televised: Prime Time and the Struggle for Black Power. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Carroll, Diahann. 2008. The Legs Are the Last to Go. New York: HarperCollins. Carroll, Diahann, and Ross Firestone. 1986. Diahann: An Autobiography. New York: Little Brown. Haller, Scot. 1984. “Diahann Carroll Dresses Up ‘Dynasty.’” People, May 14. ­https://​ ­people​.­com​/­archive​/­diahann​-­carroll​-­dresses​-­up​-­dynasty​-­vol​-­21​-­no​-­19​/.

Cartoons Cartoons in the United States, as an art form, are marked by a history of racism. Certainly, that fact is a manifestation of the country’s racist past and continuing racial issues that are present in all popular cultural forms. But animation may, in

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fact, be much more dependent on dominant stereotypes of African American than any other art form, excluding only the minstrel show. As Christopher P. Lehman asserts, “American animation owes its existence to African Americans” (2007, 1). Cartoons were quick to develop from comics alongside motion pictures early in the twentieth century, as artists realized the potential of the medium for their art in both the silent and sound eras. Cartoons drew on and perpetuated racist stereotypes that had been developed in other cultural forms, including blackface minstrelsy, vaudeville, comic strips, and novels, all of which drew on a longer history of racism. However, Lehman and other critics, such as Michael A. Chaney, suggest that more than just the overt racism of cartoons is involved—early in the twentieth century, the cartoonists, directors, producers, and the audiences were primarily white. Jim Crow segregation laws prevented African Americans from having access to the means of production to counter these images until the latter half of the twentieth century with the more empowering and humanizing portrayals of African Americans in series such as Filmation’s Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (1972–1985). In addition, there is also some ambivalence in the fact that many cartoons used jazz in soundtracks in a way that seems to signal an appreciation for that African American musical form, raising larger issues relating to the appropriation of blackness in both racist and other cartoons. But many of these issues are not limited to the past “Golden Age of Animation,” they continue in debates about, for example, Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s South Park (1997–), and Matt Groening’s The Simpsons (1989–). Many critics note the blackface influence that marks cartoons as the “direct inheritors of the minstrel tradition” (Chaney 2004, 167). This is evident in the appearances, the speech patterns, and the behaviors of early African American and anthropomorphic cartoon characters: Ub Iwerks’s Sambo, Pat Sullivan’s Sammy Johnsin’, and Walter Lantz’s Lil Eightball, as well as Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse, Looney Tunes’s Bosko (closely patterned on Mickey), Iwerks’s Flip the Frog, and Sullivan and Otto Messmer’s Felix the Cat. Cartoon characters also donned blackface as part of the plot of many shorts. Bugs Bunny does so, for example, in “Southern Fried Rabbit” (Looney Tunes, 1953) in order to fool Yosemite Sam. Prompted by a dearth of carrots in the drought-ridden North, Bugs learns of a plenitude of his favorite food in the pastorally idyllic South. However, Yosemite Sam, wearing a Confederate uniform and still following General Lee’s orders not to let any Yankees cross into the South, prevents him from crossing the Mason-Dixon Line. We next see Bugs in blackface, playing a banjo, and singing “My Old Kentucky Home.” Upon first sight, Yosemite Sam exclaims, “well, one of our boys” and asks for a more “peppy” song “on that there skid marks.” The banjo is an instrument of African origin, built and played by slaves, and it became a standard fixture in racist caricatures through the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. Yosemite Sam’s use of “skid marks” is an allusion to racist “jokes.” “What’s the difference between a dead skunk in the middle of a road and a dead banjo player in the middle of a road? There are skid marks in front of the skunk” (Marks 2016). As Ben Marks states, the racist origins of banjo jokes are largely forgotten—most people today think the bias is solely directed at the instrument. Behavioral stereotypes are also present in many of these characters: they are lazy, superstitious, have an affinity for song and dance, play the banjo, and love to

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eat watermelon, to cite but a few. Indeed, Xavier Fuster Burguera cites a 1928 animation handbook by E. C. Matthews that “offered some hints to make cartoons funny . . . ‘The cartoonist usually plays on the colored man’s love of loud clothes, watermelon, crap shooting, fear of ghosts, etc.’” (qtd. in Burguera 2011, 72). The arrival of synchronized sound enabled cartoonists to add aural blackface to the visual by having their characters mock African American diction and speech patterns that added to their stereotyped appearance and behavior and rounded out the racial caricature. One of the more prominent voice actors of the twentieth century was Mel Blanc, the son of Russian-Jewish parents who became known as the “Man of a Thousand Voices.” Blanc voiced many animated African American caricatures, as well as blackface-influenced cartoon characters, for Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes from the 1930s through to the 1960s. Sound also allowed for the incorporation of blackface minstrelsy tunes to further racist representations, while signaling the indebtedness of cartoons to that cultural form. Tunes such as “Dixie,” “Old Folks at Home,” “Camptown Races,” and “Short’n’in Bread” are the most common. Some shorts would even draw on audience participation, or complicity, in their caricatures. Famous Studio’s Screen Song cartoon “Camptown Races” (1948), for example, sets its follow-the-bouncing-ball sing-along in a big top minstrel show, under the banner “Big Minstrel Show. Half Music & Half Wit,” adding “As best os [sic] we got.” The animal performers are clearly in blackface because their faces have exaggerated characteristics and are noticeably darker in tone than their bodies. Significant, too, in relation to this context, is the fact that the bob-tail nag is the only white horse in the field. Another example of the appropriation and perpetuation of racial stereotypes is the use of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) in cartoon plots. Felix the Cat’s “Uncle Tom’s Crabbin” (1927) points to the ambivalent nature of racial representation. In order to escape winter, Felix heads to “Dixie” where the weather is represented as ideal. There, he hears Uncle Tom playing his banjo while a young girl dances (likely Topsy, caricatured here as a “pickaninny”). Again, these are staple stereotypes performed by characters with the exaggerated features of blackface. The music awakens Simon Legree, who grabs his whip and flogs Tom’s banjo to pieces. Like Stowe’s novel, the cartoon sentimentalizes plantation life as fulfilling a sort of pastoral ideal. However, Felix is sympathetic to Uncle Tom, especially in the face of Legree’s violence. However, there is no overt condemnation of slavery as an institution. It is also interesting to note that Felix’s facial features are similar to blackface caricature. This confirms the opinion of critics who argue that blackface is the origin of many cartoon characters, including Felix. It also suggests a racist notion of African American anthropomorphism by pointing to a subhuman, bestial nature. Cartoon parodies of Stowe’s novel continued through at least the 1940s in, for example, Tex Avery’s “Uncle Tom’s Bungalow” (Merrie Melodies, 1937) and Avery’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabaña” (MGM, 1947). “Uncle Tom’s Bungalow” modernizes the novel with Legree as a used slave dealer, who, when Topsy and Eva fall behind on their payments for Uncle Tom, attempts to repossess him. In the end, Uncle Tom is able to pay off the debt with money he has won playing craps. The setting is again modernized in “Uncle Tom’s

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Cabaña.” In this short, Uncle Tom tells a group of children how Legree, the owner of a mortgage company, attempted to foreclose on his cabin. With no money to make his mortgage payment, Uncle Tom calls on Little Eva, who lives in a southern plantation-type of penthouse in the city. Noodling about on the piano, they come up with an idea to save his cabin by turning it into a successful nightclub, Uncle Tom’s Cabaña, with Little Eva as the star attraction. Cartoonists also appropriated the main character of Scottish author Helen Bannerman’s children’s book The Story of Little Black Sambo (1899). Incidentally, Sambo is Indian in the book, and the use of Sambo as a racial slur directed at African Americans precedes the publication of Bannerman’s book. Sullivan’s Sammy Johnsin’ is based on William F. Marriners’s syndicated comic strip “Sambo and his Funny Noises” (1905–1913). The Sammy Johnsin’ cartoons premiered in 1915, coincidentally the same year as D. W. Griffith’s sweeping, racist epic Birth of a Nation. As noted earlier, Iwerks’s also created a Sambo character. In Iwerks’s Comi-Color Cartoon “Little Black Sambo” (1935), the lead character and his mother are portrayed in horrid blackface caricature. The plot turns on Sambo’s encounter with a dangerous tiger (as in Bannerman’s book), which, initially, Sambo’s dog tries to impersonate to frighten the boy. At one point, as Sambo climbs a tree to escape, he starts throwing coconuts down at his dog/tiger. After throwing a couple of coconuts, he reaches up and pulls an ape out of the foliage, which has very similar facial features to Sambo and his mother. The combination of an apparently semi-tropical setting and the visual racial slur of an ape in “Little Black Sambo” also recalls portrayals of “savage” indigenous Africans in cartoons. This caricature often consists of grass skirts, bones through their noses and ears, and cannibalism. As Lehman (2018) states, these cartoons are parodies of travel documentary shorts. In Friz Freleng’s “Jungle Jitters” (Merrie Melodies, 1938), a pale-skinned anthropomorphic traveling salesman dog arrives at a jungle settlement. “Natives,” who are portrayed in stereotypical ways, initially shut the doors of their compound to the salesman, until several of them look over the enclosure’s fence and see him as a possible dinner. As the salesman is put into a pot of boiling liquid, the natives take his wares without an understanding of what they are—one, for example, screws light bulbs into his ears. Removed from the pot to be shown to their queen (a pale-skinned anthropomorphic chicken, who curiously has a native guard that speaks in a stereotypical Asian accent), the queen falls in love with the salesman. At the ceremony, however, the salesman decides to jump back into the cooking pot. In the preceding examples, then, we can see how cartoons adapted and perpetuated stereotypes that had been developed and continued in other media such as the minstrel show, vaudeville, novels, film, and travel documentaries. World War II saw the mobilization of animation studios to produce and develop anti-Japanese and anti-German stereotypes as propaganda. While anti-Nazi propaganda turns on some ethnic stereotypes, supported by associations with the Japanese, anti-Japanese propaganda is clearly racially motivated. Under the auspices of the Office for War Information and the individual branches of the U.S. armed forces, all of the major studios had their main characters fighting or commenting from the home front on the European and Pacific conflicts. Disney’s

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productions included the Academy Award Best Animation Short “Der Fuehrer’s Face” (1942), with Donald Duck experiencing life in Nazi Germany in a nightmare, and “Commando Duck” (1944), with Donald Duck destroying a Japanese airbase. Max Fleischer’s Popeye the Sailor also took to the seas to fight the Japanese. In “You’re a Sap Mr. Jap” (1942), a short that takes its title from a popular World War II song, Popeye captures a Japanese battleship. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies’ wartime contributions include “Tokio Jokio” (1943), a straightforward piece of propaganda mocking the backwardness of Japanese wartime technology in which none of the studio’s cartoon characters appear, and “Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips” (1944). Finally, Lantz produced cartoons under the direction of the U.S. Navy. In propaganda cartoons such as these, the basic Japanese stereotypes were a thin (most frequently), short, slant-eyed, bespectacled character with buck teeth, sporting a thin mustache, and speaking in a characteristic accent. Such characters were endowed with a lack of moral decency, an inherent tendency to cruelty, a blind devotion to the Emperor, and a ruthless cunning. Many of these stereotypes can be traced back historically to racist Orientalist perceptions of the West. Many racist Japanese caricatures have very pronounced mouths and lips that are similar to the blackface African American caricatures discussed earlier. This suggests that anti-Japanese cartoons drew on African American caricatures in order to reinforce a belief that the enemy was racially inferior, an option not available in anti-Nazi cartoons. The pervasiveness of antiBlack stereotypes is present not only in anti-Japanese cartoons. Native American caricature also blends specific stereotypes of “savage” Indians with some “savage” indigenous African characteristics from cartoons such as “Jungle Jitters,” likely again to reinforce a notion of racial inferiority. In MGM’s “Jerky Turkey” (1945), directed by Avery, the Native Americans that the Pilgrims encounter when they arrive on the continent are represented as dim-witted and speak in a slow, drawling broken English. One Native American character, replete with a feather headdress, simply wanders through the cartoon asking “Who you?” At one point, he approaches another Native American who is shown only in profile. The answer, in this case, as the second character turns full-frontal to reveal that the other half of his body is white, is “Me half breed.” The “half breed” then holds up a sign that states, “Heap corny gag.” The broken English, diction, and accent recall, of course, Tonto, who first appeared alongside the Lone Ranger on radio in 1933. The Lone Ranger furthered these linguistic stereotypes as an animated series that ran from 1966 until 1969. The dim-witted, lazy Native American stereotype is present in “A Feather in His Hare” (Looney Tunes, 1948), in which a Native American stands in for Elmer Fudd hunting Bugs Bunny. Looney Tunes had used this premise previously in another racist cartoon (one of the “censored eleven”) “All This and Rabbit Stew.” By the end of the 1960s through the influence of the Civil Rights Movement and the NAACP, the studios came to see their past productions for what they are. This resulted in a “whitewashing” of their past with, most notably, Warner Bros. “censored eleven” Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes cartoons that were withdrawn from syndication in 1968 by United Artists, who then controlled their distribution. Several of the cartoons discussed earlier are included in the “censored

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eleven,” but they are available on various websites. The “censored eleven” are: “Hittin’ the Trail for Hallelujah Land” (1931), “Sunday Go to Meetin’ Time” (1936), “Clean Pastures” (1937), “Uncle Tom’s Bungalow” (1937), “Jungle Jitters” (1938), “The Isle of Pingo Pongo” (1938), “All This and Rabbit Stew” (1941), “Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs” (1943), “Tin Pan Alley Cats” (1943), “Angel Puss” (1944), and “Goldielocks and the Jivin’ Bears” (1944). While these are the most famous examples, other studios also quietly withdrew their racist cartoons from distribution, or, if possible, cut the most offensive scenes. But the racist past of animation continues to linger in other contemporary productions. Aural blackface is present in South Park, Family Guy (1999–), and The Simpsons. The controversy over Hank Azaria providing the voice of Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, for which he has won Emmys, is currently ongoing following the release of Hari Kondabolu’s documentary, The Problem with Apu (2017). The series’ creators only added fuel to the fire when Groening responded to the issue by stating that “People love to pretend they’re offended” in a USA Today interview, followed by a Simpsons episode entitled “No Good Read Goes Unpunished.” In that episode, Marge reads a “modernized” version of a book entitled The Princess in the Garden to Lisa. Realizing that both the original version of the story and its modernization are problematic, Lisa states, “‘Something that started decades ago, and was applauded and inoffensive, is now politically incorrect. What can you do?’ she says. She then looks at her nightstand, upon which rests a framed photo of Apu, emblazoned with the caption, ‘Don’t have a cow!’” (qtd. in Desta 2018). The episode quite literally doubles down on its rejection of the criticism by having Apu, a Hindu, appropriating Bart’s saying. Fox Network then entered the fray with a statement by Chair and CEO Dana Walden seemingly recognizing the legitimacy of the controversy, but stating that, after a meeting with the producers, she has left the decision of what to do with Apu to them (qtd. in Coates 2018). When Azaria announced early in 2020 that he would no longer voice the character, the reaction of people involved with the show continued to be ambivalent. Jay Kogen, for example, stated that “a few years ago people made it clear they thought Apu was a hurtful racist stereotype,” yet the character continues to make rare appearances on The Simpsons, but he is no longer heard speaking (qtd. in Chilton 2020). However, the international reaction to the in-custody killing of George Floyd in 2020 has prompted other White voice actors to step away from their roles (including Mike Henry, who voiced Cleveland on The Family Guy, and Kristen Bell, who voiced Molly on Central Park (2000–)) as part of a wider reappraisal and reckoning of racial relations. Jim Daems Further Reading

Breaux, Richard M. 2010. “After 75 Years of Magic: Disney Answers Its Critics, Rewrites African American History, and Cashes in on Its Racist Past.” Journal of African American Studies 14: 398–416. Burguera, Xavier Fuster. 2011. “Muffled Voices in Animation: Gender Roles and Black Stereotypes in Warner Bros. Cartoons from Honey to Babs Bunny.” Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Brasov 4 (2): 65–76.

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Chaney, Michael A. 2004. “Coloring Whiteness and Blackvoice Minstrelsy: Representations of Race and Place in Static Shock, King of the Hill, and South Park.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 31 (4) (Winter): 167–175. Chilton, Louis. 2020. “The Simpsons’ Quietly Dropped Apu Years Ago—But Nobody Noticed.” The Independent, February 27. ­https://​­www​.­independent​.­co​.­uk​/­arts​ -­entertainment​/­t v​/­news​/­the​-­simpsons​-­apu​-­retired​-­hank​-­a zaria​-­racism​-­a9361821​ .­html. Coates, Tyler. 2018. “Fox’s Response to the Ongoing Apu Controversy: Let The Simpsons [sic] Producers Deal with It.” Esquire, August 3. ­https://​­www​.­esquire​.­com​ /­entertainment​/­t v​/­a22636311​/­the​-­simpsons​-­apu​-­fox​-­response​/. Desta, Yohana. 2018. “The Simpsons Still Doesn’t Understand the Problem with Apu.” Vanity Fair, April 9. ­https://​­www​.­vanityfair​.­com​/ ­hollywood​/­2018​/­04​/­the​-­simpsons​ -­problem​-­with​-­apu​-­response. Lehman, Christopher P. 2007. The Colored Cartoon: Black Presentation in American Animated Short Films, 1907–1954. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. Lehman, Christopher P. 2018. “The Censored 11: ‘The Isle of Pingo Pongo’ (1938).” Cartoon Research, January 6. ­http://​­cartoonresearch​.­com​/­index​.­php​/­the​-­censored​-­11​ -­the​-­isle​-­of​-­pingo​-­pongo​-­1938​/.­ Marks, Ben. 2016. “Strummin’ on the Old Banjo: How an African Instrument got a Racist Reinvention.” Collectors Weekly, October 4. ­https://​­www​.­collectorsweekly​.­com​ /­articles​/­how​-­the​-­african​-­banjo​-­got​-­a​-­racist​-­reinvention​/.

Chappelle’s Show(2003–2006) Chappelle’s Show (2003–2006) was a sketch comedy show starring comedian Dave Chappelle. It walked the “tightrope” between funny and offensive as it parodied racism, cultural differences, and social issues. Although it only lasted three seasons, it was very successful, developing a cult-like following. It would come to an abrupt end as Dave Chappelle walked away from the show for personal, political, and creative reasons shortly after signing a fifty-million-dollar contract. The Chappelle’s Show first aired January 22, 2003, on Comedy Central. Created by Dave Chappelle and his friend and cowriter of Half Baked (1998), Neal Brennan, the Chappelle’s Show was a thirty-minute variety comedy show that included sketches, monologues from Chappelle himself, and a musical performance. Most sketches used comedy and satire to address topics surrounding American racism. During an appearance on Inside the Actors Studio, Chappelle told James Lipton that the show was weirdly inspired by a television special on Hefner. Designed to resemble one of Hefner’s Playboy parties, Chappelle created the show as a party where he would interview musicians and comedians, who would later perform on the show. Chappelle described his initial conversation with Brennan about the idea: And then I was sitting out on that farm rottin’, and, uh, I was, it was weird. I was watching Hugh Hefner having “Playboy After Dark”, I said I should do some, a show like that, that’s weird, I said, let me call Neal [Brennan] up. . . . We started talking about variety shows, we wanted to do something that was real personal, that was just, I don’t know, was just, the word personal kept coming up. (Inside the Actors Studio, 2010)



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The conversation with Brennan led to the creation of the Chappelle’s Show. From the initial episode, Chappelle and Brennan would push the boundaries on what could be seen on television. The first episode with a sketch chronicling the story of a fictitious Clayton Bigsby, a blind African American White supremacist leader, effectively setting the tone for what was to come during the show’s reign. A parody of the television show Frontline, the sketch chronicled the life of Clayton Bigsby, who would be played by Chappelle. In an interview with Vulture, Brennan said that Bigsby was based on Chappelle’s grandfather, who was mixed race and blind: “The day Martin Luther King got shot, apparently he was on a bus and a bunch of black dudes came up to him and were like, ‘What you doing on this bus, cracker?’ and Dave’s grandfather apparently thought ‘Man, this cracker is in a lot of trouble’ before he realized, ‘Oh, I’m the cracker’” (Cowen 2016). Bigsby’s invoking of the N-word and his casual use of other racist, homophobic, and sexist epithets throughout the skit puts race and racism front and center. In one instance, as Bigsby is being driven to a Klan meeting, he comes across four young White men who are blasting rap music from their car. Being that he is blind, Bigsby assumes that the young men listening to rap are Black. He shouts the N-word at them, and they, in turn, appear to be flattered to have been mistaken for Black males. Bigsby ultimately find outs that he is Black during a book signing. There his followers unmask him from his hood, revealing that he is indeed a Black man. Immediately after realizing his true identity, Bigsby divorces his wife because she is a “n——er lover.” On discussing that sketch, Chappelle said: “I remember the night before we came on, man, we talked on the phone for a long time. And the sum of the conversation was, ‘I’m completely at peace with this. It’s edgy, it’s scary, it’s wild. But I, in no stretch of my imagination, am I like embarrassed about this.’ And I can’t say that for any of those sitcoms I tried” (Leung 2004). Brennan shared a similar memory: “I remember Comedy Central when we showed it, they didn’t want it on the first episode, because they didn’t think it was exemplary of what the show is . . . and that was the most vicious fight we ever had with them, because we were like, ‘This is exactly what the show is’” (Leung 2004). RACE AND PARODY: A DANGEROUS MIX? Last season we started the series off with this sketch about a Black White supremacist. Very controversial. Yes, very. It sparked this whole controversy about the appropriateness of the—the n-word, the dreaded n-word. You know, and then when I would travel, you know, people would come up to me, like White people will come up to me like man that sketch you did about them niggers, that was hilarious. Take it easy! You know I was joking around. I started to realize these sketches in the wrong hands are dangerous, and that ‘n-word’ is a doozie—especially for us black folks, you know. And alot of different feelings come up when they hear that word. But I’m thinkin’ is it because black people actually identify themselves as n-words? No, I don’t know, maybe. But what if we just use the word for other people—would it be so bad? I don’t know. So I made a sketch, it’s about a white family whose last name happens to be nigger, that’s all. Let’s see how offensive the word sounds then. (Zakos 2009, 53)

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Many of Chappelle’s sketches addressed racism and stereotypes in America. Chappelle used racial satire to challenge viewers to reflect on their own prejudices and adherence to racial stereotypes. Scholars argue that because Chappelle’s Show had to present racial stereotypes to challenge them that the show in turn reinforced them. The question became: Is there any way to employ racial satire that is not dangerous, where there is no risk of misinterpretation (Zakos 2009, 5)? Lisa Glebatis Perks, an associate professor of Communication at Merrimack College conducted focus groups between spring 2005 and fall 2007. Each group watched episode seven from Chappelle’s Show, season 1. When asked to evaluate the Chappelle’s Show’s racial representation, focus group participants’ frequently reiterated long-standing African American stereotypes surrounding crime and violence. African Americans were labelled as “thugs, ghetto, gangster and lower class” (Perks 2012, 295). Several non-African Americans explicitly or implicitly referenced characters from sketches titled “Mad Real World” and “Reparations” as evidence of the show’s reinforcement of racist stereotypes. “Mad Real World” is a parody of MTV’s The Real World where a White man is chosen to live with “six of the craziest Black people” After watching the sketch, participants spoke about how black characters are “usually extremely violent,” “drinking 40’s,” and “smoking and stabbing people” (Perks 2012, 296). The “Reparations” sketch depicted African Americans receiving a government payment as compensation for slavery. After watching this sketch, participants once again reiterated dominant stereotypes of African Americans as lazy and poor, as having a propensity to gambling and drinking, and lacking education. Perks argued that “viewers remembered the stereotypes at face value, not as satires, when simply asked to describe the program’s racial representation. Focus group participants invoked the tropes of irony and satire only when prompted to assess the impact of the representations or why the program was humorous” (Perks 2012, 296).

CHAPPELLE GROWS FRUSTRATED, LEAVES HIS SHOW Despite the show’s success that resulted in a two-year contract extension worth fifty million dollars, Chappelle grew increasingly frustrated with the show. While performing at Sacramento’s Memorial Auditorium, Chappelle was heckled by fans who shouted a catchphrase from the show. Chappelle told the crowd: “The show is ruining my life. . . . People can’t distinguish between what’s real and fake. This ain’t a TV show. You’re not watching Comedy Central. I’m really up here talking” (Carnes 2004). As the crowd continued to heckle him, Chappelle lashed out, telling the crowd: “You know why my show is good? Because the network officials say you’re not smart enough to get what I’m doing, and every day I fight for you. I tell them how smart you are. Turns out, I was wrong. You people are stupid.” Chappelle was frustrated by the audiences’ ignorance but also with himself for writing and performing sketches that he would later describe as “socially irresponsible.” He feared that he was not having a social impact because the audience did understand the messages within his satiric work.



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During the production of the third season of Chappelle’s Show, Dave left the show indefinitely while filming “Stereotype Pixies,” a sketch that sought to use pixies to personify racial stereotypes. The Asian pixie was portrayed with a samurai top knot, a Fu Manchu mustache, a kung fu outfit, and a thick accent. The White pixie could not dance, advises his counterpart on how to talk to Black people, and does not like women with large bottoms. The Latino pixie snorts cocaine, has a fondness for Jesus air-fresheners, illegal leopard skin seat covers, and maracas. The Black pixie, who is painted in blackface and is wearing a vaudeville-esque suit, tempts and chides Chappelle into ordering fried chicken. While filming, Chappelle became increasingly bothered as a crew member laughed inappropriately. “When he laughed, it made me uncomfortable,” noted Chappelle. “As a matter of fact, that was the last thing I shot before I told myself I gotta take f_____— time out after this. Because my head almost exploded” (Spring 2006). Despite Chappelle’s exit, Comedy Central went ahead with season three, airing already completed sketches, including the “Stereotype Pixies.” Since the abrupt ending of his show, Chappelle has returned to do stand-up comedy, including several specials on Netflix, all of which prompted widespread discussion, criticism, and celebration. Yet, several years after the conclusion of Chappelle’s Show, many people still wonder what comedy television would look like today if Chappelle had stayed with his show? Despite ending over ten years ago, Chappelle’s Show is still talked about, with some fans considering the show to be “timeless.” The show had a very “delicate” balance in which it challenged its viewers to think about race and racism, but unfortunately it also perpetuated racial stereotypes. To challenge stereotypes with the use of stereotypes is a difficult creative task, even for a comedian like Chappelle. Chappelle’s Show will continue to generate discussions and serve as a stark reminder of the problematic nature of parodying racial stereotypes. Amir Asim Gilmore Further Reading

Carnes, Jim. 2004. “Dave Chappelle Lets Rude Crowd Have It, Sticks Up for Cosby’s Comment.” June 18. ­http://​­www​.­f reerepublic​.­com​/­focus​/­news​/­1156342​/­posts. Cormier, Roger. 2016. “15 Fun Facts about Chappelle’s Show.” MentalFloss, January 16. ­http://​­mentalfloss​.­com​/­article​/­73863​/­15​-­f un​-­facts​-­about​-­chappelles​-­show. Cowen, Trace William. 2016. “Chappelle’s Show Co-Creator Details the Creation of That Iconic Clayton Bigsby Sketch.” Complex, February 4. ­http://​­www​.­complex​.­com​/­pop​ -­culture​/­2016​/­02​/­chappelles​-­show​-­black​-­white​-­supremacist​-­clayton​-­bigsby​-­skit. IMDB. 2003. “Chappelle’s Show.” ­http://​­www​.­imdb​.­com​/­title​/­tt0353049​/?­ref​_​= ​­ttmd​ _md​_nm. Leung, Rebecca. 2004. “Chappelle: An Act of Freedom.” CBSNews, October 19. ­http://​ ­w ww​.­cbsnews​.­com​/­news​/­chappelle​-­an​-­act​-­of​-­f reedom​-­19​-­10​-­2004​/. McCluskey, Megan. 2016. “Revisit the Iconic Chappelle’s Show Sketch That Inspired a Prince Song.” Time, April 21. ­http://​­time​.­com​/­4303634​/­prince​-­chappelles​-­show​ -­sketch​/. Parco, Nicholas. 2016. “Funniest ‘Chappelle’s Show’ Skits.” NY Daily News, January 22. ­http://​­w ww​.­nydailynews​.­com ​/­entertainment​/­t v​/­f unniestchappelleshowskitsarticl e1​.­2506062.

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Perks, Lisa Glebatis. 2012. “Three Satiric Television Decoding Positions.” Communication Studies 63: 290–308. Spring, Corey. 2006. “The Sketch That Made Chappelle Say ‘Enough.’” NewsVine, July 14. ­http://​­spring​. ­newsvine​.­c om​/­_ news​/­2006​/­07​/­14​/­287958​- ­t he​- ­s ketch​- ­t hat​- ­m ade​ -­chappelle​-­say​-­enough. Vineyard, Jennifer. 2006. “Dave Chappelle Comes Clean on Oprah.” MTVNews, February 3. ­http://​­www​.­mtv​.­com​/­news​/­1523197​/­dave​-­chappelle​-­comes​-­clean​-­on​-­oprah​/. Zakos, Katharine P. 2009. “Racial Satire and Chappelle’s Show.” Master’s Thesis, Georgia State University.

Chi, The(2018–) The Chi (2018–), created by Lena Waithe and produced by Waithe, Common (Lonnie Rashid Lynn Jr.), Elwood Reid, Aaron Kaplan, and Rick Famuyiwa, tells stories of life on the South Side of Chicago and of its Black neighborhoods and families. Airing on Showtime, The Chi explores life in Chicago beyond the daily headlines, highlighting the daily realities, both hardships and sources of happiness, experienced by black children, parents, and others. Following the death of a Black youth, The Chi tells the story of several different people, each of whom is affected by this murder in different ways. Highlighting the heterogeneity of the Black community, the show not only moves beyond the tendency to define blackness through gun violence and crime but also works to spotlight the diversity, humanity, and richness of a community touch by tragedy. Specifically, the show centers around a myriad of characters. “The Chi’s pilot introduces a cast that’s both sprawling yet small, characters whose lives are subtly tangled together by the neighborhood they live in but brought into collision by the gunshot that opens the series,” writes Joshua Rivera. “Each of them has their own aspirations, or ideas about the lives they’d like to lead, and layers in tensions large and small that stem from the myriad ways the world is built to keep you where you are” (2018). There is Brandon (Jason Mitchel), an aspiring chef whose life is focused on opening a restaurant with his girlfriend Jerrika (Tiffany Boone); Laverne (Sonja Sohn), Brandon’s mother, who struggles to understand her son’s foodie lifestyle; there is Emmett (Jacob Latimore), a teen whose life revolved around girls and shoes, that is until he learns that he has an infant son; and Ronnie (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine), a veteran suffering from addiction and poverty, who serves as a police informant. There are also several teenage boys featured on the show, each of whom tells a different story that work to undermine existing stereotypes. In many ways, they are “average boys” whose lives are defined by school, friends, and the challenges of being teenagers: Papa (Shannon Brown Jr.), whose passions include eating, flirting with girls; Kevin (Alex R. Hibbert), who finds himself at the wrong place at the wrong time; and Jake (Michael Epps), who, like his friends, is a smart kid with a bright future but is being pulled toward violence by his brother, who is a gang leader. And there is Coogie (Jahking Guillory), Brandon’s half-brother, who after discovering a dead body while riding his bike, ultimately dies himself.



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Following in the footsteps of other cable shows, such as The Corner (2000), The Wire (2002–2008) and Treme (2010–2013), each of which sought to expose the complexity and humanity of the Black community often left behind and confined in America’s inner cities, The Chi works to represent Chicago beyond the headlines and stump speeches. Highlighting the show’s focus on “a group of black men caught up in senseless, endemic violence,” Willa Paskin writes that “The Chi is extremely ambitious in the most straightforward sense, a big, honking drama tackling violence, masculinity, race, racism, and policing” (2018). Similarly, James Poniewozik writes, “What emerges as ‘The Chi’ gets room to breathe is that, while it unfolds from a crime, it’s not really a crime story. It’s about a widening pool of people who would rather be doing anything besides dealing with the repercussions of a murder” (2018). Yet, The Chi is more than an exposé on gun violence, poverty, police harassment, and the challenges facing a community touched by hyper-policing, deindustrialization, violence, and countless other challenges, telling stories often ignored by the limited and flattening narratives afforded to Black Chicago. For example, audiences are introduced to Kevin (Alex R. Hibbert), a young African American boy who auditions for the school play The Wiz in hopes of winning the affection of his middle-school crush. While he is witness to a murder, his identity and existence is not defined by his relationship to violence and death. Even in a scene that documents police brutality, The Chi pushes the conversation to unexpected places. Brandon is pulled over by the police and thrown onto the hood of his car. Asking him where he is coming from, he notes that he had just left some popular chic restaurant, to which one of the officers countered by noting his inability to get a reservation. Brandon ultimately makes a call, getting the officer a reservation. Focused on coming-of-age storylines, and a range of personalities, identities, and experiences, The Chi represents this Chicago neighborhood with a level of banality and universality. In the face of not only news coverage and a popular culture that both sensationalizes gun violence in Chicago and ignores root causes but also politicians who routinely cite Chicago as evidence of the America’s problem, The Chi sought to tell a different story. Challenging stereotypes about Black youth and those who invoke the Black community in Chicago for political purposes, The Chi focused on bringing depth, humanity, and a level of reality to the small screen. “My mission is to show these young black men are not born with a gun in their hand,” noted Lena Waithe. “These are kids who come out with all the promise and hope that any other kid does. . . . I wanted to humanize them and show that their lives are valid. “But I don’t paint us in a perfect light at all. My hope is that I can show us in an honest way. That’s it. Not bad. Not perfect. Just accurate” (qtd. in Hyman 2018). The show’s investment in moving beyond the tendency to see Chicago through sensationalized news coverage to see everyday experiences in the most authentic way extends beyond the show’s narrative and representation to its aesthetic choices and its hiring. Using only music from Chicago artists, always shooting on location in various Chicago neighborhoods, and hiring locals to work on the show, The

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Chi’s commitment to authenticity and telling a Chicago story anchors every aspect of the show’s orientation. Over ten episodes, The Chi would develop a loyal audience over its inaugural season. Averaging four million viewers over all its viewing platforms, The Chi ranked as the network’s best series premiere since Billions in 2016. Reflecting both its popularity and its critical success, Showtime executives renewed The Chi for its second season. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Hyman, Dan. 2018. “With ‘The Chi,’ Lena Waithe Heads Home in Search of the Real Chicago.” New York Times, January 2. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2018​/­01​/­02​/­arts​ /­television​/­lena​-­waithe​-­the​-­chi​.­html. Paskin, Willa. 2018. “The Chi: Lena Waithe’s Showtime Series Is Far More Like the Wire Than Master of None.” Slate, January 5. ­https://​­slate​.­com​/­arts​/­2018​/­01​ /­lena​-­waithes​-­the​-­chi​-­reviewed​.­html. Poniewozik, James. 2018. “In ‘The Chi,’ a Young Man Dies, and the Ripples Spread.” New York Times, January 4. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2018​/­01​/­04​/­arts​/­television​ /­review​-­in​-­the​-­chi​-­a​-­young​-­man​-­dies​-­and​-­the​-­ripples​-­spread​.­html. Rivera, Joshua. 2018. “The Chi Is 2018’s First Essential Show.” GQ, January 5. ­https://​ ­w ww​.­gq​.­com​/­story​/­the​-­chi​-­is​-­2018​-­first​-­essential​-­show.

Chico and the Man(1974–1978) Chronicling the relationship between Ed Brown (Jack Albertson)—the Man—, a bigoted and curmudgeonly White garage owner, and Chico (Eddie Prinze), a Chicano Vietnam veteran. Chico and the Man was one of many show’s tackling racial issues during the 1970s. Providing a sizable platform for Prinze, an emergent upcoming Latinx star, and bringing increased representation to the Latinx community, Chico and the Man, in its short run, left a lasting impact on television. Airing over four seasons on NBC, Chico and the Man built on the successes of a host of shows, including Sanford and Son (1972–1977), Good Times (1974–1979), Welcome Back Kotter (1975–1979), which was created by James Komack, who also developed and produced Chico and the Man and The White Shadow (1978– 1981), all of which explored race, the experiences of communities of color in America’s inner cities, and various social issues. With the exception of Ed Brown, Chico and the Man represented East Los Angeles as a community of Black and Latinx residents. Alongside of Chico was Louie Wilson (Scatman Crothers), the neighborhood’s garbage collector, Della Rodgers (Della Reese), a garage landlord, and Mando (Isaac Ruiz), Chico’s close friend. The show’s pilot (September 13, 1974) established not only its storyline but also its focus on race. When Chico arrives at Brown’s nonfunctioning garage in hopes of getting a job, he is met with racism. Brown tells him, “Go away, and take your flies with you!” Chico’s request for a job are continuously rebuffed. “Everyone knows you people are lazy anyways. Even if I gave you a job, you wouldn’t show up. You would be too busy taking a siesta.” Undeterred, he returns later in the



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night, cleaning up the garage in an effort to not only secure a job but also to disprove “the man’s racism.” He is successful, launching their relationship, which anchored the show and propelled it to success. Evident in the pilot, the show sought to capitalize on the popularity of All in the Family (1971–1979), with its willingness to take up racial issues and expose America to not only the bigotry of an older generation of White men but also to spotlight the potential for change. Within Chico and the Man, change was possible through friendship, working together, and integration. It spoke to the cultural power of the interracial buddy film, which consistently offered narratives of interracial harmony, mutual growth, and what happens when people of color and whites come together. For Ed, Chico’s arrival results in a dramatic improvement of the shop, which was in disrepair, to where it becomes “a functional business” (Muñoz 2007, 447). For Chico, their relationship provides a father-figure he never had. In “Chico’s Padre” (February 4, 1977), Gilberto (Cesar Romero), who was long estranged from his son Chico, attempts to reenter his life, only to be told that Ed, despite his racism and bigotry, has given more to him than his real father has ever provided: “He’s closer to it than you are.” He makes his love and devotion clear: “That old man in that room has helped me a lot. He’s helped me get my head together, helped me finish school. Learn a trade.” Reflective of the show’s embrace of the belief that simply breaking down the walls of segregation produced racial harmony, this theme anchored much of the show’s episodes and storylines. For some critics, this central message of the show was a source of disappointment and protest. According to José Esteban Muñoz (2007), the show’s theme song, which was performed by the widely popular Puerto Rican artist José Feliciano, captures a message that is similar to the show’s ideology and argument: while Chicana/os are rightly angry and frustrated by persistent inequalities and while Chicana/os are rightly wary of white America, progress is only possible if they put aside anger and grievances to work together. “I know that you can lend a helping hand / Because there’s good in everyone.” Rather than respond to the racism of “the man,” it was essential to work together. For Muñoz and others, the song and the show do not demand that Chicano/as “lend a helping a hand” and “ignore examples of racism” but convey a message that the problems facing the community are of their own making. “Though Chico is being asked to resist being discouraged and the promise of a new day hangs in the air the song, nonetheless, indexes the fact of feeling like a problem. The narrative indicates that Chico is indeed a problem that the man does not understand” (Muñoz 2007, 448). Protests focused on a range of concerns about the shows: (1) the casting of Prinze as Chico; (2) the lack of Chicano/a writers working on the show as evidence of the persistent exclusion of Chicano/as both on screen and behind the scenes; and (3) the show’s perpetuation of long-standing stereotypes. Throughout the show’s airing, Chico responded to requests from “the man” with a similar retort: “Tha’s not my job.” Some critics interpreted these interactions as evidence of Chico’s resistance and refusal; he would not do whatever the man demanded of him. Yet, for others, this response, which became a crowd pleasing catch phrase,

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had the potential “to reinforce an idea of the inherent laziness of Latino peoples” (Oguss 2005, 10). The show’s use of racism as sources of humor and Chico’s failure to challenge Ed’s racism also drew the ire of critics. According to Gregg Oguss (2005), the show consistently positioned Chico as not only “bearing the brunt of” racism but also responsible for mediating potential conflict through submission behaviors, jokes, and accommodation. He consistently responded to “Ed’s slurs by telling jokes and maintaining his cheerfulness.” For example, in “Ed Talks to God” (March 4, 1977), after a Chicano driver accidentally starts to drive away with the gas pump still attached to his car, Ed tells Chico, “your people are always trying to steal something.” Rather than confronting Ed on his racism or reflecting on the long-standing stereotypes about Latinx communities, Chico tells him, “You’re just saying that cuz I stole your heart.” It is Chico’s responsibility to diffuse the tension through humor. It is his responsibility to comfort Ed and even the audience, while showing Ed and the white viewers that these assumptions are not true. Such an approach was not unique to the show but could also be found in the stand-up performances of Prinze. In many ways, Chico and the Man was simply a vehicle for the comedic genius of Freddie Prinze Sr. Born Frederick Karl Pruetzel in New York City to a Puerto Rican mother and a German father, Prinze found his passion in comedy while a student at LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts. While Chico and the Man solidified Prinze’s place in the national consciousness, it was his appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson Show (1962–1992), that changed his career. Following his performance, Carson invited him to sit on the couch for interview, a first for any comedian on the show. His career, like the show itself, was one of controversy and ample debate. Offering images of Latinx communities rarely seen on television, providing a platform for Latinx characters to give voice in Spanish to their disgust with Ed’s racism, and otherwise giving voice to parts of an experience rarely seen on television, Chico and the Man represented steps forward for Latinxs on television. Yet, its embrace of long-standing stereotypes, comforting interracial narratives, storylines that portrayed Chicanos as the problem, and focus on humor, happiness, and simply “turning the other cheek” as solutions to racism were a reminder for some that progress is still needed. Sadly, Prinze’s death (the show’s attempts to replace him were a major failure) and the show’s limited changes in response to widespread criticisms made the story of Chico and the Man one of unfulfilled potential, creating a huge representational gap where there were few representations much less a show starring a Latinx actors for years to come. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Apelo, Tim. 1995. “The Tormented Soul of Freddie Prinze.” Entertainment Weekly, January 27. ­https://​­ew​.­com​/­article​/­1995​/­01​/­27​/­tormented​-­soul​-­f reddie​-­prinze​/. Muñoz, José Esteban. 2007. “‘Chico, What Does It Feel Like to be a Problem?’ The Transmission of Brownness.” In A Companion to Latina/o Studies, edited by Juan Flores and Renato Rosaldo, 441–451. Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell Publishing.



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Oguss, Greg. 2005. “‘Whose Barrio Is It?’ Chico and the Man and the Integrated Ghetto Shows of the 1970s.” Television and New Media 6 (1): 3–21.

Children’s Television Along with parents and teachers, television serves an important role in the lives of children. A source of education, a space that cultivates imagination, and a cultural institution that teaches children about race, gender, and so much more, children’s television occupies an important place in American life. By six months of age, children consistently demonstrate the ability to nonverbally classify people by race and gender. By age two, many children use racial categories to understand who they are in relation to other people. Both Black and White children demonstrate an in-group racial bias around age two and a half. By age three, both Black and White children exhibit a pro-white bias, which indicates that they understand the social significance and prestige of whiteness. At three years old, children understand race, meaning that they see the personality attributes that they have come to associate with certain racial or ethnic markers (like skin colors) as natural and constant rules. Three-year-old children have also been shown to demonstrate racial biases based on these essentialized understandings. Debra Van Ausdale and Joe R. Feagin’s (2001) ethnographic research on children, ages three to five, revealed that these children’s ability to racially or ethnically categorize is not limited to innocent, simplistic activities like comparing skin colors or engaging in racial naming, but is, in fact, rather complex. In these early years, while children’s understandings about race and the way they apply these understandings are complex, children’s knowledge at this stage is based in symbols like skin color—if they see only white children being rewarded on television, they may internalize the idea that white skin is better. Very young children make little distinction between what they see on television and what happens in their immediate environment. However, between the ages of two and five, children do begin to form a basic level of understanding about the representational nature of television, meaning that they recognize that what they see on television is not actually happening in their environment but is representationally related to events in the real world. By five years old, children put their racial understandings into action and can categorize people’s behaviors, employ intricate knowledge about race and ethnicity in everyday social interaction, and use racial and ethnic categories as criteria for inclusion, exclusion, and power negotiation in social settings like schools or day-care centers. Between the ages of seven and eleven, children are solidifying their understandings about race and ethnicity and come to recognize these as fixed aspects of identity and social life. During these middle years of childhood, children also begin to further understand group level (rather than just immediate, individual) classification of racial and ethnic groups and begin to describe themselves in terms of racial and ethnic group membership. By adolescence, children develop even more comprehensive awareness of the complex nature of human thoughts and feelings and come to realize that while some aspects of race, like the color of

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one’s skin, are fixed, the ways that these aspects of race are interpreted can vary across situations. Middle adolescence, or the time between ages fourteen through seventeen, is a highly sensitive time for racial and ethnic identity development during which teens may not only use television media for role-model adoption but also use television and other media as markers of their identity by selecting to associate with different types of available media.

TELEVISION’S INFLUENCE Traditionally, racial and ethnic socialization is defined as processes by which parents and other familial agents teach children about social meanings of race and ethnicity. However, over the course of long-term observation, Van Ausdale and Feagin (2001) came to learn that children’s utilization of racial and ethnic concepts often baffled parents and teachers, who consistently wondered where kids had acquired their knowledge. In some cases, parents insisted that their children’s racialized interactions (especially those that were exclusionary or blatantly racist in nature) were counter to what parents themselves believed about race and ethnicity, much less passed on to their kids. For scholars, this confirmed the finding of much previous research that children’s sophisticated racial understandings do not always mirror parental attitudes. To experts, it seems logical that very young children pick up their racial understandings from sources other than their parents because it is well documented that in most families, parents do not report engaging in purposeful racial socialization with children much younger than five to seven years old. Many parents believe that very young children are not cognitively developed enough to meaningfully grasp racial concepts. While parents have been historically considered the primary influence, as far back as the 1950s, Kenneth and Mamie Clark, proprietors of the now famous “doll tests” argued that other agents outside of the family are important sources of racial learning. Public education, media, religious organizations, community members, billboards, textbooks, and mundane interaction, are all important sources of racial learning. For very young children who are not undergoing active familial racial socialization, as well as for older children and teens, who spend a great deal of time in public zones away from the family, these non-parental socializers can be particularly influential in how children develop understandings of race and ethnicity. Media is among the most prominent sociocultural socializers. Television, deemed “window to the world,” teaches and reinforces ideas about the social world and plays an especially important role in racial learning for school-aged children and adolescents. Children of all ages consume heavy amounts of television programming, and while estimates vary based on how viewing time is measured, consensus is that children spend more time watching television than any other activities except for sleeping. Commonly though, it is accepted that even children as young as age two spend two to four hours engaged with television and videos per day. Black children are the heaviest consumers of television media, followed by Latinxs and may spend more than two to four hours per day watching television. It is



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Comprehensive Racial Learning Comprehensive racial learning is a process by which children actively interpret messages that they receive about race from a variety of social influences and construct personal understandings of what these messages mean and, therefore, how race functions on the societal and interpersonal level. Coined by scholar Erin N. Winkler, the term emphasizes the significance of multiple sources of racial messages rather than only considering familial influence (like traditional racial socialization theories). Importantly, this child-centered process involves learning, rather than passive socialization, and emphasizes children’s agency in actively interpreting and constructing racial understandings.

posited that this disproportionate television consumption among certain groups of minority children is due to comparative poverty levels. Because of higher levels of poverty among Black and Latinx families (which many argue result directly from the United States’ history of racially discriminatory laws and policies), Black and Latinx families tend to be more housebound and less likely to afford childcare, rendering television watching a prominent activity for children. White and Asian children, on average, consume the least television media and do so proportionately to one another. Even as new types of media, such as video games and smart phones, become widely available to children, television watching continues to be the form of media consumption that children consistently spend the most time with. It is crucial to note that when children watch television, they are not viewing in a passive stupor. In fact, kids are actively interpreting the content and form of television programming, decoding symbols like skin color, and interpreting character relations and roles, and deciphering verbal and nonverbal cues. RACIAL REPRESENTATION IN CHILDREN’S PROGRAMMING Few studies have explored the quality or influences of racial and ethnic content in television programming for very young, preschool-aged children. Those that have focus on Sesame Street (1969–) and affirm that this program incorporates the positive messages about race and ethnicity that have been part of its mission since its inception. Research on television content for children in middle childhood and adolescent audiences suggests that programming reinforces negative attitudes about people of color and other socially devalued groups, omitting nondominant perspectives altogether or relying on stereotypical or diminutive representations. Studies of older children have demonstrated that omission and entrenched stereotypes influence role-model selection, meaning that there are few positive or realistic in-group role models available to children of color. Further, because of its consistently stereotypical portrayals of members of various racial and ethnic groups, television may be influential in children’s development of racial biases, which are shown to be hard to change once established. However, scholars note that although racial representation in children’s television can have negative

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effects, television can also be an effective tool in reducing racial and ethnic bias and fostering positive intergroup attitudes if a wide variety of diverse and realistic representations are consistently incorporated into the majority of programming. Research on television for children tends to examine racial and ethnic representation on two broad dimensions: the quantity or frequency of portrayal and quality or nature of portrayals. Studies of children’s programming demonstrate that, by the numbers, television shows and commercials feature far less characters of racial and ethnic minority groups than whites. In addition to including them less frequently, children’s programming has been found to include stereotypical portrayals of people of color, or to only include representations of people of color that ignore racial and ethnic realities of historical and structural discrimination and inequality. In regards to frequency of representation, research finds that various kinds of media that children are exposed to, such as animated cartoons, prime-time programming, Disney-animated films, advertising, and even picture books significantly underrepresent racial and ethnic minority groups. Some research suggests that, despite increasing frequency of representations of color, some children’s television still engages in what is known as symbolic annihilation. By definition, symbolic annihilation is the way that television and other media exclude, ignore, subordinate, or render particular groups unimportant or irrelevant. Although this definition alludes to the quality of representations, most often symbolic annihilation measures the quantity of representation. When a racial or ethnic group is symbolically annihilated from programming, they are, to some degree, made invisible to audiences. This absence of racial or ethnic groups sends the message to child viewers that those missing groups are not important or not powerful. Contemporary analyses do not find symbolic annihilation in the form of complete and total absence of most racial or ethnic groups within the television landscape, especially in children’s programming, which has been observed as more racially inclusive than that for adults. However, it is of serious importance to note that one group continues to be routinely erased from children’s (and adults’!) programming. Native Americans are almost entirely absent from all popular corners of television. Limited research has concluded that symbolic annihilation is less likely in programming for preschool-aged audiences as it tends to have greater racial diversity than other genres. However, inclusion alone does not guarantee a non-stereotypical variety of representations. The quality of representations may have even more impact on audiences than the quantity (Tukachinsky, Mastro, and Yarchi 2015) and analyses of general children’s programming finds that, when they are included, the quality of racial and ethnic representations are consistently stereotypical and diminutive. Whites tend to be overrepresented in programming in general and are afforded the widest range of roles and personal identity characteristics. In general, representations of whites on television perpetuate existing power relations as Whites are granted greater power and authority than characters of color, who are shown as subservient. Analyses of programming for school-aged children find that Whites exemplify authority by being afforded more speaking roles and stronger



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ability to direct action. In programming for children, Whites are very often the main characters with the most power. Even in advertising directed toward children, television commercials are more likely to feature White children as those directing action and when children of color are present in ads, they are often only present when there is a large group of children and they are typically not featured in central roles. Advertising on children’s channels also disproportionately depicts Whites in domestic roles and settings, reinforcing notions of a perfect, white, nuclear family. A Children Now study revealed that a nationally representative, racially diverse group of preteens and adolescents characterized white TV characters as having money, being educated and intelligent, doing well in school, and being leaders. The same group characterized Black TV characters as breaking the law or rules, being lazy, and acting goofy (Berry 2003). Black representation continues to be especially stereotypical and latently racist, albeit slightly more “positive” than in the past. Blacks in programming for youth audiences are depicted less frequently and for less time than whites, and are often obscured in mostly white crowds. Research on general children’s television concludes that, like prime-time TV, programming directed at children often portrays Black characters in stereotypical manners. Portrayals of black characters as violent, naughty, aggressive, absent-minded, flashy, magical, irresponsible, or silly are not uncommon in children’s programming. An intensive study of commercials on children’s channels found that in advertising aired during children’s programming, black characters appeared as submissive to whites and were stereotyped as highly athletic or as entertaining performers (Li-Vollmer 2002). Asians are generally “seen but not heard” on television meaning that though Asian characters may be physically present, they are typically limited to the most passive positions. Like other racial and ethnic minority representation in children’s programming, Asian children are often depicted blending into crowds. Stereotypically portrayed in media as a “model minority” (Asian representation often includes a strong work ethic and serious demeanor). Larson’s content analysis of general children’s television commercials (2002 cited in Greenberg and Mastro 2008) revealed that television upholds the technologically savvy model of the Asian “whiz-kid” stereotype, finding that over a third of all Asian representations in children’s advertisements were commercials for technology products. Latinx representation tends to be more positive in programing for child audiences, such as Sesame Street (PBS) and Dora the Explorer (Nick Jr.), than in other genres. However, in advertisements, Latino/as are mostly portrayed in public service announcements for general audiences and in toy ads for dolls, demonstrating that programming perpetuates stereotypes of Latino/as as being reliant on social aid or being primarily involved in caretaking roles. A 2004 Children Now study reported that television’s (albeit infrequent) domestic worker roles are mostly filled by Latinx characters. Other analyses of Latinx representation conclude that they are shown as respected and hardworking but nonprofessional. Latinx characters also are portrayed as being least articulate and having heavy accents. Native American representation, though mostly neglected in television media, is the most strongly stereotyped. Films and television for general audiences often use Native American representation for logos and mascots, and relegate them to

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roles that illustrate historical conflicts. In children’s television media, Native representations (when they are present) depict members of this group in childlike ways as helpless, taciturn, and awestruck. In addition to partial (or complete) erasure or stereotyping of racial and ethnic minority groups in children’s programming, scholars have noted the importance of paying attention to the interaction between characters of different racial backgrounds. Historically speaking, cross-racial interactions have been infrequent in children’s programming. However, aligned with the argument that diverse representation is increasing, so too are depictions of cross-racial interaction. Characters of different racial and ethnic backgrounds are now often featured interacting with one another in children’s programming. However, it is incredibly rare that these cross-racial interactions involve any acknowledgment of the importance of interacting with people who are different from you or seriously attempt to bring issues of diversity and acceptance to the surface. A growing trend in children’s programming is the presence of racially ambiguous characters. While it has been noted that characters who are Latinx are not always physically distinguishable as such (and are indicated to be Latinx through cultural markers), it is increasingly common for characters to not be racially or ethnically distinguishable. In programming for children, this may be done through the inclusion of characters with very light brown skin tones or unnatural hair or eye colors and an avoidance of including any cultural marking details such as culturally specific clothing, accents, or other elements of characterization. Some critics argue that the turn in children’s programming toward including characters who are racially ambiguous is reflective of the increasing population of mixed-race children and provides positive representation for these certain groups of children. Others argue that rather than an attempt at inclusivity for mixed-race children, because these racially ambiguous characters celebrate no cultural heritage (rather than several different heritages), their presence is negative because it ignores that racial and ethnic differences are important to children’s identities and do have real effects on social life. While some racial and ethnic representations rely on stereotypes, this is not the only possible quality of representations found in television programming. Even the non-stereotypical presence of people of color on television does not guarantee a variety of representations that acknowledge and reflect racial and ethnic realities. Some scholars argue that increasingly more common than quantitative symbolic annihilation or stereotyping is the pervasiveness of colorblindness in television media. Central to the idea of colorblindness is the idea that race and ethnicity are no longer influential pattern of social relations in American society. Rather, race is treated as an individual characteristic, as insignificant as any other mundane personal descriptor like age or eye-color. The colorblind sentiment “I don’t see color” expresses the notion that all individuals are the same and should be treated as such, regardless of race or ethnicity. Critics, activists, and scholars alike have argued that the refusal to acknowledge race as meaningful perpetuates racial disparities. The colorblind precept that race is irrelevant as an influential pattern of social relations allows no room to challenge existing racial inequality. The presence of various racial and ethnic representations without the acknowledgment of the meaningful role that race plays in



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identity and life chances is an indication of colorblind diversity. Colorblind diversity in most children’s television is purely symbolic in the sense that it does nothing to recognize and validate the realities of racial and ethnic identities or confront the extant racial hierarchy. Scholars argue that stereotyping perpetuates dominant ideology and preserves racial disparities, and colorblind representations function similarly. Like diverse yet stereotypical representations, diverse yet colorblind representations, in which people of color are present but their lives and culture are not, both obfuscate and reinforce racial inequalities. Opposite colorblindness is color-consciousness, which, among other aims, validates the experiences and perspectives of people of color through meaningful dialogue and inclusion. As society becomes increasingly diverse, and the United States makes the transition to becoming a “majority minority” nation, some argue that television media must take on greater responsibility in preparing children for everyday multicultural interaction. Many scholars even assert that television is responsible for a greater amount of children’s racial learning than any other socializing agent, including our education system. In contrast to stereotyping and colorblindness, representations and programming that incorporate qualities of multicultural education have the potential to cultivate color-conscious, pro-social attitudes, and affect behaviors toward learning about and interacting with members of racial and ethnic outgroups. Multicultural education is not consistently defined, but there is agreement that it includes curricula dealing with racial and cultural diversity that challenges prejudice and endorses student’s unique cultures. Research on what constitutes effective multicultural curriculum is mixed in assertions about what approaches are. Four documented approaches have been considered by scholars and can also be considered in the context of children’s television programming. These are: contributive or additive, counter-stereotypic, and antiracist. Methods of multicultural education determined by Banks (1993) as “additive” and “contributive” approaches rely on incorporating multicultural heroes, holidays, concepts, and themes to try to reduce bias that might result from children’s ignorance of other groups. These elements are common in children’s programming. Purely contributive or additive approaches, however, have been criticized as superficial and may be likely to do more for stereotype reinforcement than engendering antibias. As the current dominant forms of multicultural education in schools and on television, this additive approach does not challenge children’s understandings of culture, difference, and race, but upholds existing racial hierarchies. A second method uses counter-stereotypic information, assigning attributes to racial and ethnic representations in educational materials that are opposite of what would be stereotypically expected. In her evaluation of multiple studies of multicultural education interventions, including those which involved televisual media, Bigler (1999) asserts that, especially in children with high levels of existing racial bias, counter-stereotypic interventions, like additive approaches, can function to increase stereotyping. A third method, the antiracist approach, incorporates explicit lessons about stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination to foster intergroup understanding. Antiracist approaches emphasize the social locations and institutions where racism is perpetuated. This type of education must be disseminated not only to children of

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color but also is critical for White children as well. For this type of education to reach as wide an audience as possible, television might be the perfect medium to introduce antiracist multiculturalism to the very youngest viewers. Although no “best practice” has been established in regards to methods or delivery mechanisms, multicultural education in schools has been shown to be effective in improving students’ racial attitudes even at the prekindergarten level. Furthermore, multicultural media interventions using television and picture books are shown to be more effective than other methods in cultivating positive attitudes toward outgroup members. Educational television programming for children can be an important tool for the provision of positive in-group and out-group messages about race. However, even shows that are specifically touted as promoting racial and ethnic diversity are often far too subtle or too superficial and can end up having no effect, or, in some cases, further confirming racial and ethnic stereotypes. SESAME STREET: THE GOLD STANDARD Broadcast in over 150 countries, with 30 international coproductions, the Public Broadcasting Station’s Sesame Street has been lauded since its 1969 inception as an outstanding educational program for children. Nearly 90 percent of United States’ households tuned into the Public Broadcasting Station (PBS) annually and during the 2012–2013 season and 80 percent of children aged two through eight watched PBS according to the Nielsen Corporation statistics. Sesame Street was among the top ten programs tuned into by mothers of young children in early 2014. Continually on air for nearly five decades, the show is special in its longevity and consistent use of internally initiated evaluation. PBS claims that it treats audiences as citizens, not mere consumers, and this may be supported by the facts of Sesame Street’s origins detailed in Robert Morrow’s “Sesame Street and the Reform of Children’s Television.” The program developed in an era when television was beginning to be cast as somewhat of a social problem, negatively impacting families and children who spent many hours every week engaged in viewing. Arising out of a social desire for television to be not only a means of entertainment for children but also a captivating teacher, Sesame Street aimed to educate and equalize by providing informational programming that depicted diverse portrayals of humanity (and

Joan Ganz Cooney Joan Ganz Cooney (b. 1929) is a creator and developer of Sesame Street who served as executive director of the Children’s Television Workshop. As an educational television producer, she was instrumental in the development of children’s television that incorporated effective educational and social justice content with elements of commercial entertainment programming. Along with her fervent dedication to producing television that could teach, Cooney was highly successful in working to secure the funding and distribution to make Sesame Street as popular as possible among its target audience of low-income children of color.



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puppetry) in addition to providing more traditional age-appropriate academic curriculum. The show worked to “cultivate and broaden the minds of children” (Morrow 2006, 64) by showing various representations of race and ethnicity intended to help poor minority children identify with what they viewed on television and to promote interaction between all types of children in real life by demonstrating it on television. Sesame Street was one of the very first programs to make Black and Latinx characters present in children’s programming. However, it did not stop at visibility. Early on, in response to activist demand during the 1960s and 1970s, Sesame Street began to carefully craft its characters and episodes to present a meaningfully diverse range of identities. As Black and Latinx parents and groups stepped forward demanding that in addition to school readiness, Sesame Street provide life readiness in the form of positive role models and cultural inclusivity, the program’s creators conscientiously collaborated with groups of consultants from different racial and ethnic backgrounds to most effectively incorporate the needs of all children. From the 1970s onward, Sesame Street has been a paragon of multiculturalism and tolerance among children’s programming. In its final few seasons on PBS (before being bought by HBO in 2015), Sesame Street continued to stand as an exemplary children’s program, still meaningfully including racial and ethnic identities and realities and addressing racialized issues such as parental incarcerations as well as creating plotlines that promote taking pride in being a person of color.

TELEVISION REPRESENTATIONS AND RACIAL LEARNING Examining racial and ethnic representational quantity, quality, and potential for effective multicultural education in programming for preschool-aged children is critical considering the known influence that television media has on attitudes and behaviors of older audiences. Research on children and adolescents suggests that media representations can significantly impact behaviors and attitudes regarding race and ethnicity. Self-reports confirm that older children and adolescents use racial representations from TV to learn about various aspects of society, including interpersonal relations and expectations for certain groups. Both White children and children of color report that they use television to learn about racial and ethnic relations. Black adolescents, in particular, are more likely than other groups to use television as a source of learning about dating and sexual behavior as well as occupational possibilities. In addition to empirical work, cultivation theory and social identity theory help us understand television’s impact on race-related attitudes and behaviors. Applied to race, cultivation theory posits that consistent exposure to repetitive media sources, like television programs, influences racial knowledge by creating unrealistic expectations for real life based on recurrent media messages. Ninety-nine percent of children ages six months to six years have at least one television in their home and kids in general spend about three hours engaged with television each day. Television’s “constant reinforcement and heavy repetition” (Van Ausdale and Feagin 2001, 132)

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of representational patterns can lead viewers to internalize normalized, stereotypical portrayals and rule out sparse, disconfirming representations as exceptional. Children come to believe that the representations of race and ethnicity that they see on television are natural and fully applicable to the real world. Social identity theory proposes that children pay attention to media representations and retain information about characters they see as similar to themselves, eventually imitating these models as important points of reference for how people that they see as similar to themselves should, and do, behave. Kids use television models to maintain positive self-concepts by attaching favorable evaluations to in-group members on television. Even seeing minority characters of different racial and ethnic backgrounds from them is important for children of color, as evidenced by the finding that Latino/a and Asian children identified more with black characters than white children did. Black and Latinx children, specifically, receive more exposure to television than whites and the racially disproportionate pattern of consumption is seen even in the preschool years. This high consumption, accompanied with the fact that children of color seek out and come to strongly identify with black (or other in-group) television characters, renders the infrequent and stereotypical portrayal of people of color in children’s programing a barrier to positive racial identity development among children of color. Almost all children in the United States are consumers of television media, and empirical and theoretical research demonstrate that television representations of race and ethnicity have real-life ramifications on attitudes and behaviors related to the ways that children understand others and themselves. Katie Fredricks Further Reading

Banks, James A. 1993. “Multicultural Education: Historical Development, Dimensions, and Practice.” Review of Research in Education 19: 3–49. Berry, Gordon L. 2003. “Developing Children and Multicultural Attitudes: The Systemic Psychosocial Influences of Television Portrayals in Multimedia Society.” Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology 9 (4): 360–366. Bigler, Rebecca S. 1999. “The Use of Multicultural Curricula and Materials to Counter Racism in Children.” Journal of Social Issues 55 (4): 687–705. Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo, and Austin W. Ashe. 2014. “The End of Racism? Colorblind Racism and Popular Media.” In The Colorblind Screen: Television in Post-racial America, edited by S. E. Turner and S. Nilsen, 57–82. New York: New York University Press. Graves, Sherryl Brown. 2008. “Children’s Television Programming and the Development of Multicultural Attitudes.” In The Sage Handbook of Child Development, Multiculturalism, and Media, edited by J. Keiko Asamen, M. L. Ellis, and G. L. Berry. Sage Publications (online). Greenberg, Bradly S., and Dana E. Mastro. 2008. “Children, Race, Ethnicity, and Media.” In The Handbook of Children, Media, and Development, edited by S. L. Calvert and B. J. Wilson. Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell Publishing. Li-Vollmer, M. 2002. “Race Representation in Child-Targeted Television Commercials.” Mass Communication & Society 5 (2): 207–228.



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Morrow, Robert W. 2006. Sesame Street and the Reform of Children’s Television. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Tukachinsky, Riva, Dana Mastro, and Moran Yarchi. 2015. “Documenting Portrayals of Race/Ethnicity on Primetime Television over a 20-Year Span and Their Association with National-Level Racial/Ethnic Attitudes.” Journal of Social Issues 71 (1): 17–38. Van Ausdale, Debra, and Joe R. Feagin. 2001. The First R: How Children Learn Race and Racism. Boulder, CO: Rowman & Littlefield. Winkler, Erin N. 2012. Learning Race, Learning Place: Shaping Racial Identities and Ideas in African American Childhoods. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Children’s Television Workshop(1968–) The Children’s Television Workshop (CTW), now known as Sesame Workshop (SW), is a nonprofit educational television research and production company formed in 1968 to facilitate the development, production, and testing of Sesame Street (1969–). Since then, the organization has been involved in the production of dozens of other educational TV programs, including The Electric Company (1971–1977), 3-2-1 Contact (1980–1988), and Dragon Tales (1999–2005), as well as more than twenty international coproductions. Its history is characterized by endeavors to promote multiculturalism and an ongoing struggle for funding. When Sesame Street—an educational program to improve school-readiness among children of color—was being developed in the late 1960s, no existing TV production unit was equipped to take on the task of producing a show with measurable educational goals. Inspired by advertising industry practices that combined creative development with research and testing, the show’s creators developed a model that approached the production process as an ongoing social science experiment. Joan Ganz Cooney, who cofounded Sesame Street, along with Lloyd Morrisett of the Carnegie Corporation, became the executive director of the new production company. Gerald Lesser, a psychologist at Harvard, took on the chairmanship of CTW’s Board of Advisers and Consultants. This board was charged with the tasks of using research to develop and continually revise curriculum goals, guide writers in how to teach to those goals, then test the content for effectiveness. The Workshop’s model for developing and producing educational programs begins with the formation of learning objectives, which are developed by an interdisciplinary team of educators, psychologists, and television professionals. Once the goals for the program are established, the team also develops materials to help staff writers create effective learning modules. Aware that adult assumptions about children can be wrong, the Workshop ensures that members of the target audience provide direct input into content development. After each segment is filmed, it is tested for both its ability to hold the attention of viewers and to guide viewers in achieving specific learning objectives. If test viewers do not improve their understanding of the concept being taught or are easily distracted from it, the content is thrown out or revised and retested. At the end of a season, the Workshop

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conducts summative research, which not only provides a view into the general effectiveness of the program but also suggests how the curriculum should be revised for future seasons. The Workshop’s programs typically feature racially diverse performers. This approach to casting reflects its early mandate to focus on improving school readiness and academic performance among children of color by approaching such viewers as the “bull’s-eye” of their target audience. Through casting choices, CTW has endeavored to provide “positive” role models for these viewers while also dispelling race and gender stereotypes. Often, the Workshop’s programs have attempted to signal Black or Latinx “authenticity” through dialogue, settings, and music. By foregrounding racialized bodies and the trappings of urban hipness, producers have hoped to persuade their target audience of their program’s relevance. Some CTW programs have also foregrounded respect for difference as a central learning objective. Even those that have not, however, aim to convey the values of multiculturalism indirectly by showing cooperation among characters with different racial identities. In their earliest years, the emphasis on serving poor children of color won Children’s Television Workshop major financial support from the Ford Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education, which was needed to supplement initial funding from the Carnegie Corporation. Within a few years, however, funding from charitable foundations and the U.S. government became unreliable and insufficient. An additional revenue stream was realized when officials from other nations approached the Workshop to air versions of Sesame Street internationally. Dubbing the show into other languages was sometimes adequate, but the show’s grounding in U.S. culture was not always appropriate or desired. In response, the Workshop began collaborating with teams in other nations to produce similarly structured educational shows for other parts of the world. Among these programs is Plaza Sésamo (1972–), which is broadcast throughout Latin America and, since 1995, also the United States. Licensing Sesame Street characters for use in educational toys, books, and games, as well as marketing recorded music and home video, also became important revenue sources. Beginning in 1987, the Workshop began accepting financial support from for-profit companies as well. The Electric Company, CTW’s second major series, premiered in 1971 on PBS. This show aimed to teach reading skills to children aged eight to twelve, especially those in poor, racialized communities. Its title and theme song stressed a connection between its content and access to social power: “We’re gonna turn it on. We’re gonna bring you the power.” Like Sesame Street, it adopted a magazine format and featured a racially diverse cast of adults and children performing songs and skits. It did not, however, include anything analogous to the street scenes or Muppets, which were hallmarks of their show for preschoolers. Although The Electric Company was very popular with viewers and teachers alike, its lack of stand-out main characters made generating revenue through licensing difficult. As a result, production ended in 1977. Around this time, funding became available from the National Science Foundation to develop a children’s show about science. Pre-production research for this show, 3-2-1 Contact (1980–1988), indicated that, while elementary school children admired



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scientists, they did not believe themselves capable of becoming them. Moreover, they considered the lives of scientists to be both difficult and dull. To combat these assumptions, the Workshop designed their new half-hour, magazine-format show not only to teach biology, physics, and technology but also to make science interesting and accessible, especially to girls and children of color. The Workshop’s show on math and problem solving, Square One Television (1987–1992), similarly aimed to transform its subject’s white and nerdy reputation into something hip and accessible. Premiering on PBS in 1992, Ghostwriter (1992–1995) was a mystery series focused on teaching language arts and critical thinking to third- and fourth-graders. Coproduced by CTW and BBC Television, this live-action show was filmed on location in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. It followed a racially diverse group of preteens as they solved local crimes and mysteries in four- to five-episode story arcs. A ghost who could only communicate by magically manipulating letters within its vicinity provided clues. Ghostwriter dealt with themes that CTW previously considered to be too unpleasant for children, including arson, homelessness, drug abuse, and theft. Although the program received acclaim from teachers and generated revenue through multimedia partnerships with Bantam Books and Microsoft, Ghostwriter production ended due to lack of funding. Shortly afterwards, the Workshop began to invest in cable and satellite television. The Workshop entered a partnership with Viacom in 1998 to create the first television network devoted exclusively to educational programming for children aged six to twelve: Noggin. Through this collaboration, a few short-lived programs were produced and shown on the new network. In 2002, the renamed Sesame Workshop sold its 50 percent stake to Viacom, but the two organizations continued to work together. This enabled Noggin and its spinoffs (The N, Teen Nick, and Nick Jr.) to continue airing Sesame Workshop’s back catalog as well as new productions such as Play with Me Sesame (2002–2007) and Pinky Dinky Doo (2005–2011). In 2004, Sesame Workshop would partner again with major players in cable and satellite television, creating PBS Kids Sprout. In 2012, however, the Workshop sold its stake in that network as well. Meanwhile, the Workshop collaborated with Columbia Tri-Star Television to produce the fully animated adventure series, Dragon Tales (1999–2005). Airing on PBS and PBS Kids Sprout, it featured Latinx main characters and a curriculum designed to foster resiliency. The quality of Latinox representation on the show, however, has been critiqued for whitewashing Mexican-American characters Emmy and Max (both voiced by White actors), while exoticizing an immigrant character, Enrique, who was added in the third season. In 2007, a Sesame Workshop coproduction with the Merrill Lynch Foundation named Panwapa (2008–2009) was made available for free download on iTunes. In 2008, the program also became available on PBS Kids Sprout. This twelve-episode series for young children featured Muppets living on an island that floated around Earth’s oceans. The setting was intended to facilitate its curriculum of global citizenship, but the use of Muppets to signal racial and national difference dehistoricized the reasons for interethnic and global conflict the show aimed to mitigate. The introduction of online streaming services in 2006 (Amazon Video), 2007 (Netflix), and 2008 (Hulu) furthered the shifts in TV viewing habits that had begun

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with the introduction of home video. Along with increased competition in the children’s television market, this shift contributed to a precipitous fall in Sesame Workshop’s revenue. The Workshop adapted to new viewing practices by creating interactive online content to supplement its shows, including Sesame Street, Panwapa, and The New Electric Company (2009–2011). This did not, however, solve the funding issues. In 2014, the Workshop hired Jeffery Dunn, formerly of HiT Entertainment and Nickelodeon, to serve as its CEO and president in hopes that he would help the organization become solvent. The next year, Sesame Workshop announced a new five-year partnership with HBO, which achieved that goal. Moreover, the partnership has enabled Sesame Workshop to develop new programs again, and in 2017 the development on a new animated series was announced. Throughout its history, the Workshop has endeavored to teach children intellectual and affective skills through television while promoting multiculturalism. While its early mandate emphasized that Workshop productions should primarily attract and serve children of color, changes in funding sources have coincided with an apparent decrease in focus on that objective. Today, Sesame Workshop’s stated mission is more general: “to help kids grow smarter, stronger, and kinder.” Ami Sommariva Further Reading

Davis, Michael. 2008. Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street. New York: Penguin. Fisch, Shalom. 2004. Children’s Learning from Education Television: Sesame Street and Beyond. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Ripatrozone, Nick. 2016. “Ghostwriter: The Most Literary ’90s TV Show.” The Atlantic, August 4. ­https://​­www​.­theatlantic​.­com​/­entertainment​/­archive​/­2016​/­08​/­ghostwriter​ -­taught​-­kids​-­to​-­love​-­words​/­492293​/. Sammur, Gloria B. 1990. “Selected Bibliography of Research on Programming at the Children’s Television Workshop.” Educational Technology Research and Development 38 (4): 81–92. Serrato, Phillip. 2009. “‘They Are?!’: Latino Difference vis-à-vis Dragon Tales.” Cultural Studies—Critical Methodologies 9 (2): 149–165. Sesame Workshop. 2016. “Sesame Workshop Announces New Original Animated Series ‘Esme and Roy.’” Sesame Workshop, October 17. ­http://​­www​.­sesameworkshop​ .­org​/­press​-­releases​/­5013​/. Steinberg, Brian. 2015. “Why ‘Sesame Street’ Had to Turn a Corner.” Variety, August 13. ­http://​­variety​.­com​/­2015​/­tv​/­news​/­sesame​-­street​-­hbo​-­sesame​-­workshop​-­1201569728​/.

Cho, Margaret(1968–) Margaret Cho, a Korean American comedian, is known for her raw, honest, and sometimes raunchy stand-up act. Born to Korean immigrant parents in San Francisco in 1968, where her parents ran a bookstore, Margaret Cho grew up on Haight Street. From an early age, she experienced a contradictory duality to her identity where she felt embarrassed by her otherness, especially in comparison to her White peers, yet it was her Korean peers who were cruelest to her. This identity



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crisis would continue to play a big role throughout her life and form a basis for her ethnic comedy. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood was home to the hippie counterculture. By the 1970s, when Margaret Cho was growing up there, gentrification had begun, and hippies were replaced by White yuppies and members of the LGBTQ+ communities. Despite this area’s reputation for being welcoming and tolerant, she found herself ostracized. Even living in a city where the Asian population was fast growing, and the LGBTQ+ community was blossoming, she felt out of place and unwanted. Cho was molested as a child, having experienced abuse at the hands of a family friend. As a teenager, an acquaintance she had known for years raped her on multiple occasions. During this time, her peers treated her like an outcast, mocking her ethnicity, sexual preference, and appearance. After she shared the story of her rapes, her classmates turned on her, saying that she was too fat and unattractive to have been raped. At the age of fifteen, she found herself working as a phone sex operator and later as a dominatrix. After being expelled from Lowell High School for truancy and poor grades, she expressed an interest in comedy and performance. Comedy was in her blood; her father had written joke books in Korean. Cho auditioned for and was accepted into the San Francisco School of Performing Arts. Her formative years would serve as the driving force behind her comedic voice and empowered her future performances. While at the School for Performing Arts, Cho became involved with the school’s improvisational comedy group alongside Sam Rockwell and Aisha Tyler. Her love for comedy blossomed, leading her into the stand-up scene. Soon thereafter, she won first prize in a college comedy contest, which provided her an opportunity to open for Jerry Seinfeld. That experience was life-changing. Seinfeld was so impressed that he told Cho that if she decided to drop out of school and be a fulltime comedian she would be very successful. While she had already dropped out, his support further encouraged her to pursue this dream. By the early 1990s, she toured the college comedy circuit, becoming the most booked comedian; she was nominated for “Campus Comedian of the Year.” She performed at over 300 concerts in two years and did her stand-up act on the Arsenio Hall Show, which increased her exposure to a national audience. Shortly thereafter, Bob Hope invited her to appear on his prime-time special, furthering her ascendance into national prominence. In 1994, Cho landed a television deal for her own show, All-American Girl. Slated to be based on a typical Korean American family, the cast was almost entirely made up of Asian-Americans. However, Cho was the only Korean while the rest of the ensemble was either Chinese or Japanese American. Critics lamented this decision as it perpetuated the stereotype that all Asians were interchangeable. The show attempted to capture the experiences of a typical Korean American household; a traditional mother whose only wish was for her daughter to be self-sufficient and marry a nice Korean boy; a bookstore-owning dad who acted as the go-between for his wife and daughter; brothers; and an unconventional grandmother. Although it was the first prime-time show with a predominantly

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Asian American cast, the network called in a consultant to give the show a truer Asian feel. Throughout its short-lived tenure, critics lamented the show’s embrace of long-standing anti-Asian stereotypes, with an overly involved mother and nerdy, obedient children. They blasted the show for having no fully developed characters besides Cho’s. Responding to the criticism, the network tinkered with the show, having Cho move into her parents’ basement and then into an apartment with her grandmother. Cho also struggled with the show’s executives over her appearance. Their criticism of her weight triggered memories of childhood fat-shaming. Under this pressure, she lost thirty pounds in two months, which landed her in the hospital due to kidney failure. The lack of creative control afforded to Cho and the culture of disrespect had a damaging effect on Cho. In the end, all of the changes did not substantially alter the critical reception of show nor did it lead to increased viewership. The show was cancelled after nineteen episodes. The failure of All-American Girl led Cho back to her stand-up roots. After years of battling her demons, in 1999, Cho launched a one-woman stand-up comedy show (and subsequent concert film shot at San Francisco’s popular venue, The Warfield), which she titled I’m the One That I Want. Much of the show was based on her negative experiences with All-American Girl. The act was cathartic, offering a funny and raw self-examination of her life, Hollywood, and her identity. Cho shared how being told she was neither Asian enough nor thin enough caused her to turn to alcohol and drugs to numb the pain. Throughout her performance, she displayed strength and self-acceptance after years of being told that she wasn’t good enough and didn’t fit in. Cho also wrote a book entitled I’m the One That I Want, which detailed her struggles in Hollywood over fat-shaming and racism. She penned another book in 2005, I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight, which was a compilation of essays on issues such as human rights and global politics. During this time, Cho occasionally appeared on television. In 2008, she developed and appeared in her own reality show called The Cho Show. In the following years, her TV presence was formidable, appearing on 30 Rock (2006–2013) in an Emmy-nominated performance as Korean leaders Kim Jong II and Kim Jong Un, and on the 2014 Golden Globes portraying a controversial Korean character she created called Cho Jung Ya, for which she received some public criticism. Her comedy tours continued and her TV career flourished. She played legal assistant, Teri Lee, for the entire six-season run of Lifetime’s Drop Dead Diva (2009–2014). In her role as Teri, she was lead character Jane Bingum’s right hand, helping her with legal issues and her newfound life as a heavier woman. Cho’s character very closely mirrored some of her real-life interests, activism projects, and talents. Teri was body positive and encouraged Jane to feel beautiful regardless of her size and society’s opinions. In season four, her character revealed an alter ego, a singer and performer named Lady Bodacious. Cho sang some of the show’s original songs from that point forward. In Drop Dead Diva, Cho did not play a stereotypical Asian nor was her ethnicity emphasized in any way.



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Margaret Cho’s body of work is inherently influenced both by her early life and the experiences she has had during her career. Throughout her life, her Korean American identity has been a rich, yet complicated source of introspective and retrospective material that, along with her sexual identity, forms the core of her comedy. Christine Fiore Further Reading

Abad-Santos, Alex. 2015. “There Would Be No Amy Schumer or Fresh Off the Boat without Margaret Cho.” Vox, June 14. ­http://​­www​.­vox​.­com​/­2015​/­6​/­14​/­8774459​ /­margaret​-­cho​-­feminist​-­comedy. Cho, Margaret. 2001. I’m the One That I Want. New York: Ballantine Books. La Ferla, Ruth. 2015. “Night Out: For Margaret Cho, Nothing Is Too Private for a Punch Line.” New York Times, April 10. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2015​/­04​/­12​/­style​/­for​ -­margaret​-­cho​-­nothing​-­is​-­too​-­private​-­for​-­a​-­punch​-­line​.­html.

Civil Rights Movement on American Television, The At the start of the post–World War II Civil Rights Movement, in the mid-1950s, television news reporting was in its infancy; it was a medium that would be transformed alongside or in tandem with the events that marked the African American “revolution.” By the 1960s, freedom struggles and political fights in the United States, along with those taking place throughout the world, shaped the TV landscape. Increasingly, tenuous race relations became more “newsworthy.” The protests, demonstrations, sit-ins, rallies, and the violent backlash against these protests that marked the yearslong journey toward radical legislative and policy change to desegregate the public institutions of the United States offered an opportunity for broadcasting and the TV news reporting genre. Thinking back on the period, African American TV producer and creator of the docuseries Eyes on the Prize, Henry Hampton, explained, “The civil rights movement was the first big television event in this country over a sustained period. TV was just beginning to learn the lessons of graphic violence, thriving on confrontation” (qtd. in Else 2017, 19). Personal television ownership and the establishment of TV’s dominance as an entertainment and communication medium in the 1950s and 1960s coincided with remarkable events in U.S. history: the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, and the war in Vietnam. While the country faced substantial social, policy, legal, and economic shifts as African Americans fought for equal citizenship status with White Americans, and women and people of color fought to overcome professional discrimination and social barriers of all kinds, television networks were eager to record, broadcast, and represent to the American public images of these confrontations. At the same time, America saw profound shifts in the way television networks represented race and race relations in America as a result of the civil rights movement and black liberation struggle. Television coverage, unlike the extensive coverage in the printed press, according to Ralph McGill, editor and columnist of the Atlanta Constitution, could create a

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sense of national involvement that might motivate American voters to support federal civil rights legislation. Although black newspapers covered local movement events, many White and Black Americans lacked knowledge of specific campaigns in the South because national newspapers did not cover them equally. By seeing the horrific attacks on protestors by police organized by Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene “Bull” Connor in Birmingham, Alabama, for example, TV audiences could better understand what was at stake for black people across the country. DEFINING THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT The Civil Rights Movement could be argued to originate earlier in the twentieth century with the calls for troop desegregation in the U.S. armed forces following World War I. A. Philip Randolph’s organizing activities were also foundational, particularly his leadership in labor causes and unionism including creating the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and initiating the March on Washington Movement in 1941. While that protest was ultimately cancelled following negotiations with President Roosevelt, its importance would be in laying groundwork for the movement in future years. Many historians use the passage of key legislation that marked the progress toward desegregation and full citizenship rights for African Americans to determine the civil rights period in American history. These are the 1954 Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The significant events that garnered the most television coverage during this period of social upheaval included the integration of Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas, by nine African American high school students, the integration of universities in the South, the 1960–1961 sit-in movement, the 1961 Freedom Rides, the 1963 March on Washington for Freedom and Jobs, and the 1965 march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. The murder of Emmett Till in Mississippi, in 1955, also serves as a watershed event that transformed how national media covered violence against African Americans. Till’s mother, Mamie Till Mobley refused to allow her son’s brutal death to be erased and forgotten. She insisted on an open-casket funeral and allowed the African American periodicals, Jet magazine and the Chicago Defender, to publish a photograph of Till’s corpse. In the photograph, Till’s once cherubic face is unrecognizable because he was so badly beaten before he was murdered. The photograph served to illustrate the brutality of white supremacist violence toward African Americans in the South. Till’s death became symbolic of the many disappeared men, women, and children whose deaths would not receive justice because Black Americans did not have access to full legal representation and protection under the law. DEPICTING PARTICIPANTS News media coverage of African American protestors, demonstrators, victims of police violence, and mourners reacting to white supremacist violence, constituted some of the very few televisual depictions of people of color in the 1950s and 1960s. Aniko Bodroghkozy identifies three types that characterize the subjects



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news producers chose to depict in their coverage: White moderates, deviant segregationists, such as Bull Connor of Alabama or Governor George Wallace, and “worthy” Black victims who were not necessarily affiliated with the movement (2012, 46). The point of view of the White moderate or White liberal was privileged in the news media as well as in entertainment shows. Often events were related through the primacy of the White moderate speaker’s perspective, whether through interviews or the news producer’s, anchor’s, or reporter’s persona. With the exception of the few TV series that were produced later in the decade (discussed below), televisual and film depictions of Black people relied on stereotypes that often had their roots in minstrelsy. News producers attempted to frame conflicts by choosing Black individuals who would be more recognizable and palatable to middle-class, White America, whose opinion and consumption of the news media mattered a great deal both commercially and politically. Bodroghkozy applies Herman Gray’s concept of the “civil rights subject” to her analysis of television news of the period. She explains, “The civil rights subject was already present in network television’s representational strategies as a means to soothe and reassure the medium’s white audiences about the worthiness of Southern blacks in their quest for equality and political rights” (2012, 48). Thus, distinctions were drawn among protestors that prioritized the “dignified” African American, nonviolent, direct action approach of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference). Even in its early days, members of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), the student youth arm of the movement, were sometimes perceived as too militant in their words. Any sign of militancy was thought to alienate white audiences and therefore given little coverage on television. This representational strategy can be seen in the coverage of the Little Rock Nine and of James Meredith, students attempting to integrate the southern education system whose process was heavily covered by the national press and resulted in dramatic, violent battles among local whites and the federal agents protecting the black students. In 1957, nine brave teenagers arrived at Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas, an all-White high school, in order to attend classes. Members of the press were there to record the students’ arrival as well as the reaction of the school and White locals. Elizabeth Eckford somehow became separated from the rest of the group; a reporter interviewed her as White observers accosted her outside the school. Realizing that he was covering an unprecedented moment when White hecklers began verbally abusing Eckford, a member of the press corps cornered her for an interview and even recorded footage of the abuse. Three Black members of the newspaper press were in attendance, including James Hicks of Amsterdam News and Alex Wilson. The White crowd grew violent and turned on these reporters, hitting Alex Wilson in the head with a brick. This violent attack was caught on film by a news camera. FRAMING PUBLIC OPINION The major television networks’ reporting teams—ABC, CBS, and NBC— captured scenes of social transformation throughout the United States. These scenes were either part of focused coverage posing questions about race relations

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or providing narratives about African Americans’ struggle for freedom and White Americans’ insistence that the status quo was best for all involved, that things stay the same. TV news coverage would show its audiences that this desire was a historical impossibility and founded in deep misunderstanding of how segregation affected black Americans’ lives. Network news producers and executives were tasked with the difficult ethical question of how to broadcast and frame the violence their cameras recorded. Television became an important tool for representing dissenting points of view as well as documenting the catastrophic violence and racism that many civil rights protesters experienced at the hands of ordinary whites as well as police and state representatives. In a nation that was rigidly segregated, preventing sympathetic racial contact, network news coverage was able to bring African American voices and lives into the homes of White viewers in the 1950s and 1960s. According to historian William G. Thomas, “Television cameras went where many whites had never been: into African American churches, into African American homes, into non-violent training workshops, into African American meetings, and into the legal offices of African American lawyers and organizers” (2004, 33). Accordingly, “these images and the commentary that African American leaders provided often were the only sources for whites to hear from and see the African American community unfiltered through the white newspaper media” (Thomas 2004, 33). Television emerged as a mode of realism, increasingly in the 1960s, as news stations were able to transmit events, if not in close proximity to when they occurred, then live, as they were occurring. Yet television news directors and producers sought to garner and maintain viewership by creating visual narratives for their audiences that could relay topical issues in an entertaining fashion. As the medium became more lucrative, this style would shape how the movement activities, and especially its participants, were covered. News reporting was dominated by white men, including Edward R. Murrow, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, and later, Walter Cronkite, yet increasingly network news demonstrated a pro-movement message in its coverage, according to scholar Sasha Torres (2003). The sit-in movement across the South captured television attention, including a 1960 episode of the NBC documentary series, White Paper. The “Sit-In” episode was broadcast on December 20, 1960, and included coverage of the Nashville campaign led by Diane Nash and John Lewis of SNCC. Student activists occupied seats at the lunch counters of department and drug stores in violation of the businesses’ rules and city custom. These sit-ins were an example of the nonviolent direct action protest methods that Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC used in the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott. In response to the sit-in movement, White locals physically and verbally attacked Black and White participants. The students, not their abusers, were arrested and jailed for their defiance of customary segregation. In the episode, interviews with demonstrators show gentle-voiced young people explaining their nonviolent approach at the lunch counters where “you merely come in sit down beside [a white customer] as any human being would do.” “You cause no violence. You have no angry words. You’re friendly, and it sort of helps to project the idea that here sits beside me another human being.” John Lewis



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explains to viewers he was motivated to participate in this form of integration protest because he felt “mov[ed]” to proclaim his right to do so. He “could no longer be satisfied or go along with an evil system.” He tells the camera, “I had to be maladjusted to it. And despite of all of this I had to keep loving the people who denied me service, who stared at me.” Footage of angry white customers attacking the sit-in protesters reveals an unmistakable picture of injustice and hatred to viewers around the country who may not, as of yet, sympathize with the requests of the movement. The NBC White Paper “Sit-In” episode modeled the sharp contrast between movement tactics and their reception throughout the South where local whites were so resistant to change, such that the struggle as framed on TV clearly became one between good and evil. Historian Taylor Branch (1988) details how the press became imbricated in the mob violence, riots, and Klan attacks that were all aimed at Freedom Riders as they arrived at bus terminals throughout the South, especially in Birmingham and Montgomery. The Freedom Rides organized by CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) and taken over by SNCC in May 1961, brought publicity to the cause, but more so because of the violent Whites who sought to tamper the Freedom Riders’ movements. Journalists and reporters captured the fire attacks, brutal beatings of Freedom Riders, among them John Lewis, Jim Peck, and James Zwerg, as well as the stoic commitment to nonviolence by the Freedom Riders. In this way, the camera’s very ability to record the horrific racialized attacks signaled the necessity for their presence as a recording lens that would capture events too terrible for the country to ignore. On May 14, as the Greyhound and Trailways buses neared their Birmingham terminals, news reporters and cameramen were already stationed at the bus terminals. CBS reporter Howard K. Smith, who was in Birmingham working on CBS Reports, produced “Who Speaks for Birmingham.” Other newsmen were personally attacked; White attackers even destroyed their cameras. The same happened when the Freedom Riders arrived in Montgomery on May 20, where, amidst the destruction, the White mob destroyed cameras and recording equipment and even beat one news reporter because news coverage was deemed to be too sympathetic in its depiction of the Freedom Riders. CBS News, Harvest of Shame Produced by Edward R. Murrow, Fred Friendly, and David Lowe for CBS news, Harvest of Shame aired in 1960 and won a Peabody Award for journalism. An example of telejournalism, the hour-long documentary exposed the abuses experienced by migrant farm laborers. Their experiences with poverty were the consequence of the federal government’s failure to protect agricultural workers through labor regulations. The documentary also probed American attitudes to those who harvested the nation’s food during a period in which the U.S. middle class was rapidly expanding. The documentary aired during prime time the day after Thanksgiving to ensure a larger audience. Although both white and African American migrant laborers were depicted, through the use of voice-over narration, pointed interview questions, and juxtaposed images focusing on poverty, the documentary highlighted the dire consequences of segregation and lack of access to medical and educational resources for African American children.

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Edward R. Murrow began working on “Who Speaks for Birmingham” with CBS Reports producer David Lowe, both of whom worked on the groundbreaking television documentary Harvest of Shame, which revealed the devastating living and working conditions faced by America’s migrant farmworkers. “Who Speaks for Birmingham” explores the attitudes toward integration, race relations, and the changes occurring in social norms brought about by African American calls for equality. The producers interviewed both White and Black Birmingham residents. Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth is one of the Black interview subjects. His descriptions of several brutal beatings by white mobs play over stock footage of the violence. As Shuttlesworth recalls what he personally survived as a leader in Birmingham, he begins to point out scars and permanent damage done to his face, ears, and head. This striking moment serves as a visual testimonial that challenges the opinions of white residents upholding segregationist views. Howard K. Smith concluded the documentary with an editorial that CBS executives decided to censor and that ultimately led to his dismissal from the network. Having witnessed the brutal attacks against the Freedom Riders, Smith pushed back against the Fairness Doctrine, an adherence to objectivity with the prescription to show audiences two sides of a story by giving both sides equal time or amounts of coverage.

CAN THE REVOLUTION BE TELEVISED? THE 1963 MARCH ON WASHINGTON The 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom is most often remembered as the occasion of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s inspiring and monumental, “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The March on Washington was a transformative historic milestone both for the passage of civil rights legislation and in the history of television. It was held on August 28, 1963, a Wednesday. An estimated 250,000 people attended the march. Its epic scale made for exciting viewing. All three major networks set up crews to cover the day’s events. TV networks began covering live events in 1948 with the presidential nominating conventions. However, TV coverage of such large-scale live events was nearly unprecedented. Recent satellite technology allowed footage to be broadcast internationally. Bayard Rustin and other March on Washington organizers were fully aware how much television coverage of the March mattered in its hoped-for outcome to sway public opinion in favor of the struggle for Black freedom. NAACP materials that were sent to prepare staff stated: “The press and TV coverage of the March is reportedly the greatest to ever take place, exceeding even Presidential inaugurals” (Bodroghkozy 2012, 95). Network anticipation of large viewership licensed March coverage to preempt regularly scheduled programming. As the nation’s capital prepared itself for the protestors, some national news programs sought to frame the political motivations and social implications the March had for the future of African American organizing. NAACP executive director Roy Wilkins and King appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press, on Sunday, August 25. The questions, to our minds, reveal a striking anxiety about the gathering and the



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Debating Revolution on Open Mind On June 12, 1963, the Metromedia television show, Open Mind, convened a panel discussion on the topic of “Race Relations in Crisis.” The guests for this episode were Wyatt Tee Walker, Malcolm X, Alan Morrison, and James Farmer. This episode of Open Mind was broadcast on June 12, 1963, two months prior to the March on Washington. Host Richard Heffner, Professor of Communications and Public Policy at Rutgers University, convened the panel to examine what he later would identify as the growing tension between the “children of Martin” and the “children of Malcolm” or the integrationist, nonviolent approaches of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights leadership versus the self-determination, anti-integrationist approaches of Malcolm X, that dominated the debate about how black Americans might proceed in their struggle for voting rights and full citizenship.

possibility that so many “militant” African American demonstrators might instigate violence in the nation’s capital. Network news producers prioritized footage of well-dressed marchers and those who attended in groups or as families. This footage was also skewed toward televising Black and White attendees interacting with each other in order to give the TV audience images of racial harmony. At the time, network news coverage did not focus on King as the leader of the movement, yet his speech certainly solidified his standing on the national stage. John Lewis, who was there to represent SNCC as national chairman, delivered the speech with the most urgent and radical message calling for change, while King’s speech made profound emotional appeals using the figurative language of America’s “bankruptcy” in its failed promises to Black Americans. King’s “I Have a Dream” address demonstrates the unflagging dignity and hope possessed by the marchers as they face disappointment after disappointment. “Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.’ But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt” (King 1963). Introduced to the crowds by A. Philip Randolph, Lewis gives a commanding speech in which he demands, “How long can we be patient? We want our freedom, and we want it now.” CBS chose not to broadcast Lewis’s speech. The March on Washington immediately shaped the future of television. In the week following, several monumental changes to network news took place. The first daily half-hour broadcast occurred on Monday, September 2, 1963, when CBS launched its extended newscast anchored by Walter Cronkite. The broadcast featured coverage of the March events, and it featured an exclusive interview with President John F. Kennedy, showcasing Cronkite’s gravitas. NBC news produced a three-hour special, American Revolution of ’63, which was also broadcast on September 2, 1963, without commercial interruption. The Peabody Award-winning documentary featured commentary on how TV coverage shifted public opinion. However, the series also included critics of television, such as Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett. These critics saw television as an antagonistic force that provoked instability. Not far from the mindset of the Cold War era, southern politicians and public officials often made the charge that African American protestors were

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being persuaded to seek the end of segregation by Communist Party activists and upstarts. In this three-hour series, Governor Barnett blamed the very medium providing him with a platform for what he perceives as unwarranted social upheaval: “You are witnessing one more chapter in what has been termed the television revolution” (qtd. in Branch 1998, 134). The viewpoint that outside agitators, whether from northern states or the Communist Party, were influencing local black demonstrators was commonly voiced by southern officials for TV cameras as a way to discredit the authenticity of the movement and the specific requests being made by demonstrators in individual counties across the South. Around the time American Revolution of ’63 aired, the NAACP protested the exclusion of African Americans from television and consumer ads, or the commercialized mirror of American consumer culture and engagement. Perceptual bias was inherent in how different populations understood the representation of nonwhite people, but particularly the concerns of African American communities, on the small screen. The television coverage of the Selma, Alabama, campaign for the right to vote represented a major turning point in the media’s role of recording state violence and the subsequent audience reaction that resulted. In 1965, television footage of “Bloody Sunday” brought about a rapid transformation in public opinion after viewers witnessed Alabama state troopers attack protestors. George B. Leonard was one of these viewers who decided to travel from California to Alabama after watching the grainy footage of Alabama State Troopers flood across the Edmund Pettus Bridge to brutally beat back marchers. He wrote of his response for The Nation magazine on May 10, 1965, in an essay titled, “Midnight Plane to Alabama.” There he describes what he and millions of Americans saw on their TV sets: “A shrill cry of terror, unlike any sound that had passed through a TV set, rose up as the troopers lumbered forward stumbling sometimes on the fallen bodies. The scene cut to charging horses, their hoofs flashing over the fallen. Another quick cut, a cloud of tear gas billowed over the highway.” Leonard recalls his wife “sobbing” in response, saying to him, “I can’t look any more.” ABC news coverage of King’s speech at the conclusion of the march from Selma to Montgomery on March 25, 1965, reveals how television provided a powerful platform for highlighting the specter of state violence against black people in the South: “Now we have a problem here in Alabama.” He continues, “We will not take it any longer.” And it is on the steps of the Montgomery statehouse that King reassures his audience their wait for justice will not be without cessation “because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” ENTERTAINMENT SHOWS The covers of TV Guide, the popular television trade magazine, from the 1950s and 1960s reveal the paucity of representation of minorities on the small screen. If informational programming offered audiences visions of strong black leadership through news coverage of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, John Lewis, Fannie Lou Hamer, Stokely Carmichael, and other members of the SCLC, SNCC, CORE, and the NAACP, entertainment programs in the



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1950s and 1960s revealed an almost completely white world; although, minority characters were depicted in stereotypical fashion. However, in the 1960s, network television caught on to the rising need to diversify its programming by casting actors of color and depicting the lives of more than just white Americans. Bill Cosby starred in a popular comedy-espionage show, I Spy (1965–1968), but Cosby publicly distanced himself and his performances from the political struggles of the civil rights movement. Through their focus on Black families and individuals, scripted series dramatized the issues the civil rights activists were fighting to shed light on: housing, education, voting rights, and transportation. It took a movement for networks to realize the importance, and commercial viability, of stories about Black lives. Still, southern television remained segregated with many local stations refusing to air programming that represented racial themes or starred Black actors. In 1966, African American actress Nichelle Nichols met Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who told her that her performance as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura on Star Trek (1966–1968) was not just groundbreaking but essential to the cause of Black freedom. In later recollections of their meeting, Nichols explains that she told Dr. King she was thinking about departing the show and that she longed to be a more active part of the movement. King urged her to remain on Star Trek, saying, according to Nichols, “No, no, no. . . . We don’t need you to march. You are marching. You are reflecting what we are fighting for” (qtd. in Izadi 2016). King understood the significant impact that her role on Star Trek as one of the rare examples of a Black actress in a position of leadership on television would have on the culture at large. Her experiences not only made the case for integration, but her visibility and experiences shaped the aspirations of Black audiences while showing white audiences that black women could also be exceptional. In Nichols’s words, King explained to her, “For the first time on television, we will be seen as we should be seen every day, as intelligent, quality, beautiful people who can sing and dance, yes, but who can go into space, who can be lawyers and teachers, who can be professors—who are in this day, yet you don’t see it on television until now” (qtd. in Izadi 2016). Star Trek was not the only scripted series to cast a Black actress in a nonstereotypical role. Julia (1968–1971), starring Diahann Carroll, also contributed to the breakdown of the color barrier in scripted TV series. Carroll’s “Julia” is a financially independent woman as a nurse. The character is also a single mother, since her husband has died in the Vietnam conflict. Julia struggled to move between stereotypes in the portraits of Black femininity it displayed. Although, the show depicts issues that faced many women in the workplace, as Carroll has recently recalled, Julia did not approach racial conflict or tensions explicitly. In one episode that guest stars Susan Olsen of Brady Bunch (1969–1974) fame, her character befriends Julia’s son and a White friend. While the boys want to continue to play football with her, she suggests they all play “house.” Corey agrees and says he could be the father and she could be the mother. Standing right behind her granddaughter her white grandmother, Mrs. Bennett, quickly rejects this idea and firmly states that the white boy can play the role of the father in their game. A little later in the episode, Julia and Corey discuss Mrs. Bennett’s behavior. Corey senses that Mrs. Bennett does not like him, to which

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Julia explains that Mrs. Bennett thinks that she and her son are different. Julia is poised, and, like all sitcoms do, the tough conversation is played for laughs as well as moral resolution. Performances like Nichols’s and Carroll’s, as well as integrated programs like Star Trek and Julia, began to grapple with the cultural politics of representing race. In the 1970s, other shows representing Black families, such as Good Times (1974–1979), would emerge and deal more directly with the legacy and outcomes of the Civil Rights Movement. The cultural production that has most profoundly shaped how Americans remember and visualize the Civil Rights Movement is the television documentary: Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, a fourteen-hour series that appeared on PBS in 1987 and 1990. The documentary series included two installments: Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years (1954–1965) and Eyes on the Prize: America at the Racial Crossroads (1965–1985). This powerful documentary incorporates archival footage from the period as well as interviews with survivors, participants, and movement figures. Since its broadcast, Eyes on the Prize has provided millions of people with the images, chronology of events, and firsthand accounts of what it was like to be there during the movement. Eyes on the Prize was created and produced by African American filmmaker, Henry Hampton, who himself marched in Selma. Hampton initiated Eyes on the Prize in 1976 as a corrective to the dominant white perspective on the movement in historical and popular accounts. Series producers adhered to strict “journalistic principles” when choosing what information to include in the final edit. These high standards compelled thorough research, “record keeping,” and strived to avoid the charge of compromising bias. At the time of its production, no model existed for a long form television documentary series. Hampton decided to rely on a combination of oral history and scholarship, but only people who participated directly in the events that were covered appeared onscreen. Hampton wanted to put the “ordinary, Southern black folks who drove the civil rights movement into the forefront of their own story” (Singh 2017). Hampton struggled to find sufficient funding for the documentary throughout its production, but ultimately, Eyes on the Prize was completed through the award of grants from the Ford Foundation and financial assistance from PBS (Public Henry Hampton, Producer of Eyes on the Prize Henry Hampton was an equalizer for the small screen because he sought to provide more opportunities for African Americans to work in television. In 1967, Hampton founded the film and television production company Blackside, Inc. Blackside had two goals: “to produce powerful films relevant to the African American experience, and to produce young filmmakers of color” (Else 2017, 32). The idea to tell the story of the movement came to Hampton while he was participating in the Selma march. He understood that the story of the ordinary people who risked their lives for equal rights and a better future would need to be recorded not just in print but that television would provide the perfect platform to see and hear from movement organizers and participants, and all those whose bravery would change the course of history.



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Broadcasting Service). Founded in 1970, PBS responded to the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act, which sought to create noncommercial “public” networks as a place where Americans could consume educational programming. In 1987, PBS was an ideal home for Eyes on the Prize because of its perceived gravitas as a repository for educational programs as well as the arts. Eyes on the Prize had a profound impact on the future of the television historical documentary feature. It is epic in its expansiveness, narrative framework, and the minutiae of the details included. The producers did not censor interview subjects. This choice allowed the complexity, nuance, and often-painful reflections on this embattled period to be available so that TV audiences could analyze this national history for themselves. Elizabeth Pittman Further Reading

Bodroghkozy, Aniko. 2012. Equal Time: Television and the Civil Rights Movement. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Branch, Taylor. 1988. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963. New York: Simon and Schuster. Branch, Taylor. 1998. Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963–1965. New York: Simon and Schuster. Else, Jon. 2017. True South: Henry Hampton and Eyes on the Prize, the Landmark Television Series that Reframed the Civil Rights Movement. New York: Viking. Eyes on the Prize. 1987. Henry Hampton, PBS. Izadi, Elahe. 2016. “Why ‘Star Trek’ Was So Important to Martin Luther King Jr.” Washington Post, September 8. ­https://​­www​.­washingtonpost​.­com​/­news​/­arts​-­and​ -­entertainment​/­w p​/­2016​/­09​/­08​/­why​-­star​-­t rek​-­was​-­so​-­important​-­to​-­martin​-­luther​ -­king​-­jr​/?­utm​_term​= ​.­a9a47617dbbb. McKinley, Jesse. 1998. “Henry Hampton Dies at 58; Produced ‘Eyes on the Prize.’” New York Times, November 24. ­http://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­1998​/­11​/­24​/­movies​/ ­henry​ -­hampton​-­dies​-­at​-­58​-­produced​-­eyes​-­on​-­the​-­prize​.­html. Singh, Lakshmi. 2017. “‘Eyes on the Prize’ Producer on Making a Civil Rights Documentary before Its Time.” NPR, March 12. ­http://​­www​.­npr​.­org​/­2017​/­03​/­12​/­519925253​ /­eyes​-­on​-­t he​-­prize​-­producer​-­on​-­making​-­a​-­civil​-­r ights​-­documentary​-­before​-­its​ -­time. Thomas, William G., III. 2004. “Television News and the Civil Rights Struggle: The Views in Virginia and Mississippi.” Southern Spaces, November 3. ­https://​ ­s outhernspaces​.­o rg​/ ­2 004​/ ­t elevision​- ­n ews​- ­a nd​- ­c ivil​- ­r ights​- ­s truggle​-­v iews​ -­virginia​-­and​-­mississippi. Torres, Sasha. 2003. Black, White, and in Color: Television and Black Civil Rights. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Print.

Civil Rights Pressure Groups Television super-producer Norman Lear has famously claimed that The Jeffersons (1975–1985) made its way to broadcast network television after representatives of the Black Panthers paid him a personal visit in order to complain about the lack of programs featuring African Americans of economic status. While it is possible that Lear has embellished the origin story of this particular hit sitcom, 1960s civil

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rights activists and public interest watchdogs had an impact on television representations of African American identity; that is undeniable. In order to respond to concerns about television representations of African American identities and concerns during the civil rights era, broadcast networks and producers developed news and documentary programming and utilized several strategies to integrate scripted prime-time comedies and dramas. In the late 1960s, the writers and producers in positions of control were almost all White, but they undertook significant efforts to increase and enhance representations of blackness as a result of the scrutiny that they experienced from pressure groups at this time. In 1967, Lyndon Johnson appointed a National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. The Kerner Commission investigated the root causes of race riots that had become a recurring phenomenon in major U.S. cities, including the riots in Watts in 1965, and Detroit and Newark in 1967. The Kerner Report, published in early 1968, concluded that urban cores had been fundamentally weakened by white flight to the suburbs. As a result, Black and Latinx communities endured failing educational systems and generalized economic uncertainty. The report’s recommendations notably included an entire chapter on the role of the media, excoriating the white perspective of newspapers, radio, and television outlets. Media outlets had failed to give voice to the concerns of Black citizens and community groups in their coverage of racial upheaval. One of the most frequently quoted lines from the report explained, “The press has too long basked in a white world—looking out of it, if at all, with White men’s eyes and white perspective” (1988, 389). The recommendations for change included hiring and training African American journalists and reporters, and the Commission further suggested that advertisements and scripted prime-time programming needed to be integrated in order to address representations as a whole. Specific investigations into race and the media, both publicly and privately funded, emerged in the wake of the Kerner Report. The two central concerns of these studies were employment discrimination in the media industries and the circulation of negative representations of racial identities. For example, the Ford Foundation distributed a grant to a watchdog group who sought to examine how frequently southern broadcast stations featured Black commentators and the context in which they were presented. The study examined how white ownership of broadcast stations correlated to the erasure of Black perspectives from the airwaves. Black people had been featured in national news coverage about urban riots, and this coverage equated their identities with social problems. Public interest groups sought to effect changes that would result in more fully dimensional representations. As the New York City Commission on Human Rights convened for two weeks of hearings about the status of black and Puerto Rican people in the media in March 1968, the group’s emphasis was on exploring changes that could be made in employment and industry practices. Television content was accused of promoting a false image of racial minorities through program content and commercials, and this stereotypical conception was presumed to have social and economic impacts for nonwhite people. The City Commission heard testimony from executives in advertising, radio, television, and theater. These representatives were asked to



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account for dismal statistics indicating that only a small fraction of their employees were racial minorities. For example, the major advertising agencies supported thousands of jobs in New York City, but fewer than 5 percent of their employees were Black. Representatives from advertisement agencies, radio stations, and television networks denied that this dearth was the result of blatant discrimination; instead, they claimed that few minority applicants had the interest or the qualifications to fill their open positions. The Watts Writers Workshop, launched by Budd Schulberg after the 1965 riots, disproved both of these assertions; hundreds of African Americans sought the opportunity to train as television writers. The New York State Commission on Human Rights spoke with representatives from the leading film production unions in August 1968, and this testimony shed further light on the real obstacles faced by people of color seeking employment in media industries. While unions of cameramen, editors, and studio mechanics had organizational bylaws that stipulated that they would not discriminate, new members could only gain entry through a vote by the majority. This system, in which the majority White union would determine new members, seemed to help entrench the homogeneous racial composition of each union group. Workers who were denied access to union membership would find it difficult to work in film and television production, as the vast majority of jobs available for craftspeople were union affiliated. Representatives of all three national commercial broadcast networks testified at the City Commission’s hearings, and they were eager to attest to their efforts to increase and improve depictions of minorities. Few roles had been available to Black actors, and network executives did not dispute this circumstance. Instead, a representative from CBS explained that this lack of representations was well-intentioned, because the network had worked to avoid stereotypes by not casting African Americans in roles associated with criminality. Michael Dann, the network’s senior vice president for programming, further claimed there were not that many Black people in positions of political import in society, and this fact accounted for the lack of Black people on television. Network executives agreed that the responsibility for integrating programming rested with writers and producers, and they assured the commission that they would exert pressure on these content creators to make change. When television writers addressed the commission, they claimed that sponsors and networks needed to do more to support diverse content. Counter to Michael Dann’s testimony, the writers claimed to be able to create any character or scenario, but also insisted that there were few Black characters on television because sponsors and advertisers did not typically support racially integrated content. Just a couple of years earlier, the NAACP had encouraged the integration of television commercials by organizing boycotts of sponsors such as Lever Brothers, and had similarly impacted television content by threatening to boycott Ford Motors. It was a shift in the priorities of sponsors that helped to support the introduction of I Spy (1965–1968) on NBC in 1965, for example. This action-adventure series costarred Bill Cosby, and as a critical and popular success, it demonstrated that mass audiences would support programming with African American leads. Donald Bogle’s history of African American representations on television notes that as a result of the show’s success, “Some critics called the 1966–67 television season

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the Year of the Negro” (2002, 125). That season saw the debuts of Daktari (1966– 1969), Mission: Impossible (1966–1973), and Star Trek (1966–1969), all of which featured Black cast members, although none of these characters were leads. The introduction of these roles demonstrates that prime time was beginning to diversify as advertisers began to focus on broadening their address to African American consumers, but these efforts were proceeding at a leisurely pace. The public hearings and studies that followed the release of the Kerner Report further demonstrate that during the civil rights era, the view that television can change the social status of a racial group was widely shared. Late in the City Commission’s hearings, a representative of the National Congress of American Indians appeared to address the stereotypical image of the bloodthirsty savage that was promoted in advertising and program content. Industry watchers and corporate executives alike were discussing the significance of media images of racial identities, and the context in which these images were produced. In order to ensure that the networks would take action, Vice President Hubert Humphrey met with executives from NBC, CBS, and ABC in Washington, DC, and his office also coordinated efforts with the leadership at National Educational Television (NET), the early incarnation of public television. In the summer of 1968, CBS aired Of Black America, a seven-part documentary series that examined race in the United States. ABC aired six installments of Time for Americans, a news series that investigated contemporary conditions of Black life in a White society. Producers from both programs had met with members of the Kerner Commission in a three-day brainstorming session in November 1967, and their series were intended to prevent the racial unrest that had characterized previous summers. NBC’s offering was a four-part series, What’s Happening to America?, in which civic leaders were given a platform to address rising tensions. Although the goal of the networks’ programming was to deflate racial tensions through information and education, it also served to highlight the validity of the Kerner Commission’s critique of U.S. broadcasting, which termed it representative of white interests and operating from the perspective of a white establishment. The first two episodes of ABC’s Time for Americans examined racial bias in the media. The initial installment featured Black writers, producers, and performers, including Harry Belafonte and Lena Horne. After the episode aired, the show’s White producer, Stephen Fleischman, wrote that these spokespeople had refused to appear onscreen with representatives from the networks who sought to address their claims. As a result, the second episode features only representatives from the networks and network programming, all of whom were White. While Fleischman argued that the demands of Black activists prevented dialogue from occurring, it also helped to clarify that the people who were in positions of power in the industry were all White. In the episode, Dan Seymour, then-president of J. Walter Thompson ad agency, “looked around the room at his all-white panel of colleagues and said, ‘I was rather surprised at our cast here today, that there isn’t a black person among us. Because I think we’re reflecting points of view that are obviously white points of view’” (qtd. in Fleischman 1969, 27). Any viewer of the program could readily observe that all of the panelists were white, but Seymour’s statement drew direct attention to



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this fact and worked to highlight the role of the White establishment in framing and telling stories about Black identities. Black Journal, a monthly news program, premiered on NET in June 1968. NET aired a wide array of programming that examined subjects related to race, but this series was specifically designed to address the findings of the Kerner Report by creating a space to address Black perspectives and also to serve as a training ground for black journalists. Early in the production of Black Journal, the majority of the show’s Black crew members walked off the set to protest the lack of control that they exercised over program content. This resulted in the hire of William Greaves, an African American producer, and it also anticipated similar incidents that would unfold as prime-time scripted programming became more diverse. Although Black actors had appeared in prime-time programming in prior years, all of the national broadcast networks participated in the rapid expansion of representations of blackness that occurred during the summer and fall of 1968; in addition to the explorations of race that were undertaken in news and documentary programming, the major networks introduced thirty black characters in new and existing television series in this season. The fall of 1968 saw the debuts of Julia (1968–1971), The Mod Squad (1968– 1973), The Outcasts (1968–1969), and Land of the Giants (1968–1970), each of which featured a Black character in a leading role. The Black actors who appeared in these series, including Diahann Carroll, Clarence Williams III, Otis Young, and Don Marshall, were frequently questioned about race and representations as they participated in promotional activities. Their starring roles afforded them a platform from which to address the lack of opportunities that had been available in the past, and the issues that often accompanied Black roles, which were primarily scripted by white writers. Interviews with these stars became part of the discussion regarding television’s ability to shift perspectives about race, even though not all of these series literally discussed race and racism. New television series have traditionally found it difficult to gain traction with viewers and as a result, most new shows are cancelled within the first season. With the exception of The Outcasts, each of these series featuring a Black lead character was renewed. These new series joined a prime-time lineup of that included returning series featuring Black characters in continuing roles. Serious efforts were often taken in order to move these characters from peripheral to more featured roles. Greg Morris appeared as Barney Collier in the spy drama Mission: Impossible, Nichelle Nichols continued as Lieutenant Uhura on Star Trek, and Don Mitchell recurred The Outcasts (1968–1969) The Outcasts, set in the aftermath of the Civil War, can be read as a commentary on the civil rights era. In this Western, a former enslaved person and a former slave owner navigate an uneasy partnership as bounty hunters. The series is episodic; although Jemal (Otis Young) and Earl (Don Murray) overcome their distrust enough to work together in each installment, as the next week’s adventure begins they have reverted to antagonistic terms. This dynamic suggests that their racial divide prevents a genuine alliance.

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as Mark, a bodyguard and driver for the lead detective Ironside (1967–1975). Each of these roles achieved new prominence as the public discussion around representations intensified. In a remarkable instance of this phenomenon, ABC reversed a decision to cancel the police drama N.Y.P.D. (1967–1969) in the summer of 1968. The series, which featured the African American actor Robert Hooks as detective Jeff Ward, failed to generate substantial ratings in its first season. The network revived the series for a second season while the diversity of prime-time offerings was under scrutiny; its established integrated cast helped to justify this change of heart. Networks also added new Black characters to returning series, a strategy of integration that presented a unique set of challenges. Peyton Place (1964–1969), a prime-time soap opera, added an African American family to the story canvas. Felony Squad (1966–1969) was a half-hour crime drama that had aired two complete seasons with a focus on three White police officers. The series introduced a Black police officer, Cliff Sims (Robert DoQui), in the fall of 1968. Similarly, the detective series Mannix (1967–1975) had already aired for one season before Gail Fisher joined the cast as the title character’s assistant, Peggy Fair. Fisher won an Emmy Award for her performance in 1970, becoming the first African American actress to be recognized by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Each of these series had already attained a certain level of popularity with a White cast of characters and had to navigate new terrain as they began to tell racially integrated stories. Token representations are perhaps the simplest way to increase diverse racial presence in programming, and the strategy was commonplace in the late 1960s. Tokenism involves diversification through visibility but offers little to no direct discussion of race and racial difference. Gentle Ben (1967–1969), a CBS series about a child’s friendly relationship with a bear, added a young black actor, Angelo Rutherford, to appear as a friend to the central white character. Similarly, Mayberry R.F.D. (1968–1971), a spin-off from The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968), hired Charles Lampkin to play a neighbor in the series’ rural White community. Token Black characters appeared in series of virtually every genre in the 1968 television season, from the sitcoms A Family Affair (1966–1971) and Gomer Pyle USMC (1964–1969) to adventure series like Daniel Boone (1964–1970), which cast Don Pedro Colley as a Canadian trapper for the show’s fifth season. Prior to the NBC debuts of the detective drama The Outsider (1968–1969) and the experimental drama The Name of the Game (1968–1971), the network announced that Peyton Place (1964–1969) The once-popular continuing story of Peyton Place was in decline with viewers by 1968, when producers announced that the show would add a middle-class Black family to the series’ White New England town. Dr. Harry Miles (Percy Rodriguez), wife Alma (Ruby Dee), and son Lew (Glynn Turman) were a significant addition to television’s storytelling about Black identities at this time because of the way that their story lines explored racial identity and family dynamics.



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these series had already cast Black actors to appear onscreen in a limited number of episodes. These new series were set in cities, and Black actors were featured in peripheral roles in order to present these urban environments with more realism. Although token characters can diversify a television series through on-screen presence alone, these roles lack dimension and the characters do not offer a distinctive perspective that would separate them from the mostly white worlds of the shows in which they appear. The number of strategies employed in attempting to create a shift in representations demonstrates a commitment to serving the public interest, as it was defined in broadcasting during the 1960s. Although these representations were far from perfect, as a result of tokenism and because of a continued reluctance to engage in serious or controversial subjects, an examination of the series and the roles indicates that there was an attempt to develop new types of representations, to avoid stereotypes, and to deal (at least symbolically) with the implications of racial integration in the fictional worlds of television. From 1968 forward, broadcast network programming continued to feature more racial and ethnic diversity than had been characteristic of prime-time television in previous decades. Although concerns about the control of representations and the circulation of stereotypes persisted, the era’s focus on shifting the norms of the television industry, behind and in front of the camera, had lasting impacts. Caryn Murphy Further Reading

Acham, Christine. 2005. Revolution Televised: Prime Time and the Struggle for Black Power. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Bogle, Donald. 2002. Primetime Blues: African-Americans on Network Television. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Fleischman, Stephen. 1969. “Time for Americans: Biography of a Summer Series.” Television Quarterly 8: 23–29. Greaves, William. 1969. “Black Journal: A Few Notes from the Executive Producer.” Television Quarterly 8 (4): 66–72. The Kerner Report: The 1968 Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. 1988 ed. New York: Pantheon. MacDonald, J. Fred. 1992. Blacks and White TV: African Americans in Television since 1948. New York: Wadsworth.

Coleman, Gary(1968–2012) Gary Wayne Coleman (February 8, 1968–May 28, 2010) was a child actor best known for his role as Arnold Jackson on Diff’rent Strokes (1978–1986). He was born on February 8, 1968, in Zion, Illinois. He was adopted by Edmonia and W. G. Coleman. He suffered from a condition called Segmental Glomerulosclerosis, an autoimmune disease that destroys the kidneys. As a result of the disease, Coleman underwent two kidney transplants 1973 at age four and 1984 at age sixteen (Kearney 2010). Also, as a result the disease and the medications, he had to undergo dialysis and his growth was permanently stunted, leaving him standing at 4′8″ for the rest of his life.

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His short stature became an advantage because he looked considerably younger than his age. In 1977, at age nine, he began appearing in Chicago area commercials playing characters who were four or five. In 1978, he auditioned for a remake of “The Little Rascals.” Although that project did not get made, executives at NBC were impressed with Coleman’s talent and cast him in Diff’rent Strokes. Coleman plays precocious eight-year-old Arnold Jackson, along with his brother (Todd Bridges). Adopted by Philip Drummond (Conrad Bain), the wealthy employer of the boy’s dead mother and brought to live in Manhattan with him and his teenage daughter Kimberly (Dana Plato). The Arnold character became a pop culture icon with the catchphrase “What’chu talkin ’bout Willis?” Coleman received rave reviews for his comic timing. The show ran for eight years (NBC, 1978–1985; ABC, 1985–1986). At the height of the series, Coleman earned $64,000 for an episode. Coleman also made three TV movies, which showcased his adorable persona: The Kid from Left Field (1979), The Kid with the Broken Halo (1982) and The Kid with the 200 I.Q. (1983). There was also a Hanna-Barbara-produced animated series The Gary Coleman Show (1982). During his decade-long TV career, it is estimated that Coleman earned close to 18 million dollars (Abbott 2012). In 1986, Diff’rent Strokes was canceled. Coleman was eighteen years old and grateful that the show ended because he was feeling trapped by his child star image. In 1989, Coleman sued his parents and business manager for misappropriation of his trust fund. It was alleged that while setting up his trust fund, his parents structured the deal so that they were paid employees of his production company. Coleman only received $200,000 from his trust fund. His parents countersued and denied any wrongdoing. He was awarded $1.3 million in 1993 but was forced to declare bankruptcy by the end of 1999 because of legal fees and bad investments. During the 1990s, Coleman continued to do cameos in shows like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990–2006), Married with Children (1987–1997), and Martin (1992–1997), but he never regained his former popularity. He was forced to take odd jobs such as a security guard. He also suffered from depression and erratic behavior. In 1999, he was charged with assault and battery for fighting with a female autograph seeker. The charges were later reduced to disturbing the peace. Coleman pleaded no contest and received a suspended sentence. He continued to do some cameo work after 1999 but was forced to do parodies of himself to get work such as Chappelle’s Show. He also attempted suicide several times. In 2003, Coleman ran for governor in the California recall election. The election recalled Gray Davis (D). Davis was recalled eleven months after he was elected. It was the first successful recall in California’s history. East Bay Express, a weekly newspaper, sponsored Coleman’s candidacy as an attempt to protest and satirize the election. Coleman placed eighth with 14,000 votes in a field of 135 candidates, which included winner Arnold Schwarzenegger. Other famous candidates included pornographer Larry Flint and Huffington Post creator Arianna Huffington. In 2007, he did some commercial pitchman work and a low-budget film Church Ball where he met Shannon Price, an extra who was seventeen years his junior. They married secretly but had a very rocky relationship. Coleman was arrested for



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disorderly conduct in Provo, Utah, for publicly arguing with Price. In 2008, the couple was on the TV show Divorce Court attempting to save their marriage. They divorced that same year, but in 2009 in Santaquin, Utah, police went to the couple’s home, and Price was arrested on suspicion of domestic abuse. She was released two hours later after posting bond. Also, in 2009, Coleman completed his last film Midgets and Mascots, a low-budget comedy. In 2010, Coleman was hospitalized twice for seizures. On May 26, 2010, Coleman fell in his home and was rushed to the hospital. He suffered a brain hemorrhage. Coleman died on May 29, 2010, after being removed from life support. Grace Bazile Further Reading

Abbott, Alana Joli. 2012. “Coleman, Gary.” In Newsmakers 2012 Cumulation, edited by Laura Avery, 509–510. Detroit, MI: Gale. ­http://​­go​.­galegroup​.­com​/­ps​/­i​.­do​?­p​= ​ ­GVRL​&­sw​= ​­w​&­u​= ​­cuny​_broo39667​&­v ​= ​­2​.­1​&­it​= ​­r​&­id​= ​­GALE​%­7CCX4012400159​ &­asid​= ​­3416a37b0bdac0e4948406bdb2a89d7b. Bogle, Donald. 2001. Primetime Blues: African Americans on Network Television. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Braxton, Greg. 2010. “The ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ Curse Isn’t a Joke.” Los Angeles Times, May 28. ­http://​­latimesblogs​.­latimes​.­com​/­showtracker​/­2010​/­05​/­no​-­laughs​-­for​-­the​ -­diffrent​-­strokes​-­curse​.­html. Kearney, Christine. 2010. “Troubled Adulthood for ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ Star.” Hollywood Reporter, June 1, 9. Sexton, Jared. 2013. “More Serious Than Money: Our Gang, Diff’rent Strokes and Webster.” In African Americans on Television: Race-ing for Ratings, edited by David J. Leonard and Lisa A. Guerrero, 82–113. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.

Colorblind Racism and Television Colorblind racism, a concept termed by sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, refers to the belief that racism does not exist anymore, and that race and racism are no longer important factors in contemporary social and economic realities within the United States. Under the guise of colorblindness, it is believed that racism is no longer an obstacle to the success of individuals or marginalized communities despite persistent racial injustices and inequalities. Colorblind racism as a dominant racial ideology fails to acknowledge the reality of racism and rejects any consideration of how racial identity may privilege whiteness while simultaneously oppressing people of color. Racial colorblindness is the foundation for contemporary television’s drive toward diversity and universalism in terms of casting television programming, especially broadcast network television. Television has shifted toward a colorblind ideology that emphasizes diversity in the form of racial difference, as a means of celebrating a form of multicultural universalism that negates important social, political, and economic inequities. Television, as an institution and medium, is significant in articulating, teaching, and constructing dominant ideologies, understandings, and meanings of racial identity in the United States. As the contemporary dominant racial ideology, colorblindness

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shapes the way media, especially television, represents issues concerning race to the larger public. Colorblind ideology is both a political tool and rhetorical strategy deployed in the 1960s during the civil rights movement. By ignoring inequity based on race, colorblind racism inadvertently legitimizes racism and racial privilege by “denying and minimizing the effects of systematic and institutionalized racism on racial and ethnic minorities” (Nilsen and Turner 2014, 4). From politics to media, colorblind ideology has been reused and reinvented to serve differing agendas. For example, in the late 1960s, Richard Nixon employed colorblind ideology by using symbolism and racialized code words as a political tool in service of conservative politics. Nixon’s use of race and coded language worked well with white voters fearful of the changing racial politics in the United States but also with voters who opposed racial discrimination and Jim Crow segregation. During the late 1960s, the premiere of Julia (1968–1972) starring Diahann Carroll can be considered television’s first attempt at pursuing a colorblind agenda, by placing an African American on television in a middle-class environment, where the racial realities of the era did not exist. Carroll’s character Julia, a nurse, demonstrated the ability of African Americans to coexist and assimilate into White surroundings where race was rarely acknowledged and never seen as problematic. In the 1980s, under the Reagan administration, the rising acceptance of the claim that race no longer matters, resulted in increased hostility toward raceconscious government policies such as affirmative action and welfare programs for poor people of color. Consequently, television in terms of programming and news coverage perpetuated colorblind ideologies and indiscriminating depictions of race. Television, through the use of an abundance of images and its ability to reach a broad audience, is one of the most dominant sources of colorblind ideology. Images on television, especially images of people of color, can be appropriated and re-visioned by competing political parties as evidence of America’s changing racial undercurrents. As such, media representations of African American affluence could be used to both celebrate the importance of diversity and the advantages of a colorblind strategy in furthering individual achievement. The proliferation of African American television programming during the 1980s and 1990s not only signaled an increase in African American faces on screen but also an increase in representations of the black middle-class experience. Prior to The Jeffersons (1975–1985), television representations of African Americans mainly focused on working-class families, with examples including Good Times (1974–1979), Sanford and Son (1972–1977), What’s Happening! (1976–1979). The 1980s ushered in a multitude of representations of African American wealth and success with images in popular culture of stars like Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jackson, and Michael Jordan; the success of these celebrities was perceived as a sign of racial progress. Television shows such as The Cosby Show (1984–1992), The Arsenio Hall Show (1989–1994), Family Matters (1989– 1997), The Oprah Winfrey Show (1986–2011), and 227 (1985–1990) all celebrated African American middle-class success. These shows reinvigorated bootstrap ideology, based on the premise that hard work despite one’s race could equal achievement, while disregarding the racism endured by middle-class African Americans.



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The flood of new black middle-class imagery on television brought a differing African American experience into the mainstream “American cultural imagination,” while constructing “a color blind narrative centering on positive imagery of the black middle-class” (Leonard 2013, 137). The popularity of 1980s African American images on television and in popular culture reasserted conservative views that race no longer hindered individual achievement. No television show moved the racial discourse of television in the 1980s toward colorblind ideals more than The Cosby Show. While remaining number one in the Nielsen ratings for several years, The Cosby Show was the most popular show starring African Americans in the 1980s. The show is credited with marshaling the shift toward television representations of middle- and upper-middle-class African Americans. By representing an upper-middle-class African American family as effortlessly existing within mainstream America with equal status, The Cosby Show premiered at a moment when critics condemned the scarcity of African Americans on television. The Cosby Show introduced the Huxtable family: the father Heathcliff, a doctor, the mother Clair, a lawyer, four daughters (Sondra, Denise, Vanessa, and Rudy) and a son (Theo) living in a New York City Brownstone. The show transformed the Black situation comedy by depicting the existence of a wealthy Black nuclear family, which signaled both racial and economic progress. Weekly, the show packaged the image of upper-middle-class African Americans as a narrative of the American Dream, recoding “the image of Black Americans as socially and economically successful,” while pushing universal desires of upward mobility where race simultaneously does and does not matter (Leonard 2013, 118, 119). This colorblind mode of racial representation celebrated the Huxtable’s family values and economic achievement, assuming this level of financial success was available to all African Americans who were motivated enough, while concurrently blaming those individuals who did not achieve such success for their own misfortunes. In the 1980s, The Cosby Show was praised as both evidence of a colorblind America, and America’s racial transformation (Leonard 2013, 120). Despite the unintentional impact The Cosby Show had on the racial discourse of television, its narrative practices can be seen in other television shows that followed, leading to a hyper-visibility of middle-class and upper-middle-class images of African Americans that were out of touch with American realities. Eventually this hyper-visibility shifted to a relative invisibility, attracting the attention of media watchdog groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In the fall of 1999, the NAACP, among other organizations, threatened to boycott the broadcast networks for the relative absence of people of color in lead or supporting roles in their fall programming lineups. In an effort to silence the threats and avoid loss of advertising revenue, networks began by increasing minority representation in supporting roles. Networks then realized they could make casts racially diverse in appearance only, meaning lead or supporting characters could be people of color without it affecting the narrative of the show by having to explicitly address issues concerning race. This method of casting is referred to as colorblind casting, or blind-casting, which is “the process of not writing race into the script” (Warner 2014, 1). Colorblind casting allowed more

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people of color to audition for roles that would have been previously unavailable to them. Blind-casting is meant to give actors an equal foothold by not specifying race in scripts, but it is also useful for television writers and showrunners, as it gives them the opportunity to cast actors of diverse backgrounds, who would not typically be considered for these roles had race been written into the script. While historically a theater practice, colorblind casting has resurfaced and been rearticulated in contemporary discourses of diversity on television. Through colorblind casting, ensemble casts appear racially diverse, but in fact become race neutral. In other words, the representation of people of color on screen is measured in terms of quantity (numbers) and not quality (representative and multidimensional). While colorblind casting provides more opportunities for actors of color, it also comes with its own set of problems such as actors of color simply embodying racial stereotypes or tropes. When characters are written based on white normative ideals, and cast using actors of color, the narrative can unintentionally adhere to racial stereotypes. What is missing from colorblind casting is characters written with a multidimensionality that addresses cultural specificity. As Kristen Warner argues, eliminating the dangers of “colorblind representation can only occur when writers” acknowledge that “tethered to racialized bodies are histories that make their representation more complex and require forethought” (Warner 2015, 115). Characters of color do not have to be written as consistently dealing with “the material realities of racism,” but if race is not considered in the writing of characters of color, characters in turn reflect the normalization of whiteness (Warner 2014, 11). Celebrated African American television creator, executive producer, and showrunner Shonda Rhimes receives much of the credit for reintroducing colorblind casting into the mainstream television discourse. With successful dramas such as Grey’s Anatomy (2005–), Private Practice (2007–2013), and Scandal (2012–), her production company Shondaland, oversees over 500 actors, writers, producers, and crewmembers (Paskin 2013). When casting for her hit drama series Grey’s Anatomy, Rhimes insisted ABC producers and casting directors send her a variety of racially diverse actors for each of the characters. In an effort to normalize diverse casts, Rhimes unapologetically pushed and adhered to the tenets of colorblind casting, where the characters on her show practice and live in a race-neutral world that negates any specific racial politics. This strategy of blind-casting and quantifiable diversity is what helped Grey’s Anatomy become an enormous hit for both Rhimes and ABC. Due to her process of blind-casting, Shonda Rhimes has been criticized for her characters that define racial identity based only on skin color, while ignoring or neglecting cultural specificity. Rhimes’s comments surrounding her television shows and the casting of her shows make her a proponent of diversity but also an advocate for universality and a hard work ethic. Shonda Rhimes has presented herself and her success through a bootstraps narrative of hard work, in some ways neutralizing her own racial identity. She has defended her stance on characters lacking cultural specificity by arguing that a person of color on-screen is visually marked by racial difference, resulting in an assumed understanding of race by the viewer, where race does not have to be explicitly mentioned to be understood and



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recognized. Shonda Rhimes is celebrated as one of the most powerful African American female showrunners currently working on television, in terms of her ability to create television content that expands the Shondaland universe. However, in adhering to her system of colorblind casting, her characters exhibit “fixed racial identities” that are defined only by skin color (Warner 2014, 12). While colorblind casting is laudable in terms of providing opportunities and more roles for people of color, if characters remain colorblind, they tend to fall within normative white standards of representation, where people of color end up depicting characters that are written as white. As a result of Shonda Rhimes’s successful and diverse television work, network television has begun to see how profitable diversity can be. Broadcast television does not aim to be diverse as a response to criticisms about its neglect of racial diversity, but instead aims at diverse programming because it has proven to be successful in terms of ratings and profits. The inclusion of people of color in advertisements, news coverage, sports programming, and television ensembles is economically motivated, and not based on social or historical conditions, which can instead be seen as a short-term solution to issues about quantity of representation. While television can still be considered a site for producing national identity, as such broadcast networks try to capture numerous demographics by foregrounding characters of color in their television programming. Broadcast television remains the crucial site for colorblind strategies that challenge accusations of the absence of diversity on screen or racial insensitivity. The trend of using diverse casting works as a quick fix to a long-standing institutional problem, as culturally specific differences often go unacknowledged. Instead of hiring more minority writers, directors, and showrunners that can insert cultural specificity into characters of color, the television industry prefers to create colorblind or race-neutral characters that are easily seen as evidence of their effort toward diversity. Blind-casting will continue as a practice because it fits within colorblind ideologies of merit-based achievements, where race does not determine who gets what roles but actors are chosen based on their ability to perform a character. Ashley S. Young Further Reading

Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. 2010. Racism without Racists: Color-blind Racism and the ­Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Doane, Ashley. 2014. “Shades of Colorblindness: Rethinking Racial Ideology in the United States.” In The Colorblind Screen: Television in Post-Racial America, edited by Sarah Nilsen and Sarah E. Turner, 15–38. New York: NYU Press. Fogel, Matthew. 2005. “‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Goes Colorblind.” New York Times, May 8. ­h ttp://​­www​. ­n ytimes​. ­c om​/ ­2 005​/ ­0 5​/ ­0 8​/­a rts​/ ­t elevision​/­g reys​- ­a natomy​- ­g oes​ -­colorblind​.­html. Leonard, David J. 2013. “Post-racial, Post-Civil Rights: The Cosby Show and the National Imagination.” In African Americans on Television: Race-ing for Ratings, edited by David J. Leonard and Lisa A. Guerrero, 114–140. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. Leonard, David J., and Lisa A. Guerrero. 2013. “Introduction: Our Regularly Scheduled Program.” In African Americans on Television: Race-ing for Ratings,

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edited by David J. Leonard and Lisa A. Guerrero, 1–15. Santa Barbara, CA: ­P raeger​.­ Nilsen, Sarah, and Sarah E. Turner. 2014. “Introduction.” In The Colorblind Screen: Television in Post-Racial America, edited by Sarah Nilsen and Sarah E. Turner, 1–14. New York: NYU Press. Paskin, Willa. 2013. “Network TV is Broken. So How Does Shonda Rhimes Keep Making Hits?” New York Times, May 9. ­http://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2013​/­05​/­12​/­magazine​ /­shonda​-­rhimes​.­html. Smith, Jason. 2013. “Between Colorblind and Colorconscious: Contemporary Hollywood Films and Struggles over Racial Representation.” Journal of Black Studies 44 (8): 779–797. Warner, Kristen J. 2014. “The Racial Logic of Grey’s Anatomy: Shonda Rhimes and Her ‘Post-Civil Rights, Post-Feminist’ Series.” Television & New Media, 1–17. Warner, Kristen J. 2015. The Cultural Politics of Colorblind TV Casting. New York: Routledge. Wise, Tim. 2010. Colorblind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity. San Francisco: City Lights Books/Open Media Series.

Colorism and Television If you’re White, you’re right If you’re yellow, you’re mellow If you’re brown, stick around If you’re Black, get back This saying, believed to date back to the 1940s, is one that is commonly known among African Americans, but can easily be applied to any racial-ethnic group. Describing the hierarchy or caste system based not only on skin color but also variations in complexion, the idea that “White is right” is rooted in White supremacy. The term for this hierarchical system based on race complexion is colorism. Racism begets colorism, and the manifestations of colorism are quite similar to racism because they have the same origin. The nature of colorism can be seen within popular culture, especially film and television, shaping the representations, casting decisions, and even narratives. There are various examples that can explain the scripted nature of colorism, beginning with the fact that all casting decisions begin with consideration or review of a script, and those who make casting decisions are often guided by their conscious or unconscious bias for lighter skin; and this is even carried out when a decision is made to have a diverse cast. Where there is a preference for lighterskinned people with muted physical features, or those more closely related to Eurocentric aesthetics. The inverse of this is that this same system of colorism, leads to an overrepresentation in the casting of darker-skinned people in one-dimensional and at times unfavorable roles, such as criminals, prostitutes, maids, stereotypical caricatures, and so on. In fact, until the 1960s, the only African Americans in prime-time television programming were limited to a few stereotyped and debased roles. Even though



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significant changes in media were noted following the civil rights movements, as well as the advent of the Black Power movement, that led other groups—Latinxs, Asian Pacific Islanders, Indigenous, LGBTQ to make additional calls for equality, inclusion, and representation, many of the roles in television for people of color remained stereotypical, especially with relation to darker-skinned members of these groups. This bias is seen across the board, whether it involves casting of African Americans, particularly African American women, the underrepresentation of dark-skinned indigenous communities and Black Latinos, and the near invisibility of brown-skinned Southeast Asians. In essence, these casting decisions are made based on perceptions and biased societal attitudes. For example, when one reviews a script and sets out to cast the role of the beautiful girl next door; the person chosen will likely have physical aesthetics that are in line with Eurocentric ideals of beauty and likability. In fact, this argument regarding appeal has been made by those in television and film, who have been criticized for not including diversity in race and skin tone in casting. Their argument is that if the films and television shows are not appealing to White audiences—and this includes casting nonthreatening and more easily accepted light-skinned actors and actresses—then they will not do well. The following comments made by a writer for Fordham Ram, in the article “Hollywood Turns a Blind Eye to Skin Colors,” illustrates these views, “Unfortunately, these issues will not be resolved until Hollywood starts to place importance on ethnic accuracy instead of box office numbers” (qtd. in Scalia 2016). This writer continues to give credence to the notion that only White actors, or movies starring mostly White actors or a White lead actor, will do well at the box office. These statements and excuses for the lack of diversity are contrary to what has actually been occurring over the past decade, where the average White American has bought a ticket to fewer films than the average Black, Latinx, or Asian American moviegoer. Further, despite only compromising 37 percent of the U.S. population, minorities bought 46 percent of the $1.2 billion in tickets sold in the United States last year. Colorism also has a gendered component, and this too may be a result of its origins in white supremacy patriarchy, including slavery. Years of miscegenation produced light-skinned women who were deemed as more desirable and kept in closer proximity to slave masters; which allowed for increased sexual exploitation. However, light-skinned men’s physical aesthetics didn’t afford them preferential treatment. Their desirability was downplayed, and their proximity to whiteness did not grant them access to White women. So, while the antebellum Quadroon Balls and later social venues like the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York, were considered acceptable places to meet, interact, and carry out relationships with light-skinned women; the same was not true for light-skinned men. Thus, the epitome of feminine Black beauty has always been light-skin, slender Eurocentric features, and “good” less-kinky hair; and these attitudes continue to be reflected in casting choices. Critics argue that the danger here lies in the fact that a sexist paradigm already exists in society, that has ideal beauty standards that are unattainable and unachievable for all groups of women, and colorism only exacerbates this problem of connecting women’s perceived beauty to their value and significance; and in the

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case of television and film darker-skinned actresses are not valued. This difference in perception in value is not only played out in casting, but in compensation, with White actresses and White-identified actresses, such as light-skinned, naturally blonde, Latina Sofia Vergara, being among those who are the most well paid. In fact, Sofia Vergara is currently slated to be the highest paid actress in television. For Black women, the group having the oldest legacy of colorism in the United States, the challenges and socioeconomic consequences of colorism are even greater. Research has shown that after the civil rights changes that called for hiring of more African Americans, fair-skinned African Americans were the ones more likely to be hired. A result of colorism and bias, many of the “Black Firsts,” those noted for being the first Black person in a field, were often fair-skinned African Americans, and the same holds true in television and film. Those in casting simply were not ready to open up roles that were not supportive or stereotypical in nature to darker-skinned actresses, and the same may still be true today. Fair-skinned actresses like Lena Horne, Dorothy Dandridge, and Eartha Kitt were cast as leading ladies and in prominent roles. Earth Kitt, a biracial woman, was even cast as Catwoman in the popular Batman television series during the segregated 1960s. Later, Nichelle Nichols, a slightly darker brown-skinned woman was cast in the role of Uhuru, on the popular and now iconic Star Trek (1966–1969) television series. Diahann Carroll, also having the privilege of a lighter skin tone, starred in Julia (1968–1971), an American sitcom notable for being one of the first weekly series to depict an African American woman in a non-stereotypical role. Julia Baker was a far cry from the maids and single mothers living in the Projects that many African American women portrayed. The character was a widowed single mother, working as a nurse in a doctor’s office at a large aerospace company. Contrast this casting to that of Florida Evans, portrayed by dark-skinned actress Esther Rolle, in the television series Good Times (1974–1980). Florida was the downtrodden, forever sacrificing mother of three living in a two-bedroom apartment in the Chicago Projects. As endearing as her character was to many viewers, she was the manifestation of the Mammy on-screen. In her article “Good Times: Archetypical Black Family or Stereotypical Minstrel Show,” Pennsylvania State University educator Gwendolyn D. Blackshear shared the following: We are plagued with the reoccurring image of the nurturing mammy or auntie. The mammy was always asexual, obese, very dark skinned and smiling. The mammy would always instill the ways of white folk to her family; she was their representative in the slave quarters. She would make sure that the other slaves were doing what the master said, and relay this information back to the master. Florida Evans fit perfectly into this character type. She was dark skinned, full figured, and was always smiling and conforming to the ways of the government. Any time that James would find a way to get some quick money for the rent, Florida would always be that “master” in his ear, telling him to repent and turn from his evil ways. In the show, Florida was never portrayed as being sexy; instead she was rather old and unattractive. She was basically another domestic on her own show, even though she had refused to do any more domestic roles after being the maid on Maude. She was constantly cooking, cleaning, sowing [sic], singing, praying and doing all the things that happy darkies supposedly love to do. (Blackshear 1995)



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The counterbalances to Florida were her neighbor, Willona Woods, portrayed by actress Ja’Net DuBois, and her daughter, Thelma, portrayed by brown-skinned actress Bern Nadette Stanis. Interestingly enough, while not necessarily light-skinned, Thelma’s beauty or sexiness was central to her character. Still, her beauty was not presented as classic or demure, it was sexualized, wild, and “Othered.” In a sense, Thelma was the Jezebel to Florida’s Mammy character. Actress DuBois was noted for “creating a rounded character who could be nurturing, domesticated, able to run her own household, and all the while hold onto a very sexy sexuality” (Bogle 2001, 206). Another example of scripted colorism in casting was seen in the highly acclaimed and long-running The Cosby Show (1984–1992), which received much praise for portraying a Black middle-class family led by professionals and depicting another aspect of African American life. However, more than a number of eyebrows were raised in the decision to cast biracial actresses as the two eldest daughters on the show, despite the fact that both actors portraying the parents were Black. The casting preference for light-skinned actress Lisa Bonet, a biracial African American and Jewish woman, to portray Denise Huxtable, a character who was scripted to be attractive, spunky, relatable, and somewhat of a teen idol, simply adheres to the attitudes established by colorism. In fact, the practice of colorism is not limited to predominantly White shows, where there is a token Black character. It can be seen in the majority of Black-oriented shows or shows (including cartoons) with black female characters, where the dark-skinned ones are often portrayed in a stereotypical manner, While the White or light-skinned characters are not. A striking example of this can be seen with the casting in the television series Martin (1992–1997), where Tisha Campbell, a very light-skinned actress, portrays Gina, the lead character’s girlfriend, fiancée, and then wife, and Tichina Arnold, a dark-skinned actress, portrays Pam, Gina’s best friend. A central part of the show involved Pam and Martin literally “playing the dozens,” that is using humor to attack each other. This aspect of the show became noticeably problematic because far too many of the jokes made at Pam’s expense were really digs at the physical appearance of actress Tichina Arnold. She was called Beady-Bead and often told to “check her kitchen,” the nape of her hair that retained a kinky-curly texture. Then there were the stereotypical parallels between Gina’s character and Pam’s character. Pam was manless, undesirable, angry, and bitter. While Gina was pretty, light-skinned, career-driven, classy, and content. The show introduced an even more problematic form of intra-racial colorism with the portrayal of Sheneneh, who was played by Martin Lawrence. Sheneneh provided the quintessential stereotypical view of dark-skinned Black women. She was loud, angry, and uncouth to the point of being uncivilized, overly aggressive, and conniving. Her physical representation included different colored, over-the-top and badly styled weaves, and the body type created for her by the use of stuffed pants, bras, etc. seemed to mock the curvier frames of black women. On the show In Living Color (1990–1994), created and executively produced by Black men—actor Jaime Foxx introduced the character of “Wanda,” who was just as problematic as Sheneneh. Actually, with the contortions that Jaime Foxx made to his face while playing Wanda, she was perhaps rendered even more undesirable than Sheneneh.

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What stands out on both shows, as well as others, including Sanford & Son (1972– 1977), where actress LaWanda Page played “Ugly” Aunt Esther, is that darker-skinned actresses or those pretending to be darker-skinned women are used to fill these stereotypical roles of the undesirable, unattractive, and less classy women. Further the physical features of these characters are often attacked and made a part of the show’s narrative. Proud Family (2001–2005) blatantly employed colorism in its story line. Many believed that the characters, specifically the mother and father, were based off of the television show Martin because they held a striking resemblance to Tichina Arnold and Martin Lawrence. The lead character on the show is actually Penny Pride, who is depicted as a cute, light-skinned African American girl. She is somewhat preppy, very personable, and mildly mannered. Contrasted with Penny is her friend Dijonay, who is dark-skinned, loud, aggressive, wears wildly colored dyed gold/blonde hair as a child; and is stereotypically “ghetto.” Further, Dijonay constantly chases after guys, who shared her complexion, and these boys always have a crush on Penny and found Dijonay revolting. So, the undesirable narrative continues. An even more troublesome depiction of colorism is seen with the Gross Sisters, and, yes, they are literally called “gross”—undesirable. The color of their skin is much darker than Dijonay’s and actually takes on a blue shade and tint, which many speculated was because they were to be seen as being “ashy” and unkept. Being ashy is something that darker-skinned Black people are very mindful of, and being called ashy is viewed as a great insult. “Ashy” is actually viewed as one of the most secured terms in the African American Language (AAL) lexicon and has long been seen as an exclusive in-group term between African Americans—one that is used for ritual insult and verbal barbs characteristic of AAL speech. So, this explains what made the sisters so “gross.” Outside of their physical features, the Gross Sisters were also typically portrayed along stereotypical narratives of colorism. They were loud, angry, mean, aggressive bullies and thieves—a very stark contrast to Penny Proud. The cartoon also included other characters such as Zoey Howzer, Penny’s white friend, and Lacienga Boulevardez, her white Latina friend, and of course they were not reduced to negative stereotypes like the dark-skinned girls in the cartoon. While some progressed has been made, darker-skinned actresses like Esther Rolle, Viola Davis, or Janet Hubert, who portrayed the first Aunt Viv in the Fresh Prince of Bel Air (1990–1996) television series, continue to be rarely cast in shows, even those with a majority Black cast. And prior to Viola Davis’s role as Annalise Keating in How to Get Away with Murder (2014–2020), a darker-skinned Black actress had never been cast in a leading role. The irony is that this groundbreaking feat did not occur on a predominantly Black show but on one that has a very diverse cast, which doesn’t specifically target African American audiences A preference for lighter Latinas with Eurocentric features, and less indigenous and African features is equally prominent across film and television. Sophia Vergara, one of the most highly successful actresses in American television is a white Latina, with naturally blonde hair and fair skin. Although she often portrays the stereotypical role of the spicy, overtly sexual Latina, she has not been asked to



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play a maid or domestic worker. These roles usually go to darker-skinned Latinas. This trend for lighter and whiter casting in Spanish-language programming is so prevalent that indigenous and Afro-Latinos are often erased. Actresses and actors that are indigenous and Afro-Latinx are often not selected to work on these shows, and if they are, the roles adhere to the stereotypical narrative; especially for those who are dark-skinned. Sandra Rodriguez Cotto, in “The Dark Side of Hispanic TV,” explains the erasure and/or marginalization of Afro-Latinx and indigenous people in Latino television: By simply turning on Univision or Telemundo networks, it is evident that Blacks are scarce. For the networks, it seems that being Black is a sin, simply because Hispanic television reflects the typical racial prejudices of those who have power in the Latin American countries they represent. The networks reproduce racial hierarchies that exist in Latin America. That is why in order to be on Hispanic television, people must be blonde, white-skinned, preferably with blue or green eyes, thin and tall and with straight hair. A little of black hair color is allowed, but all the better if it is dyed to blonde. They might allow some people with brown complexion, but the rest are outcasts. Those with indigenous features, or with darker or black skin, are relegated to become “tokens,” as the few reporters, and fewer anchors in news, have to become sensationalist objects in the news or even play the stereotypical roles of servants, thieves, prostitutes, witches, handicapped or impoverished people in telenovelas. (Rodriguez-Cotto 2015)

In “The Privilege of White Hispanic: Leaving Out the Rest,” author Cesar Vargas underlines the problem of underrepresentation or lack of representation with the following sentiments: “I want to see more Latinos in film, TV, publications, the government, getting grants for their organizations, and not just White Latinos. Add more sazón to the mix and then you can call it, a true representation of what it means to be Latino” (2014). These examples of intra-racial colorism make it clear that simply having more Black, Asian, or Latinx writers, producers, and directors will not automatically help to mitigate discrimination in television and film. A concerted effort must be made to ensure that members within a specific racial or ethnic group are not perpetuating scripted colorism, through conscious or unconscious bias. Activists and others have concluded that casting decisions should really be evaluated in a manner that identifies whether bias was employed in decision-making and whether the casting pattern adheres to stereotypical representations of light-skinned and dark-skinned people.

CONCLUSION In 2009, a team of psychologists led by Max Weisbuch, designed a multipart study to examine the communication of race bias on television to white college-age volunteers. Weisbuch and his team were intrigued by what they deemed was a significant reduction in overt expressions of racism in modern American society. Despite his assumptions, Weisbuch noted that studies consistently found that many people still show biased or negative attitudes toward African Americans, primarily through nonverbal means such as facial expressions, crossed arms, and

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averted gazes. They designed a series of intricately designed experiments that demonstrated that there are subtle racial biases that are often expressed by characters on popular television shows, and that viewers not only picked up these attitudes, but allow them to shape their own on race. Also, the most insidious part of this “programming” identified by the researchers was that the transmission of race bias appears to occur subconsciously, unbeknownst to the viewer. Colorism remains part of these biases. Cherise Charleswell Further Reading

Berg, Madeline. 2016. “The World’s Highest-Paid TV Actresses 2016: Sofia Vergara Stays the Queen of the Small Screen with $43 Million.” Forbes, September 14. ­http://​ ­w ww​.­forbes​.­c om​/­s ites​/ ­m addieberg​/ ­2 016​/ ­0 9​/­14​/ ­t he​-­worlds​- ­h ighest​- ­p aid​- ­t v​ -­a ctresses​-­2016​- ­s ofia​-­vergara​- ­s tays​- ­t he​- ­q ueen​- ­of​- ­t he​- ­s mall​- ­s creen​-­w ith​- ­43​ -­million​/#­6b1285c6a7fe. Blackshear, Gwendolyn D. 1995. “Good Times: Archetypical Black Family or Stereotypical Minstrel Show.” English 487: Rhetorical Bodies. ­http://​­www​.­personal​.­psu​.­edu​ /­faculty​/­j​/­l​/­jls25​/­487paps​/ ­Blackshear​.­htm. Bogle, Donald. 1973. Blacks, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Film. New York: Garland. Bogle, Donald. 2001. Primetime Blues: African Americans on Network Television. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Carvalho, Rebecca. 2016. “Hey Latinos—We Need to Talk about Colorism: The Longer We Go Without Confronting This, the Longer We Allow It to Pit Our Brothers and Sisters against Each Other.” The Tempest, February 10. ­http://​­thetempest​.­co​/­2016​ /­02​/­10​/­culture​-­taste​/­culture​/­latino​-­colorism​/. Cotto Rodriguez, Sandra. 2015. “The Dark Side of Hispanic TV.” March 29, ­http://​ ­enblancoynegromedia​.­blogspot​.­com​/­2015​/­03​/­the​-­dark​-­side​-­of​-­hispanic​-­t v​.­html. Davids, Lester. 2016. “Skin Lightening: The Beauty Industry’s Ugly Billion-Dollar Secret: The Desire for Lighter Skin as a Form of Social Capital Has Driven Demand—So What Can Be Done to Stop It?” International Business Times, September 2. ­http://​­www​.­ibtimes​.­co​.­uk​/­skin​-­lightening​-­beauty​-­industrys​-­ugly​-­billion​ -­dollar​-­secret​-­1579218. Hochschild, Jennifer L. 2007. “The Skin Color Paradox and the American Racial Order.” Social Forces 86 (2): 643–670. Hunter, Margaret L. 2002. “‘If You’re Light You’re Alright’: Light Skin Color as Social Capital for Women of Color.” Gender and Society 16: 175–193. Hunter Margaret L. 2007. “The Persistent Problem of Colorism: Skin Tone, Status, and Inequality.” Sociology Compass 1 (1): 237–254. Scalia, Briana. 2016. “Hollywood Turns a Blind Eye to Skin Colors.” Fordham Ram, September 22. ­https://​­fordhamram​.­com​/­2016​/­09​/­22​/ ­hollywood​-­t urns​-­a​-­blind​-­eye​-­to​ -­skin​-­colors​/. Shrum, L. J., Robert Wyer Jr., and Thomas C. O’Guinn. 1998. “The Effects of Television Consumption on Social Perceptions: The Use of Priming Procedures to Investigate Psychological Processes.” Journal of Consumer Research 4 (24): 447–458. Vargas, Cesar. 2014. “The Privilege of White Hispanic: Leaving out the Rest.” The Huffington Post, November 18. ­http://​­www​.­huffingtonpost​.­com​/­casar​-­vargas​/­the​ -­privilege​-­of​-­white​-­hi​_b​_5780940​.­html.



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Wade, T., and S. Bielitz. 2005. “The Differential Effect of Skin Color on Attractiveness, Personality Evaluations, and Perceived Life Success of African Americans.” Journal of Black Psychology 31: 215–236.

Cooking Shows Responding to the changing tastes of the American people, cooking shows have evolved to couple food with ideology. From before the Great Depression to World War II, homemaking radio shows were essential to American housewives. By the 1980s, with an influx of celebrity chefs, cooking shows would become more about entertainment than instruction. Following that trend, the establishment of Food Network in the early 1990s gave rise to competitive cooking shows, prioritizing the television industry over the food industry. International curiosity and globalization inspired travel food shows in the early twenty-first century that took white men into other countries to try different cuisines. While originally intended for homemakers in the early to mid-twentieth century, cooking shows have since attracted a wide range of audiences for their entertainment value. However, representations and portrayals concerning black and brown people and their cultures were limited and problematic. The majority of cooking show hosts in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century were white women, which fell on the “Rachael–Martha Continuum” for middle- to upper-middle-class audiences (Collins 2009, 215). The Rachael–Martha Continuum offered audiences approaches to living well, but in very different ways. The three food hosts on the continuum were: Rachael Ray (30 Minute Meals, 2001; Rachael Ray’s Tasty Travels, 2005; and $40 a Day, 2002–2055), Julia Child (most notably The French Chef, 1963–1973), and Martha Stewart (Martha, 2005–2012 and Martha Stewart Living, 1996–2004). All three food hosts are White and cater to audiences of varying socioeconomic lifestyles of middle to upper-middle class. While all three food hosts championed living well, there were strategic differences among them that attracted different audiences. Ray’s appeal in 30 Minute Meals focused on a quick and easy, no fuss, use-any-brand-extra-virgin-olive-oil (EVOO) cooking style. She often made mistakes in the kitchen and told audiences that making mistakes is normal and necessary. Her high energy level and accessible vocabulary catered to younger audiences who had busy lifestyles and required straightforward cooking lessons. Additionally, her instruction-entertainment style invited people to try affordable and convenient approaches to cooking for themselves. Continuing on the continuum is Child’s The French Chef (1960s), which communicated that French cuisine personified sophistication and worldliness; however, Child’s self-effacing hosting made French cuisine approachable. Child pioneered a “food-centered” and “host-centered” cooking show, that upgraded the didactic cooking shows of the past (Collins 2009, 73). Finally, at the very end of the continuum is Stewart (Martha and Martha Stewart Living) that exemplified living well “in a way that seems impossible,” alienating the general population (Collins 2009, 220). Stewart delivered an atmosphere of expensive tastes that audiences

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should aspire to having and embodying as opposed to Ray’s of-the-people persona. The growth of cooking shows is aptly explained in Kathleen Collins’s Watching What We Eat: The Evolution of Television Cooking Shows. The historical arc of TV cooking shows reflects an evolution of women’s roles from homemakers to coworkers; food as a way to feed ourselves to a way to express our creativity and cultural capital; a shift from a culture of conformity to one of diversity; and a change in focus—from a social life centered inside the home, to one outside the home, to a desire to have a foot in both. (Collins 2009, 9)

Although Ray, Child, and Stewart appeal to audiences of different socioeconomic backgrounds, representation and cuisine for and by Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC) are lacking in food television. For example, Food Network’s Down Home with the Neelys (2008) is hosted by Black husband and wife restaurateurs, Patrick and Gina Neely, exuding a hometown feel. The show is filmed in their family home in Memphis, Tennessee, and showcases famous restaurant dishes and family recipes. Their casual banter and down-to-earth humor appealed to general audiences. However, Down Home with the Neelys is in the minority in Food Network’s show landscape, which caters to a mostly White, middle-class audience. To attract a broader range of audiences, Food Network adapted to new genres. Reality competition shows of the late 1990s and early 2000s quickly saturated Food Network with shows like The Next Food Network Star (2005–2008) and Iron Chef (2005–2018). The Next Food Network Star, for example, auditioned people to be the next stars, not chefs, of Food Network. These food competitions emphasize star potential and fanbase over skills, and reinforce spectator sport status of cooking shows. This is a far cry from Ray’s and Child’s approach of translating the complexities of cuisine to everyone’s kitchen counter. Furthermore, travel food shows responded to an international awareness and curiosity by American audiences by showcasing international cuisines. Shows like the Travel Channel’s Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations (2005–2012) and Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern (2006–2018) take Americans on a journey led by White men as they travel and eat food from all over the world. Bourdain, known for his honest portrayals of global cultures and lifestyles, was compelled to switch from the Food Network to the Travel Channel due to Food Network’s opinion that Bourdain’s world destinations “veered too far, not from food but from the Western world” (Collins 2009, 196), an argument that positions the Food Network as unwilling to engage with diversity. The Food Network has curated a broadcasting landscape that accommodates and represents white culture. In addition, journalist Lorraine Chuen interrogates the demographic homogeneity of international cuisines by asking, “[Who] gets to be called a figure of authority on non-Western cuisines?” (qtd. in Sen 2017). Using White voices to talk about non-Western cuisines is used as a way to exoticize, censor, and stereotype non-Western cultures as food is integral to forming and sustaining one’s culture. Through the marginalization of BIPOC voices and representations in U.S. cooking shows, future directions have been predicted to, again, couple food with ideology. The current concerns of climate change and ethical global production



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have influenced the production of Netflix shows like The Final Table: A Global Cooking Competition (2018) and The Chefs’ Line (2017). The Final Table: A Global Cooking Competition presents teams of top chefs from all over the world to compete in a cooking challenge of different national cuisines then judged by people from that country. In this instance, the judges are not White and have the authority of their respective cuisines; however, Western bias and culinary appropriation are apparent. All of the chef contestants are already successful with their own restaurants awarded Michelin stars, an accolade that excludes certain chefs from competing because there “simply is no Michelin guide to Mexico, to almost anywhere in South America, nor to any city or country in Africa” (Martin 2018). Cooking shows in the United States will continue to reflect and influence American behavior. Due to food’s role in the tapestry of U.S. culture, cooking shows that overlook black and brown voices and cuisines prevent an authentic construction of American life. Charisse S. Iglesias Further Reading

“Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations.” 2019. Travel Channel. ­https://​­www​.­t ravelchannel​ .­com​/­shows​/­anthony​-­bourdain. “Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern.” 2019. Travel Channel. ­https://​­www​.­t ravelchannel​ .­com​/­shows​/ ­bizarre​-­foods. Collins, Kathleen. 2009. Watching What We Eat: The Evolution of Television Cooking Shows. New York: Continuum International Publishing, 2009. “Down Home with the Neelys.” 2019. Food Network. ­https://​­www​.­foodnetwork​.­com​ /­shows​/­down​-­home​-­with​-­the​-­neelys. Griffin, Annaliese. 2018. “Seven Cringe-Worthy Moments in Netflix’s Awful Competition Show, ‘The Final Table.’” Quartzy, November 28. ­https://​­qz​.­com​/­quartzy​ /­1464756​/­final​-­table​-­netflixs​-­food​-­competition​-­show​-­is​-­a​-­mess​/. Martin, Brittany. 2018. “What The Final Table Reveals about the Power Structures of Fine Dining.” Los Angeles Magazine, November 28. ­https://​­www​.­lamag​.­com​ /­digestblog​/­final​-­table​-­netflix​/. Sen, Mayukh. 2017. “Want to Understand Food Media’s Lack of Diversity? Here Are the Numbers.” Food 52, January 13. ­https://​­food52​.­com​/­blog​/­18850​-­want​-­to​-­understand​ -­food​-­media​-­s​-­lack​-­of​-­diversity​-­here​-­are​-­the​-­numbers.

Cops(1989–) Created in 1989 by John Langley and Malcolm Barbour, Cops is a reality-based television show that “follows police officers, constables, and sheriff’s deputies during patrols and various police activities by embedding camera crews with their unit” (COPS, n.d.). Airing on Fox for twenty-five years, Cops represents one of the network’s longest airing shows. Known for its opening music (“Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do when they come for you?”) and for its sensationalist portrayal of police arrests in cities throughout the United States (and elsewhere), it transformed both reality television and the crime genre. Over its tenure, Cops has also prompted endless debates about the types of representations and its impact on

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not only popular culture but criminal justice and race in America. Specifically, critics have lamented the ways that Cop glorified police violence, served as a source of “copganda” (Thomas 2020), contributed to racial stereotypes, normalized “law and order” language, and otherwise turned police into heroes beyond reproach. From its inception, Cops sold itself as a documentary, as a glimpse into the daily experiences of America’s law enforcement. Its embrace of the style of cinema verité (no script, no narrator) and its reliance on the narration of officers, victims, and the accused plays into its positioning as true reality television program. The show’s website describes its approach as follows: “This groundbreaking, raw and realistic series is a window into the world of crime and punishment in America” (COPS, n.d.). According to its creator, John Langley, Cops, unlike other reality shows, was simply a window into the underbelly of crime in America: “You can be entertained by it, you can be disgusted, but it is what happened. It wasn’t staged, it wasn’t scripted. I didn’t put anyone on an island and tell them what to do” (Itzkoff 2007). Dismissing criticisms about sensationalism with a claim that the show simply documents reality all while denying the show’s role in perpetuating racism because Cops shows the arrest of white people as well, the defenders of Cops have not satisfied the endless chorus of disapproval. While some critics lamented the sensationalism of Cops and reality television as a whole, others were immensely critical of the show for its perpetuation of racial stereotypes. In the midst of the war on drugs and the expansion of America’s prisons system, activists and commentators expressed fears about the effects of the show. “The dominant image is hammered home again and again: the overwhelmingly white troops of police are the good guys; the bad guys are overwhelmingly black,” wrote John O’Connor in the New York Times (1989). “Little is said about the ultimate sources of the drugs, and nothing is mentioned about . . . scandals in which the police themselves are found to be trafficking in drugs.” Research has further emphasized how Cops reinforces dominant racial stereotypes. According to Elizbeth Monk-Turner, Homer Martinez, Jason Holbrook, and Nathan Harvey (2007), 92 percent of the police officers shown on Cops are white males; whereas, the 62 percent of criminal offenders presented on the show are men of color. More specifically, this research illustrates that Black and Latino men are portrayed as being engaged in serious criminal activity such as drugs and burglary. Whites, on the other hand, are more likely be presented as being involved in incidents involving alcohol or domestic disturbances. Kathleen Curry (2001) also found that Cops influences viewer views about race and gender. According to Tim Stelloh, “Civil rights activists, criminologists, and other observers have described” Cops “as a racist and classist depiction of the country, one in which crime is a relentless threat and officers are often in pitched battle against the poor black and brown perpetrators of that crime” (2018). Cops, nevertheless, remained a popular show over the years, one that not only prompted debate and research but also galvanized its supporters. Cops also ushered in a new generation of television. Some television historians have attributed the ascendance of reality television to Cops, which not only demonstrated to television executives that reality television was immensely popular



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with audiences who sought authenticity, excitement, and spectacle but that ratings successes could come with limited cost. More specifically, Cops gave rise to a number of other reality-based law enforcement shows, including Dog the Bounty Hunter (2004–2012), a show about Duane “Dog” Chapman and his bounty hunter business; Campus PD (2009–2012), which chronicled police interactions with college students; A & E’s Live PD (2016–), which follows several police departments in live coverage; LAPD: Life on the Beat (1995–1999), and countless other shows. In 2018, Netflix offered a series of shows that followed in the footsteps of Cops and countless other shows each of which sought to highlight the real-life experiences of police officers. While these shows—Flint Town, Dirty Money, Dope, and Shot in the Dark—move beyond the traditional format of Cops, adding discussions of mass incarceration and racism within the criminal justice system, they also replicate many of the aesthetic and representational elements that define the genre. “There’s often a void in documentaries about law enforcement: the victims. We watch alleged criminals get placed in the back of cop cars and we follow the tired officer as he makes his way back to the station at the end of the day, but the men and women who must deal with the aftermath are rarely given a voice,” writes Dan Jackson in “Netflix’s Police Documentaries Can’t Escape the Toxic Shadow of ‘Cops’” (2018). “Maybe they huddle in the background of a scene or provide a quick testimony. They’re rarely centered in the story. Eventually, their absence becomes a type of presence.” More than three decades after its first airing, debates about the effects of Cops on television, criminal justice, communities of color, and countless other things continued in a myriad of places. Despite moving to Spike TV in 2013 after Fox cancelled the longtime staple on its network, Cops remained a popular show, a cultural phenomenon, and a cultural lighting rod. In 2020, following national protests about police brutality, and increased public criticisms of the role that television has played in criminalizing Black bodies and in turning police into heroes, Paramount Network announced the cancellation of the show, which had also seen a dip in ratings. Still, activists saw the move as a victory. Color of Change, a national civil rights organization, celebrated the decision, having argued that “‘Cops’ was marketed as unbiased, the show offers a highly filtered version of crime and the criminal justice system—a ‘reality’ where the police are always competent, crime-solving heroes and where the bad boys always get caught” (qtd. in Sperling 2020). The cancellation of Cops, alongside Live PD, represented an end to an era within reality TV and among a group of shows that shaped national understanding of crime, police, and the criminal justice system for more than three decades. David J. Leonard Further Reading

COPS. n.d. “Over 30 Seasons of COPS.” Cops. h­ ttps://​­www​.­cops​.­com​/­about​.­html. Curry, Kathleen. 2001. “Mediating COPS: An Analysis of Viewer Reaction to Reality TV.” Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture 8 (3): 169–185. Itzkoff, Dave. 2007. “Like the 10 O’clock News, ‘Cops’ Endures.” New York Times, September 9. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2007​/­09​/­09​/­arts​/­television​/­09itzk​.­html.

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Jackson, Dan. 2018. “Netflix’s Police Documentaries Can’t Escape the Toxic Shadow of ‘Cops.’” Thrillist, April 3. ­https://​­www​.­thrillist​.­com​/­entertainment​/­nation​/­netflix​ -­cop​-­shows​-­documentaries​-­police​-­in​-­america. Monk-Turner, Elizabeth, Homer Martinez, Jason Holbrook, and Nathan Harvey. 2007. “Are Reality TV Crime Shows Continuing to Perpetuate Crime Myths?” Internet Journal of Criminology. ­http://​­citeseerx​.­ist​.­psu​.­edu​/­viewdoc​/­download​?­doi​= ​­10​.­1​.­1​ .­601​.­7250​&­rep​= ​­rep1​&­t ype​= ​­pdf. O’Connor, John. 1989. “Review/Television: ‘Cops’ Camera Shows the Real Thing.” New York Times, January 7. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­1989​/­01​/­07​/­arts​/­review​-­television​ -­cops​-­camera​-­shows​-­the​-­real​-­thing​.­html. Sperling, Nicole. 2020. “‘Cops,’ Long-Running Reality Show That Glorified Police, Is Canceled.” The New York Times, June 9. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2020​/­06​/­09​ / ­business​/­media​/­cops​-­canceled​-­paramount​-­t v​-­show​.­html. Stelloh, Tim, 2018. “Bad Boys: How ‘Cops’ Became the Most Polarizing Reality TV Show in America.” The Marshall Project, January 22. ­https://​­www​.­themarshall project​.­org​/­2018​/­01​/­22​/ ­bad​-­boys. Thomas, Aaron Rahsaan. 2020. “Is TV Finally Done with ‘Heroic’ Cops? A Black Showrunner Says, ‘Hell F*cking No’” Vanity Fair, June 8. ­https://​­www​.­vanityfair​.­com​ /­hollywood​/­2020​/­06​/­t v​-­and​-­cops

Cosby, Bill(1937–) William Henry Cosby Jr. is the first African American to star in a prime-time television series, first to receive equal billing with a series white costar and first to win an Emmy Award. Cosby is a best-selling author and multiple Grammy Award winner. Cosby was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He left high school and enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1956. He completed high school through correspondence classes and received a GED (General Education Diploma). He served four years in the Navy and was honorably discharged in 1960. Temple University awarded him an athletic scholarship. There he competed in football and track and field. He left college before completing his senior year. Cosby was discovered as a stand-up comedian and debuted on The Tonight Show in 1963. Cosby starred as an international espionage agent on the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) series I Spy (1965–1968). Cosby received equal billing with his White costar, Robert Culp. Cosby won three Emmy Awards for Outstanding Continued Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Dramatic Series (1966, 1967, and 1968). The half-hour comedy The Bill Cosby Show aired on NBC from 1969 to 1971. Cosby played Los Angeles inner-city high school gym coach, Chet Kincaid. Cosby was one of the original cast members of the Children’s Television Workshop Series The Electric Company (1971–1973). He appeared in 260 episodes as Hank. Cosby’s comedy routines included stories about growing up in Philadelphia. Some of those stories were included in the children’s animated series Fat Albert



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and the Cosby Kids. The Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) aired the series Saturday mornings from 1972 to 1985. The show used humor to explain to kids how they could deal with and learn from situations they encountered at school and at home. Cosby was the series narrator and voiced characters including Fat Albert. The half-hour NBC comedy series The Cosby Show debuted in 1984. Cosby played a medical doctor, Cliff Huxtable. His wife, Clair (Phylicia Rashad), was a lawyer. They had five children. The upscale Black family portrayed in the series showed family life as positive with caring, involved parents. While some critics celebrated the show for challenging long-standing stereotypes, others questioned its representation of race. “The Cosby Show’s erasure of white racism and its impact on the day-to-day lives of Black people in the United States (from the rich to the poor) enables the colorblind white racist fiction and delusion that anti-black racism is a thing of the past,” writes Chauncy Devega (2015). “The Cosby family was an African-American version of the model-minority myth, one of the favorite deflections and rejoinders of white racists in the post–civil rights era, where there are ‘exceptional’ minorities and the rest are failures because they do not work hard, are lazy, and complain too much about white racism.” The Cosby Show had seventy million viewers at its peak. The show is one of only three television series to top the Nielsen ratings for five straight seasons. The Cosby Show ended its run in 1992. The Cosby Show spinoff A Different World (1987–1993) was set at a historically Black college. The series’ first season featured the Huxtable’s second oldest daughter’s (Lisa Bonet) first year away at college. She returned home after season one, but the show continued without her character. Cosby wrote several best-selling books: Fatherhood (1986), Time Flies (1987), and Love and Marriage (1990). Cosby wrote a series of children’s books. Little Bill, the main character, learned how to make friends, deal with bullies, and grow up. The books were aimed at children ten years old and younger. TV network Nick Jr. produced an animated children’s series from 1999 to 2004 based on the books. Cosby starred in the thirty-minute show Kids Say the Darndest Things (1998– 2000). He hosted the series and interviewed children. The show’s title was taken from a popular segment in a TV variety series that aired in the 1950s and 1960s. A civil lawsuit was brought against Cosby in 2005. A woman accused him of drugging and molesting her in 2004. The case alleged nonconsensual sexual misconduct. Cosby made a deposition that was sealed, and the case settled. A judge unsealed that deposition in 2015. A magazine article appeared the same year quoting dozens of women who accused Cosby of similar assaults over several decades. He denied all accusations. Cosby was charged with a felony in 2015 regarding the incident that occurred in 2004. The case went to trial in Pennsylvania in 2017. It resulted in a mistrial. Cosby was found guilty of three counts of aggravated indecent assault at the retrial in 2018. Cosby was fined, classified as a sexually violent predator, and sentenced to three to ten years in state prison. His lawyers stated they planned to appeal the convictions. His conviction, and the long-standing allegation, has prompted widespread debate about his legacy and the importance of his career on television. Linda Briley-Webb

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Further Reading

Bianculli, David. 2016. The Platinum Age of Television from I Love Lucy to The Walking Dead: How TV Became Terrific. New York: Doubleday. DeVega, Chauncey. 2015. “How ‘The Cosby Show’ Duped America: The Sitcom That Enabled Our Ugliest Reagan-Era Fantasies.” Salon, July 12. ­https://​­www​.­salon​ .­c om​/ ­2 015​/ ­0 7​/­12​/ ­h ow​_ the​_ cosby ​_ show​_ duped​_ america​_ the​_ sitcom​_ that​ _enabled​_our​_ugliest​_reagan​_era​_fantasies​/. Sepinwall, Alan, and Matt Zoller Seitz. 2016. TV (THE BOOK): Two Experts Pick the Greatest American Shows of All Time. New York: Grand Central Publishing. Whitaker, Mark. 2014. Cosby His Life and Times. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Cosby Show, The(1984–1992) The Cosby Show first aired on September 20, 1984, to immense praise for its depictions of a prominent middle-class African American family. In contrast to most depictions of Black families on TV, The Cosby Show portrayed a loving and affectionate family that gracefully tackled “typical” familial issues. Over the seasons, audiences watched the Huxtable children one by one come of age on-screen with the guidance of two uniquely hands-on parents, challenging some of the harmful tropes associated with African American families. A sitcom, The Cosby Show comedically chronicles the lives of Huxtables, a family of seven who lives in a townhouse in Brooklyn Heights, New York. The family is led by Cliff (Bill Cosby), husband and father who is a practicing obstetrician, and Claire (Phylicia Rashad), the wife and mother who is an attorney. The children in the family include Sandra (Sabrina Le Beauf), who in later seasons becomes married to Elvin (Geoffrey Owens), Denise (Lisa Bonet), Vanessa (Tempestt Bledsoe), Theo (Malcolm-Jamal Warner), Rudy (Keshia Knight Pulliam), and Olivia (Raven Symone). For many, the importance of the show came from its efforts to challenge long-standing stereotypes and the antiBlack representations within popular culture. The Cosby Show was born in an era where Black Americans were consistently depicted on TV as dangerous, criminal, and void of good values. Black families were typically portrayed through narratives of poverty, familial dysfunctionality, and low social stature. The Cosby Show ushered in a new era that moved representations from stereotypical to what was considered more exceptional; a “respectable” middle-class Black family life. For others, the show represented a cultural milestone because of its depiction of Black family life in rarely seen perspectives. Not only were the Huxtables a successful middle-class family, but they were a family whose challenges and everyday experiences mirrored that of so many other Americans. For example, discussions of Theo’s struggle with dyslexia, teen pregnancy when Denise’s friend becomes pregnant and seeks Cliffs help, Vanessa and Rudy navigating femininity when they begin to come of age and many more instances. In numerous episodes, husband Cliff could be seen comfortable in the kitchen, fixing himself or his family members’ meals. His career as an obstetrician made him an even more nontraditional character of the show as typically, male doctors are not as visible as women in maternity and midwifery.



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On the other hand, Claire is not only an active, working lawyer but a successful one who celebrates winning cases on multiple occasions. Furthermore, the relationship between the two is portrayed as one of much love, understanding, and appreciation, excluding strict gender roles and expectations. “This particular family happens to be black, but its lifestyle and problems are universal” (Tucker 1997, 100). For so many, “The Huxtables’ middle-class status makes their racial identity irrelevant” (100). Yet, the show also spotlighted black art, music, and culture. According to John Downing, The Cosby Show introduced White audiences to “an abundance of black culture, which was expressed without fanfare, but with constant dignity” (1988, 61). Alvin Poussaint further argues, “The black culture of the characters comes through their speech, intonations, and nuances; Black music, art, and dance are frequently displayed, and Black books and authors are often mentioned” (qtd. in Innis and Feagin 1995, 696). While the show strived to distance itself from the often-distorted portrayal of Black families on TV, it was not void of the rich heritage that Black Americans share. Much of the show takes place in the living room of the Huxtable family home. Many pieces of African American art could be seen displayed throughout the living room, visible to audiences across demographics. This display of Black art enforces the importance of black family depictions that are not removed from Black culture. It is especially important when reinforcing the impact and influence of Black art in a time when its value is often questioned or undermined. For example, in “The Auction”, Claire attends an auction despite her broken toe to purchase a painting that was created by her great uncle Ellis. This piece of art once belonged to her grandmother and was recovered at the auction by Claire to be displayed above the Huxtable family house fireplace. In reality, that painting was actually created by a Black artist, allowing for the show to connect itself to the larger history of Black artistry. Additionally, jazz, a popular African American art form was consistently present in the soundtrack of the show and in the Huxtable family house. It was another way that the show sought to spotlight its Black cultural roots and the broader traditions within the Black community. The family continues certain traditions that are connected to Black culture. For instance, many traditionally Black hairstyles were showcased. The experience of growing and maintaining natural Afro-textured hair was not evaded but rather celebrated through its proud showcase. Furthermore, the characters of the show can often be seen sporting the latest fashions and modern attire. Wardrobe outfits were usually very stylish and full of unique character and African ancestral inspiration. For example, in many episodes, Claire, Sondra, Denise, and Vanessa Huxtable can be seen in Afro-inspired headwraps, jewelry, and all-around clothing. The attire is normalized through its showcase and affirmed through its representation. This is indicative of the unique cultural elements of Black heritage that is showcased in multiple forms throughout the sitcom. While many celebrated the show for its “positive” portrayal of an African American family living the American Dream, others offered criticism regarding the perceived erasure of the persistent impact of racism. Another critique offered was that the show led to the misconception that through hard work and dedication anyone can succeed. Herman Gray noted, “The African Americans were just like

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whites: loyal to the ethos of capitalism and bourgeois individualism and that loyalty rewarded them with the same middle-class privileges as whites. . . . Blackness was not a category requiring structural adjustments for the disadvantages of historic and group disenfranchisement and social inequality” (1995, 19). While critics have questioned the show for its embrace of problematic notions of respectability (that African Americans would live the American Dream if they worked hard and embraced desire culture), the show pushed important conversations about misogyny and masculinity. In the “Cliff in Love,” an episode when Claire offers Cliff and Elvin, her son-in-law some coffee, Elvin expresses surprise that she would offer to “do that kind of thing” and “serve him (Cliff).” There Claire quickly shuts down his “macho attitude” by explaining that she was bringing Cliff coffee just like he had brought her coffee that morning. She went on to inform him that that was what marriage was all about. During this scene, Cliff himself can be seen shaking his head at Elvin as the audience laughs along at Elvin’s misstep. Throughout the series, The Cosby Show the emphasis of is evident in Cliff and Claire’s parenting, which focused on compassion and positive reinforcement. This dynamic is especially evident in “Together Again and Again,” where life plans do not go as planned for Denise, Theo, and Sandra. When Denise announces that she dropped out of college and Theo tells his parents that he neglected to submit his NYU application, Cliff and Claire are forced to confront the possibility that the example and tradition they had continued to set within their family may not have been exactly what their children preferred for their own lives. Education is a priority and both Cliff and Claire work to ensure that their children are conscious about its importance as well. Instead of going to college, Denise is more interested in exploring diverse career options and traveling to Africa to explore her roots. At first her parents express shock and confusion at her decision; however, by the end of the episode, they solemnly accept her decision and remain supportive of her and her visions. Throughout the show’s duration, it was praised for depicting a well-to-do black family who was not removed from Black culture and the reality of what it means to be African American in America. For example, in “Vanessa’s Rich,” it tackles the issue of class when Vanessa gets bullied for being a “rich girl” at school. This episode depicted the unique challenges associated with being Black and upper-class given existing racial stereotypes and dynamics. In this case, the high- to middle-class stature of their parents caused other students at Vanessa’s school to view her as uppity, stuck up or as if she thought she was better than everyone else. While the issue between Vanessa and the bully is eventually reconciled, Vanessa confronts the complexity of belonging to an affluent African American family. The Cosby Show’s significance is evident in its challenges to the existing representations afforded to African Americans on mainstream television. Additionally, it served as a source of inspiration for other shows focused on the middle-class African American experience and paved the way for many more sitcoms of its kind. The show has since been canceled on various networks as a result of numerous allegations of sexual assault and misconduct against Bill Cosby. Basheera Agyeman



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Further Reading

Downing, John. 1988. “‘The Cosby Show’ and American Racial Discourse.” In Discourse and Discrimination, edited by Geneva Smitherman and Teun Van Dijk, 46–73. Detroit, MI: Wayne State Press. Gray, Herman. 1995. Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for “Blackness.” Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Innis, Leslie B., and Joe R. Feagin. 1995. “The Cosby Show: The View from the Black Middle Class.” Journal of Black Studies 25 (6) (July): 692–711. Jhally, Sut, and, Justin Lewis. 1992. Enlightened Racism: The Cosby Show, Audiences, and the Myth of the American Dream. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Tucker, Linda. 1997. “Was the Revolution Televised? Professional Criticism about ‘The Cosby Show’; and the Essentialization of Black Cultural Expression.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 41 (1): 90–108.

Cox, Laverne(1972–) An actor, producer, and activist, Laverne Cox has revolutionized television. Through her performances and her advocacy, Cox has altered the representation of transgender communities, particularly the transgender Black community, in a myriad of ways. Born in Mobile, Alabama, on May 29, 2019, Laverne Cox grew up with her Mom, who worked three jobs, her grandmother, and her twin brother Reginald Lamar, who would become a celebrated musician and performer (M Lamar). Experiencing bullying, isolation, and hostility, Cox had a difficult childhood. “I was bullied, and I internalized a lot of shame about who I was as a child,” noted Cox “Bullied because I didn’t act the way someone assigned male at birth was supposed to act. And so I was called sissy, I was called the F-word. I was chased home from school practically every day. There was always a kid or groups of kids who wanted to beat me up” (qtd. in Gonzalez 2019). These experiences, along with the homophobia she experienced from the church, contributed to depression. She tried to commit suicide at the age of eleven. Cox found a safe and empowering space on the dance floor. While initially unable to take classes because of her family’s financial difficulties, her mom enrolled her in a free arts program when she was eight. “Suddenly I had this creative outlet, I had something that I loved, and something that I could aspire to,” noted Cox. “When I think about my childhood and being happy, it was when I was dancing, being creative, performing and being on stage” (qtd. in Mulkerrins 2016). She enrolled at Alabama School of Fine Arts to study dance and creative writing. Upon graduation, she attended University of Indiana, Bloomington, ultimately transferring to Marymount Manhattan College, where she began her acting career. Cox’s television career began with appearances on Law & Order: SVU (1999–) in 2008, on Law and Order (1990–2010) in 2008, and Bored to Death (2009–2011) in 2009. She also was a contestant on the VH1 Reality Show, I Want to Work for Diddy. Following that appearance, she landed a deal with VH1, where she became the first African American transgender woman to star in and produce her own show. TRANSform Me, a reality-based makeover show, starred Cox along with

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two other trans women, Jamie Clayton and Nina Poon, who together offered makeovers to various women. According to Michael Musto, a columnist with the Village Voice, “The show is breaking new ground by presenting transgendered women as fierce and fabulous—if a little superficial. It’s giving visibility to three transsexuals who are offered as wise and funny gurus” (qtd. in Fisher 2010). Cox similarly noted the historic importance of this show: “People are saying to me, it’s a breath of fresh air, the transgender community is represented in a way that’s never been seen before. We have three empowered women helping other women. That’s never happened before” (qtd. in Fisher 2010). It, along with I Want to Work for Diddy, received a GLADD Media Award. Cox’s cultural and television breakthrough came with Orange Is the New Black (2013–2019). Playing Sophia, Cox plays a firefighter who finds herself in jail for credit card fraud. Seeking to fund her transition, Sophia steals several credit cards. Her son Michael (Michael Rainey Jr.), who is angered, frustrated, and confused by Sophia’s transition, alerts the police of her crime. Her performance was widely celebrated for both her acting prowess and for the significance of the role and her breaking down barriers for transgender communities and for Black communities. She became the first openly transgender person to be nominated for an acting Primetime Emmy. She would receive two additional nominations during the show’s run on television. Cox’s performance in Orange Is the New Black would “forever alter the fabric of television and transgender representation in Hollywood” (Dry 2019). She has subsequently appeared in Girlfriend’s Guide to Divorce (2014–2018), The Mindy Project (2012–2017) in 2015 and 2017, The Rocky Horror Picture Show (2016); Doubt (2017); Dear White People (2017–) in 2019; and A Black Lady Sketch Show (2019–) in 2019. She also appeared as herself in the widely popular Curb your Enthusiasm (2000–) in 2019. Her contributions extend to behind the scenes as well. She produced an Emmy-winning MTV documentary—Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word—that gives voice to the experiences of seven transgender youth. Through her performances in Orange Is the New Black and on other television shows, in her forthcoming roles in several films, her appearance on the covers of Variety, Cosmopolitan, and TIME Magazine, and through her activism, advocacy, and efforts to use her platform, Laverne Cox has transformed the ways the transgender community is seen and heard inside and outside popular culture. Opening up doors for others, giving voice to the stories and experiences of the transgender community, particularly those of color, and bringing humanity otherwise unseen, Laverne Cox has left a lasting impacting on television and the culture as a whole. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Dry, Jude. 2019. “Laverne Cox Deserves to Be the First Transgender Person to Win an Acting Emmy.” Indie Wire, August 29. ­https://​­www​.­indiewire​.­com​/­2019​/­08​ /­laverne​-­cox​-­emmy​-­orange​-­is​-­the​-­new​-­black​-­netflix​-­1202169806​/. Fisher, Luchina. 2010. “Putting the ‘Trans’ in ‘Transform Me.’” ABC News, April 15. ­https://​­abcnews​.­go​.­com​/ ­Entertainment​/­vh1​-­series​-­t ransform​-­stars​-­t ransgender​ -­women​/­story​?­id​= ​­10387489.



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Glover, Julian Kevon. 2016. “Redefining Realness?: On Janet Mock, Laverne Cox, TS Madison, and the Representation of Transgender Women of Color in Media.” Special Issue, African American Representation and the Politics of Respectability, Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society 18 (2–4): 338–357. Gonzalez, Irina. 2019. “Laverne Cox Could Become the First Transgender Actress to Win an Emmy: The Orange Is the New Black Star Has Made History Countless Times.” O: The Oprah Magazine, September 20. ­https://​­www​.­oprahmag​.­com​/­entertainment​ /­t v​-­movies​/­a28987199​/­laverne​-­cox​-­facts​/. Mulkerrins, Jane. 2016. “Laverne Cox: On Growing Up Trans, Orange Is the New Black and Caitlyn Jenner.” The Telegraph, June 10. ­https://​­www​.­telegraph​.­co​.­uk​/­on​ -­demand​/­2016​/­06​/­10​/ ­laverne​- ­cox​- ­on​-­g rowing​-­up​-­t rans​- ­orange​-­is​-­the​-­new​-­black​ -­and​-­cait​/. Reilly, Phoebe. 2014. “‘It’s about More Than Our Bodies’: Laverne Cox on ‘The T Word.’” Rolling Stone, October 16. ­https://​­www​.­rollingstone​.­com​/­tv​/­tv​-­news​/­its​-­about​-­more​ -­than​-­our​-­bodies​-­laverne​-­cox​-­on​-­the​-­t​-­word​-­177550​/. Sivagnanam, Nerine. 2015. “People and Pronouns: Laverne Cox Speaks at Pitt.” The Pitt News, March 30. ­https://​­pittnews​.­c om​/­a rticle​/­1583​/­s tate​- ­n ational​/­p eople​- ­a nd​ -­pronouns​-­laverne​-­cox​-­speaks​-­at​-­pitt​/.

Cristela(2014–2015) While only lasting one season, Cristela (2014–2015) made history. It was the first prime-time television show in American history where a Latina—Cristela Alonzo—was the star, creator, producer, and writer. Semi-autobiographical, Cristela brought to life some of Alonzo’s experiences as a second-generation Mexican American immigrant growing up in Texas. Despite its history-making, its innovation, and its critical success, it never found an audience. Cristela tells the story of Cristela Hernandez (Alonzo), a Mexican American woman interning at a Dallas law firm. While the show focuses on her professional career, and the resulting challenges of a Mexican American woman working as a law intern, Cristela is equally interested in telling the story of her family. Critics praised the show for bridging these worlds, showing how Cristela’s family questioned her decision to be an unpaid intern or how her own class ascendance resulted in tensions within her working-class family members. At the same time, the show brings to life the challenges Cristela faces because of the privileges of whiteness and maleness, and as a result of racist jokes and microaggressions in the workplace. While starring Alonzo, Cristela provided a platform for a number of Latinx actresses and actors. Maria Canals-Barrera plays Cristela’s sister, Daniela Gonzalez, and Carlos Ponce plays Daniela’s husband, Felix Gonzalez. Terri Hoyos stars as Cristela’s mother, Natalia Hernandez, whose experiences growing up in an impoverished Mexican community provide a backdrop for the show’s plotlines dealing with immigration, class and generational divides within immigrant families, and the daily struggles to fulfill the promise of the American Dream. Isabella Day (Isabella Gonzalez) and Jacob Guenther (Henry Gonzalez) play Felix and Daniella’s children. The cast also includes several of Cristela’s coworkers: Trent

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Culpepper (Sam McMurray), Josh (Andrew Leeds), and Maddie Culpepper (Justine Lupe), who each serve as racial or class foils to enable critical discussions about race, class, gender, and other social issues. Critics lauded the show for how it followed in the footsteps of sitcoms of previous generations, providing laughs alongside of universal lessons of morality, all while delivering diversity of both cast and plotlines otherwise uncommon on television. “It’s the kind of sitcom entire generations grew up watching, that delivered easy laughs and life lessons via a familiar blueprint,” wrote David Sims in The Atlantic (2015). “But one of the many qualities that distinguishes Cristela, the first TV comedy ever created by or starring a Latina woman, is that the things it wants to teach viewers are actually worth learning.” Cristela was more than a Latinx update of the traditional sitcom. Its use of multi-cameras, the decision to shoot in front of a live studio audience, its ability to be a show about serious real-life issues all while providing audiences with moments of levity, and its courage highlight its innovation. In one episode, Cristela supports her niece as she tries to gain admission into a high school’s Gifted and Talented program. While Isabella’s mother discourages her application, out of fear that being smart will result in her being unpopular, Cristela both encourages her and offers frank advance about the difficulties of “imposter syndrome,” a feeling of not belonging or being worthy that is a consequence of racism and sexism. The show’s critical acclaim and its innovation was not enough, as ABC canceled the show on May 7, 2015. For Alonzo, the cancellation was more than a disappointment; it was an injustice given the history of diversity on television and the decisions from ABC. “It was a multi-cam sitcom that SOMETIMES aired on Friday nights,” wrote Alonzo after ABC announced its decision. “I say sometimes because a lot of times we were pre-empted for more important things like an Easter egg hunt happening in real time. Kidding. In reality, we were preempted for other things like a documentary on a parade and some other things I can’t remember. I think one night was a show about Christmas lights?” (Terrero 2015). David J. Leonard Further Reading

Hollander, Jenny. 2018. “How Cristela Alonzo Is Carving Out Room for Stories Like Hers.” Bustle, April 24. ­https://​­www​.­bustle​.­com​/­p​/ ­how​-­cristela​-­alonzo​-­is​-­carving​ -­out​-­room​-­for​-­stories​-­like​-­hers​-­8812138. Sims, David. 2015. “Cristela is the Model for What Modern Sitcoms Should Be.” The Atlantic, April 17. ­https://​­www​.­theatlantic​.­com​/­entertainment​/­archive​/­2015​/­04​ /­the​-­radically​-­formulaic​-­comedy​-­of​-­cristela​/­390735​/. Stone, Natalie. 2015. “Cristela Alonzo Pens ‘Possible Goodbye’ Letter to ‘Cristela’ Fans: ‘I Am Proud of What We’ve Done.’” The Hollywood Reporter, April 17. ­https://​ ­w ww​.­hollywoodreporter​.­c om​ /­l ive​ -­feed​ /­c ristela​ -­a lonzo​ -­p ens​ -­goodbye​ -­letter​ -­789882. Terrero, Nina. 2015. “Cristela Alonzo Writes Blog about Show Cancellation: I’m ‘Angry.’” Entertainment Weekly, May 12. ­https://​­ew​.­com​/­article​/­2015​/­05​/­12​/­cristela​-­alonzo​ -­blog​/.

D Davis, Viola(1965–) Viola Davis was born in St. Matthews, South Carolina, 1965, during a period when Jim Crow still had a grip on American society and at a time when there was no notable diversity in American television, particularly behind the scenes. It would be another three years before Julia (1968–1971), the groundbreaking sitcom starring Diahann Carroll debuted. Davis grew up on a farm on the grounds of a former plantation under conditions of extreme poverty, but her drive and passion for acting saw her all the way to Julliard in New York City. By the time that she was cast to play Annalise Keating in How to Get Away with Murder (2014–2020), Viola Davis was already a veteran actress, earning a long list of credits in film, theater, and television; as well as two Oscar nominations—2008’s Doubt and 2011’s The Help. Following her 2015 Emmy win for her portrayal of Annalise Keating, a fierce, ambitious, and sexy defense lawyer and law professor who uses her students, friends, and lovers to help her win cases at all costs, she summarized the trajectory of her career as follows: You guys have to realize, I’ve been in this business 35 years, and 27 years professionally,” she told reporters. “I’m the journeyman actor that you saw in one scene here, two scenes there. I’ve been eking out a living doing theater—Broadway, Off Broadway—film supporting roles, that I’m just excited to be a part of the conversation. (Birnbaum 2015)

What Davis was describing was that despite her talent, work ethic, and passion for acting she had spent the vast majority of her career taking nominal, marginalized, and supporting roles including appearances on several television shows and mini-series—NYPD Blue (1993–2005) in 1996; City of Angels (2000); Third Watch (1999–2005) in 2001; Law and Order: Criminal Intent (2001–2011) in 2002; CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000–2015) in 2002; The Practice (1997–2004) in 2003; The Practice (1997–2004) in 2003; Law and Order: SVU (1999–) in 2004 and 2008; Traveler (2007); The Andromeda Strain (2008); and United States of Tara (2009–2011) in 2010. Although tremendously prolific, these minor roles rarely provided her with the opportunity to show her full range of ability. Worse yet, many of Davis’s characters were forgettable, furthering a popular cultural landscape where constructions of Black femininity are often based on the dichotomy of promiscuity and aggression, and this includes the caricatures of the mama with the big heart and even bigger bosom, as well as the neck-twirling, finger-snapping emasculating woman. In taking on these stereotypical roles and staying in the “background,” Davis was not able to shine. After twenty-seven years as a professional, she was not yet a household name. This would change when Shonda Rhimes introduced—or reintroduced—her to

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audiences as Annalise Keating, giving Davis, a dark-skinned African American middle-aged woman, an opportunity to portray a multidimensional lead character. Typically, African American actresses of any age are selected to fill the roles of the sidekick, who are often there for comedic relief; they are often little more than “token” nonwhite characters. Thus, casting Davis in this role was groundbreaking because it simultaneously pushed aside barriers in terms of race, skin complexion, gender, and age, essentially taking on racism, colorism, sexism, ageism, and even texturism. Ultimately, Davis’s addition to Shondaland was groundbreaking in that her mere presence and award-winning abilities challenge and overcome a plethora of intersectional issues, stereotypes, and perceptions that have historically served as barriers to diversity in television in film. The argument that characters that look like Davis “won’t sell,” won’t be accepted by audiences, or simply would not be good for ratings, has literally been debunked by How to Get Away with Murder’s success. According to Viola Davis When you do see a woman of color onscreen, the paper-bag test is still very much alive and kicking. That’s the whole racial aspect of colorism: If you are darker than a paper bag, then you are not sexy, you are not a woman, you shouldn’t be in the realm of anything that men should desire. And in the history of television and even in film, I’ve never seen a character like Annalise Keating played by someone who looks like me. My age, my hue, my sex. She is a woman who absolutely culminates the full spectrum of humanity our askew sexuality, our askew maternal instincts. She’s all of that, and she’s a dark-skin black woman. Some people who watch TV have acknowledged that and understand that. But I encourage you to search your memory and think of anyone who’s done this. It just hasn’t happened. I hear these stories from friends of mine who are dark-skin actresses who are always being seen as crack addicts and prostitutes. (2015)

The above sentiments shared by veteran and now awarding-winning actress Viola Davis exemplifies the types of hardships and obstacles that women of color, particularly dark-skinned black women face in Hollywood. However, her role as Annalise Keating was groundbreaking because it has allowed Davis to challenge these stereotypes, prejudices, and discriminatory practices, and in a sense, to serve as a torchbearer for other actresses of color. The fact that the character, Annalise Keating, that she portrays, is not a race character, meaning not one that is solely defined by her race, is monumental, and this is due to the lack of diversified roles offered to African American actresses, in general. And when it comes to ideals of sex appeal or beauty Viola Davis was adamant about being authentic. In the “Let’s Go Snooping” episode of How to Get Away with Murder, Keating is seen removing not only her makeup, wiping away her eye shadow, lipstick, and plucking off her eyelashes but also removing her wig, exposing her braided natural kinky-curly, Afro-textured hair. The mere act of taking off her wig had tongues wagging, bloggers rushing to write think pieces that described how monumental that moment was, while others were left softly whispering—Finally. For dark skin women, particularly Black women, like Viola Davis, representations that demonstrate their full humanity are few in television and film, and that



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is what makes their award-winning roles groundbreaking. In addition, this willingness to create opportunities for diverse actresses and actors—in terms of race, ethnicity, complexion, age, and so on—is what makes Shonda Rhimes’s Shondaland production team equally as important. Their intersectional, non-colorblind, socially aware, and inclusive approach to casting and character development challenges viewers to get past their prejudices and misconceptions about often underrepresented groups of people. In the case of Viola Davis, audiences are forced to realize that yes, a middle-age dark-skinned Black woman can be beautiful, sexy, intelligent, and a leading lady. Cherise Charleswell Further Reading

Bahr, Lindsey. 2014. “Shonda Rhimes on Her DGA Diversity Award: ‘We’re a Tiny Bit P-ssed off That There Has to be an Award.’” Entertainment Weekly, January 26. ­http://​­www​.­ew​.­com​/­article​/­2014​/­01​/­26​/­shonda​-­rhimes​-­dga​-­diversity​-­award. Birnbaum, Debra. 2015. “Viola Davis on Her Groundbreaking Emmy Win: ‘I Felt Like I Fulfilled a Purpose.’” Variety, September 23. ­http://​­variety​.­com​/­2015​/­t v​/­news​ /­viola​-­davis​-­emmy​-­how​-­to​-­get​-­away​-­with​-­murder​-­1201600239​/. Davis, Viola. 2015. “Viola Davis Covers the Wrap: Talks Colorism and Sexuality in Casting.” The Wrap, June 23. ­http://​­superselected​.­com​/­category​/­viola​-­davis​/. Jurgensen, John. 2014. “Viola Davis on the Shocking ‘How to Get Away with Murder’ Ending.” Wall Street Journal, October 17. ­http://​­blogs​.­wsj​.­com​/­speakeasy​/­2014​/­10​ /­17​/­viola​-­davis​-­on​-­shocking​-­how​-­to​-­get​-­away​-­with​-­murder​-­ending​/. Kohli, Sonali. 2014. “American TV Shows Might Look More Diverse, but Their Writers Aren’t.” Quartz, July 24. ­http://​­qz​.­com​/­238696​/­t v​-­shows​-­might​-­look​-­more​-­diverse​ -­but​-­their​-­writers​-­arent​/. Ryan, Maureen. 2016. “Why TV Is Finally Embracing the Realities of Race.” Variety, February 23. ­http://​­variety​.­com​/­2016​/­t v​/­features​/­television​-­race​-­diversity​-­ratings​ -­1201712266​/. Toby, Mekeisha Madden. 2015. “Viola Davis on Finding Her Sexy: ‘It Feels Really Good to Embrace Exactly Who I Am.’ Essence, January 30. ­http://​­www​.­essence​.­com​ /­2015​/­01​/­30​/­v iola​- ­d avis​-­fi nding​-­her​-­sexy​-­it​-­feels​-­really​-­good​- ­embrace​- ­exactly​ -­who​-­i​-­am.

Daytime Emmys The Daytime Emmys are administered by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), which is based in New York City. The Daytime Emmy is awarded to individuals and programs that air between 2:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. There are two divisions for the awards: Daytime Entertainment (what is actually seen by viewers) and Daytime Creative Arts (behind the scenes craft and technology achievements). Emmys are awarded in two separate ceremonies for excellence in all fields of daytime broadcasting. If a game show reaches at least 50 percent of the television markets and normally airs before 8:00 p.m., the show can be entered in the Daytime category. Within the two divisions, there are over seventy-three categories covering morning, drama, animation, game, talk, culinary, lifestyle, legal, and children’s programs

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as well as promotions, specials, commercials, and “short format” and “new approaches” content. Spanish language programming and Spanish language host categories are also featured. These include awards for Outstanding Entertainment in Spanish and Outstanding Daytime Talent in a Spanish Language Program. When the Emmy Award was created in 1948, it covered just more than a handful of categories, and all television-broadcasting fields were covered by one ceremony. That first ceremony was hosted by the Los Angeles based Academy of Television Arts and Science (ATAS) in 1949. As programming grew in response to audience demand, the numbers of Emmy Awards grew along with the times. In 1955, as it became clear how far-reaching television broadcasting might become, a second organization, NATAS, was founded. An elected Board of Trustees supervises NATAS. In the early 1970s, the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (IATAS) was created. IATAS awards Emmys for TV programming produced and initially aired outside the United States. ATAS has purview over Primetime Emmys and the Los Angeles Chapter Emmys. NATAS supervises awards for Daytime Creative Arts and Daytime Entertainment, News and Documentaries, Public and Community Service, Sports, and Technology and Engineering, which include electronic media in addition to television. In 2013, NATAS began accepting nominations for Web-only series. Some categories have also been discontinued over the years. The Category for Outstanding Talk Show Host ended in 2014 when the award was divided into two categories: Outstanding Entertainment Talk Show Host and Outstanding Informative Talk Show Host. The Outstanding Service Show Host was discontinued in 2006 but not before an Asian American Ming Tsai won for his show East Meets West in 1999. The Board of Trustees of NATAS has had only one person of color in their highest elected offices. Even though there has been an increase in people of color in daytime programming in front of and behind the cameras, that has not equaled much of an increase of awards going to people of color. Some of the more famous awardees include: Al Freeman Jr., a noted actor, director, and professor at Howard University, who was awarded a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 1979. He was the first African American to be nominated and to win in this category for his role on the soap opera, One Life to Live. Sonia Manzano, actress, screenwriter, author, and singer-songwriter, played the character Maria on Sesame Street from 1971 until her retirement in 2015. During that time, she was awarded fifteen Emmy Awards for her writing on Sesame Street. She was also nominated two times for Outstanding Performer in a Children’s Series in 1989 and 1992. Manzano received an Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award in May 2016. Cristina Saralegui, a Cuban American spent twenty-one years from 1989 to 2010 on the Maine-based Spanish language talk show, El Show de Cristina. During her tenure, she garnered twelve Emmy nominations or awards. Rita Moreno has received all four of the major show business awards, including six Emmy nominations and two Emmy Awards. Her Daytime Emmy award came in 1977 for a guest appearance on The Muppet Show. She also starred from 1971 to 1977 on the children’s educational series, The Electric Company, aired on PBS.



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A major Daytime Emmy winner is LaVar Burton. In 1985 through 1999, and in 2001–2003, Burton received nominations for Outstanding Performer in a Children’s Series, Reading Rainbow. In 2001–2003, he was awarded the Emmy in this category. Burton also was nominated as Executive Producer of Reading Rainbow in 1991–1992, 1994–1995, and 1999. Oprah Winfrey dominated Daytime Emmy nominations and wins in her particular categories from the late 1980s through all of the 1990s, making it seem like the floodgates had opened for awards to people of color. Many of Winfrey’s nominations included her cast and crew in-group awards. In 1987 and 1989, her talk show was nominated for Outstanding Talk/Service Program, or Host. Beside winning in these two years, Winfrey’s show won yearly from 1990 through 1995 and again in 1999. Winfrey was nominated as host of her talk show in 1988 through 1990, 1992–1993, 1996 through 1999. In 2011, Winfrey garnered the Daytime Emmy Special Recognition Award for her program, “A Prayer for America: Yankee Stadium Memorial,” which aired in 2001. In 2014, she was again part of a group award for Outstanding Special Class Series, “Super Soul Sunday,” which aired in 2011. Steve Harvey, who was nominated Outstanding Game Show Host for Family Feud in 2013–2015 and again in 2017, won the Emmy in 2014. On May 1, 2016, Mario Lopez took the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Entertainment News Program for the daily show Extra, a show he began hosting in 2006. In 2014 and 2016, Extra was awarded a group award, including Lopez, producers, editors, and other technical craftspeople. Also, in 2016, Gabriela (Gabby) Natalie, host and Executive Producer of SuperLatina, made Daytime Emmy history by winning the two awards the show had been nominated for, making it a first for an independently produced Spanish language show. SuperLatina, a nationally syndicated show that runs on the PBS Spanish language sister station Vme TV, won for Outstanding Daytime Talent in a Spanish Language Program and Outstanding Entertainment Program in Spanish. The Daytime Emmys are perhaps best known infamously for the nineteen years of nominations of Susan Lucci, the popular star of the soap opera One Life to Live. After almost two decades of unsuccessful nominations, Lucci finally was awarded an Emmy in 1999. She was nominated two more times, in 2001 and 2002. Susan Lucci Susan Lucci, arguably the most famous face of daytime television for her four decades on the soap opera One Life to Live, has won many industry accolades, including a Daytime Emmy in 1999. Nominated beginning in 1978 and for eighteen years before winning on the nineteenth nomination, Lucci was nominated again in 2001 and 2002. Her famed sense of humor was on display when she hosted Saturday Night Live (SNL) in the fall of 1990. The cast of SNL walked past her during her monologue carrying giant faux-Emmy statuettes. Lucci has appeared in many television series, often as herself. She has a star on the Broadway Walk of Fame. Her theater debut in 1999 in the revival of Annie Get Your Gun won rave reviews. Her latest television appearances included a 2017 cameo on the Food Network’s Beat Bobby Flay.

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The balloting during that eighteen-year period was held in two stages; the first a “pre-ballot” was considered to be a popularity vote. The top vote getters from that process became the official nominees for awards. Reportedly, when the entrees (viewed on tape at that time) were seen, Lucci’s work was considered inferior to other entrees for the astonishing period of eighteen years. Lucci was generally, in public, a good sport about the behavior of NATAS, although it was not unnoticed by the public that being an Italian American woman may have played a role in some biased judging. The Daytime Emmys have a scattered history of when the ceremonies are aired or if they are aired at all. They have bounced from major networks to cable, to online, to no broadcast in 2011 and 2016. The overriding reason for this, according to NATAS, is there has been very little viewer interest in the programming, resulting in poor ratings, although fans of soap operas and talk shows have been particularly vocal in their protests over the lack of aired ceremonies, or even where to find them. NATAS has plans to find a broadcast home for the Daytime Emmys but has not announced one yet. Maria Elena Raymond Further Reading

The Emmys. 3rd ed. 2000. Originally Penguin Books, now Perigee Trade. July. Ostrom, Hans, and J. David Macey Jr. 2005. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Literature. 5 vols. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Telgren, Diane, and Jim Kemp, eds. 1993. Notable Hispanic American Women. Detroit, MI: Gale Research Inc.

Dear White People(2017–) Following in tradition of television remixing Hollywood films, Netflix’s Dear White People (2017–) built on the successes of the 2014 film that brought to life the challenges facing Black students at Winchester University, a fictitious predominantly White elite institution of higher education. Exploring a range of issues and themes, including blackface, White allies, micro aggressions, student activism, diversity, and the challenges facing Black students at America’s colleges and universities, both the cinematic and Netflix versions of Dear White People seek to bring attention to life today’s campus realities. The show, like the movie, revolves around several different characters, each of whom represents a different identity or Black collegiate experience. Unlike the film, the show uses each character as a point of focus, as the narrator for each individual episode: Samantha White (Logan Browning), a progressive student activist whose radio show “Dear White People” and her relationship with several other students, serves as an anchor for the show; Troy Fairbanks (Brandon P. Bell), the son of the school’s dean, a former president of the school’s racial justice organization (Coalition of Racial Equality), and the White’s ex-boyfriend, is featured in a number of number of plotlines, representing the ways that class and privilege intersect with race as he navigates his place on campus; Lionel Higgins (Deron



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Horton), a gay Black male student whose work on the school paper and his exploration of his own identity is central to the show’s various story lines. Alongside of these three main characters are Colandrea “Coco” Conners (Antoinette Robertson), Gabe Mitchell (John Patrick Amedori), Reggie Green (Marque Richardson), and a host of other characters, each of whom come to represent different intersectional identities, themes, and experiences. A central theme of Dear White People is the heterogeneity of the Black community. According to Chelsea Crowder (2017), Dear White People is “an ode to the multiplicity of Black identity in this country and the ways in which it plays out in interactions in majority white spaces.” Following in the footsteps of A Different World (1987–1993), it challenges both television representations and the broader depiction of Black college students as either athletes or radical activists. Some critics celebrated the show for the range of identities and experiences put on the screen. Dear White People embodies the complexity of the Black community, reflecting on how diversity can be seen in color, ethnicity, nationality, politics, sexuality, and so much more. Yet, for others, the show falls short in the lack of depth and humanity of the characters, in its presentation of the Black community as middle class, and in its flattening certain identities. “The bifurcation of the black campus population between the ‘woke’ students—their dress, their speech, their plans of action—and the preppy, weave-wearing, non-agitators they deemed to be decidedly less worthy of that title, was clearly an intentional exaggeration of what kinds of black people exist on the campuses of Ivy League schools,” writes Gillian White in The Atlantic. “That bifurcation still leaves out some important players in the black student space on such campuses: Caribbean and African students (they only get a small nod via one character as you mentioned, Adrienne), who often make up a large portion of the black student population on such campuses” (Newkirk et al. 2017). Similarly, Ta-Nehisi Coates (Newkirk et al. 2017) questions whether the show’s focus on racism, on the inequity, exclusion, and alienation resulting from antiBlack racism at a predominantly White institution undercuts its ability to highlight the experiences of Black college students or otherwise bring to life the diversity, culture, or identities of today’s Black youth. “It’s concerned primarily with racism, and only secondarily with black people. What I mean is that blackness in Netflix’s Dear White People is largely a mode of protest. Nearly everything revolves around racism and the pariah-like feelings it inspires. The show is much less concerned with the interior lives of black people.” Seemingly hoping to connect to ongoing student protests and the broader efforts to transform American universities to places that are more empowering for Black students, the show is much more about racism or educating white viewers about the challenges facing black students than exploring the day-to-day experiences of Black students. Its centering of whiteness and racism sparked a certain amount backlash. More specifically, its release inspired Whites online to cite the show as evidence of not only the show’s antiWhite prejudices but also the double standards that empower popular culture, universities, and other institutions to engage in antiwhite bigotry without any consequence. While some of the online protests reference an effort to boycott Netflix in protest, which according to Justin Semien didn’t really exist.

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“They were able to create the sense that it existed enough for several articles to be written about it despite the fact that there was no actual boycott of Netflix” (qtd. in Collins 2017). Ideas about colorblindness fuel the anger and resentment against Dear White People, highlighting the challenges that artists of color face, especially those who are explicit in their engagement with racial issues. The limited impact of the online movement against Dear White People and the calls for a boycott of Netflix reflect its unique place on the streaming service. Alongside of several other shows featuring both diverse casts and story lines focused on the experiences of people of color, including Orange Is the New Black (2013–), Narcos (2015–2017), Master of None (2015–), and One Day at a Time (2017–), Dear White People fits Netflix’s programming model. Seeking to carve out markets that have been ignored by traditional networks, and even cable television, the streaming service has found success in diverse programming. This isn’t simply about its strategy or its commitment to transforming television but in the technology of Netflix. Viewers can choose what they want to watch, allowing content producers on Netflix to target certain communities and develop audiences all while taking more risks. Andy Yeatman, Director of Global Kids Content at Netflix, links the diversity in Netflix’s programs to the nature of the streaming platform. “One of the things about being an on-demand platform is that people can choose what they want to watch . . . part of what we offer to consumers is such a variety of choice” (qtd. in Viruet 2017). Similarly, Mike Royce, an executive producer of One Day at a Time (Netflix would cancel the show in 2019, although it would find a home at Pop), says that being like a supermarket where consumers can pick and choose empowers Netflix to offer a diversity of programs. “You can go in and get whatever you want whenever you want as opposed to just one thing on at one time, so [Netflix is] happy to try things out” (qtd. in Viruet 2017). Widely popular because it connects with the everyday experience of black college students, because it brings to life everyday issues such as micro aggressions, campus racism, and the student activism, and because it highlights the diversity and intersectional identities encompassing the black community, Dear White People has received both critical acclaim and widespread support from its fans. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Collins, K. Austin. 2017. “‘I Was Taken Aback by the Volume of Vitriol.’” The Ringer, April 21. ­https://​­www​.­theringer​.­com​/­2017​/­4​/­21​/­16041564​/­justin​-­simien​-­interview​ -­dear​-­white​-­people​-­netflix​- ­4b35fbaf71c0. Crowder, Chelsea. 2017. “Dear White People.” April 4. ­https://​­www​.­worthyofherart​.­com​ /­home​/­2017​/­4​/­30​/­dear​-­white​-­people. Newkirk, Vann R., Arienne Green, Gillian B. White, and Ta-Nehisi Coates. 2017. “How Insightful Is Dear White People? Four Atlantic Staffers Discuss the Netflix Show’s Portrayal of a Group of Black Students at a Mostly White Elite University.” The Atlantic, May 17. ­https://​­www​.­t heatlantic​.­c om​/­e ntertainment​/­a rchive​/­2017​/­05​ /­dear​-­white​-­people​-­season​-­one​-­roundtable​/­526920​/. Parham, Jason. 2018. “Dear White People, The Rachel Divide, and the Hard Questions of Identity.” Wired, May 4. ­https://​­www​.­wired​.­com​/­story​/­dear​-­white​-­people​-­rachel​ -­divide​-­identity​/.



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Robinson, Joanna. 2018. “Logan Browning Says Dear White People Is for Everyone—Even the Trolls.” Vanity Fair, April 23. ­https://​­www​.­vanityfair​.­com​/ ­hollywood​/­2018​/­04​ /­dear​-­white​-­people​-­star​-­logan​-­browning​-­season​-­2​-­alt​-­right​-­t rolls. Ugwu, Reggie. 2018. “Why the Creator of ‘Dear White People’ Is Doubling Down on Identity Politics.” New York Times, May 2. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2018​/­05​/­02​ /­arts​/­television​/­dear​-­white​-­people​-­creator​-­doubles​-­down​-­on​-­identity​-­politics​.­html. Viruet, Pilot. 2017. “Why Netflix Has Decided to Make Diversity a Top Priority.” Vice, February 24. ­h ttps://​­www​.­v ice​.­c om​/­e n​_ us​/­a rticle​/­z 4gmw5​/ ­w hy​- ­n etf lix​- ­h as​ -­decided​-­to​-­make​-­diversity​-­a​-­top​-­priority.

Different World, A(1987–1993) Seeking to capitalize on the immense popularity and critical success of The Cosby Show (1984–1992), NBC developed A Different World. Initially intended to tell the story of a young White woman, Maggie Lauten (to be played by Meg Ryan) attending Hillman College, a Historically Black College (HBCU), plans quickly changed. Instead, the show, which originally aired in 1987, focused on Denise Huxtable (Lisa Bonet), the second oldest daughter from The Cosby Show, heading off to college. To a lesser degree, the show also kept its focus on the experience of Maggie (now played by Marisa Tomei) and her relationship with Denise during its initial season. While earning excellent ratings, the show was plagued by poor reviews, which questioned the realism of the show’s portrayal of the Black college experience, its unoriginality, and its lack of engagement with important social, cultural, and racial issues. More changes followed. After the hiring of Debbie Allen as producer and the exits of Bonet (who was pregnant with her first child and returned to her role on The Cosby Show), Tomei, and producer Anne Beats, A Different World dramatically reinvented itself during season two. It became a critical success, celebrated for its courage, its homage to black life, and its engagement with current events and social issues. While a spin-off of The Cosby Show, it became a counter to the politics and types of representations there, offering a different type of television experience. Whereas, The Cosby Show focused on the Black middle-class experience, A Different World sought to highlight the diversity within the black community. While bringing to life the experiences of black students, a community of upwardly mobile Black students, the show went to great lengths to spotlight the diversity of the Black community. “By deliberately casting the principal ensemble to emphasize differences in backgrounds, classes, histories, complexions, and politics, the show’s producers broke with television’s conventional construction of African Americans as monolithic,” notes Herman Gray (1995, 98). “The show was most uncompromising in its construction and representation of blackness with respect to questions of difference and diversity within African American life and culture. On issues of gender, social class, color, location, popular culture, history, and even style, the program presented complex and diverse representation of African Americans” (Gray 1995, 111). Gray argues that the show’s power and significance within the history of television and the broader culture can be seen in its refusal of both antiblack stereotypes and those representations that sought to either homogenize

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blackness or render blackness as irrelevant and insignificant to experience and identity. To Gray, “All of the show’s primary characters functioned within the ensemble to embody a variety of range of positions and experiences within blackness. By imbuing the characters with such qualities and then having them play against type, the show’s writers and producers seemed quite self-conscious in their intention to make their characters neither blacks in whiteface nor one-dimensional” (1995, 99). This can be seen through the characters. There is Denise Huxtable, the daughter of upper-middle-class parents, who despite her class background struggled in school, saw little value in it, and eventually dropped out; Whitley Gilbert (Jasmine Guy), a Virginia-born member of the Black aristocracy, whose conservative politics, class snobbery, and experiences attending all-White private high school were few ways that Gilbert challenged what was seen as an “authentic” Black experience. According Jasmine Guy, “She thought she was black, and she is. But there are all different kinds of ways to be black. And . . . the Hillman College experience gave her a new sense of who she was and the community she belonged to” (Cadet 2017). Other characters, from Kim Reese (Chanele Brown), a premed student who works throughout her time at Hillman, to Leela James (Jada Pinkett Smith), a Baltimore-raised journalism student, represented different class experiences. Others, like Freddie (Cree Summer), a progressive “free-spirit,” Gina Deveaux (Ajai Sanders), a first-generation immigrant from Martinique, and Jaleesa Vinson (Dawnn Lewis), an older returning student whose wisdom often serves as basis for a moral lesson, further encapsulates the show’s focus on exposing and exploring the diversity of the Black community. Dwayne Wayne (Kadeem Hardison), a nerdy math major who also embodies the style of hip-hop, and Ron Johnson (Daryl Bell), who is both a member Kappa Lambda Nu Fraternity and ROTC, reflects the show’s efforts to represent Black masculinity as heterogeneous. Other characters, like Colonel Bradford Taylor (Glynn Turman), a Vietnam veteran and math professor, Walter Oakes (Sinbad), a graduate student who serves as hall director, and Vernon Gaines (Lou Myers), who owns and runs the campus restaurant (“The Pit”), further represent the diversity of experiences that anchors the story lines of A Different World. Unlike The Cosby Show, which embraced the template of the sitcom that highlighted universal themes and a middle-class experience, A Different World took a different approach. While embracing coming-of-age themes, a narrative that celebrated education as a ticket to success, and story lines that highlighted the everyday experiences of college students on the cusp of adulthood and the fulfillment of the American Dream, its location at an HBCU made sure that it was a show that centered on the unique experiences of Black students. The show was grounded in the Black community, Black history and culture, and the unique cultural history of HBCUs. “The show imaginably used the dominant conventions of the genre to saturate its televisual world with blackness,” notes Herman Gray (1995, 103). For example, in “Success, Lies and Videotape” (February 8, 1990), Freddie and her classmates learn that Hillman College was part of the Underground Railroad. This plotline allowed the show to document the history of American slavery and



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African American resistance. At the same time, it spotlighted the unique place of HBCUs and black popular culture as it relates to memory. Herman Gray describes the final scene as one that reveals the nature of A Different World. The episode culminates in a moving scene with Clair Huxtable and Freddie in the basement, reflecting on the horrors of slavery, the heroism of black people, especially women who were part of the Underground Railroad and the tradition of black colleges. In the end, it is Freddie who holds on for a career that she will find interesting and that will make in her words “a contribution” to black people. (1995, 110)

Throughout the show’s run, plotlines served as a vehicle for discussions of history, for the staging of Black cultural practices, and for otherwise bringing to life Black voices and experiences. For example, in “Mammy Dearest” (December 5, 1991), Whitley creates an exhibit on the history Black women. There minstrel artifacts in the form of mammy memorabilia, which imagined black women as undesirable and not fully human, were on display. This history and the persistent dehumanization of black women prompted protest from Kim. The histories of racism and resistance were on full display during this episode. In others, the rich and diverse cultural history of both HBCUs and the Black community as a whole were consistently incorporated into the show as evident by the visibility of Black art and artists, Kente cloth and other clothing styles, a diversity of hair styles from braids to high-top fade, and the presence of step shows, Black fraternities and sororities, and playing dozens (a Black linguistic tradition defined by banter and playful insults). Whereas The Cosby Show avoided politics, discussions of racism, or other topics that would potentially alienate audiences, focusing instead on a show about morals, values, and a universal middle-class experience, A Different World revolved numerous plotlines around socially relevant issues. “It constructed a perspective from which to examine a broad range of issues of immediate relevance to African Americans” (Gray 1995, 103). A Different World used its story lines to explore gender in a number of different ways. “The sitcom explored pertinent reproductive-justice issues for black women, including stereotypical imagery like Mammy, intimate-partner violence, sexual harassment and assault, misogynoir, contraception and condom use, and young-adult pregnancy,” notes Brittany Brathwaite (2017). “A Different World was way ahead of its time in creating and shifting narratives about black college life specifically and black life in general.” Its emphasis on exploring social issues and on telling stories that fostered critical conversations about race, gender, and sexuality were central to the show’s narratives. For example, in “Bedroom at the Top” (January 30, 1992), Whitley experiences sexual harassment from a coworker but is unsure how to respond because she is apprehensive of reporting the harassment from her Black colleague to her White supervisor. Here and elsewhere, the show explores the intersections of race, class, gender, and color to spotlight how broader social forces shape sexual harassment. This was a common theme as A Different World consistently addressed the ways rape culture, misogyny, and patriarchy impacted Black women and girls in significant ways. Its willingness to engage in political debates or social issues was consistent throughout six seasons. From racial profiling to everyday racism, from South

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African apartheid to the Gulf War, from affirmative action to debates about “selling out,” A Different World used story lines to advance critical conversations inside and outside of television. “The impact of A Different World goes far beyond the small screen. Its storylines tackled topics such as HIV/AIDS, interracial dating and apartheid—and enrollment at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) drastically increased while the show was on in prime time,” notes Danielle Cadet (2017). “The show was so contemporary at that moment,” said Bethann Hardison. “A Different World was the first show that ever tackled all the issues, from date rape to race relations. It’s a show that stands the test of time” (qtd. in Cadet 2017). According to Jasmine Guy, A Different World “deepened the tone of black sitcoms. . . . We were a part of a wave. I didn’t realize that we were the end of the wave. I thought the business had changed. And then it went back to very few black people. It wasn’t until cable, and the birth of all these other outlets, that the networks couldn’t afford to be so cocky about what they put on and don’t put on” (qtd. in Cadet 2017). Through its embrace of Black culture, its deployment of Black celebrity guest stars, its exploration of key debates and social issues, its focus on style and engaging the cultural moment, and its intersectional approach, A Different World left a lasting impact on television culture. To Danielle Cadet, A Different World not only changed the available representations on television during its airing but altered the future, “ushering in a wave of classic black television shows.” To others, its power can be seen in the doors opened for Black actors, directors, and those working behind the scenes. It celebrated Black life and culture, demonstrating that a show that educated about black history or engaged political issues, that told unknown or rarely discussed stories, could be both popular and successful on television. “It took the nation to the yard and schooled them on the culture, care and traditions of black colleges and showcased the experiences of black youth in an unprecedented way for six years,” notes Sherri Williams (2017). “‘The Cosby Show’ spin-off was a cultural earthquake and its tremors are still felt today.” It would forever alter the cultural landscape both on television and within the broader culture, giving voice to the experiences of black college students and the history of HBCUs that was still visible thirty years after its airing. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Bogle, Donald. 1994. Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films. New York: Continuum Publishers. Brathwaite, Brittany. 2017. “30 Years Later, 7 Ways A Different World Was Woke AF.” The Root, October 28. ­https://​­www​.­theroot​.­com​/­30​-­years​-­later​-­7​-­ways​-­a​-­different​ -­world​-­was​-­woke​-­af​-­1819816422. Cadet, Danielle. 2017. “Whitley’s World: A Brief History of Bad and Boujee Black Girl Style.” The Undefeated, September 21. ­https://​­theundefeated​.­com​/­features​ /­whitley​-­a​-­different​-­world​-­bad​-­and​-­boujee​-­black​-­girl​-­style​/. Gray, Herman. 1995. Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for ‘Blackness.’ Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Leonard, David J. 2013. “A Different Sort of Blackness: A Different World in a Post Cosby Landscape.” In African Americans on Television: Race-ing for Ratings, edited by David J. Leonard and Lisa A. Guerrero, 141–158. Westport, CT: Praeger.



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Williams, Sherri. 2017. “‘A Different World’ Still a Key Cultural Force 30 Years Later.” NBC News, September 24. ­https://​­www​.­nbcnews​.­com​/­news​/­nbcblk​/­different​-­world​ -­still​-­key​-­cultural​-­force​-­30​-­years​-­later​-­n804336.

Diff’rent Strokes(1978–1986) Diff’rent Strokes (1978–1986) was a sitcom that popularized the 1970s and 1980s trend of portraying Black characters in White surroundings. Premiering amid the declining popularity of all-Black cast sitcoms, such as Good Times (1974–1979) and What’s Happening (1976–1979), Diff’rent Strokes was an attempt by television executives to reach white audiences, who were believed to be losing interest in all-Black television shows. The premise of the series revolves around two brothers from Harlem, Willis (Todd Bridges) and Arnold Jackson (Gary Coleman), who are adopted by a wealthy, White Park Avenue widower, Phillip Drummond (Conrad Bain), who had previously promised his housekeeper that he would take care of her two sons if anything were to happen to her. Once she passed away, the two boys moved to the Park Avenue Apartment with Mr. Drummond, his daughter Kimberly (Dana Plato), and the housekeeper Mrs. Garrett (Charlotte Rae). Early episodes involved Willis and Arnold attempting to adjust to their new lifestyle. Willis, the older and wiser brother, was much more petulant than Arnold and took a bit longer to adjust. Arnold, the chubby-cheeked, spunky, precocious eight year-old adapted rather quickly to the lavish lifestyle. Willis, more so than Arnold occasionally longed for his old neighborhood and friends back in Harlem, and in early episodes threatened to go back. The relationship between Willis and Arnold was sometimes that of father–son, as Willis felt it necessary to keep Arnold culturally aware, knowledgeable about the facts of life, and otherwise, reminding him of their past. In one episode, “The Spanking,” Willis convinces Mr. Drummond that if anyone should spank Arnold it should be him. This episode, like those many others, focuses on the humor and difficulty resulting from cultural conflict. Similarly, much of the show’s comedic flow involved Drummond introducing Willis and Arnold as his sons, and the shock value resulting from people learning that his two sons were Black. No character was more central to the success of the series than Arnold. The series was built around Gary Coleman to showcase his comedic talents, which included his sharp and quick wit, his excellent timing, and his fitting facial expressions. The success of the series, as one of NBC’s few hits during the 1978–79 television season, reflected the popularity of Coleman, who became the period’s most popular child star. His signature catchphrase “What’chu talkin’ bout, Willis?” became a staple that followed Coleman for the rest of his life. Born in Zion, Illinois, Coleman began his career at the age of five as a department store model and soon after appeared in a McDonalds commercial. He even auditioned for Norman Lear’s Tandem Productions, for a role on a remake of Our Gang, but the series was never made. However, he impressed ABC’s Fred Silverman, then president of ABC Entertainment, who later remembered Coleman.

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Within a year, Gary Coleman made appearances on Good Times and America 2Night (1978). One of his more notable guest appearances was on an episode of The Jeffersons (1975–1985), where he played George Jefferson’s stubborn nephew. Coleman was able to match George effortlessly with his comedic timing and quick wit. When Fred Silverman moved from ABC to become president and CEO of NBC, he had Coleman perform a short scene for NBC programming executives. Soon thereafter Diff’rent Strokes was developed to showcase his exceptional comedic talents. In an effort to familiarize Coleman with a larger television audience, he made an appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, where he impressed audiences and Carson himself with his verbal repartee and ability to speak on current affairs. Coleman’s success did not come without any hardships, as his famous chipmunk cheeks were the result of medication he was taking for his chronic kidney disease. Before the age of five, Coleman endured three major operations, including a kidney transplant. His illness also affected his size, as he was only fifty-one pounds and three feet and seven inches at the age of ten, which is approximately the size of a five-year-old. However, his small stature is part of what made his character so appealing to audiences. Despite his health problems, Coleman became a star and fascinated audiences with his abilities that seemed well beyond his years. Appearing on such magazine covers as Ebony, JET, People, and TV Guide. During his tenure on Diff’rent Strokes, he also starred in a couple of feature films and several made-for-TV movies as well. Midway through the second season, Charlotte Rae left the series to continue her character Mrs. Garrett, on the Diff’rent Strokes spin-off The Facts of Life (1979–1988). Throughout the series, the Drummonds had two other maids, Adelaide Brubaker (Nedra Volz), who remained the Drummonds maid until season five and Pearl Gallagher (Mary Jo Catlett), the Drummond’s final housekeeper. Other recurring supporting characters included Arnold’s best friend Dudley (Shavar Ross) and Willis’s long-time girlfriend Charlene (Janet Jackson). Later seasons of Diff’rent Strokes attempted to deal with more serious and meaningful subjects such as drug abuse, kidnapping, bulimia, and pedophilia. These subjects usually included two-part episodes and were introduced with Conrad Bain giving a Public Service Announcement on the topic. Examples include the season five two-part episode “The Bicycle Man,” which was about child molestation, and the season six two-part episode entitled “The Hitchhikers,” which was about the dangers of hitchhiking. Another notable episode, “The Reporter,” featured then first lady Nancy Reagan promoting her “Just Say No” campaign against drug use. The more serious episodes were not the only changes the series made in later seasons. Midway through season six, Dana Plato became pregnant resulting in her dismissal from the series as a regular. She continued her role as Kimberly Drummond for the next two seasons as a recurring guest star. It was explained later that Kimberly moved to Paris to study. Dana Plato made her final appearance on the series in one of her most memorable episodes, where it was discovered that Kimberly was bulimic.



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During the last few seasons, with ratings beginning to decline, the writers added new characters in hopes of revamping the show. Halfway through the sixth season, Mr. Drummond falls in love with a television aerobics instructor named Maggie (Dixie Carter). During the two-part episode set in California, viewers learn that Maggie has a son named Sam (Danny Cooksey). Mr. Drummond marries Maggie soon after, and she and Sam become a part of the family. Sam, a little White redhead, is now the smallest child in the house, thrusting Arnold into the role of big brother. Arnold is thrilled to have someone in the house that looked up to him and was small enough to boss around. The eighth season replaced Dixie Carter with Mary Ann Mobley as Maggie. It was during these later seasons that Gary Coleman’s physical appearance began to deteriorate due to his illness. As Coleman aged, he was no longer the cute chubby-cheeked kid American audiences fell in love with. While slightly taller, his face regularly looked weary and worn-out. His health problems were taking a toll on his appearance. As the scripts that attempted to mature him by placing him in a high school setting and providing the occasional romantic interest, seemed less realistic. The girls they chose for Coleman usually towered over him, making him appear even younger than he already looked. Once Gary Coleman’s popularity began to wane, so too did the series, which he carried on his back. After the seventh season, NBC cancelled Diff’rent Strokes due to disappointing ratings. ABC, believing that the series still had some life left in it, took over the show for its eighth season. However, after nineteen episodes, ABC cancelled The Curse of Diff’rent Strokes After Diff’rent Strokes went off the air in 1986, the series three young stars Gary Coleman, Todd Bridges, and Dana Plato all surfaced within the press for their off-screen exploits. Referred to as “The Diff’rent Strokes curse” by tabloid reporters, each star battled personal and legal troubles in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Three years after the series ended, Gary Coleman sued his parents and former business manager, accusing them of mismanaging and stealing over $1 million of his earnings. Once earning an estimated $30,000 a week, Gary Coleman soon found himself broke. In 1998, while working as a security guard at a mall, his problems escalated when a woman, who alleged he assaulted her after she asked for an autograph, sued him. In 2010, Coleman died from complications resulting from a brain hemorrhage. Following the show’s cancellation, Todd Bridges was arrested numerous times; his offenses included drug possession and the attempted murder of a drug dealer. He was later acquitted of the latter charge. He, along with Dana Plato, had problems with drug addiction. Plato’s post Diff’rent Strokes life has been marred by significant scrapes with the law. In 1991, she was arrested for armed robbery of a Las Vegas video store, and later received additional probation for forging a Valium prescription. Prior to this, in an attempt to revitalize her acting career, she posed nude for Playboy in 1989 and later appeared in an adult film. When this did not work, Plato was forced to work as a cashier at a dry cleaner. In 1999, Dana Plato died of an overdose of prescription medication. Although tragedy, addiction, and legal troubles surrounded the three child stars of Diff’rent Strokes, the legacy of their greatest accomplishment will remain in the memorable characters they left onscreen.

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the series. Diff’rent Strokes ended its run after eight seasons and 189 episodes. The show catapulted Gary Coleman, Todd Bridges, and Dana Plato to the status of child stars. For all three stars, Diff’rent Strokes would be the highlight of their careers. After the series ended, each experienced difficulties acquiring acting jobs, resulting in various encounters with law enforcement. No other child star, during this time was as popular as Gary Coleman. After the series ended, Gary Coleman made brief appearances as himself on later sitcoms Married . . . with Children (1987–1997), The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990–1996), and The Parkers (1999–2004), often uttering a variation of his catchphrase. Diff’rent Strokes introduced a successful trend of black characters in white settings and influenced the creation of other shows such as Gimme a Break! (1981–1987) and Webster (1983–1989). The show and Gary Coleman demonstrated to networks that a crossover formula could be profitable, if the right Black star was used. Ashley S. Young Further Reading

Bogle, Donald. 2001. Primetime Blues: African Americans on Network Television. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Braxton, Greg. 2010. “The ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ Curse Isn’t a Joke.” Los Angeles Times, May 28. ­http://​­latimesblogs​.­latimes​.­com​/­showtracker​/­2010​/­05​/­no​-­laughs​-­for​-­the​ -­diffrent​-­strokes​-­curse​.­html. Collier, Aldore. 1987. “Gary Coleman, 19, and on His Own.” JET, March 30. “Dana Plato, ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ Star, Dead from Overdose at 34.” 2001. Backstage, ­February 20. ­https://​­www​.­backstage​.­com​/­magazine​/­a rticle​/­d ana​-­plato​- ­d iffrent​ -­strokes​-­star​-­dead​-­overdose​-­17139​/. “Gary Coleman, ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ Star, Sues His Parents over Earnings.” 1989. JET, February 27. Robinson, Louie. 1979. “Diff’rent Strokes: Gary Coleman Leaps from Commercials to the Big Time in Television Series.” Ebony, February. Sexton, Jared. 2013. “More Serious than Money: Our Gang, Diff’rent Strokes and Webster.” In African Americans on Television: Race-ing for Ratings, edited by David J. Leonard and Lisa A. Guerrero, 82–113. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. Sporkin, Elizabeth. 1991. “Diff’rent Strokes, Fallen Stars.” People Weekly, March 25. ­http://​­people​.­com​/­archive​/­cover​-­story​-­diffrent​-­strokes​-­fallen​-­stars​-­vol​-­35​-­no​-­11​/.

Doc McStuffins(2012–2020) Doc McStuffins is a preschool television show that chronicles the adventures of a six-year-old Black girl Doc, who tends to the various “boo-boos” and ailments of her toys and stuffed animals in her backyard “clinic.” Premiering March 23, 2012 on Disney Junior, the show was met with widespread praise from parents, teachers, and critics. The series was produced in Dublin, Ireland, by Brown Bag Films, a CGI animation company. Show creator Chris Nee, best known for her work with Blue’s Clues (1996–2020) and Wonder Pets (2005–), noted in her Peabody Award



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acceptance speech that, although she created Doc McStuffins for her son, she felt “we didn’t need another boy leading the pack in pre-school TV” (qtd. in Attwood 2014) Clearly, the valuable lessons embedded in the show transcend gender and color. Kiara Muhammad voiced the role of Doc McStuffins for the first three seasons; Layla DeLeon Hayes took over the role after 2014. Lara Jill Miller voices Lambie, and stage and screen actress Loretta Devine voices Hallie Hippo. Critics praised Doc McStuffins for its efforts to challenge long-standing stereotypes. To begin with, Doc is not a token character, as her parents and brother are characters in the series; neither is her intelligence stifled to cater to presumed audience biases—rather, Doc McStuffins presumes its audience is open-minded. Doc solves problems with ingenuity and imagination, as typical male and/or nonethnic “whiz kid” characters tend to do. Nee’s approach to Doc McStuffins contrasts the tokenist approach of Nickelodeon’s True Jackson VP (2008–2011), where the protagonist True (Keke Palmer) is often the only black character and “stumbles” into solutions through sheer dumb luck (“My Boss Ate My Homework”) as opposed to intellectual acumen. Using toys as metaphors for people, Doc McStuffins strives to help children develop to a positive attitude toward going to the doctor and imparts the importance of following instructions so they can become or remain healthy. It encourages children to be patient with themselves and caring toward one another. Lastly, it teaches children that life is about solving problems by being resourceful, collaborative, imaginative, and resolute. The series shares some serious broader social lessons as well. For example, in the episode “Chip off the Old Box,” Little Jack, a jack-in-the-box, learns that his dad’s handle is broken, and that Big Jack won’t be able to perform a juggling act with him at Donny Dump Truck’s party. Little Jack must cope with the idea that parents are vulnerable to injury and illness, too, and that sometimes children must be brave and stand alone, trusting that parental support is there. Songs are used to overcome such issues, with simple, encouraging lyrics and upbeat tunes. Some songs are rather moving, such as “Tell Me What’s Wrong” in the episode “Boxed In,” and “Everyone Gets Hurts Sometimes,” featured on the Doc McStuffins music CD. Doc McStuffins found success with merchandising. After its first season, over 1.5 million Doc McStuffins books were in print, and its toy line saw a half a billion in sales, breaking records for toys based on African American characters. This data corroborated studies that stressed the importance children place on role-playing as their favorite TV characters. Doc McStuffins not only brought diversity to children’s programming but also encouraged kids to celebrate her blackness. Chris Nee, who is Irish-American, made clear that while many “children don’t see her color,” children of color do “see her as an African-American girl, and that’s really big for them” (qtd. in Barnes 2012). It was “really big” for adults as well. Inspired by the series, a group of Black women physicians launched the Artemis Medical Society to grant scholarships in the field of medicine; Artemis partnered with Disney for a day of interstitial programming that aired during Black History Month, titled “We are Doc McStuffins.”

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On October 5, 2015, Child Health Day, Disney Junior aired a special episode in which then First Lady Michelle Obama (who voiced her own animated character) gives Doc McStuffins and other children from around the country a tour of the White House. Highlighting its cultural reach with the confluence of the first African American FLOTUS and the series’ innovative path, the episode illustrates Doc McStuffins’s significance within and beyond popular culture. Dianah E. Wynter Further Reading

Attwood, Karen. 2014. “Doc McStuffins: The Toy Breaking Down Gender and Racial Stereotypes.” The Independent, November 3. ­https://​­www​.­independent​.­co​.­uk​/­life​ -­style​/ ­health​-­a nd​-­families​/ ­health​-­news​/­doc​-­mcstuffins​-­t he​-­toy​-­breaking​- ­down​ -­gender​-­and​-­race​-­stereotypes​-­9893214​.­html. Ayot, Herina. 2013. “Disney Celebrates Black History Month with ‘We Are Doc McStuffins.’” Ebony, February 6. ­https://​­www​.­ebony​.­com​/­entertainment​ /­disney​-­celebrates​-­black​-­history​-­month​-­with​-­we​-­are​-­doc​-­mcstuffins​-­305​/. Barnes, Brooks. 2012. “Disney Finds a Cure for the Common Stereotype with ‘Doc McStuffins.’” New York Times, July 30. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2012​/­07​/­31​/­arts​ /­television​/­disneys​-­doc​-­mcstuffins​-­connects​-­with​-­black​-­viewers​.­html. Campbell, Margaret C., and Gina S. Mohr. 2011. “Seeing Is Eating: How and When Activation of a Negative Stereotype Increases Stereotype-Conducive Behavior. Journal of Consumer Research 38 (3): 431–444. Holmes, Mannie. 2015. “Watch: Michelle Obama Gets Animated for ‘Doc McStuffins’ Appearance.” Daily Variety, September 24. ­https://​­variety​.­com​/­2015​/­t v​/­news​ /­michelle​-­obama​-­doc​-­mcstuffins​-­1201601593​/. Raugust, Karen. 2013. “From ‘Doc McStuffins’ to ‘Sofia the First,’ Disney Junior Drives Book Sales.” Publishers Weekly, December 16. ­https://​­www​.­publishersweekly​ .­c om​/­pw​/ ­by​-­t opic​/­childrens​/­childrens​-­i ndustry​-­news​/­a rticle​/­6 0357​-­f rom​- ­d oc​ -­mcstuffins​-­to​-­sofia​-­the​-­first​-­disney​-­junior​-­drives​-­book​-­sales​.­html. Schiau, Sonia, et al. 2013 “How Do Cartoons Teach Children? A Comparative Analysis on Preschoolers and Schoolchildren.” Journal of Media Research 6 (3): 37–49. Wynter, Dianah. 2016. “Identifying Stereotypes: The Stories Nielsen and Nickelodeon Tell Black Children and How to ‘appreciate’ Them.” Communicating Prejudice: An Appreciative Inquiry Approach. Hauppauge, NY: Nova Publishing.

Dora the Explorer(2000–2014) Airing in seventy-four countries and on three networks in the United States— Nickelodeon, Noggin, and CBS—Dora the Explorer (2000–2014), was more than a television show; it was a movement, a cultural intervention, and a change agent within children’s programming. Embodying many of usual qualities of young television programming— it being interactive, focused on pedagogical lessons, call and response, singing, story lines focused on adventure, and, of course, conflict resolution, Dora the Explorer, follows a seven-year-old Latina girl (Dora Márquez). In this cartoon, Dora is joined by her talking backpack and map, on her adventures, replicated the commonplace format established by the genre of preschool television.



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Yet, Dora the Explorer, as part of the effort to reach kids of color and to celebrate multiculturalism, took a different approach. “One of our goals with Dora was to position the whole idea of being multicultural as being super-special,” noted Brown Johnson, Nickelodeon’s president of Animation and Preschool Entertainment, who pushed for the show after attending a Diversity Now seminar on children’s television (Inskeep 2008). According to Herb Scannell, then president of Nickelodeon, Dora was part of a larger effort to diversify the television landscape. It is the result of a “conscious effort to again find new voices with great stories to tell for kids” (qtd. in Ryan 2010, 56). Building on the successes of Sesame Street (1969–) and The Electric Company (1971–1977), both of which long embraced multiculturalism, diversity, and inclusion, Nickelodeon created Dora with the hopes of ushering in a new generation of shows highlighting cultural difference, celebrating diverse identities, and otherwise reflecting a range of experiences. At its core, Dora the Explorer was a cartoon anchored by its embrace of “pan-ethnic” or pan-Latinx identity and experience. All of the show’s main characters, from Dora and her siblings to her Mami and Papi, from her cousin Diego to her abuela, are Latina. Dora and other characters routinely speak Spanish; along with her family, she lives live in an adobe-style home. Salsa music was frequently incorporated. Even the show’s animals—Benny the Bull, Tico the Squirrel, Issa the Iguana, Swiper the Fox—were represented as being Latinx. The show also regularly featured Latinx actresses and actors, including Esai Morales, Chita Rivera, John Leguizamo, Cheech Marin, and Ricardo Montalbán. The show’s embrace of Latinness was not limited to the identities of the characters but could also be seen in the show’s story lines. From its Christmas episode featuring parranda, a Puerto Rican Christmas parade involving music, to another episode that brought to life a Puerto Rican legend about a frog that lost its voice, Dora the Explorer centered on the Latinx cultural experience. Hoping to move beyond stereotypes, the show’s executives brought in historians, teachers, scholars, and other experts to advise about their representation of Latinx identity and culture. For example, the show’s creators originally conceived Tico as a squirrel that was always asleep under a tree. After meeting with its “diversity consultants,” it changed course. “Our cultural consultant said to us, ‘Not such a good idea, you know, to have the Latino character, who only speaks Spanish, who’s the littlest character, always asleep,’” recalled Brown Johnson. “It’s like, just not a good idea” (Inskeep 2008). Many critics and commentators celebrated Dora for providing diversity on television and for offering Latinx children a show and a character “who looked like them.” “Girls of Latin heritage may be the most likely to identify with Dora’s character. Dora is presented as Latina: her last name is Marquez, and she speaks both Spanish and English. Physically, Dora has dark brown hair, big chestnut brown eyes, and light brown skin,” writes Erin Ryan in “Dora the Explorer: Empowering Preschoolers, Girls, and Latinas.” Dora “is of average build, not animated as overly “skinny,” but rather like an average seven-year-old. The biggest cue to Dora’s race, however, is her use of language. Lest the audience forget Dora’s

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heritage, virtually every sentence is peppered with Spanish words and phrases” (Ryan 2010, 64). For others, Dora was empowering to girls because of her independence, intelligence, creativity, and her ability to engage in physical activity. Additionally, unlike much of children’s culture, whether on television, in film, or in toys, Dora was not a “damsel in distress.” She was able to solve problems and even help others. Reflecting on Dora continuously standing up to Swiper the Fox, the show’s bully who often steals and disrupts, Erin Ryan argues “Dora asserts herself in the face of adversity and, without a physical confrontation, emerges victorious. Not only does she communicate to the audience the power of words to diffuse an upsetting situation, but also demonstrates girls can stand up for themselves and not sit idly by as passive victims” (2010, 62). While many praised Dora for its feminist approach, teaching children Spanish, bringing greater diversity to children’s television programing, and for providing a show where Latinx communities might see themselves on television, others questioned how the show imagined Latinx identity. Arguing that Dora represented television and popular culture to sell “brownness” in safe ways, Nicole M. GuidottiHernandez, in “Dora the Explorer, Constructing ‘Latiniadades’ and the Politics of Global Citizenship” (2007) argues that Dora erases the diversity within the Latinx community. “Dora distorts Latino/a identity, making it seem that there is one singular, authentic Latino/a culture” (215). She further writes, “Dora the Explorer is an excellent example of the commodification of Latino/a identities and cultural practices. She is a cultural icon that represents universal subjectivity and a conflicting set of social realities, two ideas that have consequences for shaping dominant views of Latino/a populations around the world” (227–228). In other words, in its story lines, in its representation, its reduction of Latinx identity to speaking Spanish and its depiction of Dora as a light-skinned girl with straight hair, Dora the Explorer not only erases the diversity of the Latinx Diaspora but represents it in narrowing and revealing ways. Translated into numerous other languages, including Arabic, French, German, Indonesian, Japanese, Russian, and Mandarin, Dora the Explorer became a global phenomenon. Its cultural impact was further evident in its place in consumer culture. Dora the Explorer not only ushered in a new era of diversity in children’s television but continued a pattern of cross-marketing, with the development of toys, video games, and clothing. A winner of a Peabody award, a Daytime Emmy, and an NAACP image award, as well as a many other nominations, Dora the Explorer left a lasting mark on television, the broader culture, and on millions of children, introducing many to Latinx culture otherwise erased from television and the culture at large, all while promoting debate about the types of inclusion afforded on and off the small screen. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Banet-Weiser, Sarah. 2007. Kids Rule! Nickelodeon and Consumer Citizenship. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Guidotti-Hernandez, Nicole M. 2007 “Dora the Explorer, Constructing ‘Latiniadades’ and the Politics of Global Citizenship.” Latino Studies 5: 209–232.



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Inskeep, Steve. 2008. “Me Llamo Dora: An Explorer in Modern America.” NPR, April 14. ­https://​­www​.­npr​.­org​/­templates​/­t ranscript​/­t ranscript​.­php​?­storyId​= ​­89531478. Ryan, Erin L. 2010. “Dora the Explorer: Empowering Preschoolers, Girls, and Latinas.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 54 (1): 54–68.

Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman(1993–1998) Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman was an American western drama series. The hour-long show ran on the CBS network for six seasons, from January 1, 1993, to May 16, 1998. In total, 149 episodes were produced. After the show cancellation, two television movies aired. Dr. Quinn was seen in over 100 countries and can still be found in syndication on a number of networks. By the time of the show’s premiere, there were few westerns on U.S. television. The big shows like Gunsmoke (1955–1975), Bonanza (1959–1973), and The Big Valley (1965–1969), were long-gone. Walker, Texas Ranger (1993–2001) still aired late at night. Dr. Quinn was more like an evolved Little House on the Prairie (1974–1983), only with a female protagonist, more adult themes, and far more diversity in the characters. The first season has Jane Seymour, star of the title character, arriving in Colorado Springs in 1867. She comes from a monied family and decides to go west in search of adventure and a place to be useful as a medical doctor. She’s barely established herself when a friend, who is dying, asks Quinn to take care of her three children. So, Quinn becomes the town doctor, a single mother, and confidante to many in the small town. There is, of course, a “love interest” for Quinn. In the first season, Joe Lando, as the character “Sully,” mysteriously appears, disappears, and returns. His times away from town are described as times he’s spending being friends to the Indians in the area. In fact, the writers and producers seem not to have settled on who Sully would be. He seems to have a darker complexion than the White people on the show. Sully favored buckskin jackets with heavy fringe on sleeves, shoulders, and along the bottom of the jackets. Not surprisingly, in polls taken after the first season, many viewers thought Sully was truly Native American. The romance between Sully and Quinn set the tone for all other romances on the show. Before marriage, the courtship lasted three seasons. It was slowly paced, interspersed with brief moments of lust, yet until their marriage Quinn remained a virgin. All the Native Americans on Dr. Quinn were, indeed, Native American. With few exceptions, this show really marked the end of using White people to play other ethnic types on television. Larry Sellers, an Osage, Lakota, and Cherokee actor was hired as the main Native American character Cloud Dancing. Originally, he was to be called Black Hawk and was to be a token Native American. Sellers changed minds very quickly and set about making Cloud Dancing a fully realized man. Sellers was subsequently hired as the advisor on Native American matters for the show, in addition to his own role. He seems to have been influential in straightening out the identity crisis for Sully. By the second season gone were most of the beads in his hair, the mish-mash of necklaces, and the fringe on his

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jackets was shortened considerably. He didn’t run around throwing his tomahawk hither and yon, and the pet wolf was no longer with him. Lando now looked the part of a white frontiersman yet retained his personal sympathies for the situations that the local Native Americans faced. Cloud Dancing was involved in a number of episodes regarding the lives of Colorado Native Americans. One of the most remembered was when the show focused on the forced Westernization, including education of Native American children. It was a realistic portrayal of what the children went through at the hands of whites. Another topic, which covered a number of episodes, was when the Native American community were being held under guard by U.S. military soldiers on a reservation near Colorado Springs. They were upset when Cloud Dancing underwent a brutal beating at the hands of the soldiers. Several indigenous characters talked about escaping from the reservation as soon as Cloud Dancing was strong enough to move. They enlisted Sully to help them come up with a plan to get away. Sully, reluctant at first, finally joined in their plan and participated in the escape. The hunt for Sully by the U.S. military went on for some time, much like a “cat and mouse” game. Ultimately, he turned himself in and did no jail time. Like Dr. Quinn, Cloud Dancing had a substantial love interest on the show. She was a White woman and the editor of the local newspaper. At the beginning of their romance, she is almost visibly shaking and timid around Cloud Dancing. He writes her poetry; she presents him with her written account of his life and the issues facing Native Americans in the area. He seems deeply moved by her efforts. They meet infrequently in the woods to talk and eventually to chastely kiss. The meetings in the woods imply that they both think their romance might not be looked at favorably by the townspeople. Yet there is a strange non-reaction to Native Americans who come into town, move through town, shop at the store, or eat meals at the local outdoor “cafe.” They rarely interact verbally with townspeople, but there’s no overt racist reaction to them. It’s as if the town is wrapped in a Dr. Quinn bubble, and people just float along until something happens to make them react. Then Dr. Quinn steps up to provide comfort, advice or a moral explanation. There were several Native Americans with recurring roles in Dr. Quinn, among them being Pato Hoffmann, an Inca and Aymara native; Tantoo Cardinal, who is a member of the First Peoples of Canada and is Cree and French; and Nick Ramus, a Blackfoot who died in 2007. The townspeople of Colorado Springs were generally portrayed with an ethnically diverse cast. The schoolteacher was a widow of either Mexican or Spanish heritage. She was pursued by several local men. The one whom she agreed to marry was the white town sheriff. As with Cloud Dancing, this was also a gentle romance, which took place at a leisurely pace. The Black couple on the show was portrayed by Jonelle Allen, a noted stage actress, and Henry G. Sanders. They were in all the episodes of Dr. Quinn. With the exception of two other African Americans, who were seen in group shots, they were the only African Americans central to the show. Sanders played Robert E. (no surname) and Allen played Grace. Robert E. was the local blacksmith, Grace



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the proprietor of the local outdoor cafe. Their adopted son was played by Brandon Hammond for eight episodes from 1996 to 1998. He died of a progressive illness, surrounded by his family and friends. His illness prompted questions about dying from their son and from his best friend, Dr. Quinn’s son. The two young men spent as much time together as they could during this period. After Brandon died, Grace spiraled into a deep depression and began drinking. Initially, Robert E. tried to help her without talking to anyone, but as Grace struggled to operate her cafe her drunkenness became evident to the townspeople and garnered attention from Dr. Quinn and Sully. Eventually Robert E. got through to her and she stopped drinking. Grace’s cafe was central to Dr. Quinn, in that most episodes showed main characters eating there, just sitting around talking about town issues and sometimes even gossiping, but only gently. One of the most violent episodes of the entire show occurred at the cafe. Late in the second season, there was an episode where the Ku Klux Klan made an appearance in town. The Klan members cornered Grace at the cafe in broad daylight. They held her down against one of the tables and started hacking off her long hair with a razor, as she screamed for help. Of course, help arrived, and Dr. Quinn was central to calming Grace with hugs and sympathetic murmurings. This episode aired during the show’s peak. It was averaging 13.46 million viewers per episode for CBS. That was a very strong rating for a family-oriented show that aired at the inauspicious time slot of 8:00 p.m. on Saturdays. Dr. Quinn was the 49th most watched show in America. Other Saturday evening shows managed 104th and 113th ratings on ABC, NBC, and Fox. Only Walker, Texas Ranger out performed Dr. Quinn on the same network. All of this showed there was an interest in moral issues, relatively controversial issues and a show with a strong female protagonist. Maria Elena Raymond Further Readings

Dow, Bonnie J. 1996. Prime-Time Feminism: Television, Media Culture and the Women’s Movement Since 1970. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Larson, Stephanie. 2006. Media and Minorities: The Politics of Race in News and Entertainment. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Torres, Sasha, ed. 1998. Living Color: Race and Television in the United States. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Duck Dynasty(2012–2017) Few reality television programs have been as successful as Duck Dynasty, a series developed and broadcast by A&E networks. Duck Dynasty revolves around the Louisiana-based Robertson family clan and its multimillion-dollar duck-hunting enterprise Duck Commander. During the series’ eleven-season run from 2012 to 2017, Duck Dynasty became the highest-rated nonfiction show in the history of American cable television and the premiere of season four drew a record audience of 11.8 million viewers. The show has also generated millions in revenue through

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advertising sales and the distribution of merchandise and product tie-ins via stores like Walmart, Target, and Kohl’s, among others. Because of the series’ cultural impact and financial success, the Robertson men, with their camouflage business attire, stars-and-stripes bandanas, and long beards, have long morphed into readily recognizable icons of popular culture. At the same time, the show has also repeatedly courted controversy because of homophobic and racist comments from patriarch Phil Robertson. In 2014, Robertson faced considerable criticism for an interview he gave GQ in which he not only disparagingly commented on homosexuality but also drew a highly revisionist image of slavery and life in the Jim Crow South. “I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person,” Robertson observed, “I hoed cotton with them. I’m with the blacks, because we’re white trash. . . . Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues” (Magary 2013). Organizations like GLAAD and the NAACP vehemently denounced Robertson for his racist remarks; A&E even briefly suspended Robertson from Duck Dynasty. Faced with mounting public pressure, including support from conservatives like Sarah Palin, Mick Huckabee, and Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, A&E relented, reinstating Robertson as head of his reality television enterprise. The show would continue to receive good ratings, providing further cover for the network to stand behind Robertson. Nevertheless, since the 2014 controversy in particular, Duck Dynasty has been marked as an inherently racist text by both media commentators and representations in popular culture. Pundits have linked the television series to a changing political and cultural climate in recent years and found the Robertsons’ “redneck” mentality emblematic of a larger backlash against ideas and views problematized as politically incorrect by mainstream discourse. In season five of the Netflix’s hit-series Orange Is the New Black (2013–2019) a group of White supremacist and neo-Nazi inmates at the fictional women’s correctional facility is revealed to be ardent followers of Duck Dynasty—a fact that several of the Black inmates acknowledge with sneers and scornful looks. Critics have noted that while Duck Dynasty rarely discusses race and racism, race is central to both its representation and its reception. From its staging of a particular vision of identity that is all about ruggedness and toughness to the erasure of people of color, Duck Dynasty is a show about white masculinity. Akin to Robertson’s comments in the GQ interview, which seemingly denied the history of racism within the South, Duck Dynasty creates an image of a mythical South, one where white women are relegated to the domestic sphere, people of color and racism simply do not exist, and white privilege is defended by all means. The cast does not include any people of color. Robertson sometimes even marvels at his grandson’s “bright white” face, and the series clearly celebrates traditional notions of white “Redneck” masculinity. According Matthew Ferrence, who writes about the exclusionary Redneck culture in general, the series “operates in absence . . . in the writing-out of those who live and exist in the places iconized as Redneck America” (Ferrence 2014, 44). As it imagines history in a way that denies the history of racism in the South and the persistence of White



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privilege, critics have argued that Duck Dynasty imagines a world where White men control both the land and the broader society. These same critics have noted how the show finds power in the “Redneck” stereotype, one that has long been demonized and mocked within media culture. The series’ title sequence, one that shows men dressed in suits wearing sturdy rubber boots, highlights both the celebration of this identity and a story about upward mobility. Duck Dynasty is emblematic of a larger cultural shift in representations of “Redneck” identity since the 1970s. Both the term itself and cultural representations of “Redneck” identity have moved away from a purely pejorative connotation and have rather been embraced as quasi-heroic “countercultural male icons” (Ferrence 2014, 50). Being seen as a “Redneck” no longer serves as an insult but a source of pride in an increasingly progressive, multicultural society. Moreover, given the nature of reality television, to be a “Redneck” is to have the potential for economic gain. In this regard, the Robertsons’ embrace of backwoods masculinity is largely symbolic given its celebration of economic wealth in the form of limousines, helicopters, and lavish mansions. In other words, the poor, the backward, and those imagined as “Rednecks,” those at the center of Duck Dynasty have “morphed . . . into the ruling white class” and “moved to the center of wealthy and privileged culture” (Foster 2016, 286). Despite their class status, they present themselves as a powerless minority who has been left behind by the multicultural elite. The series further validates this new “Redneck” identity through its highly formulaic structure. Each episode unearths either a domestic or a business-related problem, only to show the Robertson women performing duties traditionally connoted as feminine, such as cooking, and the Robertson men roaming the woods and bayous of their large estate, meeting with clients, or developing marketing or production strategies (O’Sullivan 2016, 367). In “High Tech Redneck,” the third episode of the first season, the CEO of Duck Commander, Willie Robertson, runs into problems when one of his clients places an unexpectedly large order and his team of unwilling, idle employees cannot keep up with the client’s demands. Per Willie’s instructions—he tries to teach them the value of synergy—they construct a make-shift conveyor belt, but in the end, it is an impromptu “packing party” organized by the Robertson women that helps the CEO to complete the order: one hundred residents of the Robertsons’ hometown of West Monroe, all of whom look almost exactly like the Robertson men, assemble the packages for the client and devour the food provided by the matriarchs. In “High Tech Redneck,” Willie grudgingly admits that “the old-school ways always work out” and acknowledges the importance of knowing one’s cultural roots. Phil, in return, teaches his grandson lessons on life, “manhood,” and “how to be a Robertson” by taking him into the woods and showing him how to hunt squirrels, apply black camouflage, wage war against beavers, and identify future wives: it is okay to marry an ugly woman, Phil informs his grandson, as long as she knows how to cook. Phil also repeatedly and emphatically warns his grandson not to become a “nerd” and “yuppie.” The terms “nerd” and “yuppie” represent a world that the Robertsons try to resist, just as their embrace of the term “Redneck” in the show itself; this is further evident in the episode titles, which emphasize “the ‘minority’ status

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of whiteness itself” (Ferrence 2014, 84). Here and throughout the series, the Robertsons’ construction of a White “Redneck” identity relies on binary oppositions between the masculine and the feminine (O’Sullivan 2016, 368), between domestic and urban spaces, between public, rural spaces, between a misguided progressivism or multiculturalism and a return to the traditions of days past. To some, the show represents a celebration of white privilege. Duck Dynasty’s financial success and high ratings but also its ambivalent status as a source of controversy can be linked to the series’ construction of the South as a mythical, almost ahistorical space, unaffected by the cultural and political wars of recent decades, and its unabashed promotion of a certain vision of white masculinity. Katharina Thalmann Further Reading

Ferrence, Matthew J. 2014. All-American Redneck: Variations on an Icon, from James Fenimore Cooper to the Dixie Chicks. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. Foster, Gwendolyn Audrey. 2016. “Consuming the Apocalypse, Marketing Bunker Materiality.” Quarterly Review of Film and Video 33 (4): 285–302. Grossman, Seth. 2016. “What Trump Owes Duck Dynasty.” New York Times, November 10. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­interactive​/­projects​/­cp​/­opinion​/­election​-­night​-­2016​ /­what​-­t rump​-­owes​-­duck​-­dynasty. Magary, Drew. 2013. “The Gospel according to Phil.” GQ, December 18. ­https://​­www​.­gq​ .­com​/­story​/­the​-­gospel​-­according​-­to​-­phil. O’Connor, Clare. 2013. “Duck Dynasty’s Brand Bonanza: How A&E (and Walmart) Turned Camo into $400 Million Merchandise Sales.” Forbes, November 6. ­https://​ ­w ww​.­forbes​.­com​/­sites​/­clareoconnor​/­2013​/­11​/­06​/­duck​- ­dynastys​-­brand​-­bonanza​ -­h ow​- ­a e​- ­a nd​-­w almart​- ­t urned​- ­c amo​- ­i nto​- ­4 00​- ­m illion​- ­m erchandise​- ­s ales​ /#­7f8187951714. O’Sullivan, Shannon E. M. 2016. “Playing ‘Redneck’: White Masculinity and Working-Class Performance on Duck Dynasty.” Journal of Popular Culture 48 (2): 367–384. Rosenberg, Alyssa. 2013. “What the Duck Dynasty Scandal Tells Us about Race, Homophobia, and the Media.” Think Progress, December 19. ­https://​­thinkprogress​ .­org​/­what​-­t he​-­duck​-­dynasty​-­scandal​-­t ells​-­u s​-­about​-­r ace​-­homophobia​-­a nd​-­t he​ -­media​-­33a0e0e5b771​/.

DuVernay, Ava(1972–) Ava DuVernay has been breaking the color barrier in both film and television since 2012 when she became the first African American woman to win Best Director at the Sundance Film Festival for Middle of No Where. With her 2014 film Selma, she became the first African American woman to earn a Best Director Golden Globe nomination; that same year, she became the first African American female director to have a film nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. When her film 13th received a nomination for Best Documentary, DuVernay became the first African American female director to have a nomination in a feature category. Leveraging her cinematic success into every aspect of



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the entertainment industry, DuVernay has not only made her mark on television but also opened up spaces for diversity in stories and voices on screen, all while pushing for opportunities for actors, writers, directors, and countless others marginalized in Hollywood Born August 24, 1972, Ava DuVernay grew up in Lynwood, California, a community south of Los Angeles near Compton. In 1995, she graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a double major in English and African American Studies. While at UCLA, DuVernay interned for CBS News and worked on the team covering the O. J. Simpson trial. After college, she worked in the film industry as a junior publicist, account executive, and senior executive before starting her own public relations and marketing firm in 1999. Some notable films that DuVernay Agency (DVA) did publicity for include Scary Movie (2000), Spy Kids (2001), Dream Girls (2006), Secret Life of Bees (2008), and Invictus (2009). While on the set of Collateral (2004), DuVernay started to think about creating her own films instead of promoting others. During the day, she continued her work at DVA while at night she focused on developing her project. Her first feature-length script, Middle of Nowhere, however, was rejected by the studios. This didn’t dissuade DuVernay, who continued to work on her film project, ultimately deciding to self-finance her films. With a $6,000 budget, she directed her first short, Saturday Night Life (2006) about a single mom’s trip to a 99-cent store. Her next project was a documentary entitled, This Is the Life (2009), about the diversity of hip-hop music on the west coast. DuVernay self-distributed the film and ended up with a licensing deal for the documentary to air on Showtime. Following the airing of This Is the Life on BET, TV One hired DuVernay as a director. For TV One, she directed the concert film TV One Night Only: Live from the Essence Music Festival (2010), which was nominated for a NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Variety (Series or Special). DuVernay also directed My Mic Sounds Nice: A Truth about Women and Hip Hop (2010), which represented BET’s first musical documentary about female rappers. In 2010, DuVernay created the African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement (AFFRM), a film distribution company. AFFRM’s objective was to help African American filmmakers get wider distribution outside of the film festival circuit. One of the company’s first films was I Will Follow (2010), which DuVernay wrote, directed, and self-financed. With a $50,000 budget and a 15-day production schedule, the movie was DuVernay’s first narrative feature. Through the AFFRM, I Will Follow made a profit, and DuVernay used $100,000 of the film’s profits to provide half of her budget for her next feature-length film, Middle of Nowhere (2012). Soon thereafter, she found critical acclaim with Selma (2014), a project that propelled her career and elevated her place in the national consciousness. DuVernay did not limit her work to the big screen. In 2013, she directed Nine for IX, an ESPN documentary examining Venus Williams’s fight for pay equity in professional tennis. That same year, she directed an episode of the ABC drama Scandal. Not only was DuVernay the first African American woman to direct an episode of this series but also this episode marked a milestone in television. It was the first time a series had African American women in key positions: director (DuVernay), star (Kerry Washington), and writer/executive producer/showrunner (Shonda Rhimes).

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In 2016, building on a relationship she had developed with Oprah Winfrey on the set of Selma, DuVernay cocreated the dramatic series Queen Sugar for the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). The show chronicles the life, day-to-day challenges, and drama of three siblings trying to run a sugar farm in contemporary Louisiana. Directing the first two episodes, DuVernay ceded directing duties because of other commitments; instead, in her capacity as executive producer, she ensured that the show would only use female directors for the show’s first season. This trend continued with the show’s second and third seasons; all forty-two episodes were directed by women. In August 2018, the show finished its third season and was renewed for a fourth season beginning in 2019. One of the busiest artists in Hollywood, DuVernay followed up the successes of Selma and Queen Sugar with a documentary on America’s prison system. Netflix approached DuVernay about creating a project for their streaming service. The result was the documentary 13th (2016), which was nominated for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards and DuVernay won Emmys for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special, Outstanding Writing for Nonfiction Programming, and Outstanding Directing for Nonfiction Programming. In 2019, Netflix aired DuVernay’s next project: Central Park Five, a five-part documentary series about five young men of color wrongly convicted of rape in 1989. DuVernay also serves as an Executive Producer on the CBS dramatic series The Red Line, a show about a white police officer who shoots a black doctor and the aftermath of this event on both families. While DuVernay has directed big budget films such as Disney’s A Wrinkle in Time (2018) and is set to direct Warner Brothers film The New Gods, becoming the first African American female director of a big-budget superhero movie, her presence can be felt throughout the entertainment industry. Offering stories rarely seen on film or television and providing a platform for countless artists, DuVernay’s influence is seen in a myriad of ways. Danielle E. Williams Further Reading

Cooper, Nekisa. 2012. “Love on the Outside.” Filmmaker, November 1. ­https://​­filmmaker magazine​.­com​/­57145​-­love​-­on​-­the​-­outside​/#.­W9chYZNKi00. Monllos, Kristina. 2018. “Filmmaker Ava DuVernay on the Creative Process, and the Intersection of Art and Activism.” Advertising Age, June 10. ­https://​­www​.­adweek​ .­com​/­creativity​/­creative​-­100​-­ava​-­duvernay​/. O’Connell, Michael. 2017. “‘Queen Sugar’ Renewed as Ava DuVernay Inks Expanded Harpo Deal.” Hollywood Reporter, July 26. ­https://​­www​.­hollywoodreporter​.­com​ /­l ive​-­feed​/­q ueen​-­s ugar​-­r enewed​-­a s​-­ava​-­d uvernay​-­i nks​-­expanded​-­h arpo​-­deal​ -­1024402. Sharp, Kathleen. 2016. “Cinematic Justice: The PS Interview with Ava DuVernay.” Pacific Standard, November 1. ­https://​­psmag​.­com​/­news​/­cinematic​-­justice​-­the​-­ps​-­interview​ -­with​-­ava​-­duvernay. Yuan, Jada. 2014. “With Her MLK Drama Selma, Ava DuVernay Is Directing History.” Vulture, December 2. ­https://​­www​.­vulture​.­com​/­2014​/­12​/­ava​-­duvernay​-­on​-­the​-­long​ -­road​-­to​-­selma​.­html​.

E Emmy Awards The Emmy is an award created in 1948 to recognize excellence and outstanding achievement in the U.S. television industry. The Emmy statuette, designed by television engineer Louis McManus using his wife as a model, was originally named “Immy,” a term frequently used for the early image orthicon camera. That name was soon modified to Emmy, as a seemingly more fitting name for the female symbol. The Emmy statuette shows a winged woman with uplifted arms, holding an atom. The arms represent the uplifting and supporting of the arts and sciences of television. The wings represent the muse of art, the atom the electron of science. The statuette weighs over six pounds, and stands 15.5 inches. Regional Emmys statuettes weigh 48 ounces and 11.5 inches. Emmys are given annually. The first award ceremony, under the auspices of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (ATAS) was in 1949 and held at the Hollywood Athletic Club in Los Angeles. Six awards were given that evening, including one for the statuette design by McManus. The awards have grown to include over one hundred categories and awardees. Emmys are supervised by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), based in New York City, by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (ATAS) in Los Angeles, California, and the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (IATAS). NATAS, founded in 1955, has a membership of over 15,000 broadcast and media professionals. These members are represented by nineteen regional chapters across the United States. NATAS supervises awards for Daytime ­Creative Arts and Entertainment, News and Documentaries, Public and Community Service, Sports, and Technology and Engineering. Technology and Engineering includes electronic media in addition to television. NATAS Board of Trustees also supervises the Regional Emmys given in the local chapters in the United States. Those awards are judged and awarded by peer juries within the respective chapters. In the late 1980s into the early 1990s, there was public arguing within the broadcast industry between the New York and Los Angeles boards over who should supervise what aspects of the Emmy Awards. ATAS, known as the Television Academy, now retains most of its autonomy by administering the awards for the Los Angeles chapter and by organizing and hosting the Primetime Emmys in Los Angeles. NATAS also sponsors programs, publications, seminars, and scholarships for high school and colleges within the nineteen chapter areas. In addition, the national organization, through its nonprofit foundation, awards scholarships to outstanding high school seniors who intend to pursue a baccalaureate degree in communications

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with emphasis on any aspect of the television industry. The scholarships include The Randy Falco Scholarship of $10,000 awarded to a Latinx student pursuing a career in the television industry, the Jim McKay Scholarship of $10,000 given to a student pursuing a career in sports television, the Mike Wallace Memorial Scholarship of $10,000 awarded to a student pursuing television journalism, and the NATAS Trustee Scholarship of $10,000 awarded to a student pursuing any aspect of the television industry. The Wallace scholarship is presented at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards. The McKay scholarship is presented at the Sports Emmy Awards each May. The applications and entries for the national scholarships are reviewed and judged by NATAS. There are also regional scholarships available through the local chapters, administered by those chapters. All entries, whether for major award categories or for scholarship awards are viewed digitally, as opposed to when applications were submitted on tape. There is no record kept of how many scholarships go to minority students, or whether those winners actually go on to work in broadcast television. In 2016, the first National Student Production Awards were announced by NATAS at the Newseum in Washington, DC. After reviewing 1,500 entries, 200 high school students from around the United States were selected for awards in twenty-three programming and craft categories. The winners were presented with a NATAS certificate of achievement and a crystal pillar award with the Emmy logo for their school. The NATAS Board of Trustees is made up of members elected at the regional level to represent their interests at the national level. The lack of diversity with

David Louie David Louie is the only person of color elected to top offices on the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) Board of Trustees. NATAS was founded in 1955, and Louie was elected vice-chair for two terms in 1990–1992 and again in 1992–1994. He then was elected chair of the board for one term in 1994–1996. He lost a bid for a second term as chair. There have been no other people of color elected since Louie’s terms. During Louie’s term as chair of the board, the extensive scholarship programs for high school and college students were created. A collaboration between NATAS and Yale University created a program focused on media literacy. Louie was elected to the national board from the regional chapter in San Francisco. At the time he was the business and technology reporter for the ABC station KGO7. That job description was eventually eliminated, and Louie now describes himself as a reporter in the KGO7 Silicon Valley Bureau. Louie joined ABC7 in 1972 after graduation from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, becoming the station’s first and the Bay Area’s senior Asian American reporter. He has been the East Bay and Peninsula bureau chief, business and technology editor, and financial news anchor, reporting live from the floor of the Pacific Stock Exchange. He has been inducted into two Halls of Fame (high school and college journalism school) and has received two lifetime achievement awards (Asian American Journalists Association and the City and County of San Francisco). In 2008, he became the director-at-large of the Radio and Television Digital News Association, a position he currently holds. In May 2017, he celebrated his forty-fifth year at ABC News.



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regard to race, ethnicity, gender, and age is a concern expressed by the regional chapters. How to increase diversity was a topic of discussion at the national annual meetings in New York in the late 1980s and beyond. Studies by universities in the 1960s show a dismal record of diversity in programming, thus leading to a lack of people of color nominated for Emmys. David Louie, one of the representatives from the San Francisco chapter is the only person of color to ever hold top elected offices on the Board. Louie was elected as vice-chair for two terms, in 1990–1992 and in 1992–1994. He was then elected chair of the Board of Trustees for one term, in 1994–1996. He was defeated in a bid for a second term. There has never been a woman elected to the chairperson position of NATAS. A variety of reasons are given for this failure to represent minorities within the most powerful U.S. television industry organization. NATAS states the regional chapters are not particularly diverse and so do not send minority members to sit on the New York board. The NATAS Board does not openly encourage the regional chapters to draw from their minority members to serve on the national board. Others point out there is rarely a big turnover of existing trustees so that slots can be open for more diverse members. While there are term limits for trustees (2 two-year terms), many members sit out a year and then return for another four years. The chairperson position entails many hours of going to meetings, overseeing the entire NATAS business including the operational budget, dealing with questions, arguments, and other issues that arise at the regional and national levels. That time investment discourages many people from running for offices. Records show that almost all former chairs and vice-chairs are retired industry consultants, CEOs of industry-related businesses, and others who have the time to serve on the Board of Trustees. With a few exceptions, there is rarely representation of people from the programming and craft jobs such as reporters, photographers, and editors, as they have to work and generally don’t have time to participate. There are several minority journalist professional organizations around the country. They meet regularly and often offer scholarships and internships to minority students. These groups are active but don’t seem to be able to become members of the NATAS board. There are very few ways for them to access the board, unless they are actually employed by a regional or local television station. Then they are available to be elected to their chapter’s Board of Governors. From there, they could be elected to the national Board of Trustees. Yet these groups are not considered by NATAS to be one way for minorities to feed into the national board. It is unusual for a person of color to speak out against the lack of diversity regarding Emmy Awards. However, in 2015, documentarian Stanley Nelson, while receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award for documentaries, had this to say to the audience, “It is up to me, and to all of us, to do more and do better. . . . I challenge all of you to figure out what you can do. Step out of your comfort zone. Hire someone who does not look like you. Take a chance on a writer or a camera person who otherwise would not be able to crack open the door of our very insular industry.”

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Nelson is cofounder of Firelight Media, a nonprofit organization that provides professional support to emerging documentarians, and cofounder of Firelight Films, a for-profit documentary production company. He is a renowned PBS documentarian. To date, NATAS seems to be satisfied with the status quo when it comes to the ethnic and racial makeup of their Board of Trustees. Until older members step down for good, until the Board does active outreach to minority broadcast groups and to the regional chapters, there is the appearance that diversity is not something that is of interest to those who operate the NATAS organization. Maria Elena Raymond Further Reading

Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., and Cornel West, eds. 2000. The African American Century: How Blacks Have Shaped Our Country. New York: Free Press. Ostrom, Hans, and J. David Macey Jr., eds. 2005. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Literature. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Pollack, Jules. 1970. The Black America. Los Angeles: Presidential Publishers. Smith, Jessie Carney, ed. 1994. Black Firsts: 2000 Years of Extraordinary Achievement. New York: Visible Ink Press.

Empire(2015–2020) “Part Shakespearean tragedy” and “part telenovela” (Blay 2015), Empire updated the classic soap genre with hip-hop, music, and a never-ending supply of popular culture icons. With an initial episode drawing almost ten million viewers, the most a Fox show had received in three years, Empire quickly captured the national imagination with endless drama, its music, and its A-list guest stars. Its centering of Black characters and its refusal to focus on challenging stereotypes not only facilitated its popularity but also widespread debates about the show’s representations. After producing and/or directing several successful films, including Monster’s Ball (2001), Precious (2009), and The Butler (2015), Lee Daniels made his first television show with Empire. Joining forces with Danny Strong, who appeared on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003) and The Gilmore Girls (2000–2007) and who wrote the screenplay for The Butler, and Brian Grazer, whose film and television producing and writing credits include Boomerang (1992), Apollo 13 (1995), A Beautiful Mind (2001), 24 (2001–2010; 2014), and Friday Night Lights (2006– 2011), Daniels sought to create a hip-hop, musical family melodrama. Critics attributed Empire success to not only its dramatic and over-the-top story lines and its successful embrace of hip-hop and music in general, becoming a staging ground for artists and songs, but also because of the star power of two Hollywood stars: Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson. Howard stars as Lucious Lyon, a drug dealer turned singer/rapper who eventually starts Empire records with his wife Cookie. A music executive and mogul whose life resembles the American Dream, much of his story revolves around



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lived nightmares. Amid the wealth and power, he struggles with love, family, and health. Initially diagnosed with ALS (which is later revealed to be false), he sets out to figure out who will control the company. The drama that ensues and his efforts to fend off rivals anchored the show’s plotlines. Henson plays Cookie Lyon, who after serving seventeen years in prison, returns to a life as a music executive, initially at Empire Records (alongside of her ex-husband Lucious) and then elsewhere, as a mother and mentor, and a source of drama in the show. Like the show itself, Henson’s character has prompted widespread debate as to whether the representation of Cookie perpetuates long-standing stereotypes or offers a new inscription of Black femininity on television. While Howard and Henson anchored the show, Empire’s success was the result of its dynamic cast, introducing the public to a number of new faces: Trai Byers plays Andre Lyon, the oldest son, who follows in his parents’ footsteps as a music executive. Whereas his other brothers are artists, he is a Wharton-educated CEO, who works with his parents to elevate their companies. His character also battles bipolar disorder, spotlighting mental health and the stigmas that men face in this regard. Jussie Smollett stars as Jamal Lyon. An aspiring singer and songwriter, Jamal struggles with his place in the Empire company. His close relationship with his youngest brother and his mom, and his tense relationship with his father, in part because of Lucious’s homophobia and discomfort with his sexuality, is a central story line. Bryshere Gray plays Hakeem Lyon, the youngest son of the family, whose rap career and sometimes tense relationship with his mom is central to a number of plotlines. According to Buzzfeed’s Anne Helen Peterson (2015), “The Lyon sons each represent a different path to success,” demonstrating the different talents, sacrifices, and approaches to fulfilling the promises of the American Dream. They embody the diversity of the black community, which is a major theme of Empire. That despite being a hip-hop remix of King Lear (Dawes 2015), a sensational and over-the-top melodrama, Empire works to shine a spotlight on the diversity within the black community. Grace Byers (Anika Calhoun), who plays Lucious’s girlfriend and ultimately has a relationship with Hakeem, and Kaitlin Doubleday (Rhonda Lyon), a White woman married to Andre, round out the cast. Other notable cast members include: Gabourey Sidibe (Rebecca “Becky” Williams); Serayah (Tiana Brown); Xzibit (Leslie “Shyne” Johnson); Bre-Z (Freda Gathers); Rumer Willis (Tory Ash); Nicole Ari Parker (Giselle Sims-Barker); Naomi Campbell (Camilla Marks Whiteman); Kelly Rowland (Leah Mary Walker); Marisa Tomei (Mimi Whiteman), and Vivica A. Fox (Candace Holloway Mason). A number of stars of the music industry and popular culture have also made appearances on Empire, furthering its place as the bridge between television, Hollywood, and music: Chris Rock, Courtney Love, Cuba Gooding Jr., Mary J. Blige, Ludacris, Jennifer Hudson, Alicia Keyes, Da Brat, Mariah Carrey, Queen Latifah, Rosie O’Donnell, and French Montana. Exploring a myriad of themes and issues, including mental health, celebrity culture, family, sexuality, homophobia, greed, and excess, Empire builds on the tradition of both tragedy and soap opera. It is an update of old themes, bridging to

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ongoing debates about race, representations and morality, all while building on real-life events. “Despite ‘Empire’s’ narrative and sub-narratives, its recordbreaking success rests squarely on the irresistibility of its larger-than-life characters. Through its fictional premise, the show is a new kind of window on black celebrity; it contextualizes—albeit in broad strokes—the behind-the-scenes goings-on of characters who appear not unlike those who have become our collective cultural missionaries,” says Rawiya Kameir in “Why Can’t We Stop Watching ‘Empire’?” (qtd. in Wortham 2015). Similarly, Clover Hope in the same New York Times piece concludes that the show’s success and popularity emanate from its ability to turn real-life drama into a spectacle that is compelling. “Greed, drama and excess are just a few trite elements of the music business that ‘Empire’ excels at glamorizing. . . . Ultimately, the show wins in the way it imperfectly dramatizes what artists and executives (and their families) stoop to for the sake of prestige” (qtd. in Wortham 2015). Some critics, commentators, and fans, however, lamented the show for its perpetuation of long-standing stereotypes. “Addressing social dysfunctions within black communities has divided viewers into two camps: Those who love the campiness of the show, and those who are upset that these tropes are portrayed for all to see. Viewers have been turned off by Daniels’ casting of light-skinned black women and ‘white savior’ characters,” writes Laina Dawes (2015). Jonathan Higgins, in “Why Hollywood’s Portrayal of Black Women Is Problematic,” concludes that Empire continues a long-standing tradition of ridiculing, mocking, dehumanizing, and otherwise stereotyping Black women. For him, Cookie is a “character [who] has continued to perpetuate the stereotype of what society believes black women to be” (2015). Others questioned such dismissal, noting how Empire in its embrace of campy melodrama, in its focus on the diversity within the black community, in its refusal of respectable and positive representations, and in its courage in taking on difficult issues, not only changed television but also how we talk about race, popular culture, and representation. Eric Deggans (2015) argued that Empire brought depth and humanity to long-standing stereotypes. “Empire is much more than a collection of horrifying black stereotypes, and it moves further away from such narrow characterizations with every episode.” He is not alone in engaging and questioning these binary discussions. While acknowledging that Empire “is populated by dozens of what could be read as antiblack stereotypes: from the drug-dealing thug to the ostentatious ‘angry black woman,’” Zeba Blay, in “How Empire Broke Down Stereotypes by Embracing Them” (2015), challenges the dismissal of Empire as a continuation of television’s long tradition of antiblack stereotypes. For her and others, Empire represented a shift away from a focus on “positive” or “respectable” representations toward more complex, contradictory, and its “messiness” (Blay 2015). “Perhaps what makes ‘Empire’ so appealing across the board is its messiness. Not only among its characters, but its flashy, sometimes ridiculous visual storytelling that pushes against respectable modes of television drama,” notes Blay. “When we try to combat stereotypes, we sometimes think that the way to do so is by presenting censored versions of ourselves. But the way to combat stereotypes is to accept and embrace all versions of



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ourselves, and acknowledging that blackness is not a monolith. With ‘Empire,’ a black ensemble is demanding the privilege of dimension.” Writing about Empire and Jane the Virgin (2014–2019), Anne Helen Peterson similarly notes the importance of creating a show that centers characters of color, their voices and story lines. “What distinguishes Empire, as well as The CW’s Jane the Virgin—the two most recent (and successful) entries into the category—is their near exclusion of whiteness, and the ways in which that exclusion liberates both shows to focus on issues specific to their subjects and their places in America.” She further concludes, “The emotionality and excess that make it easy to dismiss Jane the Virgin and Empire are also an entryway to a world that some might not otherwise consider. These shows aren’t what some term ‘quality television.’ . . . But that doesn’t mean these melodramatic shows aren’t doing some of the most important, unique, and even progressive work on television today” (2015). After five seasons of Empire, which saw a gradual decline in ratings (while episode one for season two garnered 16.8 million viewers, the initial episode of season five only netted 6.09 million viewers), Fox announced its cancelation of the show at the end of the sixth season. While some attributed the decision to the legal controversies involving Jussie Smollett (who was written off the show during season five), others simply argued the show’s waning popularity had driven the decision. Its legacy had been secured. While receiving several awards and many more nominations, Empire’s significance can be seen in both its demonstration of the popularity of hip-hop television and for the debates that it sparked regarding representation, race, sexuality, and so much more. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Blay, Zeba. 2015. “How Empire Broke Down Stereotypes by Embracing Them.” The Huffington Post, September 23. ­https://​­w ww​.­huffpost​.­com​/­entry​/­empire​-­broke​ -­down​-­stereotypes​-­by​-­embracing​-­them​_n​_55f99a39e4b0b48f670190c5. Click, Melissa A., and Sarah Smith-Frigerio. 2019. “One Tough Cookie: Exploring Black Women’s Responses to Empire’s Cookie Lyon.” Communication, Culture and Critique 12 (2) (June): 287–304. Dawes, Laina. 2015. “Hit TV Show ‘Empire’—Why the Same Old Tired Black Stereotypes?” AlterNet, February 11. ­https://​­www​.­alternet​.­org​/­2015​/­02​/­hit​-­tv​-­show​-­empire​ -­why​-­same​-­old​-­tired​-­black​-­stereotypes​/. Deggans, Eric. 2015. “Does Fox’s ‘Empire’ Break or Bolster Black Stereotypes?” NPR, March 18. ­https://​­w ww​.­npr​.­org​/­2015​/­03​/­18​/­393785570​/­does​-­foxs​-­empire​-­break​-­or​ -­bolster​-­black​-­stereotypes. Higgins, Jonathan. 2015. “Why Hollywood’s Portrayal of Black Women Is Problematic.” The Root, November 24. ­https://​­w ww​.­theroot​.­com​/­why​-­hollywood​-­s​-­portrayal​-­of​ -­black​-­women​-­is​-­problematic​-­1790857877. Peterson, Helen Anne. 2015. “‘Empire,’ ‘Jane the Virgin,’ and the Nonwhite Family Melodrama.” Buzzfeed, January 27. ­https://​­w ww​.­buzzfeed​.­com​/­annehelenpetersen​ /­rogelio​-­my​-­brogelio​#.­lkjBVYEkP. Wortham, Jenna. 2015. “Why Can’t We Stop Watching ‘Empire’?” New York Times, March 18. ­https://​­w ww​.­nytimes​.­com ​/­2015​/­03​/­18​/­magazine​/­why​-­cant​-­we​-­stop​-­watching​ -­empire​.­html.

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Equal Justice(1990–1991) Equal Justice is a one-hour legal drama series that premiered on the ABC network on March 27, 1990, concluding its prime-time run in July 1991. The Los Angeles Times headline touted, “Verdict on Equal Justice: New Series Seems Destined to Join TV’s Law Program Elite,” then cited the show’s, “energy, texture, style, production quality and excellent writing, directing and acting” (Rosenberg 1990, F-2) as irrefutable evidence. When Equal Justice premiered, it shined as the antithesis of L.A. Law (1986), the slick one-hour episodic series about a posh Beverly Hills law firm and its cadre of eccentric partners. Set in the Pittsburg District Attorney’s office, Equal Justice was gritty, urban, and working class. It was the first television series created by director Thomas Carter. Equal Justice would be the first one-hour drama series created by an African American producer. As a director on hit dramas, such as Hills Street Blues (1981–1987) and St. Elsewhere (1982–1988), Carter was no stranger to maneuvering large ensemble casts through urban landscapes. This was the vision for Equal Justice. Equal Justice centers on the lives of young lawyers, as they come to terms with the harsh realities of the criminal justice system. During its two seasons, it won two prime-time Emmy Awards, both for Best Director Thomas Carter. It also won the 1991 People’s Choice Award for Favorite New TV Drama and set network ratings records. The show’s stellar cast included Joe Morton, Sarah Jessica Parker, Cotter Smith, Barry Miller, Jane Kaczmarek, Jon Tenney, George di Cenzo, Deborah Farentino, Vanessa Bell Calloway, and Lynn Whitfield. Equal Justice was a star-turn for Emmy winner Morton as chief prosecutor Michael James, whose fiery courtroom arguments were the highlight of many episodes. Ironically, the role was not written as a Black character. When Morton auditioned for the series, it was for a guest appearance in a single episode, not for one of the leading roles. In an interview for this entry, Carter recounted that after completing his audition for the minor role, Morton asked if he could read the other part. Morton’s audition was impressive, and Carter felt the show would be stronger with him playing that part. But the network was concerned that a Black actor in such a major role might redefine the show in the minds of Middle America—that it would be considered a “Black Thomas Carter Series creator Thomas Carter began his career as an actor. His breakout role was Hayward, a high school basketball player on the series White Shadow (1978–1981); executive producer Bruce Paltrow mentored Carter and gave him the opportunity to direct several episodes. Over the next ten years, Carter became a successful TV-pilot director and landed a producing deal with ABC Television. He would go on to produce and direct Under One Roof (1995), Hack (2002–2004), and UC: Undercover (2001); he also directed iconic feature films, such as Save the Last Dance (2001), Coach Carter (2005), and When the Game Stands Tall (2014).



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show” and suffer in the ratings. Ultimately, ABC left the decision up to their young executive producer, so Carter went with Morton, and the network was thrilled with the pilot episode. When asked if having a Black actor in that role changed the tone of the show in any way, Carter admitted that having a Black prosecuting attorney added a different dynamic to a few situations, but that it was not a deliberate effect. Like most procedural dramas, each episode in Equal Justice focused on a different case: prosecution of a hate crime, witness tampering in a gang trial, murder by HIV, etc. The series reflected the profound loss of faith in the legal system that many poor and minority communities harbor. In one episode, “A Sucker’s Bet,” an innocent Black teen, convinced he cannot get a fair trial, takes a plea bargain against the advice of counsel and goes to jail for something he didn’t do. In the episode “False Image,” Linda (Jane Kaczmarek) fights to remove a misogynistic judge from presiding over a rape trial. Longer story arcs that spanned over several episodes would revolve around the lead characters’ struggles to maintain some semblance of a personal life. For example, prosecutor Jo Ann (Sarah Jessica Parker) falls for an idealistic public defender (Jon Tenney); Michael (Joe Morton) starts a relationship with Delia, a beautiful community activist (Vanessa Bell Calloway), who feels that he’s blind to the racism of the institution he is a part of—the DA’s office. In one of the most powerful scenes in the first season, Dep. DA Rogan (Cotter Smith) breaks the news to Michael that their office failed to get a conviction in the death of James’s close friend. Morton’s characters are plunged back into grief and rage, but most of all, existential crisis as Delia’s assessment of the system is truer than he wanted to admit. Tragically, rescheduling of the show and circumstantial events led to its cancellation after only twenty-five episodes. Equal Justice premiered in March as a midseason replacement. Midseason shows with the ratings as strong as Equal Justice’s would ordinarily have been programmed to return on the fall schedule. However, when hit show producer Steven Bochco was ready to air his new series Cop Rock (1990), the network decided to put it in the Equal Justice time slot to give it a chance to succeed. It did not. By the time Equal Justice returned midseason the following year, it had been away too long and now had to compete with nonstop coverage of the Persian Gulf War. As fate would have it, Thomas Carter accepted his second Emmy Award for Equal Justice after the show had been cancelled. Despite its short tenure on television, Equal Justice paved the way for several actors along with Thomas Carter, opening up opportunities for further conversations about race and the criminal justice. A critical success, Equal Justice’s legacy rests with its efforts to transform the representation of African Americans on prime-time television. Further Reading

Bierbaum, Tom. 1993. “ABC Closing in on CBS Ratings Crown.” Daily Variety, March 15. ­http://​­variety​.­com​/­1993​/­t v​/­news​/­abc​-­closing​-­in​-­on​-­cbs​-­ratings​-­crown​-­105008​/. Einstein, Mara. 2003. Media Diversity: Economics, Ownership, and the FCC. Mahwah, NJ: Routledge.

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O’Connor, John. 1991. “Review/Television; The Improving Fortunes of ABC’s ‘Equal Justice’” The New York Times, April 10, section C, page 13. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​ .­com ​/­1991​/­0 4​/­10​/­a rts​/­review​-­television​-­t he​-­i mproving​-­fortunes​-­of​-­abc​-­s​-­equal​ -­justice​.­html. Rosenberg, Howard. 1990. “TV Reviews: Verdict on “Equal Justice”: New Series Seems Destined to Join TV’s Law Program Elite.” Los Angeles Times, March 27. ­https://​ ­w ww​.­latimes​.­com​/­archives​/­la​-­xpm​-­1990​- ­03​-­27​-­ca​-­208​-­story​.­html.

ER(1994–2009) Throughout its fifteen years of prime-time television, ER provided a range of representations of people from various life experiences and identities. The successful television series aired from 1994 to 2009 on NBC, bringing in 47.8 million viewers at its peak. ER is NBC’s second most watched TV drama to date. ER visually showed the racial makeup of America and of the diverse city of Chicago, Illinois. Set in the Emergency Room of a fictional County General hospital, ER’s story lines cover a range of diverse medical spectacles and character experiences. Most notably ER incorporated themes surrounding American race relations, with particular emphasis on race and medical care. ER also referenced aspects of medical care that many Americans were not aware of or had little information about. ER was originally written in 1974 with no success of being picked up, but after the original screenplay writers Steven Spielberg and Michael Crichton found success with Jurassic Park, they were able to convince NBC to pilot the show. ER was different than prior dramas given its embrace of realism, whether in the form of medical information or the vivid operation scenes. Another being the faster paced approach that ER took, which was unusual to television at the time. ER did not adhere to the practice of single plot with sub plots rather providing viewers with a more integrated experience that enabled a diversity of topics to be incorporated more naturally. This also allowed for more detailed interrogation and discussions of race, identity, and racism. When race issues appeared from patient stories, those stories also influenced the situations of the primary characters. Because race relations cannot simply be isolated in the real world, ER’s approach to establishing a more realistic experience for its audience through its primary characters enabled more connected aspects of race throughout the series as well. It also allowed audience members to connect with a character like themselves, and perhaps work through issues of race alongside their parallel character. ER’s reality was at times a mirror for America. While ER was important for its embrace of diversity, for providing actors of color with opportunities to play multidimensional characters who challenged stereotypes and dehumanizing representations, its importance also rests with its willingness to give voice to important medical information, especially as it related to communities of color; issues such as living and working with HIV, diabetes complications, depression, having a special needs child, managing the care of a family elder with dementia, lacking health insurance, and the use of traditional medicine and other medical issues that may have a greater effect on persons of color were front and center within the show. In many instances, ER showed America a more



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Peter Benton Eriq LaSalle played the very memorable character of Dr. Peter Benton on ER from the first episode in 1994 through to 2002. Dr. Benton was a driven, emotionally inept careerist who dedicated his time to becoming the best possible surgeon. The show rarely referenced racial issues yet did demonstrate the ways that race shaped Dr. Benton’s experiences inside and outside the hospital. In season three, Benton was tasked with a group of surgical interns to supervise, one played by Omar Epps, an unsure and emotionally tormented character named Dr. Dennis Gant. Benton was especially hard on Dr. Gant throughout season three, and toward the end of the season Gant questioned Benton about his very harsh-like approach toward him. Benton expressed that Gant needed to be twice as good as everyone else, just as Benton had to be. Dr. Peter Benton was a character of many layers, which was a welcome image to the prime-time screen. To see that he indeed had broken barriers in the medical field as an African American male doctor, but also to slowly discover the multiple layers of his life that he managed in order to get there and the layers he was consistently managing in attempts to maintain his status and to climb higher was a needed component in American prime-time television.

complicated fabric for communities of color in regards to medical care, including being a doctor of color. The prevalence of showcasing medical professionals who were of various backgrounds brought to prime-time television a space where viewers were more likely to find someone who resembled them. While initially dominated by white doctors, ER ultimately was a show that included Asian American, African American, Latinx, and White medical professionals. As the show progressed, there was an effort to highlight how America’s hospitals were spaces of globalization, whereupon the best care was the result of people of different backgrounds coming together. In 2003, executive producer John Wells cast Parminder Nagra to play Dr. Neela Kaur Rasgotra with the intention to represent the presence of doctors of Indian descent within the American medical system. While reticent and apprehensive at a certain level, the diversity of the ER required some interrogation of the ways that race and racism shaped the experiences of both medical professionals and patients. ER consistently explored issues of race. In the very first episode of ER, “24 hours,” an older African American man outwardly questioned Dr. Mark Greene’s (Anthony Edwards) approach to his Jing-Mei Chen Ming-Na Wen played the character of Jing-Mei Chen on ER beginning during season one, returning during season six until season eleven. Her character began the series utilizing her American name of Deb, and she returned with the embracement of her Chinese name Jing-Mei Chen. Chen was a unique character in ER and on prime-time television; she was a character who shared imagery of the diversity within the Asian American experience and the important portrayal of a multilayered Asian American professional woman. She provided a character that could create conversations about various diverse issues in America and abroad.

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care stating, “If I were not Black, you’d treat me differently.” The man left without care, yet his protests gave voice to the larger issues of racial inequality within American health care. Dr. Greene was also central to another episode where race was front and center. In “Tribes” (season three), Dr. Greene is forced to question whether his racial prejudices informed his medical decisions; that is, whether he gave a higher priority to White patients. Two teenage males, one White and the other Black, were brought to the ER with gunshot wounds. Dr. Greene selected the white male for more advanced treatment. As treatment was being carried out, Dr. Greene learned that the Black male he presumed to be a gang member was Kenny Law, a star basketball player from a local high school who had an important upcoming basketball game. Dr Green thought the White youth was just an innocent bystander, yet he had been involved in a drug deal. Malik McGrath (Deezer D.), an African American male nurse, challenged Dr. Greene, questioning whether his assumptions about the patients and their background resulted in differential care. He was not alone. Kenny Law’s older brother (Joe Torrey) expressed his outrage accusing Dr. Greene and the staff of failing to help his brother because they didn’t value the life of a Black person as much as they did a White person. In other words, ER created a narrative that illustrate how within health care Black lives didn’t matter. Law’s brother insisted that Dr. Greene step aside so that his brother could get proper treatment. Afraid and dismayed by accusations of racism, Dr. Greene ironically denied that race mattered even as he enlisted Malik to communicate with members of the Law family. Following his death, Dr. Greene asked Malik to join him in notifying the family: “Malik, can you join me?” Malik inquired: “What for?” Greene replied the following: “Kenny Law died; I have to go tell his family.” Malik responded swiftly with: “Well if you’re scared you should call security, I’m a nurse.” The show’s efforts to highlight race, to bring to life the discomfort resulting from racism being spotlighted, and the ways that racism impacts the work environment demonstrates the power and potential with ER. ER incorporated various story lines relating to race throughout its tenure, exploring affirmative action, interracial relationships, and microaggressions all while providing a stage for a diverse cast. The show was a pioneer in accurate and complex representation of people of color in medical situations. The show’s longevity further establishes its presence in many homes as a source of entertainment. Since ER, medical dramas have embraced the reality approach of filming and the continual incorporation of diverse stories and diverse casts. ER is a first in its approach but definitely not the last. LaToya Brackett Further Reading

Cupples, Julie, and Kevin Glynn. 2013. “Postdevelopment Television? Cultural Citizenship and the Mediation of Africa in Contemporary TV Drama.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 103 (4): 1003–1021. Stanhope, Kate. 2017. “Former NBC Execs Look Back on the Births of ER, Seinfeld, and Will & Grace.” Hollywood Reporter, February 7. ­http://​­w ww​.­hollywoodreporter​ .­com​/­live​-­feed​/­nbc​-­execs​-­look​-­back​-­er​-­seinfeld​-­will​-­grace​-­973094.



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Zurawik, David. 1996. “Black and White TV Race and Drama: Network Television, So Often Derided as Superficial Entertainment, is Providing Reasoned, Dramatic Discourse on Racial Issues Nearly Every Night on Some of Prime Time’s Best Programs.” Baltimore Sun, January 30. ­http://​­articles​.­baltimoresun​.­com​/­1996​- ­01​ -­30​/­features​/­1996030007​_1​_nypd​-­blue​-­andy​-­sipowicz​-­black​-­and​-­white.

Everybody Hates Chris(2005–2009) Everybody Hates Chris aired from 2005 to 2009, depicting the everyday life of a working-class African American family. The show is a semiautobiographical, chronicling the childhood of the show’s creator, Chris Rock, who also serves as the show’s narrator and moral compass. Rock not only narrates but also plays adult Chris who is recounting Chris’s adolescent experience with family and school to the audience. “Here’s the thing that separates this from every other show of this type that you’ve seen: you know how the story ends,” notes cocreator and collaborator, Ali LeRoi, in an explanation of the show’s format. “That kid on ‘The Wonder Years’ could have ended up being a drug addict, he could have gone to jail for burglary, we don’t know. But we do know where this kid ends up. We know that he became Chris Rock, this acerbic, wry and caustic comedian” (qtd. in Rhodes 2005). For Rhodes, the show is about how and why Chris Rock became a superstar. The embodiment of the American Dream Everybody Hates Chris is part biography, part comedy, and celebration of the black family. Through personal narratives, Everybody Hates Chris is a classic coming-of-age story that seeks to answer how Chris became Chris Rock, albeit with ample comedic relief and humor. Everybody Hates Chris chronicles the childhood experiences of Chris (Tyler James Williams), an adolescent boy, and his family. The family is headed by Julius (Terry Crews) and Rochelle (Tichina Arnold), Chris’s parents, his younger brother Drew (Tequan Richmond), and his younger sister Tonya (Imani Hakim). The family lives in Brooklyn, New York, in a neighborhood known as “Bed-Stuy.” Much of the show revolves around the challenges and realities of a working-class family. In “Everybody Hates Food Stamps,” Rochelle imagines the beauty of being able to buy “name brand foods” (Klein 2006) after Julius receives $200 dollars in food stamps. In the show’s pilot, the intersections of race and class are made clear as Chris travels two hours from his neighborhood each day so that he can go to a different school that provides “not a Harvard-type education, just a not-sticking-up-a-liquor-store-type education” (Klein 2006). While many of the show’s punchlines are centered on the struggles and challenges Chris faces on a day-to-day basis, each relationship and dynamic in the family is presented in an authentic manner. The San Francisco Gate’s Tim Goodman praises how the show has “elements of ‘Wonder Years,’ ‘Cosby’ and the ‘The Jeffersons,’ but also a spirit all its own.” Goodman also says, “‘Chris’ is a sitcom that finally makes the family funny again.” A reoccurring theme within the show is the family’s constant struggle to live within their means while continuing to provide adequately for themselves. While depicting these serious challenges, the show finds humor and comedic relief in their economic anxiety. One instance that viewers are reminded of this is season four, episode nineteen, “Everybody Hates Drew,”

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when Chris Rock (narrator) explains that “for free my father would let me learn almost anything.” The show then cuts to a scene where adolescent Chris is seen taking lessons from a man whilst holding a gun. When his father inquires about what he is up to, he says he is taking lessons on how to rob a liquor store. “How much does it cost?” Julius asks, to which Chris tells him that they are free. Upon finding out that the lessons are not costing him anything, he responds, “Go ahead.” This is not uncommon with Everybody Hates Chris. In another episode, Julius buys the family a bargain crate of sausage that is low quality (season one, episode four). He later becomes frustrated when the family resist eating the sausage. Many American families can relate to this quest to live frugally by any means possible. A grand theme of the show centers around Chris being the oldest child with the most responsibility. Despite being a teenager himself, he is held accountable for and often blamed for his siblings’ missteps or instances out of his control. For example, in “Everybody Hates Back Talk,” when Chris refuses to do the dishes, he is forced to confront his no-nonsense mother, Rochelle. He deals with a unique set of challenges and expectations that his siblings are not forced to endure. Worse yet, while he is the oldest in the family, he is often teased for being shorter than his brother Drew and mistaken as the younger of the two. As if growing up as the oldest child wasn’t enough to deal with, Chris is often picked on by teachers at school and a red-headed bully named Joey Caruso (Travis T. Flory). For most of his adolescence, he is forced to busy himself evading his bully, coming into himself as a teenage boy, and taking care of his younger siblings to keep them all out of trouble. He is also forced to endure racially charged microaggressions at the hands of his teachers and classmates. Fortunately, the family resides in a predominantly Black neighborhood where he is not forced to reconcile with being othered. One unique aspect of the show is its unconventional presentation of Black teens. Chris is presented as a “dorky” character who never fights back when he is being bullied and is in fact often teased for not knowing how. Additionally, he tries his best to stay out of trouble, but trouble seems to always find him. He always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Another contrast to a stereotypical narrative is that Chris’s best friend and confidant is Greg Wuliger (Vincent Martinelli), a nerdy Jewish white boy. Greg sticks with him throughout their adolescent and teenage years. Together the two boys endure being ostracized and getting themselves out of tough situations. While focused on Chris, Everybody Hates Chris is equally a show about his parents. Represented as strict but protective and loving parents, Everybody Hates Chris challenges the demonization of Black parents. The family is portrayed as one that is led by principles and the idea of doing whatever it takes to make ends meet. While the communication between the family doesn’t seem conventional, the family dynamic reflects Black familial love and bonding. This dynamic made the family very relatable and accessible for many families who watched and engaged with the sitcom. One example that can be seen throughout the series is instances where Chris is saved by his parents when he is in a bind or a potentially dangerous situation. After his parents express gratitude about Chris being saved, they usually ground him or put him on some form of punishment, and each episode ends with the signature theme song verse “Everybody Hates Chris.” This



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contrast of reactions is representative of the love coupled with accountability that Chris’s strict parents instill within the household. The authentic way of parenting that Julius and Rochelle follow in the show makes the family accessible to audiences who may identify with the families’ frugal and feisty ways. Throughout the show, they strive to instill a strong work ethic and wise decision-making in the children. Despite the family struggling to make ends meet, Julius and Rochelle ensure that the kids attend a good school, which for them means a white school where Chris would end up being one of the only black kids in attendance. As a result, he faces many unique challenges. “The show not only works as long as he’s a regular guy having regular problems,” Mr. LeRoi says. “Nerdy guys can put themselves in the position of the guy not getting the girl. Mothers can put themselves in the position of trying to raise kids under difficult circumstances” (qtd. in Rhodes 2005). The show is praised for being relatable in multiple ways and through multiple lenses. It is in many ways a show about everyday black people and the lives of typical black families with unique twists to stereotypical narratives. Chris Rock’s narration was important for the show’s success and for its innovation. It was his voice that provided insight on how race and economic realities shaped his childhood. Critics celebrated this narration as not only as an innovative device but also powerful because of its use of comedy as a vehicle for important analysis. It also gave viewers insight into Chris the character’s inner thoughts and personality. Everybody Hates Chris was nominated for various Emmy and Golden Globe Awards in addition to winning the NAACP Image award in 2007. It ran for a total of four seasons, with the last episode airing on May 8, 2009. Basheera Agyeman Further Reading

Brown, Preezy. 2019. “7 Ways Black America Saw Itself in ‘Everybody Hates Chris.’” Revolt, May 8. ­https://​­w ww​.­revolt​.­t v​/­2019​/­5​/­8​/­20824004​/­7​-­ways​-­black​-­america​ -­saw​-­itself​-­in​-­everybody​-­hates​-­chris. Goodman, Tim. 2005. “‘Chris’ Definitely a Contender, while ‘Love’ Takes a Beating.” San Francisco Gate, September 22. ­https://​­w ww​.­sfgate​.­com​/­entertainment​/­article​ /­Chris​-­definitely​-­a​-­contender​-­while​-­Love​-­2606609​.­php. Klein, Amanda Ann. 2006. “Everybody Hates Chris.” Pop Matters, April 12. h­ ttps://​ ­w ww​.­popmatters​.­com​/­everybody​-­hates​-­chris​- ­060413​-­2496227482​.­html. Porter, Rick. 2006. “The Almost True Story of ‘Everybody Hates Chris.’” Chicago Tribune, March 3. ­https://​­w ww​.­chicagotribune​.­com​/­zap​-­everybodyhateschrispaleyfe stival​-­story​.­html. Rhodes, Joe. 2005. “Chris Rock Hates Everybody’s Fussing.” New York Times, September 18. ­https://​­w ww​.­nytimes​.­com ​/­2005​/­09​/­18​/­a rts​/­television ​/­chris​-­rock​-­hates​-­every bodys​-­f ussing​.­html.

Eyes on the Prize(1987) Released in 1987 and originally aired on both PBS and BBC2 (Great Britain), Eyes on the Prize is a fourteen-part documentary on the modern Civil Rights Movement. Transforming the manner in which the Civil Rights Movement was remembered, all

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while opening up new possibilities for documentary filmmaking, the release Eyes on the Prize represented an important television moment. Created by Henry Hampton, a social justice filmmaker, and narrated by civil rights activist Julian Bond, Eyes on the Prize tells the story of the Black Freedom Struggle through news footage, interviews, still photographs, music, and a carefully crafted narrative. According to Elizabeth Hadley, Hampton wanted to “give voice to the voiceless.” He wanted to center the story on the participants; moving beyond the headlines, the retrospective looks at the movement. “Henry Hampton didn’t want Eyes on the Prize to rehash the civil rights movement many Americans thought they knew. He wanted to tell a broader, bolder, messier story” (“Making Eyes on the Prize: Telling the Story,” n.d.). The first six episodes, airing in 1987 and garnering forty million viewers, covers the southern civil rights movement. Starting in 1954 (“Awakenings”), the first episode covers Brown v. Board of Education, the murder of Emmitt Till, and the Montgomery Bus boycott. It focuses on everyday resistance and the development of organizations, leaders, and structures orchestrating change in the face of White supremacist terror. The episodes that follow—“Fighting Back”; “Ain’t Scared of Your Jails”; “No Easy Walk”: “Mississippi: Is This America?”; and “Bridge to Freedom”—move in chronical order, highlighting various movements (Little Rock Freedom Rides, the Albany Movement, Freedom Summer, and Selma) and participants (James Meredith, Diane Nash, John Lewis, Fred Shuttlesworth, and Bob Moses) as they organized against Jim Crow segregation, voter disenfranchisement, and White supremacist violence. In 1990, eight more episodes were aired as Eyes on the Prize II. These episodes replicated the format and style of the first installment, focusing on the post-1965 period of the movement. These episodes—“The Time Has Come”; “Two Societies”; “Power!” “The Promised Land”; “Ain’t Gonna Shuffle No More”; “A Nation of Law”; “The Keys to the Kingdom”; and “Back to the Movement”—explore Black Power, Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam, the Black Panther Party, urban uprisings, the poor people’s campaign, the antiwar movement, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the FBI and repression, busing, affirmative action, and the rise of black mayors and struggle for political power. Eyes on the Prize spotlights the violence of the Jim Crow South and the widespread resistance all while avoiding value judgments and an overly condemning narrative. “Henry Hampton was determined that he was going to make this television series accessible to ordinary Americans of all political persuasions, of all colors, of all ages, of all classes,” noted Jon Else (2017), a series producer and cinematographer for Eyes on the Prize. “And so he was very, very gun shy about alienating any of his potential audience, and he felt—and I think he was right that the minute a narrator in this film began to describe segregationists as white supremacists—that would be a channel changer for a lot of the people that Henry wanted to reach.” Celebrated for its depth and breadth, and for its focus on resistance, organizing, and protest in the face of American racism, many critics praised the film for its centering of everyday participants in the movement. Highlighting their contributions and their voices, Eyes on the Prize reveals the movement as more than



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speeches, mass demonstrations, and leaders, but of unknown activists and organizers who changed history. In “Landmark Civil Rights Documentary ‘Eyes on the Prize’ Returns to TV,” Meredith Clark writes, “Instead of relying on journalists, historians and other analysts to interpret the movement, ‘Eyes the Prize’ featured only people who’d taken part in the events being recounted—the men and women who’d marched, sat in at lunch counters and registered voters across the South, as well as those who’d stridently opposed them.” Winning two Emmy Awards, a Peabody and Alfred I. du Pont–Columbia University award, the Eyes on the Prize series was critically celebrated. Released on DVD in 2006, re-aired in 2006 on PBS and in 2016 on the World Channel, widely available online, and regularly screened in classrooms, Eyes on the Prize continues to shape the memory of the Civil Rights Movement. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Blake, Meredith. 2016. “Landmark Civil Rights Documentary ‘Eyes on the Prize’ Returns to TV.” Los Angeles Times, January 17. ­https://​­w ww​.­latimes​.­com​/­entertainment​/­t v​ /­showtracker​/­la​-­et​-­st​-­eyes​-­on​-­the​-­prize​-­civil​-­r ights​-­documentary​-­20160115​-­story​ .­html. DeMarco, David. 1987. “Keep Your Eyes on Henry Hampton, Creator Readies Eyes on the Prize.” Black Film Review 3 (3) (Summer): 14–15. Else, Jon. 2017. True South: Henry Hampton and Eyes on the Prize, the Landmark Television Series That Reframed the Civil Rights Movement. New York: Penguin. Hadley, Elizabeth Amelia. 1999. “Eyes on the Prize: Reclaiming Black Images, Culture, and History.” In Struggles for Representation: African American Documentary Film and Video, edited by Phyllis Rauch Klotman and Janet K. Cutler, 99–121. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. “Making Eyes on the Prize: Telling the Story.” n.d. ­https://​­w ww​.­fordfoundation​.­org​/­ideas​ /­ford​-­forum ​/­making​-­eyes​-­on​-­the​-­prize​-­an​-­oral​-­history​/­making​-­eyes​-­on​-­the​-­prize​ -­telling​-­the​-­story​/. Singh, Lakshmi. 2017. “‘Eyes on the Prize’ Producer on Making a Civil Rights Documentary before Its Time.” NPR, March 12. ­https://​­w ww​.­npr​.­org​/­2017​/­03​/­12​/­519925253​ /­eyes​-­on​-­t he​-­prize​-­producer​-­on​-­making​-­a​-­civil​-­r ights​-­documentary​-­before​-­its​ -­time.

F Fame (1982–1987) Set in a fictional version of New York City’s noted high school for the performing arts, Fame incorporates music, dance, and a distinctly 1980s sensibility into the coming-of-age stories typical of television series set in high schools. Fame featured a multiracial cast of teens taught by a diverse group of teachers. Given the franchise’s basis in the performing arts, Fame featured a wide range of cultural productions articulated through music, dance, costumes, and performance. While praising it for its diversity, critics also questioned the show’s reliance on racial stereotypes: privileged white students (often cast as ballet dancers), black students from disproportionately disadvantaged backgrounds, white ethnic students occupying a space in between those two groups, and characters coded as racially ambiguous, who frequently serve as examples of the instability of racial categories. Even the show’s lead characters replicated long-standing racial stereotypes: Debbie Allen as Lydia Grant, the demanding and sometimes angry dance teacher, and Gene Anthony Ray as Leroy, the streetwise Black boy with raw talent but lacking in refinement and discipline. Although less direct in its engagement with challenging racial and cultural problems than the film that preceded the series, the television version of Fame dedicated a number of episodes to the exploration of racial politics. The hour-long dramatic series produced by MGM Television used a variation of a standard dramatic plot structure: a primary story supplemented by a smaller secondary story, modified by the addition of several song-and-dance numbers, many of which advanced the episode’s plot, but several of which served as diversions from the plot. Featured prominently in the cast were the aforementioned Ray and Allen, both of whom appeared in the earlier film in the same roles they play in the television show. The series featured several of Allen’s choreographic work based in contemporary jazz dance and African-inflected modern dance techniques. The series also served as a professional springboard for several notable performers of color, including singers Erica Gimpel, Nia Peeples, and Janet Jackson. Few series on television at the time displayed the kind of creative work featured in Fame. The then-current continued popularity of programs like Soul Train (1971–2006) revealed that audiences desired skilled artistic performance, but Fame represented a rare attempt at placing those performances into a series of narrative episodes, several of which dealt explicitly with racial identity and conflict. For example, in season six, the fourth episode, “Judgment Day,” tackles affirmative action and its supposed perpetuation of reverse racism. Leroy, a teacher as of

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the sixth season, is accused of racial bias when he selects a black student for a role in an upcoming production. Susan, a guest character played by Lycia Naff, argues that she was overlooked for the role because she is white, thereby insinuating that Debby (Michelle Whitney-Morrison), the chosen student, lacked the necessary skill to perform the role and was chosen solely because of her blackness. Why, exactly, does Susan assume without any clear basis that she herself is right for a role and the other student wrong for the role? By exploring this question, the episode begins to address the complexities of race in hiring both in the general sense and in the ways in which it relates to casting roles in the performing arts, a subset of the issue that, outside of this episode of Fame, was receiving very little attention on television. An earlier episode demonstrates a different approach to dealing with racial issues. During season five, “A River to Cross” asks what to do about canonical works of literature featuring racist content. In this episode, the school was planning a production of Huckleberry Finn, a work now banned from many schools because of its racist depiction of Jim, a slave character. Because Fame was produced while the controversy over Mark Twain’s work was relatively fresh, the episode focuses on the strategies used by students and school officials to deal with conflict over the play, rather than on the question of whether or not the production should take place. Bobby (Kenny Ransom) is the first student to complain about the script, ultimately leading a group of students in protest. Leroy, also in the play, continues his involvement, but works with a teacher who revises the play to minimize its troubling content. This effort backfires, leading to further protest; this time with Leroy joining the demonstrations. Later series followed in Fame’s footsteps by featuring cast members who sang and danced their way through each episode’s story lines. A short-lived spin-off, Fame LA (1997–1998), featured a predominantly White cast. Glee (2009–2015) featured a few prominent cast members of color and occasional plot lines about racial conflict. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (2015–2019) focuses on an interracial rela­ tionship involving characters who flout stereotypes about Asian American masculinity. Lee Daniels’s Star (2016–2019), an adjunct to his hit series Empire, features a predominantly Black cast connected to the music industry. Each of these series builds on the race work hinted at in Fame. While some commentators have questioned Fame’s approach to addressing racial issues, given its reliance on stereotypes, others have celebrated the show for its groundbreaking efforts. Its use of music and choreography and its embrace of a decidedly multiracial cast of characters to tell stories about a group of diverse young people reflects its significance in the history of television. Aaron Gurlly Further Reading

Dodds, Sherril. 2001. Dance on Screen: Genres and Media from Hollywood to Experimental Art. New York: Springer. Hoey, Michael. 2010. Inside Fame on Television: A Behind-the-Scenes History. Jefferson, NC. McFarland & Company. McRobbie, Angela. 1991. “Dance Narratives and Fantasies of Achievement.” In Feminism and Youth Culture, 189–219. London: Macmillan Education.



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Family Matters(1989–1998) Through nine seasons, Family Matters told the story of a middle-class African American family living in suburban Chicago. Beginning in 1989, Family Matters became a staple to ABC’s Friday night lineup, also known as T.G.I.F. (Thank Goodness It’s Friday). Family Matters followed the long-standing comedic formula of sitcoms, centering each episode on a family crisis, challenge, or dilemma that would be resolved by the end of each episode with a moral lesson. Yet, because of the limited representations of African Americans on television, especially middle-class families, its presence in popular culture would be significant and unlike its prime-time counterparts. Family Matters was a spin-off creation based on the character of Harriette Winslow (Jo-Marie Payton), who appeared on Perfect Strangers (1986–1993). Harriette Winslow, married to a Chicago police officer, was a mother of three children, a supportive sister and aunt, and a surrogate mother to their pesky neighbor Steve Urkel (Jaleel White). Harriette’s character on Perfect Strangers as an elevator operator set the foundation for another family values television series with a focus on African Americans in Chicago. Along with Harriette, family values and life lessons were guided by Carl Winslow (Reginald VelJohnson), whose character as a police officer in Chicago was, according to many critics, an impor­ tant representation of a good cop, critical given the visibility of and protest surrounding police brutality. Much of the show focused on Carl and Harriette, a working mother, helping their children navigate the trials and tribulations of childhood: Eddie (Darius McCrary) was the oldest and could be characterized as not so bright; Laura (Kellie Shanygne Williams), the middle child, was very intelligent and confident; and the youngest was Judy (Jaimee Foxworth), a sweet and helpful child, who would be written out of the show in 1993. The rest of the cast included Harriette’s sister, Rachel (Telma Hopkins), who had recently become a widow and single mother to her son Richie (Bryton James). She was welcomed into the Winslow household as she adjusted to her new life. Rachel faded as the show went on, while Richie remained primary throughout the series. Estelle Winslow, also known as Mama Winslow (Rosetta LeNoire), moved in with the Winslows, until she remarried and moved out, but remained a major character in the series. Steve Urkel was the major character that put a specific uniqueness on Family Matters and was an essential part of the story lines throughout the series, Steve Urkel Matters, Not the Family The most infamous character of the show Family Matters was Steve Urkel, played by Jaleel White. Required as a main role after the ninth episode, the rest of the cast begrudgingly okayed the refocus of the series. After years on air, the lack of acknowledgment concerned the cast. The show’s focus on Steve surrounded the desire to have audiences laugh at him, from his squeaky voice to the way he was picked on. Despite Steve’s brilliance, his character was mostly a joke, assisting in the loss of respect for the series. Known as “The Urkel Show,” it was clear that the family did not matter.

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especially as he became a focal point in the final seasons. He was the clumsy, annoying, genius next-door neighbor who never knocked before entering the Winslow household. While immensely popular, his antics, especially given the larger history of African Americans on television, prompted widespread criticism that his character reinforced long-standing stereotypes. Initially reticent about race and racism, Family Matters began to tackle these issues during its second season. Reflecting its desire to reach White audiences while producing a “positive” representation of African American families, Family Matters avoided much depth with race, limiting it to passing references and single episodes. A few episodes stand out as focused on racial issues, but episode fifteen of season five, “Good Cop, Bad Cop” (1994) was very important because it brought to life the problem of racial profiling. After failing to properly use his turn signal, Eddie is pulled over by two white Chicago police officers. Forced to lay face down in handcuffs, the indignities and violence of racism are fully visible in a show that normally focused on universal themes. Despite living in suburban Chicago, being the son of a police officer, and doing “everything right,” he too experiences the realities of what it means to be Black in America. Arriving home, Eddie is shaken, confused, and angry. As he shares the horrors of the incident, his father questioned his truthfulness. Previously, Eddie had hidden a speeding ticket, leading him to question his recounting of the incident. Worse yet, Carl was putting the code of being a police officer first. Eddie and his father would go back and forth, arguing about what “really happened.” The argument ends when Eddie with heavy disappointment tells his father: “You know what, I thought what I went through tonight was the worst thing that has happened to me, but I was wrong, not having my own father believe me is even worse.” Symbolic of the generational divides and the varied views about racism, the argument offered a window into larger social forces. Frustrated by the outcome, Carl investigates what happened, visiting the officers at a diner. Asking about their encounter, Carl only informs them of Eddie being his son after confirmation of the frivolous stop, from the racially biased senior officer, who acknowledged that Eddie was deemed suspicious because he was a black youth in a suburban predominately white neighborhood. “The point is that you two harassed my son because he was black,” Carl challenged the officers. It concludes with his apologizing to Eddie, informing him that they would report it the next day. This episode brings to life the issue of racial profiling, allowing viewers to experience it with a television family many Americans appreciated. It also showed the added difficulties of parenting African American children. Another episode with important issues surrounding race was “Fight the Good Fight” in season two. Laura becomes interested in Black History Month at her school and recognizes that her school would benefit from a class on Black History. With support from teachers, her family, and Steve, she asks for signatures on a petition to have the course formed. She obtains a good amount of support but also opposition. After finding an angry note in her locker, she closes it to find a racial slur spray painted on the door as well. Laura wants to give up, and despite both her father and mother supporting her and encouraging her to continue, she feels



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responsible for the racial divide at school. After Mama Winslow tells the story of obtaining her first library card, with particular emphasis on being denied library access time and time again because of her race, Laura continues her fight. After her Black History picture display in the cafeteria, the students show interest and the course is accepted. This episode allowed the audience to see the struggle of an African American high school student with a desire for education about people who look like her. It also showcased the generational divide between Laura and parents and grandmother over racial issues. Despite criticism for its tepid approach to race, its embrace of universal themes and conventional narratives, and its replication of clownish stereotypes, Family Matters altered the representation of African Americans on television. From its efforts to tell the story of a suburban black middle-class family, to the depth and humanity afforded Laura and Eddie, Family Matters offered something different from a televisual landscape dominated by The Cosby Show (1984–1992) and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990–1996) as one on the spectrum of shows that focused on the experiences of urban black America. LaToya Brackett Further Reading

Cristi, Andrew. 2016. “Family Still Matters: Reginald VelJohnson Talks about Playing Everyones Favorite Good Cop, and Why Family Matters is ‘Necessary.’” Huffington Post, June 8. ­http://​­www​.­huffingtonpost​.­com​/­andrew​-­cristi​/­family​-­still​ -­matters​-­regi​_b​_10335150​.­html. Eglash, Ron. 2002. “Race, Sex, and Nerds: From Black Geeks to Asian American Hipsters.” Project Muse, 49–64. ­https://​­muse​.­jhu​.­edu​/­article​/­31927​/­pdf. Luers, Erik. 2013. “‘Family Matters’ of Identity: Addressing Race on a Mainstream Level.” Indie Wire, March 4. ­http://​­w ww​.­indiewire​.­com​/­2013​/­03​/­family​-­matters​ -­of​-­identity​-­addressing​-­race​-­on​-­a​-­mainstream​-­level​-­137817​/. TV Series Finale. 2010. “Family Matters: Why Did JoMarie Payton Leave the TV Show? [Interview, Part One].” TV Series Finale, July 27. ­http://​­tvseriesfinale​.­com​/­t v​ -­show​/­family​-­matters​-­jo​-­marie​-­payton​-­16891​/.

Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids(1972–1984) First airing in 1972, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (1972–1984) was created, produced, voiced, hosted, and inspired by the childhood experiences of actor and comedian Bill Cosby. A Saturday morning show, it brought to life a character named Albert, who originally appeared on Cosby’s 1967 Revenge comedy album. Known for its inclusion of “Hey Hey Hey” and its catchphrase of a show of “music and fun, where if you aren’t careful you might learn something,” Fat Albert reimagined what children’s television could look like. Following the adventures, which almost always ended with a moral lesson, of Albert (voiced by Bill Cosby) and his friends, known as the Junkyard gang, Fat Albert told the story of a group North Philadelphia black youth. The group included several different characters: James “Mushmouth” Mush (voiced by Bill Cosby), whose speech impediment did not prevent his friends from either understanding

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or embracing him; “Dumb” Donald Parker (voiced by Lou Scheimer), whose questionable intelligence was embraced by the group; William “Bill” Cosby (voiced by Bill Cosby); Russell Cosby (voiced by Jan Crawford); Weird Harold Simmons (voiced by Gerald Edwards); Rudy Davis (voiced by Eric Suter); and Bucky Miller (voiced by Jan Crawford). Together, the group embodied the heterogeneity of masculinity, of Black masculinity, something rarely presented on television. The show, from the instruments they played in their band to their different levels of athleticism, bravado, and intellect, highlighted the diversity of experiences and identities within not only this group but also the broader Black community. Fat Albert challenged the landscape of television, which had long been defined by racist caricatures that included dehumanizing representations of black children as pickaninnies and sambos in shows like Our Gang (1922–1944) or Little Rascals (1952–) and otherwise racist portrayals in cartoons such as Tom and Jerry (1940– 1952), Popeye (1960–1962), and Looney Tunes (1930–1969). Reflecting the demands of the Black Power Movement, which sought television images that were empowering and humanizing, Fat Albert emerged as part of an array of children’s programming and animated representations of Black kids that together represented an important change. In a moment when grotesque stereotypes were less and less common albeit still part of the culture, Fat Albert added diversity to an animated world that rarely offered positive representation of African Americans or other people of color. Fat Albert appeared alongside shows such as The Jackson 5 (1971–1972), a fictionalized animated cartoon of the group’s career, and Harlem Globetrotters (1970–1972), which brought the famed all-Black basketball team and its most notable players into homes each and every Saturday as viewers followed them on their adventures. These shows, along with the presence of Valerie Brown, from Josie and the Pussycats, “the first positive Black female character in a Saturday morning animated cartoon series” (Hamblin 2018a), and Verb, from Schoolhouse Rock, whom Hamblin (2018b) describes as “the first Black male superhero character to appear in a cartoon series,” were a source of pride and joy for many African American children. According to Pamela Thomas, curator and founder of the online Museum of UnCut Funk, Fat Albert altered television and transformed children such as herself. “I was born in the ’60s, so I was growing up in the ’70s and I remember all of these cartoons—not all of them—but this is the first time that all of these positive animated images were on TV” (qtd. in Brown 2013). She further notes its impor­ tance as a challenge to the daily deluge of racist images directed at black children. “It wasn’t until the early 1970’s that Saturday Morning television cartoons started to feature image affirming Black characters with a modern look and positive story lines that delivered culturally relevant messages” (qtd. in Steinhauer 2013). The significance of Fat Albert extends beyond its positive representations and its representation of the black community within children’s animated programing. It can be seen in its willingness to tackle important issues ranging from racism to gun violence, from STDs to child abuse, from divorce to cheating in school, and from theft to bullying. Universal in its moral lessons, Fat Albert was clear in its orientation toward giving voice to the experiences, challenges, and joys of black



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boys, especially those often mocked and teased inside and outside of popular culture. According to Cosby, Fat Albert came out because of his desire to disrupt the ease to which overweight people were mocked and otherwise rendered as jokes unworthy of celebration and admiration. Fat Albert “was invented by me because in those days, the ’60s, a fat person was stereotyped to be someone always giggling, laughing, and lacking in any kind of strength enough to take charge” (qtd. in Hamblin 2012). Not satisfied with simply telling the story of an overweight Black teen, Fat Albert made him into an intelligent, kind, athletic, and conscientious hero; he is the leader of the group and someone they (along with the viewers should follow). “In the first show we did, the boys talked about him badly, but they needed him to play football because he ran over everybody—he was a great athlete” (qtd. in Hamblin 2012). He was not the only character who highlighted otherness, whereupon kids needed to move past their prejudice to fulfill their potential. “We also had a fellow [Mushmouth], and we showed how having a speech impediment, too, a kid with a problem,” noted Cosby. “Within their own fellows who could understand them, they all felt good with and around each other” (qtd. in Hamblin 2012). Receiving an Emmy nomination in 1974 and widespread praise for its educational lessons, Fat Albert gave voice to the experiences of children often ignored and mocked on and off television: Black kids, overweight kids, those living in the inner city, and those with disabilities. It is no wonder that critics celebrate the show as one that gave hope and inspired positive self-esteem among communities that rarely saw themselves on television. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Brown, Tanya Ballard. 2013. “Hey Hey Hey! Historian Draws Attention to ’70s Black Animation Art.” NPR: Code Switch, December 24. ­https://​­w ww​.­npr​.­org​/­sections​ /­codeswitch​/­2013​/­12​/­24​/­256555149​/ ­hey​-­hey​-­hey​-­historian​-­d raws​-­attention​-­to​-­70s​ -­black​-­animation​-­art. Hamblin, James. 2012. “The Origin of Fat Albert: How Bill Cosby Did Obesity Right.” The Atlantic, September 27. ­https://​­w ww​.­theatlantic​.­com​/ ­health​/­archive​/­2012​/­09​ /­the​-­origin​-­of​-­fat​-­albert​-­how​-­bill​-­cosby​-­did​-­obesity​-­right​/­262817​/. Hamblin, James. 2018a. “Josie and the Pussycats Cartoon—Valerie Brown—Animated Trailblazing Sista.” Museum of UnCut Funk. ­ http://​­ museumofuncutfunk​ .­ com​ /­2009​/­09​/­06​/­josie​-­and​-­the​-­pussy​-­cats​/. Hamblin, James. 2018b. “Schoolhouse Rock!—Verb! That’s What’s Happenin’ Cartoon.” Museum of UnCut Funk. ­http://​­museumofuncutfunk​.­com​/­2009​/­07​/­24​/­schoolhouse​ -­rock​/. Steinhauer, Jillian. 2013. “Online Museum Celebrates Pioneering Black Animation.” Hyperallergic, December 26. ­https://​­hyperallergic​.­com​/­100308​/­online​-­museum​ -­celebrates​-­pioneering​-­black​-­animation ​/.

Flip Wilson Show, The(1970–1974) The Flip Wilson Show was an hour-long variety show that aired on NBC for four seasons (ninety-four episodes) from 1970 to 1974. The show was hosted by comedian Flip Wilson and was one of the first variety shows to showcase a Black star

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and the first to achieve a high degree of success with a White audience. The show used skit performances and a circular audience seating format (“theater-in-theround”) that was groundbreaking for television. This seating format is believed to provide greater intimacy between performers and audience members and to require fewer onstage props during performances. The show featured a wide array of performers, both black and white, and included established and well-known stars as well as newer hopefuls. The Flip Wilson Show aired during a time of variety show popularity in the United States. Other shows in this category included Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In (NBC, 1967–1973), The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (CBS, 1967–1970), The Carol Burnett Show (CBS, 1967–1978), The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour (CBS, 1971–1974), and The Donnie and Marie Show (ABC, 1976–1979). According to Mark R. McDermott, for NBC “the show was a landmark in the network’s fitful history of integrating its prime-time lineup. Nat King Cole had been the first African American to host a variety show” (1997). However, airing in the midst of the era of segregation in the United States, the show didn’t attract sponsors, lasting only one season. The Sammy Davis, Jr. Show (NBC, 1966) also had a one-year run despite appearing a decade later. McDermott states, “NBC found greater success with Bill Cosby in I Spy (1965–1968) and Diahann Carroll as Julia (1968–1971).” The success of these shows provided an opening for Flip Wilson, who had appeared on Laugh-In, The Carol Burnett Show, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (NBC, 1962–1992), and The Ed Sullivan Show (CBS, 1948–1971) prior to receiving his own show. Meghan Sutherland, author of the book The Flip Wilson Show, points out that “multiracial ensemble shows that advocated an ethos of racial equality, such as The Mod Squad (ABC, 1968–1973) and Room 222 (ABC, 1967–1974), also had registered in the popular conscience.” These shows, however, never achieved the level of success enjoyed by The Flip Wilson Show both in terms of ratings and in garnering a cross-racial audience on a national scale. During its first two years, The Flip Wilson Show held the second spot in the Nielson Ratings, meaning that it was the second most watched television show in the United States. In 1971, it won two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Variety Series and Outstanding Writing Achievement in Variety. Wilson also won a Golden Globe Award for the show in 1971. In 1972, TIME magazine featured Wilson on its cover and named him, “TV’s First Black Superstar.” Wilson was known to perform several popular characters on his show, including Geraldine Jones, the Reverend Leroy, Freddy the Playboy, Herbie the ice cream man, and Sonny the White House janitor. The most popular of these characters was Geraldine, which Wilson performed wearing women’s clothing and speaking in a high-pitched voice. Wilson portrayed Geraldine as a modern and outspoken Black woman and has said that he did not want the character to be negative in its depiction of women or black women, in particular. Regarding Geraldine, Wilson remarked, “She may not project the image of a refined, sophisticated lady, but she’s honest, she’s frank, she’s affectionate. . . . Geraldine is liberated, that’s where that’s at” (Lloyd 2013). The character of Geraldine also



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popularized the catchphrases, “The Devil made me do it!” and “What you see is what you get, honey!” While Geraldine was mostly well-received by American viewers, the character did not escape criticism. As cultural critic at Indie Wire, Sergio (2012) states “I strongly detest seeing black men in drag. It’s nothing more than the symbolic castration and neutering of black men to make them ‘safe’ and ‘non-threatening’” Likewise, writer Kristen Bialik (2012) notes, “Some argued that Wilson’s characters played into black stereotypes too much, others argued that Wilson was satirizing stereotypes themselves. Arguably, they were both.” Wilson’s success, in fact, has been attributed to his “unique star persona,” and his aspirations for broadcast television success occurred “in a nation that remained deeply divided on the subject of race and largely segregated despite the Supreme Court’s 1964 civil rights legislation to the contrary” (Sutherland 2008). Reflecting on his own success in the 1970s, Wilson commented that it resulted from three factors: “First, I’m a friend. The audience likes me. The second thing is they like my characters. The third thing is I talk to an audience honestly” (Bialik 2012). The Flip Wilson Show was a huge success in an American television era that demanded mass appeal. Sutherland (2008) attributes the show’s success to an “aesthetic of ambivalence,” which she defines as “any strategy that the show employs to inscribe a full range of conflicting viewing positions, interpretive possibilities, political sensibilities, and audience demographics.” It is argued that this ambivalence allowed the show to achieve success within the nation’s polarized racial landscape. The show could speak to diverse audiences and has been called “smart and multi-faceted,” like Wilson himself (Bialik 2012). Mary K. Bloodsworth-Lugo Further Reading

Bialik, Kristen. 2012. “What You See Is What You Make It: The Flip Wilson Show and Ambivalence.” Network Awesome, October 4. ­http://​­networkawesome​.­com​/­mag​ /­article​/­what​-­you​-­see​-­is​-­what​-­you​-­make​-­it​-­the​-­flip​-­wilson​-­show​-­and​-­ambivalence​/. Chandler, D. L. 2015. “Little Known Black History Fact: The Flip Wilson Show.” Black­ AmericaWeb, September 17. ­https://​­blackamericaweb​.­com​/­2015​/­09​/­17​/­little​ -­k nown​-­black​-­history​-­fact​-­the​-­flip​-­wilson​-­show​/­2​/. Cook, Kevin. 2013. Flip: The Inside Story of TV’s First Black Superstar. New York: Viking. Foran, Chris. 2013. “Flip Wilson: What You Saw Wasn’t All You Got.” Journal Sentinel, April 17. ­http://​­archive​.­jsonline​.­com​/­entertainment​/ ­books​/­flip​-­wilson​-­what​-­you​ -­saw​-­wasnt​-­all​-­you​-­got​-­mo9h3cq​-­203411711​.­html. Johnson, Steve. 1997. “‘The Flip Wilson Show’: ‘We Think You’re Gonna . . .’” Chicago Tribune, August 18. ­http://​­articles​.­chicagotribune​.­com​/­1997​- ­08​-­18​/­features​ /­9708180132​_1​_tv​-­land​-­nite​-­big​-­bird. Lloyd, Robert. 2013. “Flip Wilson: The Persistence of Geraldine Jones.” Los Angeles Times, May 5. ­http://​­www​.­latimes​.­com​/­entertainment​/­t v​/­showtracker​/­la​-­et​-­st​-­flip​ -­wilson​-­geraldine​-­jones​-­20130504 ​-­story​.­html. McDermott, Mark R. 1997. “The Flip Wilson Show.” The Encyclopedia of Television, edited by Horace Newcomb. Chicago, IL: Fitzroy Dearborn (Museum of Broadcast Communications).

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Sergio. 2012. “Charles Barkley’s New TV Ad—Is This Really Necessary?” IndieWire, April  3. ­http://​­w ww​.­i ndiewire​.­com ​/­2012​/­0 4​/­charles​-­barkleys​-­new​-­t v​-­a d​-­is​-­t his​ -­really​-­necessary​-­146758​/. Sutherland, Meghan. 2008. The Flip Wilson Show. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press.

Food Network Food Network, founded in 1993, became the first and only channel completely dedicated to food and entertainment. Since 1993, however, Food Network has evolved beyond a simple television channel into a “unique lifestyle network, magazine, and website that connects viewers to the power and joy of food.” Although the network began modestly, with a “small cable presence” of 11 million viewers in early 1995, current projections have the Food Network reaching 100 million households (via television) in the United States, 9.9 million unique users on the web, and international programming in over 150 countries (Adema 2000; “About Food ­ Network​ .­ com” 2017). These projections highlight the long arm of this food-based enterprise, as well as the public desire to consume food-related programming in various forms—television, internet, and print. The long arm of the Food Network, however, brings more than just food programming into households in the United States and abroad; it also brings its values and attitudes, including those linked to race in the form of show hosts, contestants, cuisine, and more. As a television channel, the Food Network is designed around four central categories of food programming: traditional domestic instructional cooking, personality-driven domestic cooking shows, food travel programs, and the avant-garde. The latter is a new genre of food programming that the network has acquired as well as created. It relates to the unique programming offered by the network in terms of surreal settings, camera angles, and strange costumes. Through the various forms, the Food Network seeks to satisfy the public desire for the consumption of food, as well as food-related programming. In the article “Various Consumption,” author Pauline Adema writes that people “want to be entertained in the comfort of own home, we crave a home-cooked meal but don’t want to cook it” (118), the Food Network allows its viewers to do just that. More than a myriad of programming, the Food Network’s website says that the aim of the organization is to “convey the rich and varied fabric of American society by reflecting a multiplicity of backgrounds, experiences and living situations”; all of which are tied to race. The network’s diversity and core value statement says that they recognize the varied backgrounds of their viewers, and they “strive for an employee base that’s equally diverse—behind the scenes as well as in front of the camera” (“Food Network Diversity/Core Values”). Diversity in America in general, and within the context of broadcast television and food in particular, is often tied to categories such as race. Mark Meister, in “Cultural Feeding,” writes that food is so much more than “explicit nutritional and biological sustenance; food represents a complex and implied process of cultural sustenance” (2001, 165) as well. As such, a network dedicated to food should not only embrace but also highlight cultural (including racial) complexities.



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The Food Network’s diversity and core values statement continues by affirming that they ensure equal employment opportunities with respect to discrimination on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, or other bases that would violate federal, state, or local law (The Food Network). How well the network actually carries out such policies in terms of programming (read: hosts, co-hosts, and participants) in particular remains a matter of contention. Despite the popularity of the Food Network, questions abound in terms of their actual commitment to issues of diversity, specifically in terms of race on a number of media platforms—including social media. With respect to general demographics, the majority of the Food Network’s audience is female (58 percent as of 2016), while 54 percent of viewers range in age from eighteen to forty-nine years old. Approximately five million viewers who watch the network’s programming on television will subsequently visit the official website at least once over the course of the month as well. When it comes to racial demographics on viewership however, information is sparse, which leads many to question the organization’s commitment to overall issues of diversity and racial diversity in particular. The official website of the Food Network greets viewers with the bold red and white logo as well as a popular recipe—usually related to the season or month (e.g., Thanksgiving). From the homepage, readers can gain information about the shows, chefs, and restaurants, as well as previous episodes—and gain visual representation of the network’s commitment to diversity. The chefs and hosts vary with respect to race as well as gender, though a glance through the A to Z chef’s list highlights very real demographic discrepancies as the majority of the hosts (especially those with photos) are white. There are, of course, exceptions, such as guest stars and hosts including Ayesha Curry (wife of basketball player Stephen Curry) and Eddie Jackson (season eleven winner of Food Network Star and former NFL player). The Food Network lauds its commitment to diversity on its website; however, that is hard to believe when one considers the lack of shows focused on non-Western dishes, as well as the lack of nonwhite chefs, a fact highlighted by Jason Kim in his article “The Secret of Sexism and Racism of Food TV.”

RACIAL DIVERSITY AND THE FOOD NETWORK When it comes to racial diversity on broadcast television, arguments have been made that there exists an unspoken (though well-known) adage that if shows or advertisements center on racial or ethnic minorities, the groups not featured will feel alienated. In order to avoid this process of alienation, shows are meant to show neutral (white) casts. Websites such as Thick Dumpling Skin—dedicated to bringing attention to issues faced by Asian Americans—highlight the ways in which networks such as Food Network actually alienate communities of color (in this case Asian Americans) by not producing shows hosted by people within their community. Editors at Thick Dumpling Skin, a website focused on Asian American racism, wrote that there isn’t one show on the Food Network that is hosted by an Asian individual (they do mention Iron Chef, but only to point out that that

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doesn’t count). They continue by asking, “Why must we watch non-Asian cooks who can’t pronounce ‘Sriracha’ and don’t have a chopstick drawer show us how to make our own dishes?” (qtd. in Moye 2017). Moreover, the editors of Thick Dumpling Skin note that when shows on the Food Network do highlight Asian cuisine, it is usually in an effort to mock, rather than showcase aspects of Asian culture. This particular critique made by the editors of Thick Dumpling Skin stemmed from a 2012 incident on the Food Network show Pioneer Woman hosted by Ree Drummond. In the episode “The Big Game,” she prepared a feast that included “classic Asian hot wings,” accompanied by Pico de Gallo, guacamole, and “knock-younaked-brownies” for dessert. During the episode, Drummond pulled the Asian hot wings from the oven, much to the chagrin of her guests, who wrinkled their noses in distaste. When the wings were out, one crewmember asked, “Where are they real wings?” while another remarked, “I don’t trust ’em,” referring to the Asian hot wings pulled from the oven. In response to the commentary of her guests, Drummond laughed and proceeded to pull out a tray of “American classic buffalo wings” much to her guest’s delight. “I’m just kidding guys, I wouldn’t do that to you,” she said, to which one of her guests responded, “Now those are some wings!” (Morabito 2017). The editors of Thick Dumpling Skin argue that this exchange is an example of anti-Asian sentiment that is prevalent in television programming in general, and food networks such as the Food Network in particular. Although this episode took place in 2012, it didn’t really gain mainstream critique until 2017 when the website Thick Dumpling Skin shared video footage of the Pioneer Woman episode via Facebook and Twitter. The ensuing controversy that followed the exposure of this episode highlighted the fact that having shows hosted by people of color and the showcasing of traditional ethnic cuisine is important to viewers of the Food Network. Some critics have also argued that the Food Network has a complex history with shows hosted by Black hosts. The new editor of the Atlanta-based alternative weekly newspaper Creative Loafing, Carlton Hargo, wrote about Black hosts of televised food programming at a time when the Food Network had three shows with black hosts. The shows—Big Daddy’s House hosted by season four winner of Food Network Star, Aaron McCargo Jr.; Down Home with the Neely’s, hosted by wife and husband duo Gina and Pat Neely; and Cooking for Real, hosted by television personality Sunny Anderson —argues Hargo, lacked the staying power and visibility of other Food Network shows such as Giada De Laurentiis Everyday Italian and Sandra Lee’s Semi-Homemade —hosted by White women. Hargo contends that, unlike the other shows on the Food Network, those with Black hosts lacked focus, star power, and the overall personalities of the hosts themselves. The three Black-hosted shows mentioned above stopped filming in 2011, 2012, and 2011, respectively, while shows such as the Pioneer Woman (even following racially charged incidents) continue on the network. The Food Network’s history of shows hosted by hosts of color, as noted by bloggers, editors, and viewers, is one that is lacking and not on par with the organization’s claim of a commitment to diversity.



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RACE AND THE “QUEEN OF SOUTHERN CUISINE” The complexities of race in general, and racial bias in particular, cannot be divorced from programming of the first network dedicated to food and entertainment. From the lack of shows hosted by hosts of color, to incidents such as the episode of “The Big Game” on Pioneer Woman, race has constantly been put on display. One of the most infamous incidences of race and the Food Network may have actually overshadowed the controversy surrounding Ree Drummond—charges of racial bias and harassment by the “Queen of Southern Cuisine” herself Paula Deen. One of the biggest names in southern cooking, Paula Deen was one of the most visible Food Network stars with respect to television, magazines, websites, and cookbooks. Although Deen is no longer a part of the network, her recipes remain available on the official website. Raised in Albany, Georgia, Paula Deen owns a number of restaurants, has written a multitude of cookbooks, and has starred in numerous television shows, podcasts, and more. Between 2012 and 2013 (around the same time as the “Asian hot wing” episode of the Pioneer Woman), then Food Network star Paula Deen came under fire following a lawsuit filed against her and her brother, Bubba Hiers, for charges of racial and sexual harassment. Lisa Jackson, a former manager of two of Deen’s restaurants in Savannah, Georgia, alleged that both Deen and her brother committed acts of violence, racism, and discrimination that ultimately led to the end of Jackson’s five years of employment at Deen’s restaurants Lady & Son’s and Bubba’s Seafood and Oyster House. Jackson alleged that “racially biased attitudes prevailed throughout and pervaded the defendants’ restaurant operations,” and that African American employees were only permitted to utilize the rear entrances of the restaurants (Gast 2013). At the time of the lawsuit, Food Network featured three shows starring Paula Deen and responded to the allegations against her by stating that they would “monitor the situation” as it played out in court. During testimony, Deen admitted using racial epithets such as the N-word (though with little specificity as to the context in which it was said) but denied telling racialized jokes. In Deen’s defense, her legal team argued that the allegations were false and that anything that may have occurred must be understood in the context of the era and location in which Deen was raised: the 1960s in the south, a time of segregated schools, bathrooms, and restaurants. In her own defense, Deen stated that she couldn’t recall the exact contexts in which she used racial epithets. Furthermore, she insisted that “things have changed from the 60s in the south. And my children and brother object to that word being used in any cruel or mean behavior” (Duke 2013). Eventually, the judge ruled that there was no evidence that the alleged racially offensive comments were made toward Jackson herself. Furthermore, it was ruled that Jackson could not claim to be a victim of racial discrimination that targeted African American employees because she is White. Ultimately, the proceedings were dismissed “with prejudice,” to which Deen made the following statement in a video: “I want to learn and grow from this. . . . Inappropriate and hurtful language is totally, totally unacceptable. I’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way but I beg you, my children, my team, my fans, my partners—I beg for your forgiveness” (Gast 2013). Deen’s original testimony, defense by her legal team, and eventual apology all

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fall within the parameters of what was at the time the so-called post-racial American present wherein the use of blatant racial slurs was (supposedly) frowned upon, but viewed as a product of historical context rather than contemporary reality. Deen’s actions led many of her sponsors to reevaluate their relationship with her and her brand. It was also a primary reason for her release from the Food Network itself. Since 2015, however, Deen has started an online cooking network through her website (­pauladeen​.­com), and made a return to television via her appearance on shows such as Celebrity Family Feud. Paula Deen’s racial slur incident is one of the most visible instances of racial bigotry tied to the Food Network, and it is one that sparked a myriad of conversations about the corporation’s alleged commitment to antidiscrimination and claims of being a “strong proponent of diversity and inclusion.” Letisha Engracia Cardoso Brown Further Reading

“About Food ­Network​.­com​.” 2017. ­https://​­w ww​.­foodnetwork​.­com​/­site​/­about​-­foodnetwork​ -­com. Adema, Pauline. 2000. “Vicarious Consumption: Food, Television and the Ambiguity of Modernity.” Journal of American & Comparative Cultures 23 (3): 113–123. Duke, A. 2013. “Celeb Chef Paula Deen Admits Using ‘N word.’” CNN, July 3. ­http://​ ­w ww​.­cnn​.­com​/­2013​/­06​/­19​/­showbiz​/­paula​-­deen​-­racial​-­slur​/­index​.­html. “Food Network Diversity/Core Values.” ­https://​­w ww​.­foodnetwork​.­com​/­site​/­food​-­network​ -­diversity​-­core​-­values Gaille, B. 2016. “40 Captivating Food Network Demographics.” Brandon Gaille Marketing Expert & Blogmaster, March 7. ­https://​­brandongaille​.­com​/­40​-­captivating​-­food​ -­network​-­demographics​/. Gast, P. 2013. ‘Paula Deen lawsuit appears to be over; settlement a possibility’ ­CNN​.­com, August 23. ­http://​­www​.­cnn​.­com​/­2013​/­08​/­23​/­showbiz​/­paula​-­deen​-­lawsuit​/­index​.­html. Hargo, C. 2009. “Why Do the Black Shows on the Food Network Suck Ass?” Creative Loafing: Charlotte, March 29. ­https://​­clclt​.­com​/­eatmycharlotte​/­archives​/­2009​/­03​ /­29​/­why​-­do​-­the​-­black​-­shows​-­on​-­the​-­food​-­network​-­suck​-­ass. Ketchum, C. 2005. “The Essence of Cooking Shows: How the Food Network Constructs Consumer Fantasies.” Journal of Communication Inquiry 29 (3): 217–234. Kim, Jason. 2017. “The Secret Sexism and Racism of Food TV.” The Student Life, March 31. ­https://​­tsl​.­news​/­life​-­style6638​/. Meister, M. 2001. “Cultural Feeding, Good Life Science, and the TV Food Network.” Mass Communication and Society 4 (2): 165–182. Morabito, Greg. 2017. “Maybe Food Network Should Pull This Racist ‘Pioneer Woman’ Episode.” The Eater, March 7. ­https://​­w ww​.­eater​.­com​/­2017​/­3​/­7​/­14846788​/­pioneer​ -­woman​-­racist​-­asian​-­hot​-­wings. Moye, D. 2017. “‘Pioneer Woman’ under Fire for Racist Segment about Asian Wings.” Huffington Post, March 10. ­http://​­www​.­huffingtonpost​.­com​/­entry​/­ree​-­d rummond​ -­pioneer​-­woman​-­racist​-­wing ​_us​_58c33bd5e4b054a0ea6ace09.

FOX The Fox Network, launched in 1986 by Rupert Murdoch, ambitiously sought to challenge the traditional big three networks—NBC, CBS, and ABC. In attempting to do so, Fox used a similar strategy to that of Black Entertainment Television

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(BET). Through narrowcasting—intentionally targeting a specific Black viewership— Fox captured a critical mass of young, urban viewers. By 1993, Fox was airing the largest slate of Black-produced shows in television history. By 1995, Black viewers constituted a striking 25 percent of Fox’s market. In this respect, Fox was unique. With more resources and original content than BET, Fox fostered a space for Black representations created by Black professionals and intended for Black viewers. While it aired Married . . . with Children (1987–1997), 21 Jump Street (1987– 1990), America’s Most Wanted (1988–2011), Cops (1989–2013), Beverly Hills 90210 (1990–2000), and The Simpsons (1989–), all of which propelled the network forward, it was its Black-cast shows that centered on Black experience and Black viewers that turned Fox into a rival to the big three networks. By capitalizing on a historically underserved and underrepresented market, Fox tied its success directly to Black productions as young Black entertainers, such as Keenan Ivory Wayans, Charles Dutton, Martin Lawrence, and Sinbad. While Fox did manage to create a unique space in the 1990s for Black expression and representation, the moment was short-lived as Fox leveraged their early success in a bid toward more mainstream acceptance. Scholars note that the powers vested in creative forces like Wayans and Sinbad mattered in all manners of production, empowering them to hire writers, producers, and directors who shared their vision and perspective. Creative control matters. Throughout history, white network executives with White audiences in mind have diluted content dealing with race, all while perpetuating long-standing stereotypes and erasing diverse experiences. In 1990, Fox executives offered Keenan Ivory Wayans an opportunity to circumvent what traditionally burdened and confined programs in the past. Effectively, the network served up Wayans the opportunity of a weekly half-hour series to do “whatever he wanted” and In Living Color (1990–2006) was born. As a symbolic counter to Saturday Night Live, the comedy-sketch show quickly became known for its irreverence and bold engagement with race. Imbuing Wayans with such authority and allowing for such irreverence and potential controversy was a calculated decision by Fox. Intended to be a signifier to distinguish Fox from other networks, In Living Color served its function, providing a distinctly urban and unapologetically Black sketch show with an almost entirely nonwhite cast. Even the musical choices were intentionally courting a young urban audience. The famous “Fly Girls”—directed by Rosie Perez and highlighted by a young Jennifer Lopez danced to the beats before, after, and in between sketches. In-group references to Black life and culture abounded on In Living Color and a slew of other Fox shows that emerged in the 1990s such as Roc (1991–1994), Martin (1992–1997), Living Single (1993–1998), and South Central (1994). Historically, such references and content would leave producers running “into trouble” while working on proverbially White shows per Rob Edwards, writer and producer of A Different World (1987–1993): “like parents combing your hair. You can’t pitch a nap joke on Full House” (Zook 1999, 6). On Fox, particularly on In Living Color, “trouble” was standard content. Using a pastiche of irreverence, satire, and spectacle to engage issues of diversity and blackness, the show earned both praise and biting critiques. For some, the show was pathbreaking in its challenges

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to prevailing assumptions and representations of race in general and Black people in particular. The show’s transgressive use of race as a trope allowed it a good deal of crossover appeal. The ability to crossover to a multitude of audiences, while a source of celebration for the Fox network, was in other cases a point of consternation for the show’s critics. Critics argued that the show simply perpetuated troubling images of Black people and black culture for easy laughs, laughs that were not coming from Black viewers alone. Many of those laughs came at the expense of the Black working class, the poor, LGBTQ populations within the Black community—particularly Black gay men—as well as Black women. One scholar worried that at times the show positioned especially vulnerable and marginalized populations within the Black community, “as television objects of middle-class amusement and fascination” (Gray 1995, 144). Sketches like “The Homeboy Shopping Network” were case in point. The frequent sketch featured Damon and Keenan Wayans as street criminals selling stolen good out of the back of their van in a self-styled version of the Home Shopping Network. The “Men on . . .” sketch costarred Damon Wayans and David Alan Grier as two black gay men who provide commentary on film, literature, travel, art, and other topics. Intentionally dressed in delicate fabrics and bright colors, both men exaggerated stereotypes of gay men for laughs: “By way of taste, gesture, manner, and language they construct and perform effeminate sensibilities” (Gray 1995, 141). Most notably, both men gave their special approval for films with “two snaps up.” Finally, Damon Wayans as “Homey D. Clown” portrayed a verbally abusive clown performing humiliated jobs for low pay as part of his prison release program. Despite the show’s critics, In Living Color celebrated Black cultural practices in each episode through its use of music, media images, dance, language, dress, and clear engagement of urban youth culture. The show also launched a variety of careers in both television and film including but not limited to: Jamie Foxx, Tommy Davidson, David Alan Grier, Jim Carrey, Jennifer Lopez, and Damon, Kim, Shawn and Marlon Wayans. Although lasting only one season, The Sinbad Show (1993–1994) left a lasting impact on race-related programming for its consistent investigation of both color and class within Black communities. The show also managed to interrogate and balance concepts that are often at odds: to celebrate a shared Back experience while using both color and class to challenge the very notion of a singular, monolithic Black family or experience. Not unlike Bill Cosby, Sinbad wanted his show to reflect stable homes, telling the press that it was “time people realized that black men can be positive role models” (Friend 1993). On his show, Sinbad played David Bryan, a bachelor and part-time foster home volunteer who decides to adopt a twelve-year-old boy and his five-year-old sister. Interestingly, Sinbad also fought for representation that highlighted the ways in which nonwhite communities, not simply Black communities, interacted. The inclusion of a Latinx character, Gloria (Salma Hayek), an apartment manager, offered opportunities for interactions between nonwhite characters of different races. Sinbad was explicit and deliberate about his goals in this respect: “I wanted people to see involvement between black and [Latinx] people. Because we do interact. We have always interacted. We’re at

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the bottom rung of society together. But you never see us in television unless we’re fighting” (Friend 1993). To Sinbad’s dismay, Hayek’s character was written out of the show halfway through the sitcom’s first and only season. In 1993, FOX successfully won the rights to air NFC football. This move, and its success, much of which had to do with its Black programming and Black viewers, elevated Fox to a major player on television. Fox aggressively moved away from its previous model, cancelling In Living Color, The Sinbad Show, Roc, and South Central in 1994. Reverend Jesse Jackson called for boycotts and letter-writing campaigns while Representative Ed Towns (D-NY) slammed the network for what he called “plantation programming.” Towns continued with his critique in a press release that highlighted the irony of Fox’s move away from Black programming: “Fox-TV created its niche based upon racy, black, and youth oriented programming. Apparently, as the network moves to become more mainstream, its attitude to positive black programs is, we don’t need, nor want them anymore.” Towns also slammed network owner Rupert Murdoch of blatantly treating Black Americans with “disrespect” and “apparent contempt” (Zook 1999, 14). Fox cited poor ratings in canceling the shows while simultaneously paying the handsome sum of $1.6 billion on rights to Sunday games to the NFL in a bid for mainstream, largely White, legitimacy. Writer and producer Calvin Brown Jr. argued that because mostly Black folks and young people were watching Fox in the network’s early years “they could get away with a little more. But now with football, baseball, hockey, that’s over.” More poignantly, Brown lamented, “We won’t ever have another space in network television like that again” (Zook 1999, 11). Fox’s emergence as a mainstay on television has resulted in a network that offers programming similar to its competitors. Although finding a niche with sports, cartoons—The Simpsons (1989–), King of the Hill (1997–2008), Family Guy (1999–), Futurama (1999–2003), and American Dad! (2005–2014), and reality television/game shows—America’s Most Wanted (1988–2011), Cops (1989– 2013), World’s Wildest Police Videos (1998–2002), American Idol (2002–2016), Joe Millionaire (2003–2004), Nanny 911 (2004–2007), Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? (2007–2009, 2015), and Hell’s Kitchen (2005–), Fox’s programming has mirrored that of network television since the turn of the century. While airing a handful of shows that offered a level of inclusion and diversity, including New York Undercover (1994–1998), The PJs (1999–2000), The Bernie Mac Show (2001–2006), Glee (2009–2015), The Cleveland Show (2009–2013), Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2013–2018), and Empire (2015–2020), it would be equally known for its shows that continued the tradition of television programming centering white­ ness: Melrose Place (1992–1999), The X-Files (1993–2002, 2016, 2018), Party of Five (1994–2000), Ally McBeal (1997–2002), That ’70s Show (1998–2006), 24 (2001–2010, 2014), Arrested Development (2003–2006), The O.C. (2003–2007), House (2004–2012), Gotham (2014–2019), among others. Yet, its legacy can be seen in the ways that a network rose to promise by leveraging black viewers all while capitalizing on the successes and brilliance of a series of shows that offered representations otherwise marginalized from television. Michael J. Durfee

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Further Reading

Block, Alex Ben. 1990. Outfoxed: Marvin Davis, Barry Diller, Rupert Murdoch, Joan Rivers, and the Inside Story of America’s Fourth Television Network. New York: St. Martin’s. Friend, Tad. 1993. “Sitcoms, Seriously.” Esquire, March, 112–125. Gray, Herman. 1995. Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for Blackness. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Omi, Michael. 1989. “In Living Color: Race and American Culture.” In Cultural Politics in Contemporary America, edited by Ian Angus and Sut Jhally, 111–122. London: Routledge. Rose, Tricia. 1994. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press. Zook, Kristal Brent. 1999. Color by Fox: The Fox Network and the Revolution in Black Television. New York: Oxford University Press.

Foxx, Redd(1922–1991) Born John Elroy Sanford, Redd Foxx was an African American comedian and actor. His stage moniker “Redd Foxx” was a combination of his reddish hair and his adoration of Major League Baseball player Jimmie Foxx. Foxx is best remembered for the 1970s NBC sitcom, Sanford and Son, which was a hit for TV audiences, ranking in the top ten every week that it aired. Born on December 9, 1922, in St. Louis, Missouri, Foxx grew up in poverty. After his father abandoned the family when John was the age of four, his mother raised him and his older brother Fred. Growing up, Foxx had little interest in school, getting in trouble often. According to the Los Angeles Times, he once said that “School meant nothing to me. Knowing that George Washington crossed the Delaware—how was that going to help me in a brick fight in St. Louis?” (Starr 2011, 5). He was expelled from school for throwing a book at a teacher who threw it at him. At a young age, he discovered that he had a gift for telling jokes and making people laugh. At age thirteen, Foxx dropped out of high school. He moved from St. Louis to Chicago and formed the “Four Bon Bons,” a washtub band with two friends, Lamont Ousley and Steve Trimble. The band eventually moved to Harlem in New York City, performing on New York street corners and in subways until the group disbanded during World War II. In the years after the band broke up, Foxx did anything necessary to survive. He washed dishes at the same restaurant that employed the famous jazz musician Charlie Parker. It was there where he met Malcolm Little, who after converting to Islam changed his name to Malcolm X. The two men became friends and their coworkers gave them nicknames to avoid confusion: “Detroit Red,” for Malcolm and “Chicago Red,” for Foxx. Malcolm X once described Foxx in his autobiography as “the funniest dishwasher on this earth.” Foxx’s rise to fame began in 1941, when Foxx and his longtime comedian friend “Slappy White” formed an act called “Foxx and White.” They performed comedy routines in the Black vaudeville circuit, also known as the “Chitlin’ Circuit.” The



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Chitlin Circuit was a collective of venues and clubs where Black entertainers were allowed to perform. Foxx’s ascendance continued through the 1960s. During this period, he performed in Las Vegas at nightclubs, sold his comedic sketches as “party records,” and even made a television appearance on the Today show. In 1972, Foxx quickly became a household name as the star of Sanford and Son. An American remake of a British television show, Steptoe and Son, Sanford and Son debuted on NBC on January 14, 1972. Foxx played Fred G. Sanford, a character he named after his brother, who had recently died. Sanford’s son, Lamont (Desmond Wilson) was named after his Four Bon Bons bandmate Lamont Ousley. Produced by Norman Lear, Sanford and Son chronicled the lives of Sanford, a grumpy and outspoken junk dealer living in Watts, California, with his son. ­Sanford and Son was one of the few sitcoms to feature an African American family, arguably making it unique for its time. The show was so popular that NBC ran the show twice a week. Foxx won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Sanford. He left the show in 1977 to pursue a new show on ABC called the Redd Foxx Comedy Hour. Finding limited success, NBC quickly cancelled the Redd Foxx Comedy Hour following its first season. Although Foxx remained popular as a stand-up comedian, he spent his later years steeped in legal issues and financial problems such as debt, business failures, bankruptcy, and back taxes. Foxx’s career saw a short-lived revival following an appearance in the 1989 film Harlem Nights, starring Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor. In 1991, he had landed a new sitcom called The Royal Family. On October 11, 1991, Foxx had a heart attack, dying on the set. Known for his frank, tell-it-like-it-is comedy routines, many critics have argued that Foxx pushed the boundaries about what acceptable on stage and in television. By telling jokes about race and sex, Foxx brought controversial issues to light. Foxx’s comedic approach shaped the careers of Richard Pryor, George Carlin, and Lenny Bruce. Amir Asim Gilmore Further Reading

Acham, Christine. 2004. Revolution Televised: Prime Time and the Struggle for Black Power. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Merina, Victor, and Lily Dizon. 1991. “Redd Foxx, TV’s ‘Sanford,’ Dies of Heart Attack at 68: Entertainment: Comedian Is Stricken While Rehearsing New Show, ‘The Royal Family.’” Los Angeles Times, October 12. ­http://​­articles​.­latimes​.­com​ /­1991​-­10​-­12​/­local​/­me​-­105​_1​_redd​-­foxx​/­2. Price, Joe X. 1979. Redd Foxx, B.S. (Before Sanford). Chicago: Contemporary Books. Redd  Foxx  Estate.  “Biography.” ­https:// ​­ w ww​.­r eddfoxx​ .­c om ​ /­i ndex​ .­p hp​ /­a bout​ / ­b io graphy​-­2​/. Starr, Michael. 2011. Black and Blue: The Redd Foxx Story. Milwaukee: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books. State Historical Society of Missouri Historic Missourians. “Redd Foxx (1922–1991).” ­http://​­shsmo​.­org​/ ­historicmissourians​/­name​/­f​/­foxx ​/.

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Frank’s Place(1987–1988) While only lasting one season, due to low ratings, Frank’s Place (1987–1988) was critically acclaimed, celebrated by TV critics while on the air and by commentators and scholars in the three decades since it ended production. Challenging the aesthetics of sitcoms, offering rarely seen story lines and representations of the Black middle class, Black culture, and New Orleans, Frank’s Place impacted television in a multitude of ways. Chronicling the lives of several of African American residents living in the New Orleans neighborhood, the Tremé, Frank’s Place is as much a story of New Orleans, and its Black communities, as it is a show about a series of dynamic characters. There was Frank Parrish (Tim Reid), a Brown University professor who decides to move New Orleans to run a Creole restaurant (Chez Louisiane) that he inherited from his father. While he initially planned to sell the restaurant and return to his life in the Northeast, he decides to stay, albeit with the help of a voodoo spell compelling him to save Chez Louisiane. Yet, it was his love for New Orleans and its culture that ultimately lead him to trade his career in higher education and New England life for one as a restauranteur in the Bayou. Alongside of Frank are: Miss Marie (Frances E. Williams), the most tenured waitress at Chez Louisiane who only served her friends; Big Arthur (Tony Burton), the head chef; Shorty La Roux (Don Yesso), the kitchen assistant; Anna May (Francesca Roberts), the restaurant’s lead waitress, who seemingly runs the restaurant; Tiger (Charles Lampkin), a bartender; and Cool Charles (William Thomas Jr.), who served as Tiger’s assistant behind the bar. Outside of the restaurant staff, all of whom were black, except Shorty La Roux, the show also featured several members of the Black community who frequented Chez Louisiane: Reverend Deal (Lincoln Kilpatrick); Bertha Griffin-Lamour (Virginia Capers), the funeral director; and her daughter Hana (Daphne Maxwell Reid). Originally inspired by a restaurant (Dan Montgomery’s) in Buffalo, New York, Frank’s Place was modeled after Austin Leslie’s restaurant Chez Helene. Leslie served as advisor for Frank’s Place providing critical feedback about New Orleans food, music, and culture. In telling the stories of the Black middle class and offering dynamic story lines and empowering representations, Frank’s Place was celebrated for filling the void or building on the popularity of The Cosby Show (1984–1992). Yet, for many critics its importance could not be limited to its challenge of stereotypes or its focus on the Black middle class but in its centering of New Orleans and Black culture. Writing about the show’s opening, which included Louis Armstrong “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?” and images of both the city and its residents, Herman Gray (1995) argues that in many ways Black New Orleans was the star of the show; it placed “the viewer aurally and visually into the experience of black New Orleans. In representing this space and place, the producers foregrounded African American New Orleans, thereby situating the program’s location and identity within a particular African American formation,” notes the esteemed scholar of Black television. “Frank’s Place is not just Anywhere, USA, populated by anonymous folk, but black New Orleans, with its



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own particular history and story” (120–121). Unlike The Cosby Show, which appealed to universality and telling stories that reaffirmed a belief that America had transcended race, Frank’s Place not only centered on race but the show explicitly celebrated blackness, black culture, and the black community of New Orleans in explicit ways. While seeing Frank’s Place as a missed opportunity to give voice to certain issues and struggles, Morgan Parmett (2011) similarly reflected on its ability to give voice to social injustice and advance those efforts demanding change. “At the time, ‘quality’ television was considered a responsibility on the part of producers and writers, as indicated by Tim Reid, who saw the show as having a responsibility for representing blackness more ethically” (qtd. in Parmett 2011, 203). For Reid, Frank’s Place represented a type of activism, a representational challenge that not only disrupted stereotypes and the erasure of black communities on television but also advanced the struggle for racial justice throughout the nation. “Television has a responsibility to ‘uplift values around the country and instill moral respect. . . . If we don’t dream, create fantasies, motivate, activate, then who’s [sic] job is it?’ he asked. ‘If creators are allowed to take shows like ‘Frank’s Place’ . . . who knows what we can come up with’” (qtd. in Parmett 2011, 203). Both Reid and Hugh Wilson, the show’s creator and one of its writers, wanted to make a show that celebrated diversity, that highlighted Black New Orleans culture, that brought to life the Black middle class, and one that pushed critical conversations. They also were committed to diversity behind the camera: “I knew I wanted the show to reflect the same values behind the camera that it reflected on-camera. You don’t really get any credit for that, and you shouldn’t look for it” (qtd. in Walker 2002). Although lasting only twenty-two episodes, Frank’s Place amassed three Emmy Awards (and six more nominations), one Golden Globe Nomination, and awards from the NAACP, the Television Critics Association, and the Humanitas Prize for TV writing. Despite initial rating success, and critical praise from television writers, Frank’s Place was unable to find a large enough audience. Without a consistent timeslot and dubbed a “dramedy,” a label that didn’t attract viewers used to dramas or comedies, Frank’s Place suffered in ratings over the season. Plus, its innovation, which included its refusal of a laugh track, its focus on social and political commentary, its novel approach to editing, its use of original music, and its decision to shoot with film rather than video tape, was challenging for audiences used to a certain type of show. As CBS was going through a rebuilding phase, executives proved unwilling to keep Frank’s Place on the air. No amount of critical acclaim or celebrations for a groundbreaking approach to the sitcom saved the show. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Gray, Herman. 1995. Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for “Blackness.” Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Parmett, Helen Morgan. 2011. “Space, Place, and New Orleans on Television: From Frank’s Place to Treme.” Television New Media 13 (3): 193–212.

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Walker, Dave. 2002. “Frankly Unforgettable—It Lasted Just One Season. But Even Now, 15 Years after Its Premiere, the Gloriously New Orleans-Centric Series ‘Frank’s Place’ Holds a Special Place in Television History.” The Times-Picayune, July 26. ­https://​­w ww​.­nola​.­com ​/­t reme​-­hbo​/­i ndex​.­ssf​/­2002​/­10​/­f rankly ​_unforgettable​_-­_it​ _las​.­html. White, Mimi. 1991. “What’s the Difference? Frank’s Place in Television.” Wide Angle: 82–93.

Fresh off the Boat(2015–2020) Fresh off the Boat is a sitcom set in the 1990s, which centers around a twelveyear-old Taiwanese American boy named Eddie. The show is loosely based on the New York Times best-selling memoir of the same title written by Eddie Huang, a New York chef and food personality. The show debuted on ABC on February 4, 2015. It would be the first television sitcom to feature an Asian American family on network prime time since Margaret Cho’s All-American Girl (1994–1995), which aired for one season on the same network in 1994. It was the second-highest rated comedy premier that season and has received much critical acclaim. The series follows the trials and tribulations of Eddie (Hudson Yang) and his father, Louis (Randall Park), mother, Jessica (Constance Wu), younger brothers Emery (Forrest Wheeler) and Evan (Ian Chen), and Louis’s mother, Jenny (Lucille Song). Eddie is the rebellious oldest child who is critical of both Taiwanese and American cultures. His love of hip-hop, rap music, and basketball anchors his identity. Louis, Eddie’s father, is optimistic, pleasant, charming, and loves America, its culture, and its people. He is a small business owner and runs a western-themed steakhouse in Orlando called, Cattleman’s Ranch. Jessica, Eddie’s mother, is a proud “Tiger mom” who is fiercely competitive and wills it upon her children to succeed. She desperately tries to find her place in American society while at the same time tries to preserve traditions for herself and her family. Emery, the second eldest son, is smart, sensitive, and poetic to a fault, and he is considered to be highly attractive to girls of his age. Evan, the youngest son, is extremely intelligent, insightful, and obedient, and he is Jessica’s favorite. Grandma Jenny, Louis’s mother, understands English but only speaks in Mandarin. To date, she has only spoken English only once in a dream sequence in the episode “Louisween.” Her poignant comedic and philosophical insights are shared through subtitles. There is tension between Grandma and Jessica as the two women of the house sometimes tread on each other’s turf. During season one, all the episodes were told from Eddie’s perspective and narrated by Eddie Huang, the author of the memoir from which this series is based, in a style similar to shows like Everybody Hates Chris (2005–2009), and The Wonder Years (1988–1993). Yet, his role changed during season two. Huang had misgivings about his participation from the start of the series. “The network’s approach was to tell a universal, ambiguous, cornstarch story about Asian-Americans resembling moo goo gai pan written by a Persian-American who cut her teeth on race relations writing for Seth MacFarlane” (Huang 2015). Yet, Huang also expressed understanding for the show’s Americanization of the



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characters as necessary for the show to be accepted by a white audience. “The only way they could even mention some of the stories in the book was by building a Trojan horse and feeding the pathogenic stereotypes that still define us to a lot of American cyclope” (Huang 2015). The first episode is particularly instrumental in framing the family in a White American context, yet, maintaining some element of truth from Huang’s angry antiestablishment memoir. “Randall was neutered, Constance was exoticized, and Young Eddie was urbanized so that the viewers got their mise-en-place” (Huang 2015). However, the episode was saved for Huang because of a three-minute scene in the cafeteria of Eddie’s middle school. “‘Get to the back of the line, chink!’ said Edgar, the only other person of color at school. It was the most formative moment of my childhood; the first time someone ever called me a chink, held in a two-shot. Two kids of color forced to battle each other at the bottom of America’s totem pole on ABC” (Huang 2015). Several episodes in seasons two and three explore Asian identity issues. “Year of the Rat” starts season two with the Huang’s having to celebrate Chinese New Year in Florida because Louis gets confused about their flight to Washington, DC. In Florida, the Huang family live in a predominantly white community, and Jessica, in particular, misses the authenticity of the New Year celebrations back in Chinatown. Louis decides to host their own Chinese New Year celebration at his restaurant where Jessica has the opportunity to teach her white friends and neighbors about Chinese culture and tradition, thus, finding a way to bring Taiwan to Florida at least for the holiday. In the episode titled, “Michael Chang Fever,” Louis tries to get his boys excited about tennis by encouraging them to embrace Michael Chang as a role model, noting that in his day the only Asian athlete he saw on TV was a referee. Eddie reveres Shaquille O’Neil, and Emery and Evan are not big sports fans. Emery, however, takes quickly to the game of tennis. As a typical “Tiger mom,” Jessica pushes Emery to become the ultimate tennis champion but is later fired by Emery, who seeks coaching under tennis great Billie Jean King. King offers Emery the opportunity to train more intensively at camp, but Emery declines when he realizes in order to do so he would need to leave his family. This represents a departure of what would be expected of a stereotypical upbringing in which the child would have little input into making such a decision. Season three kicks off with an episode titled, “Coming from America” and is set in Taiwan with the family on a “reverse pilgrimage.” The show picks up after the season two finale, where Louis’s younger brother invites everyone to his wedding back home. “The trip raises an inner conflict common among immigrants, one that has never been explored on television in a meaningful way: the identity crisis that happens when you exist in two cultures, and never quite fit into either” (Fernandez 2016). Jessica, who often misses Taiwan when she is in the states, finds that she no longer “belongs” back in Taiwan. She has forgotten how to get an order of her favorite bowl of soup, and shopping at the market has become a mystery. She craves bagels. At first, she thinks that Taiwan has changed, but then she realizes instead that America has changed her and her family. Louis worked hard to make a life for them in America, instead of counting on existing relationships to move forward as

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his brother has done in Taiwan. Her children are uncomfortable in what is a foreign land to them and find solace in eating at McDonald’s. She realizes her family really isn’t at home in the idealized Taiwan of her memory because that land no longer exists. Khan, the Iranian American producer of the show says it best: “That idea that you go back and everything falls into place is a fantasy—your experience of living in America changes you” (qtd. in Fernandez 2016). Many of the details in the “Coming from America” episode exemplify the show’s commitment to “directly catering to Asian, and more specifically, to Taiwanese audiences” (Yiin 2016). Emery attracts mosquitoes in Taiwan because of his “sweet blood,” and the fact that school is still in session during summer will resonate with many familiar with the Asian education system. “It also happens to be the most realistic pop cultural depiction of that particular trip—the return to Asia—that we’ve seen in a very long time” (Yiin 2016). In “Breaking Chains,” Emery graduates from elementary school and starts attending middle school with Eddie. Eddie tries to “help” Emery (and himself) by giving him a binder containing all the lies he told his white teachers about Chinese culture to get out of schoolwork. Eddie sees himself as the leader of a revolution against Asian stereotypes. However, Emery is an irrepressible optimist and an excellent student. So trying to follow Eddie’s advice to get out of class and homework makes him miserable. Evan finally tells Eddie to lay off Emery and let him live his life as he wishes, even if it means that he is reinforcing a stereotype about Asian Americans by getting good grades, taking karate, and playing the violin. In so doing, the audience is introduced to the idea that just like whites, there are many types of Asians, and while many Asians may fit a certain stereotype, many others do not. The issue of what it means to be American is further explored in season three with episodes about a presidential election, jury duty, and the process of becoming an American citizen itself. In “Citizen Jessica,” Louis, who is a naturalized citizen, turns his restaurant into a polling place during the election between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole in a fit of civic pride. Jessica turns suddenly political once she earns a sizable commission on a real estate sale and becomes angry when she learns the restaurant’s chef, Hector, owes taxes. She calls the Immigration and Naturalization Service to report him but finds that she, too, is in trouble for not renewing her green card. When she is mistakenly selected to serve on a jury, Jessica’s ambition drives her to become the “jury boss” or foreperson. She then causes a mistrial by stating her opinion about the defendant while reading the verdict. “Stop burning things, you weirdo! I hated you the moment I saw you,” she says (qtd. in Brennan 2017). “At the heart of our particular form of government, Fresh Off the Boat maintains, is the will of the people, and with them come all of their flaws” (Brennan 2017). In the midseason premiere, “How to be an American,” the difficult process of becoming a citizen is revealed as Jessica’s efforts to become just that are constantly being thwarted. “The real import of Fresh Off the Boat this season has been to connect the meaning of citizenship to the work it requires, and thus to reject its recent redefinition . . . as a function of race, ethnicity, religion, and/or birthplace” (Brennan 2017).



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Mixed-Race Show in Production Reflecting the demands for more racially and ethnically inclusive programming by broadcasters, cable networks, and streaming services, a new comedy featuring a mixed-race family has been requested by NBC. The untitled show is based on the life of Kourtney Kang, co-executive producer of Fresh off the Boat, and explores her life growing up “as the only girl in the only mixed race family in the suburbs of Philadelphia, dealing with real-world issues like race and gender while never losing focus of her life goal: to become a Laker Girl like her idol, Paula Abdul” (Goldberg 2017).

Fresh off the Boat started out as a popularized version of a searing memoir in season one but has since evolved in seasons two and three by developing each of the family’s characters and exploring issues of both Asian and American identity in a thoughtful and humorous way. By making the characters and plotlines specifically Taiwanese, the show is able to make this family much more accessible to broader Asian American and even white audiences. By season three, the show’s focus increasing turned to more universal story lines, rather than experiences specific to a Taiwanese American family. Maintaining an honest balance between Asian ethnicity and Americanism seems to be the next challenge for the show’s future, as well as for each of the characters in the show. The show’s impact can be seen not only in the increased diversity on television and its efforts to foster conversations about Asian American identity but also in creating a landscape for additional shows about Asian Americans and other communities of color. Not only adding to diversity on television, through expanding the types of representations and stories told, Fresh off the Boat also enhanced opportunities available to Asian Americans on-screen and behind the scenes. Announcing its cancellations after six seasons, Karey Burke celebrated the legacy of the show: “We couldn’t be prouder of this game-changing show and the impact it has had on our cultural landscape, The success of ‘Fresh Off the Boat’ has helped pave the way for inclusion throughout the industry,” noted ABC’s president. “Nahnatchka Khan and her brilliant creative team have created an unforgettable series with an Asian-American family front and center, something that hadn’t been done in two decades. The cast, led by Randall Park and Constance Wu, is one of the finest and funniest on television. We’ll miss the Huang family and are eternally grateful for the incredibly heartfelt stories they have told these past six seasons” (qtd. in Otterson 2019). Over 100 episodes, through innovation and efforts to bring voices and stories so often marginalized to life, Fresh off the Boat changed the landscape of the television world. Jean A. Giovanetti Further Reading

Brennan, Matt. 2017. “Fresh off the Boat Is Quietly, Brilliantly Exploring the Meaning of Citizenship.” Paste, January 3. ­https://​­w ww​.­pastemagazine​.­com​/­articles​/­2017​/­01​ /­f resh​-­off​-­the​-­boat​-­is​-­quietly​-­brilliantly​-­explorin​.­html. Fernandez, Maria Elena. 2016. “You Can’t Go Home Again: On Set in Taiwan With Fresh Off the Boat.” Vulture, September 30. ­https://​­w ww​.­v ulture​.­com​/­2016​/­09​/­f resh​-­off​ -­the​-­boat​-­taiwan​-­c​-­v​-­r​.­html.

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Goldberg, Lesley. 2017. “‘Fresh off the Boat’ Duo’s Mixed-Race Family Comedy Scores NBC Pilot Order” Hollywood Reporter, January 20. ­http://​­w ww​.­hollywoodreporter​ .­c om ​/­l ive​-­feed​/­f resh​-­b oat​-­d uos​-­m ixed​-­r ace​-­family​-­c omedy​-­s cores​-­nbc​-­pilot​ -­order​-­966760​?­utm​_source​=​­dlvr​.­it​&­utm​_medium​=​­t witter. Huang, Eddie. 2015. “Bamboo-Ceiling TV.” Vulture, February 4. h­ ttp://​­www​.­v ulture​.­com​ /­2015​/­01​/­eddie​-­huang​-­f resh​-­off​-­the​-­boat​-­abc​.­html. Nussbaum, Emily. 2015. “Home Cooking: Funny Families on ‘Fresh off the Boat’ and ‘Black-ish.’” The New Yorker, March 9. ­http://​­w ww​.­newyorker​.­com​/­magazine​ /­2015​/­03​/­09​/ ­home​-­cooking​-­television​-­emily​-­nussbaum. Otterson, Joel. 2019. “‘Fresh Off the Boat’ to End after Six Seasons at ABC.” Variety, November  8. ­https://​­variety​.­com ​/­2019​/­t v​/­news​/­f resh​-­off​-­t he​-­boat​-­canceled​-­abc​ -­1203398435​/. Yiin, Wesley. 2016. “Fresh off the Boat Nailed Its Depiction of What the Reverse Pilgrimage to Asia Is Like as an Asian American.” Slate, October 18. ­https://​­slate​.­com​ /­c ulture​/­2016​ /­10​ /­f resh​ -­off​-­t he​-­b oat​ -­n ailed​-­its​-­d epiction​ -­of​ -­what​-­t he​ -­r everse​ -­pilgrimage​-­to​-­asia​-­is​-­like​-­as​-­a​-­young​-­asian​-­american​.­html.

Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The(1990–1996) The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is one of the most popular and best-known sitcoms featuring an entirely African American cast in U.S. television history. The show aired on NBC for six seasons during Monday night prime time. It continues to run in syndication on cable television. Andy Borowitz, Susan Borowitz, and renowned R & B record producer Quincy Jones served as the show’s executive producers, while Jones also composed the program’s musical score. Will Smith, a young rapper from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who played an instrumental role in helping rap attain mainstream status during the late 1980s with hit singles such as “Parents Just Don’t Understand” and “Nightmare on My Street,” portrays the program’s main character (who is also named Will). Smith’s stage name during his early rapping career, “The Fresh Prince,” served as the inspiration for the show’s title. Aside from Smith, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air also starred Alfonso Ribeiro (Carleton Banks), James Avery (Phillip Banks), Tatyana M. Ali (Ashley Banks), Karyn Parsons (Hilary Banks), Janet Hubert-Whitten (Vivian Banks, seasons 1–3), Daphne Maxwell Reid (Vivian Banks, seasons 4–6), and Joseph Marcell (Geoffrey Butler). Smith’s real-life deejay, Jeffrey Townes (known professionally as “DJ Jazzy Jeff”) also made occasional appearances on the show as Jazz, one of Smith’s friends. One of the signature television programs of the 1990s, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air succeeded The Cosby Show (1984–1992) as NBC’s prime-time sitcom portraying the lives of an upper-class African American family. Whereas The Cosby Show’s Huxtables resided in Brooklyn, New York, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was set in the affluent Los Angeles neighborhood denoted by the show’s title. This West Coast setting was timely, given several pressing real-life issues with racial overtones that rocked the Los Angeles region and, ultimately, the larger nation, during the early to mid-1990s. These events included the 1992 Los Angeles riots that arose in the aftermath of the acquittal of four police officers in the



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beating of black motorist Rodney King, growing concern over the escalation of gang violence in Southern California, mounting controversy over the West Coast-based, hardcore “gangsta” rap music genre, heightened media attention toward police brutality and racial profiling toward minority communities, and the 1994–1995 murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, the subsequent trial of O.J. Simpson, and the trial’s racially polarized verdict. Although a comedy, at times The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air incorporated thematic material from such serious social problems into its programming content. The show’s backstory is revealed during its catchy opening theme song, “Yo Home to Bel-Air,” which establishes that Will’s mother sent him to live with her sister and brother-in-law, Aunt Vivian Banks (Janet Hubert-Whitten during seasons one to three, Daphne Maxwell Reid during seasons four to six) and Uncle Philip Banks (James Avery) after Will became involved in a street fight on a basketball court in West Philadelphia. Although Will is a good-natured teenager, Will’s mother fears that his past issues, including fights and vandalism, would gradually escalate into a self-destructive lifestyle and ultimately imprisonment or death. She places Will in the care of Aunt Vivian and Uncle Phil, who live in an upscale Los Angeles neighborhood with very little visible crime, which she feels will enable Will to avoid trouble and achieve his maximum academic potential. Upon relocating to Bel-Air, Will is reunited with his aunt and uncle, as well as his three cousins: Hilary, Carlton, and Ashley. Hilary, the oldest child, is the spoiled, fashion-obsessed, and big-spending daughter with a Valley Girl–like persona, while the youngest child, Ashley, is the rebellious daughter who looks up to Will. Carlton, on the other hand, is the preppy, conservative, academically gifted son who remains blind to the harsh social realities of racism, oppression, and inequality given his class privilege and the relatively sheltered nature of his lifestyle. Thus, the program showcases the social-class diversity that defines the African American community. Will represents a streetwise, working-class African American young man from the inner city who is striving to achieve upward mobility through hard work and education, while his extended family embodies upper-middle-class African Americans who have already attained a high degree of education and wealth. Whereas Will signifies the experiences, and even stereotypes, associated with blackness, the rest of the family shines a spotlight on the often-ignored identity of the Black bourgeoisie—that which is imagined as exclusive to whiteness. While spotlighting the diversity of the black community and challenging the ways that whiteness and blackness are shaped by class-based sensibilities, much of the comedic value of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air stems from this class-based culture shock, as well as Will’s dismay at the social awkwardness displayed by various members of the Banks family, especially that of the naïve Carlton. Over the course of the show’s history, the plot follows Will’s and Carlton’s transition from their sophomore year of high school through their college days. Despite being a comedy, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air did occasionally grapple with serious thematic material such as racism, gang violence, racial identity, and racial profiling. For example, during the show’s first season, an episode titled “Mistaken Identity” features Will and Carlton driving to Palm Springs,

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California, for a weekend retreat in a Mercedes that Phil’s white business partner, Mr. Firth, has graciously let them borrow. The two are pulled over and arrested by two white police officers who assume that Will and Carlton have stolen the car. Vivian and Phil attempt to have Will and Carlton released from jail for wrongful arrest, but the police remain dismissive, prompting Phil to threaten a lawsuit against the department. The situation is only resolved when Mr. Firth arrives at the station and declares that his car was never stolen and that Will and Carlton are innocent. An argument ensues between the two at home when Carlton adamantly denies that their detainment by the police was motivated by racial profiling, and he accuses Will of having a chip on his shoulder toward authority because of his experiences growing up in the inner city. Will responds by telling Carlton that his education, money, and elitist attitude will not protect him from institutional racism in American society. The episode concludes with Carlton thinking deeply about the harsh realities of race after Phil reveals to his son that he has also been wrongfully pulled over by police on several occasions. The show’s first season also aired an episode entitled “The Ethnic Tip,” which delves into issues of racial consciousness, identity, and self-empowerment through education. After failing an exam for his history class, which is taught by a white teacher at his overwhelmingly white preparatory high school, Will successfully petitions for a unit on African American history to be included in the curriculum. He claims that he is failing history because the content solely focuses on white male experiences, which alienates him from the curriculum as a result of feeling excluded. Vivian, who is a college English professor and has had taught courses on Black literature, is hired by the school to teach the multicultural unit. While extremely popular with her White students, given her upbeat and dynamic teaching style, Will and Carlton resent Vivian’s high expectations of them—prompting both Vivian and Phil to realize that Will only requested the inclusion of Black history into the course because he thought it would be an easy unit for him that required little work. When Will tells Vivian that he has read The Autobiography of Malcolm X multiple times, Vivian responds by informing Will that African American history is much deeper than just one book, slogan, and individual. The sensitive subject of racial identity and authenticity emerge in “Blood is Thicker than Mud.” Now college students, Will and Carlton attempt to join the Black fraternity, Phi Beta Gamma. Although the chapter’s president admires Will and is eager for him to officially become a member, he harbors a strong disdain for Carlton. This derision stems from Carlton’s affluence and upper-middle-class background, and the president deems Carlton a “sell-out,” as he sees black identity as defined by urbanity, coolness, and a working-class sensibility. Will renounces the fraternity in protest, while Carlton confronts the president and declares, “Being Black isn’t what I’m trying to be; it’s what I am . . . If you ask me, you’re the real sell-out.” From his starring role on the sitcom, Smith went on to become one of the leading black A-list actors in Hollywood, alongside Denzel Washington and Samuel L. Jackson. Smith starred in several motion picture blockbusters, including Bad Boys (1995), Independence Day (1996), Men in Black (1997), Wild Wild West (1999), Ali (2001), The Pursuit of Happyness (2006), and Concussion (2015),



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among others. During his Hollywood career, Smith displayed a talent not just for comedy but also for serious-minded drama acting. The fame Smith accrued from the success of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air also enabled him to reestablish his rapping career in the late 1990s. In 1997, Smith released Big Willie Style, his first studio rap album since 1993. The album included the hit singles “Miami,” “Gettin’ Jiggy wit It,” and “Men in Black.” Two years later, Smith released the album Willenium, which contained the hits “Will 2K,” “Wild Wild West,” and “Freakin’ It.” The show’s importance extends beyond introducing Will Smith to a world outside of hip-hop. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air helped usher in a new era of Black television programming geared toward a younger generation during a time in which the nation’s shifting racial and ethnic demographics generated extensive media coverage. The show was one of several African American–themed TV programs to air during the 1990s, which also included Fox’s Living Single (1993–1998), Martin (1992– 1997), and New York Undercover (1994–1999), and ABC’s Family Matters (1990– 1996), Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper (1992–1998), and Sister, Sister (1994–1999). In merging critical conversations of race and identity, with the cultural power of hip-hop, it offered a template for television shows for several years to come. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is also remembered for several iconic elements, such as the notorious “Carlton dance,” Jazz’s constant irritation of Phil with weight jokes—prompting Phil to physically throw Jazz out the house’s front door—and one of the best-known opening theme songs in television history. Expanding discussions of Black identity, through the show’s representation of the experiences of the black upper class and the heterogeneity of black families and the black community, all while countering narratives of post-raciality, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air impacted the televisual landscape and broader discourses. Justin D. García Further Reading

Errington, Ryan. 2015. “Race and Class in the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.” The Artifice, June 8. ­https://​­the​-­artifice​.­com​/­race​-­and​-­class​-­in​-­the​-­f resh​-­prince​-­of​-­bel​-­air​/. Simon, Jordan. 2016. “Will Smith is not Down with a ‘Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ Reboot.” Vibe, August 2. ­http://​­w ww​.­vibe​.­com​/­2016​/­08​/­will​-­smith​-­denies​-­f resh​-­prince​-­of​ -­bel​-­air​-­reboot​/. Waxman, Olivia B. 2015. “The Fresh Prince Turns 25: The Show’s Creators on Will Smith, Reboots, and Race.” Time, September 10. ­http://​­time​.­com​/­4021944​/­quincy​ -­jones​-­borowitz​-­f resh​-­prince​-­bel​-­air​-­anniversary​/.

G George Lopez Show, The(2002–2007) Lasting five seasons (2002–2007), The George Lopez Show had a significant impact on the television landscape. Offering the portrayal of a Mexican American family, this situation comedy blended laughs with universal plotlines to tell the story of the Lopez family. While some critics questioned whether the show replicated long-standing stereotypes and others lamented how the show didn’t go far enough, as it did little to elevate an explicit acknowledgment of Latinx identity or culture, the show is widely celebrated for combating erasure of the Latinx community on and off television. Telling the story of George Edward Lopez (George Lopez), a Los Angeles factory worker, and his family, The George Lopez Show brought a level of seriousness to the realm of television comedy. Embracing the commonplace humor and the wackiness that defines the sitcom, The George Lopez Show takes a less formulaic approach through its examination of Latinx identity, through its focus on broader social issues, and through its narrative embrace of life’s difficulty. More specifically, the show chronicles how Lopez works through his own childhood challenges, which included an alcoholic mother and a father who abandoned him. Alongside of Lopez are several important characters who are not only instrumental in the show’s plotlines but also in its efforts to highlight the humanity and diversity of the Latinx community: Angie Lopez (Constance Marie), George’s wife, who in the early seasons works as a part-time cosmetic saleswoman only to search for a more challenging career in season four, a fact that leads to conflict and tension with George; Max Lopez (Luis Armand Garcia), the twelve-year-old son, who has dyslexia and his placement in special education results in significant obstacles; and Carmen Lopez (Masiela Lusha), the Lopez’s eldest child (fifteen years old), who in the early seasons struggles to fit in at her ritzy Los Angeles private school, only to be expelled. In season four, she attends a Catholic High School. While not specifically commenting on racism or systemic inequities, the experiences of both children—special education, struggling to find acceptance at an all-White school, and school expulsion—demonstrate how the show built bridges into broader societal conversations. Along with the immediate family are several other characters who are instrumental in the show’s plotlines and its comedic efforts. Benny Lopez (Belita Moreno), George’s mother, is a first-generation Mexican immigrant. Her relationship with her son embodies the real-life George Lopez’s description of his own childhood, one of immense sadness, alienation, and dysfunction. Along with her is Angie’s father, Dr. Victor Palmero, aka Vic (Emiliano Diez), a Cuban immigrant

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who fled his homeland after the revolution. His character gives voice to not only diversity within the Latinx community but also the conflicts and tensions that result from his daughter marrying George, a Mexican American. Exploring stereotypes through Vic’s relationship with George and their discussions of Cuban politics highlights the connection that the show makes to broader societal issues. Outside the family, the show would focus some attention on the work environment, using George’s relationship with Ernie (Valente Rodriguez), his longtime friend, and Jack and Mel Powers (Jack Blessing and Mark Tymchyshyn), the owners of the aviation company, to advance storylines about racism, micro aggressions, and other socially relevant topics. Given the dearth of representations on television specifically and popular culture in general, The George Lopez Show was significant in that it told the stories of the Latinx community with depth and humanity and moved beyond erasure and the engrained stereotypes. “For the show’s ensemble of actors, ‘George Lopez’ is also a refreshing contrast to the usual portrayal of Latinos in film and television as recent immigrants, victims or criminals,” wrote Mireya Navarro in the New York Times (2002). “True, Mr. Lopez’s character had a tough childhood, but Constance Marie, who plays his wife, Angie, said the show was also about ‘the forgotten Latinos,’ the ones like her who are third-generation, middle-class Americans and had to go to Berlitz to learn Spanish.” While telling the story of a Mexican American family, a significant intervention given the scarcity of representation on television and popular culture as a whole and entrenched stereotypes, critics questioned how the show imagined culture and identity. In an effort to challenge existing stereotypes about assimilation, class, and identity, The George Lopez Show imagines a world devoid of any trappings of a Mexican American experience. In other words, seeking to both depict the Lopez family as no different from other white middle-class families on television and as evidence of fallacies of existing stereotypes, The George Lopez Show erases most linkages to a Latinx experience, identity, or culture. Lamenting the lack of any Spanish language within the show, John Markert in “The George Lopez Show: The Same Old Hispano” (2004) writes: “Much of the show takes place either in the kitchen or on the patio. The patio has all the accoutrements that represent middle-class Americana outdoors: picnic table, cushioned lounge chairs, barbeque grill; the kitchen has the requisite island that people gather around, as well as a double-door refrigerator covered with magnets, family photographs, and miscellaneous memorabilia” (156). In early seasons, it was rare when Latinness came into focus “There are hardly any Hispanic features in the home: two wall-mounted baskets that could be of Mexican origin can be discerned over the stairwell in the distant background; no Latino artifacts appear in the foreground” (156). In later seasons, the show offered a more in-depth representation of Mexican American culture and identity all while maintaining a narrative representation that both highlighted universal themes and challenged existing stereotypes. Citing financial difficulties, ABC canceled The George Lopez Show in 2007. Following this announcement, George Lopez lamented the lack of support and the challenges resulting from multiple time slots. For him, the cancellation reflected television’s refusal to embrace Latinx stories and that of communities of color.



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The George Lopez Show had experienced a fate similar to countless other shows and careers. “TV just became really, really white again,” Lopez noted. “They dealt with us from the bottom of the deck,” Lopez said, “which is hard to take after what was a good run” (qtd. in Fernandez 2007). The George Lopez Show received multiple awards during its television run. It won multiple awards at the Imagen Awards, which recognizes “the positive portrayals of Latinos in the entertainment industry”: Best Primetime Comedy (2003, 2004), Best Actress in a Television Comedy (Constance Marie, 2004), Best Actor in a Television Comedy (George Lopez, 2004), and Best Supporting Actress in a Television Comedy (Belita Moreno, 2004). In 2007, it received several nominations as part of the American Latino Media Arts (ALMA) awards. Its importance extends beyond awards, with critical acclaim and community support that demonstrated the importance of diversity in representation and giving voice to the experiences of Mexican Americans specifically, and Latinxs in general. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Fernandez, Maria Elena. 2007. “TV Just Got a Lot ‘Whiter,’ Says a Canceled George Lopez.” Los Angeles Times, May 14. ­https://​­latimesblogs​.­latimes​.­com​/­staging1​/­2007​ /­05​/­tv​-­just​-­got​-­a​-­lot​-­whiter​-­says​-­a​-­canceled​-­george​-­lopez​/­comments​/­page​/­13​/. Markert, John. 2004. “The George Lopez Show: The Same Old Hispano.” Bilingual Review/La Revista Bilingüe 28 (2): 148–165. Navarro, Mireya. 2002. “A Life So Sad He Had to Be Funny; George Lopez Mines a Rich Vein of Gloom with an All-Latino Sitcom.” New York Times, November 27. ­https://​ ­w ww​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2002​/­11​/­27​/­a rts​/­l ife​-­so​-­sad​-­he​-­had​-­be​-­f unny​-­george​-­lopez​ -­mines​-­rich​-­vein​-­gloom​-­with​-­all​-­latino​.­html​?­mtrref​= ​­w ww​.­google​.­com.

Gimme a Break!(1981–1987) Gimme a Break! (1981–1987) stars Nell Carter as Nellie Ruth “Nell” Harper, a former nightclub singer turned housekeeper working for a White family. Following the success of Diff’rent Strokes (1978–1986), NBC created Gimme a Break!, developing a trend of 1980s sitcoms that placed Black characters in White environments. While elevating Carter’s visibility and star status, the show prompted widespread debate about stereotypes and the ways that the show furthered long-standing representations of Black women. Prior to the series, Nell Carter performed in and achieved mainstream success in the Broadway musical Ain’t Misbehavin’ (1978), which earned her a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical Performance. NBC decided to televise the musical in 1982, in between season one and season two of Gimme a Break! The televised version earned Carter an Emmy award. Carter’s performance in Ain’t Misbehavin’ helped solidify her role on Gimme a Break and her broader star status in popular culture! Nell, the heavyset, loud-mouthed, quick-witted, and sassy maid acted as surrogate mother to a Polish family consisting of Carl “Chief” Kanisky (Dolph Sweet), and his three daughters Katie (Kari Michaelsen), Julie (Lauri Hendler), and

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Samantha (Lara Jill Miller). Nell ends up working for the Kanisky household after she promised her best friend, Margaret Kanisky on her deathbed that she would help Carl raise their daughters. Although Nell was technically the hired help, her role in the Kanisky household became that of surrogate mother and wife. Nell’s status as a domestic was both omnipresent and ambiguous in the sense that it explained why she lived in an all-White environment but also ambiguous in that her relationship to the family resembled that of mother and wife. The relationship between Nell and the Chief was closer to that of a married couple than employer/employee, as they constantly challenged each other and argued about the children. Gimme a Break! attempted to parody Nell’s role in the house, when the character Addy (Telma Hopkins) was introduced as Nell’s childhood friend in season three. Addy was the “modern woman,” the complete opposite of Nell. Another recurring character introduced in season three is Joey Donovan (Joey Lawrence), an orphan turned con artist who Nell and the Chief later adopt. Later joining the cast as Nell’s mother Maybelle was Rosetta Le Noire. As a Black woman placed in an all-White environment, especially as a servant to a White family, the show made it nearly impossible not to compare Nell to a past generation of Black actresses who faced criticism from their peers for portraying the Mammy stereotype, which originates in slave culture. At a certain level, Nell embodied the Mammy stereotype because she was portrayed as a self-sacrificing Black woman who cares for a White family at the expense of having her own life. Critics would conclude that Gimme a Break! was an unsuccessful attempt to transform the Mammy stereotype by making the character overtly sexual. Historically, the Mammy character was asexual, furthering the dehumanizing representations of Black women. Nell constantly refers to past love affairs and sexual experience; however, it was often contained within quick one-lines. She delivered her punch lines with spot-on comedic timing, but more often than not, Nell’s sexuality was mentioned rather than shown. Although once referring to herself as “your average Black sex goddess,” her sexual experience is often relegated to her past life. Given that she is rarely seen with a man in her life, the show’s depiction of Nell’s sexuality was rather tame. Carter responded to the criticism by stating, “Many Black people still criticize me personally. I’m called Mammy and everything else. Why can’t anyone say, ‘Look, there’s a Black gal that’s got her own show!’” (qtd. in Bogle 2001, 258). While acknowledging the rarity of a Black woman having her own show, Carter neglected to take into account the fact that her character was a modern embodiment of the stereotypical Mammy image. Many critics compared Gimme a Break! to The Beulah Show (1950–1953), a show with a similar plot line that briefly starred Hattie McDaniel, an actress known for her portrayals of stereotypical Hollywood maids. Despite its criticisms, Gimme a Break! was one of a few successful network series to have an African American actress in the lead role. The last two seasons of Gimme a Break! significantly differed from its first four seasons. Season five opened with news that the Chief had passed away (Dolph Sweet had passed away in real life), making Nell the new head of the house.



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The most drastic shift in the series happened during its sixth season. Nell, Grandpa Kanisky (John Hoyt), and Addy move to New York City to care for Joey and eventually his brother Matthew (Matthew Lawrence), after their father abandoned them. During this final season of the series, Nell leaves the house, securing a job at a publishing house. After 137 episodes, the series ended its six-year run on NBC. Despite its stereotypical representations, Gimme a Break! garnered Nell Carter mainstream success including two Golden Globe nominations and an Emmy nomination. Ashley S. Young Further Reading

Bogle, Donald. 2001. Primetime Blues: African Americans on Network Television. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Fuller, Jennifer. 2011. “The ‘Black Sex Goddess’ in the Living Room.” Feminist Media Studies 11 (3): 265–281.

Girlfriends(2000–2008) Girlfriends, a situation comedy featuring a predominately African American cast, premiered on September 11, 2000, on United Paramount Network (UPN) and transitioned to the CW network after six seasons when UPN became CW after a merger between CBS and Warner Brothers. Created by Mara Brock Akil and ­produced with co-executive Kelsey Grammer, the 172-episode series ran until February 11, 2008. The show centers on the friendship of four Black women who share the rewards and challenges of family, friends, intimate partner relationships, and careers. The main characters are Antoinette “Toni” Childress Garrett (Jill Marie Jones), Maya Wilkes (Golden Brooks), Lynn Searcy (Persia White), Joan Clayton (Tracee Ellis Ross), William Dent (Reggie Hayes), Monica Charles Brooks Dent (Keesha Sharp), and Darnell Wilkes (Flex Alexander, season one; Khalil Kain, seasons two to eight). The show also featured several significant recurring supporting characters. Jabari Wilkes, Maya and Darnell’s son, was portrayed by two actors: Tanner Richards, seasons one to six; Kendré Berry, seasons seven and eight. Others included Jeanette Woods, Maya’s mother (Charmin Lee), Davis Hamilton (Randy J. Goodwin), proprietor of the ladies favorite restaurant, and Charles Swedelson (Phil Reeves), the managing partner of the law firm where William and Joan are employed. California is central to the setting of the series and the story of the friends. Toni and Joan grew up together in Fresno and were roommates when they attended UCLA and met Lynn who also joined them as a roommate. Maya is from Compton. The racial demographic, socioeconomic, and cultural differences between the cities frequently served as a vehicle to foreground class differences among the ladies, specifically between Toni, Joan, and Maya. In the beginning of the series Maya is often stereotypically portrayed as audacious and bold. However, as the series progressed Maya becomes less stereotypical and more complex. This

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underlying tension is made even more complex because of Toni’s background. Although Toni is currently a very successful real estate agent who eventually opens her own brokerage, her family life was not idyllic. Her parents were poor and her mother was an alcoholic. Lynn’s background somewhat complicates the class observations because she is the daughter of a wealthy bipolar White mother and Black father who was adopted by a middle-class Seattle white family. It isn’t until college that Lynn embraces her Black identity. Throughout the course of the series, viewers discover that Lynn holds five postgraduate degrees but has yet to settle into a profession. She works various minimum wage jobs when forced to become independent and move after living with Joan for eight years. The actors and the series have been the recipients of several NAACP Image and BET Comedy Awards. Although often comical, merely categorizing Girlfriends as a comedy is somewhat specious. The show frequently featured episodes that seriously focused on contemporary issues such as HIV and AIDS, sexual health, and same-sex parenting. One such episode, “And Baby Makes Four,” won the 2004 GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Individual Episode (in a Series without a Regular Gay Character). According to their website these awards are “presented to honor fair, accurate and inclusive representations of gay individuals in the media.” This episode features William Dent’s lesbian sister and her partner who are about to become parents due to William’s sperm donation and reveals the type of parenting arrangements and conflicting feelings all involved parties process as they form their family. In 2001, a series episode, “The Burning Vagina Monologues,” received the SHINE (Sexual Health in Entertainment) Award from the Media Project. This episode features Toni cheating on her boyfriend Greg with Dr. Clay Spencer (portrayed by Phillip Morris). As a result of her infidelity, Toni contracts chlamydia. Varying aspects of African American sexuality were recurring themes throughout this series, which was a contemporary of a somewhat similar series with an all-white main cast, Sex and the City. In 2016, creator and co-producer Mara Brock Akil addressed this at the Rutgers Digital Blackness Conference. “The characters of Girlfriends had to be sexual girls too. It had to be an intentional complex portrayal of black female sexuality.” In light of Sex and the City, Ms. Brock Akil’s intentions were that Black female sexuality would be presented as liberated. Her goal in the portrayal of these characters was to “loosen the chains around our sexual shame and our desire to have sex as sexual beings.” However, she was told by Black women that they hated that aspect of the show. Many even suggested that the show could be successful if she left that out of the show or at least downplayed it. This shook Brock Akil to her core. She states, “I thought . . . I got you. I come from a legacy of beautiful black women who are often confused about their own sexuality.” For Brock Akil, it is important to “write complexity because it allows us [African Americans] to be displayed as entirely human; as in our humanity.” According to Brock Akil “humanity does not exist in extremes of negative and positive but a continuum and pendulum. Portrayal of only positive images are just as damaging” (Rutgers Digital Blackness Conference, 2016). Fortunately, the series is considered by industry standards and fans a success. During its eight seasons, it was one of the highest rated shows among African



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American audiences between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four. The series was also very popular among blacks in the entertainment industry. Artists such as Melvin Van Peebles, Jill Scott, Saul Williams, Isaac Hayes, and Common have made guest appearances. Others like Laila Ali, Beverly Johnson, Chrisette Michelle, Erykah Badu, and Rev. Al Sharpton appeared as themselves. The series released a soundtrack album, Girlfriends: The Soundtrack, in 2008 under the Koch Records label. A 2006 episode, “The Game,” featuring Tia Mowry as Joan Clayton’s cousin, Melanie Bennett, led to the spin-off television series The Game. The series may have possibly lasted longer than its eight seasons or at least have concluded with an intentional wrapping up of story lines. However, it was a victim of the 2007–2008 television season Writer’s Guild of America strike, which ran from November 5, 2007, until February 12, 2008. The last two episodes, which were recorded before the strike, aired on Monday, February 11, 2008, just one day prior to the end of the strike. The network decided to end the series after the strike, and fans were extremely disappointed that several story lines were left unresolved. There was some brief discussion of a retrospective series finale to tie up loose ends in story lines. However, this never occurred. Diehard fans still clamor for a Girlfriends movie that could possibly address these concerns, but as of this writing there seems to be nothing in the works. Juanita Marie Crider Further Reading

Dates, Jannette L. 2005. “Movin’ on Up: Black Women Decisionmakers in Entertainment Television.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 33 (2): 68–79. Leonard, David J., and Lisa A. Guerrero. 2013. African Americans on Television: Race-ing for Ratings. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. “Rutgers Digital Blackness Conference.” Rutgers University, April 23, 2016. Smith-Shomade, Beretta E. 2002. Shaded Lives: African-American Women and Television. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Glee(2009–2015) During its six-season, 121-episode run from 2009 to 2015, the Fox prime-time musical dramedy Glee followed the lives of teenagers who join the fictitious William McKinley High show choir The New Directions and struggle to find their place in and beyond Lima, Ohio. A Golden Globe winner for Best Television Series—Musical or Comedy (2010, 2011), Glee’s critical acclaim not only derives from its wit and engagement with contemporary issues but also from its diverse ensemble cast who embody different races, socioeconomic classes, genders, sexualities, and abilities on the show. While many of the show’s lead characters are White, characters of color also share the spotlight, receiving considerable screen time and narrative development. This celebration of multicultural America, alongside an unapologetic embrace of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) inclusion, redefines the show’s Midwestern setting as a place where racial and sexuality diversity can thrive.

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Among the New Directions’ six original members, two are of color: Mercedes Jones (Amber Riley), who identifies as black, and Tina Cohen-Chang (Jenna Ushkowitz), who identifies as Asian. However, neither is simply defined by their race. Mercedes also embodies a larger figure than her cisgender female counterparts, which becomes a problem when she joins the Cheerios cheerleading squad and is pressured by Coach Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) to lose weight through unhealthy means. Tina fakes stuttering to cover her shyness, which leads Artie Abrams (Kevin McHale), who uses a wheelchair, to bond with her over their perceived, shared disabled status. During season one, the New Directions grows to include Santana Lopez (Naya Rivera), a Cheerio who is proud of her Latina heritage; Mike Chang (Harry Shum Jr.), an Asian American football player known for his pop-and-lock dancing; and Matt Rutherford (Dijon Talton), an African American football player. Whereas Matt is a minor character, Mike, Santana, Tina, and Mercedes perform vocal solos and are featured in a number of plotlines and musical numbers throughout the series. Beyond the club members, McKinley’s Principal Figgins, portrayed by Pakistani American actor Iqbal Theba, also is a person of color. With some of the New Directions members graduating from high school at the end of season three, the show added five new members during season four, two of whom are of color: Jake Puckerman (Jacob Artist), Noah “Puck” Puckerman’s (Mark Salling) biracial Black Jewish half-brother, and Wade “Unique” Adams (Alex Newell), a former rival glee club lead who presents as a Black transgender female. In season six, the New Directions once again gained new members, including Jane Hayward (Samantha Marie Ware), a Black female who transfers to McKinley after the all-boys Dalton Academy refuses to allow her to join their show choir. Like Jake and Unique, Jane’s race figures more as a visual marker than an explicit plot point. While characters of color make race hyper-visible on screen, the show’s racialization of White characters draws further attention to race. This is particularly apparent during “Throwdown” when Sue, who at the time is codirecting glee, decides to break up the New Directions along the lines of race, sexuality, and ability, expressing a superficial commitment to the inclusion of students of color, queer students, and students with disabilities. As she offensively calls out students according to their sociocultural markers of difference—“Wheels! Gay kid! . . . Asian! Other Asian. Aretha. And Shaft,” referring to Artie, Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer), Tina, Mike, Mercedes, and Matt, respectively—it becomes apparent that non-minority students are united by their default whiteness, heterosexuality, and able-bodiedness (Glee 2010). The show’s general silence on multiraciality is notable, especially given its overt attention to race. Blaine Anderson, the open-gay teen heartthrob introduced in season two, portrayed by biracial Filipino actor Darren Criss, is primarily marked as one of the show’s vanguard gay characters. However, during “Blame It on the Alcohol,” Rachel Berry (Lea Michele) suggests he can “give [her] vaguely Eurasian-looking children,” alluding to his ambiguous racial status (Glee 2011). While Criss’s multiracial identity illustrates the racial politics of Hollywood casting, he is not the only multiracial actor to appear on the show. Patrick Gallagher



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(Irish-Chinese) played Ken Tanaka, McKinley’s football coach, and Vanessa Lengies (German-Egyptian) played Sugar Motta, a New Directions member who diagnoses herself with Asperger’s. Whereas Coach Tanaka’s last name racializes him as Asian, Sugar, like Blaine, passes as white. Despite its racially diverse cast, Glee coincided with Barack Obama’s presidency, which ushered in the idea that the United States was now supposedly post-racial. This sentiment appears on the show with much of the political narrative arc foregrounding LGBTQ issues—from Kurt being bullied for being flamboyantly gay, to Santana’s grandmother disowning her for being a lesbian, and to Unique’s experiences of transphobia: a parallel to contemporary U.S. politics with the rise of anti-bullying programs in schools, the legalization of same-sex marriage, and the debates concerning transgender people’s access to bathrooms. This is not to say the show shied away from explicitly engaging race, as episode plotlines were devoted to Mercedes feeling overlooked as a female vocal lead because of her blackness (e.g., “Asian F,” Glee 2012; “2009,” Glee 2015); Mike’s cultural conflict with his father who thinks glee is a distraction from academics (“Asian F,” Glee 2012); and Santana being offended by New Directions director Mr. Schuester’s (Matthew Morrison) appropriation of Latinx culture (“The Spanish Teacher,” Glee 2012). Even as the show addressed race, it often treated it as a personal issue, rather than a structural one. Nevertheless, Glee’s promise lies with its refusal to ignore diversity both on- and off-screen. As a show that advocates the performing arts in schools, Glee ultimately makes a case for building coalitions across sociocultural difference, inviting audiences—especially those who have felt marginalized by society—to never “stop believin’” that a better world is possible. Thomas Xavier Sarmiento Further Reading

Brown, Sonya C. 2014. “Body Image, Gender, Social Class, and Ethnicity on Glee.” Studies in Popular Culture 26 (2): 125–147. ­http://​­w ww​.­jstor​.­org​/­stable​/­24332654. Dubrofsky, Rachel E. 2013. “Jewishness, Whiteness, and Blackness on Glee: Singing to the Tune of Postracism.” Communication, Culture & Critique 6 (1): 82–102. doi:10.1111/cccr.12002. Sarmiento, Thomas Xavier. 2014. “The Empire Sings Back: Glee’s Queer Materialization of Filipina/o America.” MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States 39 (2): 211–234. doi:10.1093/melus/mlu013. Wolf, John, and Valarie Schweisberger. 2013. “Should We Stop Believin’? Glee and the Cultivation of Essentialist Identity Discourse.” In Queer Media Images: LGBT Perspectives, edited by Jane Campbell and Theresa Carilli, 157–169. Lanham, MD: Lexington.

Gomez, Selena(1992–) Selena Gomez was born July 22, 1992, in Grand Prairie, Texas, to her Mexican father, Ricardo Joel Gomez, and her White mother, Amanda Dawn “Mandy” Cornett, a stage actress. Named for singer and Latina icon, Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, Gomez was destined for a career in the entertainment business.

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At the age of ten, she was cast as Gianna in the popular television show Barney (1992–2009). Leveraging the show’s popularity, she appeared in both Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003) and Walker, Texas Ranger: Trial by Fire (2005). In 2006, she made a guest appearance in The Suite Life of Zack & Cody (2005–2008), capitulating her career on the Disney channel. In 2007, she made multiple appearances on Disney’s widely popular show Hannah Montana (2006–2011) as a pop star named Mikayla. As with so many others on the Disney channel, Gomez was tapped as the next acting-singing star of the network, ultimately securing the lead role as Alex Russo on Wizards of Waverly Place (2007–2012). Telling the story of three aspiring wizards—Alex, Justin (David Henrie), and Max (Jake T. Austin)—their retired wizard father, Jerry (David DeLuise), and their non-wizard human mother, Theresa (Maria Canals Barrera), Wizards chronicles the kids’ efforts to learn their craft and their fight over who will become the family wizard. Despite Gomez’s background and the fact that the Russo mother is Mexican, the show focuses little on their identity except in terms of how they navigate the competing and conflicting demands of being a wizard in a human world. Gomez’s tenure on Wizard and the show’s immense popularity propelled Gomez into a household name. However, her television career took a back seat as she emerged as both a Hollywood and music superstar. As one of the most prominent Latinas on television, especially powerful given her Disney platform, there have been ample debates about her role as a Latina role model, her importance in opening up doors for other Latinas, and her responsibility to challenge long-standing stereotypes. While somewhat hesitant of this role, Gomez has spoken about the importance of her “Mexican heritage” as well as her desire to inspire others all while providing audiences with a diversity of representations of Latina women. Reflecting on a moment when she talked to a single Latina mother of four about Wizards of Waverly Place, she highlighted the importance of diversity, role models, and the power of kids seeing themselves on television. “She was like, ‘It’s really incredible for my daughters to see that a Latina woman can be in this position and achieve her dreams, someone who isn’t the typical, you know, blonde with blue eyes.’ And I knew what she meant,” Gomez noted in an Interview with Harper’s Bazaar (2018). “When I was younger my idol was Hilary Duff! I remember wanting blue eyes too. So, I think I recognized then that it meant something to people.” Yet others have been critical of her for not being a leader or an advocate for Latinas on television and within the broader community. “Latinxs everywhere use their voices every day to talk about problems we face, using their position to destroy stereotypes, educate the public, and accurately represent the Latino community,” wrote Verónica Dávila (2016) in “Why Is Selena Gomez Considered a Latina Icon?” Embodying a widespread debate regarding the responsibilities of actors of color as both advocates and role models, as well as the expectations, from many television executives, media, and (White) fans, if not demand, that people of color within media culture ignore racial issues, Dávila further wrote, “Selena Gomez is an advocate for multiple campaigns. Yes, she’s Latina. Although she is a beautiful young woman who possesses dominant Latino community traits,



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it’s time to acknowledge the truth: up to this point, Selena Gomez has done nothing particularly significant to be considered an advocate for Latino people, let alone a Latina icon.” Alongside of Eva Longoria, America Ferrera, and Rosario Dawson, Selena Gomez has challenged existing stereotypes of Latinas as angry, sexy, dramatic, and “ghetto.” Opening up doors for others, even as she rarely spoke about her identity, Gomez is important within the history of Latinas on television and the broader struggle for diversity in and beyond the small screen. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Dávila Verónica. 2016. “Why Is Selena Gomez Considered a Latina Icon?” Affinity Magazine,  July  22. ­http://​­ a ffinitymagazine​ .­u s​ /­2 016​ /­0 7​ /­2 2​ /­w hy​ -­i s​ -­s elena​ -­g omez​ -­considered​-­a​-­latina​-­icon ​/. Langford, Katherine. 2018. “Selena Gomez’s Wild Ride.” Harper’s Bazaar, February 7. ­h ttps://​­w ww​.­h arpersbazaar​ .­c om ​ /­c ulture​ /­features​ /­a15895669​ /­s elena​ -­g omez​ -­interview​/. McGladrey, Margaret L. 2013. “Becoming Tween Bodies: What Preadolescent Girls in the US Say about Beauty, The ‘Just-Right Ideal,’ and the ‘Disney Girls.’” Journal of Children and Media 8 (4): 353–370. Pham, Jason. 2018. “How ‘Grown-ish’ Star Francia Raisa Broke Free of Latina Typecasting.” ­http://​­stylecaster​.­com ​/­f rancia​-­raisa​-­grown​-­ish​-­interview.

Good Times(1974–1979) Good Times (1974–1979) was the first television sitcom to feature a “traditional” African American nuclear family. Chronicling the experiences of a working-class family living in the projects of Chicago. Consisting of Florida Evans (Esther Rolle), her husband James (John Amos), and their three children: J.J. (Jimmie Walker), Thelma (Bern Nadette Stanis), and Michael (Ralph Carter), the show explored the everyday realities of Black life. As a show that included African Americans in the creative process and one that embraced the language of Black power, Good Times had the potential to offer a candid portrayal of life in the inner city for one African American family. However, cast conflicts, contract disputes, and poor ratings would eventually lead to the series demise. Yet, its impact would be lasting. Created by Chicago native Eric Monte and Michael Evans (Lionel Jefferson on The Jeffersons (1975–1985)) and developed by Norman Lear, Good Times would significantly change television and its representation of African Americans. Norman Lear, known for his willingness to push the boundaries of representation on television, was the creative force behind such revolutionary sitcoms as All in the Family (1971–1979), Maude (1972–1978), and Sanford and Son (1972–1977). Premiering in the aftermath of Watergate and Vietnam, the series seized upon American resentment and anger resulting from government corruption, widespread poverty, racial inequality, and high unemployment. Both White and Black audiences responded to how the series depicted the changing societal conditions

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of American culture in the 1970s. While clearly focused on giving voice to the lives of the Black working poor and to the experiences of African Americans families so erased from mainstream media, the series not only captured the imagination of White America but also gave voice to the experiences of all working-class Americans. Good Times was a spin-off of another successful Norman Lear sitcom, Maude starring Bea Arthur as Maude Finlay, a middle-aged married White woman and self-proclaimed liberal. Esther Rolle played Florida Evans, the Finlay’s housekeeper during the first two seasons of the series. While on Maude, Rolle’s character was shown to be opinionated, candid, and “the embodiment of 1960s-style political correctness” (Bogle 2001, 198). Rolle initially rejected the role on Maude, as she felt a social responsibility to African Americans. Further perpetuating the portrayal of African Americans as a stereotypical Hollywood maid ran counter to her mission as an actress. After Norman Lear assured her that the role would be different and that she would have some say over the direction of her character, Rolle accepted. Audiences would first be introduced to Florida during an interview with her future employer, Maude, assuring her that she would not have to enter the residence through the back door or eat separately from the family. Florida, however, makes her preference clear: to fulfill the responsibilities of a traditional maid. While Esther Rolle wanted to depict a different type of maid, her portrayal of Florida Evans was not anything audiences had not seen before. The only improvement that accompanied Rolle’s character was her ability to uncompromisingly express her opinions to her employer. Florida Evans was immensely popular among audiences, leading Norman Lear to develop a spin-off that would feature Rolle as Florida Evans. In Rolle’s final episode on Maude, audiences learned that Florida’s husband Henry (John Amos) received a raise, enabling her to quit her job to be with her family full-time. Within days of her departure on Maude, audiences would see Florida Evans again, along with her never before seen family. The initial script for Good Times had been written by Monte and Evans years before Maude even premiered. Once Florida moved from Maude to Good Times, a few series defining changes occurred. First, Florida’s husband Henry was now named James (both characters portrayed by John Amos). The Evans family no longer lived in Harlem, New York, but in Chicago, Illinois. Good Times would also feature three Evans children. Michael, played by Ralph Carter, was the youngest child and its most politically conscious. Often referred to as the “militant midget,” Michael would provide the show’s political edge, giving voice to critical analysis of race, poverty, and inequality. Prior to his role on Good Times, Carter performed in the Broadway play Raisin. The eldest child James Junior “J.J.,” played by Jimmie Walker, who would bring his comedic timing to the show. Known for his artistic ability, unusual clothing, and gangly stature, J.J. never gave up the opportunity to hurl insults at his younger sister Thelma (especially when it came to her cooking). Sixteen-year-old Thelma (Bern Nadette Stanis) had the least amount of story lines, given the show’s focus on Black masculinity. In fact, after just a few episodes, Esther Rolle complained



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about the erasure of Thelma, demanding that Thelma become part of the story line and that she be used as something other than a backdrop for J.J.’s jokes. Completing the cast was Ja’net DuBois who played Willona Woods, the Evanses’ neighbor and Florida’s best friend. Willona was known for her brief gossipy and humorous remarks as she let herself into the Evanses’ home without knocking. Norman Lear discovered DuBois while she was performing in the play Hot L Baltimore in Los Angeles, and he liked her so much that she did not have to audition for the role. Good Times was an important paradigm shift within television, offering a story about a strong Black family. Interestingly, its focus on chronicling the lives of a two-parented Black family would not have occurred had it not been for the insistence of Esther Rolle. When Rolle first received the script for Good Times, she immediately noticed that her character did not have a husband; there was no visible father of her children. She refused to do the show unless a father character was developed. This proved to be easier than expected as the original script written by Monte and Evans had a father figure. Norman Lear had decided to remove the character when developing the show only to reintroduce the character. Rolle’s refusal to do the show without a father figure was a direct response to the Moynihan Report published in 1965. The report alleged that the deterioration and dysfunction of the African American community was due to the matriarchal, single-parent structure of many black families. Esther Rolle felt a moral responsibility to the Black community and could not participate in anything that negatively portrayed African Americans. The initial seasons of Good Times are the most socially relevant in terms of addressing contemporary issues. Episodes were topical and often included social commentary on a range of issues from police brutality to poverty, from religion to racism within schools. Attempting to provide a bridge between comedy and social analysis, Good Times established an important framework for socially relevant popular culture. Many episodes engaged in conversations, public discourse, and political debates that were current at that time: “Junior the Senior” examined inequalities within education; “The Visitor” dealt with poor housing conditions in ghetto tenements; “The Checkup” documented health inequities, racism, and hypertension; “J.J. Becomes a Man” addressed racial police profiling and police harassment; and “The Gang” dealt with gang violence and overcrowding within the criminal justice system. Despite critical success, communal support, and the power of its intervention, the show focused less on delivering social commentary and more on making people laugh. As the series progressed, both in terms of narrative and dialogue, Good Times focused more and more on comedy and the antics of J.J., thus betraying the political and progressive message of those initial two seasons. J.J. would quickly become a breakout sensation with his memorable catchphrase “Dyn-o-mite!” As J.J.’s character grew in popularity, so did the show’s exploitation of Jimmie Walker’s acting style, facial features, and body type. As a stand-up comedian by trade, Walker had no prior training as actor, resulting in a tendency to exaggerate his facial features by mugging or flashing his teeth to the camera. “The popularity of Jimmy Walker’s mugging, strutting, and uttering

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‘Dy-No-Mite!’ as J.J. Evans transformed Good Times from a story about a family surviving the projects to a showcase of buffoonery” (Larson 2005, 29). Yet, audiences loved his character, propelling J.J. as a pop culture sensation. It was not uncommon to find J.J. T-shirts, pajamas, coffee mugs, and a host of other novelties. This popularity also led the writers of Good Times to increase Walker’s screen presence as episodes began to center on J.J.’s buffoonish antics, which were highlighted by dressing the character in outlandish multicolored clothing and hats. To many critics, J.J. was more and more reminiscent of an old-style coon character made famous by Stepin Fetchit. Other cast members, most notably John Amos and Esther Rolle, publicly voiced their frustrations with the direction of the show and the focus on J.J. Both Rolle and Amos thought the focus of the series should be the family and not the comedic antis of J.J. The show’s writers and producers, along with network executives, refused to make changes, leading John Amos to leave the cast of Good Times. After James Evans was killed off in the show, the focus on J.J. and his antics increased. Worse yet, the departure of John Amos turned Good Times into precisely what it set out to challenge, a show about a single Black mother and her fatherless children. In an effort to replace the lost male presence, producers first increased the role of the landlord Bookman (Johnny Brown), who made his first appearance on the show during its second season. Bookman also referred to as “Buffalo Butt” became a more frequent character and officially became a cast member in the show’s final season. An additional male character was added in the series’ fourth season, Carl Dixon, played by Moses Gunn, most known for his role in Shaft (1971). Carl Dixon appeared as a mentor to Michael. He would eventually become a love interest for Florida. Season four would end with Carl proposing to Florida, John Amos Leaves the Show At the beginning of the third season, John Amos stalled taping due to a contractual dispute with Tandem Productions. Amos wanted more money, but Lear refused to comply, resulting in a weeklong delay in taping for the 1975–1976 season. What began as a salary dispute between Amos and Lear, eventually turned into a dispute over content and the direction of the show. Amos wanted the show to focus less on J.J. and more on family values. Norman Lear refused to concede to either of Amos’s requests, releasing him from his contract. John Amos made his last appearance as James Evans at the close of season three. The fourth season of Good Times began with a special two-part episode “The Big Move,” in which the Evans are preparing to move to Mississippi, where James, who found a higher paying job, is waiting for them. At the going away party, Florida gets a devastating telegram stating that James was killed in a car accident in Mississippi. John Amos appeared in sixty-one episodes over two years and three seasons. Amos represented the ability of Black actors to exercise a sense of agency in deciding what they stand for and how they choose to represent themselves and their community. The killing of James Evans left a noticeable void in the cast, as he was such a dominant presence, that it altered the narrative direction as well as the politics of the show.



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and their eventual move to Arizona. The plotline served as cover for the difficulties behind the scenes. Rolle, frustrated by the show artistic shift, had quit at the conclusion of season four. By season five, the Evans family was no more. Without parental figures, Willona Woods, the Evanses’ perpetually single neighbor, took on the role of mother in the series fifth season. Willona became the featured adult and her character became the focal point in the four-part season five opening, “The Evans Get Involved.” Janet Jackson, who would eventually become a pop icon, was also introduced to the cast as Penny Gordon, a young girl whose mother was physically abusive. In one memorable scene, Penny comes home late and her mother punishes her by burning her with an iron. Willona eventually takes Penny away from her abusive mother ultimately adopting her. All of these changes not only compromised the show’s creative and critical success but also undermined its popularity. The absence of both Rolle and Amos contributed to plummeting ratings. In a final attempt to boost the show’s ratings, Norman Lear convinced Esther Rolle to return during the sixth and final season of the series. Rolle agreed to return only if the narrative focused less and less on J.J. She demanded the development of storyline around J.J. getting a job. At the start of the season, Thelma also became engaged to a promising NFL hopeful Keith Anderson (Ben Powers). While a source of joy for their family, their engagement meant that the Evanses would finally have financial stability. At their wedding, Keith trips over J.J.’s foot, breaking his leg and ending his million-dollar career before it even starts. Rather than live the American Dream ushered in by an NFL contract, Thelma and Keith move into Thelma’s room. To make ends meet, Florida takes on a job at a bus driver. Rolle’s return to Good Times could not save the series from its abysmal ratings. Good Times was cancelled after becoming one of the least watched shows on the CBS line-up during the 1978–1979 season. After 132 previous episodes and consistent attempts to get out of the ghetto, the Evans family finally managed to leave on the last episode of the series. All loose ends were tied up: J.J. was offered a job as a cartoon artist (basically for drawing Thelma as a superhero); Willona got a promotion and moved away with Penny; Keith was offered an NFL contract after his leg healed; Thelma became pregnant and asked Florida to move in with her and Keith, making Florida and Willona neighbors again. The family that struggled for six years to leave the ghetto finally got their wish. Despite its flaws, during its six-year run, Good Times had a major impact on American culture. Good Times offered audiences insights into lower-income African American communities. Given the show’s reliance on J.J.’s stereotypical coon imagery, the potential of the series to confront accepted realities within mainstream American culture went unfulfilled as the series chose to focus on comedy rather than exposing and challenging the status quo (Leonard 2013, 18). Good Times represents an important moment in African American television history. At one time one of the most popular shows in America, seen in over eighteen million homes, it defined an era of black consciousness and political thought on the big screen and on television. Good Times challenged the representations

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available to Black America, not only spotlighting the experiences of working black families but also challenging widespread stereotypes, all while giving voice to important political, cultural, economic, and racial issues. Sadly, within a few seasons, it quickly became one of the least watched shows. Cast changes, internal cast conflicts, shifts in programming direction, and scheduling issues put the nail in Good Times’s coffin. Its legacy, however, can be seen in the influences on black television and black popular culture as a whole. Ashley S. Young Further Reading

Acham, Christine. 2005. Revolution Televised: Prime Time and the Struggle for Black Power. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Bogle, Donald. 2001. Primetime Blues: African Americans on Network Television. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Campbell, Sean. 2007. The Sitcoms of Norman Lear. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Larson, Stephanie Greco. 2005. Media & Minorities: The Politics of Race in News and Entertainment. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Leonard, David J. 2013. “Consciousness on Television: Black Power and Mainstream Narratives.” In African Americans on Television: Race-ing for Ratings, edited by David J. Leonard and Lisa A. Guerrero, 16–33. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.

Greene, Graham(1952–) An Academy Award nominated Canadian First Nations actor, with a prolific resume, Graham Greene has spent his career acting on the stage, in films, and in television in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Born on June 22, 1952, near Brantford, Ontario, Greene (the second of six children) grew up just outside of the Six Nations Reserve. While he identifies as Oneida, his family did not pass down many tribal traditions or language. Greene never intended to become an actor. He dropped out of school at age sixteen and moved to Rochester, New York, where he worked in a carpet warehouse. He then studied welding at George Brown College in Toronto and subsequently got a job building railway cars. Soon thereafter, he worked as a sound technician, and in the 1970s while working in an Ontario recording studio, he was encouraged by rock musician Kelly Jay to participate in a play. Greene was not interested but ended up taking part in the play anyway; the particular play was not a hit, but Greene’s stage presence caught the attention of casting director, Anne Tait, who later got him a small part in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) series The Great Detective (1979–1982). Greene appeared in one episode, but when he viewed it, he was not pleased with his performance and decided that if he was going to pursue acting that he needed some education. Greene initially rented movies to observe how others acted; he analyzed acting styles and methods, as well as how the camera functioned, and developed a fondness for Steve McQueen. With his self-education, Greene was able to score small parts here and there, and he supplemented his income by working various jobs, such as welding, audio



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engineering, carpentry, and landscaping. Greene continued to plug along, taking whatever roles came his way, and in 1989 he received his first formal recognition: the Dora Mavor Moore Award. This award is presented annually by the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts, which honors theater, dance, and opera. Greene won for Outstanding Performance by a Male in a Principal Role in a Play for his portrayal of the likeable drunk Pierre St. Pierre in Tomson Highway’s piece Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing (1989). After this recognition, Greene gained more roles, especially on Canadian TV screens, regularly playing characters in the CBC series Spirit Bay (1984–1986) and 9B (1988). Greene’s biggest breakthrough and perhaps his best-known role was his representation of Lakota Chief Kicking Bird in Dances with Wolves (1990), for which he was nominated an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. This nomination was monumental, since it was only the second time that a North American Indigenous person had received the honor; the first was Chief Dan George for his role in Little Big Man (1970). Following his Oscar nomination, Greene appeared in films such as Thunderheart (1992), Maverick (1994), and Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995). Greene has appeared in over 100 films and TV programs and continues to act, adding more roles to his diverse and long resume. During his career, Greene has portrayed several Native characters, and in addition to his performance in Dances with Wolves, some other notable appearances are in Chris Eyre’s Skins (2002), the PBS adaptations of Tony Hillerman’s Coyote Waits (2003) and A Thief of Time (2004), as well as in Transamerica (2005). Despite his numerous roles as Native characters, Greene’s prolific acting resume has allowed him to avoid being typecast; not only has Greene portrayed a range of characters, but he has also purposely chosen to work within a variety of genres. For example, Greene portrayed Mr. Crabby Tree, a character in the children’s show The Adventures of Dudley the Dragon (1993–1997), in which Greene had to act inside of a large foam tree-shaped body suit. This role earned him a Gemini Award for Best Performance in a Children’s or Youth Program Series, given by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television, which recognizes achievements in Canada’s television industry. Greene has been approached about directing but has declined, since his interest lies within acting. Greene acted in Wind River (2017), in which a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent discovers a body on the Wind River Indian Reservation, and The Shack (2017), a psychological drama based on the novel of the same name. Mary Stoecklein Further Reading

Aleiss, Angela. 2005. Making the White Man’s Indian: Native Americans and Hollywood Movies. Westport, CT: Praeger. Hilger, Michael. 2016. Native Americans in the Movies: Portrayals from Silent Films to the Present. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Johnson, Brian D. 1991. “Dances with Oscar: Canadian Actor Graham Greene Tastes Stardom.” Maclean’s, March 25, 60. Westren, Steven. 1994. “On Location Preview.” Playback: Canada’s Broadcast and Production Journal 8 (22) (August): 13.

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Williams, Kenneth. 1997. “Actor Adored by Millions: Graham Greene.” Windspeaker, March 8. Wood, Houston. 2008. Native Features: Indigenous Films from around the World. New York: Continuum.

Green Hornet, The(1966–1967) The Green Hornet aired on ABC television for one season (twenty-six episodes) from 1966 to 1967. The show is remembered primarily for its Asian sidekick character, Kato, played by Bruce Lee. The series launched the international martial arts film career and popularity that followed for Lee. According to Bruce Thomas, in his biography of Lee, “The series marked the first time that Kung Fu had been seen in the West, outside of movie theaters of the Chinatown districts, and younger viewers were astonished at what they saw.” Jonathan Kim, a film critic, notes how for Asian American viewers The Green Hornet offered a character “they could point to with pride to show America that Asians aren’t the villains, perverts, enemy soldiers or servants that they’d been characterized as in popular culture.” The Green Hornet featured actor Van Williams in the title role. The character of the Green Hornet was the alter ego of Britt Reid, a newspaper owner and publisher of The Daily Sentinel, located in Washington, D.C. Together with Kato, the Green Hornet “waged a war against crime” and fought against various thugs and criminals in the city. The Green Hornet’s identity was only known to Kato, the city’s District Attorney (F.P. Scanlon), and Reid’s secretary (Lenore Case). In the eyes of the public and the police force, the Green Hornet was a criminal and vigilante. This meant that after each crime-fighting encounter, usually at night and after dark, he and Kato swiftly fled the scene. They did so in their weaponized vehicle, “Black Beauty,” with Kato at the wheel. In everyday life, Kato also served as the chauffeur and driver to Reid, regularly wearing typical black chauffer attire. When fighting crime, Kato appeared with a black mask that was a counterpart to the Green Hornet’s green one. The Green Hornet also wore a Chesterfield coat, green fedora, and suit with white shirt and black tie. The Green Hornet television show aired and was based on the superhero character that appeared in comic books at this time. The show also followed the popularity and success of Batman (1966–1968), which aired for the first time this same year. The co-creator of Batman, William Dozier, narrated The Green Hornet and was the show’s executive producer. The creator of The Green Hornet, George W. Trendle, also co-created The Lone Ranger television series (1949–1957). The character of the Green Hornet was actually written to be related to the Lone Ranger (his grandnephew). While Kato is considered a sidekick to the Green Hornet, he is portrayed more positively than the Lone Ranger’s Indian sidekick, Tonto. In the case of Tonto, the character displays an easily recognizable stereotype. With Kato, despite being a driver for the Green Hornet, some scholars, including Adilifu Nama, have noted that Kato is an “example of a minority sidekick upstaging the principle white character” (Nama 2011, 67). According to



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Nama, Kato represents an instance “where a minority sidekick is more dynamic, subversive, and connotative” than the negative associations that typically come with these roles (2011, 67). Journalist James Ellis also comments, “Bruce Lee stole the show as Kato.” It is reported that Williams and Lee became good friends during the filming of The Green Hornet and that Williams pressed the show’s producers to grant more screen time to Lee (Ellis 2015). The show became very popular in Hong Kong during its run and was marketed there as The Kato Show, demonstrating the widespread influence and popularity of Lee and his character. Due to Lee’s portrayal of Kato, Harlan Ellison points out that “martial arts became popular in the U.S. in the 1960s.” In addition to his close-up martial arts moves, including a signature hand strike to the back of an opponent’s neck, viewers could see Kato use the Kato Dart. He tossed this weapon through the air in order to incapacitate a more distant opponent. Unskilled in martial arts and generally weak in hand-to-hand combat, the Green Hornet used a couple of sophisticated weapons. These included the Gas Gun, which projected a jet of gas to subdue opponents, as well as the more powerful blasting weapon, the Sting. The popularity of The Green Hornet television series fostered a feature film version by the same name in 2011, directed by Michel Gondry, featuring Seth Rogen as Britt Reid/the Green Hornet and Jay Chou as Kato. The film was not as successful as the television show, and critical responses to the Kato character were mixed. Jonathan Kim remarks, “While The Green Hornet is not going to usher in 2011 as the year of the Asian, it’s certainly a good start to the year.” Dana Stevens, on the other hand, states, “Kato and Britt discuss their master-servant dynamic . . . in several scenes, but the fundamental injustice of their partnership is never satisfactorily addressed.” Mary K. Bloodsworth-Lugo Further Reading

Bates, Billie Rae. 2017. “Let’s Roll, Kato”: A Guide to TV’s Green Hornet. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. Ellis, James. 2015. “The Kato Show: Bruce Lee as the Green Hornet’s Sidekick.” Newsweek, November 20. ­http://​­w ww​.­newsweek​.­com. Ellison, Harlan, Robert Greenberger, and Greg Cox. 2010. The Green Hornet Chronicles. Moonstone Books. Greenwood, Peter. 2016. “The Prop Weapons on ‘The Green Hornet’ Were a Real Gas.” Heroes & Icons, October 26. ­http://​­w ww​.­heroesandiconstv​.­com​/­stories​/­the​-­green​ -­hornet​-­props​-­are​-­a​-­real​-­gas. Kim, Jonathan. 2011. “Why the Green Hornet’s Kato Matters.” HuffPost The Blog, January 14. ­https://​­www​.­huffingtonpost​.­com​/­jonathan​-­k im​/­rethink​-­review​-­the​-­g reen​-­_b ​_809097​.­html. Nama, Adilifu. 2011. Super Black: American Pop Culture and Black Superheroes. Austin: University of Texas Press. Stevens, Dana. 2011. “The Green Hornet: Michel Gondry versus the Superhero Movie.” Slate, January 13. ­http://​­w ww​.­slate​.­com​/­articles​/­arts​/­movies​/­2011​/­01​/­the​_ green​ _hornet​.­html. Thomas, Bruce. 1994. Bruce Lee: Fighting Spirit. Blue Snake Books.

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Grey’s Anatomy(2005–) Created by Shonda Rimes in 2005, Grey’s Anatomy is a medical drama that focuses on a group of doctors at Seattle Grace Hospital who started their careers as surgical interns to become attending physicians. Celebrated for its dramatic storylines, its education about the medical field, its diversity, and for Shonda Rhimes’s embrace of colorblind casting, Grey’s Anatomy transformed television in significant ways. The fictional drama is based on a classic human anatomy textbook, Gray’s Anatomy, published in 1858. The story line follows Dr. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) as she starts her surgical residency along with other interns at Seattle Grace Hospital. She is the daughter of a respected general surgeon, Ellis Grey, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease and was the lover of the Chief of Surgery Dr. Richard Webber (James Pickens Jr.). Dr. Grey and the other interns are supervised by Dr. Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson), a senior resident who works for Dr. Derek Shepard (Patrick Dempsey), an attending physician and head of neurosurgery who becomes Meredith’s love interest. The head of cardio, Dr. Preston Burke (Isaiah Washington), becomes surgical intern Dr. Cristina Yang’s (Sandra Oh) fiancé. They are joined by Dr. Isobel “Izzie” Stevens (Katherine Heigl), Dr. Alex Karev (Justin Chambers), and Dr. George O’Malley (T. R. Knight). Each episode of the show contains story lines centered around the doctors’ professional triumphs and losses while facing challenges in their personal lives and relationships. Grey’s Anatomy has a unique ability to raise awareness about medical issues and potentially life-changing medical innovations. Season ten ends with Dr. Cristina Yang’s departure to run a state-of-the-art hospital in Zurich, Switzerland. In season eleven, Dr. Callie and Dr. Owen work together to provide wounded veterans with robotic legs. The show is also good at providing realistic medical scenarios. In season twelve episode “Things We Lost in the Fire,” a rare treatment for burns called pedicle flap is used to treat injured firefighters at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital (former Seattle Grace Hospital). A pedicle flap is when a soft tissue is covered with direct blood flow. While this technique was a sophisticated solution for the fictional crisis at hand, plastic surgeons use this technique in real life as an effective therapeutic option. Another example is season twelve episode “You Can Look (But You’d Better Not Touch),” which features a dramatic case of Twin Reversed Arterial Perfusion (TRAP) sequence, a rare twin pregnancy where blood flow between fetuses is reversed, causing a malformation in one twin. The figure showed on this Grey’s Anatomy episode was a real outcome of a TRAP sequence in pregnancy. Grey’s Anatomy transformed television with Shonda Rimes’s embrace of blind casting. Color-blind casting, also called nontraditional casting or integrated casting, is when the race or ethnicity of a person auditioning for a role is not a factor or a consideration. In 1986, the nontraditional casting project was created to examine problems of racial discrimination in theater, film, and television. Examples of movies that used the color-blind casting technique are The Karate Kid (2010), Supergirl (2015), and The Flash (2014). When Rhimes developed and wrote Grey’s Anatomy, race was not written into the script nor did she choose the characters based on their ethnicity. Story lines



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and the arc of the characters was done so without any reference racial identity. For example, the last names of the characters were not selected until after an actor was chosen. She did not want the show to be defined by the actor’s skin color and wanted to emphasize diversity. On Grey’s Anatomy, racial issues are secondary to the problems of hospital life such as personal relationships, competition, exhaustion, and other personal problems. The cast of Grey’s Anatomy consists of people from all different ethnic and racial backgrounds. The story line gives the doctors an opportunity to make a professional advancement as well as highlighting setbacks, regardless of their race. In season six, for example, the main cast consisted of seven White characters, three African American characters, and one Asian American character. While the cast is still majority white, the characters follow the story line and their merit. Meredith Grey is a successful White female doctor married to a white male doctor who adopted an African child. Christina Young is a successful Asian American doctor who had a romantic relationship with an African American male, Dr. Burke, one of the best cardio doctors in the country. Another way that Grey’s Anatomy challenges the boundaries of race is how the relationships are formed: Meredith and Christina are best friends who value each other over more than any other relationship they have. Their friendship is portrayed through the value of the emotional support their friendship provides rather than any racial differences or boundaries. Rhimes has a powerful and unique approach to depicting race, wealth, power, and family relationships through a community of doctor and their patients. Themes have included disability, religious beliefs about abortion, homosexuality, and police brutality. Grey’s Anatomy has set the stage for authentic diversity and inclusivity from the start. Blind casting is often considered a progressive step toward actors’ equality; however, it has received criticism and critics argue that it is not always as progressive as it ignores systematic power relations in gender. Some critics and commentators, however, have been critical of the representations within Grey’s Anatomy as unrealistic in their efforts to erase race, ethnicity, and identity. For example, Christina Yang’s character very rarely embraced her Asian American identity. Her character was portrayed as akin to a white woman who happened to be Asian American. A similar critique can be made of the development of other characters as well as the lack of visibility of racial issues within the hospital and the broader community. From its approach to casting to its embrace of crossover television, with story lines connecting it to spin-offs with The Practice (2006–2013) and Station 19 (2018–), from its revitalization of the medical drama to its serving as a launching pad for Rhimes’s influence on television, Grey’s Anatomy has left an indelible mark on television. Juliana Maria Trammel Further Reading

Clarendon, Dan. 2014. “Sandra Oh: Grey’s Anatomy Not Dealing with Race ‘Bummed Me Out.’” Wet Paint, June 4. ­http://​­w ww​.­wetpaint​.­com​/­sandra​-­oh​-­race​-­issues​ -­stories​-­828275​/.

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Demby, Gene. 2015. “Making the Case against ‘Colorblind Casting.’” NPR, December 29. ­https://​­w ww​.­npr​.­org ​/­sections​/­codeswitch ​/­2015​/­12​/­29​/­461306924​/­making​-­the​-­case​ -­against​-­colorblind​-­casting. Long, Amy. 2011. “Diagnosing Drama: Grey’s Anatomy, Blind Casting, and the Politics of Representation.” Journal of Popular Culture 44 (5): 1067–1084. Nadasi, Eszter. 2016. “Changing the Face of Medicine, Alternating the Meaning of Human: Medical Innovations in Grey’s Anatomy.” International Journal of Television Studies 11 (2): 230–243. Winfrey, Oprah, and Shonda Rhimes. 2006. “Oprah Talks to Shonda Rhimes.” O Magazine. December. ­https://​­w ww​.­oprah​.­com ​/­omagazine​/­oprah​-­i nterviews​-­g reys​-­anatomy​ -­creator​-­shonda​-­rhimes​_2​/­3.

Groundbreaking TV Shows A show that is justifiably groundbreaking in terms of race must not only produce novel representations of racialized bodies, nor merely use production models that shift racial dynamics, but also must prepare the way for other shows to follow in its footsteps. What is truly groundbreaking at one time will come to be unremarkable in the future. During its first decades, television established the economic structures, institutional practices, formats, and tropes from which the first groundbreaking shows would diverge. While a range of racial identities were depicted on TV during the 1940s and 1950s, the shows in which they appeared were almost exclusively produced and written by white men, and they depicted people of color in ways that reinforced U.S. racial hegemony. Since the 1960s, shows like I-Spy (1965–1968), Roots (1977), and Ugly Betty (2006–2010) have been trailblazers in how and by whom race is represented on television, reflecting and shaping shifts in dominant racial ideology. Many of the shows have played key roles in increasing the visibility, depth, and complexity of nonwhite characters and their story lines. Other programs redefined which formats, topics, and genres can be employed with racialized characters. Shows created, developed, produced, written, directed, or financed by people of color broke industry color lines. INTEGRATED COMMUNITIES AND INTERRACIAL KISSES The mid- to late 1960s have been remembered as a time of profound change in the United States. These years produced the first shows to feature African American protagonists in major recurring roles that broke from the minstrelsy tradition. In 1965, two shows featuring main Black characters premiered: the sitcom Hogan’s Heroes (1965–1971) and the witty drama I-Spy. Hogan’s Heroes centered around a group of Allied soldiers “imprisoned” in a German World War II POW camp where they run a counterintelligence operation under the noses of oblivious German officers. While Col. Hogan, the eponymous leader of the Allied POWs, was played by white actor Bob Crane, the team’s “Chief of Operations,” Staff Sgt. James “Kinch” Kinchloe, was played by Black actor Ivan Dixon. Kinch displayed excellent



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leadership skills, managed electronic communications, and served the team as an excellent impersonator of German VIPs and foreign dignitaries. The show was not only groundbreaking for portraying a Black character with high-level technical and leadership skills but also for helping Dixon establish himself in the industry where he would soon become one of the first African American directors. I-Spy took Hogan’s Heroes’s innovation with Black characters a step further. Staring Bill Cosby and Robert Culp, the show followed two Pentagon agents working undercover in “exotic” locales disguised as “tennis bums.” Cosby’s character, Alexander “Scotty” Scott, was the first lead role for a Black actor in U.S. television. While Culp’s character, Kelly Robinson, was depicted as the more experienced agent, Cosby’s straitlaced, multilingual “Scotty” was undoubtedly the brains of the operation. Scotty was initially depicted as monk-like in contrast to Kelly, who enjoyed many romantic entanglements (some of them interracial) on the show, but after much pressure from Cosby and due to the team’s decision to make race a “nonissue” in the show, romantic partners for Scotty were incorporated. The show was a critical success, earning Cosby three consecutive Emmys for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. A year following the premiere of these two shows, Star Trek (1966–1969) emerged with a multiracial ensemble cast to portray a team of high-ranking Starfleet officers exploring the galaxy. Among these were Black communications officer Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) and Asian helmsman Lt. Sulu (George Takei). Like its predecessors in sci-fi television—The Twilight Zone (1959–1964) and The Outer Limits (1963–1965) —Star Trek included characters of color and incorporated racial themes in its story lines. But whereas Twilight Zone and Outer Limits were anthology shows, Star Trek featured the same set of main characters for seventy-nine episodes. This continuity presented viewers with the opportunity to see a multiracial team cooperatively solve problems together over an extended period. More sensationally, Star Trek included the first scripted on-screen kiss between black and white actors on U.S. television when Lt. Uhura and Capt. Kirk were forced by aliens to kiss each other in the 1968 episode “Plato’s Stepchildren.” While Sesame Street (1969–) may seem to have little in common with adult entertainment programs like Star Trek, Hogan’s Heroes, or I-Spy, it too presented audiences with a model of integrated community and interracial cooperation across generations. This educational program for preschoolers enjoyed quick and enduring success, which made the show’s setting—a multiracial urban neighborhood—a model of what an ideal community would look like. Although the show has done little to address racial injustice and inequity directly, Sesame Street has performed interracial friendship and cooperation for a broad audience of preschoolers, teachers, parents, and childcare workers. Moreover, the program has portrayed people of color as important mentors and authority figures for children on the show as well as audiences at home. BLACK PRODUCTIONS While “respectable” African American characters were finding their way into prime-time programming on major networks during the mid-1960s, so too were

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more controversial Black civil rights activists. Civil rights protests were widely televised on network news programs and, therefore, framed for audiences within the dominant discourse of White America. In 1968, following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., things began to change with the premiere of several black-produced programs. Many, such as Colored People’s Time (now American Black Journal, 1968–) in Detroit and Say Brother (now Basic Black, 1968–) in Boston, were produced by and aired on local PBS affiliates. Others such as Black Journal (1968–2008), Soul! (1968–1973), and (in 1971) Soul Train (1970–2006) were broadcast nationally. Black Journal and Soul! were both supported by WNET and underwent early shifts in personnel. Soul!, a weekly program that centered on Black music, dance, and literature, was originally hosted by Dr. Alvin F. Poussaint and educator Loretta Long, but within a month, Poussaint was replaced by Ellis Haizlip, an openly gay African American producer associated with the Black Arts Movement. Loretta Long left a few months later, joining the cast of Sesame Street (1969–). Under Haizlip’s leadership, Soul! presented a range of Black cultural works, from avant-garde performances to popular comedy. Black Journal, a monthly public affairs program, was initially run by White producer Alvin Perlmutter. The show’s Black staff was dissatisfied with this and demanded that the show take on Black leadership. Within a few months Black producer William Greaves was hired. With a budget of $100,000 per episode, Black Journal was able to film people and events on-location across the globe. This enabled the show to broadcast diverse experiences and debates within Black communities while also cultivating Black counter-publics. Disappointingly, the show faced funding problems after The Ford Foundation, which provided more than half of Black Journal’s budget, ceased funding specific television programs in 1973. In response, the show severely reduced the amount of new material it produced and limited itself to in-studio segments. Tony Brown, who had taken over the show from Greaves in 1970, struggled for decades to mitigate these ongoing funding challenges, the budget never returned its original levels. By its ending in 2008, the show had lost not only the on-location segments that signified its sophistication and national relevance but also the range of black viewpoints that had made it so groundbreaking. In contrast to Black Journal and Soul! Soul Train was led and hosted by its creator, Don Cornelius, for the vast majority of its production run. Beginning in 1970 as an all-Black, hour-long, daily dance program in Chicago, Soul Train grew to become a major hit after it began producing shows for national syndication in 1971. While the program did share similarities to American Bandstand (1952– 1989), it would be unfair to call Soul Train simply a Black version of Dick Clark’s show. In fact, Soul Train originated several innovations that Bandstand later adopted. For example, Soul Train permitted its dancers to use their creativity in choosing their manner of dress, while Bandstand required dancers to wear formal attire. Soul Train dancers were also permitted to face the camera directly, which was key to the aesthetic of the Soul Train Line, another of the show’s innovative features. Additionally, Soul Train was the first TV show sponsored by a Black-owned business, Johnson Products, the makers of Afro-Sheen. By 1972,



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Rolling Stone had named Soul Train as the best musical TV show on air. There was little question that Soul Train, and not American Bandstand, featured the newest hip dances, music, and style trends. Its mainstream appeal helped to bolster popular beliefs that African Americans have a privileged relationship to determining what is and what is not cool.

FAMILY SITCOMS AND FAMILY DRAMAS All in the Family (1971–1979) dramatized the intergenerational debates that emerged from the same racial changes that made Soul Train a hit. Set in Queens, New York, All in the Family comically depicted the squabbles of the Bunker family: bigoted patriarch Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Connor), his wife, Edith (Jean Stapleton), their liberal adult daughter, Gloria (Sally Struthers), and confrontationally progressive son-in-law, Michael (Rob Reiner). While much of the depicted conflict was between the members of the family, the causes of this conflict were the characters’ differing views on the cultural, social, and economic changes that characterized the 1970s, especially the evolution of U.S. racial ideology. All in the Family mined these conflicts for laughs, becoming the first sitcom to make bigotry the central source and target of its humor. Although producer Norman Lear and star Carroll O’Connor expressed hopes that satirizing racial bigotry would help eliminate it, major news outlets frequently described Archie Bunker as a sympathetic character: a “loveable bigot,” a put-upon husband and father facing the loss of status and authority. While this response may not have been what the writers had intended, the fact that the show appealed to audiences that sympathized with Archie as well as those that laughed at him enabled All in the Family to become the most watched show on network television and hold that distinction for five years. Its success spearheaded an onslaught of “relevance comedies” that deployed similar tactics to make social, cultural, and political conflict funny and profitable. Of course, not all TV shows about family and racial conflict have been comedies. Roots (1977) is only the most obvious case in point. Based on incomplete drafts of Alex Haley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same name, Roots recounted a family history beginning in the eighteenth century with the son of a young Mandinka warrior named Kunta Kinte (LeVar Burton) who was brought across the Middle Passage to a life of slavery. The twelve-hour miniseries traced his life as well as the lives of his descendants, ending in Reconstruction, when the family claimed land upon which to build their own homestead. Roots was the first television program to depict American slavery from the perspective of the slaves, demonstrating that slaves were real people with their own complex emotional and social lives and not just a mass of people that endured a collective trauma. Instead, it emphasized the heroic qualities of Black individuals struggling against White oppression and eventually prevailing through their wits and collective efforts. Additionally, Roots’s graphic depictions of plantation life disabused many viewers of the notion that slavery was “not really that bad.” The miniseries’ final episode was the most watched broadcast in the history of television up to that point, and the program also went on to be shown in countless classrooms for decades.

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Even as Black families were incorporated into the TV landscape during the 1970s, it wasn’t until 1984 that an affluent and educated Black family became the focus of its own program. Although The Jeffersons (1975–1985) moved on up in 1975, the show’s humor depended largely on its main character’s lack of cultural capital. George Jefferson may have become wealthy, but he was always a fish out of water in his elite neighborhood. Thus, it was The Cosby Show (1984–1992) that first created a black family sitcom in the mode of shows like Leave It to Beaver (1957–1963) or The Brady Bunch (1969–1974). This sitcom placed the fictional Huxtable family—Doctor Cliff Huxtable (Bill Cosby), lawyer Claire Huxtable (Phylicia Rashad), and their five children—in an upscale Brooklyn brownstone. It emphasized struggles between parents and children that were shown to be similar for upper-middle-class families across race. Driven by the star power and comedy of Cosby, the show was an immediate success, and it became the highest rated show on television for five consecutive seasons. While The Cosby Show has been celebrated for breaking down stereotypes of African Americans as poor and uneducated, it also contributed to beliefs that racism had ceased to be a problem in American society. Its incredible success paved the way for more shows featuring middle-class or affluent Black families, such as The Fresh Prince of Bel Air (1990– 1996) and Family Matters (1989–1998), which furthered the misconception that racism was a thing of the past. Even as late as 2014, the Huxtables topped surveys on favorite TV families and Cliff Huxtable was still known as America’s favorite TV dad. Although the show’s memory has been tarnished by Cosby’s 2018 sexual assault conviction, The Cosby Show reshaped how African Americans would be represented on television.

RACE AND TV IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY While HBO’s The Sopranos (1999–2007) has often been framed as the show to inaugurate the new “Golden Age of Television” that critics say we are in, the network’s later series, The Wire (2002–2008), has done even more to change the ways television tells stories. Developed by former crime reporter David Simon, The Wire was a crime drama unlike those that came before. In spite of the fact that the show had only one writer of color (David Mills), The Wire put Black perspectives at its center, highlighting the diversity of African Americans and the ways race intersects with class and sexuality. Moreover, it did not emphasize questions about who was responsible for a crime or the process of bringing criminals to justice. Instead it was concerned with questions of what constitutes a crime and whether justice can ever be achieved. The Wire gave equal time to the character development of those on all sides of the law. Each character faced struggles to live with integrity and thrive in the face of systemic injustice and institutional forces. The characters’ complexity obstructed viewers’ inclinations to view any single individual as the bad guy behind all the problems. Instead, The Wire’s central villain turned out to be neoliberal capitalism, making the show a radical reframing of the struggle for justice in urban America.



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The new millennium has also brought forth shows that center the experience of Latinx and Asian Americans. Although characters with these identities had appeared on television before, especially in workplace comedies and dramas, non-stereotypical characters of Latin American or Asian descent had not been the focus of a popular series. Ugly Betty (2006–2010), adapted from a hugely popular telenovela, centered on the life of Betty Suarez (America Ferrera) as she struggled to establish her career at a prestigious fashion magazine in spite of her off-the-wall fashion sense. It challenged several of common stereotypes of Latinas by depicting “ugly” Betty as a person who attracted several romantic partners while being equally career- and family-oriented. Similarly, the family sitcom Fresh off the Boat (2015–2020), loosely based on Eddie Huang’s memoir of the same name, succeeded with audiences where Margaret Cho’s earlier family sitcom All-American Girl (1994) did not. While Fresh off the Boat defies more Asian stereotypes than its predecessor, both shows have been critiqued by the people upon whose lives they were based for stereotyping or whitewashing the cultural specificity they hoped would be conveyed. American television representations have become more racially diverse over the past decades, and people of color are increasingly involved in financing, producing, writing, and directing popular shows, but these changes have not resulted in a more egalitarian nation. After all, by most measures, racial inequity has increased since the 1970s. The changes to the television landscape described in this essay were wrought through conflict and compromise with the hegemony of whiteness and capitalism. And for each innovative idea that was developed into a show successful enough to affect that which came after, there were many transformative concepts that were suppressed, sidelined, or just ignored. Although we may celebrate what some of these groundbreaking shows have achieved, this history suggests that more and better racial representation on television may not signal material change in the world beyond the screen. Ami Sommariva Further Reading

Acham, Christine. 2004. Revolution Televised: Prime Time and the Struggle for Black Power. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Gray, Herman. 1995. Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for “Blackness.” Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Jhally, Sut, and Justin Lewis. 1992. Enlightened Racism: The Cosby Show, Audiences, and the Myth of the American Dream. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. King, C. Richard. 2013. “What’s Your Name? Roots, Race, and Popular Memory in Post–Civil Rights America.” In African Americans on Television: Race-ing for Ratings, edited by David J. Leonard and Lisa A. Guerrero. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. Lehman, Christopher P. 2008. A Critical History of Soul Train on Television. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Staiger, Janet. 2000. Blockbuster TV: Must-See Sitcoms in the Network Era. New York: New York University Press. Williams, Linda. 2014. On The Wire. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

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Gumbel, Bryant(1948–) Born in New Orleans in 1948, Gumbel has become one of America’s foremost news personalities and sports journalists. Gumbel grew up in Chicago, alongside of his brother, Greg, who went on to be a prominent sportscaster, two other siblings, and his parents, Richard Dunbar Gumbel, a probate judge, and Rhea Alice, who worked as a city clerk. He graduated from Bates College in 1970, majoring in Russian history. After working as a salesman for an industrial paper company, Gumbel switched careers, turning to sports in his professional life. Following several years in sports media, including a job as a sportscaster for KNBC-TV (Los Angeles) and one that had him teamed up with Jack Buck as cohost of the NFL pregame show for NBC Sports, Gumbel joined The Today Show first as a sports correspondence and then as the show’s anchor in 1982. He served in this role, alongside of Jane Pauley (1976–1989), Deborah Norville (1989), and Katie Couric (1991–2006), earning critical praise, several Emmy Awards, and widespread popularity. According to Harry Smith, long-standing co-host of CBS Morning, Gumbel had to prove himself: “As a sports guy and a black guy, he came into all this guilty until proven innocent. Yet he sits there and proves himself day after day” (qtd. in Reilly 2014). Gumbel left NBC for CBS in 1997, serving as host of Public Eye with Bryant Gumbel (1997–1998), a prime-time news show, and then as host of The Early Show (1999–2002). While Gumbel’s career took him from sports to “hard news,” he never left behind his passion for sports. In 1998, he served as host for NBC’s coverage of the Seoul Olympics; in 1990, he served a similar role for the network’s coverage of the PGA Tour (golf). In 1995, Gumbel launched Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel on HBO, a sports news show that went beyond the game, beyond the scores, and beyond the playfield to look at the interface between sports and society. “We’re kind of an oddball in the modern landscape,” Gumbel told the Los Angeles Times. “Nowadays, everything you turn on—the picture changes every two seconds. There is a drumbeat of music behind it and there are graphics going here and there. We don’t do any of that” (qtd. in Battaglio 2017). With Real Sports, Bryant Gumbel uses his platform to speak out on race, gender, inequality, and social justice in sports. “I think more often than not, in what passes for sports coverage, people are preoccupied with keeping the gloves on,” notes Gumbel. “Don’t offend anybody. Make nice. So they are conscious of keeping the gloves on. We don’t go into something saying gloves-off; we just say we’re not going to put gloves on” (qtd. in Boren 2015). This philosophy has been a guiding principle throughout the history of Real Sports, leading Gumbel to provoke difficult conversations. For example, in 2006, Gumbel lamented the lack of diversity within the Winter Olympics. “Try not to laugh when someone says these are the world’s greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the winter games look like a GOP convention” (qtd. in Leitch 2006). Similarly, in the midst of the 2011 NBA lockout Gumbel compared then commissioner David Stern to a slave master. “His efforts are typical of a commissioner who has always seemed eager to be viewed as some kind of modern-day plantation overseer, treating (National Basketball Association) men as if they were his boys. . . . His moves are



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intended to do little more than show how he’s the one keeping the hired hands in their place” (qtd. in Gaines 2012). Gumbel is unafraid to venture into taboo subjects inside and outside of the sporting arena. In 2015, he told Rolling Stone, “There are a few things I hate more than the NRA [National Rifle Association]. I mean truly. I think they’re pigs. I think they don’t care about human life. I think they are a curse upon the American landscape” (qtd. in Boren 2015). These comments, alongside of others, as well as the show’s news segments, all of which end with him discussing the news with one of the show’s many correspondents, routinely prompt widespread conversation and controversy inside and outside sports. Reflecting the critical acclaim for Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, the show has won two Peabody Awards, three DuPont broadcast journalism awards, and twenty-nine Emmys. Over forty years, Gumbel has made significant impact on television. Evident in the cultural importance, popularity, and critical acclaim of shows like 60 Minutes Sports (2013–2017), Costas Now (2005–), 30 for 30 (2009–), and countless other sports shows intent on examining the game through investigative reporting, documentary, and critical, in-depth storytelling. Gumbel’s legacy extends beyond sports with the popularity of morning television, for which he played a powerful role as the face of The Today Show for fifteen years. His impact is equally evident in the continued movement to bring greater diversity into sports television specifically and television media as a whole. According to Lester Holt, Gumbel, along with CNN’s Bernard Shaw, ABC’s Carol Simpson and Max Robinson, have been essential to the advancement of his career and that of many others on television. “These are people that opened the doors for people like me to walk through and therefore it’s incumbent on all of us to remember that many of us are the products of great mentors. . . . Our diversity in newsrooms simply makes us better” (qtd. in Ariens 2016). Breaking down barriers for people of color and advancing previously underreported stories and issues, Gumbel has had a lasting impact on television. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Ariens, Chris. 2016. “After Nightly, Lester Holt Jams at 30 Rock.” Adweek, June 22. ­https://​­w ww​.­a dweek​.­c om ​/­t vnewser​/­a fter​-­n ightly​-­lester​-­holt​-­jams​-­at​-­30 ​-­r ock​ /­296761. Battaglio, Stephen. 2017 “For Bryant Gumbel, HBO’s ‘Real Sports’ Is Still a Serious Game.” Los Angeles Times, January 23. ­http://​­www​.­latimes​.­com​/­business​/­hollywood​ /­la​-­et​-­st​-­real​-­sports​-­bryant​-­g umbel​-­20170124​-­story​.­html. Boren, Cindy. 2015. “Bryant Gumbel on NRA: ‘I Think They’re Pigs.’” Washington Post, January  22. ­https://​­w ww​.­washingtonpost​.­com ​/­news​/­e arly​-­lead ​/­w p​/­2015​/­01​/­22​ / ­bryant​-­g umbel​-­on​-­n ra​-­i​-­think​-­theyre​-­pigs​/?­utm​_term​=​.­9ff9baf7bea7. Carter, Bill. 1999. “Morning Becomes Bryant Gumbel.” New York Times, October 24. ­h ttps:// ​­ w ww​.­n ytimes​ .­c om ​ /­1999​ /­10​ /­2 4​ /­m agazine​ /­m orning​ -­b ecomes​ -­b ryant​ -­g umbel​.­html. Gaines, Cork. 2012 “NHL Commissioner Rips Bryant Gumbel for Comparing the NBA to a Slavery Plantation.” Business Insider, March 2. ­http://​­w ww​.­businessinsider​ .­com ​/­n hl​-­commissioner​-­rips​-­bryant​-­g umbel​-­nba​-­slavery​-­plantation​-­2012​-­3.

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Leitch, Will. 2006 “Bryant Gumbel Goes Kind of Kanye about the Olympics.” Deadspin, February  6. ­https://​­deadspin​.­c om ​/­155322​/ ­b ryant​-­g umbel​-­goes​-­k ind​-­of​-­k anye​ -­about​-­the​-­olympics. Reilly, Rick. 2014. “The Mourning Anchor: Bryant Gumbel Is Alone at the Top with the Memory of His Late Father.” Sports Illustrated, August 25. ­https://​­w ww​.­si​.­com​ /­m ore​ -­s ports​ /­2 014​ /­0 8​ /­25​ /­si​ - ­6 0 ​ -­m ourning​ -­a nchor​-­r ick​-­r eilly​ -­b ryant​ -­g umbel​ -­olympics.

H Hall, Arsenio(1956–) An actor, comedian, and late-night talk show host, Arsenio Hall transformed television through The Arsenio Hall Show (1989–1994). Bringing hip-hop, Black popular culture, and his brand of comedy, Hall not only brought diversity to a genre that was historically White and male but also introduced audiences to guests of color, artistry, culture, and histories otherwise marginalized in American media. Born 1956 in Cleveland, Ohio, Hall was drawn to entertainment at an early age. From music lessons to capitating audiences with puppets and magic, Hall prepared himself for a career of performance. As a kid, he worked birthday parties, weddings, and bar mitzvahs; he appeared on local television. Following graduation from Warrensville Heights High School, he attended Ohio University and then Kent State. He ultimately started a career in stand-up first in Chicago, before moving to Los Angeles in the early 1980s. He made regular appearances on ABC’s Half Hour Comedy Hour. In 1983, he was hired as a regular on Thicke of the Night (1983–1984), a comedy talk show starring Alan Thicke. He also appeared on Solid Gold (1980–1988), a syndicated variety show. After appearing on television in several small roles—Movie Macabre in 1982, Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1985–1989) in 1986—Hall appeared in the cartoon The Real Ghostbusters (1986–1991) as a voice-over for several different characters in ninety-one episodes (1986–1987). He landed his big break after Fox hired him as host of its late-night talk show. As part of its strategy to challenge the three major networks, one which included niche programming and partnering with the NFL, FOX sought to enter the late-night arena. Initially hiring Joan Rivers, whose show aired from 1986 to 1987 and then attempting various other hosts, including Suzanne Somers and Robert Townsend, Fox found success with Arsenio Hall as host for thirteen episodes of The Late Show. According to Hall, he approached the hosting job in new ways in an effort to garner attention. “My thing was, get some attention. I took chances. I played with the band, took cameras on the street, did improv, sang, wrote sketches, asked provocative questions, so that when it was over maybe somebody would give me a job” (qtd. in Norman 1989). The following year, he landed a role in Eddie Murphy’s widely successful film Coming to America (1988), further propelling him into the national spotlight with his performance as Semmi. After Paramount tried and failed to get Eddie Murphy to enter the “late night wars” (Adalian 2013), Hall landed a deal with them to syndicate The Arsenio Hall Show, a late-night talk show that included a monologue, interviews, and a musical performance. It aired on Fox and other channels, reaching 95 percent of American households.

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The show became an instant sensation, especially among youth. According to Chuck Reece, Hall’s success is evident in both his popularity and the diversity of his audience. “I don’t think the color of his skin matters. He has proven that by the audience he has drawn. It’s black and white. What he’s doing is putting a lot of elements of black popular culture in front of the white part of his audience. The show is hip, hipper than anything else on late-night TV” (qtd. in Norman 1989). Yet, for other critics and commentators, his being an African American male mattered because of the diversity he brought to a television genre that remained white and male for generations. Increased diversity wasn’t the only source of change that Hall brought to television. His show regularly spotlighted hip-hop artists and provided a national platform for African American actors, activists, writers, and other cultural practitioners. Some commentators have argued that the popularity of hip-hop grew, especially with White middle-class audiences, in part because of the exposure afforded by The Arsenio Hall Show. “Not only did the first incarnation of ‘The Arsenio Hall Show’ routinely book hip-hop acts of the day, the program boasted a genuinely hip-hop aesthetic—at least for the time,” writes Neill Drumming at Salon (2014). Similarly, David Haglund (2012) concluded that The Arsenio Hall Show’s “most significant cultural contribution is almost certainly the music it helped introduce to millions of TV viewers. Airing from 1989 to 1994, the show coincided with a golden age of hip-hop; on the final episode, KRS One, A Tribe Called Quest, The Wu-Tang Clan, Guru, Das EFX, and many, many other major hip-hop artists performed on stage together.” Its importance in transforming late-night television specifically and culture as a whole wasn’t limited to its embrace of hip-hop. Hall regularly used his show to address racial issues confronting the United States as well as raise awareness about other social issues including HIV/AIDS. Bill Clinton’s appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show, where he played the saxophone following an interview, altered both late-night television and politics as more and more candidates used this medium to reach voters. Hall leveraged his popularity and success with The Arsenio Hall Show, hosting the MTV Music awards in 1988 and 1991; he also secured the leading role in the sitcom Arsenio (1997) and in Martial Law (1998–2000), in which he played LAPD Detective Terrell Parker alongside of Sammo Hung. He later hosted a reboot of Star Search (2003–2004) and also appeared on Chappelle’s Show in 2004 and on The Apprentice in 2012. An attempt to revive his talk show in 2013 was ultimately unsuccessful, with its cancellation after one season. Hall’s legacy can be seen in the popularity of several catchphrases (“Roo . . . Roo” and “Hit me with the digits!”), his infusion of hip-hop into television and the culture at large, his proof that young people will watch late-night television, and his efforts to bring diversity to the late-night genre. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Adalian, Josef. 2013. “The Late-Night Wars Can Finally Declare a Winner: David Letterman. Vulture, April 3. ­https://​­w ww​.­v ulture​.­com​/­2013​/­04​/­david​-­letterman​-­wins​ -­late​-­night​-­wars​.­html.



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Drumming, Neil. 2014. “The Man Who Really Brought Hip-Hop to Late Night: Arsenio Hall.” Salon, February 20. ­https://​­w ww​.­salon​.­com​/­2014​/­02​/­20​/­the​_man​_who​_ really ​_brought​_hip ​_hop​_to​_late​_night​_arsenio​_hall​/. Haglund, David. 2012. “Revisiting New Jack Swing with Arsenio Hall.” Slate, June 19. ­https://​­slate​.­com ​/­culture​/­2012​/­06​/­new​-­jack​-­swing​-­on​-­t he​-­a rsenio​-­hall​-­show​-­t he​ -­very​-­best​-­performances​-­video​.­html. Norman, Michael. 1989. “TV’s Arsenio Hall: Late-Night Cool.” New York Times, October 1. ­https://​­w ww​.­nytimes​.­com​/­1989​/­10​/­01​/­magazine​/­t v​-­s​-­a rsenio​-­hall​-­late​-­n ight​ -­cool​.­html.

“Harvest of Shame”(1960) First broadcast on November 25, 1960, “Harvest of Shame,” a Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) episode of its CBS Reports series, drew attention to the plight of migrant farmworkers in the United States. In his introduction, presenter Edward R. Murrow described the documentary as the “1960s grapes of wrath.” Referencing John Steinbeck’s 1939 fictional account of Oklahoma farmers struggling during the Great Depression, the show explores the economic hardship and lived struggles of America’s often invisible agricultural labor force. The program was recorded over nine months in 1960, and the lead role in research was undertaken by David Lowe, who had joined the CBS Reports team earlier in the year. It was Lowe’s insistence that had persuaded CBS Reports executive producer Fred Friendly to commission the piece. “Harvest of Shame” was timed to air the day after Thanksgiving, a deliberate decision that Murrow explained to the audience: “We present this report on Thanksgiving because, were it not for the labor of the people you are going to meet, you might not starve, but your table would not be laden with the luxuries that we have all come to regard as essentials.” The documentary opens with scenes of hundreds of African American women and men at a “shape up” where migrant farmworkers choose the project that they will work on for the picking season. Over the harsh sounds of “hawkers” naming the daily or hourly rate that their farms are offering, the farmworkers are shown being crammed into an overcrowded truck. A later scene explains that the workers in these trucks are not subject to the same comforts or entitlements of transported livestock or vegetables. The opening concludes with Murrow quoting a farmer who uses migrant workers who said: “We used to own our slaves; now we just rent them.” The documentary then traces the journey of the workers from Florida northwards, with brief periods of work in states including Florida, North Carolina, Indiana, and New Jersey. Accompanied by footage of workers in the fields and being transported between sites, the documentary utilizes interviews conducted by Lowe with workers, their spouses, and their children. The interviews are diverse—including both men and women; Whites as well as African Americans. One example of the interviews in “Harvest of Shame” is that of Allean King, a twenty-nine-year-old African American farmworker. King, a mother of fourteen, reveals to the audience that she has been working the fields since she was eight.

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For her ten hours of labor, from six in the morning to four in the afternoon, she receives only $1. At the time of filming, the minimum hourly wage was $1 dollar. King’s story becomes even more heart-breaking when the filmmakers interview her nine-year-old son, Jerome, who told Lowe that rats had eaten a hole in his bed. Jerome is also charged with the responsibility of looking after his three younger sisters as his mother’s wage did not cover the cost of childcare. The interviews are used to convey a sense of the perpetuity of the migrant farm worker system. Lowe asks the workers how long they have been involved in migrant farming; a typical response is “all my life.” He would then conclude the interview by asking the workers about their future and hopes of leaving migrant farm work to enter more stable or permanent employment. None express positive answers. Another tool to emphasize the perpetuation of the migrant labor system was a focus on the children of the farmworkers. Their stories were told through interviews with their parents as well as the children themselves. The responses typically indicated that they performed a mixture of working in the fields, attending school, and looking after younger siblings. Interviews reinforced that if schooling interfered with pastoral duties the children would miss school. These anecdotal accounts were reinforced by statistics presented by Murrow, who noted that “the best hope for the future of these migrants is the education of their children.” Murrow somberly reported that one in five hundred children of migrant laborers finished elementary school; one in one thousand completed high school, and that none had ever received a college diploma. While the program was sympathetic to African Americans, it was harsh in its depiction of foreign workers. It repeatedly emphasized that it was solely focused on the plight of U.S. citizens. Moreover, in its juxtaposition between exploited African American migratory farmworkers and those from outside the United States, the program portrays temporary foreign workers from Mexico (as part of the Bracero Program) and the Caribbean as a threat to American workers. The program accused these workers of depressing the already terrible wages of migrant farmworkers who were U.S. citizens. Crucially, the documentary does not include any interviews with foreign workers, which was a key tool used by Lowe to emphasize the humanity of the American farmworkers. The documentary concludes with what historian A. M. Sperber described as “clear-cut advocacy journalism” by Murrow (1998, 604). Murrow personally intervened in the production of the show’s closing scene, overruling an editorial decision to end on a young girl singing and replacing it with a monologue. Murrow, alone against a blank background, told the audience down the camera that “enlightened, aroused and perhaps any public opinion” was vital to the cause of the migrant farmworkers. He then to laid out a series of positive, legislative steps that could be taken to help the farmworkers. “They do not have the strength to influence legislation,” Murrow lamented plaintively, but added, “maybe we do.” The program caused a significant reaction across the United States. In his review for the New York Times, TV critic Jack Gould lauded both the “exceptionally good” cinematography as well as its “uncompromising . . . exposure of the filth, despair and grinding poverty that are the lot of the migratory farmworkers” (Gould 1960, 43). Response from the public was also favorable. CBS received only 170 negative reactions from the 2,700 responses it received (Schaefer 1994).



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Legislative changes that followed can also be attributed to “Harvest of Shame.” In 1961 and 1962, Congress passed federal assistance programs to assistant migrant farmworkers, including the funding of education. In 1964, Congress officially terminated the Bracero program and the use of temporary Mexican labor. “Harvest of Shame” would return to news headlines in 1961 when it caused a diplomatic headache for the United States. “Harvest of Shame” was Murrow’s final filing for CBS before his departure to the U.S. Information Agency, where he was appointed director by President John F. Kennedy. Soon after he assumed his new role, the British Broadcasting Corporation purchased the rights to broadcast “Harvest of Shame.” Murrow intervened, believing that displaying the scenes of abject poverty would bring, ironically, shame to the United States. He later described his intervention as “foolish and futile,” and the BBC broadcast “Harvest of Shame” into the United Kingdom and Europe. The Soviet Union goaded Murrow for attempting to “prevent the truth about the situation of United States farmworkers [from] being known in other countries” (Associated Press 1961, 13). “Harvest of Shame” remains an important moment in the history of television in the United States. Historian Michael Curtin describes it as “one of the shining moments when the medium matched up to its potential to inform and enlighten the American public” (Curtin 1995, 1). It was the first time that the plight of migrant farmworkers was brought to national attention through the medium of television. This growing awareness of poverty amidst plenty would lead to a growing awareness of poverty in America, advanced through all forms of journalism including television, which would culminate in President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty. As a piece of journalism, it exemplifies the advocacy journalism for which Murrow made his name. In terms of race on television, it remains an early landmark for the inclusive way that the struggles of African Americans were depicted as sympathetically as those of white Americans. Mitchell A. J. Robertson Further Reading

Associated Press. 1961. “Moscow Chides Murrow.” New York Times, March 25. Curtin, Michael. 1995. Redeeming the Wasteland: Television Documentary and Cold War Politics. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Gould, Jack. 1960. “TV: ‘Harvest of Shame.’” New York Times, November 26. ­https://​ ­w ww​.­nytimes​.­com​/­1960​/­11​/­26​/­a rchives​/­t v​-­harvest​-­of​-­shame​-­exploitation​-­of​-­us​ -­migratory​-­workers​-­is​.­html. “Harvest of Shame.” Columbia Broadcasting Service, first broadcast November 25, 1960. ­https://​­w ww​.­cbsnews​.­com​/­video​/­1960​-­harvest​-­of​-­shame​/. Schaefer, Richard. 1994. “Reconsidering Harvest of Shame.” Journalism History 19 (4): 121–133. Sperber, A. M. 1998. Murrow: His Life and Times. London: Joseph.

Harvey, Steve(1957–) Steve Harvey has many careers within his more than three decades in the entertainment industry. From comedy clubs to the sitcom, from a talk show to Family Feud, Steve Harvey has left his imprint on television in a myriad of ways.

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Broderick Stephen Harvey was born January 17, 1957, in West Virginia. Named after Broderick Crawford, star of Highway Patrol (1955–1959), Steve was destined for a career in show business. After attending Kent State University and West Virginia University, working a number of jobs, including as an autoworker or mailman, and suffering with homeless and poverty, Harvey broke into comedy in the early 1980s. Following success in stand-up clubs, he landed a role on Me and the Boys (1994–1995), starring Mark Curry, in 1994. Soon thereafter, he secured the lead role in WB’s The Steve Harvey Show (1996–2002). Portraying Steve Hightower, a former funk musician turned vice principal and music teacher at Booker T. Washington High School in Chicago, The Steve Harvey Show brought Harvey together with Cedric the Entertainer (who played Cedric Robinson, a coach at the school). Following budget cuts, Hightower is thrust into a role as both art and drama teacher, where he finds himself as more than teacher, mentoring several students on the challenges of school and life. While successful on the WB, its marketing strategy and focus on African American viewers, limited its reach on television. Never abandoning his stand-up roots, evident with the immense popularity of the Kings of Comedy Tour, which starred Harvey, Cedric the Entertainer, D. L. Hughley, and Bernie Mac, Harvey leveraged this success into film roles and into a consistent place on television. Despite the end of the golden age of black sitcoms, a time in the 1990s and early 2000s when numerous Black families were portrayed in shows across multiple networks, Harvey has continued to be a fixture on television. Joining a myriad of other African American comedians, actors, musicians, and athletes, including Michael Strahan, Mo’nique, Queen Latifah, Aisha Tyler, Sherri Shephard, Cedric the Entertainer, and others on daytime television, on talk shows, and in game shows, Steve Harvey has found a niche on television as both a host of a talk show and as host of Family Feud (1976–). With Harvey as host, Family Feud has gained popularity since he took over in 2012. Harvey, and the power of social media, has propelled Family Feud to a leader in this genre. “When you look at shows like The View and The Talk, there’s always an African American, down-to-earth person on the panel whose [sic] usually a comic, and I think Steve is the male version of that,” notes Eric Deggans (qtd. in Goff 2015). Harvey has also hosted two separate talk shows: Steve Harvey Show (2012– 2016) and Steve (2016–2017). His ascendance in this genre isn’t surprising given his comedic background and his successful radio show. Harvey’s work in both the talk show genre and on game shows speaks to a level progress in this area of television, one that builds on the success of Oprah Winfrey, Arsenio Hall, and Montel Williams, where viewers are able to see more diversity than during the prime-time or late-night hours. According to Greg Braxton and Meg James, television has a split image: one by day and another by night. “In the daytime, blacks and other people of color are a prominent presence, hosting popular talk shows and playing juicy roles in soap operas. But at night, minorities are largely sidelined, with white performers holding most of the marquee roles” (2013). Harvey has found success (and the spotlight) as host of the Miss Universe pageant beginning in 2015. He made headlines during his first appearance on the



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show when he mistakenly crowned Ariadna Gutiérrez, Miss Colombia, as the contestant winner, only to announce minutes later that Pia Wurtzbach was in fact the winner. While sparking endless jokes and memes on Twitter, the error has not stopped Harvey who continues to the host the show. He also served as host of several shows, including Fox’s New Year’s Eve special, Fox’s Showtime at the Apollo, and Little Big Shots (2016–), a talent show for kids. Harvey cocreated and coproduced Little Big Shots with Ellen DeGeneres. During the course of his career, he has garnered fourteen NAACP image awards, two Marconi Award, and six Daytime Emmy Awards. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Braxton, Greg, and Meg James. 2013. “Daytime TV Is Embracing Black Entertainers; Prime Time, Less So.” Los Angeles Times, November 9. ­http://​­articles​.­latimes​.­com​ /­2013​/­nov​/­09​/ ­business​/­la​-­fi​-­ct​-­black​-­daytime​-­television​-­20131109. Goff, Keli. 2015. “How Sex, Social Media, and Steve Harvey Saved ‘Family Feud.’” The Daily Beast, March 11. ­https://​­w ww​.­thedailybeast​.­com​/ ­how​-­sex​-­social​-­media​-­and​ -­steve​-­harvey​-­saved​-­family​-­feud. Rice, Lynette. 2013. “Diversity Thrives in Daytime.” Entertainment Weekly, October 31. ­https://​­ew​.­com​/­article​/­2013​/­10​/­31​/­diversity​-­thrives​-­daytime​/.

Haves and the Have Nots, The(2013–) The Haves and the Have Nots (THATHN) is Tyler Perry’s first hour-long, dramatic television series. It would also be the first scripted original program to appear on Oprah Winfrey Network’s (OWN), ushering in a new era for the channel. THATHN premiered on May 28, 2013, with 1.8 million viewers and became the highest-rated series debut in the channel’s history. Before THATHN, Perry had three sitcoms House of Payne (2007–2012), Meet the Browns (2009–2011), and For Better or Worse (2011–2012) that aired on TBS. Perry created THATHN as part of a two-series deal with OWN; the basic cable channel wanted to expand its programming beyond reality shows (e.g., Iyanla: Fix My Life, Welcome to Sweetie Pie’s, Life with La Toya) and special series (e.g., Oprah: Where Are They Now?, Oprah’s Master Class). Focusing on two upper-class families and one lower-class family in Savannah, Georgia, THATHN is a televisual adaptation of Perry’s play by the same name. The Cryer and the Harrington families are “the haves.” Jim Cryer (John Schneider) and David Harrington (Peter Parros) are local judges. Jim’s wife, Katheryn (Renee Lawless), is a socialite, and David’s wife, Veronica (Angela Robinson) is an attorney and businesswoman. The Cryers have two children, Amanda (Jaclyn Betham) and Wyatt (Aaron O’Connell). Amanda is following in her father’s footsteps and attending law school; Wyatt is unemployed and an addict. Jeffrey Harrington (Gavin Houston), David and Veronica’s son, works at his mother’s substance abuse rehabilitation facility as a counselor where Wyatt has been staying in his latest attempt to get sober. In the series premiere, Katheryn hires a new maid, Hannah Young (Crystal R. Fox). Hannah has two children. Her son, Benny (Tyler Lepley) is a tow truck

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driver, and her daughter, Candace (Tika Sumpter) attends law school, paying for her tuition by working as an escort. In the first episode, Candace meets her newest client, Jim Cryer. After their encounter, Jim returns home to celebrate his birthday with his family and the Harringtons. Amanda invites her new friend from law school, who turns out to be Candace. Hannah also receives a surprise when she sees her estranged daughter at the party telling the Cryers and Harringtons that her mother is dead. As evident from the above description of the first episode, THATHN operates as a soap opera; for example, several story lines focus on adultery, drug use, and blackmail. Jim Cryer decides to run for governor with David Harrington as his running mate. Candace blackmails Jim twice to keep their affair a secret. It is also revealed that Jim has two sons with the Cryer maid Celine Gonzalez (Eva Tamargo). Wyatt Cryer’s sobriety is temporary; he kills a little girl and hits Benny Young with his car. Benny is in a coma and on life support but recovers to start an affair with Veronica Harrington. Amanda Cryer has mental health issues and kills herself. Jeffrey is gay but has not come out; he is also in love with Wyatt who is straight. The series also examines class, race, and religion. In the series premiere, it is revealed that Benny moved back home to help his mother with her bills. Her job with the Cryers is her first since recovering from breast cancer treatment and a mastectomy. Hannah has to go back to work because she did not have health insurance and has unpaid medical bills. She also does not have a car and has to take the bus to work. Although Katheryn treats Hannah with respect, Veronica Harrington does not. She looks down on Hannah and her occupation. When they meet for the first time, Veronica dismisses Hannah because she is the help. Hannah tells Celine Gonzalez, another maid, that she can’t stand “Black people like that who think they are better than everyone else.” Eventually Veronica and Hannah address these issues in episode 11, “Not My Daughter.” Hannah directly asks Veronica if the reason that she does not like her is because she is “too black” or that she is a maid. Veronica questions Hannah’s career choice telling her that “our people stopped doing domestic work in the 60s. Apparently you didn’t get the memo.” Hannah and Veronica’s relationship gets worse once it is revealed that Veronica is cheating on her husband with Benny. The series also follows the commonplace focus on religion among Perry’s work. Faith is important to Perry, and he incorporates it in THATHN through the character of Hannah. She is a devout Christian who attends church regularly, prays, and cites scripture. However, Hannah has been unsuccessful in getting her children, the Cryers, or the Harringtons to become faithful Christians. She also is not a perfect Christian. Perry says this was intentional because he himself does not know any “perfect Christians.” Hannah acknowledges her past un-Christian lifestyle such as having two children out of wedlock but tries to walk a Godly path. In times of trouble, she turns to God and prayer for support. As of this writing, THATHN has been on OWN for four seasons and ninety-five episodes. The show continues to grow in its popularity. THATHN was the highest series debut in the cable channel’s history until the premiere of Perry’s If Loving You Is Wrong in 2014. The series averages 2.576 million viewers per episode. It



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also helped OWN double its viewership and become the number one cable channel for African American women. THATHN is making significant changes to racial representations onscreen with a multiracial cast consisting of African American, Caucasian, and Latino leading characters in story lines that examine race, class, and religion in a melodramatic way that has been notably absent on prime-time cable television. Danielle E. Williams Further Reading

Andreeva, Nellie. 2013. “Solid Debut for Tyler Perry’s ‘The Haves and Have Nots’ on OWN.” Deadline, May 29. ­http://​­deadline​.­com​/­2013​/­05​/­solid​-­debut​-­for​-­t yler​ -­perrys​-­the​-­haves​-­and​-­have​-­nots​-­on​-­own​-­509916​/. Dixon, Dani. 2015. “OWN Delivers Highest-Rated and Most-Watched Quarter in Network History for Q3 2015.” TV by the Numbers, September 29. h­ttp://​ ­t vbythenumbers​.­z ap2it​.­com ​/­2015​/­09​/­29​/­own​-­delivers​-­h ighest​-­r ated​-­a nd​-­most​ -­watched​-­quarter​-­in​-­network​-­history​-­for​-­q3​-­2015​/­473820​/. Ng, Philiana. 2012. “Oprah Winfrey’s OWN Inks Multi-Year Deal with Tyler Perry.” The Hollywood Reporter, October 1. ­http://​­w ww​.­hollywoodreporter​.­com​/­news​/­oprah​ -­winfrey​-­own​-­t yler​-­perry​-­375328. Ng, Philiana. 2013. “TV Ratings: Tyler Perry’s ‘Haves and Have Nots’ Rises to Series High on OWN.” The Hollywood Reporter, July 31. ­http://​­w ww​.­hollywoodreporter​ .­com​/­live​-­feed​/­t yler​-­perrys​-­haves​-­have​-­nots​-­597266. Okura, Lynn. 2014. “Tyler Perry Defends One of His Most Controversial Characters.” Huffington Post, March 3. ­http://​­www​.­huffingtonpost​.­com​/­2014​/­03​/­03​/­t yler​-­perry​ -­the​-­haves​-­and​-­the​-­have​-­nots​_n​_4877105​.­html. Patten, Dominic. 2015a. “Tyler Perry & Ava DuVernay Talk Hollywood Racism, ‘Empire’ & Owning It.” Deadline, May 31. ­http://​­deadline​.­com​/­2015​/­05​/­t yler​-­perry​-­ava​ -­duvernay​-­talk​-­hollywood​-­race​-­empire​-­own​-­produced​-­by​-­1201435130​/. Patten, Dominic. 2015b. “Tyler Perry’s ‘Haves & Have Nots’ Finale Lifts OWN to New Viewership High.” Deadline, September 23. ­http://​­deadline​.­com​/­2015​/­09​/­t yler​ -­p erry​ -­h aves​ -­a nd​ -­t he ​ -­h ave ​ -­n ot​ -­f inale ​ - ­own​ -­i f​ -­l oving​ -­you​ -­i s​ -­w rong​ -­r ecord​ -­viewership​-­1201546577​/. Umstead, R. Thomas. 2013. “Tyler Perry Series Draws Record Ratings for OWN.” Broadcasting & Cable, May 29. ­http://​­w ww​.­broadcastingcable​.­com​/­news​/­t v​-­ratings​/­t yler​ -­perry​-­series​-­draws​-­record​-­ratings​-­own ​/­64294​?­rssid​=​­20100.

Hawaii Five-O(1968–1980) and Hawaii Five-0 (2010–2020) Produced by CBS, Hawaii Five-O is a police drama that follows an elite police task force in Hawaii. Hawaii Five-O refers to the fact that Hawaii became the fiftieth state in the United States in 1959. The show originally aired for twelve seasons from 1968 to 1980, setting a record on American television as the longest police drama. Its popularity is evident in not only its continued airing through syndication but also its reboot in 2010. A reboot of the original series premiered on September 20, 2010. Like the original, it chronicles the police work of an elite task force in Hawaii. Its title is sometimes differentiated from the original series by the use of the numeral zero instead

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of the capital letter “O.” In both versions, Hawaii, its picturesque scenery, beautiful beaches, and its destination as a tourist destination would be as central to the story line as crime, investigations, and arrests. So would be the show’s theme music, composed by Morton Stevens, which would become iconic for the show. Hawaii Five-O tells the story of an elite task force, one based on a real-life unit that was started in Hawaii during World II in the midst of martial law. On the show, at the behest of the Governor, Paul Jameson (Richard Denning; Lew Ayres in the pilot), and with the assistance of Attorney General John Manicote (Glenn Cannon), the 5-O task force has unfettered power to investigate ultimately those threats to the safety and security of Hawaii. The unit was led by Detective Captain Steve McGarrett (Jack Lord). Alongside of McGarrett is a diverse group of police officers that include Danny Williams (James MacArthur; Tim O'Kelly in the pilot), Chin Ho Kelly (Kam Fong), and Kono Kalakaua (Zulu). The task force works alongside of the Honolulu Police Department. Later during the show’s run, the links between the task force and the HPD would expand, as officer Duke Lukela (Herman Wedemeyer) joined the team as a regular, as did Ben Kokua (Al Harrington), who replaced Kono beginning with season five. The 5-0 task force works in close concert with a variety of others, including forensic specialist Che Fong (Harry Endo), medical examiner Doc Bergman (Al Eben), and Peggy Ryan (Jenny Sherman), McGarrett’s secretary. The series is known for including high-profile guest stars in various roles. The majority of characters on the original series Were white, despite that fact that only 40 percent of the population in the islands identified themselves as White during the time of the production. While some Asian characters and actors were involved in the show, they served a supportive role to the white lead actors and characters. For example, McGarrett and Danny, both of whom are White, are the show’s heroes, continuously aided and helped by people of color. The few Asian characters in Hawaii Five-O, including the kanakas (Native Hawaiians), served as “a Greek chorus to the Euro-American heroes” (Hamamoto 1994). Not only pushed to the periphery, the show’s Asian characters are highly stereotypical. They speak in “pidgin” English, which is the language of the colonized. Even when people of color do the hard work of bringing justice, it is Danny who is given the honor of bringing about justice alongside of McGarrett who would tell him: “Book ’em, Danno.” In other words, White men would be source of protection. Further evidence of the show’s racial dynamics can be seen with fact that the only

Familiar Faces Several cast members of the original series have recurring roles in the rebooted version. Al Harrington (Det. Ben Kokua in the original series) plays McGarrett’s friend Mamo Kahike. Dennis Chun, who guest starred in the original series and is the son of Kam Fong Chun (the actor who portrayed the original Chin Ho), has a recurring role as HPD Sgt. Duke Lukela. James MacArthur, the last surviving main cast member from the original series, agreed to guest star in a first-season episode; however, he died on October 28, 2010, prior to filming his appearance.



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other significant Asian American character was McGarrett’s nemesis, the criminal mastermind Wo Fat (Khigh Dhiegh). In 2010, CBS brought the show back to airwaves to critical acclaim and fanfare. The reboot attracted a record audience of 19.34 million for its initial episode on January 23, 2011. The show’s main characters would remain the same with Steve McGarrett (Alex O’Loughlin), Danny Williams (Scott Caan), Chin Ho Kelly (Daniel Dae Kim), and Kono Kalakaua (Grace Park) serving on the task force. The show’s efforts to connect to the original extends the shared theme song, characters, and location. It went to great lengths to integrate specific references to the original show. For example, throughout the series Steve McGarrett works on his father’s 1974 Mercury Marquis, which is the actual car driven by Jack Lord in the last half of the original series. Yet, the show also deviates from the 1960s show. In an effort to bring a level of diversity, Kono is now a woman. Additionally, while the show continued crime-fighting plotlines, some of which would take the task force out of Hawaii as part of the global war on terror, the show would do more to introduce audience to the personal lives and backstories of several main characters. Whereas the original had Hawaii as a mere exotic backdrop for a traditional police show, the reboot would expand audience’s understanding of Hawaiian history and culture. The show sought to highlight the experiences, challenges, and stories of Indigenous Hawaiians. An episode titled, “Ka Laina Ma Ke One (Line in the Sand),” features a fugitive who is seeking asylum in the Hawaii, and brings awareness to “the ongoing struggle of Native Hawaiians seeking recognition as a sovereign people following the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii 124 years ago” (qtd. in Lincoln 2017) Producers say they specifically timed the episode to air during the third week of January to commemorate the 124th anniversary of the overthrow of the government of the Kingdom of Hawaii, which took place on January 17, 1893. In another episode about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the show offered a complex representation of this part of American history. Chronicling an effort to investigate an unsolved murder, which occurred at a Hawaiian internment camp, this is yet another example of how the show sought to educate and expand viewers’ understanding of history. Through the use of flashbacks, a man who was a child in the internment camp sees a person he believes shot his father. The case is solved in modern times by the Five-0 team. This episode brings awareness to the issue of Japanese internment camps in Hawaii during World War II, which are far less known than the Japanese internment camps on the mainland of that time period. Throughout the history of American and film and television, Hawaii has been a popular location for staging a myriad of shows. Allowing for a touristic experience of selling ideas of exotic, popular culture representation of Hawaii has been seeped in both White gaze and the colonial imagination. The history of Hawaii Five-O not only points to this broader story of Hawaii within popular culture but also the shifting landscape whereupon the diversity of Hawaii, alongside of stories, histories, and cultures of ingenious Hawaiians has become more part of the cultural imagination in twenty-first century. Jean A. Giovanetti

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Further Reading

Fernandez, Maria Elena. 2010. “Music Video: ‘Hawaii-Five-0’ Theme Song Recording Session.” Los Angeles Times, July 23. ­http://​­latimesblogs​.­latimes​.­com​/­showtracker​ /­2010​/­07​/­music​-­video​-­hawaiifive0​-­theme​-­song​-­recording​-­session​.­html. Gordon, Mike. 2010. “‘Five-0’ Had Hoped for Macarthur Cameo in ‘Champ Box’ Mystery.” Honolulu Star Advertiser, November 14. ­https://​­web​.­archive​.­org​/­web​/­20101117054400​ / ­h ttp:// ­w ww​. ­s taradvertiser​ .­c om ​ /­features ​ /­2 0101114 ​ _ five ​ _ 0 ​ _ had ​ _ hoped ​ _ for​ _macarthur​_cameo​_in​_champ ​_box​_mystery​.­html. Hamamoto, Darrell Y. 1994. Monitored Peril: Asian Americans and the Politics of TV Representation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Lincoln, Mileka. 2017. “Nation of Hawaii Struggles Featured in ‘Hawaii Five-0.’” Hawaii News Now, January 19. ­http://​­w ww​.­hawaiinewsnow​.­com​/­story​/­34301004​/­nation​-­of​ -­hawaii​-­struggles​-­featured​-­in​-­upcoming​-­episode​-­of​-­hawaii​-­five​- ­0.

HBO The Home Box Office network, known as HBO, is the oldest pay television service in the United States. Launched in November 1972, HBO has grown and adapted to the many changing forms and markets required to compete in an evolving landscape of viewership, audience, and distribution platforms over the past almost fifty years. These adaptations include expanded, specialized ­channels like HBO Family, HBO Latino, and HBO Signature. To compete with Netflix and other streaming platforms HBO added the app HBO GO and the streaming service HBO Now in 2015. In 2020, HBO would also HBO Max, a new streaming service, with not only HBO original programing and various films but also shows like Friends (1994–2004). With over 140 million viewers worldwide, HBO continues to be an industry leader, influencer, and tastemaker through programming and marketing innovations. Given its scope and stature in the media industry, HBO’s role in presenting race and ethnicity on-screen cannot be underestimated or overlooked. Looking at HBO programming decade by decade starting in the 1980s, reveals the many ways—some stereotypical and some groundbreaking—the network (and studio) have influenced whose narratives are told, who tells them and how these stories reflect, refract, dismiss, or celebrate race and ethnicity. In the 1980s, HBO programming consisted largely of sports and comedy specials, as well as R-rated movies. Viewers tuned in to watch stand-up comedians like Richard Pryor, George Carlin, and Eddie Murphy talk about taboo subjects like race, sex, drugs, and American politics. During this time, HBO also elevated the sport of boxing. Overall, African Americans and Latinos were seen as athletes or comedians on the network at this time. Given the crossover appeal of stars like Pryor and Murphy, HBO also aired the major box office films in which they starred, for example, Brewster’s Millions (1985) and Beverly Hills Cop (1984). “To bolster its content, HBO Films launched in 1983 and has since produced more than 200 films and miniseries making it one of the most prolific and award-winning independent studios of all time” (DeFino 2014, 7).

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1990s Throughout the 1990s, HBO became increasingly prominent in popular culture. Its original programs won several Emmy and Golden Globe awards, making HBO not only a premium cable competitor but a powerhouse in the general broadcasting market. According to Al Auster (2009), It was HBO’s biopic The Josephine Baker Story (1991), however, that landed the network its first Emmy for a made-for-TV movie. The film starring Lynn Whitfield made excellent use of some of cable’s advantages, such as the option for on-screen nudity. Thus, HBO’s version could portray quite literally the life of the Saint Louis washerwoman’s daughter who became an international star by dancing nude at the Folies-Bergère in her famous danse sauvage. The film also reveals the racism that followed Baker when she returned to the United States, when, even though a major star of the Ziegfeld Follies, she was not permitted to stay at any of the major hotels in New York. It also chronicles her role in the French resistance during the German occupation of France in World War II and the McCarthyite charges of communist sympathies leveled against her during the fifties. More than garnering the first in a long line of gold statuettes, The Josephine Baker Story inspired HBO to develop a series of films that dealt with the history, lives, and problems of marginal and oppressed groups. (226–246)

Among the most prominent of these were stories of African Americans: The Tuskegee Airmen (1995) dealt with black World War II aviators who fought a two-front war against both fascism and homegrown racial prejudice; Miss Evers’ Boys (1997), the tragic story of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. Using a similar approach to The Josephine Baker Story, HBO produced Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999), featuring Black Hollywood star, Halle Berry in the title role. The film was popular but garnered mixed criticism, with one scholar noting, Although Berry’s recreation of Dandridge’s Carmen Jones is especially pivotal to this production, to reduce Dandridge’s experiences, and the other crucial scenes in this biopic overall, to a black woman’s overall struggle against Hollywood racism is to elide its significance, or even its limitations, when it comes to depicting the experience of the mixed-race main character— especially beyond the fame of Carmen Jones. (Holiday 2017, 20)

Another noteworthy example of HBO’s expanded programming focused on marginal and oppressed groups is the miniseries, Grand Avenue (1996), which “tells the interwoven stories of two American Indian families living in Santa Rosa, California, in an environment of street shootings, gang warfare, poverty, alcoholism and cancer” (Shales 1996). Since Indigenous communities are so seldom represented on-screen, especially in contemporary non-monolithic ways, Grand Avenue stands as one of the rare occasions in which this group is seen and honored in moving and tender ways. Produced by Robert Redford and featuring an all-Native cast in lead roles, Grand Avenue received a Primetime Emmy nomination for outstanding cast in a miniseries. Aside from the movies, miniseries, and biopics featuring racially and ethnically diverse characters and casts, HBO debuted OZ (1997–2003), a show about prison life and criminal justice issues. OZ featured a multiracial and multiethnic cast and dealt with issues of drugs, violence, masculinity, state resources, and

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treatment of criminals as well as racism, sexuality, HIV-AIDS, prison education, and the death penalty. A prominent subgroup of prisoners on the show are (Black) characters who find faith by practicing Islam. In one of the final episodes of the series, the intellectually impaired Cyril O’Reily (played by Scott William Winters) is executed in the electric chair. The series garnered both positive and negative criticism, but its largely multiethnic and multiracial cast, including screen veterans such as Asian American actor, BD Wong and Latina actress, Rita Moreno, was certainly groundbreaking. Due in part to its graphic content and diversity, the show is credited with having paved the way for The Sopranos (1999–2007) and The Wire (2002–2008). Along the lines of sex and gender, HBO launched one of its most iconic comedy series, Sex and the City (1998–2004). A mega-success, the show followed four, thirty-something, white professional women and their triumphs in friendship, love, sex, and shopping in New York City. The show aired for six seasons and during that time received fifty-four Emmy nominations, with seven wins. Despite some progressive representations of women, the show failed to address race in any substantive or generative ways. Limited due to its white neoliberal feminism, the show mostly ignored issues of socioeconomic status and race. One memorable episode that does include a racial subplot, “No Ifs Ands or Butts” (2000) traffics in the centuries’ old trope of black women competing with white women over the affections of Black men. In this episode, the character, Samantha (played by Kim Cattrall) begins dating Chivon, a Black man, whose sister (Adeena, played by Sundra Oakley) does not approve of the relationship. Failing to understand why the sister does not approve and the racial tensions associated with interracial dating within the black community, Samantha gets into a public, physical altercation with Adeena. Further, when Chivon ends the relationship, Samantha laments (via narration provided by Sarah Jessica Parker’s character, Carrie Bradshaw’s narration) that “Chivon was a big Black pussy who wouldn’t stand up to his sister.” Four years after the series ended on HBO, the franchise moved to the big screen in the form of two feature-length theatrical films: Sex and the City: The Movie (2008) and Sex and the City 2 (2010). While the 1990s saw an increase in attention paid to marginalized people and communities, in 1999 HBO premiered the first season of its original series, The Sopranos—a game-changing mafia drama that is widely regarded as the best television show of all time. From 1999 to 2005, The Sopranos dominated television. The show garnered 111 Primetime Emmy nominations and 21 wins, as well as 5 Golden Globes. The show only periodically dealt with race issues, though the main focus was Italian ethnicity and identity—typical of the mobster/mafia genre. Notably, in the season three episode, “Proshai, Livushka,” Tony Soprano’s daughter, Meadow, begins dating a mixed-race (Jewish and African American) Columbia University peer, Noah Tannenbaum. Tony confronts Noah, calling him a racial slur and telling him he (Tony) doesn’t approve of interracial dating between Blacks and Whites. Another episode that focuses on race deals with the Italian characters clashing with Native Americans who are protesting Columbus Day. This episode is interesting because AJ Soprano (Tony’s young, teen son) mentions the Howard Zinn book, A People’s History of the United States, and voices his

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opinion that contrary to his family’s beliefs about Columbus, that he considers Columbus a murderer. A subplot in season two of the show also deals with Tony’s Jewish associate, Hesh, coming into conflict with a powerful, Black rap artist who is pressuring him to pay royalties to the family of a Black doo-wop singer who Hesh helped to produce and promote in the 1960s. Hesh took unearned writing credit for the original music, which means he is still profiting from the rights.

THE 2000s (2000–2018) While HBO gained momentum in the mid- to late 1990s, it saw a record number of viewers from 2005 to 2010. The early 2000s arguably, mark the network’s peak creative period in terms of original series development and programming. While shows like The Sopranos and Sex and the City did not deal with race often, HBO did continue to have some programming and content devoted to exploring the lives and stories of African Americans. Specifically, this time period saw HBO produce the Emmy Award–winning films A Lesson before Dying (2001), about a black death row convict, adapted from the Ernest Gaines play; and the Emmy Award–winning Something the Lord Made (2004), the story of Vivien Thomas, a Black medical technician who engaged in pioneering research on open-heart surgery. These films starred Black actors, Don Cheadle and Mos Def, among others. Also, during this time (in 2002) HBO debuted The Wire. Although The Wire did not enjoy the viewership that The Sopranos did, it had a strong following and a loyal audience. Furthermore, it was a critically acclaimed series that played an important role in cementing HBO’s reputation as a versatile, premiere destination for high-quality writing and characters. Often grim, The Wire explored complex relationships between law enforcement, drug dealers, and youth with limited educational opportunities, living in project housing in inner-city Baltimore. Several prominent Black actors who have gone on to become Hollywood movie stars, such as Idris Elba (who played Stringer Bell) and Michael B. Jordan (who played Wallace) got their first major roles on The Wire. In the last decade, starting around 2010, HBO shows like Boardwalk Empire (2010–2014) and Tremé (2010–2012) continued the network’s tradition of nuanced characters and complex histories and interpretations of U.S. culture. Both shows did a better job than their predecessors (i.e., The Sopranos, Six-Feet Under, 2001– 2004) in terms of foregrounding African American characters and racial issues—especially Tremé. Tremé was set between late 2005, three months after the Katrina catastrophe and early 2009, during the first phase of the Obama administration. The show explores the unlikely convergence in the defiant rhetoric of Tremé’s protagonists who refuse to “bow” in the face of post-Katrina hardship and trauma, and that of the program’s key offscreen villains, the Bush administration and American federal government whose post-9/11 defiance is well-documented. (Keeble 2019, 65)

Tremé features a multiethnic cast but mainly focuses on black and Creole characters in the Ninth Ward. HBO veteran actors, like Wendell Pierce (who also starred on The Wire) play leading roles on the show, and the show is considered

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politically savvy and artistically driven with regard to the particulars of New Orleans culture—including its musical traditions, foods, and communities. The show also celebrates queer and trans self-expression, both of which New Orleans is known for, due in part to its many cultural festivities and celebrations (like Southern Decadence, a gay pride festival) and Mardi Gras. While, on one hand, Tremé’s focus was contemporary and location-specific, Boardwalk Empire, on the other, was set on the Jersey Shore during the Prohibition Era. Conceptually speaking, Boardwalk Empire functioned almost like a prequel to The Sopranos—as both were set in New Jersey and focused on organized crime. Boardwalk Empire was always about more than just Prohibition and crime, and explored interesting areas such as politics, the war, women’s rights and race relations in Twenties and Thirties America. Boardwalk Empire ran for 5 seasons over a relatively short span of 4 years, but in that time the critical acclaim it received, principally for its lavish visual style and historical accuracy, saw the series receive 57 Primetime Emmy Award nominations, of which it won ­20​.­The nature of the success of . . . Boardwalk Empire leads to a greater understanding that HBO operates—not only as an important site of cultural legitimization, but as gatekeeper and tastemaker in the field of contemporary TV cultural production. (Akass and McCabe 2018)

Unlike other shows with similar themes, Boardwalk Empire dealt with race and issues of segregation, alliances, and community. Former Wire actor, Michael K. Williams, played a Black gangster, Chalky White, in a recurring role throughout the series. The last two seasons would also introduce the character Dr. Valentin Narcisse, a Marcus Garvey type Black community leader but with a dark side, played by Geoffrey Wright. These actors did not function as props, though their story lines were often secondary in nature. Regardless, they were well-developed and dynamic, appearing regularly in each episode. In addition to shows featuring more Black characters, HBO continued its legacy of black women biopics (in the tradition of The Josephine Baker Story and Introducing Dorothy Dandridge) with the 2015 docudrama, Bessie, featuring Queen Latifah in the lead role. The film, director by Black lesbian director, Dee Rees, was nominated for numerous awards and won several Primetime Emmys. According to K. Allison Hammer (2019), In the 2015 HBO docudrama Bessie, Queen Latifah, a Black butch figure in her own right, conveys the sense of being-for-self that Smith achieved during her performances. However, by depicting Smith as deranged by alcoholism, indiscriminate in her affairs with women and men, and gratuitously violent . . . HBO capitalized on the Sapphire caricature, the stereotype of the angry Black woman with personal failings. The film repeats a common trope of racial uplift in which a tragic romantic Black woman eventually outgrows her rage, her “out of control” [butch] quality and becomes a more “manageable” star.” (287–288)

In one of its most recent shows, The Deuce (2017–2019), which focuses on the early years of Times Square’s sex-work industry and urban planning and development, HBO continues a formula of multiracial casting and integrating Black, White (and some Latinx) characters—similar to Boardwalk Empire and OZ.

HBO 287 The Deuce, at its best, dwells in the ordinary social exchange of Times Square life: pimps and police rubbing shoulders at the shoeshine stand, working girls swapping gossip on smoke breaks and in diners over plates of hash and eggs, a reporter complaining to her editor that when he cut her lead he just let the city off the hook. It’s a 360-degree view of New York’s sex economy—much like Simon’s [the show’s writer/creator] portrayal of Baltimore’s drug trade in The Wire, from station house to shipping docks, courtroom to newsroom. (Grant 2018, 15)

While The Deuce only aired for three seasons, it took on issues of city corruption, women’s rights, sex work, the rise of porn, and HIV/AIDS in the 1970s–1980s. CONCLUSION Over time, a consensus seems to have emerged concerning the terms of HBO’s legacy to contemporary television: its innovations in the delivery of television programming (via subscription, satellite, multiplexing); its expansion of “acceptable” content (sex, violence, profanity); its transformation of conventional genres (crime, western, comedy); its branding strategies and its fostering of creativity in a medium notoriously risk-averse (DeFino 2014, 2). With regard to race and ethnicity, while shows like Sex and the City, Girls (2012–2017), and Game of Thrones (2011–2019) fell short in diversity and critical racial consciousness, HBO has shown steady attention to Black and Latinx characters through shows like OZ and The Wire . . . and more recently The Leftovers (2014–2017), Tremé, and Insecure (2016–). The network has also focused on race and racial issues through miniseries, like Show Me a Hero (2015) and The Night Of (2016). HBO must also be recognized for its groundbreaking documentaries as well as its ongoing commitment to comedy in the form of political satire in shows like Last Night This Week (2014–). Another topic that HBO has explored in unprecedented ways is the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s. No other network has offered the consistent attention to this health crisis that HBO has through movies and miniseries like And the Band Played On (1993), Angels in America (2003), and The Normal Heart (2014). All of which featured diverse casts and focused on how the virus impacted multiple communities. While some of HBO’s programming on race and ethnicity has reinforced stereotypes—especially in shows that depict minorities as violent gangsters, drug dealers, and pimps—HBO has also elevated important stories of marginalized groups facing and overcoming injustice and contributing in exceptional ways to U.S. society and culture. Ultimately, HBO is both a product and maker of popular culture; therefore, it will not always get things right when it comes to the stories and depictions of minorities and oppressed groups. However, a careful survey of the network’s offerings reveals a variety of original series, documentaries, foreign films, movies, and miniseries that attempt to meaningfully incorporate and represent a range of diverse and complex characters and communities of color. Stephanie Troutman Robbins

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Further Reading

Akass, Kim, and Janet McCabe. 2018. “HBO and the Aristocracy of Contemporary TV Culture: Affiliations and Legitimatising Television Culture, Post-2007.” Mise au point, 10. doi:10.4000/map.2472. Auster, Al. 2008. “HBO’s Approach to Generic Transformation.” In Thinking Outside the Box: A Contemporary Television Genre Reader, edited by Gary R. Edgerton and Brian G. Rose, 266–246. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press Bourdaa, Melanie. 2014. “This Is Not Marketing. This Is HBO: Branding HBO w/ Transmedia Storytelling.” Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network 7 (1): ­https://​­ojs​.­meccsa​.­org​.­uk​/­index​.­php​/­netknow​/­article​/­view​/­328. DeFino, Dean J. 2014. The HBO Effect. New York: Bloomsbury. Edgerton, Gary R., and Brian G. Rose, eds. 2009. The HBO Reader. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. Grant, Melissa. 2018. “Working the Deuce.” Dissent 65 (1): 15–18. Hammer, K. Allison. 2019. “Just like a Natural Man”: The B.D. Styles of Gertrude ‘Ma’ Rainey and Bessie Smith.” Journal of Lesbian Studies 23 (2): 279–293. Holiday, Marta. 2017. “Halle Berry as the Modernized Tragic Mulatta.” The Projector: A Journal on Film, Media and Culture 17 (1): 6–28. Jones, E., A. Bechtold, and K. Hayman. 2017. “HBO NOW: Watch Out, Netflix!” Journal of Case Studies 35 (2): 37–43. Keeble, Anne. 2019. Narratives of Hurricane Katrina in Context. New York: Palgrave Pivot Leverette, M., Brian Ott, and C. Buckley, eds. 2008. It’s Not TV: Watching HBO in the Post-Television Era. New York: Routledge. Shales, Tom. 1996. “Grand Avenue: Shuttered Lives.” Washington Post, June 29. h­ ttps://​ ­w ww​.­washingtonpost​.­com ​/­a rchive​/­lifestyle​/­1996​/­06​/­29​/­g rand​-­avenue​-­shuttered​ -­lives​/­a99468fd​-­bd51​- ­4461​-­b7b9​-­d50e906a5d33​/.

Hip-Hop Since the birth of hip-hop in the South Bronx in the early 1970s, hip-hop culture has been a critical site for reflecting and shaping representations of Black communities and other communities of color in the United States. Hip-Hop as cultural critic Greg Tate (2016) argues, “like Black music always has been and always will be, is the most accurate arbiter of the zeitgeist, of the consciousness of the people and of the age” (5). For many fans, critics, and historians, hip-hop culture is generally understood as being comprised of four core elements: break dancing, graffiti, rapping, and DJing. However, Derrick Alridge and James Stewart (2005) contend that the culture’s societal impact extends beyond these four practices encompassing “not just a musical genre, but also a style of dress, dialect and language, way of looking at the world, and an aesthetic that reflects the sensibilities of a large population of youth” (190). Starting in the late 1970s, television became one of the primary vehicles for broadening hip-hop’s reach; moving the culture from what was once viewed as largely regional and niche phenomenon to one that was an integral part of mainstream popular culture. Once visible on small screen, the relationship between

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hip-hop and television evolved from one in which television was a central medium through which hip-hop was disseminated to the masses, to one in which it became a constitutive element of the culture. While network television was slow to embrace the culture, hip-hop’s growth as a cultural phenomenon is intricately linked to the expansion of cable television during the 1980s and 1990s. Unlike network television, which focused on appealing to a broad spectrum of viewers, cable embraced narrowcasting, offering programming that targeted niche markets. This practice allows stations to deliver specific audiences and demographics to advertisers. In this context, various cable networks would embrace hip-hop, expanding its commercial reach and cultural impact. One station that was particularly popular with young people during the 1980s and 1990s was MTV. In the late 1980s, recognizing an expanding rap fan base, evident by the popularity of local music video shows like the New York City–based Music Video Box (1983–), production assistant Ted Demme pitched the idea of a national rap music show on MTV. In August 1988, MTV debuted Yo! MTV Raps (1988–1995), a two-hour daily show featuring music videos, artist performances, and interviews. Hip-hop pioneer Fab Five Freddy initially hosted Yo! MTV Raps; the show quickly became MTV’s most watched program. Yo! MTV Raps represented a major programmatic shift for the station. Just ten years before, Black artists, including funk superstar Rick James, protested the lack of diversity on MTV. With the ascendance of Yo! MTV Raps, it was now offering up to twelve hours of rap a day. Its presence on MTV also impacted White America’s understanding of rap music and the communities producing these sonic narratives. Jeff Chang (2005) posits that Yo! MTV Rap was particularly instrumental in expanding how young suburban white viewers understood the lives of people of color in urban communities; an education they received without having to leave the comfort of their homes. “Urban style no longer trickled up from multiracial networks of cool, but was instantly available via remote control to vanilla exurbs where teens were adjusting to lowered life expectations” (419). Yo! MTV Raps also shifted hip-hop’s geographical imagination beyond the borders of the New York metropolitan area with its on-the-scene reports from the hometowns of artists such as NWA, Too $hort, The Geto Boys, and Outkast; in the process helping to establish Compton, Oakland, Houston, and Atlanta, as well as many other cities, as major contributors to hip-hop culture. Yo! MTV Rap was the forerunner for other cable hip-hop video shows including BET’s Rap City (1989–2008) and BET: Uncut (2001–2006), a program that ran on weekend nights at 3:00 a.m. and featured music videos that were deemed too explicit to air at other times. By the mid-2000s, websites like YouTube and WorldStar supplanted cable stations as the dominant platforms for accessing hip-hop music videos. In the early 1990s, hip-hop’s influence on network television could be seen in scripted television as well. The success of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990–1996), a sitcom starring Will Smith as a West Philadelphia teenager who moves to in Bel-Air to live with his wealthy relatives, demonstrated hip-hop artists’ ability to crossover into television stars. For artists who had sold millions of records, sitcoms

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Rap City: Tha Basement In 1999, when then-Washington, D.C. radio personality Big Tigger took over as host of Rap City, the program was rebranded as Rap City: Tha Basement. Tigger introduced videos and conducted interviews with artists in what he referred as the basement at “mama’s house,” often gesturing to his mother before they came downstairs. The set created a more intimate feel for the viewer, and the replicated the kinds of environments where many aspiring artists began their careers. For many viewers, the show’s most anticipated segment was when artists entered the recording booth and performed a freestyle. Tha Basement distinguished itself from other music video shows as it was the one place where even platinum-selling artists felt compelled to flex their impromptu lyrical skills. “Some rappers would drop sly disses, others would actually come off the dome. One Harlem hero even wore all pink and counted stacks of money while he spit. Time stood still in that neon-lit recording booth” (Weinstein 2013). Rap City: Tha Basement was the go-to show for hearing artists perform stand-alone rap verses on television; extending a practice that was largely associated with underground hip-hop mixtapes and radio shows like New York City’s Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito Show and Los Angeles’s Sway and Tech Wake-Up Show.

provided a platform to build their brands outside of music and cut their teeth as actors. On Living Single (1993–1998), Queen Latifah played a hip-hop magazine editor living with her best friends in a Brooklyn brownstone. LL Cool J played a former professional football player forced to rent a section of his home to a newly divorced single mother and her two children in In the House (1995–1999). As Nelson George (2005) observes, “That these once stern-faced hip-hop heroes are so comfortable in the seemingly restricting half-hour format speaks to their innate sense of showmanship” (110). The growing popularity of hip-hop within the (White) mainstream, and the successes of rap artists to cross over onto television, came alongside an increased influence of hip-hop culture on the narratives, visual markers, language, and style available on the American televisual landscape. One of the first dramatic series to draw heavily on hip-hop’s sonic and visual aesthetics was Fox’s New York Undercover (1994–1999). Created by Dick Wolf, who most notably created the Law and Order franchise, New York Undercover focused on the professional and personal lives of detectives J. C. Williams (Malik Yoba) and Eddie Torres (Michael DeLorenzo). New York Undercover was the first police drama to feature two men of color in lead roles. In Williams and Torres, Wolf argues, New York Undercover countered some of the dominant stereotypes associated with hip-hop. “We’re presenting positive role models who wear hip-hop clothes, and that’s something that you haven’t seen before on television” (Roberts 1996). Produced by Uptown Records executive Andre Harrell, New York Undercover’s appeal for some was attributed to how the show incorporated popular R & B and hip-hop songs within the episodes’ narratives. However, for some critics, New York Undercover’s reliance on popular music contributed to the show being long on flash and short on substance. Elvis Mitchell (1995) described New York Undercover as “Fox’s ’90s version of Miami Vice, which skimps on plot because narrative gets in the way of the five-song-per-episode quota” (103). The program’s steady rotation of hip-hop artists as guest stars, as well as how it addressed issues such as single parenting, gun violence, and the AIDS epidemic, engendered strong

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attachment among many hip-hop fans. New York Undercover was one of several programs on FOX that reflected hip-hop sensibilities including Martin, Living Single, and In Living Color, which concluded each episode with a performance from any number of hip-hop artists alongside of the Flygirls, the show’s hip-hop dance squad. Likewise, the syndicated The Arsenio Hall Show (1989–1994) provided a platform to hip-hop artists, providing ample visibility in a moment where this venue was rarely made available to rappers. Toward the end of the 1990s, FOX abandoned their strategy of targeting audiences of color and instead began offering more White-cast shows in an attempt to draw broader viewership to compete with the big three networks. As a result of this programming shift, sitcoms and dramas that explicitly reflected hip-hop culture were largely absent from network television for over a decade. One notable exception was UPN’s Platinum (2003), which some critics argue was the progenitor to FOX’s Empire (2015–2020). Platinum, like Empire, focused on a family’s struggles running a hip-hop record label. Despite drawing many of its story lines from real-life events within hip-hop, Platinum failed to resonate with viewers and lasted only one season. While hip-hop was absent from prime-time network television for the majority of the early 2000s, it remained a staple of cable television programming, particularly in the form of reality shows. Music competition shows like Making the Band 2 (2002–2004) offered viewers a behind the scenes look at what it takes to make it in the hip-hop industry. In the first season of Making the Band 2, Bad Boy Records impresario Sean “Diddy” Combs auditioned hundreds of aspiring rappers and singers in hopes of developing a super-group. At season’s end, Combs selected six artists to comprise “Da Band.” The show’s second season chronicled the challenges of combining the talents and personalities of six solo artists. Throughout that season, Combs implored “Da Band” members to demonstrate the lengths to which they would go to be successful recording artists, often forcing them to perform menial tasks such as washing cars and most famously walking from Manhattan to Brooklyn to procure cheesecake for Combs. One show that explicitly addressed race in hip-hop was the short-lived rap competition, Ego Trip’s The (White) Rapper Show (2007). The satirical show, which was hosted by MC Serch, a member of the rap group 3rd Bass, featured ten white rappers competing for $100,000. On each episode, the artists competed in a series of challenges including rapping on the street for South Bronx residents, engaging in a rap trivia contest, and running through a “thug obstacle course.” For Morrison and Jackson (2014) The (White) Rapper Show raises important questions for viewers about racial authenticity and hip-hop fandom. “As contestants tried to emulate the rhythm, syncopation, energy, and verse of mainstream rap, they also signaled a negotiation of their own identities as urban, suburban, and non-American white youth trying to appear authentic within a hip-hop context that a mostly black artistry has popularized” (27). For some critics, The (White) Rapper Show subscribed to staid conceptions of blackness, while for others it challenged those long-standing stereotypes with satire. It constructed a hip-hop world that relied on a Black–White racial binary, neglecting the contributions and experiences of nonBlack fans and practitioners of color. Reality television also allowed viewers to learn more about the people behind the rap personas; particularly the challenges of reconciling family and career.

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Run’s House (2005–2009), featuring Run from the rap group Run-DMC, Snoop Dogg’s Father Hood (2007–2009), Nellyville (2014–2015), and T.I. & Tiny: The Family Hustle (2011–2016) each sought to challenge the stereotype of the absent Black father. While critics and viewers alike generally praised family-oriented reality television shows, the nexus of hip-hop and reality television has also produced shows that have been charged with promoting buffoonish images of Black people. Flavor of Love (2006–2008) was described as rehashing imagery and ideas associated with blackface minstrelsy. Flavor of Love was premised on fifteen women competing for the affections of Flava Flav, the hype-man for political rap group Public Enemy. Specifically addressing Flava Flav and Three Six Mafia, whose Adventures in Hollyhood (2007) was similarly panned by critics, Dr. Todd Boyd observes that because they are artists “who have defined themselves as personas who are funny and comedic, you put them on a reality show and the minstrel component is going to be amped up that much more” (qtd. in Murphy 2007, 185). Despite such criticisms, Flavor of Love was a hit with audiences, spawning the spin-off, I Love New York (2007–2008). The show also served as one of reality television’s first forays into depicting the romantic lives of hip-hop luminaries. The Love and Hip-Hop franchise, which includes Love and Hip-Hop: New York (2011–), Love and Hip-Hop: Atlanta (2012–2016), Love and Hip-Hop: Hollywood (2014–), has gained a strong following among fans, highlighting the professional and love lives of women in hip-hop. The franchise has come under fire from critics for perpetuating negative representations of Black and Latinx women, with cast members regularly engaging in physical confrontations with each other. Amidst a broader resurgence of counter-narratives on television that emphasize greater diversity and more heterogeneous representations of communities, television has seen a renaissance of scripted shows that place hip-hop at the center of their narratives. Netflix’s The Getdown (2016) and VH1’s The Breaks (2016) each take retrospective looks at hip-hop golden eras, focusing specifically on New York City in the 1970s and 1990s, respectively. While FX’s Atlanta (2016) eschews many of the conventions traditionally associated with half-hour comedies. Comedian/rapper Donald Glover stars as Earnest Marks, a Princeton University dropout navigating Atlanta’s underground rap scene as the manager of his drug dealer cousin, Paper Boi. The critically acclaimed show mixes comedy, fantasy, and drama to address issues of blackness, sexuality, and class. Over the last forty years, the relationship between hip-hop and television has evolved to a symbiotic one. Television has become a critical site for hip-hop artists to not only sell their music but also, perhaps more importantly, themselves as brands and personalities. For television as a medium, hip-hop has helped racially and ethnically diversify what audiences see on the small screen; shedding light on the experiences of people of color whose stories are often neglected in other forms of media. Patrick Johnson Further Reading

Alridge, Derrick P., and James B. Stewart. 2005. “Introduction: Hip Hop in History: Past, Present, and Future.” Journal of African American History 90 (3): 190–195.



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Chang, Jeff. 2005. Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation. New York: St. Martin’s Press. George, Nelson. 2005. Hip Hop America. New York: Penguin. Mitchell, Elvis. 1995. “Spins: Television.” Spin 10 (12) (March 1): 103. Morrison, Carlos. D., and Ronald. Jackson II. 2014. “The Appropriation of Blackness in Ego Trip’s The (White) Rapper Show.” In Soul Thieves: The Appropriation and Misrepresentation of African American Popular Culture, edited by Tamara. L. Brown and Baruti N. Kopano, 15–30. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Murphy, Keith. 2007. “Not Ready for Prime Time Players.” Vibe 15 (9) (September): 183–185. Roberts, F. 1996. “On ‘New York Undercover,’ the Cops Are Equipped with Attitude.” New York Times, February 18. ­http://​­w ww​.­nytimes​.­com​/­1996​/­02​/­18​/­t v​/­cover​-­story​ -­on​-­new​-­york​-­undercover​-­the​-­cops​-­are​-­equipped​-­with​-­attitude​.­html. Tate, Greg. 2016. Flyboy 2: The Greg Tate Reader. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Weinstein, Max. 2013. “The 20 Best Rap City Freestyles of All Time.” Complex, November 13. ­http://​­w ww​.­complex​.­com​/­music​/­2013​/­11​/ ­best​-­rap​-­city​-­f reestyles​/.

Holocaust on American Television Almost since the American public learned of the atrocities Nazi Germany committed against European Jews in the 1930s and 1940s, mass media producers have attempted portrayals of the Holocaust. While these shows have been welcomed, they have elicited controversy with accusations that popular media was trivializing these horrific events. Yet, for others, these media portrayals of the Holocaust bring the atrocities home, making them real for the general public in a way not otherwise possible. The first fifty years of American television saw numerous portrayals of the Holocaust of varying quality, but all have fallen into one of three categories, dramatic overviews, portrayals of those outside of Europe and/or Jewry having to contend with the Holocaust, and portraits of the aftermath and survivors. Perhaps the most common of portrayals on television is the dramatic overview. Given the grand scale of the Holocaust and everything involved with it, these portrayals often take the form of a miniseries. The best known of these is Holocaust (1978), a four-part miniseries that chronicled the life and ultimate decimation of a German Jewish family as Nazism overran their country. Like Roots (1977), aired one year prior, Holocaust served as a seminal cultural event. Shortly after the series’ airing, Variety noted that “hardly a week goes by without hearing in the press and on the air at mass rallies or kosher chicken dinners—about the Holocaust, as if the event had just been discovered” (Luft 1979, 10). This miniseries introduced the full gravity of the Nazi persecution to Americans who before only knew a small part of the story, if any at all. NBC worked meticulously on Holocaust to ensure that they did the events justice and that the series could serve as an educational tool. To this end, NBC distributed more than a million study guides to various religious and educational institutions to accompany the miniseries (Ungar 1978, 16). Five years after the success of Holocaust, ABC attempted to build on their achievement with the airing of its own miniseries, The Winds of War (1983).

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Where Holocaust singularly focused on a German Jewish family experiencing the horrors of Nazi rule, The Winds of War was an expansive drama about World War II, which, among other themes, addressed the plight of European Jews. The central story line focuses on a love story between the Jewish Aaron Jastrow (John Houseman) and Natalie (Ali MacGraw), the niece of Victor “Pug” Henry (Robert Mitchum), an American Naval officer. The Winds of War’s central narrative of a love story contrasted from Holocaust’s more educational focus and instead allowed entertainment themes to dominate and the Holocaust to be rendered secondary. Since not every program can dedicate hours of television time in the form of a miniseries on the Holocaust, most programs instead resorted to analyzing a specific aspect of Jewish life, and death, under the Nazis. The dramatic anthology series Playhouse 90 (1956–1960) presented “In the Presence of Mine Enemies” in 1960, which depicted life in the Warsaw Ghetto. This special focused on the family of Rabbi Adam Heller (Charles Laughton), a bearded, elderly, spiritual leader in the Ghetto. Heller’s patience and willingness to find ways to survive until conditions improve contrasted with his son Paul’s violent and passionate resistance of the Nazis. The conflict between the elder and younger Hellers echoed the tough decision Jewish families faced during the Holocaust of whether to fight back or struggle to survive. In 1997, this episode was remade into a made-for-TV movie. It, however, strayed far from the original source material and the central conflict between two cogent yet opposing worldviews was absent. The made-for-TV movie The Wall (1982) similarly addressed the Warsaw Ghetto. The movie dramatized Nazi atrocities—including beatings, killings, and starvation—through the eyes of Jews in the ghetto. In The Wall, the characters escape deportation to the Treblinka extermination camp and form the Jewish Fighting Organization, based on the real-world organizations the Jewish Combat Organization and Jewish Military Union. Another aspect to the Holocaust that television producers have focused on is the extermination camps. The made-for-TV movie Playing for Time (1980) addressed life in the camps by chronicling the wartime ordeal of the real-life Fania Fénelon (played by Vanessa Redgrave), a half-Jewish French singer who was deported to Auschwitz after serving in the French Resistance. In opening scenes that attempt to convey the trauma faced by arriving Jews, Fania is stripped of personal belongings, her head shaved, and arm tattooed with an identifying and dehumanizing serial number. The sequel to The Winds of War, War and Remembrance (1987), saw lead character Aaron Jastrow (John Gielgud) tossed on a crowded, putrid train to Auschwitz where Jastrow suffers the same fate as Fénelon. However, while Fénelon’s story offers a level of solace, Jastrow ultimately finds himself herded into a gas chamber, where he dies. The made-for-TV movie Escape from Sobibor (1987) portrayed the real-life escape attempt of six hundred inmates in 1943. The brutal inhumanity and cruelty of the Nazis comes through in depictions of whippings, beatings, point-blank shootings, hangings, and gassing of Jewish prisoners. Since the publication of Anne Frank’s diary, the image of Jews in hiding during the Holocaust has been one of the most enduring images in American culture. The notion of survival in the face of impending death has long been a popular trope on



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American television, and Jews hiding during the Holocaust offered one of the most harrowing and gripping versions of this. Anne Frank’s story has become a made-for-TV movie on five occasions—the most recent of which being 2009—and in 2001 became a miniseries, Anne Frank: The Whole Story (2001). The 2001 miniseries opted to expand from the usual portrayal of the Frank family in hiding and offered a full picture of the Frank family before the war, during their time in hiding, their eventual deportation to Auschwitz, and Otto Frank’s survival and return to the Netherlands in 1945. Although Anne Frank’s story is the most well-known and most portrayed of this theme, numerous other shows have attempted to tackle the gravity of Jews in hiding, including many of the Holocaust miniseries and movies depicting deportation to camps. Since Americans largely are neither Jewish nor had to reckon with the direct consequences of the Holocaust, many American depictions of the Holocaust choose not to focus on wartime Europe or European Jewry. Instead, they offer portrayals of American Jews during the Holocaust, soldiers encountering the camps for the first time, and the experiences of non-Jews who struggled to save Jews from the horrors of Nazi Germany. The most common of these depictions is that of the non-Jews who struggled to save Jews during the Holocaust, or the Righteous among the Nations. Since Jews only account for 2 percent of the American population, American television has often sought to rely on non-Jews to make events more relatable and impactful for an American audience. Some of the earliest depictions of the Holocaust relied on the Righteous to tell a story. For example, a 1959 episode of Playhouse 90 told the fictional story of Tanguy (Robert Crawford Jr.), a half-French, half-Spanish, non-Jewish child who found himself alone in war-torn Europe due to a variety of circumstances. German authorities assume Tanguy is Jewish and a Righteous Gentile, Mr. Delivol, who opened his house to many Jews seeking refuge from the Nazis, steps in to try to save Tanguy from authorities. In the 1980 made-for-TV movie, Charlie Grant’s War (1980), the eponymous hero is a wealthy Canadian businessman (Charlie Grant played by R. H. Thompson) working in Europe in the 1930s who found himself interned in an extermination camp, despite not being Jewish. The tribulations of his family attempting to rescue Grant illuminates the difficulty most had when trying to rescue Europe’s Jews and the personal risk they took to do so. Throughout the 1980s, numerous similar movies appeared on American television including The Scarlet and the Black (1983), Pope John Paul II (1984), Wallenberg: A Hero’s Story (1985), and Forbidden (1985). The portrayal of Righteous Gentiles received its most high-profile attention in the form of the Academy Award winning film Schindler’s List (1993). In 1997, the movie made its television debut when NBC bought the rights to the film. This airing became a massive cultural event in the United States with an estimated 65 million people watching, nearly tripling the number of Americans who saw it in theaters (1997). Perhaps just as common as portrayals of righteous Gentiles is the depiction of American Jewish experiences during the Holocaust. The first such portrayal was in the anthology series Studio One (1948–1958). In a 1957 episode, Bernie Linton (William Smithers), a young American Jewish soldier is captured and sent to a German prison camp. Although he never felt particularly Jewish, the experiences

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of the camp cause him to address his identity and embrace his Jewishness. In 1972, The Waltons (1971–1981) likewise chronicled a young Jewish soldier forced to confront the horrors of the Holocaust. A Jewish friend of the Waltons, Ted Lapinsky (Todd Susman), is forced to address the situation in Europe when he receives word of his grandfather’s death in Treblinka. American Jewish experiences are also the focus of numerous made-for-TV movies such as Summer of My German Soldier (1978) and The Long Days of Summer (1980). Despite the glut of miniseries devoted to the events of the Holocaust, most of the depictions on American television focus on the experiences of Holocaust survivors and escaped Nazis. Episodes of Armstrong Circle Theatre (1950–1963) and the miniseries QB VII (1974) focus on the postwar hunt for Nazis who escaped prosecution for their role in the Holocaust. In Armstrong Circle Theatre, the escaped Nazi in question was Adolf Eichmann, who stood trial in Jerusalem in 1960. Armstrong Circle Theatre used Eichmann’s rise to power and escape to portray the atrocities of the Holocaust in full detail. QB VII detailed the life of Dr. Adam Kelno (Anthony Hopkins), a non-Jewish Pole who was a prisoner doctor at the Jadwiga concentration camp who escaped to London after the war and practiced medicine. In telling Kelno’s story, the show discussed the possibility of reform and repentance by Nazis and whether they could escape the horrific acts of their pasts (Rogers 1970). In fiction, escaped Nazis and those who hunted them down were characters in a 1968 episode of The F.B.I. (1965–1974), in which a Nazi disguised himself as a Yiddish-speaking Jewish refugee, a 1981 episode of Magnum P.I. (1980–1988), where Nazis posed as Israeli Nazi-hunters, and in the pilot movie for Cagney and Lacey (1981–1988), where Nazis assumed the identity of Hasidic Jews working in New York’s diamond district. As time passed, depictions of Nazis-in-hiding focused less on the active process of hiding and more on the exposure of Nazis after decades spent living in the United States. Since the 1990s, numerous police procedurals, such as the Law & Order (1990–2010) franchise, have dealt with the late exposure of Nazi war criminals. In these episodes, the Nazi is often depicted as having committed the episodes central crime as a means for covering up their past and further details of past actions come to light during the trial in which they are almost always fully brought to justice. As shows increasingly depicted escaped Nazis in hiding, Israeli characters hunting Nazis increasingly appeared on American television. In the aforementioned episode of Armstrong Circle Theatre on Adolf Eichmann (played by Frederick Rolf), Eichmann is brought back to Israel where he stands trial for war crimes. The pursuit of Eichmann was similarly profiled on the made-for-TV movie The House on Garibaldi Street (1979) and the made-for-cable movie The Man Who Captured Eichmann (1996). These movies not only focus on Eichmann, but they each profile Israeli operatives in various ways, portraying them as skilled military officers operating with the power of conscience and justice in their favor. Fictional dramas have likewise broached the subject of Israelis tracking down Nazis. A 1965 episode of Kraft Suspense Theatre (1963–1965), a 1967 episode of The Saint (1962–1969), and the made-for-TV movie Night Gallery (1969) each had stories of Israeli Nazi hunters. Night Gallery’s portrayal of Israelis searching for



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escaped Nazis differed from the other two as it focused on an escaped Nazi and the constant fear of being caught by Israel. A 1976 episode of Columbo (1968– 1978) followed a similar trajectory in depicting an ex-Nazi who murders a Holocaust survivor out of fear of being turned over to Israel. Israeli Nazi hunters also appeared in episodes of Hawaii Five-O (1968–1980), Magnum P.I., Quincy M.E. (1976–1983), and Trapper John, M.D. (1976–1986). The main character in each of these shows typically teams up with the Israeli to get justice and by the end they express admiration for the Israeli agents, sympathy for their mission, and contempt for the ex-Nazis, as these shows typically portray Israelis as efficient and rigidly devoted to their missions, and thus are ultimately successful. As American television saw a proliferation of Holocaust portrayals following World War II and as Americans attempted to grapple with the horrors they increasingly learned of, portrayals became more complex and intricate. Tough chronicling of the numerous aspects of the Holocaust, miniseries, movies, and episodes ultimately all fell into three categories: dramatic overviews, non-victims grappling with the events, and the lingering aftermath of Nazi oppression. Through these categories, American television has been able to offer a full picture of Jewish life during the Holocaust. Timothy R. Riggio Quevillon Further Reading

Haggith, Toby, and Joanna Newman. 2005. Holocaust and the Moving Image: Representations in Film and Television since 1933. New York: Wallflower. Lipinski, Ann Marie. 1983. “‘Winds’ and TV: Alternative to Going by the History Book.” Chicago Tribune, February 9. Lisus, Nicola A., and Richard V. Ericson. 1995. “Misplacing Memory: The Effect of ­Television Format on Holocaust Remembrance.” British Journal of Sociology 46 (1): 1–19. Luft, Herbert G. 1979. “Holocaust Spawns History Lesson, Seminars, World-wide Apologia—35 Years Late.” Variety, January 3. “NBC’s ‘Holocaust’ Captures Big Shares of Urban Audiences.” 1978. Wall Street Journal, April 18. Pearl, Jonathan, and Judith Pearl. 1999. The Chosen Image: Television’s Portrayal of Jewish Themes and Characters. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Rogers, W. G. 1970. “Dr. Adam Kelno: Hero or Villain?” New York Times, November 15. Shandler, Jeffrey. 1999. While America Watches: Televising the Holocaust. New York: Oxford University Press. Ungar, Arthur. 1978. “‘Holocaust’—History’s Lessons.” Christian Science Monitor, April 17. Zurawik, David. 2003. The Jews of Prime Time. Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press.

Horror Shows on Television Horror television has a somewhat troubled history of depicting racial and ethnic difference. Both horror (pain, disgust, the fear of bodily harm) and the gothic (eeriness, haunting, the dominance of a dark and hidden past) are categories that frequently overlap and intermingle, often rely on establishing categories of

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“otherness” (that is, absolute difference to a perceived or constructed “norm”) in order to produce their effects. Unfortunately, “blackness” (the idea that African Americans can be readily distinguished from the “White” population by their skin color) offers a readily available source of such otherness for writers and producers in North America. Asian characters, Native Americans, and Latinx characters also frequently fill the role of monstrous other. At the same time, a number of television shows equally employ the association between monstrosity and otherness to plead for greater tolerance and acceptance. Gothic and horror television is notable for its generic hybridity, and from the initial appearance around the middle of the twentieth century of the iconography and plots of horror films and gothic novels on American television, such shows have combined crime, thriller, and police-procedural narratives, science fiction, melodrama, and comedy. Arguably, horror’s infiltration of the small screen began with The Munsters (inspired by Universal’s 1930s horror films) and The Addams Family (based on Charles Addams’s 1912–1998 cartoons for The New Yorker from the same period), both of which aired from 1964 to 1966. Both shows used the notion of monstrous and ethnic or social “otherness” to image outsider status within the enforced conformity of suburban, middle-class life around the middle of the twentieth century. The Munsters, in particular, situated the family as immigrants; most markedly, Grandpa, a vampire, clings to customs from “the old country” and refuses to assimilate into American modernity. Nonetheless, and despite making use of the motifs and iconography of horror and the gothic, both The Addams Family and The Munsters were effectively cozy comedy series, deriving humor from the incongruence of such figures living in an otherwise “normal” suburb. At the same time, using monstrosity in this way, to connote racial or ethnic difference, cements the association between otherness and monstrosity, and simultaneously erases or obscures the very pressing issues surrounding actual racial difference and hatred in mid-twentieth-century America. Somewhat closer to contemporary horror programing were early “anthology” shows such as the overwhelmingly Anglo-European Night Gallery (1969–1973), and the slightly more diverse, though equally problematic Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974–1975). These relied on an episodic, “monster-of-the-week” structure, echoed in later offerings such as The X-Files (1993–2002), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003), and Fringe (2008–2013). Daily melodramas like Dark Shadows (1966–1971) (and later Passions, 1997–2007) were more narratively fluid, relying on serial story lines and “cliff-hangers,” but also incorporated a broad cast of characters, which provided visual and thematic range, often through stereotyping. Racially marked villains were frequent staples within both forms of programming, with African, African American, or Caribbean magicians and witches (Lara Parker played the same character, Angélique, in both Kolchak and Dark Shadows), Incan or Aztec mummies, and Creole, Hindu, and Native American spirits, monsters, and ghouls all making regular appearances. The legacy of such shows is evident in The X-Files, which effectively, along with Twin Peaks (1990–1991), saw the beginning of a resurgence of horror-themed television in the 1990s. As with David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, Chris Carter’s The X-Files is a sci-fi-horror-crime-drama with a largely White cast. The most



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significant episodes representing African Americans directly are “Sleepless” (season two, 1994) and “Teliko” (season four, 1996). The latter matters because of its effort to dramatize violence against the African American community, but ultimately blames an African immigrant and African folk culture for attacks against young black men as part of a plot to drain their skin of all color—that is, it blames black culture for turning black men white, effectively blunting whatever critique may initially underpin the episode. “Sleepless” features Tony Todd (whose previous turns as the hero Ben in the 1990 Night of the Living Dead remake and as the titular villain of the Candyman franchise are both implicitly evoked in the episode). Todd plays “Preacher” Augustus Cole, an African American Vietnam veteran, one of a number of soldiers who have had their sleep “removed,” and who now seems to be able to produce hallucinations in others. Cole’s appearances are accompanied by the panpipe music repeatedly employed throughout The X-Files to indicate exotic, foreign, supernatural occurrences and individuals. Native Americans are similarly exoticized as a dangerous Manitou in “Shapes” (season one, 1994) but also sentimentalized, particularly through the figure of Albert Hosteen (Floyd Red Crow Westerman), a mystical healer figure more in touch with the supernatural than the “white man,” whose main role is to aid FBI agent Fox Mulder’s quest to prove the existence of extraterrestrial life. In line with previous televisual horror offerings, Joss Whedon’s comedy-horrordrama about a girl with supernatural strength who fights vampires, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, leaves the issue of race almost entirely unexamined. Indeed, apart from the vampire Mr. Trick (K. Todd Freeman, season three), and Principal Robin Wood (DB Woodside, season seven), the cast and narrative focus are, again, exclusively white and Anglo-European (as Trick notes himself in “Faith, Hope, and Trick,” 1998). A notable exception is the episode “Pangs” (season four), in which Buffy’s desire to cook a Thanksgiving dinner for her friends is derailed by the reappearance of vengeful Native American spirits in Sunnydale, California. A band of warriors from the Chumash tribe attack the gang and leave Xander, the male friend, with a range of unpleasant diseases brought over to the “New World” by Europeans. More broadly, the show filters such appeals for tolerance and mutual understanding across racial or ethnic lines through the (often actively dangerous) characters of Angel, Spike, Oz, and Anya, two vampires, a werewolf, and a former vengeance demon, respectively. In other words, as in The Addams Family, The Munsters, and the more recent Grimm (2011–2017) (about fairy-tale creatures posing as ordinary humans), here, discussions of how to deal with otherness are channeled directly into depictions of monstrosity. Whedon’s spin-off series, Angel (1999–2004), following the eponymous vampire’s adventures in Los Angeles as a professional demon hunter, is both darker and more nuanced when it comes to depictions of both race and more generally “otherness.” This is signaled most explicitly toward the end of season one. Cordelia, a cheerleader who left Sunnydale (CA) and teamed up with Angel in Los Angeles, repeatedly expresses her disgust at all things demon, seeing them as irredeemably evil. She is unaware that their associate Doyle, to whom she eventually realizes she is attracted, is actually half demon. She is confronted with this fact during a mission to save another group of demon/human hybrids, the Listers,

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who are under threat from the Scourge, a group of militant demons who believe that demon lineage should be purified of all human “taint.” The Listers are depicted as cowering helplessly in tunnels under the city, using imagery that strongly recalls both reports of refugee crises and of the Holocaust. To save the group, Doyle must sacrifice himself, just as Cordelia understands both what he really is and how she feels about him. Here, then, demons are again used as a figurative device connoting racial or ethnic intolerance, and giving a central character an opportunity to overcome her own racism—but in ways that bear only figurative connections to “real-world” racial issues. More explicit again is the season two episode “The Thin Dead Line.” Charles Gunn (an African American demon hunter, played by J. August Richards) is at the center of this episode, as is his “crew,” a group of young African Americans with whom he had spent many years killing vampires on the streets of LA, hiding out in heavily guarded underground bunkers. This, and season one’s “War Zone,” in which Gunn is introduced, are the only two episodes to deal directly with the difficulties encountered by LA’s citizens of color in a world where supernatural evil is all too real, and where those least protected by society must face deadly threats that the most privileged of the city are either unaware of or actively support. “The Thin Dead Line” focuses on police officers who have willingly become hyper-strong zombies in order to deal with what they see as the proliferation of bad elements in the city, and consequently they are shown violently targeting people of color and the homeless. Watching this 2001 episode in the light of more recent events involving the American police and people of color renders it all the more effective, and the episode is also striking for a relatively early use of the phrase “walking while black.” Elsewhere in Angel, “That Vision Thing” (season three, 2001) echoes the problematic depiction of Chinese medicine found in the X-Files’ season three episode “Hell Money” (1996); and “The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco” (season five, 2003) does little to correct the stereotyping of Mexicans found in the earlier show’s “El Mundo Gira” (The X-Files, season four, 1997). In other words, while Angel does make some effort to present race and ethnicity in a more balanced and humanized manner than its predecessors, it cannot be said to present any kind of sustained critique of racism, outside of the metaphorical use of monstrosity as a code for difference. Much the same can be said of Supernatural (2005–2020), where African American characters tend to be evil vampires or demons, corrupt vampire/demon hunters, or helpless victims, while the stereotypical voodoo witch makes an appearance in the form of Clea (Barbara Eve Harris). Somewhat more positive are black FBI agent Victor Henricksen (Charles Malik Whitfield), though he too is quickly dispatched early on in season four (2008), and Asian American character Kevin Tran (Osric Chau, seasons seven to eleven), a bright boy who becomes a Prophet. Overall, however, the series is, once again, seriously lacking in diversity. Much the same can be said for The Walking Dead (2010–), which has been criticized for one-dimensional portrayals of black characters (Johnson 2016). Here, the character of Michonne (Danai Gurira) is introduced in a heavily orientalized manner, hooded, wielding a katana, and leading two shackled “walkers” (zombies),



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whose jaws she has removed to stop them from biting, in an image that evokes the horrors of slavery while erasing white responsibility for those horrors. As the series progresses, however, she is progressively humanized, though arguably only by being simultaneously feminized. In many ways, this greater, if still partial, integration of nonwhite characters into mainstream horror television is part of a wider trend, one that is exemplified by Teen Wolf (2011–2016) and Grimm. Grimm (which features two nonwhite actors, Russell Hornsby as Hank and Reggie Lee as Sergeant Wu, in central roles) extends Angel’s visual register in associating intra-demon violence in response to perceived threats to supposedly “pure” bloodlines with the iconography of Nazism, as a “Wesen” couple close to the main characters is targeted for their inter-species marriage. Similarly, Teen Wolf revels in racial and ethnic hybridity, which it associates closely with nontraditional sexual identities. It is characteristic of Teen Wolf’s inclusive attitude toward both racial and ethnic otherness and monstrosity itself that it emphasizes self-control and rehabilitation over punishment and slayage. At the same time, the sheer range and gleeful blending of ethnicities and folk heritages often leads to a certain superficiality. Kira (Arden Cho), a Japanese Korean character who has been living in America all her life, discovers that she is a Kitsune, a fox-spirit conjured by her mother while her people are being held in an internment camp during World War II. As Kira struggles to contain the dangerous spirit inside of her, she eventually enlists the help of a group of Skinwalkers, desert-dwelling Native American spirit guides who seem to understand what she is going through. Here, the mingling of traditions and legends has the effect of suggesting that there is a supernatural realm that is fundamentally unified and whole, even as it is divided into numerous national and ethnic groupings. This results in a flattening of specificity, as all traditions effectively become one, all equally exploited for horrific effect. In recent years, Southern Gothic has emerged within the horror genre. For some, this genre is preferable to the persistent superficial blindness toward racial difference evident in many of the Southern Gothic horror shows that have capitalized on Anne Rice’s association of vampires with the American South. In many ways, these recent shows can be traced back to American Gothic (1995–1996), an example of Southern Gothic that somehow ignores race almost completely, with the exception of the stereotypical darker-skinned, benevolent wise woman, Loris Holt (Tina Lifford). Mrs. Holt is effectively reincarnated in the form of Bonnie Bennett’s grandmother in The Vampire Diaries (2009–2017). Bonnie (Kat Graham), a friend of the central female characters and one of the few nonwhite characters in the show, discovers early on in the series that she is a witch, descended from a long line of “Bennett witches,” including her grandmother Sheila (Jasmine Guy), a knowledgeable, down-to-earth woman who helps Bonnie explore her powers. A number of flashbacks also introduce us to Emily Bennett (Bianca Lawson, who also appears in Buffy, The Witches of East End (2013–2014), and Teen Wolf ), who, during the American Civil War, was apparently handmaiden to one of the central white vampires, Katherine Pearse (Nina Dobrev). There is no indication of whether Emily is actually a slave or a “free” servant—indeed, almost none of the Civil

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War flashbacks mention the racial element of the conflict at all—and the focus is in fact on the persecution of white vampires in Virginia at the time. Even more troublingly, in the spin-off, The Originals (2013–2018), the central family of White, European vampires possess the bodies of African American witches, several of whom are ultimately killed by the exchange. The program as a whole therefore claims a kind of post-racial color blindness, while simultaneously stereotyping African Americans as slaves and witches and marginalizing them as secondary characters. True Blood is another prominent vampire narrative set in the American South, and it does attempt to deal more sensitively with the area’s dark record of slavery, racial hatred, and violence against and the systematic socioeconomic oppression of the nonwhite community. The character of Tara (Rutina Wesley) is, like Bonnie, incredibly unlucky with love, her career, and malevolent supernatural beings, but her struggles are similarly subordinated to those of her white friend Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin). A potentially fruitful plotline occurs when Tara’s vulnerable mother is duped by a fake African American witch, serving to problematize the stereotype, but equally undermining whatever power may be accorded such characters. Indeed, this revelation effectively

Tituba in Horror Television Recent horror television is notable for a renewed interest in the figure of Tituba, a slave from Barbados, most likely of Native American origin, who was imprisoned and interrogated during the Salem Witch Trials in 1692. Subsequent depictions have capitalized on uncertainties regarding her race, transforming her into an African American; most famously, The Crucible (1953) by Arthur Miller (1915–2005) figures Tituba as a Black witch who tempts the girls of Salem to read their fortunes in the forest. She surfaces once again in American Horror Story: Coven (2013–2014), which also deals with slavery and racism, through the character of Queenie (Gabourney Sibide), a “living voodoo doll” descended from Tituba, as are all witches of color in the show. The show pits the descendants of Tituba against the white “Salem” witches, the central characters, and also features Angela Bassett as the historical figure Marie Laveau, and Lance Reddick as the voodoo deity Papa Legba. However, these figures are situated as “the enemy” but also as marginal, literally outside of the main house where the action takes place. Ultimately, these “voodoo” or “Africanist” (to use Toni Morrison’s term) elements are little more than window dressing, adding an extra layer of supernatural gloss to a program that muddles together vast numbers of gothic and horror tropes without fully engaging with any of them. The historical Tituba re-emerges in Salem (2014–2017), which is very loosely based around the events of 1692. While this offered an intriguing opportunity to explore this enigmatic character, the program unfortunately reduces Tituba to nothing more than the sidekick and maid of the white witch Mary Sibley. While, as in AHS: Coven, Tituba’s possible Arawak heritage is mentioned briefly, this never serves to render the character sympathetic or even complex, as she remains a spiteful, vengeful devil-worshipper who betrays almost everyone, and is punished by being trapped in a cage on a slave ship, her mouth removed by supernatural means. In this way, the figure of Tituba effectively epitomizes the treatment that characters of color receive at the hands of supernatural horror shows in particular.



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delegitimizes non-Western forms of medicine and religion—only hyper-white vampires have any real power, it would seem. This is redeemed somewhat by the later portrayal of Tara’s cousin Lafayette (the late Nelsan Ellis) and his far more complex engagement, as a gay black man, with non-Christian forms of belief, ritual, and magic. However, he too is imprisoned and enslaved by the vampires (as is Tara, named after the plantation in Gone with the Wind, 1939), chained to a giant wheel that evokes historical slavery in a sensationalized manner. Moreover, the American Civil War, in which the vampire Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) fought on the Confederate side, is again central to the show’s mise-en-scène, but True Blood engages with it more directly than The Vampire Diaries. On the whole, the gothic exploitation of slavery and its aftermath is tempered somewhat by the show’s awareness of ongoing racism in America and the South in particular, though the emphasis on the civil rights of vampires distracts for any focus on those of black characters themselves. Finally, two other shows are worth mentioning for their efforts to present a more diverse and progressive vision of American horror—Sleepy Hollow and From Dusk Till Dawn (2014–2016). In the former, Washington Irving’s Headless Horseman has awoken in twenty-first-century Massachusetts, accompanied by Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison), a Revolutionary soldier. Crane is aided in his struggle against supernatural forces threatening America democracy by a police officer named Abbie Mills (Nicole Beharie), a young African American woman with a troubled past and an even more troubled sister (Lyndie Greenwood). Abbie’s boss is the transparently named Captain Frank Irving, played by Orlando Jones. While Abbie, her sister, and Irving initially play central roles in the drama, in season two in particular, Abbie is sidelined in favor of Crane’s relationship with his resurrected wife, Katrina (Katia Winter). Meanwhile, Irving is forced to go on the run and is all but absent in subsequent seasons, and Abbie is ultimately killed off and replaced by lighter-skinned actresses in season 4. Nevertheless, the show remains noteworthy for its diversity and nuance in its portrayal of African American characters. From Dusk Till Dawn deals, fairly unusually, with the Texas–Mexico border, and with issues relating to human trafficking and police corruption in the area. Early episodes are rather hamstrung by Quentin Tarantino’s original film plot (1996), with its attendant misogynistic violence and exploitation of Meso-American religion and culture for the purposes of eliciting horror and frisson of (implicitly Christian) supernatural dread. Nonetheless, it seems to imply that the progression of horror television in the twenty-first century is undeniably toward rather than away from diversity, even if the depiction of nonwhite characters continues to struggle against stereotyping, and horror and the gothic’s commitment to conflating otherness with monstrosity. Dara Downey Further Reading

Cherry, Bridget. 2016. “Shadows on the Small Screen: The Televisuality and Generic Hybridity of Southern Gothic.” In The Palgrave Companion of the Southern Gothic, edited by S. Castillo and C. L. Crow, 461–472. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Davidson, Carol Margaret. 2014. “The American Dream/The American Nightmare: American Gothic on the Small Screen.” In A Companion to American Gothic, edited by C. L. Crow, 488–502. New York: Wiley Blackwell. Fahy, Thomas. 2015. The Writing Dead: Talking Terror with TV’s Top Horror Writers. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press. Gelder, Ken. 2014. “Southern Vampires: Anne Rice, Charlaine Harris, and True Blood.” In The Palgrave Companion of the Southern Gothic, edited by S. Castillo and C. L. Crow, 405–420. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Hagood, Taylor. 2015. “Going to Ground: The Undead in Contemporary Southern Popular-Culture Media and Writing.” In Undead Souths: The Gothic and Beyond in Southern Literature and Culture, edited by E. G. Anderson, T. Hagood, and D. C. Turner, 248–260. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Hunt, Darnell M., eds. 2005. Channeling Blackness: Studies on Television and Race in America. New York: Oxford University Press. Johnson, Martenzie. 2016. “All 27 Black Characters Who Have Ever Appeared on The Walking Dead—Ranked.” The Undefeated, October 21. ­http://​­theundefeated​.­com​ /­features​/­all​-­27​-­black​-­characters​-­who​-­have​-­ever​-­appeared​-­on​-­the​-­walking​-­dead​ -­ranked​/. Jowett, Lorna, and Stacey Abbott. 2013. TV Horror: Investigating the Dark Side of the Small Screen. New York: I. B. Tauris. Marc, David. 1997. Comic Visions: Television Comedy an American Culture. London: Blackwell. Morrison, Toni. 1992. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. New York: Vintage Books. Wheatley, Helen. 2006. Gothic Television. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

House M.D.(2004–2012) House M.D. (2004–2012) is an American medical drama created by David Shore, which ran for eight seasons on the Fox network. The show follows the title character Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) and his team of diagnosticians as they solve the most challenging medical cases at the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. House M.D. received wide critical acclaim, winning five Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Peabody Award. It was equally popular with fans, consistently garnering high ratings. According to Eurodata TV Worldwide, in 2008 House M.D. became the world’s most watched show with more than 81.8 million viewers in sixty-six countries, representing a potential 1.6 billion viewers. For the series’ first three seasons, House’s diagnostic team consists of Dr. Robert Chase (Jesse Spencer), a wealthy, White man; Dr. Allison Cameron (Jennifer Morrison), a young and attractive white woman; and Dr. Eric Foreman (Omar Epps), a Black man with a juvenile criminal history. House is known for his misanthropic personality and constantly makes crude comments about his colleagues, patients, and nearly everyone he meets. However, while the topic of race is most often breached by House, the most interesting discussions of race center around Foreman and his complicated relationship to his racial identity. The audience learns about Foreman’s juvenile criminal history in the pilot episode, after House tells Foreman to break into a patient’s apartment to do an



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environmental scan. Foreman is surprised by the order, and House reveals that Foreman was hired because he wanted someone on his team with “street smarts.” Foreman is clearly bothered by the thought that he was hired because of his criminal record and expresses his frustration to Cameron stating, “You know what, after centuries of oppression, decades of civil rights marches, and more significantly living like a monk, never getting less than a 4.0 GPA, you don’t think it’s kind of disgusting I get one of the top jobs in the country because I’m a delinquent?” When Cameron confronts House, accusing him of hiring a black man because of his juvenile record, House responds, “No, it wasn’t a racial thing, I didn’t see a Black guy. I just saw a doctor . . . with a juvenile record.” Throughout the show’s early seasons, it is clear that Foreman wants to distance himself from his past as much as possible. This process of distancing himself from his past affects how he interacts with patients who come from similar backgrounds. One of the clearest examples of this is in the premiere of season two, “Acceptance,” in which LL Cool J plays Clarence, a Black patient on death row. This episode, in particular, reveals Foreman’s complex racial identity as it tackles difficult issues like racism, the effectiveness of the criminal justice system, and the morality of treating a man on death row. Throughout the episode, it is Foreman who repeatedly wonders why they are bothering to treat a man who will be sent back to death row instead of other “more deserving” patients. Foreman also becomes combative and upset each time his colleagues suggest he may be able to relate to the patient because they are both black and because Foreman has a criminal record. While he initially refuses to engage in any discussion about the role race plays in the criminal justice system, drug use, or income inequality, Foreman’s attitude begins to shift as he learns more about Clarence and ultimately when the team discovers his illness is a result of a tumor that heightened his adrenaline and likely made him a killer in the first place. While the episode ends with Foreman telling House that he would like to testify at Clarence’s appeal, this shift has less to do with Foreman coming to terms with his racial identity and more to do with him being convinced of a medical reason for Clarence’s violent actions. This pattern of Foreman being callous toward patients of color that come from impoverished backgrounds continued into the show’s third season. In the episode, “House Training,” the team treats a young Latina woman named Lupe (Monique Gabriela Curnen) who has a history of drug use and unemployment. Again, many assume that Foreman would be able to relate to this patient because his brother struggles with addiction and is in prison for drug possession. However, while the team attempts to brainstorm possible causes for her illness, Foreman insists she is an addict and calls her a “drug-using scam artist.” Foreman and Lupe clash throughout most of the episode until Lupe exclaims, “Because you got out of the projects, you think that anybody who didn’t is weak and stupid. . . . The only difference between me and you is that I made some bad decisions, and you made some good ones.” This statement had a profound effect on Foreman. Unlike in the conclusion of “Acceptance,” where Foreman was more sympathetic toward Clarence because of his medical condition; in the conclusion of this episode, Foreman admits that he “only put distance between you [Lupe] and me because I know

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there isn’t any.” Foreman finally begins to chip away at the wall he had built between himself and his past. Foreman’s complicated relationship to his own blackness makes him a compelling character throughout the series. While it seems stereotypical that the one main Black character within the series has a criminal record, the show does a good job of making Foreman a complex character, especially in the negotiation of his own racial identity during his interactions with patients of color. At times, House M.D. had a staggering lack of people of color in their patient pool. Those they did feature were almost exclusively Black; very rarely were the patients of any other race or ethnicity. So, while Foreman’s interaction with patients of color were few and often far between, these episodes highlighted the complexity of Foreman’s racial identity, and the audience was able to see him evolve throughout the series. Alicia Vermeer Further Reading

Havens, Timothy. 2013. Black Television Travels: African American Media around the Globe. New York and London: New York University Press. Hills-Collins, Patricia. 2004. Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism. New York and London: Routledge. hooks, bell. 1992. Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End Press. Mastro, Dana. 2009. “The Effects of Racial and Ethnic Stereotyping.” In Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research, edited by Jennings Bryant and Dolf Zillmann, 325–341. New York and London: Routledge.

How to Get Away with Murder(2014–2000) How to Get Away with Murder (HTGAWM) (2014) is a television drama starring Viola Davis as Annalise Keating, a sexy, unyielding, fierce attorney and law professor at the fictional, prestigious Middleton University. While enhancing Davis’s visibility and star status, the show is notable for casting an older, dark-skinned African American actress on a network television drama. Premiering to fourteen million viewers, the premise of the show involves Annalise selecting five of her students to work as interns at her law firm: Wes Gibbins (Alfred Enoch), Michaela Pratt (Aja Naomi King), Connor Walsh (Jack Falahee), Asher Millstone (Matt McGorry), and Laurel Castillo (Karla Souza). Also working with Annalise at her law firm are Bonnie Winterbottom (Liza Weil), another lawyer, and Frank Delfino (Charlie Weber), Annalise’s right-hand man who performs various tasks outside the law. The show is a reworking of the game Clue, where a murder initially occurs, and as the season progresses the murderer and motif are revealed. While the interns help her with the occasional client, the majority of the initial season investigates two related murders, Annalise’s husband Sam (Tom Verica) and his student and mistress Lila Stangard (Megan West). Completing the cast is Billy Brown as Nate Lahey, a police officer and Annalise’s occasional lover.



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Each season of HTGAWM has a different murder mystery that audiences attempt to figure out. The second season primarily involved one of Annalise’s cases involving Caleb and Catherine Hapstall, two adopted siblings accused of killing their parents. The third season centered on how Annalise’s house burned down and who killed Wes, who was found dead inside. Each season of HTGAWM picks up where the previous left off, while introducing a new murder plot that carries the entire season. This legal-crime drama works like a procedural with an overarching murder mystery that gives audiences bits of information each week, with a majority of episodes moving in a nonlinear fashion using flashbacks and flash-forwards. Viola Davis, a critically acclaimed film and stage actress, was drawn to the role because it was a lead role that gave her an opportunity to showcase her sex appeal. After years of playing stock characters, Davis appreciated the opportunity to portray a fully developed, morally ambiguous, complicated character. During her thirty-year career as an actress, Davis has played several supporting and minor roles in both film and television beginning in the late 1990s. Her breakout role came in 2008 for her minor role in the film Doubt (2008), where she received numerous nominations for eight minutes of screen time, including the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes, and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG). Prior to her role in HTGAWM, Davis was best known for her role as Aibileen Clark in The Help (2011), where she received another Academy Awards nomination. In accepting the role on HTGAWM, Davis negotiated a deal for a limited series consisting of only fifteen episode seasons, which allows her the ability to work on other projects when the show is not filming. Viola Davis garnered mainstream praise once she made the move to television. Her portrayal as Annalise Keating has only added to her increasing list of acting accolades. In 2015, she became the first African American woman to win an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. She also received two consecutive SAG awards for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series. HTGAWM is the fifth show coming out of Shondaland, the production company of successful television creator and showrunner Shonda Rhimes. Shonda Rhimes is often described as the most powerful African American female showrunner in television, and she is arguably the most successful Black television creator, writer, and producer ever. HTGAWM is also the second Shondaland drama to feature an African American female lead, with the first being Scandal (2012), starring Kerry Washington. Created by Peter Nowalk, who has worked as both a writer and producer on two previous Shondaland shows, Grey’s Anatomy (2005–) and Scandal, HTGAWM is part of an entire Shondaland Thursday night prime-time lineup branded T.G.I.T. (Thank God It’s Thursday). While HTGAWM encompasses certain Rhimes’ staples, including a strong female lead, a large and diverse ensemble cast, social commentary, and continuous story lines, it represents a departure from other Rhimes’ produced shows in terms of its representation of race. Through Davis’s character, the show offers race-specific moments that resonate with African American audiences, especially

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Black female viewers. Some of the show’s most memorable and race-specific moments have come through the involvement of Viola Davis. She has taken an active role in shaping her character by inserting her own experiences as a Black woman into her character. For example, in one episode “Let’s Get to Scooping,” Keating is shown to completely remove her makeup (including eyelashes) and her wig. It was a moment where, not only did Annalise Keating look at herself in the mirror as a Black woman, but the audience, especially Black women, were able to experience it as well. Viola Davis demanded this scene as a condition of her taking the role. The scene was about more than just removing a mask, or a façade, it was about revealing to the American public, the viewing audience, what an African American woman looks like in private; it was about showing a different yet vaguely familiar picture of Black womanhood, one that has not been on television for a very long time. Davis also suggested veteran African American actress Cicely Tyson be cast to play her mother Ophelia. Viola Davis’s onscreen presence and behind-the-scenes suggestions help make HTGAWM the most race-specific show coming out of Shondaland. The show’s focus on drama and intrigue worked to entice audiences into tuning in each week, but Viola Davis as an older, dark-skinned African American actress helped change representations of Black women in television dramas. Her collaboration with Shonda Rhimes, who ushered in a new era with respect to diversity and television, has left an indelible mark on television that extends beyond the murderous plots, sexual drama, and twists and turns that define HTGAWM. Ashley S. Young Further Reading

Everett, Anna. 2015. “Scandalicious: Scandal, Social Media, and Shonda Rhimes’ Auteurist Juggernaut.” The Black Scholar, March 20, 34–43. Fallon, Kevin. 2015. “Why ‘How to Get Away with Murder’ Is TV’s Most Radical Show.” The Daily Beast, February 26. ­https://​­w ww​.­thedailybeast​.­com​/­why​-­how​-­to​-­get​ -­away​-­with​-­murder​-­is​-­t vs​-­most​-­radical​-­show. Lawson, Richard. 2014. “Is How to Get Away with Murder the Most Progressive Show on Television?” Vanity Fair, October 16. ­http://​­w ww​.­vanityfair​.­com​/ ­hollywood​/­2014​ /­10​/ ­how​-­to​-­get​-­away​-­with​-­murder​-­gay​-­sex. Scott, Tracy L. 2016. “How to Get Away with Murder Is Back, and We Have Questions.” The Root, February 11. ­http://​­w ww​.­theroot​.­com​/ ­how​-­to​-­get​-­away​-­with​-­murder​-­is​ -­back​-­and​-­we​-­have​-­questi​-­1790854212.

I I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings(1979) First aired April 28, 1979, on CBS, the film adaption of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings brings the critically acclaimed autobiographical novel of the same title by civil rights activist and author Maya Angelou to the television screen. Originally published in 1969, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings builds on the traditions of slave narratives of African American autobiographies. Yet, it also offers a new narrative, focusing on the main character Maya’s quest for freedom in spiritual, rather than physical, terms. Directed by Fielder Cook, the television adaption takes certain liberties with the plot, adding episodes that are not included in the original story and omitting others, most significantly the major second part of the novel following Maya’s graduation. While not successful in translating the aesthetic richness of the text onto the television screen, it does bring to life the book’s central narrative. Set in the United States between the 1930s and 1940s, the movie chronicles central events in the life of Maya from her early childhood to her teenage years. Using voice-over narration to construe Maya as the narrator who looks back upon her life, the first scene of the film depicts three-year-old Maya (Constance Good) and her four-year-old brother Bailey Jr. (John Driver) arriving in Stamps, a small town in rural Arkansas, to live with their paternal grandmother (Esther Rolle) and their disabled Uncle Willie (Sonny Jim Gaines). I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings initially paints a blissful image of the Deep South. However, the girl’s idealized view of the pastoral idyll is soon disturbed by the harsh realities of racism and racial violence. In a particular instance, several “poor White trash” girls are taunting Maya’s grandmother, who despite having a good reputation as the owner of the only store in the town’s Black section endures acts of discrimination. In another scene, the family’s dinner is interrupted by a visit from the former sheriff who warns them that “the boys” might look for a scapegoat and attack Willie because a Black man had allegedly assaulted a White woman. Thereupon, Willie has to hide in a vegetable bin, while the children and their grandmother stay behind the windows inside the house. They see White men drive into the courtyard, honking to signal their presence and shooting flaming arrows into the air, while lighting the symbol of the Ku Klux Klan, the burning cross, in the distance. These moments successfully illustrate the racial tensions prevailing in Stamps and the omnipresent threat of racial violence Black inhabitants of the town are faced with. This is underlined in a later scene when Bailey witnesses a group of men pull a corpse out of the pond, realizing that it was a black man who had been

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“cut,” as he later reveals to his sister. The film is careful to not portray racial violence in graphic detail. When Bailey looks at the corpse, the camera zooms in to show the shock on the boy’s face, rather than the mutilated body. The same is true for the portrayal of sexual violence. While living with her mother Vivian (Diahann Carroll) in St. Louis, Missouri, eight-year-old Maya is raped by her mother’s boyfriend, Mr. Freeman (Paul Benjamin). The camera cuts away when she screams in agony, quickly focusing the viewer’s attention on Maya’s mother who arrives at home and finds her daughter. Attending to the multifaceted nature of the African American experience, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings does move beyond narratives of victimization and puts emphasis on Maya’s strength of survival. With the support of Miss Flowers (Madge Sinclair), the teacher who has initially encouraged Maya to pursue her passion for reading and writing, Maya succeeds in coping with her traumatic past. Evocative of an earlier scene when Maya had told her grandmother she would speak up against racism, her graduation speech at the age of thirteen reflects her commitment to civil rights activism. In what is framed as the young woman’s declaration of equal rights and pride in blackness, Maya talks back to the racist speech of a White official, Mr. Donleavy. She prompts the audience to protest the verdict of the local board of education by joining her in singing the “Black National Anthem.” Flashbacks into Maya’s past fill the screen, evoking the experiences that have shaped her concept of self and led her to this point, until the film concludes with a view of the assembly singing “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” Echoing the title, the last scene of the film thus leaves viewers with the insights the protagonist has gained (i.e., the knowledge of “why the caged bird sings”). It sings to endure suffering and celebrate survival, it sings to pass on tales from the past and offer hope for the future, and it sings to break the silence so that its voice can be heard. Thus, it sings to anticipate liberation and freedom. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was aired after Roots (1977). Clearly, networks were trying to capitalize on the commercial, popular, and critical successes of this television miniseries. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings thus offers an example of how networks were increasingly more comfortable with featuring African American stories, voices, and actors for onetime events rather than in entire series. It attests to the increased visibility of African Americans on the television screen during the 1970s and 1980s, when networks opened up a space for more diverse representations of blackness and appealed to viewers’ interest in neglected stories of Black agency. Carmen Dexl Further Reading

Blake, Meredith. 2014. “Maya Angelou’s TV Legacy, from ‘Roots’ to ‘Sesame Street,’ ‘Super Soul.’” Los Angeles Times, May 28. ­https://​­w ww​.­latimes​.­com​/­entertainment​ /­tv​/­showtracker​/­la​-­et​-­st​-­maya​-­angelou​-­dies​-­television​-­legacy​-­20140528​-­story​.­html. Bogle, Donald. 2001. Primetime Blues: African Americans on Network Television. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Brown, Emma. 2014. “Maya Angelou, Writer and Poet, Dies at Age 86.” Washington Post, May  28. ­https://​­w ww​.­washingtonpost​.­com ​/­entertainment ​/­maya​-­a ngelou​-­w riter​



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-­a nd​-­poet​-­d ies​-­at​-­age​-­86​/­2014​/­05​/­28​/­2948ef5e​-­c5da​-­11df​-­94e1​-­c5afa35a9e59​_ story​.­html​?­utm​_term​=​.­4df86dea6a51. Leonard, David J., and Lisa A. Guerrero, eds. 2013. African Americans on Television: Race-ing for Ratings. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.

I Love Lucy(1951–1957) I Love Lucy (1951–1957) launched the careers of Lucille Ball (Lucy Ricardo) and Desi Arnaz (Ricky Ricardo) in the mid-1950s. Known widely as one of television’s best situational comedies, it aired for six years on the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) and was ranked number three in TV Guide’s “60 Best Series of All Time” in 2013. Starring alongside of Ball and Arnaz were Vivian Vance (Ethel Mertz) and William Frawley (Fred Mertz), who played their next-door neighbors, landlords, and best friends in the half-hour show. Set in 1950s New York City, the series revolved around the mundane happenings of Lucy and her bandleader husband, Ricky. The sitcom became an instant cult classic because of the humor marked by slapstick comedy and Lucy’s eccentric escapades in every episode. The show left a long-lasting impression on its audience, crossing generations, and its reputation continues to grow as the show continues to air as repeat episodes today. In its six-year run, the series became known for Lucy’s adventures. One of the most memorable episodes—“Lucy Does a TV Commercial”—chronicles Lucy acting for a commercial for a new medicine called “Vitameatavegamin.” In addition to containing vitamins and minerals, the medicine also contains alcohol, resulting in a series of mishaps that kept audiences laughing. The second season Comedy’s Leading Couple: Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz Lucille Ball was born in Jamestown, New York, on August 6, 1911. Prior to I Love Lucy, she starred in several films. According to the Lucy Desi Museum and Center for Comedy located in her hometown, Ball was the “first woman to head a major Hollywood studio” named Desilu. She is a pioneer for female comedians with her quirky television personality. When I Love Lucy ended, she continued her career with other series from 1957 to 1986, including The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, which ran from 1957 to 1960 on the CBS network. In 2009, a statue was erected in Celoron, New York, where Ball grew up. The statue garnered local and national criticism for the way it looked. Locals and visitors claimed the statue was “scary.” It was recently replaced in the summer of 2016 with a statue that bears the likeness of the comedy icon (Stack 2016). Desi Arnaz was a Cuban-born actor. Born in 1917, he began his career in the entertainment industry after he fled Cuba during its revolution in 1933. He first lived in Miami, and later moved to New York City where in the late 1930s he developed his passion for being a bandleader. He landed his breakout role in the film adaptation of the Broadway hit Too Many Girls (1940), where he met Lucille Ball, who was considered a B-list actress at the time. Ball and Arnaz were married from 1940 to 1960. I Love Lucy was inspired by the radio show My Favorite Husband that featured Ball. According to Turner Classic Movies, “CBS was initially resistant to pairing the Caucasian Ball with the Cuban Arnaz as a believable husband and wife,” but then the network had a “change of heart after the couple launched a smash-hit vaudeville show,” which led to I Love Lucy.

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opened with the episode, “Job Switching,” where the two couples switch jobs. The men become stay-at-home husbands while the wives work at a chocolate factory after a dispute that the wives spend too much money. The show finds humor in both Lucy and Ethel, along with Ricky and Fred, engaging in work outside the assigned gender roles. In the very first episode of the series, Ricky expressed that he wished for his wife to stay at home, cook him dinner, and be a mother to his children. His wishes for a housewife were not that different from what other situational comedies of the time presented as well (e.g., Leave It to Beaver, 1957– 1963). The “breadwinner” also reflected the expectations of real-life nuclear families in the United States. Lucille Ball’s character in I Love Lucy is one of television’s most iconic figures. Many critics and fans locate Lucy Ricardo’s popularity in her silliness, and her relentless need to be in “show business” like her husband. Throughout the series when characters referred to “show business,” they were referring to the act of being a part of what we would now understand as the entertainment industry, specifically singing and acting in front of a live audience. Ironically, the format of I Love Lucy was exactly that, live singing and acting in front of a live audience. The series followed Lucy’s attempts to be a part of “show business,” even though at the end of each episode something would occur to prevent this. The majority of the time what prevented her from “making it,” so to speak, was her own incompetence. She could try so hard that she would end up making a silly mistake resulting in her going back to what was expected by Ricky and the social expectations of the time, which was being a housewife and later, a mother too. While the show relied on conventional gender norms and sexist stereotypes, it challenged the racial landscape of the television world. Desi Arnaz’s character, Ricky Ricardo, is important within the continuum of race and ethnicity in U.S. television for several reasons. First, his character was one of few people of color on television at the time. The show started before Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 law that declared separate but equal in America’s schools unconstitutional. It also predated the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which stated it was unconstitutional to discriminate individuals because of their race, sex, gender, and religion in public places. The visibility and popularity of Ricardo was important at this moment though its potential to challenge stereotypes was limited by the frequency of jokes focusing on him as being a “hot blooded” Latino and his Cuban accent. I Love Lucy ushered in a momentous shift in U.S. television history. A female character commanded the audience’s attention in a comedy series where she played with established gender expectations. It also changed the television landscape by casting a mixed-race married couple during a time when anti-miscegenation laws (laws that prevented two people of different racial backgrounds from marriage), segregation, and discrimination still existed in the United States. Decades later the show stands as a pioneer in the comedy genre and television history across-the-board. Lucia Soriano Further Reading

Andrews, Bart. 1976. Lucy & Ricky & Fred & Ethel: The Story of I Love Lucy. New York: Dutton.



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Austerlitz, Saul. 2014. Sitcom: A History in 24 Episodes from I Love Lucy to Community. Chicago: Chicago Review Press. “Desi Arnaz.” 2016. Turner Classic Movies. ­http://​­w ww​.­tcm​.­com​/­tcmdb​/­person​/­5690​ %­7C0​/ ­Desi​-­A rnaz​/. Greene, Doyle. 2008. Politics and the American Television Comedy: A Critical Survey from I Love Lucy through South Park. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. “Lucille Ball.” 2015. Lucy Desi Museum. ­http://​­w ww​.­lucy​-­desi​.­com​/­fan​-­central​/­lucille​ -­ball​/. Roush, Matt, and Bruce Fretts. 2013. “TV Guide Magazine’s 60 Best Series of All Time.” TV Guide, December 23. ­http://​­w ww​.­t vguide​.­com​/­news​/­t v​-­g uide​-­magazine​- ­60​ -­best​-­series​-­1074962​/. Stack, Liam. 2016. “Here’s Lucy! ‘Scary’ Statue Is Replaced with One That Looks Like Her.” New York Times, August 9. ­http://​­w ww​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2016​/­08​/­10​/­arts​/­design​ /­scary​-­lucy​-­statue​-­is​-­replaced​-­on​-­anniversary​-­of​-­comedians​-­105th​-­birthday​.­html.

In Living Color(1990–1994) Created and written by Keenan Ivory Wayans and Damon Wayans, In Living Color debuted on the Fox network in April 1990. The sketch comedy series featured a combination of one-off and recurring skits, interspersed with dance performances by the Fly Girls and occasional hip-hop music performances. Although Saturday Night Live (1975–) remained a dominant force on television, In Living Color heralded a wave of new sketch comedy production. The series stood out in the television landscape for several reasons: it was only one of a small handful of programs of its genre when it went on the air; it was largely a family production that featured the work of six siblings; it featured a large cast of black performers, and it, like its predecessor Saturday Night Live, launched the careers of several actors who gained fame in other television and film pursuits. The show’s title was a pun highlighting the historical tendency of American television to marginalize the voices, experiences, and talents of African Americans even as it celebrated the advent of technology that allowed more realistic portrayals. As color television became available to the public, networks advertised its new shows as appearing “in living color”; Wayans chose the title for his series because it was to be cast primarily by people of color. Likewise, the show’s title suggested that the show would focus on the diversity of Black communities. In the 1980s and 1990s, the bulk of prime-time programming focused on the lives of well-to-do black families. The Cosby Show (1984–1992) was still dominating the airwaves, and its spin-off series A Different World (1987–1993) was gaining popularity for its focus on the experiences of students at a fictional historically Black college. In Living Color, on the other hand, depicted several aspects of Black life that had all but disappeared from television after the wave of Black-cast sitcoms of the 1970s gave way to images of middle- and upper-middle-class Black people in series such as The Cosby Show, Frank’s Place (1988–1999), 227 (1985–1990), and Amen (1986–1991). In its portrayal of various down-and-out characters struggling with economic disenfranchisement, over-policing, and cultural marginalization, In Living Color

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more directly connects to the Black-cast series of the 1970s than it does to shows that immediately preceded it. Characters, such as the formerly incarcerated turned children’s entertainer Homey D. Clown (Damon Wayans), the homeless raconteur Anton Jackson, and ghetto yenta Benita Butrell recall figures from earlier comedy series whose lives are marked by economic uncertainty—if not downright poverty—and experiences with incarceration, as featured in, for instance, Sanford and Son (1972–1977) or Good Times (1974–1980). The series also made regular references to vintage and current Black media stars. Among those who found themselves impersonated on the show were legendary comedian, Richard Pryor, talk show hosts Oprah Winfrey, and Arsenio Hall, and former (then current) heavyweight champion boxer Mike Tyson. Other sketches played comedic homage to various Black musicians, authors, and other figures. In the show’s frequent musical parodies, actors lampoon the work of MC Hammer and Ashford & Simpson, and the entire genre of blues music is routinely sent up in sketches featuring the character Calhoun Tubbs, an elderly blues musician whose songs, typically consisting of only two lines of lyrics per song performed to the same iconic blues melody, reveal hilariously awful truths about the people with whom he has been acquainted. As a variety show, In Living Color regularly featured musical and dance performances. A bevy of contemporary musical artists performed on the show sporadically throughout its run, and rapper Heavy D and the Boyz, composer and performer of the series theme song, made occasional appearances alongside the in-house DJs who provided a hip-hop musical backdrop for each installment of the show. Each episode featured multiple performances by the Fly Girls, the show’s dance troupe. Led by choreographer Rosie Perez for four years (succeeded by Arthur Rainer for the final season), the Fly Girls served up weekly doses of hip-hop and contemporary dance for home audiences and launched the career of pop star turned actress Jennifer Lopez. Because the series was based on sketch comedy, few episodes ever dealt with a specific theme. A number of recurring sketches, however, did offer frequent commentary on race, identity, and social issues, with humor based primarily on parody of the existing racial order or on struggles to overcome systematic disadvantage. Recurring sketches included “The Brothers Brothers,” a send-up of the socially uncontroversial humor of the Smothers Brothers, with a particular emphasis on the bland whiteness of the real-life comedy duo. In Living Color highlights the absurdity of the milquetoast quality of the duo’s craft by casting Keenan Ivory Wayans and Damon Wayans as black-in-skin-tone-only versions of the Smothers Brothers. Other parodies include “I Love LaQuita,” an obvious spoof of I Love Lucy (1951–1957). In one sketch, LaQuita (Kim Wayans), a ghetto-fabulous substitute for the original Lucy, is starstruck for a man she believes to be Billy Dee Williams but is actually an escaped prisoner (Keenan Ivory Wayans) who has arrived at her home. Unbeknownst to LaQuita, the impersonator hides as Ricky (Jim Carrey) returns home with the real Billy Dee Williams (with the famed actor portraying himself), just in time for LaQuita to re-enter the living room acting out a scene from Mahogany (1975), in a moment that parallels many from the original series. Interestingly, this version of the iconic interethnic I Love Lucy couple is



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Men On . . . In numerous sketches, Damon Wayans and David Allan Grier played Blaine Edwards and Antoine Merriweather, commentators offering opinions on film, television, football, and a host of topics “from a male point of view” and signaling their approval of various works with their choreographed “two snaps” responses. As caricatures of Black queer male sexuality, Blaine and Antoine perform queerness through blatant stereotype, employing broad gestures, campy dialogue that nearly explicitly invokes gay sex, and coded references familiar to those connected to Black gay male subculture. During the series original run, the sketches were controversial, angering people who felt misrepresented by the stereotypical depictions, as well as audience members who were troubled by the show’s inclusion of blatantly queer—yet closeted—characters.

predicated on very obvious stereotypes about Black women, but Ricky, whose name is unchanged in the parody, remains decidedly Cuban, as performed via Carrey’s exaggerated accent. Also unchanged is Ethel Mertz’s apparent racial/ethnic identity, as rendered by Kelly Coffield’s relatively straight performance of Vivian Vance’s character. T’Keyah Crystal Keymáh offers another spot-on impersonation of an iconic television character in her recurring appearance as a Black Edith Bunker in In Living Color’s parody of All in the Family (1971–1979). The sketches begin as the original series did, with a theme song performed by Edith and Archie (played in the parody by series writer Marc Wilmore) seated at a piano. The updated lyrics of “Those Were the Days” parallel the original, musing over things that have been lost as time marches on, but with a twist: for instance, “Girls were girls, and men were men” becomes, “There were no Black Republicans,” “Everybody pulled his weight” becomes “Whitey was the thing to hate,” and Marcus Garvey replaces the former president in the original line, “Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again.” As one might expect, the sketches revolved around racist curmudgeon Archie being confronted with contemporary racial and cultural changes that fly in the face of his way of thinking, but Archie is Black and highly suspicious of White people. Other parodies rely on the idea of racial reversal, but in ways that either highlight systematic inequalities that undermine economic and political success within the Black community, or that lampoon real-life racial variations on markers of mainstream success. “The Homeboys Shopping Network,” for instance, features two men who take their fencing operation to the airwaves by advertising obviously stolen goods on television. The conflation between blackness and petty criminality here highlight assumptions about the possibilities of success for young Black men, humorously positing theft as an ideal solution to poverty. Likewise, perennial inmate Oswald Bates (Damon Wayans) highlights the limitations in education as a path toward redemption, demonstrated when he says things such as, “It is the adolescent Dukakis that is calculated, you understand, by the insane—or Hussein, depending on the confrontation forthwith—furthermore, post-haste, Post Office, creating a mediocre arsenic-type treateology,” when teaching his young son about sex. Bates stylistically performs in the manner of the stereotypical educated Black

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man, but the content of his utterances is pure word salad. His tone of voice, prosody, and gestures look and sound like how an educated person might communicate, but his utterly ridiculous choice of words reveals an apparent lack of any sense or meaning. As a challenge to the idea that inmates can be easily educated and integrated into the workforce upon release, Bates’s frequent and hilarious malapropisms, coupled with his nearly pathological lack of reasoning ability, belie an important truth, that education, even under ideal circumstances, is difficult, and is nearly impossible behind bars. “Great Moments in Black History” lampoons the then contemporary trend of short, public-service style pieces that highlight little-known accomplishments of African Americans throughout history. In brief segments hosted alternatively by Tommy Davidson and David Allen Grier, audiences “learn” about hilarious, false, elisions from the historical record, such as NASA’s erasure of fictional black astronaut Slick Johnson from the Apollo Moon Landing Mission. According to Davidson, Johnson’s absence from history is explained thus: when Mission Control informed the crew that they only had resources to bring three astronauts back from the moon, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins decide to abandon Johnson, sending him to find a nice location to play volleyball while they plan their escape. These sketches poke fun at real-life educational segments that highlight the ways in which we acknowledge minority achievement, while others spoof the very concept of minority achievement itself. The “Miss Black Person USA” sketch mocks real pageants for women of color, which tend to lack funding relative to mainstream national pageants, and that feature participants who, because of race and because of a lack of access to traditional pageant training, face barriers to entering the mainstream pageant circuit. Likewise, the “Black People Awards,” a parody of the Image Awards, honors Black actors for seemingly inconsequential performances in categories that include “Best Black Sassy Next Door Neighbor,” “Best Scared Brother on a Police Show,” and “Best Black Actress,” a category in which Whoopi Goldberg receives all four nominations. The sketch is poignant in its humor because it is based on very real conditions: the dearth of high-quality roles for Black actors in the early 1990s, and the tendency for those few roles to be given to only a small number of actors of demonstrated economic value. Where these characters fail relative to normative standards of success, they do so, in least in part, because of a lack of access. Unlike its spiritual predecessor Saturday Night Live, In Living Color survived for only five seasons, but, like the earlier series, it launched the career of numerous television and movie stars and directors. Shortly after In Living Color’s run, the younger Wayans siblings teamed up for The Wayans Brothers, a sitcom that ran for five seasons and led to big-screen successes for its lead actors. Damon Wayans went on to headline the sitcom My Wife and Kids (2001–2005) after appearing in several films. The aforementioned Jennifer Lopez and Jim Carrey have gone on to stardom, as has Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx, who turned to dramatic acting after his stint on the series. Aaron Gurlly



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Further Reading

Baynes, Leonard M. 2003. “White Out: The Absence and Stereotyping of People of Color by the Broadcast Networks in Prime Time Entertainment Programming.” Arizona Law Review 45: 293–369. Burr, Sherri. 2000. “Television and Societal Effects: An Analysis of Media Images of African-Americans in Historical Context.” Journal of Gender, Race & Justice 4: 159–182. Schulman, Norma Miriam. 1992. “Laughing across the Color Barrier: In Living Color.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 20 (1): 1–7. Smith-Shomade, Beretta E. 2002. Shaded Lives: African-American Women and Television. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Zook, Kristal Brent. 1999. Color by Fox: The Fox Network and the Revolution in Black Television. New York: Oxford University Press.

Insecure(2016–) Created by Issa Rae and Larry Wilmore, Insecure is originally based on Rae’s web series Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl. The show chronicles the awkward and intimate moments Issa experiences at her workplace, throughout her friendship with her best friend Molly (Yvonne Orji), in her romantic life, and with herself. For Rae, Insecure offered a story line and a set of representations that were rare on television. Highlighting the inspiration for the show, Rae noted in The Atlantic, “the only representation of black women I saw was on reality televi­ sion. And so to have this renaissance—to be alongside so many amazing content creators and actors of color—feels very optimistic” (qtd. in Ioffe 2018). The show’s themes of love, friendship, and insecurity embodies her hope that Black people will be depicted with the fullness of their identities rather simply as either stereotypes or as vehicles for stories about struggle and injustice. Writer, director, actress, and producer Issa Rae was born In Los Angeles, California, to a Senegalese father and a Black American mother. In several interviews, Rae has highlighted how her upbringing was unique and how it shaped the types of representations she has re-created in her shows. Her childhood included swimming lessons, street hockey, and access to a diverse group of friends. It wasn’t until middle school when she attended a predominantly Black school that she was then ostracized for “acting or speaking White” because she did not fit the stereotypical performance of blackness. Evidently, the concept for the Awkward Black Girl is rooted in these experiences. Insecure premiered on HBO on September 23, 2016, and has since aired for four seasons. The show explores the social relationships and occurrences as they pertain to the black femme experience. The two protagonists are Black women who live in California and who have been best friends since they attended Stanford University together. Issa works for a nonprofit organization, fortifying the educational experience of middle school students of color. Molly is a corporate attorney whose story line revolves around how she is quite successful career wise, yet single and struggling to find a satisfactory romantic relationship.

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In line with the themes of her earlier web show, Awkward Black Girl (2011– 2013), Insecure spotlights the alternative personalities and realities of a Black woman. The series is intentionally framed around her “awkward” alternative personality to highlight the experiences of black women who do not fit into the stereotypical TV profiles. It is not so much that Issa is an exception because she is a Black woman who is “awkward,” but more so that black women also hold insecurities and express their personalities in ways that are deemed “awkward” or unpolished. The show takes this visibility to another level by highlighting the various moments that Issa experiences insecurities despite the many stereotypical expectations that men, coworkers, and even friends have of her as a Black woman. At work, she is regarded as the token Black girl who is consulted for questions on diversity, even while she was hired on the team with the same title as the rest of her team members. She deals with this conflict throughout the show through direct confrontation and the expression of sarcasm directed toward those who perpetuate microaggressions. From the very first episode, it is evident that the show is meant to be thoughtprovoking and as transparent as possible about the realities of being Black, young, and on a journey to be successful in a big city like Los Angeles. The show is presented as uniquely insightful into the experiences of Black women but also conceptualizes them for who they are outside of their racialized identities. For example, Issa is an amateur rapper, often rapping to herself in the mirror as an outlet for her awkward or insecure moments. She also indulges in her rap mirror performances for times when she may need to hype herself up or to motivate herself. In the first season, students at the middle school she works for discover a video of her rapping at a night bar. The next day at school she is horrified as they chant her lyrics back to her of the viral video where she rapped about her “broken pussy.” These awkward moments that she encounters in her work and personal life, coupled with the insecurities she experiences give a well-rounded understanding of who Issa is. She is an awkward black girl who is blunt and calculating and who can be found giving herself pep talks in bathroom mirrors. Her best friend Molly, on the other hand, is “bougie,” preferring not to acknowledge her deepest insecurities. While Nigerian American actress Yvonne Orji’s performance as Molly is one of a supporting role, her character brings spunk and legitimacy to the story line. Her influential thoughts, words of advice to Issa, and her actions throughout the show add to the complexity of the Black trajectory that is being depicted. One monumental instance in the show is when Molly discovers that Jared (Langston Kerman), a man that she is dating, had a queer sexual experience in his past (season one, episode six). On screen, viewers can see that Molly is clearly uncomfortable with this information and breaks up with him because of it. This scene is particularly striking because of the jarring reality that Black men engaging with queer experiences or exploring their sexuality is a social taboo and double standard that is not often spoken about within the black community or society in general. Later on in the episode, viewers along with Molly, are challenged to check their own biases against the variance in sexuality as it pertains to black men in particular. The show sheds light on the double standard that exists regarding the acceptance of sexual fluidity for women versus men. This episode



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and many other controversial ones make up a few of the reasons why the show is praised for being daring and distinct from typical modern-day series. Issa and Molly two are very different from one another in terms of personality and careers, illustrating the diversity of the black community. Yet, they are both strong supporters of one another and amazing friends. Fans have celebrated their friendship as Black women are rarely represented as supportive, loving, and otherwise engaged in empowering relationships with other Black women. Instead, as evident in reality TV, Black women are often portrayed as fighting, arguing, and plotting against one another in malicious ways. By contrast, in Insecure, viewers can enjoy Issa and Molly’s striving for a supportive friendship—one that is free of judgment and full of reassurance. One other distinct aspect of the show is its candidness and frank manner of discussing sex, sexual encounters, and intimacy in general. For example, in season two, episode six, Issa and Molly’s girlfriend Tiffany (Amanda Seales) teach a group of young women the art of giving oral sex to their male partners during a “Sexplosion” event. Later, in the same episode, Issa gives Daniel (Y’lan Noel), her intimate partner, oral sex to test out her latest learned techniques when he ejaculates on her face. Issa, taken aback and upset, storms out. This episode gained much attention on social media where millennials discussed how much they could relate to the episode and the series in general. Many spoke of resonating with having interactions where the boundaries of sexual acts were not clearly defined, resulting in less than pleasant sexual encounters as Issa (the character) had had on the show. Another thing the series doesn’t shy away from is profanity; it refuses to accommodate demands of respectable language. Most of the episodes have names that fit within general millennial lingo. In season one, for instance, every episode name ends with the infamous lingo words “as f*ck,” i.e., “Insecure as Fuck” (season one, episode one) and “Thirsty as Fuck” (season one, episode four). Similarly, each of season two’s episodes included the lingo “hella,” i.e., “Hella Shook” (season two, episode five) and “Hella Disrespectful” (season two, episode seven). The fluidity of vernacular that is used makes the series relatable and fit for an audience that is craving to see a multiplicity of characters and story lines on their screens. The show has been critically acclaimed and has won various awards including being selected as one of the American Film Institute’s Top Ten TV Programs of the Year in 2018. Lead actress, Issa Rae has also been awarded several nominations for her performance in the show. Among these nominations are two Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in 2018’s running for comedic series. On August 12, 2018, the show premiered its third season in HBO, providing viewers hope that the show’s success will pave the way for continued content. The series has remained exclusive by way of only streaming on a handful of media streaming avenues such as HBO, Hulu, and Amazon. While other shows depict the lives of Black women in predictable and stereotypical ways, or seek respectable representations, Insecure strives to depict the normalized and alternative experiences of black women. The realities that involve the microaggressions they experience and the awkward moments in their love lives and friendships have often not been represented with such authenticity until

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Insecure. The show’s clear modernity makes it especially appealing to members of the millennial generation and a wide range of audiences who seek to understand what it’s like to be a modern black woman in today’s America. Basheera Agyeman Further Reading

Ioffe, Julia. 2018. “Issa Rae: ‘I Never Identified as a Nerd.’” The Atlantic, May. ­https://​ ­w ww​.­theatlantic​.­com ​/­magazine​/­archive​/­2018​/­05​/­issa​-­rae​-­insecure​/­556880​/. Iqbal, Nosheen. 2018. “How Insecure Made TV Gold with ‘a Show about Regular Black People Being Basic.’” The Guardian, August 12. ­https://​­w ww​.­theguardian​.­com​ /­t v​-­and​-­radio​/­2018​/­aug​/­12​/­issa​-­rae​-­television​-­show​-­insecure​-­black​-­people. Lange, Jeva. 2018. “Insecure Romanticized South L.A. Now It’s Grappling with the Side Effects.” The Week, August 10. ­https://​­theweek​.­com​/­articles​/­788823​/­insecure​ -­romanticized​-­south​-­la​-­now​-­grappling​-­side​-­effects. Okeowo, Alexis. 2017. “What Issa Rae’s ‘Insecure’ Gets Right.” The New Yorker, July 23. ­https://​­w ww​.­newyorker​.­com ​/­culture​/­culture​-­desk ​/­what​-­issa​-­r aes​-­i nsecure​-­gets​ -­right. Robinson, Heather. 2018. “Authenticity Lets ‘Insecure’ Rise above America’s Divisions.” New York Post, August 28. ­https://​­nypost​.­com​/­2018​/­08​/­28​/­authenticity​-­lets​-­insecure​ -­rise​-­above​-­americas​-­divisions​/. Wortham, Jenna. 2015. “The Misadventures of Issa Rae.” New York Times, August 4. ­https://​­w ww​.­nytimes​.­com ​/­2015​/­08​/­09​/­magazine​/­t he​-­m isadventures​-­of​-­issa​-­r ae​ .­html.

In the Heat of the Night(1988–1995) In 1988, NBC brought In the Heat of The Night, a story about Virgil Tibbs (Howard Rollins), an African American male detective from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to the small screen. After returning home to the fictional town of Sparta, Mississippi, for the funeral of his mother, the mayor convinces Mr. Tibbs to join the Sparta Police Department as its first African American officer. The story told in In the Heat of the Night is as old as 1965 when it was first published as a novel written by John Ball. Soon thereafter, it was turned into a film under the same name, which starred Sidney Poitier, a major African American actor and the first African American to win the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1964. The series centers on the often-tense relationship between Detective Tibbs and Chief Gillespie (Carroll O’Connor). When hired, the mayor failed to consult Gillespie. Challenging audiences who might think Gillespie, an older White man, is prejudiced, the series presents the tension as being about process, age, personality, and policing style. The show, in many regards, chronicles their coming together, overcoming their own apprehension about working together across racial lines. The relationship between Tibbs and Gillespie would remain a primary focus of the show, providing a vehicle for discussions of race, interracial relationships, integration, and difference. Tibbs was from the big city, where he experienced ample opportunities and professional training that prepared him to excel as a detective.



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Yet, Sparta and Gillespie weren’t prepared for his expertise and his unwillingness to play a subservient role. The Sparta Police Department was not initially keen on being integrated. Yet during the first season, the officers became more appreciative of Detective Tibbs, and his wife, Althea (Anne-Marie Johnson). His “respectable” demeanor, his work ethic, and his talents as an officer help him win over his peers. Not everyone is supportive of Tibbs. Captain Bubba Skinner (Alan Autry), who embodies the racism of the South, does not initially welcome Tibbs and his family into the Sparta community. Yet, he too ultimately moves beyond his prejudices, becoming a protector of both Virgil and Althea Tibbs particularly in two very violent episodes. After finding Virgil beaten in an obscure location he had been lured to, Skinner becomes infuriated, assisting in the capture of the men. In another episode, a white male music teacher rapes Althea at the school where she is a principal; Skinner finds Althea and cares for her until Virgil arrives at the hospital. The narrative arc that shows Bubba Skinner’s evolution from racial prejudice to friendship is central to the series, highlighting its embrace of change through interracial interaction and integration. During its second season, the show’s plot continued its focus on integration with the arrival of Officer Wilson Sweet. At the beginning of season three, the show incorporated the first female officer to Sparta PD, Officer Christine Rankin (Sheryl Lynn Piland). She was also the first African American female officer. After only two episodes Rankin was killed in the line of duty. After a fierce debate with the Sparta City Council, Chief Gillespie decided that the officer to replace her would also be an African American woman, welcoming Officer Luann Corbin (Crystal Fox) until the final season. Incorporating African American characters in positions of authority in their community made In the Heat of the Night a rarity. Its focus on chronicling efforts to break down racial barriers, especially in a southern police department, would be important. While race and southern racism operate as an important backdrop, In the Heat of the Night presents Tibbs–Gillespie as being almost post-racial. Despite Tibbs resistance to incidences of racism, the show highlights his accommodating approach to get results in Sparta. At the same time, Gillespie brings everything back to the law when confronting issues of race. His personal beliefs, which are never made clear during the series, are irrelevant. The show’s approach to documenting racism was on full display during a season two episode, entitled “Prisoners.” Officer Sweet arrests an African American Howard Rollins, Virgil Tibbs, Is Written Out of the Series The primary focus of the original plot of In the Heat of the Night is the character of Detective Virgil Tibbs, who in the television series was played by Howard Rollins. As a result of Rollins’s personal struggle with drug abuse, his character was phased out during season six when Virgil Tibbs moves to another city after finishing his law degree. Rollins would appear in several later episodes as a guest star, portraying his role as an attorney.

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male who he knew from his childhood. He later dies in a jail in a nearby county. His death is not surprising given reports that the sheriff from that county and his deputies were known for committing violence against African American prisoners. While initially hesitant to investigate because of his relationship with the sheriff, Gillespie investigates because of his belief in the law. At the same time, Sweet feels responsible for his friend’s death, yet powerless because of the ways that race limited his ability to challenge the injustices committed by his fellow officers. The series brought to the late 1980s and 1990s a different form of television; it was another cop show with very similar crimes as even a big city series. However, it was located in the Deep South and incorporated primary characters of color. In the Heat of the Night revealed layers of race relations in America through the premises of enforcing the law, abiding by the law, and the continual development of a racially divided community. LaToya Brackett Further Reading

Blumenthal, Ralph. 1996. “Howard Rollins Is Dead at 46; Star in TV’s ‘Heat of the Night.’” New York Times, December 10. ­http://​­w ww​.­nytimes​.­com​/­1996​/­12​/­10​/­arts​ / ­howard​-­rollins​-­is​-­dead​-­at​- ­46 ​-­star​-­in​-­t v​-­s​-­heat​-­of​-­the​-­night​.­html. Hoad, Phil. 2016. “How We Made In the Heat of the Night.” The Guardian, November 22. ­https://​­www​.­theguardian​.­com​/­film​/­2016​/­nov​/­22​/ ­how​-­we​-­made​-­in​-­the​-­heat​-­of​-­the​ -­night​-­norman​-­jewison. Parade. 2016. “Five Ways In the Heat of the Night Shined the Light on Racism.” Parade, January 4. ­https://​­parade​.­com​/­447264​/­parade​/­five​-­ways​-­in​-­the​-­heat​-­of​-­the​-­night​ -­shined​-­the​-­light​-­on​-­racism​/.

I Spy (1965–1968) I Spy was an American television series that aired on NBC in 1965 and ran for three seasons, ending in 1968. It featured the first Black actor (Bill Cosby) to appear in a leading dramatic role on American television, propelling the show as a must-watch TV show within Black the community. “Practically every black household with a TV (and if you didn’t have one, you borrowed one or went to your neighbor’s house with the big Zenith color console in the living room) had to see I Spy every week, just to see Cosby being all cool, brave and smart,” writes Sergio, a cultural critic at Indie Wire. “In its small modest way, it was radical and offered something of a promise of what could be possible” (2014). I Spy positioned a White actor (Robert Culp) alongside of Cosby as his equal and friend. The series was produced by Sheldon Leonard, who reportedly cast Cosby on the series after watching him perform as a stand-up comedian. The casting of a Black man in a leading role and the interracial friendship portrayed by Cosby and Culp were considered trailblazing for American television at the time, as the show aired during the 1960s push for civil rights and racial equality in the United States. Cosby’s contributions to I Spy were well-received and earned three Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 1966,



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1967, and 1968. I Spy won a Golden Globe award for Best Dramatic Series for its 1966–1967 season. In the series, Cosby and Culp played undercover agents for the U.S. government. These roles required the characters to maintain secret identities and to travel routinely to international locations. As cover for this top-secret work, Culp played Kelly Robinson, who pretended to be a tennis player on the international tennis circuit. For his cover, Cosby played Alexander Scott, also known as “Scotty,” who pretended to be Robinson’s traveling tennis trainer. While Culp’s character, Robinson, was written as the star of the series and was portrayed as having more secret agent experience than Scott, the character of Scott was nonetheless written and portrayed to be highly intelligent, including being a Rhodes Scholar (being awarded a prestigious international scholarship to study at Oxford University). Scott also displayed being a capable secret agent in his own right and typically provided the brain power for the two agents. Robinson, on the other hand, was portrayed as acting more on instinct and as maneuvering through situations using wit instead of strict intelligence. As a genre, I Spy followed the secret agent and spy-fiction craze popularized on American television during this time. Television popularity of these shows accompanied the release of James Bond films and established a category of 1960s spy shows and shows of international intrigue. Other shows in the secret agent and spy-fiction genres at the time included the following: The Avengers (1961–1969), The Saint (1962–1969), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964–1968), Secret Agent (1964–1967), and the secret agent satire Get Smart (1965–1970). Perhaps the most popular example of an American international intrigue television show was Mission: Impossible, which aired on CBS from 1966 to 1973. Keeping with its international story lines, but unlike other television shows in this category, I Spy was filmed at a variety of locations around the world. Other shows were filmed on studio lots and sets in Hollywood rather than by traveling abroad. The international filming of I Spy afforded viewers in the United States an opportunity to see and encounter places they had never visited and for which they had little access. These encounters with new scenery were placed alongside the interracial friendship of Robinson and Scott, making for a unique and forward-looking experience for American television viewers. While race was not directly discussed or addressed by the show, viewers learned lessons about race by watching the collegial exchanges between Robinson and Scott. Some commentators have questioned the show’s reliance on Robinson-Scott’s interracial friendship as a vehicle for racial reconciliation. “Unless you count Huck Finn—and you could—I Spy is the ur-text of black-and-white buddy comedies,” writes Troy Patterson. “Their racial harmony, though so perfect as to constitute a progressive fantasy itself, was depicted as a core American value, a condition of patriotism” (2008). Yet other critics have argued that Scott should not be considered a Black sidekick in any typical or stereotypical way because of the equality portrayed between Robinson and Scott. In this regard, I Spy also advanced the buddy action genre and interracial buddy formula seen later in such television shows and films as “Silver Streak (1976), 48 Hrs. (1982), Miami Vice (1984–1989), Lethal Weapon

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(1987), and Rush Hour (1998)” (Nama 2011, 68). Discussing the on-screen relationship between Robinson and Scott, Adilifu Nama states that Culp and Cosby “made interracial friendship hip” (Nama 2011, 68). In fact, the good rapport between the two actors and the witty exchanges of their characters are often credited for the overall success of I Spy. Unlike other espionage and international intrigue television shows and films (with the James Bond movies being the best illustration), the characters on I Spy did not use sophisticated technologies or futuristic gadgets to do their work. Instead, Robinson and Scott relied on their ability to brainstorm and collaborate with each other and used more conventional weapons and techniques, such as firing pistols and throwing punches. While placed within the espionage genre, viewers often watched the show for the friendship and banter between the two lead characters more than for the spy story lines as such. I Spy defied conventions in relation to genre and race, having a lasting impact on American television and film that extended beyond the three-season run of the series. Mary K. Bloodsworth-Lugo Further Reading

Cushman, Marc, and Linda J. La Rosa. 2007. I Spy: A History and Episode Guide, 1965– 1968. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Massengale, Jeremiah. 2014. “The Ground Breaking Wonderfulness of ‘I Spy.’” PopMatters, July 7. ­https://​­w ww​.­popmatters​.­com​/­183284​-­groundbreaking​-­wonderfulness​ -­i​-­spy​-­2495645439​.­html. Nama, Adilifu. 2011. Super Black: American Pop Culture and Black Superheroes. Austin: University of Texas Press. Patterson, Troy. 2008. “I Spy a Progressive Racial Fantasy . . .” Slate, June 5. ­http://​­www​.­slate​ .­com​/­articles​/­arts​/­dvdextras​/­2008​/­06​/­i​_spy​_a​_ progressive​_racial​_fantasy​_.­html. Sergio. 2014. “The Complete Groundbreaking ‘I Spy’ Series w/Bill Cosby Coming Out on DVD in June (and an Appreciation).” Indie Wire, April 7. ­http://​­w ww​.­indiewire​ .­com ​/­2014​/­0 4​/­t he​-­complete​-­g roundbreaking​-­i​-­spy​-­series​-­w​-­bill​-­cosby​-­coming​ -­out​-­on​-­dvd​-­in​-­june​-­and​-­an​-­appreciation​-­160743​/.

Italians, Italian Americans, and Television The history of representing Italians and Italian Americans on television encompasses a myriad of themes and issues including both the perpetuation and challenges to racial and cultural stereotypes, visibility, commercialism, and interconnections to other racial groups. Some television critics and scholars have argued that television emphasizes particularly negative Italian and Italian American characterizations. Others have also highlighted the ways that television has offered counter images that challenge existing stereotypes. Still others have claimed that even when televised representations of Italians and Italian Americans have drawn criticism, they generate valuable conversation within the culture about social problems and representations and have helped to inspire Italians and Italian Americans to cultural advocacy. The meanings of specific racial representations depend on the time in history, the cultural context, and individual critics’ social standpoints.



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THE ROOTS OF RACIAL REPRESENTATIONS The ninth-century Moorish occupation of southern Italy and fifth-century Germanic invasions of northern Italy shaped Italy’s racial makeup as did Italy’s participation in slavery, African colonization, and its location in the culturally diverse Mediterranean region. Over five million Italians immigrated to the United States from 1820 to 1978. Northern Italians’ lighter complexions, compared to southern Italians’ who immigrated in larger numbers, meant the former assimilated comparatively easily while the latter were stereotyped as “lazy, sneaky, and undependable, leaning toward criminal activities and violence; . . . illiterate” (Franco 2010, 50). Stereotypes had racial overtones, gendered prescriptions for women, and spread through the media and popular culture.

THE FIFTIES AND THE SIXTIES Television’s first Italian American leading female character was a boardinghouse matron played by Anna Demetrio on the sitcom Mama Rosa (1950); leading roles were not common though Kay Ballard (née Gloria Balotta) depicted an Italian American mother in The Mothers in Law (1967–1969). Italian American performer Dean Martin (née Dino Crocetti) rose to TV fame as a comic straight man in The Colgate Comedy Hour (1950–1955). As host of The Dean Martin Show (1965–1974), Martin portrayed a playboy though in life he rarely drank socially and preferred family time to nightclubs. During the daytime, Annette Funicello starred on The Mickey Mouse Club (1955–1959), later transitioning into films and commercials. It was also commonplace for television shows to increasingly use Italian American music in their productions, sonically evoking cultural nostalgia, the binary between high or low culture, and/or to sell products. Demanding greater visibility and representations, the Order of Sons of Italy in America’s (OSIA) organized a boycott of the TV series The Untouchables (1959– 1963). Targeting Italian American and Canadian viewers, as well as sponsors, the campaign protested the overuse of criminal characterizations of Italian Americans. OSIA learned from NAACP boycotts of Amos ‘n’ Andy (1951–1960).

THE SEVENTIES AND EIGHTIES Despite a greater range of representations in this era, comic stereotypes persisted in the 1970s and 1980s. Tony Danza’s character Tony Micelli in Who’s the Boss (1984–1992, ABC) offered an image of an involved father and family caregiver who becomes middle class after graduating from college. Similarly, strong, nurturing, determined, and confident Italian American female lead characters appear in Laverne & Shirley (1976–1983), One Day at a Time (1975–1984), Angie (1979–1980), and The Golden Girls (1985–1992). Alternately, other Italian American characters on TV “held low-status jobs, did not speak proper English, . . . were criminals, [and] only one in seven held an executive or managerial business position” (Ruggieri and Leebron 2010, 1269).

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Critics lamented the persistent stereotypes of Italian Americans as scholastically underachieving, emotionally volatile, and womanizing. TOWARDS A NEW MILLENIUM As with the previous decades, TV audiences continued to see Italian American characters as lower class and violent and/or lacking class and intellect during the 1990s. The explosion of reality TV did little to reverse this trend. By the 1990s, the expansion of digital media and the effects of globalization on the television industry gave rise to quickly produced and inexpensive reality TV programs. For example, The Jersey Shore (2009–2012) was praised for saving the struggling MTV network but denounced for celebrating stereotypes and irresponsible behavior. Similar produced reality programs—Brooklyn 11223 (2012); Mama’s Boys of the Bronx (2012); Long Island Medium (2011–2019); Jersey Couture (2010–2012); Jerseylicious (2010–2013); Rambug (2012); Real Housewives of New Jersey (2009–); Cake Boss (2009–2017); Mob Wives (2011–2016)—followed, maintaining a continued history of shows featuring comic, loud, aggressive, eccentric, and/or intrusive Italian American characters. The most successful scripted drama in this period was The Sopranos (1999– 2007). Depicting the life of New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), Italian American organizations criticized the series for revising mafia stereotypes, while it is credited with changing the face of TV drama and popularizing dramatic television on cable networks. Critic Valerie Franco (2010) cites the series’ stereotypical portrayal of Italian American women like Tony’s wife Camilla (Edie Falco) as uneducated and subservient objects of the mafia/their husbands, always cooking, acting impulsively, and/or having classless style. Yet, Franco and others notes that Tony’s psychiatrist Dr. Jennifer Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) counters

The Jersey Shore Weathers the Waves of Reality TV Starting in 2009 and ending in 2012 after six seasons, The Jersey Shore was one of MTV’s most popular reality shows. The series made household names of its twentysomething Italian American cast (e.g., Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, Jennifer “JWoww” Farley, Paul “DJ Pauli D” DelVecchio, and Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino), and its formula was imitated by MTV across Europe and Latin America and spawned spin-off programs. The show depicted the cast’s friendships, romances, partying, and conflicts within the New Jersey shoreline region. Members of the Italian American community criticized the show for emphasizing binge drinking, promiscuity, violence, physical attractiveness, and superficial lifestyles (e.g., characters described their daily routines as involving “GTL” meaning gym, tanning, and laundry) as the main characteristics of Italian Americans’ lives. Cast members were also criticized for reclaiming the Italian American slur “guido” as a moniker of cultural pride. Cast members, perhaps attempting to offset some of the negative criticism of The Jersey Shore, have advocated for pro-social causes by posing for the No H8 anti-homophobia campaign and by raising money for those affected by super storm Sandy.



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most of these characteristics. While celebrating the artistic talents of Falco, Gandolfini, and the show’s dynamic cast of Italian American actors, cultural critic Dona De Sanctis (2013) questions the cultural costs, “Typecast by their own industry, these actors have little choice, but to accept the Mafia roles offered them since nothing else is available . . . [thus] organizations like the Sons of Italy . . . never attack the character actors who accept these roles” (23). Additionally, media observers note that Italian male and female characters are presented more positively than Italian Americans on The Sopranos in terms of their appearance, character, personal lives, and/or professional lives. The critically and commercially successful sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond (1996–2005) focuses on Long Island newspaper sportswriter Ray Barone (Ray Romano), his wife and children, and his mother, father, and brother who live across the street. Some critics celebrated the show as a favorable representation of Italian Americans, especially in comparison to The Sopranos. Depicting the Barones as honest, hard-working, educated, and law-abiding professionals (e.g., Ray is a writer; brother Robert is a cop), who might bicker but are loyal to each other, Everybody Loves Raymond represents Italian Americans as fundamentally assimilated Americans. While they speak both Italian and English during a family trip to Italy, the characters’ experiences mirror that of other white Americans. Reflecting the show’s efforts to present universal themes and narratives, Everybody Loves Raymond presents a world where the family’s cultural roots are deemphasized. Critics have questioned these choices, noting the comments of executive producer, Phil Rosenthal who has said, “CBS, when we first started, said they wanted to populate the cast with what they called ‘nonethnic ethnics.’ [Meaning] someone who is obviously from New York, but doesn’t look too Jewish or Italian” (qtd. in Laurino 2000, 31). Appearing nonethnic in the television industry is a concern of Italian American actors and performers who sometimes adopt non-Italian surnames to make themselves more marketable (e.g., Ernest Borgnine, Nicholas Cage, Iron Eyes Cody, James Darren, Connie Stevens). Alternately, Italian American actors have parlayed their cultural backgrounds into opportunities to portray other races

Actor James Gandolfini Is Remembered for More Than Tony Soprano Actor James Gandolfini (1961–2013) was criticized for perpetuating the Italian American mob-boss stereotype and glamorizing gang violence while portraying Tony Soprano on HBO’s wildly popular series The Sopranos but was praised for the emotional depth he brought to the role by depicting Tony’s vulnerabilities. James Gandolfini, like Tony Soprano, was born and raised in New Jersey, but unlike his extroverted, tough-guy persona, Gandolfini was uncomfortable with attention. Family and friends describe him as shy, sensitive, and a brutal self-critic; Gandolfini once described himself as “a 260-lb. Woody Allen” (Tauber 2013). While Gandolfini is best remembered for his Tony Soprano role, he has received praise for a diversity of roles including a gay hitman who gives love advice in the film comedy The Mexican (2001), a divorced father and romantic interest in the romantic film Enough Said (2013), and as a disgruntled dad and small businessman in the Broadway staging of the play God of Carnage (2009), for which he was nominated for a Tony Award for lead actor in a play.

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such as Arabs (e.g., Anthony Caruso, Vitto Scotti), Latina/os (e.g., Marissa Tomei, Robert Loggia, Jay Novello, Vitto Scotti), and Native Americans (e.g., Anthony Caruso, Iron Eyes Cody, Vitto Scotti). Cross-racial casting when it applies to Native American roles has sparked criticisms from Indigenous communities given the history of minstrelsy and the limited opportunities afforded to Native actors. Jewish American actors (e.g., Craig Bierko, Peter Falk, Phil Foster, Brad Garrett, Gina Gershon, Lainie Kazan, Doris Roberts) and Greek Americans (John Cassavetes, Olympia Dukakis, Elias Koteas) are often cast as Italian Americans on TV.

RACE AND COMMERCIAL SUCCESS ON ITALIAN TELEVISION Research into the media in Italy suggests that issues of culture, race, and ethnicity went largely unexplored up through the 1980s. In 1996, when Italy crowned its “first Black Miss Italy,” Denny Méndez, an immigrant to Italy from the Dominican Republic, the media event was viewed by some as a sign of a more culturally diverse future for Italy, while others spoke out against Méndez in racist and racially coded language emphasizing her non-Italianness. Italian media scholar Michela Ardizzoni argues that when national broadcaster RAI attempted a cultural project in 2003 instead of exploring issues of cultural diversity (e.g., immigration, migration, or racial diversity), it focused on “regional Italian identities, unchanging regional cuisines, traditional costumes, and architectural sites [to] promote an atemporal vision of Italy where the convergence of time and space has been suspended in favour of an idealized identity, unspoiled by the noises of contemporary life and global transactions” (Ardizzoni 2005, 526). As in North America and Western Europe, U.S. scripted crime dramas have proven popular with Italian TV channel FoxCrime carrying many U.S. series and inspiring other Italian broadcasters to program this content and/or to develop their own original crime programming, programming blocks, and/or pay channels. Public broadcaster RAI has attempted to carry more Italian and European programming while commercial television outlets (e.g., Sky Italia, Fox, Italia Uno) frequently program U.S. content. Italian media scholar Eleonora Benecchi (2015) notes that the internet has helped to popularize U.S. TV programs in Italy through the development of online fan communities. Online fan communities can help to develop a viewership for a program but are no guarantee of a program’s success. A program does not have to feature Italian Americans to be successful in Italy. For instance, U.S. soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful (1987–) has a large audience in Italy even as it focuses on the WASP rooted Forrester family. The Sopranos was broadcast for free on Mediaset (founded by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi), Italy’s largest commercial TV network as I Soprano. Despite having a poor timeslot and no promotion, the first episode was the fourth most viewed program that evening. In the series, older characters are dubbed with Neapolitan dialects, while younger characters speak standard Italian with Neapolitan



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obscenities and slang blended in. To depict that the characters are Italian American on Italian TV, the industry regularly dubs characters Tony Soprano when he is angry speaking in southern dialects that would be spoken informally in the streets (Stanley 2001). Italian viewers tended to regard The Sopranos not as representative the Italian people but as a program from the mafia genre. Alternately, The Jersey Shore also aired commercially in Italy and was widely condemned by Italian journalists. While filming on location in Italy, Italian crowds taunted the cast with crude taunts and gestures. Popular representations of Italians and Italian Americans on television have roots in earlier forms of media, often reflect cultural biases, and are affected by larger social trends like immigration, cross-cultural interactions, and TV industry changes. Many performers have parlayed portraying Italian American characters and their stories into enduring TV careers while cultural critics question the quality, accuracy, and diversity of these images. In the future, as online and streaming TV services continue to thrive, more programs are being produced for smaller niche audiences. As the TV industry diversifies its program offerings in this way, critics argue that it provides more opportunities for actors, writers, directors, and producers from different marginalized cultural groups, such as Italian Americans, to develop more series and characters that more accurately reflect their lived experiences. Gordon Alley-Young Further Reading

Ardizzoni, Michela. 2005. “Redrawing the Boundaries of Italianness: Televised Identities in the Age of Globalisation.” Social Identities 11 (5) (September): 509–530. Benecchi, Eleonora. 2015. “Online Italian Fandoms of American TV Shows.” Transformative Works & Cultures 19 (January 15). ­http://​­journal​.­t ransformativeworks​.­org​ /­index​.­php​/­t wc​/­article​/­view​/­586​/­487. Biskind, Peter. 2007. “An American Family.” Vanity Fair, April. ­http://​­w ww​.­vanityfair​ .­com​/­news​/­2007​/­04​/­sopranos200704. De Sanctis, Dona. 2013. “Was Right? Pogo.” Italian America 18 (1): 22, 23, 31.g Franco, Valerie A. 2010. “Miss-Representation: Stereotypes of Italian-American Women in the Media.” Confluence: The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies 15 (2): 44–59. Kenna, Laura Cook. 2009. “Exemplary Consumer-Citizens and Protective State Stewards: How Reformers Shaped Censorship Outcomes Regarding ‘The Untouchables.’” Velvet Light Trap: A Critical Journal of Film & Television 63: 34–44. Laurino, Maria. 2000. “From the Fonz to ‘The Sopranos,’ Not Much Evolution.” New York Times, December 24 (section 2), 31. Noam, Eli M. 1987. “Broadcasting in Italy: An Overview.” Columbia Journal of World Business 22 (3): 19–25. Ruggieri, Dominique G., and Elizabeth J. Leebron. 2010. “Situation Comedies Imitate Life: Jewish and Italian-American Women on Prime Time.” Journal of Popular Culture 43 (6): 1266–1281. Saffle, Michael. 2012. “Translating and Rebuilding Mediterranean Musical Place: Italian-American Musical Culture from Sheet Music to The Sopranos.” Journal of Mediterranean Studies 21 (2): 367–378.

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Stanley, Alessandra. 2001. “The World: Murder Inc.; Tony Soprano Goes Home.” New York Times,  June  17. ­http://​­ w ww​.­nytimes​ .­c om ​ /­2001​ /­0 6​ /­17​/­weekinreview​ /­t he​ -­world​-­murder​-­inc​-­tony​-­soprano​-­goes​-­home​.­html. Tauber, Michelle. 2013. “James Gandolfini: 1961–2013: A Family’s Heartbreak.” People, July  8. ­http://​­p eople​.­com ​/­a rchive​/­james​-­gandolfini​-­1961​-­2013​-­a​-­familys​-­heart break​-­vol​-­80​-­no​-­2​/.

J Jane the Virgin(2014–2019 ) Jane the Virgin is a comedy-drama series that has aired on the CW Network since 2014. The series follows Jane Villanueva (Gina Rodriguez), a working-class college student in her twenties who dreams of becoming a writer until she is accidentally artificially inseminated after a gynecologist appointment. As the series title implies, Jane is a virgin and when she becomes pregnant, her whole life changes. Jane the Virgin successfully weaves multiple cultures together, providing entry into an untapped market for the CW. Latinxs make up 17 percent of the total population in the United States while 38.4 million individuals from the age of five and older reported speaking Spanish at home. While offering more general themes surrounding single motherhood, pregnancy, family relationships, and the challenges of being twenty in contemporary America, the series often focuses on relevant contemporary social issues, building narratives around themes such as White privilege, class mobility, homosexuality, single motherhood, and immigration. For example, in an episode when Jane’s grandmother, Alba (Ivonne Coll), is in the hospital after a near death accident. The doctor informs Xiomara (Andrea Navedo), Jane’s mother, that Alba will have to be deported back to Venezuela because she is undocumented and does not have health insurance. The series momentarily paused to inform the viewer that this is not an exaggeration, with the words, “yes, this really happens. Look it up. #immigrationreform” appearing on the screen. Through the use of social media within this episode the series attempts to grapple with a discussion that is occurring in the real world in a way that is commonplace to viewers. In its short amount of time, it has garnered both critic and audience success. In its initial run in the fall of 2014, online articles praised the CW network for its accomplishment, with critics calling Jane the Virgin, “Fall’s best new show” and a step toward the network finally “growing up” and producing a series that actually reflects real women and real people living in the United States. Robert Bianco celebrated the historic importance of Gina Rodriguez: “On a network that for too many years was overpopulated with blandly pretty stars and starlets who needed name tags to be told apart, Rodriguez is the real deal” (Bianco 2014). According to Diana Martinez, the series stands out as a show because it draws “on the complexity of its characters’ Latino culture,” and specifically, uses the telenovela format to “amplify how gender and race shape the lives of Jane and her family, making Jane the Virgin the rare diverse show that embraces the cultural origins of its characters on multiple levels” (Martinez 2015).

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Breaking out of the Hollywood Mold: Gina Rodriguez Gina Rodriguez was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Puerto Rican parents. Prior to her break out in acting, Rodriguez began to dance salsa at an early age and went on to tour with dancing companies around the United States. At the age of sixteen, she began her acting career through a theater program at Columbia University and then later in college at New York University. Her rise to fame continued as she worked in theater and then in minor roles on television and films. Her acting career is growing steadily as she continues to capture audience’s attention in Jane the Virgin and her first major movie roles in Deep Water Horizon (2016) and Annihilation (2017). Rodriguez is making a difference in the acting world where Latina actresses and Latino actors are hardly visibly by using her Instagram account and the hashtag #MovementMondays to spotlight other Latino/a actors with the goal of supporting one another and gaining more Latino/as on screen. She carries the Latinx community closely with her, although in the past she has been told that she is not “Latina enough” because of her skin color, her Puerto Rican background, and stereotypes surrounding Latina authenticity. Rodriguez has challenged these criticisms directly by saying, “What do you mean I’m not enough? No, I am enough. I am fully enough. And you’re enough. And the girl that’s half and half is enough. And the girl that only speaks Spanish is enough” (Moreno 2015).

Jane the Virgin deviates from most shows in the landscape of American television because it is adapted from a Latin American telenovela, Juana La Virgen. Borrowing from the tropes of Latin American telenovela typically not used in American television, Jane the Virgin provides a modern twist to the format. The diverse cast includes real-life telenovela actor Jaime Camil and breakout star Gina Rodriguez. Just like a rollercoaster, the series is filled with ups and downs and turns, following Jane, and her immediate family—mother (Andrea Navedo) and grandmother (Ivonne Coll)—as they cross life’s hurdles. The telenovela is distinct from the American soap opera. According to Brenda Salinas “telenovelas are miniseries” where viewer’s “delight lies in watching the clueless characters’ twists and turns before arriving at their predetermined fate” that air during prime-time slots and are known to “address public health topics like domestic violence.” According to Salinas, telenovelas also typically follow one of two formats: they either take place on a ranch where an unsophisticated young woman who is more than likely an orphan works at the ranch and falls in love with the ranch owner’s son or follow a “working-class-girl-meets-a-rich-man story” (Salinas 2014). The series also successfully blends languages. It uses Spanish and English interchangeably throughout each episode, while providing subtitles to viewers who do not speak Spanish. In line with being able to switch between Spanish and English, the program is also cutting-edge because of the diverse cast that it has. The series’ originality and success also stem from its use of modern technology. Text messaging and tweeting take center stage in each episode. When the characters pull out their phones to text message, the text appears on the screen, allowing viewers to read and follow the conversation occurring between the characters. As the story line unfolds in each episode, viewers are also invited to witness characters tweeting. Not only this, but the series makes use of hashtags to



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carry and push story lines. What may appear like a familiar scene from a television show turns into interacting and keeping up with the series of tweets that appear on the screen. After 100 episodes, Jane the Virgin would come to an end. During its run, Jane the Virgin would find success because of its ability to speak to real-life people off-screen. The show explored stories and experiences rarely seen on other networks in its venture to produce narratives that speak to contemporary issues that are occurring off-screen, while simultaneously including actors who are not part of the familiar Hollywood mold. Lucia Soriano Further Reading

Bianco, Robert. 2014. “‘Jane the Virgin’ May Be a Sign That CW Is Growing Up.” USA Today, October 12. ­http://​­w ww​.­usatoday​.­com​/­story​/­life​/­t v​/­2014​/­10​/­12​/­jane​-­the​ -­virgin​-­review​/­17027515​/. Fitz-Gerald, Sean. 2016. “Gina Rodriguez Responds to #OscarsSoWhite with #MovementMondays to Celebrate Latino Talent.” Vulture, January 26. ­http://​­w ww​ .­v ulture​.­com​/­2016​/­01​/­gina​-­rodriguez​-­movement​-­mondays​.­html. Hamedy, Saba. 2014. “TV Ratings: ‘Jane the Virgin’ Strong Premiere for the CW.” Los Angeles Times, October 14. ­http://​­w ww​.­latimes​.­com​/­entertainment​/­envelope​ /­cotown​/­la​-­et​-­ct​-­t v​-­ratings​-­jane​-­the​-­virgin​-­big​-­bang​-­theory​-­20141014​-­story​.­html. IMDB. 2016. “Gina Rodriguez Biography.” ­http://​­w ww​.­imdb​.­com​/­name​/­n m1752221​/ ­bio​ ?­ref​_​= ​­n m​_ov​_bio​_sm. Martinez, Diana. 2015. “Jane the Virgin Proves Diversity Is More Than Skin Deep.” The Atlantic, October 19. ­http://​­w ww​.­theatlantic​.­com​/­entertainment​/­archive​/­2015​/­10​ /­jane​-­the​-­virgin​-­telenovelas​/­409696​/. ModernLatina. 2015. “Get to Know Andrea Navedo from Jane the Virgin.” ­http://​ ­modernlatina​.­com​/?­p​=​­5996. Moreno, Carolina. 2015. “Gina Rodriguez Questions What It Means to Be ‘Latino Enough.’” The Huffington Post, August 18. ­http://​­www​.­huffingtonpost​.­com​/­entry​ /­g ina​-­r odriguez​-­s chools​-­p eople​-­w ho​-­d ont​-­t hink​-­s hes​-­l atina​-­e nough​_us​ _55d2b110e4b07addcb43e46d. Salinas, Brenda. 2014. “Is America Ready to Fall in Love with the Telenovela?” National Public Radio, November 9. ­http://​­w ww​.­npr​.­org​/­sections​/­codeswitch​/­2014​/­11​/­09​ /­362401259​/­is​-­america​-­ready​-­to​-­fall​-­in​-­love​-­with​-­the​-­telenovela. Valdivia, Angharad N. 2010. Latino/as in the Media. Cambridge: Polity Press. Velez, Ali. 2015. “This Video Sorts Out the Very Simple Difference between the Terms Hispanic, Latino, and Spanish.” ­https://​­w ww​.­buzzfeed​.­com​/­alivelez​/­whats​-­the​ - ­d ifference ​ - ­b etween ​ - ­h ispanic ​ -­l atino ​ - ­a nd ​ - ­s panish​ ? ­u tm ​ _ term ​ =​ . ­s jjx5BwPq5​ #.­irBn8V7kG8.

Jeffersons, The(1975–1985) The Jeffersons is the longest running African American sitcom in American television history. While on the air for eleven years, audiences fell in love with George Jefferson (Sherman Hemsley), the self-made, arrogant, loudmouth owner of several dry-cleaning stores, and his loving wife, Louise (Isabel Sanford), who George

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endearingly calls “Weezy.” George’s successful dry-cleaning business empowers him to move his wife and their son, Lionel (Mike Evans; Damon Evans), from their house in Queens to an apartment in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The series was created and developed by Norman Lear as the second spin-off of All in the Family (1971–1979). The Jeffersons was Lear’s fifth sitcom in four years, and his third African American sitcom in three years, following Good Times (1974–1979) and Sanford and Son (1972–1977). Lear was known for his successful sitcoms that veered away from escapist television and leaned more toward social commentary. All in the Family was no different. Debuting in 1971, it was considered the most controversial television program on the air. The reason was markedly the show’s main character, Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Connor), a White working-class, loud-mouthed, stubborn bigot living in Queens, New York, with his naïve wife, Edith (Jean Stapleton), whom he condescendingly referred to as “dingbat.” Bunker was known for his catalog list of racial, ethnic, and religious slurs, referring to Jews as “Hebes,” Asians as “gooks,” Puerto Ricans as “spics,” and African Americans as “coons,” “spades,” and “jungle bunnies.” Living with Archie and Edith were their grown daughter, Gloria (Sally Struthers), and her liberal, long-haired husband, Mike (Rob Reiner). Despite the controversy resulting from Archie’s in-your-face bigotry, audiences loved the show, especially Archie. During the show’s run “Archie Bunker for President” bumper stickers and buttons emerged along with a record album with Archie’s best lines, a fan magazine, and a book featuring the wisdom of Archie Bunker. The show held its number one spot in the Nielsen ratings for five consecutive seasons, a momentous accomplishment at the time. The characters Lionel, Louise, and later George regularly appeared in All in the Family. During the first season, the Jeffersons moved next door to the Bunkers, introducing audiences to Lionel and then Louise Jefferson. Audiences would not be introduced to her husband until the fourth season. Instead George’s brother Henry (Mel Stewart) took his place on-screen. While it would be explained that George refused to step foot inside a White household, behind the scenes Norman Lear had found the perfect actor to play George, but he was unavailable. In fact, George Jefferson was created specifically for Sherman Hemsley, who could not appear on the show initially due to a previous Broadway stage commitment. In “Henry’s Farewell,” George finally appears on-screen, grudgingly entering the Bunker home, caringly toasting his brother who is leaving to open a dry-cleaning store in Dutchess County, New York. Before leaving, he insults Archie, further centering racial conflict in the show. Often referred to as the “Black Archie,” George never rejected the opportunity to verbally spar with his White nemesis, defeating him with his cunning repartee. For some, George was every bit as antiwhite as Archie was antiBlack. For others, there was no comparison given the history of antiBlack racism in America. Irrespective of the meaning and significance of their prejudices, Archie Bunker had met his match in George Jefferson, and audiences loved their antagonistic relationship. Their popularity, and the interest in the Jefferson family compelled Lear to create The Jeffersons for CBS in 1975. Each episode of The Jeffersons would begin with the series theme song “Movin’ On Up,” performed by Ja’net DuBois (best known for her role as Willona on Good



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Archie Meets George Norman Lear was able to build suspense prior to Sherman Hemsley’s first appearance by keeping his character’s name alive in the script. Additionally, George’s brother Henry filled the role as a temporary placeholder until Hemsley could appear onscreen as George Jefferson. It was no coincidence that “Henry’s Farewell” both introduced George, while simultaneously sending off Henry. This episode would be Mel Stewart’s last appearance as Henry Jefferson, as the character never appeared on The Jeffersons. The premise of “Henry’s Farewell” centers on where to host Henry’s going-away party. After George refuses to host an interracial party, Louise tells Edith, who unintentionally agrees to host the party at her house. Archie initially refuses to host the party and threatens to leave until Louise arrives and announces that George refuses to attend the party at the Bunker home. At the party, Henry toasts the Bunkers, insulting Archie one last time, “I wanna thank you Bunker for letting me know and letting me see that some white folks are better than other white folks.” Right as Archie is about to give Henry a follow-up toast, George yells from outside the door, “Oh no you don’t! Ain’t nobody making no toast to my brother but me.” Archie rushes to the door after learning that it’s George on the other side, and tauntingly asks, “Hey Jefferson, are you asking to come into my house?” George quickly responds that he would not enter the house even if Archie got on his hands and knees. The two men go back and forth until George finally enters the house. After toasting and embracing his brother, George congratulates himself on his “nice toast” and walks toward the door, which Archie is holding open. Right before he leaves, he turns to Archie, smiles and says, “I’m just sorry it had to take place in a honky house” and quickly exits. This would be the first of many verbal sparring battles between George and Archie.

Times) and accompanied by a gospel choir. The theme song embodied the portrait of an upwardly mobile Black family, as the initial opening credits show George and Louise moving into their “deluxe apartment in the sky.” While The Jeffersons can be considered a sitcom that loosely celebrated African American upward mobility, the series focused primarily on comedy rather than any serious depictions of racial issues or situations that George may have incurred as a Black businessman. The series relied heavily on jokes and George’s outrageous antics. One critic wrote in Ebony magazine, “For those who may still be looking for a deep and satisfying social significance in black shows on television, the wait goes on. Although The Jeffersons portrays blacks on a different socio-economic level than other black shows, it is nevertheless, like others, broad comedy and has to be accepted as such” (Robinson 1976, 115). On a rudimentary level, the show acknowledged the existence of racial biases and divisions. George’s frequent use of racial humor and racist language revealed that Black people could also be just as prejudiced as white people. While depicting an upper-middle-class African American family, the series was embedded with old stereotypes of African Americans. George’s mouth and outrageous antics sometimes reflected that of the old comical coon. Florence (Marla Gibbs), especially, was reminiscent of Hattie McDaniel’s portrayal of the

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lazy, quick-witted, and bold maid. Despite these stereotypical remnants, these characters resonated with African American audiences. While chronicling the life of the Jefferson family, and their fulfillment of the American Dream, the show continued the racial themes commonplace within All in the Family. On The Jeffersons, George would make clear his displeasure for Whites, except when it meant earning him money. Obsessed with making money, he often put his differences aside long enough to help his business. For example, early in the series, George zealously pursued the owner of his building Mr. Whittendale, constantly coming up with schemes to meet Whittendale and introduce himself. While now living an upper-middle-class lifestyle, George’s antics and mistakes often reflected his Harlem past, as his incessant need to make money often resulted in immediately identifiable social missteps. Unlike the levelheaded Louise, George was loud, arrogant, intolerant, tactless, and rude. No one was immune from hearing his yapping and yelling, except maybe his mother. George relished the opportunity to insult white people, referring to them as “honkies.” His insults were not exclusive to white people, as he often insulted anyone he felt offended him or his beliefs, which mostly included his Black maid Florence and his neighbor Helen (Roxie Roker), who was married to Tom Willis, a White man played by Franklin Cover. Part of George’s appeal was that his size did not match his mouth. He was short, and despite his loud mouth and nonstop insults, never actually posed a physical threat. George was a little guy who was full of energy and opinions, and could never back down from an argument, no matter how foolish or misguided his views might be. As the series progressed, George Jefferson was no longer the brash, outrageous loudmouth he used to be, and his character became much tamer and softened. As his wife knew, George Jefferson was nothing more than a man who used his loud personality to mask his fears of being poor again, and his ambitions were the result of this implicit fear. Sherman Hemsley, however, was nothing like the character he portrayed on television. Born in South Philadelphia, he left school in tenth grade, later becoming a U.S. postal worker. While working in the daytime as a postman, he worked the Philadelphia drama scene with a company that performed plays for children. Taking the advice of a fellow actor, he moved to New York to seriously pursue his acting, but still kept his day job by transferring to the New York postal service. While in New York, he worked with the renowned Negro Ensemble Company, and later became a member of African American playwright Vinnette Carroll’s Urban Arts Corps, a community theater that provided performance opportunities for minority performers. He later appeared on Broadway in the musical Purlie. It was while touring with the play Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope, that Hemsley was asked to play the role of George Jefferson on All in the Family, a role he would continue to play for the next decade and be remembered as for the rest of his life. The show would often focus on the class, racial, and cultural conflicts resulting from the Jeffersons moving into a wealthy white world. It equally focused on the adjustments and difficult navigations undertaken by the family with humor and poignant commentary. This is made clear in the show’s pilot episode, “A Friend in Need,” which focuses on Louise’s challenges to adjusting to life with money.



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Louise has made a new friend, a Black maid named Diane (Pauline Myers), who incorrectly assumes that Louise must also be a maid in the building, since she was a Black woman in an expensive apartment building. The real problem occurs when George insists that Louise hire a maid to help around the apartment, suggesting her new friend Diane. Louise, having previously worked as a maid, refuses to hire a friend, going with Florence instead. Diane is offended she was not considered for the job, stating, “Well, I’m sure glad everybody ain’t as friendly as you or my children would starve to death!” Eventually, the Jefferson’s new maid, Florence solves the problem by agreeing to let Diane have the job, but not before delivering one of the most memorable lines in the show’s history. In the very last line of the episode, Florence, shocked that there are two Black women (Louise and her neighbor Helen) living in expensive high-rise apartments, turns to them and asks in amazement, “Well how come we overcame and nobody told me?” Audience laughter explodes after Marla Gibbs delivers the line, turning what was supposed to be her last appearance on the show into a featured role. A few episodes later, Gibbs appears as the Jefferson’s new maid, and Diane was never seen or mentioned again. Thanks to the brilliant comedic timing and delivery of Gibbs, Florence became a series regular. Similar to George, Florence became the standout female character of the show, enlivening it with her humor and her witty rhetorical challenges to her boss. Audiences loved watching Florence challenge George. Florence was the only character that could really match wits and insults with George. He often criticized her cooking, and she consistently referred to him as “Shorty.” Florence was sharp, perceptive, quick-witted, and cunning. Refusing to fulfill the usual responsibilities associated with being a maid—she often refused to answer the door or wash windows—Florence was equally resistant to expectations of deference to her employer. She never missed an opportunity to put George in his place. Some of the show’s funnier moments are those antagonist interactions between George and Florence. While Gibbs created a memorable character on television, the character was similar to the clever, outspoken servants of the past, made famous by Hattie McDaniel with the biggest difference was that Florence had a Black boss. The popularity of the character inspired the short-lived spinoff Checking In (1981), starring Marla Gibbs as Florence, but after four episodes, CBS cancelled the series due to poor ratings. After the failure of the series, Gibbs immediately returned to The Jeffersons. Along with Florence, the series included other supporting characters including: Lionel, George and Louise’s son; Mother Jefferson (Zara Cully), George’s mother and Louise’s nemesis; Harry Bentley (Paul Benedict), an eccentric British neighbor, who worked for the United Nations as a Russian translator; Tom and Helen Willis; Jenny Willis (Berlinda Tolbert), Tom and Helen’s daughter and Lionel’s future ex/wife. The supporting cast gave the series a unique roundedness. Initially, Mike Evans continued the role of Lionel, which he began on All in the Family, but after the first season he was replaced by Damon Evans (no relation). Damon Evans held the role until the series fourth season, and Mike Evans resumed the role again during the

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sixth season, appearing as Lionel until the end of the series. Mother Jefferson was the only woman George could not say no to, and her hold over George created many problems for Louise. Mother Jefferson insulted Louise as often as she drank her favorite drink, a Bloody Mary. Zara Cully played Mother Jefferson until her death in 1978. George loved slamming the door in Bentley’s face, and Bentley would occasionally need George (because of his size) to walk on his back whenever it gave out. Tom and Helen were the first married interracial couple on television. George often referred to the couple as “Zebra,” sometimes calling Tom “Mr. Day” and Helen “Mrs. Night.” Tom and Helen’s children resembled them in a distinct way, as one child appeared Black and the other appeared white. Jenny took after her mother in terms of complexion, while her brother Allan took after their father and passed as white. Allan Willis (Andrew Rubin) was first introduced at the end of the first season. Played by Jay Hammer, his character would join the cast in the fifth season. Also, appearing as a recurring character throughout the series was Ralph (Ned Wertimer), the greedy doorman who always had his hand out ready for a tip. The first year it aired, The Jeffersons ranked fourth in the Nielsen ratings. For the next few seasons, the show consistently dropped in the ratings, coming close to cancellation on several occasions. However, the show found its audience again, remained in the top ten during the sixth through eighth seasons. At the height of its popularity, 33 million people saw the show. In 1981, Isabel Sanford became the first African American actress to win an Emmy for “Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series,” and only the second African American actress to win an Emmy. Sanford was nominated consecutively for the award the last seven years of the series, between 1979 and 1985, but only won once. While The Jeffersons was initially a rating success, the series struggled to maintain its popularity as CBS kept changing the time slot. In fact, the series changed time slots over ten times throughout its run. After eleven seasons, CBS abruptly cancelled the series. Despite being the longest running African American sitcom in history (in 2012, Tyler Perry’s House of Payne (2007–2012) would surpass The Jeffersons in terms of the most episodes but not in terms of years on the air), it did not receive a proper farewell. Fans did not receive closure nor did the show receive the necessary celebration worthy of its successes. The Jeffersons would become Norman Lear’s longest running sitcom, catapulting Sherman Hemsley and Marla Gibbs into television stars. Ashley S. Young Further Reading

Bogle, Donald. 2001. Primetime Blues: African Americans on Network Television. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Campbell, Sean. 2007. The Sitcoms of Norman Lear. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Collier, Aldore D. 1985. “Sherman Hemsley, Isabel Sanford Survive as the Longest Married Couple on TV.” JET, February 18. Robinson, Louie. 1976. “The Jeffersons: A Look at Life on Black America’s New ‘Striver’s Row.’” Ebony, January. Sanders, Charles L. 1972. “Is Archie Bunker the Real White America?” Ebony, June.



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Woolfork, Lisa. 2013. “Looking for Lionel: Making Whiteness and Blackness in All in the Family and The Jeffersons.” In African Americans on Television: Race-ing for Ratings, edited by David J. Leonard and Lisa A. Guerrero, 45–68. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.

Jews and Television Jews have been a constant fixture on American television since the medium came into existence. Their portrayal, however, has not always been constant or consistent. In the infancy of American television programming, Jews existed on the margins, amounting to nothing more than one-off characters designed to add diversity to the program. However, over the course of six decades, depictions of Jews grew, gaining nuance and depth in the process. As Jews became a mainstay in television programs, five consistent themes and narratives emerged: (1) Jews as members of part of the religious right; (2) Jews as the story of the immigrant experience in the United States; (3) the experiences with anti-Semitism within the Jewish community; (4) the horrors of the Holocaust; and (5) Israeli culture. Relying on one or more of these themes has allowed television programs to portray the Jewish experience to American audiences who, due to Jews’ position as a demographic minority, might not otherwise be exposed to Jewish faith, life, and culture. RELIGIOSITY The most common theme in the portrayal of Jews on American television is the religious rites and rituals associated with Judaism. Between life cycle events, such as bris, bar mitzvahs, weddings, funerals, and holidays, Jewish life has always occupied a role on TV. These depictions, highlighting the religious diversity in American society, typically offer viewers basic portrayals of Jewish religious practices and traditions. Holiday specials have also long been a staple of American television. Although Jewish holiday specials are by no means as prevalent as Christian ones, and secular specials and shows often depict Jewish characters partaking in Christmas and Easter celebrations, every major and nearly all minor Jewish holidays have been depicted on American television (Pearl and Pearl 1999, 32). Until the 1970s, Hanukkah occupied almost no airtime on American television. Although traditionally a minor holiday, Hanukkah gained new importance as Jews flocked to the United States and faced the daunting status of Christmas in American society. Hanukkah became an oppositional holiday to Christmas and a way for American Jews to assert their Jewishness in the face of urged assimilation. Yet, mentions of the holiday were sparse, and sometimes even belittling. An example of the latter arose in the 1989 Christmas episode of The Famous Teddy Z (1989–1990) where, in a parody of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, the show’s prominent Jewish character is cast in the role of Scrooge as a selfish, bitter person who ruins Christmas for the Gentiles (Gertel 1989). The episode suggested that Christmas would save the Jew from his evil ways and thus the Jewish people

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were only redeemable through Christianity. This special sparked outrage causing many prominent Jews to call for a boycott of the show. Other early depictions of Hanukkah were incidental. For example, in an episode of Day by Day (1988–1989), a group of children celebrated Christmas while one child dressed as a Star of David, though the show gave no explanation for this. During the early and mid-1980s, TV specials on the Holocaust added images of Hanukkah celebrations by Jewish victims. Both The Diary of Anne Frank (1980) and Wallenberg: A Hero’s Story (1985) portrayed Jewish protagonists celebrating Hanukkah in the face of German atrocities. However, these specials rarely focused on explaining the Jewish holiday tradition. It wasn’t until the 1990s that Hanukkah occupied a central theme on television. The first attempt to depict Jewishness during the winter holidays came from the popular drama Northern Exposure (1990–1995). The show, set in Cicely, Alaska, featured the lone Jewish character Dr. Joel Fleischman. In the 1990 Christmas episode, Fleischman struggles with being the only Jew in the town on a Christian holiday. He wants to join his friends in their celebrations and traditions, but knows that as a Jew he should not, which causes great internal conflict. This episode echoed the isolation that many Jews felt during the winter holidays and explored the conundrum that assimilation brought the Jewish community. A year later, the short-lived series WIOU (1990–1991) presented Hanukkah as a holiday with its own singular importance and message. The episode saw a menorah in a public park defaced by anti-Semitic vandalism and the series’ characters echoing the story of the Maccabees and rising above the hateful act. Other shows, like Friends (1994–2004), with “The One with the Holiday Armadillo,” and South Park (1997–), with “A Jew on Christmas,” also explored themes of loneliness, assimilation, and alienation associated Hanukkah. By the mid-1990s, children’s programming likewise embraced Hanukkah celebrations. Nickelodeon’s Rugrats (1990–2006) long received praise from Jewish parents for having a Jewish main character in the series, and in 1996 the children’s cartoon aired a stand-alone Hanukkah special. In this special, the main character’s Russian grandparents Boris and Minka come to celebrate the holiday. When a series of unfortunate events finds the children locked in the attic with Boris, he recounts the story of the Maccabees, which is depicted using the show’s characters. For Jewish families, this special was immensely popular and resonant, imbuing new attachment to the holiday for Jewish children (Stern 2016). Similarly, the Disney comedy Even Stevens (2000–2003) brought Hanukkah to children’s programming in their December 2000 episode “Heck of a Hanukkah.” Although less religiously oriented than the aforementioned Rugrats episode, this episode presents viewers with the story of Hanukkah and depicts the titular family celebrating with a menorah and playing dreidel. Although Hanukkah references remain prominent on modern television, full representation of the holiday remains few and far between. In 2015, The Goldbergs (2013–) offered a much-heralded episode about Hanukkah. Although The Goldbergs is rarely shy about its Jewishness, the show was void of any representations of Jewish holidays until season three. In the ironically named episode “A Christmas Story,” the show’s mother Beverly Goldberg laments at her family’s lackluster



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celebration of Hanukkah in comparison with their neighbors’ celebration of Christmas. Hoping to spice up the holiday, she appropriates several Christmas traditions into Hanukkah including their version of a Christmas tree, the Hanukkah bush, candy canes, and stockings. The traditional grandfather loudly objects and teaches the family the meaning behind their beloved Hanukkah traditions. This episode offers a comedic look at the ever-present reality of Jewish assimilation and appropriation during the winter holidays and reasserts that Hanukkah is a vibrant holiday in its own right and need not be compared to Christmas (Stern 2016). Depictions of other Jewish holidays are far less frequent. During the seven-year television run of The Goldbergs (1949–1956), the family regularly celebrated the High Holidays Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The show depicted holiday services and traditions as the show’s main characters all gathered together in celebration. Four years after offering viewers a glimpse at Jewish isolation during Christmas, Northern Exposure again tackled the holiday plight of Dr. Fleischman. During a September 1994 episode, Fleischman lamented that he had no one to celebrate Yom Kippur with and struggled to observe the holiday in the remote Alaskan town. The series similarly depicted Passover episodes on two separate occasions. In both episodes, Fleischman struggled with his Jewish identity and Passover rituals and celebrations. Northern Exposure offered, for the first time, a real portrayal of how Jewish identity fares in an American society that encourages assimilation. As the only Jew in his town, Fleischman regularly faced the choice of whether to assimilate or face social isolation. With Jews comprising less than 3 percent of the U.S. population, this choice is common among American Jews (Fahy 2007, 158).

Conceptualizing Minka When Rugrats creators casted Melanie Chartoff as the Jewish grandmother of the main character, Minka Kropotkin, they merely told her the character was an immigrant from the “old country.” Chartoff questioned which country they meant, and the response was merely “the Jewish one.” Though she was Jewish, Chartoff had never attended Hebrew school, nor was she overly attached to the Jewish community. Hoping to learn the mannerisms of an elderly Jewish immigrant woman, she looked through photos of her own grandparents and struggled to remember stories of their immigration from Austria and Russia. The primary inspiration for Chartoff, however, came from someone she met at a Kosher deli in Los Angeles. When she met the owner, Mrs. Gerechter, a German-Jewish immigrant, Chartoff marveled at how much Gerechter resembled the preliminary sketches of Minka. Chartoff sat with Gerechter at length and listened to hours of stories from ­Germany, Gerechter’s immigration, and life in the United States. Following these interviews, Chartoff returned to the series creators with an idea on how to conceptualize Minka. On a conference call with three of the show’s producers, she “amalgamated a character named Minka, married to a gruff schmendrick named Boris, improvising in Yiddish gibberish how [she] thought Minka should sound and Chartoff got the job on the spot.” Chartoff, Melanie. “My Life as a Jewish Cartoon.” Aish, September 1, 2007.

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Rugrats addressed Passover in a stand-alone special, similar to the Hanukkah special. As Boris and Minka once again joined the Pickles family for the holiday, the immigrant grandparents recounted the story of the Exodus, causing the children to envision themselves as the Israelites. The idea for the special came from series creator Paul Germain after he was asked to create a Hanukkah special. Understanding that Passover resonated far more with Jewish audiences, he convinced Nickelodeon to allow him to create a Passover special first. It became the highest rated show in Nickelodeon’s history. Jewish leaders and critics hailed the show for offering the Passover story in a manner that could reach younger audiences (Elkin 1995). Bar mitzvahs are the most common depiction of Jewish rituals. These are common because few religious practices have been as widely accepted by American Jewry as the celebration of the bar mitzvah, which claims a place in their social and religious life that is unparalleled in Jewish history. Even for nonpracticing Jews, the bar mitzvah offers a high level of attachment to Jewish traditions that would otherwise be lost by not regularly attending services. Thus, the bar mitzvah allows shows to address important religious themes. Bar mitzvahs also allow shows to explore important elements of a character’s Jewish identity. Its singular importance to American Jews allows for added gravity and heft to an episode’s plot. Many of the early depictions of bar mitzvahs followed a similar theme, adult males having a bar mitzvah to make up for missing one at a younger age. One of the first depictions of a bar mitzvah on American television was in an episode of the dramatic anthology series General Electric Theater (1953–1962) and followed this theme. In the 1962 episode, “The Bar Mitzvah of Major Orlovsky,” the titular character was unable to have a bar mitzvah as a teenager because he ran away from his home in Russia at an early age and fought in the Russian army. During this time, his religious practice lapsed, and he lived a secular life until he fell in love with a rabbi’s daughter. His relationship with her prompted his return to Jewish religious practice, resulting in his bar mitzvah. A similar situation occurred in a 1966 episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961–1966). This episode centered on the Jewish character of Buddy Sorrell, one of the main character’s partners in a comedy trio. After Buddy began acting suspiciously, his coworkers discovered that he was studying for his bar mitzvah, as he was unable to have one due to needing to work. Having a bar mitzvah as an adult became a way in which Buddy could fulfill a promise to himself and his mother. Finally, in 2003, the long-running cartoon The Simpsons (1989–) tackled the issue of adult bar mitzvahs in “Today I am a Clown.” The episode focused on Springfield’s favorite TV clown Krusty, who is also the son of the local rabbi, who learned that his lack of bar mitzvah prevented him from being considered Jewish by the local community. To rectify this situation, Krusty began Torah study and eventually had a bar mitzvah (Willis 2003). In each of these cases, shows portrayed the bar mitzvah as the central ceremony in Judaism and critical to Jewish attachment and identity. Although adult bar mitzvahs are used predominantly for comedic purposes, childhood bar mitzvahs allow shows to address coming-of-age narratives. In an episode of Ironside (1967–1975), the theft of a Torah scroll offers an opportunity



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for a thirteen-year-old Jewish boy to assume responsibilities and religious commitment as his bar mitzvah approaches. The made-for-TV movie Rivkin: Bounty Hunter (1981) juxtaposed Keith, a wheelchair-bound teen, and his bar mitzvah study against his disability and responsibility incurred as his father travels for work. Both examples demonstrated the use of bar mitzvahs as a theme in shows oriented toward older audiences. However, children’s programming similarly offers the bar mitzvah as a passage to adulthood. In a 1987 episode of ABC Afterschool Special (19721–997), a boy with Down’s syndrome overcomes his disability to recite the prayers and Torah portion in Hebrew, despite the rabbi and cantor attempting to dissuade him throughout his studies (Pearl and Pearl 1999, 18). The Hey Arnold (1996–2004) episode “Harold’s Bar Mitzvah” found a lead character, Harold, persuaded into bar mitzvah study after the rabbi caught him stealing a ham from the local butcher. Both his bar mitzvah study and Jewish prohibitions against pork are discussed throughout the episode, and the entire episode focuses on Jewish responsibility. Moving beyond mere Torah study, Hey Arnold was, at the time, the most comprehensive examination of bar mitzvah tradition and Jewish culture. However, when All Grown Up (2003–2008), a Rugrats spin-off, premiered on Nickelodeon, it continued its parent show’s commitment to Jewish characters. Throughout the series, Tommy, the show’s main character, attended Hebrew school, learned more about his family’s Jewish heritage, and grew more attached to the customs he learned as a child. Despite a number of shows portraying bar mitzvahs through the eyes of Jews, most depictions of bar mitzvahs come from the perspective of non-Jewish characters. Although the number of casual references to bar mitzvahs in television shows is too numerous to recount individually, two sitcoms offered in depth depictions of the celebrations. Arnold Jackson, the main character of the sitcom Diff’rent Strokes (1978–1985), returned from a friend’s bar mitzvah with a desire to convert to Judaism. Jewish food, presents, and the prospect of becoming a man and “getting into X-rated movies at kid’s prices” appealed to Arnold. He also admired his friend’s ability to recite prayers and scriptures in Hebrew, but ultimately decided the traditions are not for him after hearing about fasting for Yom Kippur. Five years later, The Wonder Years (1988–1993) tackled the same crisis with their show’s main character, Kevin Arnold. As Kevin’s best friend Paul prepared for his bar mitzvah, Kevin grew envious of the tradition and history of Paul’s Judaism. The depiction in The Wonder Years differs from most in that it focused not on the extravagant celebrations or presents, but rather on the meaning and rootedness of the occasion. Paul’s most prized gift was not stock options or a new car, as Kevin had imagined, but rather a prayer book passed down through four generations of his family. Beyond holidays and bar mitzvahs, few Jewish rituals receive screen time. Rites such as the bris, or ritual circumcision, receive relatively little attention. As Jewish characters became more prominent in the 1990s, this subsided somewhat. Both Thirtysomething (1987–1991) and Seinfeld (1989–1998) depicted a bris in episodes, though they treated them far differently. In Thirtysomething, characters treated the bris as an important religious event and ceremony. In the episode, one of the show’s Jewish characters, Michael, agonizes over whether to circumcise his

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newborn son, which ultimately leads to questions over his own Jewishness. The seriousness with which Thirtysomething treats the bris is absent in Seinfeld’s portrayal of the rite. Seinfeld depicted the bris as a foolish ritual and the mohel, the rabbi who performs the circumcision, is portrayed as a bumbling fool who winds up cutting off a character’s finger instead (Zurawik 2003, 207). Aside from these portrayals, the bris is seldomly discussed or featured in television shows. Other Jewish rites and rituals such as dietary laws, burial practices, ritual cleansing, or regular prayer rarely receive attention. THE IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE Aside from rites and rituals, shows most often depict the immigrant heritage, and subsequent assimilation, of Jews. While not all Jews on television nor all Jews in the United States are immigrants, it remains an easy theme for television programs to utilize. Eastern European Jewish immigrants were one of the largest immigrant groups into the United States between the 1880s and 1950s, primarily settling in American cities. The wave of newcomers was so immense that by 1901, immigrant workers outnumbered native-born workers in the major American industrial cities by a ratio of two to one (Sachar 1993, 140). Thus, shows featuring larger cities understandably often included Jewish immigrant characters, and programs peppered Yiddish language and culture into episodes as these characters slowly attempted to assimilate. Given the high number of Jewish immigrants, Ellis Island and the experience of immigration factors heavily into Jewish portrayals on television. One of the earliest examples of Jewish immigration being depicted on television was during a segment of the Studio One (1948–1958) anthology series in 1954. This focused on the character Hyman Kaplan who, despite displaying no overt act of religious observance or identification, bore a thick Yiddish accent, had a Jewish-sounding name, and worked in the heavily Jewish garment industry (Pearl and Pearl 1999, 77). The episode focuses on Hyman’s entrance into the United States and his struggle to Americanize in New York, which they portrayed as a virtue. The Goldbergs (1949–1956) similarly addressed Americanization and portrayed Jewish immigrant life not only in the city but also in the suburbs. The Goldbergs were an upwardly striving, Yiddish-accented, Jewish family living in a cramped tenement house in the Bronx. The first few seasons of the show focus on tenement housing in New York and the struggles of European immigrants in the early twentieth century. The show’s creator, Gertrude Berg, played the matriarch of the family, Molly Goldberg. Molly became the archetype for the “loveable Jewish Mother,” though this was merely one aspect to the rich characterization the show offered (McNeill 1996, 332). The show portrayed the vibrant life of Jewish New York, including working in the garment industry, the ethnic enclaves of the boroughs, and the attachment to family remaining in Europe. This trend continued in 1955 when the show’s family moved to the fictional suburb of Haverville. The show’s writers chose to expand upon the Goldberg family’s world and echo the journey of many postwar Jews, demonstrating the struggles Jews faced assimilating into a less diverse residential setting.



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Despite the commercial success of The Goldbergs in television’s early days, most depictions of Jewish immigrants were one-off, one-dimensional, and stereotypical characters. TV westerns of the 1960s and 1970s offered a prime opportunity for these type of characters as the diversity of the American frontier offered an opportunity to showcase a wide array of characters. For example, the 1960 television series Have Gun, Will Travel (1957–1963) featured two Russian Jewish characters, Nathan and Rivka Shotness. After trouble befalls the Shotnesses, they hire the show’s vigilante lead character, Paladin, for protection. On multiple occasions, Nathan Shotness quotes the Hebrew Bible, Talmud, and Mishna, and teaches Paladin about Jewish tradition and their acculturation to the American West. Likewise, Wagon Train (1957–1965) featured Jewish immigrant Simon Levy and his family, who reviled at the violence of the American West, citing that it reminded them of the violence befalling Jews in Eastern Europe. Bonanza (1959– 1973) featured Aaron and Rebecca Kaufman who encounter obstacles in observing Shabbat, before receiving help from the show’s lead character. Finally, Gunsmoke (1955–1975) featured Moshe Gurofsky and his family, who were depicted as a strictly observant Russian family attempting to settle in Dodge City, Kansas. Each of these examples portrays the characters’ Jewishness as oppositional to the American norm. Their religious, ethnic, and philosophical differences serve as the basis of the episode. For the Shotness family, their Jewishness served as a reason for objection to the vigilante style of Paladin. Likewise, Jewish experiences in Russia were the driving force behind Simon Levy’s objection to resorting to violence to fight off bandits. Bonanza’s Kaufmans faced the same predicament in refusing to be violent in the face of bandits. While their Jewishness set these characters apart from the main characters in the show, each ultimately acquiesced to the dominant ethos to escape their predicament. This was best exemplified in Bonanza when Aaron Kaufman refuses to subdue bandits through violence, citing uniquely Jewish ethics and quoting a Hebrew aphorism. However, he eventually decides to grab a gun and shoot one of the bandits when he realizes that his policy of nonviolence is endangering his daughter’s life. Therefore, it is only through assimilation to the dominant ethic that these characters overcome the various predicaments caused by their Jewishness. By the late 1970s and 1980s, more sympathetic portraits of Jewish immigrants came to television. In the made-for-TV movie, The Triangle Factory Fire Scandal (1979), Jewish immigrants receive a vibrant portrayal. Although the movie’s central plot point is the eponymous fire from 1911, the dominant theme of the movie is the constant push and pull faced by Jewish newcomers devoted to tradition but compelled to assimilate to a larger American society during their search for economic success. In the movie, Sonya, a young Jewish woman, skipped Shabbat services under the pretext of being sick but is later discovered to have gone to a Catholic friend’s wedding. When her father confronts her, they argue over the changes that life in America brought, including Sonya’s job at the factory. In response, Sonya argued that American life had to differ from European life as Jews no longer held demographic majorities and were merely stuck in “the goyim’s country.” Likewise, the miniseries Studs Lonigan (1979) examined the cultural

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push and pull, this time in immigration-era Chicago. This miniseries chronicled a Jewish family and an Irish family, focusing heavily on the ethnic strife between the groups. The friction between Old World and New played out when the son in the Jewish family converted to Catholicism to marry an Irish woman, much to the chagrin of his family. While his parents argue that he is forsaking his own identity, the son argues that the conversion and subsequent wedding are the best things that ever happened to him. Immigrant culture is also the central theme of the miniseries Ellis Island (1984). The program focused on four different immigrants, a Russian Jew, an Italian, and two Irish sisters. Jacob Rubenstein, the Russian Jew in the show, followed the path of assimilation to American culture and society. He represented what many Jewish immigrants underwent upon arriving in the United States through Ellis Island, even going so far as to change his name to something less overtly Jewish, marrying a non-Jewish woman, and generally disregarding his history and roots. These examples represent a move beyond the exotification of Jewish culture that dominated earlier depictions of Jewish life. Instead of being characters whose sole purpose was adding ethno-religious diversity to a program, Jewish characters could achieve cultural depth and layers. Instead of only representing Jewish characters as being relics of Old World culture, programs began exploring the complex nature of immigration and assimilation. Topics such as intermarriage, economic advancement, cultural hybridization, and religious observance became central themes as Jewish characters attempted to balance assimilation with tradition. This trend continued throughout the closing decades of the twentieth century, when the American Jewish experience garnered further attention and depth. The late 1980s and 1990s saw an explosion of Jewish depiction on television. With this drastic increase in depictions came an increase in portrayal depth and difference. Gone were disparate portraits of the eastern Jew and the assimilated and converted Jew. Instead, American Jewish culture received layered portrayals. The most prominent portrayals in the 1990s were of Jewish life and culture in New York City. The most famous of these was Seinfeld. Focused on a single Jewish comedian living in Manhattan, this show explores life in the city with the Jewishness of many of the characters serving as the backdrop for plot points. Through this, the show includes various representations of Jewish people and how modernity and religion interact in their lives. It also gives insight into Jewish culture, including language, lifestyle, and religious practices (Menkir 2016). Episode plots revolve around overtly Jewish themes such as delicatessens, Jewish foods such as challah or babka, kashrut laws and dietary practices, bar mitzvahs, retirement in South Florida, conversion to Judaism, and Jewish singles nights. The show treats these themes not as novelties or to add diversity, but rather as situations that are commonplace and relatable. Seinfeld represented a marked shift in treatment of Jewish characters, but it was far from the only show to demonstrate the vibrancy of Jewish culture in New York. The Nanny (1993–1999) featured Fran Drescher in the titular role, who was portrayed as a “New Yawk” accented, outrageously outfitted, yenta par excellence, stereotypical Jewish American woman working for an upper-class family in Manhattan. From this position, lead character Fran Fine was able to pass along



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elements of Jewish culture to the children she watched over, leaving an indelible mark on the family. She, however, was far from a single-layered caricature. Fine was a secular Jew with a connection to Jewishness that was strongly ethnic, rather than religious. She eschewed dietary laws, regular religious observance, and ultimately intermarried. Throughout all of this, Fine navigated cultural attachment with modern assimilation, which echoes the struggles that many American Jews navigate. Ultimately, Drescher later argued, Fine’s depiction in The Nanny served to alleviate the insecurities of Jewish women living in a dominantly White, Protestant, culture (Drescher 1994). Television in the 1990s also offered opportunities for the intricacies of Jewish life to be explored. Among these was the complex relationship between African Americans and Jews in the twentieth century. One episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990–2000) dealt with Black- Jewish relations, inspired by real-life events involving Louis Farrakhan and Leonard Jeffries. When a controversial speaker is invited to speak on a college campus by the Black student senate, ethnic conflict breaks out between Black students, who defended the speaker by citing the First Amendment, and Jewish students, including Andrea Zuckerman (Gabrielle Carteris), who is shown practicing her Judaism over multiple seasons, who decried the figure’s frequent anti-Semitism, ultimately causing bomb threats, rallies, and counterrallies. Similarly charged ethnic clashes erupted in episodes of the crime drama Law & Order (1990–2010), which were based on Farrakhan and the Crown Heights riots. These offered nuanced depictions of Jewish politics in the late twentieth century and explored the complex relationship between Jewishness and racial hierarchy, something unseen before the decade.

Jewish Defense League Attacks Bridget Loves Bernie The religious differences in Bridget Loves Bernie’s main characters caused the show to be controversial within the American Jewish community. Despite being one of the first in-depth portrayals of postwar Jewish culture, Jewish leaders decried the portrayal of mixed marriage. Executive Vice President of the (Conservative) Rabbinical Assembly Wolfe Kelman called the show “an insult to some of the most sacred values of both the Jewish and Catholic religions.” Similarly, the (Orthodox) Rabbinical Council urged Jews to refuse to watch the show and to send letters of protest to CBS. However, Meir Kahane and the Jewish Defense League moved beyond letter-writing and harsh critique in their protest of the show. According to the show’s lead actress Meredith Baxter, “We had bomb threats on the show. Some guys from the Jewish Defense League came to my house to say they wanted to talk with me about changing the show.” The show’s producer Ralph Riskin received numerous threatening phone calls, resulting in the arrest of JDL member Robert S. Manning. Further Reading “Jewish Groups Score New Tv Show for Intermarriage Theme.” The Jewish Daily Forward, October 24, 1972. “Producer Gets Threat Call.” Milwaukee Sentinel, January 19, 1973.

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With more complex portraits of secular Jewish life in America emerging in the latter three decades of the twentieth century, however, came controversy over how shows portrayed assimilation. Chief among these was the portrayal of intermarriage on American television. When ABC debuted the sitcom, Bridget Loves Bernie (1972–1973) in the fall of 1972, Catholic and Jewish organizations alike expressed outrage. The show’s titular characters were a Catholic schoolteacher and a Jewish cabdriver, respectively, who fall in love and marry. This scenario, however, played out at a time when intermarriage was still taboo in both communities. Jewish critics of the show argued that it “mock[ed] the teachings of Judaism and present[ed] intermarriage between Jews and Christians as a desirable end.” Several groups of rabbis, including the Synagogue Council of America, Rabbinical Assembly of America, and Union of Orthodox Congregations of America, petitioned CBS to remove the program. Before the show premiered, officials at CBS hired Jewish and Catholic clergy to serve as advisors and prevent the program from being offensive to viewers; however, it remained divisive throughout its run. Criticism of the show was not widespread, with one executive suggesting they received fewer than 200 letters of complaint, compared to the 6,000 letters received in protest that same year in response to a sitcom depicting abortion. The minority, however, was outspoken with some Jewish activists resorting to death threats in their efforts to get the show cancelled. Ultimately, CBS dropped Bridget Loves Bernie from its lineup after one season (Krebs 1973b). In the twenty-first century, however, assimilation has become far less controversial and vibrant secular Jewish life receives ample attention. Shows such as Nickelodeon’s teenage drama Unfabulous (2004–2007), ABC’s family comedy The Goldbergs, or the Amazon series Transparent (2014–2017) revolve around Jewish families who live primarily assimilated lives with cultural attachments peppered throughout the series. Other network sitcoms such as Will & Grace (1998–2006, 2017–2020), Friends (1994–2004), Big Bang Theory (2007–2019 ), New Girl (2011– 2018), Superstore (2015–), or the musical comedy Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (2015–2019) feature Jewish main characters whose Jewishness may be a fundamental piece of their identity but live overtly secular Jewish lives within large groups of non-Jewish peers. This is the most common portrayal of Jews on American television in the twenty-first century, as it allows shows to address Jewish themes when they wish to but are not hampered by depicting cultural lives that a majority of their viewing audience will not be familiar with.

ANTI-SEMITISM Perhaps the most common theme in the portrayals of Jews on television is anti-Semitism. Portrayals of anti-Semitism on television have been far from one-dimensional with depictions ranging from the genteel bigotry of restricted country clubs to the crude thuggery of modern-day neo-Nazis, from Christian anti-Judaism to modern-day Holocaust revisionism. As a reflector of reality, popular television has naturally taken on the issue of anti-Semitism. As shapers of



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social attitudes and behaviors, show writers ensured they depicted anti-Semitism as an ugly, abhorrent trait to be fought at every turn. The first strand of anti-Semitism often depicted on American television is that of anti-Jewish restrictions in businesses, particularly country clubs. This situation played out in episodes of both The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–1977) and The Golden Girls (1985–1992). In a 1972 episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Mary befriended an upper-class chic young woman named Joanne. This new friendship resulted in Mary neglecting her friendship with best friend Rhoda Morgenstern, who was Jewish. When Mary attempted to remedy this by inviting Rhoda to play tennis with her and Joanne, Joanne objected arguing that Rhoda was not the right type of person for the club. Understanding that this was an anti-Semitic reaction, Mary defiantly declared that she, too, was Jewish, ending her friendship with Joanne. Mary was not a Jewish character, but the act of non-Jews identifying as Jewish to fight anti-Semitism is often depicted on television as an homage to the actions of King Christian X of Denmark who, during the Holocaust, shielded the identity of Jews by having Danish citizens all wear the yellow badges that Jews were forced to wear. The Golden Girls paralleled this plotline in a 1988 episode of the show. In it, Dorothy, played by Bea Arthur, befriends an upscale woman, Barbara, and sets up a double date with her at an exclusive club to which Barbara is a member. When they discover that one of the men they are to go out with is Jewish, Barbara explains that the club is restricted and the man would not be allowed. As with Mary Tyler Moore’s character, Dorothy tells off her friend and storms out. Similar scenarios arose in a 1988 episode of the family drama Our House (1986–1988), in which a character is barred from a men’s club because he’s believed to be Jewish, and a 1989 episode of Doctor, Doctor (1989–1991), in which a Jewish doctor is barred from a prestigious men’s club. In both situations, non-Jewish characters rejected the soft anti-Semitism they confronted and stood up for Jewish characters in a situation in which they could not. Another type of subtle anti-Semitism depicted on many television programs is that of anti-Semitism on the part of in-laws. These depictions come in relation to discussions of interdating and intermarriage and deal with the rejection of a character’s suitor due to their Jewishness. In The Waltons (1972–1981), a Jewish girl begins dating one of the Walton sons and is met with stunned silence and an unwelcoming air. Similarly, in an episode of All in the Family (1971–1979), a Jewish groom-to-be is the target of anti-Semitic remarks from the bride’s family. As is often the case when these scenarios arise on television, these examples ended with the interfaith couple breaking up. Characters are often shaken by the animosity and differences revealed and become acutely aware of unresolved attitudes and religious gulfs between them. While these previous examples often indicated less overt feelings of resentment, depictions of violent anti-Semitism have also been commonplace on American television. One of the most historic and ongoing forms of anti-Semitic attack is vandalizing the symbols of Judaism, particularly synagogues and Torah scrolls. For shows wanting to approach the subject of anti-Semitism, it is a dramatic way of demonstrating the violence and potentially destructive power of anti-Semitism. Thus, it has been a fixture on American television since the early days of television.

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Police and law dramas, such as The Defenders (1961–1965), Adam-12 (1968– 1975), and Law & Order focus on the illegality of the act, depicting it as a crime more heinous than others. Resolution in the episode comes not only when the antagonists are held accountable for their actions but also often with Jewish characters receiving restitution in the form of repair or replacement of damaged items. These violent actions also often serve as a galvanizing moment that unites Jewish and non-Jewish characters. For example, in the episode of Archie Bunker’s Place (1979–1983) titled “Trashing of the Temple,” anti-Semitic violence befalls the local synagogue, to which Archie’s young Jewish niece, Stephanie, and Jewish partner, Murray Klein, belong. At first, the titular character refuses to involve himself in the affairs of the temple. When the attacks increase in severity, Archie’s horror at the sight of shattered glass, smoke rising from extinguished fires, and swastikas smeared on the doors compelled him to action and unites him with the Jewish characters to protect the synagogue. Similar scenarios played out in episodes of Ironside (1967–1975), in which a Torah is stolen and ransomed, prompting local churches to raise charity to pay the ransom for them, and Promised Land (1996–1999), in which a Christian family spearheads an effort to rebuild a vandalized synagogue. The non-Jews most often seen coming to the aid of Jews fighting anti-Semitism are members of the Christian clergy. Portraying clergy in this role lends moralistic credibility to the fight against anti-Semitism and impels viewers to view it as a Christian responsibility to come to the aid of Jews. In the aforementioned episode of Ironside, the preacher raising money for the synagogue insisted that it was his spiritual duty to stand up for the Jewish community. In a 1989 episode of Wiseguy (1987–1990), upon cleaning up and repairing a vandalized synagogue, a priest argues that it was the first time since becoming a priest that he “felt to [his] soul what made [him] become a priest.” Fighting against anti-Semitism represented a spiritual revival. In St. Elsewhere (1982–1988), a Catholic priest argued that fighting anti-Semitism was a show of spiritual strength and fortitude. In each instance, the clergy argues that the fight against anti-Semitism is inherent in being a good and moral Christian. This may reflect efforts on the part of the Christian community to redress age-old, Church-inspired persecution of the Jewish community (Pearl and Pearl 1999, 118). With an increase in focus on violent anti-Semitism came an increase in portrayals of neo-Nazis. Although not all anti-Semitic acts on television came at the hand of neo-Nazis, depictions were used to further extoll the evils of anti-Semitism. Neo-Nazis became the outward symbol of unmitigated hatred and an easy antagonist for Jewish characters. Portrayal of neo-Nazis on television began as early as the 1960s, as the American Nazi Party rose to prominence under the direction of George Lincoln Rockwell. A 1962 episode of The Defenders and a 1963 episode of Sam Benedict (1962–1963) both portrayed White supremacists committing acts of violence against Jews. In both episodes, the illegality of these acts is showcased, and characters are especially revulsed by the revival of Nazi ideology. These early portrayals, however, failed to overtly connect the antagonists with established American Nazism. Instead, they portrayed a generalized White supremacy and Nazi sympathy.



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By the 1970s, however, portrayals of neo-Nazism evolved and grew. Episodes of Dragnet (1967–1970) and Lou Grant (1977–1982) dove into motivations that drew members into neo-Nazi organizations, both attributing it to a general feeling of helplessness in their life. In these scenarios, neo-Nazism was reactionary and seemingly allowed the character to regain control over their life where they had previously felt they had none. Adam-12 attributed the motivations of neo-Nazis to criminality as a group of young men use Nazi imagery and symbols to intimidate elderly shopkeepers and extort money from them. In this portrayal, anti-Semitism takes a backseat to basic criminality as shows stressed their illegal actions. The 1970s also saw more realistic depictions of interactions with neo-Nazis. In a 1973 episode of All in the Family, neo-Nazis mistakenly paint a swastika on Archie Bunker’s house, believing it to be that of the Jewish Mr. Bloom. This is met by outrage from Jewish characters who desire to stand up against anti-Semitism, leading to the introduction of a militant Jewish defense organization. This story line resembled the real-life Jewish Defense League that reached its zenith in the early 1970s. The organization, started by Meir Kahane, sought to violently resist anti-Semitism and protect Jewish institutions from attack. This was clearly the inspiration for All in the Family as the Bunkers argue with the leaders of the Jewish defense organization over the efficacy of meeting violence with violence. Neo-Nazi attachment in the United States grew during the 1980s, with membership numbering in the thousands by 1988. This new wave of neo-Nazism attracted youth in the United States and co-opted cultural staples of Britain’s skinhead subculture. Portrayals of neo-Nazism reflected this demographic shift as well. On American television, skinheads became symbols of violence, racism, and bigotry. This shift was so pronounced that, for consumers of mainstream media, the term “skinhead” became virtually synonymous with the term Nazi, and images of young, White males with shaven heads represented vicious and violent racism. American media commonly utilizes this iconic image in everything from television programs and commercials to magazine ads and movies, reinforcing and strengthening its evocative power. The skinhead thus became one of America’s most recognizable images of contemporary malevolence (Marmysz 2013). The earliest portrayals of racist skinheads on American television were in crime dramas. The prison drama Oz (1997–2003) featured the skinhead gang the Aryan Brotherhood prominently. The Aryan Brotherhood often does not follow a singular racist ideology as it consists of members who belong to a range of groups outside of the American prison system, and many members recruited inside the prison are unaffiliated with any groups outside the prison walls. Instead, the Aryan Brotherhood is a means for White prisoners to organize in opposition to other prison gangs. Thus, their central ideology became attachment to the White race. Members signify this attachment through the tattooing of racist symbols, most often a swastika. In Oz several of the Aryan Brotherhood members have the Aryan Nations symbol tattooed on their bodies, which is often the first noticeable feature of newly introduced gang members. The cable drama about a California motorcycle gang, Sons of Anarchy (2008– 2014), likewise featured a skinhead gang based on, though not explicitly named, the Aryan Brotherhood. This group, the Nordics, mimic the Aryan Brotherhood

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in dress, cooption of Nazi imagery in tattoos, and shaven heads. Although a majority of the show is set away from prison, several scenes involving the gang demonstrate that the group maintains a strong prison presence and many activities of the gang center on incarcerated members. Finally, all three iterations of Law & Order contained multiple episodes featuring neo-Nazis and anti-Semitic White supremacists, particularly skinhead youth. In each episode, police investigate an initial act of violence as a hate crime, though typically not against Jewish victims. Instead, non-Jewish bystanders receive the brunt of violence further evoking outrage from the police, as it demonstrates the hypocrisy of White supremacist ideologies. During the subsequent arrest and trial, not only is the immediate aggressor prosecuted but also the district attorney opts in every case to prosecute the leaders of the organization, even if they were not directly involved in the violent act. Despite various courtroom theatrics, each episode ends with the skinheads and neo-Nazi leaders being convicted of a crime and justice being served (Alston 2010). In each of these cases, the criminality of neo-Nazi organizations is prominently featured. Instead of being solely devoted to racism and bigotry these groups often participate in other criminal activities such as drug trafficking, extortion, and racketeering. This ensures further rebuke from the viewer and emphasizes the deplorable nature of their ideological frameworks. THE HOLOCAUST The most common depiction of anti-Semitism on American television has been the depiction of the Holocaust. This is unsurprising, as no other event in modern history has shaped the trajectory of the Jewish people more than the destruction at the hand of Nazi Germany and its allies. Over the course of twelve years, two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population were killed or permanently displaced by Nazi aggression. Thus, the specter of the Holocaust looms large over any depiction of Jewish life and characterization. Although the best means of fully understanding the horrors and complexities of the Holocaust are best gleaned from the firsthand accounts and narratives of those who survived, the advent of popular media in the second half of the twentieth century ensures that how the Holocaust will be remembered depends increasingly on how it enters popular imagery. Thus, the portrayal of the Holocaust has been an increasingly important theme for television producers to deal with. Perhaps the most famous depiction of the horrors of the Holocaust on American television was the four-part miniseries Holocaust (1978). This miniseries chronicled the life and ultimate decimation at the hands of Nazis of a German Jewish family. The series was a monumental success and transcendent cultural moment from the start. Shortly after the series aired, Variety noted that “hardly a week goes by without hearing in the press and on the air, at mass rallies or kosher chicken dinners—about the Holocaust, as if the event had just been discovered” (Luft 1979, 10). The series was one of the most watched television programs in history, garnering half of the total viewing audience in many major cities, including New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, and its soaring popularity led to comparisons with the miniseries Roots. At the 30th Primetime Emmy Awards in 1978,



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the miniseries received sixteen nominations, more than double that of any other program, and won eight awards. NBC took every precaution to ensure that the lesson of genocide was indelibly imprinted in the minds of the hundreds of millions who watched and distributed more than a million study guides to various religious and educational institutions to accompany the miniseries. The series also strove to ensure that they accurately portrayed those complicit in the massacre of Europe’s Jews, including the United States, BBC, the Vatican, and Polish and Ukrainian civilians (Unger 1978, 16). The series traced the lives and differing fates of members of the German Jewish Weiss family and interweaves their tale with the rise of Nazi officer Eric Dorf up through the ranks of the Third Reich. In exploring the lives of these characters, the series explores the rise and fall of Nazism, Kristallnacht and the Nuremberg Laws, Jewish ghettos, concentration camps, and the gas chambers of Auschwitz, emphasizing the horror of each. The miniseries also included images of hope including Righteous Gentiles, non-Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust, often at risk to their own lives, Jewish Resistance, and pre-state Israel to counterbalance the atrocities. Rabbi Marc Tannenbaum, interreligious affairs director for the American Jewish Committee and consultant for the film, argued that the series was “a moral watershed event in the life of [the United States]” and that there was “an urgent lesson to be learned from this program because the central moral, human, [and] spiritual challenge facing humanity [was] the growing . . . indifference to human suffering” (qtd. in Unger 1978, 16). Others were celebratory lessons. According to Ruth Wisse (1978), “What viewers more modestly saw—the Holocaust According to Television—was pretty standard fare, two interlocking domestic dramas with a point of identification for every member of the family, from the oldest to the youngest, and an unusually rich natural vein of ‘terror and murder: of love and triumph.’” Still to this day, this series remains the benchmark by which we measure other shows that discuss the Holocaust. A few years after Holocaust, ABC followed with the miniseries The Winds of War (1983). Unlike Holocaust, The Winds of War was not singularly focused on the plight of European Jews. Instead, it was a sweeping drama of World War II that did offer a particular focus on the Holocaust. This miniseries interwove World War II military history with the story of two families: the non-Jewish naval family headed by Victor Henry (Robert Mitchum), and the Jastrows, who were Jewish. Although a central theme is the love story between the Jewish Aaron Jastrow (John Houseman) and Victor Henry’s niece Natalie (Ali MacGraw), the series uses this dynamic to discuss the rising tide of Nazism and the horrors visited upon the Jews of Europe. The series visits Poland for a wedding, where the shtetl, or Jewish village, is bombed by Nazi warplanes, and later travels to Minsk where it depicts the deportation and mass killing of Jews. Like Holocaust, The Winds of War became a useful tool for educators. The series offered an alternative to focusing primarily on biographical information of Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill, and others. For teachers and professors, the series helped visualize aspects of the Holocaust and added a dimension beyond what could be provided in written material. Further, the central love story in the series offered a continual hook to keep students interested in a way that textbooks alone could not (Lipinski 1983, D1).

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Building upon the success of Holocaust and The Winds of War, the 1980s and 1990s saw an increased interest on bringing the horrors of the Holocaust to an American television viewing audience. These depictions of the Holocaust arose primarily in movie form. The made-for-TV movie The Wall (1982), set in the Warsaw ghetto, dramatized Nazi atrocities including beatings, killings, and starvation; The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank (1988), focused not on the Frank family but the Dutch man who protected them, Miep Gies; Hidden in Silence (1996) centered on a Polish girl who befriended a Jewish family and strove to save them during the war; Charlie Grant’s War (1984) dramatized the story of a wealthy Canadian businessman working in Europe before the war who protested the treatment of Europe’s Jews; and the Escape from Sobibor (1987) dramatized the semi-successful escape attempt of six-hundred Jewish prisoners from the titular death camp (Pearl and Pearl 1999, 139–152). Aside from miniseries and episodes of anthology series, most of the depictions of the Holocaust on American television revolve around the experiences of Holocaust survivors and escaped Nazis. Episodes of Armstrong Circle Theatre (1950– 1963) and the miniseries QB VII (1974) focus on the postwar hunt for Nazis who escaped prosecution for their role in the Holocaust. In Armstrong Circle Theatre, the escaped Nazi in question was Adolf Eichmann, who stood trial in Jerusalem in 1960. Through the depiction of Eichmann’s (Frederick Rolf) rise to power and escape, the atrocities of the Holocaust came into detail, evoking ire from the viewer. QB VII took a more philosophical approach to discussing escaped Nazis by detailing the life of Dr. Adam Kelno (Anthony Hopkins), a non-Jewish Pole who was a prisoner doctor at the Jadwiga concentration camp. After the war, Kelno established a prominent practice in London and donated his services around the world in charitable missions. In telling Kelno’s story, the show discussed the possibility of reform and repentance by Nazis and whether they could escape the horrific acts of their pasts (Rogers 1970). In fiction, escaped Nazis and those who hunted them down were characters in a 1968 episode of The F.B.I. (1965–1974), in which a Nazi disguised himself as a Yiddish-speaking Jewish refugee, a 1981 episode of Magnum, P.I. (1980–1988), where Nazis posed as Israeli Nazi-hunters, and in the pilot move for Cagney and Lacey (1981–1988), where Nazis assumed the identity of Hasidic Jews working in New York’s diamond district. As time passed, depictions of Nazis-in-hiding focused less on the active process of hiding and more on the exposure of Nazis after decades spent living in the United States. Since the 1990s, numerous police procedurals, such as the Law & Order franchise, have dealt with the late exposure of Nazi war criminals. In these episodes, the Nazi is often depicted as having committed the episode’s central crime as a means for covering up their past and further details of past actions come to light during the trial in which they are almost always fully brought to justice. ISRAEL As shows increasingly depicted escaped Nazis in hiding, Israeli characters hunting Nazis increasingly appeared on American television. In the aforementioned



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episode of Armstrong Circle Theatre on Adolf Eichmann, Eichmann is brought back to Israel and stands trial. This dramatization detailed not only Eichmann’s capture and trial but illuminated viewers to Israel’s larger effort to capture escaped Nazis and bring them to trial. The pursuit of Eichmann was similarly profiled on the made-for-TV movie The House on Garibaldi Street (1979) and the made-for-cable movie The Man Who Captured Eichmann (1996). These movies not only focus on Eichmann, but they each profile Israeli operatives in various ways, portraying them as skilled military officers operating with the power of conscience and justice in their favor. The Man Who Captured Eichmann is particularly heavy in their positive portrayal of Israeli operatives as the movie was based on the book written by former the Israeli Mossad agent who personally captured Eichmann, Peter Malkin. Following the popularity of the Eichmann capture and trial in the United States, fictional dramas have likewise broached the subject of Israelis tracking down Nazis. A 1965 episode of Kraft Suspense Theatre (1963–1965), a 1967 episode of The Saint (1962–1969), and the made-for-TV movie Night Gallery (1969) each had stories of Israeli agents chasing escaped Nazis. Night Gallery took a different spin on the trope than others, as it focused on the ex-Nazi and the looming specter of being caught by Israel. A 1976 episode of Columbo (1968–1978) followed a similar trajectory in depicting an ex-Nazi who murders a Holocaust survivor out of fear of being turned over to Israel. The episode explores the fears of the ex-Nazi and the looming threat of capture in detail. Israeli Nazi hunters also appeared in episodes of Hawaii Five-O (1968–1980), Magnum, P.I., Quincy M.E. (1976–1983), and Trapper John, M.D. (1976–1986). On these shows, the Israeli agents are portrayed in a positive light. They are depicted as fervently dedicated to their missions, efficient, and ultimately successful. The main character of each show ultimately teams up with the Israeli to get justice and by the end they express admiration for the Israeli agents, sympathy for their mission, and contempt for the ex-Nazis. Aside from being Nazi hunters, Israeli operatives from Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence agency, have been a staple on American crime, military, and spy dramas. In the made-for-TV movie, C.A.T. Squad (1986), Mossad agents join U.S. officials in investigating the killing of an Israeli scientist. Throughout the movie, the two countries rely on each other heavily, which spoke to the strong diplomatic relationship the two countries held. Similarly, in an episode of Mancuso, FBI (1989–1990), Israeli and U.S. officials had to work together to solve the theft of weapons-grade plutonium from an American lab. A female Mossad agent was the lead character in the miniseries Brotherhood of the Rose (1989). Throughout the series, Mossad holds a role of primacy as it is suggested that CIA personnel are trained by the Mossad in Israel and that U.S. presidents are kept safe by guards carrying the Israeli firearm Uzi. Underlying Brotherhood of the Rose’s portrayal of a female Mossad agent is an added mystique of romance and invincibility. Having a woman in the role of a Mossad agent casts her as a femme fatale and adds to her allure and attraction to the audience. In modern television, this is best depicted in the show NCIS (2003–), in which a Mossad agent joins the investigation team as a liaison between Israeli

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and U.S. defense departments. The character, Ziva David (Cote de Pablo), is a Mossad spy and daughter of the organizations director who is assigned to the titular American organization, the Naval Criminal Investigation Service, for eight seasons. The character’s Jewish identity is rarely explored in the series, with writers opting instead to highlight her military prowess and acculturation to American culture. For the role, however, actress Cote De Pablo worked routinely with a Hebrew teacher to master her Hebrew lines and attempted to lend a bit of authenticity to her portrayal (Tugend 2007). Her character, however, lacks depth beyond the exotic nature of being Israeli. Depictions of Israelis on American television grew exponentially with the advent of streaming video services. Since 2010, numerous American streaming services bought the rights to broadcast Israeli television shows to an American audience, including Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu. Popular Israeli shows such as Fauda (2015–), a military drama following an elite unit within the Israeli Defense Forces, or Srugim (2008–2012), a drama about Orthodox singles, have attained large American audiences and followings. Other Israeli shows, such as Hatufim (2009–2012) and Bnei Aruba (2013–2016) amassed such a large following with American viewing audiences, that American networks created their own shows based on them. These shows offer American viewers what American shows have failed to offer, well-rounded depictions of Israeli culture not solely focused on war and espionage. Through these programs, American audiences glean a picture of life in Israel and Jewish cultural practices that are often lacking on traditional American television. On modern American television, Jewish characters often receive vibrant and nuanced portrayals. Whether Jewish deal with religious rights, assimilation, anti-Semitism, or cultural attachment, modern American television offers Jewish characters depth and exposes American audiences to a culture they may not otherwise be exposed to. Timothy R. Riggio Quevillon Further Reading

Alston, Joshua. 2010. “Skinheads on TV.” Newsweek, March 11. ­http://​­w ww​.­newsweek​ .­com ​/­skinheads​-­t v​- ­69221. Drescher, Fran. 1994. “‘The Nanny’ Is Jewish and Proud of It.” Los Angeles Times, May 9. ­http://​­articles​.­latimes​.­com​/­1994​- ­05​- ­09​/­entertainment​/­ca​-­55542​_1​_fran​-­fine. Elkin, Michael. 1995. “Four Questions for Creator of ‘Rugrats’: Cartoon Series Offers a Passover Plot for the Younger Set,” Jewish Exponent, April 14. Fahy, Thomas. 2007. Considering David Chase: Essays on The Rockford Files, Northern Exposure and The Sopranos. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Gertel, Elliot. 1989. “‘Teddy Z’ Offends Jewish Viewers.” Indianapolis Jewish Post, December 27. Krebs, Alan. 1973a. “‘Bridget Loves Bernie’ Attacked by Jewish Groups.” New York Times, February 7. ­https://​­w ww​.­nytimes​.­com​/­1973​/­02​/­07​/­archives​/ ­bridget​-­loves​ -­bernie​-­attacked​-­by​-­jewish​-­groups​.­html. Krebs, Alan. 1973b. “‘Bridget Loves Bernie’ Dropped from C.B.S. Schedule for Fall.” New York Times, March 30. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­1973​/­03​/­30​/­archives​/-­bridget​ -­loves​-­bernie​-­dropped​-­from​-­cbs​-­schedule​-­for​-­fall​.­html.



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Lipinski, Ann Marie. 1983. “‘Winds’ and TV: Alternative to Going by the History Book.” Chicago Tribune, February 9. Luft, Herbert G. 1979. “‘Holocaust’ Spawns History Lesson, Seminars, World-wide Apologia—35 Years Late,” Variety, January 3. Marmysz, Alex. 2013. “The Lure of the Mob: Contemporary Cinematic Depictions of Skinhead Authenticity.” Journal of Popular Culture 46 (3): 626–646. McNeill, Alex. 1996. Total Television: The Comprehensive Guide to Programming from 1948 to the Present. 4th ed. New York: Penguin. Menkir, Abigia. 2016. “‘Yada Yada’ — How Seinfeld Took Jewish Culture Mainstream.” Medium, November 13. https://medium.com/@omegamenkir/yada-yada-howseinfeld-took-jewish-culture-mainstream-64adfc25dcbe. Pearl, Jonathan, and Judith Pearl. 1999. The Chosen Image: Television’s Portrayal of Jewish Themes and Characters. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Rogers, W. G. 1970. “Dr. Adam Kelno: Hero or Villain?” New York Times, November 15. ­https://​­w ww​.­nytimes​.­com ​/­1970​/­11​/­15​/­archives​/­d r​-­adam​-­kelno​-­hero​-­or​-­villain​-­qb​ -­vii​.­html. Sachar, Howard M. 1993. A History of the Jews in America. New York: Vintage Books. Stern, Marissa. 2016. “‘A Rugrats Chanukah’ 20 Years Later.” The Jewish Exponent, December 28. ­http://​­jewishexponent​.­com​/­2016​/­12​/­28​/­r ugrats​-­chanukah​-­20​-­years​ -­later​/. Tanenbaum, Gil. 2016. “When The Goldbergs Finally Celebrated Hanukkah (Or, Isn’t It about Time We Had Realistic Portrayals of Jews on TV?)” Jewlicious, December 29. ­http://​­jewlicious​.­com​/­2015​/­12​/­the​-­goldbergs​-­finally​-­celebrate​-­hanukkah​/. Tugend, Tom. 2007. “‘NCIS’ Mossad Agent’s Cover Gets Blown—She’s Chilean.” Jewish Journal, March 16. ­http://​­jewishjournal​.­com​/­culture​/­arts​/­14578​/. Unger, Arthur. 1978. “‘Holocaust’—History’s Lessons.” Christian Science Monitor, April 17. Willis, Adam. 2003. “Krusty’s Adult Bar Mitzvah.” Los Angeles Jewish Journal, December 4. ­http://​­jewishjournal​.­com ​/­culture​/­religion ​/­up ​_front​/­8809​/. Wisse, Ruth. 1978. “The Anxious American Jew.” Commentary, September. ­https://​­w ww​ .­commentarymagazine​.­com​/­articles​/­r uth​-­wisse​/­the​-­anxious​-­american​-­jew​/. Zurawik, David. 2003. The Jews of Prime Time. Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press.

Jones, James Earl(1931–) Born in rural Mississippi in 1931 to Ruth Connolly and actor Robert Earl Jones (The Sting, 1973; Trading Places, 1983), Jones went on to win multiple Tony Awards including one for Lifetime Achievement. With close to two hundred film and television credits, he has been granted Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Screen Actors Guild and the Motion Picture Academy Award (Oscars). Jones left University of Michigan early to study at New York’s American Theatre Wing with the legendary Lee Strasberg. Jones debuted in the Broadway ensemble of Sunrise at Campobello in 1959, but the unprecedented four-year run of Jean Genet’s avant-garde play The Blacks—with Cicely Tyson and Roscoe Lee Brown—firmly established Jones. He remarked, “It was the first time that a large number of black actors were asked to render a complex play” (qtd. in Gill 2000, 178). By 1963, Jones was starring as Othello for the New York Shakespeare Festival.

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A pre-med major, ironically Jones’s early TV roles were as doctors, including on the Channing (1963–1964) in 1964, The Guiding Light (1952–2009) in 1966, and As the World Turns (1956–2010) in 1968; from 1962 to 1964, he played Dr. Lou Rush on the prime-time series Dr. Kildare (1961). Jones’s first movie role was a small but standout part in Stanley Kubrick’s Cold War classic, Dr. Strangelove (1964). By 1969, Jones was the winner of a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination for the lead in The Great White Hope, a role he played on Broadway and for which he had won the 1969 Tony Award for Best Actor. More leading roles followed in films, such as The Man (1972), Claudine (1972), The River Niger (1976), and Piece of the Action (1977)—and in long-form television, including Alex Haley in Roots: The Next Generation (1977), Robeson in Paul Robeson (1979), Vernon Johns in The Vernon Johns Story (1994), Lear in King Lear (1974) to name only a few. James Earl Jones has appeared in forty television movies and miniseries. Prolific producer Steven Bochco (NYPD Blue) created the cop series Paris (1979– 1980) for Jones, but it suffered in the ratings; Bochco felt it was because audiences were unwilling to accept a Black character in authority over whites. Nonetheless, Jones triumphed on stage and screen throughout the 1980s, winning a second Tony Award for his colossal performance as Troy Maxson in the Pulitzer Prize winning play Fences (1987–1988), directed by Lloyd Richards. Jones played “Few Clothes” in John Sayles’s gripping Depression-era saga Matewan (1987), King Jaffe in Coming to America (1988), principle roles in Field of Dreams (1989) and Hunt for Red October (1990), and voiced Darth Vader in multiple Star Wars movies. In the sterling TV series Gabriel’s Fire (1990–1992), Jones played Gabriel Bird, a former cop, twenty years into a life-sentence for shooting his corrupt partner, who descends into existential crisis when he is unexpectedly released. Jones won the 1991 Emmy for Best Actor in a Drama for this role. He also won a second Emmy Award that same year for Best Supporting Actor in the Watts Riot TV movie, Heat Wave (Mills 1991, C1). The Wall Street Journal called Jones’s performance as a retired patriarch— whose children, grandchildren, and foster child share his rambling Seattle house—in Under One Roof (1995) “marvelous to behold. So were most of the other performances, not least that of Joe Morton, who plays Neb’s son” (Rabinowitz 1995, A12). The reviewer predicted that there would be “complaints that this portrait of a middle-class family isn’t sufficiently representative of blacks.” And indeed, it was cancelled after six episodes. Thankfully, Black-owned network TV One rescued James Earl Jones’s Emmy-nominated performance from obscurity via syndication in 2004 (“TV One” 2004). Few Black actors have traversed from the Broadway stage—starring in both classical and groundbreaking new works—to the big and small screens, with the mastery and frequency of James Earl Jones. He humbly remarked once that “there are no great actors” only “actors who sometimes do great work” (qtd. in Gill 2014, 181). With thousands of stage performances, close to 200 screen roles, and the rare Triple Crown of Lifetime Achievement Awards for acting—Tony, Emmy, and Oscar—James Earl Jones has done great work, a great many times. His body of work is a legacy and a beacon of the possibilities that future artists can achieve. Dianah E. Wynter



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Further Reading

Gill, G. E. 2014. No Surrender! No Retreat! African-American Pioneer Performers of 20th Century American Theater. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Jones, James Earl, and Penelope Niven. 1994. James Earl Jones: Voices and Silences. New York: Simon & Schuster. Mills, David. 1991. “Emmys to ‘Cheers’ and ‘L.A. Law’; James Earl Jones Wins for ‘Gabriel’s Fire’ and ‘Heat Wave.’” The Washington Post, August 26, C1. Rabinowitz, Dorothy. 1995. “TV: Keeping up with the Joneses.” Wall Street Journal, March 20, A12. “TV Guide Editors Pick Stand-outs in ‘Downright Exciting’ TV Season; James Earl Jones in ABC’s ‘Gabriel’s Fire’ Is Favorite.” 1990. PR Newswire, September 7. “TV One, New Network Targeting African American Adults, Will Launch on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday.” 2004. PR Newswire, 1.

Julia(1968–1972) For only the second time in history, an African American woman starred in a television show as the lead character. Airing from 1968 to 1972, Julia, starring Diahann Carroll, who had previously starred in several Hollywood blockbusters, including Carmen Jones (1954), Porgy and Bess (1959), and Claudine (1974), brought a story unseen with its predecessors. Unlike previous shows, including Beulah (1950–1953), the lone previous showing starring a Black woman, Julia brought a story of a middle-class Black women raising her son, Corey (Marc Copage) in Los Angeles. Following the death of her husband during the Vietnam War, Julia Baker takes a job as a nurse at an aerospace company, where she works alongside of Dr. Morton Chegley (Lloyd Nolan). The show focuses on her work experiences; her relationship with her neighbors, the Waggerdorns—Len (Hank Brandt), Marie (Betty Beaird), and son, Earl (Michael Link); her life as a single woman, including two different romantic relationships with Steve Bruce (Fred Williamson) and Paul Cameron (Paul Winfield); and her dedication and devotion to her son. According to Donald Bogle, the late 1960s were marked by an increased visibility for Black actors on television shows that went to great lengths to avoid and erase race. In shows like I-Spy (1965–1968), Star Trek (1966–1969), and Mission Impossible (1966–1973), Black actors appeared in contexts, narratives, and through representations that distanced representations from the racial politics of the moment. While Julia told the story of a single Black mother living in Los Angeles, in some respects, it followed the lead of these other shows in avoiding racial issues. “Julia made no pretense of dealing with contemporary social issues. Indeed, it studiously avoided them,” writes J. Fred MacDonald (1992). “A weekly visit with the Bakers involved the same simple problems encouraged for decades on such shows as I Love Lucy, Family Affair, and the Donna Reed Show” (124). In other words, refusing to be “topical” (MacDonald 1992, 124) or otherwise engaging the pressing racial issues of the moment, Julia sought universal story lines that rarely referenced race at all. With rare exceptions, Julia’s blackness was virtually never

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mentioned; the larger social, political, and racial context (the Black Power movement, protests surrounding police brutality, affirmative action, persistent racist stereotypes in the media) were totally absent from the show. For some critics and viewers, the show offered an “overly integrated fantasy projection,” a story about a “white negro” (MacDonald 1992, 124) that did little to shine a spotlight on persistent inequalities within America. Even when the show highlighted racism, it did so through story lines where the prejudices of older White men were ultimately insignificant because of the hard work or persistence of Julia or through the kindness of other White characters. In the end, racism did not impact her life or the opportunities afforded to her or her family. “The problem was that Julia worked very hard to show that its central character had transcended racism and cultural differences,” wrote Donald Bogle (2002). “America, too, the series said, had transcended such matters. Julia spoke the right way, dressed the right way, behaved the right way, thought the right way, and even looked the right way” (150). In other words, integration and Black success was not only possible but inevitable so long as African Americans worked hard, embraced the right values and morals, and otherwise pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. The criticisms against Julia were not limited to its “post-racial” narratives. Other critics questioned its reinforcement of long-standing stereotypes about Black women as little more than single-black mothers. Still others saw Julia as a powerful intervention against a history of television, where African Americans were routinely represented as inferior, uncivilized, and the source of laughter and jokes. It challenged a history of erasure and dehumanization—one that gave voice to stereotypes that were routinely used to normalize and justify inequality and discrimination. There was much to praise in the show. Julia powerfully gave voice to the Black middle-class experience. “What captured my attention was Julia herself,” noted Diahann Carroll. “Julia’s conversations with her son reflected many of the same middle-class attitudes toward everything I experienced in my own childhood. I could relate to that very easily” (Bogle 2001, 151). Its challenge to long-standing stereotypes, its embrace of conventional sitcom plotlines and humor, and its centering of a middle-class black family simply living a “normal life” provided African Americans with a show that was nonexistent on television: an escape. A review in the New York Daily News, like one that appeared in Ebony, which celebrated Julia for offering a show unseen in the history of African Americans on television, praised the show for providing joy in a moment of tension and frustration. “For years, we’ve been looking at escapism television. So why, when a Negro actress is starred in the same kind of a series does she suddenly have to carry the weight of the whole question on her delicate shoulders” (Bogle 2001, 144). While the source of countless debates about the role of Black television, about representations, and about the responsibilities of Black artists to give voice to the ongoing struggles for racial justice, Julia was celebrated with several different awards. It received four Emmy nominations, including outstanding comedy series in 1970. Reflecting the strength of her performance and the importance of Carroll’s



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portrayal of Julia Baker, she too was recognized. In 1969, she was awarded a Golden Globe as Best TV Star, and in 1970, she earned a Best TV Actress nomination from the Golden Globes. It remains an important moment in history because it demonstrates the challenges and stakes for African Americans and other communities of color on television. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Acham, Christine. 2005. Revolution Televised: Prime Time and the Struggle for Black Power. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Bogle, Donald. 1988. Blacks in American Films and Television: An Illustrated Encyclopedia. New York: Garland. Bogle, Donald. 2001. Primetime Blues: African Americans on Network Television. New York: Farrar, Straus and ­Giroux​.­MacDonald, J. Fred. 1992. Blacks and White TV: African Americans in Television since 1948. 2nd ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing. Thompson, Krissah. 2017. “A Starlet of the Civil Rights Era, Diahann Carroll Looks Back on a Career of Firsts.” Washington Post, July 17. ­https://​­w ww​.­washingtonpost​.­com​ /­lifestyle​/­style​/­a​-­starlet​-­of​-­the​-­civil​-­r ights​-­era​-­diahann​-­carroll​-­looks​-­back​-­on​-­a​ -­career​- ­of​-­fi rsts​/­2017​/­07​/­17​/­c037251e​- ­6 b07​-­11e7​-­96ab​-­5f38140b38cc​_ story​.­html​ ?­utm​_term​=​.­ee8af42987e2.

K Keeping Up with the Kardashians(2007–) Keeping Up with the Kardashians (KUWTK) (2007–) is an American reality television series that first aired in October 2007 on the E! Entertainment Television channel. The weekly Sunday night program originally featured: Olympic medalist Bruce Jenner (who transitioned to Caitlyn Jenner in 2015), and then wife, Kris Jenner, along with their two daughters, Kendall and Kylie Jenner, and Kris’s children, Kourtney, Kim, Khloé, and Robert Kardashian Jr., from her previous marriage with the late Robert Kardashian. A product of Ryan Seacrest Productions and Bunim-Murray Productions, the leading production companies at E! Entertainment Television channel, the series was created to highlight the Kardashian and Jenner blended family as a “modern-day Brady bunch” (Keeping Up with the Kardashians, 2007–). As one of the longest running reality series to date, the reality television format of the series offers viewers a taste of what it is like to be a part of the Kardashian-Jenner family. Some critics have lamented the show as pointless and emblematic of a culture that creates celebrities. Others, like Josh Duboff, author of “12 Seasons Later, Keeping Up with the Kardashians Is Perhaps More Important to the Kardashian Machine than Ever” maintains, “It’s hard to think of any pop-cultural force that has maintained a hold on the public fascination as wholly and pervasively for this sustained period of time as Kim, Kourtney, Khloé, Kylie, Kendall, Rob, Kris, and Caitlyn have” (2016). Despite the disparate views about the show, the series has remained popular with audiences. KUWTK was an early pioneer in the slew of reality televisions programs that focused on ordinary and extraordinary people. The fact that the Kardashian-Jenner family is blended both in marriage and ethnic background was initially a novelty. The series’ initial episode fittingly titled “I’m Watching You” offered the viewer a rare glimpse into the Kardashian-Jenner household. This rare glimpse in the first episode showed the Kardashian-Jenners mingling in their living room in Calabasas, California, a scene that has become a staple in the series format no matter whose house they are in. The first season was made up of eight episodes; more recent seasons have doubled the number of episodes. The series began pre-social-media explosion, before the sisters could post photos about their whereabouts, offering an even more intimate glimpse for their followers. At its core, the series remains loyal to familial relations, focusing on the Kardashian-Jenner siblings and now their own children. Its cultural importance also transcends the tabloids and celebrity culture in ­providing representation to the Armenian-American community otherwise unavailable within media culture. The Kardashian sisters and Robert are part Armenian

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from their father’s side, the late Robert Kardashian. Although some people ignore the Kardashian’s Armenian background, seeing them as white, their Armenian background does play a role in their life. An online search of the Kardashians with “Armenian” reveals news media coverage of the Kardashians as “proud of their Armenian roots” (Huffington Post 2012). Every year on April 24, the Kardashian sisters take to their social media accounts to “send a serious message” to their followers concerning the acknowledgment of the Armenian genocide (Huffington Post 2012). The mass killing of approximately one and a half million Armenian people occurred in 1915 when they were relocated during present-day Turkey’s “fight for independence” (Weinberg 2015). This remains controversial due to the fact that Turkey does not recognize the event as a genocide and continues to argue that the killings were “not an Ottoman policy of ethnic-driven genocide,” while there are some people, like the Kardashians, who strongly maintain that it was genocide. In May 2014, Kim Kardashian made an appearance at a gala that supports research on Holocaust survivors that has also “acknowledged 400 Armenian genocide survivors and gotten their testimony,” where she stated, “‘I am here because I have been really passionate about getting people to acknowledge the Armenian genocide,’ adding that she was there to ‘represent the Armenians’” (qtd. in Rothman 2014). In April 2015, Kim Kardashian and her husband Kanye West, along with daughter, North West, and Khloé Kardashian, visited Armenia for the first time. Their trip was planned around the centennial anniversary of the Armenian genocide. In the latter part of 2015, KUWTK dedicated a two-part special, “Mother Armenia” and “It Feels Good to be Home,” to their trip. During their trip, they visited an ancestral home, an art school, learned more about their ancestry, and visited the Armenian Genocide memorial complex in the capital city of Yerevan. Over the years, the show has focused on Kris Jenner’s role as “momager” (a mom who is both mom and manager to her children) and her focus on creating opportunities for her children. From the start, the show’s narrative has highlighted Kris’s role in steering their careers toward ample success and opportunities

The Selfie Queen: Kim Kardashian Kim Kardashian West is an Armenian American reality star and businesswoman. Her reign as the selfie queen came very early on in her career when she was first spotted with socialite Paris Hilton in the mid-2000s. While some people will always associate her with the sex tape scandal, Kim Kardashian sought to define her career in other terms. Her part of the Kardashian brand expanded and multiplied with her modeling, her involvement with the fashion industry, and her marriage to rapper and designer Kanye West in 2013. More important, her lucrative video game that brought her millions of dollars in 2014 has elevated her presence in popular culture. In 2015, she published a book full of her selfies, appropriately titled Selfish. In 2016, she began to rebrand herself through a relaunch of her personal website that now requires users to purchase a monthly subscription for exclusive content curated by Kim. In the same year she released the “Kimoji” phone application that gives users the opportunity to use Kim Kardashian inspired emoji in their text messages.



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beyond the show. The Kardashian sisters and Rob, along with their half younger sisters, Kendall and Kylie Jenner have all built business enterprises, or what news media outlets have often called their “empire” beyond the show. The Kardashian sisters embarked on their retail journey in 2006 with Dash, a boutique store that sells high-end clothing and has grown to multiple locations. Since then, the sisters now own make-up and hair product enterprises called Kardashian Beauty, clothing lines for children called Kardashian Kids, and for women, Kardashian Kollection, in addition to outside sponsorships for diet and clothing companies. The youngest sisters, Kendall and Kylie are not far behind as business women. Kendall is a model and Kylie owns her own make-up line. In 2012, Rob Kardashian founded Arthur George, a sock company that includes popular slogans on the sole of the feet. The success and popularity of Keeping Up with the Kardashians led to multiple spin-offs (Kourtney and Kim Take Miami and Kourtney and Kim Take New York) that focus on Kardashian sisters’ jet-setting from coast to coast, opening up boutique stores, laying out in their bikinis, and living their lives. I am Cait showcased the everyday realities of Caitlyn Jenner, introducing her to the world while trying to give voice to the experiences of a transgender woman (the show was cancelled in 2016). Another spin-off—“Rob and Chyna” (2016)—focused on the relationship of Robert Kardashian Jr. and his then fiancé Black Chyna (Malec 2016). The importance of the show transcends its dominance on the E Network, the visibility of Kardashians within media culture, and the economic influence throughout society. Keeping Up with the Kardashians elevated reality TV and its role within celebrity culture, expanding the visibility of Armenian Americans and redefining the definition of family amid the spectacle that is the world of the Kardashians. Lucia Soriano Further Reading

Duboff, Josh. 2016. “12 Seasons Later, Keeping Up with the Kardashians Is Perhaps More Important to the Kardashian Machine than Ever.” Vanity Fair, May 1. ­https://​­w ww​ .­vanityfair​.­com ​/ ­hollywood ​/­2016​/­04​/ ­keeping​-­up​-­with​-­the​-­kardashians​-­season​-­12​ -­premiere​-­review. Huffington Post. 2012. “Kim Kardashian Tweets about the Armenian Genocide.” Huffington Post, April 24. ­http://​­www​.­huffingtonpost​.­com​/­2012​/­04​/­24​/ ­kim​-­kardashian​ -­t weets​-­armenian​-­genocide​_n​_1448805​.­html. Malec, Brett. 2016. “Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna to Star in New E! Series Rob & Chyna! Plus, a Special on the Birth of Their Baby.” E! News, June 1. ­http://​­www​ .­eonline​.­com​/­shows​/­rob​_and​_chyna​/­news​/­769320​/­rob​-­kardashian​-­and​-­blac​-­chyna​ -­to​-­star​-­in​-­new​-­e​-­series​-­rob​-­chyna​-­plus​-­a​-­special​-­on​-­the​-­birth​-­of​-­their​-­baby. Rothman, Michael. 2014. “Kim Kardashian Talks about ‘Getting People to Acknowledge’ Armenian Genocide.” ABC News, May 9. ­http://​­abcnews​.­go​.­com​/ ­Entertainment​ / ­k im​ -­k ardashian​ -­t alks​ -­p eople​ -­a cknowledge​ -­a rmenian​ -­g enocide​ /­s tory​ ?­i d​ =​ ­23654881. Weinberg, Ali. 2015. “Kardashians Visit Armenia, Call for Genocide Recognition.” ABC News, April 15. ­http://​­abcnews​.­go​.­com​/­International​/ ­kardashians​-­visit​-­armenia​ -­call​-­genocide​-­recognition​/­story​?­id​=​­30288521.

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Kenan & Kel(1996–2000) Kenan & Kel was a situational comedy marketed toward children and teenagers that aired on the Nickelodeon network. The show starred African American actors Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell as Kenan Rockmore and Kel Kimble, two young teenagers who lived in a lower-class neighborhood located in Chicago, Illinois. Rockmore is a high-school aged teenager whose best friend is Kel Kimble. The show utilizes a traditional half-hour, situational comedy structure. The run of the show reached four seasons and totaled sixty-two half-hour long episodes and a television movie, entitled Two Heads Are Better than None (2000). Kim Bass, who had previously helped create another Black-led television comedy entitled Sister, Sister (1994–1999), and Dan Schneider, who had created a number of shows for the Nickelodeon network, created Kenan & Kel. The creation and production of Kenan & Kel was developed in a process that Nickelodeon embraced with all its new shows. As journalist Lawrie Mifflin (1997) found, Nickelodeon brought in children’s opinions while creating their shows. These children would be asked what they liked to see on television, and Nickelodeon used them as focus groups for pilot shows. Going even further, the company would be sure to bring in a large number of children of color in an effort to get a diversity of opinion. Nickelodeon became one of the most diverse networks on television, with a number of shows centering on people of color and women. Kenan & Kel would be part of Nickelodeon’s embrace of diversity. However, this push was not a political one, at least according to the executives of the Nickelodeon network. As Ellen Seiter and Vicki Mayer (2004, 126) found in their study on the issue, Nickelodeon’s model for diversity was less interested in taking a stance, but rather a push for celebrating differences. Mitchell and Thompson had previously worked together, gaining the attention from fans for their performance on All That (1994–2005), a Nickelodeon variety show program. In All That, Rockmore serves as the “straight man,” while Kimble is the goofy one of the two. Throughout the show’s run, the duo would find themselves in humorous yet universal situations, including those focused on school, dating, work, and family life. Within the series’ stories, Kenan & Kel did little to directly address racial issues. While no episode dealt directly with race or ethnicity, its place on television could not avoid the larger discussions about racial representations and diversity. Some critics argued the show was a contemporary version of Amos ‘n’ Andy (1951–1953), in which African American are portrayed as being buffoons. Yet others highlighted how the show represented a shift in television programming, whereupon Nickelodeon was embracing stories centering on characters of color. Still others questioned the ways that Kenan & Kel represented racial identity, culture, and diversity. Sarah Banet-Weiser (2007, 158–160) concluded that the performances on Kenan & Kel were neither what she terms as “white performances” or racialized performances. Rather than telling stories specific to the African American community, the show used plots and themes connected to the experiences of young, lower-class, city-dwellers that cut across racial lines. Yet, the show sought to include the aesthetics and markers associated with “blackness” as a means to differentiate its story line



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from others. The show’s use of Black cultural “relevance, hip-hop theme, and the diverse cast” was utilized in honing this message. However, this use of multiculturalism was not meant to push forth any political messages. According to Banet-Weiser, Kenan & Kel’s failure to address race and racism embodies Nickelodeon’s consumerist practices. Multiculturalism and the celebration of diversity was seen as positive in the eyes of many viewers, but it never had to go any further than representation. Kenan & Kel won a variety of awards throughout its four-year run, receiving a nomination from the Director’s Guild of America in 1998. It also won a number of the Nickelodeon-created Kid’s Choice Awards; Mitchell won the 1997 CableACE Award for Best Actor in a Comedy Series. Despite criticism of the show’s representations, it received nominations multiple times from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People as part of its Image Awards. The show was nominated both in 1999 and in 2000 for Outstanding Youth or Children’s Series, and both Mitchell and Thompson were nominated for their performance in the same category. Kenan & Kel’s legacy extends beyond its four-year run. As part of Nickelodeon’s multicultural turn, it ushered in a new era for the network as well as children’s television as a whole. It also launched the careers of both Thompson and Mitchell. Mitchell would go on to appear in several lesser known movies and television shows. In 2003, Thompson began working on Saturday Night Live and, as of 2017, is the longest serving black cast member of the show; he is tied for the longest tenured-cast member in the show’s history. Daniel D. Cooley Further Reading

Banet-Weiser, Susan. 2007. Kids Rule! Nickelodeon and Consumer Citizenship. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Mifflin, Lawrie. 1997. “Cover Story; When Grown-ups Let Children Have a Say.” New York Times, November 30. ­http://​­w ww​.­nytimes​.­com​/­1997​/­11​/­30​/­t v​/­cover​-­story​ -­when​-­grown​-­ups​-­let​-­children​-­have​-­a​-­say​.­html. Seiter, Ellen, and Vicki Mayer. 2004. “Diversifying Representation in Children’s TV: Nickelodeon’s Model.” In Nickelodeon Nation: The History, Politics, and Economics of America’s Only TV Channel for Kids, edited by Heather Hendershot, 120–133. New York: New York University Press.

Key & Peele(2012–2015) Key & Peele is a sketch comedy show on Comedy Central created by and starring Kegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele. Airing from 2012 to 2015, the show might be thought of as the successor to Dave Chappelle’s Chappelle’s Show (2003–2006), and David Alan Grier’s Chocolate News (2008), as a sketch comedy show that was both created by and starring Black men offering comedic takes on society that are heavily impacted by race and racism. Similar to the shows of Chappelle and Grier, a large number of sketches on Key & Peele are attentive to the ways in which the concept of race and practices of racism impact society through cultural practices,

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assumptions, and stereotypes. Unlike their predecessors, both Key and Peele’s self-proclaimed biracial identity invites exploration of racial ambiguity and racial passing in various ways throughout the show as they often portray characters of varied racial and ethnic backgrounds, opening up sketches to a wide range of race-based comedic commentary. The first three seasons of Key & Peele involved a studio audience portion where the duo talked through a concept that was in some way related to the next sketch that would follow. These interactive audience moments were often opportunities to talk about and joke on racially charged content. The debut episode begins with a short sketch where two unnamed characters are having separate conversations on the phone, but immediately switch their tone and style to sound Black when in the presence of another Black person for the sake of passing and social acceptance. Following the sketch, the two continue the conversation of racial passing as they joke around their biracial identity, stating that they often have to adjust their performances of blackness to match any given context, which in many occasions turns into a blackness competition. The blended sketch and stand-up format allowed for a complementary approach to racial joke creation, as it allowed the show opportunities to explore numerous race-based concepts through the artistic display of the sketch matched with the straightforward aspect of the stand-up. The last two seasons moved away from the studio audience setup and opted for scenes of both Key and Peele driving down a two-lane highway while having conversations that, like their stand-up routines from previous seasons, comedically contemplated a concept that would be further explored through their sketches. Like the stand-up routines, these road trip scenes would often think through a concept, joking through some of the nuances of a racially or ethnically charged topic that would serve as the foundation for the upcoming sketch. The series finale, for example, includes a road-trip scene where Key and Peele contemplate what a Black America would look like, a conversation which is followed by a sketch where a young black man who is unfairly arrested by a white police officer is magically transported to a Black utopia titled “Negrotown.” Most of the punchlines within this skit call out the ways in which black people suffer through both micro and macroaggressions within American society. Yet, as Wesley Morris notes, the sketch illustrates an awareness of the impossibility for such a space for blackness to exist in America through the clear synthetic studio backlot setup and 1940s Hollywood performative aspect, and communicates this aspect at the end when the young Black man wakes up and finds that the actual “Negrotown” that he will be going to is jail (2015). Morris notices the complexity of communicating a message through comedy, stating that while the jokes would make one cry with laughter, they’ll also make you cry with sadness, “because if you’re in Negrotown, you’re also in a special ring of hell” (2015). The commentary followed by sketch format invites some of these complexities as it invites viewers to think through multiple aspects of the topic with the comedy making it digestible. While race and ethnicity are not the only concepts explored within Key & Peele, they are the basis for the show’s more prominent and popular sketches, a result of the duo’s preference toward racial parody and their ability to build racially sensitive characters. One central character who helped gain the show some notoriety was Key’s



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portrayal of Mr. Garvey, a substitute teacher who spent twenty years teaching in the inner city but finds himself subbing in a predominately White classroom. While first playing off of the idea that substitute teachers have to stay guarded as to not be manipulated by students, this particular sketch mostly works off of the concept of name-based marginalization that often happens to Black students. The character of Mr. Garvey plays with the idea of name signification by altering assumptions of what might be thought of as a racially signifying name through his rereading of common White, middle-class names. Names such as Aaron and Denise are then pronounced as A-A-Ron and Dee-Nice. As Norma A. Marrun states, the character of Mr. Garvey is able to make a subtle social statement through parody as he, “inverts the power of naming to show how white teachers are predominantly placed in urban schools . . . without understanding the communities in which they teach” (2018). Key & Peele also plays with the ways in which race and ethnicity impact American politics, specifically through impersonations of President Barack Obama. While Jordan Peele portrays President Obama on numerous occasions throughout the show, it is the combination of Peele’s impersonation matched with the show’s invention of Obama’s anger translator, Luther (portrayed by Key), that had the larger impact on American culture. Luther plays off of the idea that Obama, while president of the United States of America, is still read as a Black man first and must always come off as cool, calm, and collected even when confronted with allegations about his citizenship, qualifications, or accomplishments within office. As the president, there is the recognition that he must come off as professional, but as a Black man he must not be threatening. Luther can then say what the president cannot in a manner in which the president cannot. The character of Luther might be one of the most tangible examples of the show’s influence within American culture, evidenced by Key’s performance of Luther during President Obama’s speech at the 2015 White House Correspondent’s Dinner. Lasting five seasons over the course of three years, the significance of Key & Peele might be understood in both its relation to its predecessors and in the future work of its creators. While they were not the first Black men to create a sketch comedy show on Comedy Central that centered on race and racism, the similarity of their styles suggests that there exists a lane for race-based ideas in comedy on a major TV network specifically from the black perspective. Key & Peele would also prove transformative for Jordan Peele specifically, as he would transition from comedy on the small screen to thriller on the big screen, directing films that would prove to be influential in the larger conversations of race in American society (Get Out, 2017; Us, 2019). Eric A. House Further Reading

Marrun, Norma Angelica. 2018. “Culturally Responsive Teaching across PK-20: Honoring the Historical Naming Practices of Students of Color.” Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education 17: 6–25. Morris, Wesley. 2015. “The Year We Obsessed over Identity.” New York Times, October 6. ­https:// ​­ w ww​.­nytimes​ .­c om ​ /­2 015​ /­10​ /­11​ /­m agazine​ /­t he​ -­year​-­we​ -­o bsessed​ -­over​ -­identity​.­html.

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Kung Fu(1972–1975) Kung Fu, an action-adventure, western drama starring David Carradine, was one of the most popular television programs of the early 1970s. Receiving both critical acclaim and commercial success, the series aired on ABC from October 1972 to April 1975 for a total of sixty-five episodes. The series is credited with making Eastern philosophy and martial arts popular with the mainstream American audience. Many of the ideas used in the series are adapted from the Tao Te Ching, a book of ancient Taoist philosophy attributed to Lao-tzu. The show didn’t simply introduce Americans to Chinese philosophy and writings but sought to challenge the available representations of Asians. According to Hamamoto (1994), “for the first time, an Asian American male was seen physically confronting prejudice and racially motivated attacks without fear” (59). The television series follows the adventures of a half-Asian Shaolin monk named Kwai Chang Caine (Carradine), who is the orphaned son of an American (Thomas Henry Caine played by Bill Fletcher) and a Chinese woman (Kwai Lin) in mid-nineteenth-century China. He is accepted for training at a Shaolin Monastery after the death of his maternal grandfather, and he becomes a Shaolin priest and martial arts expert. In the pilot, Caine’s father-figure and mentor, the blind Master Po (Keye Luke), is carelessly murdered by the Emperor’s nephew. Caine retaliates by killing the nephew. With his dying breath, Master Po tells Caine he must run to escape death himself, and now with a bounty on his head, Caine flees to the United States in search of his half-brother, Danny Caine. Caine travels through the dangerous and harsh American Old West equipped only with his spiritual training and skills in martial arts. While trying to maintain a low profile, he frequently finds himself in public conflicts for defending the weak and promoting social justice. During the third and final season, Caine succeeds in finding his half-brother and nephew. Each episode relies heavily on the use of flashbacks to recall specific lessons from Caine’s rigorous mental and physical training in the monastery with Master Po and Master Chen Ming Kan (Phillip Ahn), as well as reveal life lessons richly enhanced by Eastern philosophy. In fact, while the present action moves the plot forward, some of the more interesting action lies within these flashbacks. In one important flashback during the pilot, the audience learns that Master Po calls Caine “Grasshopper” because he can’t hear the grasshopper at his feet upon first arriving at the monastery, a fact that demonstrates his current lack of mental and physical discipline. According to several sources, Bruce Lee originated the show’s concept and was intended to star in the series, but Carradine, a White American actor was cast because Lee looked “too Asian” (Ono and Pham 2009). This is an example of explicit yellowface, whereby White actors are cast to play Asian and Asian American characters. At the time, Lee had been playing Kato, the Green Hornet’s sidekick on The Green Hornet (1966) but had not yet emerged as the major film star he would later become. Lee received no credit for his concept, which was called “The Warrior.” Especially frustrating for Lee was the fact that Carradine had no



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training in the martial arts prior to or halfway through the series, taking up martial arts personally only during the third and final season of the show. The show would ultimately end only because Carradine decided to leave the show, after sustaining several injuries during its production yet its importance lived on with other mediums. It spawned a film titled Kung Fu: The Movie (1986) and two sequels: Kung Fu: The Next Generation (1987) and Kung Fu: The Legend Continues (1993–1997). The entire series was released for sale on DVD in 2007, and in 2014, negotiations were underway to develop a film that would serve as a prequel to the original television series. Beyond the industry, its impacts would be culturally, racially, and socially significant. It was a TV western with an Asian protagonist. Although the character is half-Asian and the actor playing him is White, the audience perceives that the hero has some Asian ancestry. Second, while this Asian hero tries to avoid violence at all costs, he clearly has significant skills to defend himself and others. He’s not overly aggressive, but he’s not timid either, and he has no qualms about throwing down when necessary. Third, the show introduced Western audiences to Chinese mysticism, Buddhist philosophy, Shaolin traditions, and authentic Kung Fu techniques. Great choreography and filming, including well-timed slow motion, help to demonstrate the power and grace of martial arts. Fourth, the show employed many Asian actors who were given significant roles. Master Po and Master Khan breathed life and meaning into the wisdom of the ancients and made it relevant and accessible to modern Western audiences. While its origins are steeped in controversy, Kung Fu remains an important television series if only for introducing Eastern philosophy to the mainstream American audience in a highly relatable way. Each show provides one or more mini-lessons in Chinese culture, and it encouraged a generation of television viewers to not only appreciate but also learn more about the martial arts and Eastern religion. However, Caine is clearly identified as not wholly Asian throughout the series, “for those members of the television audience who might not tolerate the idea of an Asian beating up white manhood” (Hamamoto 1994, 60). And as a further result of his mixed ancestry, Caine is “condemned to wander aimlessly between two worlds, neither of which fully accepted him” (Hamamoto 1994, 60). Jean A. Giovanetti Further Reading

Farrier, John. 2011. “11 Facts You Might Not Know about Kung Fu.” Neatorama, August 18. ­http://​­w ww​.­neatorama​.­com ​/­2011​/­08​/­18​/­11​-­facts​-­you​-­m ight​-­not​-­k now​-­about​ -­k ung​-­f u​/. Gallagher, Brian. 2014. “Kung Fu TV Series Adaptation Moves Forward at Universal and  Legendary.”  Movieweb,  April  4. ­http://​­movieweb​.­c om ​/ ­k ung​-­f u​-­t v​-­s eries​ -­adaptation​-­moves​-­forward​-­at​-­universal​-­and​-­legendary​/. Hamamoto, Darrell Y. 1994. Monitored Peril: Asian Americans and the Politics of TV Representation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Ono, Kent A., and Vincent N. Pham. 2009. Asian Americans and the Media. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. TvTropes. n.d. “Series/Kung Fu.” ­http://​­t vtropes​.­org​/­pmwiki​/­pmwiki​.­php​/­Series​/ ­KungFu​.

L Latinx Communities and Television In 1994, Culture Clash, a Fox-syndicated sketch comedy program created by the theater troupe of the same name, invited Chicano musician Lolo Guerrero to the stage. With guitar in hand, Guerrero performed “No Chicanos on TV,” a funny yet politically insightful song that laments how American television programming features “not a Mexican in sight.” Singing that while African Americans have been prominently featured on sitcoms such as The Jeffersons (1975–1985), The Cosby Show (1984–1992), and Diff’rent Strokes (1978–1986), Guerrero contends that Latinx roles have been limited to those garnered by Edward James Olmos and Ricardo Montalbán, and that even U.S. commercials seem devoid of a Latinx presence. While Guerrero’s song is humorous, the lack of Latinx representation on television—then and now—is no laughing matter. U.S. television does indeed have a dearth of roles and parts for Latinxs, despite the fact that they constituted 17.9 percent of the U.S. population in 2015, making Latinxs “the nation’s largest ethnic or racial minority” (U.S. Census Bureau 2016). By 2050, the Pew Research Center, in conjunction with the U.S. Census Bureau, projects that the Latinx community will constitute 24 percent of the United States’ population as well (Cohn 2015). Yet, despite these numbers, Latinx roles are still a mere 5.8 percent of the entire U.S. media (Smith, Choueiti, and Pieper 2016, 7). Critics have lamented how the dearth of Latinx-focused programming has created a conflicted relationship between Latinx populations and television. While network executives and advertisers are beginning to realize that “Latino viewers are an increasingly important demographic for all networks,” very few shows, past and present, have offered Latinx-centered programming (Uffalussy 2015). As a result, those television programs that feature Latinx characters in key roles tend to be more influential in defining and articulating a sense of Latinx television. For critics and commentators alike, perhaps more disturbing is that the roles allocated to Latinxs are often quite stereotypical, and “one-dimensional images continue to be seen and to carry weight today, even as some Latina/o actors and media professionals are experiencing greater opportunity” (Beltrán 2009, 2). Félix F. Gutiérrez, professor at University of Southern California, summarizes these perpetual stereotypes as falling into a handful of categories: “Greasy bandidos, fat mamacitas, romantic Latin lovers, lazy peons sleeping under sombreros, short-tempered Mexican spitfires, violent revolutionaries, faithful servants, gang members, and sexy señoritas with low-cut blouses and loose morals” (Gutiérrez, n.d.) According to existing research, mainstream U.S. television programming

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does indeed perpetuate these stereotypes. For example, Charles Ramírez Berg contends that these stereotypes create “a discursive system that might be called ‘Latinism,’” which conflates Latin Americans and Latinos into a singular identity (i.e., not addressing how Mexican Americans, Cuban Americans, and Puerto Ricans, among others, might differ in cultural influences). For Berg, these representations homogenize Latinx cultures in order to “justify the United States’ imperialistic goals” (Berg 2002, 4). Likewise, Michael Omi, posits that “racial stereotypes serve as shorthand” (Omi 2018 466) in U.S. media, so that it becomes rare to “see racial minorities ‘out of character,’ in situations removed from the stereotypic arenas in which scriptwriters have traditionally embedded them” (Omi 2018, 469). In examining Latinx stereotypes, Félix F. Gutiérrez further argues that this has much to do with the fact that Anglo-Americans, not Latinos, serve as the target audience for U.S. television programming (n.d.). Despite some changes, critics have noted how these trends continue today as U.S. television now features Latinxs in supporting roles, often as “part of a multicultural ensemble cast where they are likely, socially safe recipients of the comedy of hipster racism” (Molina-Guzmán 2018, 3). Examples might include the characters of Gloria Delgado-Pritchett (Sofía Vergara) on Modern Family (2009–2020), Oscar Martínez (Oscar Nuñez) in The Office (2005–2013), and Fez (Wilmer Valderrama) from That 70’s Show (1998–2006). Much of the relationship between Latinx populations and television is marked by a desire for better programming that redresses stereotypes about Latinxs—only to find those shows cancelled while others that employ such stereotypes thrive. Examining television programming with a lens on genre also helps to reveal the recurring patterns each genre reinforces about Latinx characters and cultures.

SITUATION COMEDIES Overviews of Latinx television rightly begin with Desi Arnaz and his role as Ricky Ricardo on I Love Lucy (1951–1957). While most associate this hit show with Lucille Ball’s lead character Lucy Ricardo, and thus see Arnaz’s role as that of a supporting, often bumbling and enraged, character, behind the scenes Arnaz was an active creative force, not only of the show’s musical numbers (Arnaz’s real-life orchestra served as Ricardo’s fictional counterpart) but also through Desilu Studios, the company Ball and Arnaz created in 1950, which owned the rights to the show until 1967. Initially, however, network executives were concerned with featuring Cuban-born Arnaz as Ball’s husband, claiming “the public would not ‘believe’ the marriage,” though “most accounts claim the networks didn’t want to portray a Hispanic character” (Giodono 2017, 47). As Ricky Ricardo, Arnaz often fulfilled the stereotype of Latinos as “being prone toward violent outbursts of anger” (Omi 2018, 467). Arnaz is frequently exasperated with Lucy’s attempts to secure upward mobility, and his continual commands to Lucy that she cease and desist are often read as stereotypically machismo (a term for Latin-American/Latino chauvinism). Nevertheless, Ricky Ricardo was a seminal Latinx character, one that “was an intelligent, successful



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businessman, playing the rational straight man to Lucy’s unending supply of comedic antics” (“Desi” 2014). Arnaz is also credited with perfecting the use of a three-camera system with a Live Studio audience, a technique still widely used in sitcoms today. Arnaz’s Ricky is often considered the first Latinx character to be portrayed as “The Good Neighbor” (Beltrán 2009, 41), a typecast that continued with Latinx television’s next big hit: Chico and the Man (1974–1978), a vehicle for stand-up comedian Freddie Prinze, a self-proclaimed “Hungarican” (Prinze’s term for his Hungarian/German and Puerto Rican ancestry). In the show, Prinze plays Francisco “Chico” Rodriguez, a recently returned Vietnam Veteran who first encounters curmudgeon widower Ed Brown (Jack Albertson) when he enters Brown’s dilapidated car repair shop looking for work. Initially, Ed Brown functions much like Archie Bunker in All in the Family (1971–1979), complete with ethnic and racial slurs and “you people” statements about his Latinx neighbors. As the series progresses, however, Chico’s positive outlook and humor melts Brown’s gruff exterior, and the two, along with other members of their East L.A. community, become a family of friends. After Prinze’s suicide in 1977, the show tried to replace his character, but its success was predicated on the chemistry between Prinze’s Chico and Albertson’s Brown. Today, the show is remembered for being the first prime-time American series featuring a Latinx actor in a starring, not supporting, role. Another significant Latinx television first was PBS’s Que Pasa USA? (1977– 1980), the first bilingual American television sitcom. During its thirty-nine-episode run, the show featured the Peñas, a multigenerational Cuban American family living in Miami. Much of the show’s humor focused on the family’s struggles to adapt to Anglo-American culture, with the younger generation finding success through assimilation and the older generation resisting this assimilation in favor of tradition. Several of the show’s episodes also explored the tensions between traditional and modern gender roles and expectations; for example, the episode “Los Novios” examines the family’s disparate attitudes about the dating experiences of their son Joe (Steven Bauer, aka Rocky Echevarría), who is advised to “play the field.” On the other hand, their daughter Carmen (Ana Margo, aka Ana Margarita Menéndez) is told that her career and college goals might scare away suitors. By the episode’s end, the family’s female elders decide that women should be afforded the same options as men, although it undermines this message by presenting the women as being responsible for all household chores and by encouraging Carmen to marry or find secretarial work instead of pursuing a degree. Nevertheless, the show was no more chauvinistic than the era’s other mainstream programs, and its story lines featured a smooth blend of Spanish and English that provided an innovative portrait of Latinx culture. Other than Que Pasa, USA, the 1970s and 1980s saw only three other attempts to air sitcoms focused on Latinx characters. Viva Valdez (1976) was an ABC sitcom about a Mexican American family living in East Los Angeles. Sanchez of Bel Air (1986) was USA network’s attempt to showcase a rags-to-riches Latinx family, reminiscent of The Jeffersons in its humor. ABC’s Condo (1983) focused on a Latinx couple whose child marries their White neighbor’s son, bringing

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the two different families together, leading to plotlines that focused on difference, conflict, and resolution. None of these shows received a second season, and A.K.A. Pablo (1984), meant to be a vehicle for comedian Paul Rodriguez, was cancelled after only six episodes. Despite Paul Rodriguez’s comedic success and Norman Lear’s role in producing the show, A.K.A. Pablo has the dubious distinction of winning a spot in TV Guide’s list of television’s all-time worst shows. All of these Latinx sitcoms are marked by an attempt to use an ethnic sitcom formula focused on the clashing values of traditional parents (and grandparents) and their more assimilated children. In the 1990s, several Latinx sitcoms attempted to break this pattern, but these offerings, too, met with limited success. For example, ABC’s Common Law (1996) focused on the law career John Alvarez (Greg Giraldo), a Harvard law graduate who struggles to maintain his working-class Queens roots at his upper-class WASP law firm. NBC’s The Second Half (1993–1994) centered on John Mendoza as a recently divorced sports columnist attempting to rebuild his life, and WB’s First Time Out (1995) starred Jackie Guerra as a Latina Yale University graduate whose hair salon is a meeting ground for her single friends to congregate. Once again, however, none of these shows received a second season. It wasn’t until George Lopez (2002–2007), also referred to as The George Lopez Show, that U.S. television had another Latinx hit sitcom. Featuring yet another comic as the show forerunner, George Lopez focused on a fictional character of the same name, and the show drew inspiration from Lopez’s own childhood. In the show, Lopez’s character grapples with his dysfunctional, alcoholic mother Benny (Belita Moreno), while attempting to navigate modern life, and balance career, marriage, family, and parenting. The show also broke with genre’s ethnic sitcom formula of assimilated children and traditional parents by examining more serious topics such as dyslexia, marital class differences, intra-Latinx cultural differences, parental abuse (George’s mother) and abandonment (George’s father). The show is credited as for being the first program produced by a Mexican American in the starring role; it was also the longest running Latinx television show since Arnaz’s costar role on I Love Lucy. George Lopez’s cancellation in 2007 generated some controversy; the network claimed it was due to low ratings, but Lopez himself argued that ABC made it difficult to secure an audience, moving the show’s time slot four times in its five-year run, including one slot that put the show in competition with the top-rated American Idol. A 2004 study sponsored by the National Latino Media Coalition further determined that Nielsen Media Research (responsible for Nielsen ratings) had “significantly underestimated” Latinx audiences, with a case study specific to George Lopez. The study’s results demonstrated that Nielsen had failed to account for more than 800,000 Latinx viewers of the show (Rincón & Associates 2004, 80). In examining the relationship between Latinx and television, the study further determined this underestimation had significant consequences: “Low Nielsen ratings can lead to premature cancellation of Latino-targeted programs, reluctance among executives to produce or air a promising new show, diminished employment opportunities for Latino actors, and lost advertising revenues from potential advertisers seeking to reach Latino audiences” (Rincón & Associates 2004, 1).



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Some critics concluded that the significant time gaps between Latinx sitcom success with I Love Lucy, Chico and the Man, and George Lopez was in part due to insufficient measures of Latinx audiences. Another show that may have fallen victim to inaccurate ratings measurements was ABC’s Cristela (2014–2015). Like its predecessors, Cristela focused on a fictional family for stand-up comedian Cristela Alonzo, whose character, Cristela Hernandez, a recent law-school graduate who is living with her family while she interns at a predominately White, upper-class law firm. As with many of the ethnic sitcoms of the past, Cristela focuses on the tension between assimilation and cultural tradition. The show remains notable for being the first U.S. prime-time program with a Latina (Alonzo) serving as the show’s creator, writer, producer, and lead performer. In the 2000s, networks attempted to generate several Latinx-based sitcoms with famous Latino leads, such as Luis (Fox, 2003), a vehicle for actor Luis Guzman, cancelled after five episodes; and Freddie (ABC, 2005–2006), starring Freddie Prinze Jr. in a semiautobiographical role. The WB attempted to launch a sitcom about an upwardly mobile family called Greetings from Tucson (2002–2003), but it, too, was cancelled for low ratings. In contrast, Latinx characters on what are otherwise White-dominated or multiracial ensemble shows have fared much better. One example of this is Santana Lopez (Naya Rivera) on Glee (2009–2015), a lead cheerleader and glee club member whose ethnicity is only identified as “Hispanic,” and not discussed until season two. Instead, Glee devotes much more time to exploring Santana’s “very active and fluid sexuality” (Molina-Guzmán 2013, 157). Indeed, Santana’s racial and ethnic background is merely utilized by the show’s scriptwriters to establish a potential source of conflict when Santana decides to come out to her grandmother Maribel Lopez (Ivonne Coll) and mother Maribel Lopez (Gloria Estefan). Likewise, while Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Fox 2013–2018, NBC 2019–) features both Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero) and Rosa Diaz (Stephanie Beatriz) as detectives in a multiracial police station, the show rarely mentions ethnicity, race, or culture having an impact on either character’s identity. The same is true for Carla Espinosa (Judy Reyes) in Scrubs (NBC then ABC, 2001–2010) whose no-nonsense personality is given much more consideration than her Dominican American roots. Likewise, Superstore (2015–) features Amy Sosa Dubanowski (America Ferrera), working in a big-box store alongside a multiracial ensemble of characters, but Amy’s Honduran American heritage is rarely discussed or addressed. In all these shows, the characters’ Latinx ethnicities are mentioned in passing, rather than as central components of the show’s weekly episodes or plots. As such, they might fulfill what Isabel Molina-Guzmán calls “a post-racial and post-feminist world where race and gender are not an explicit part of the narrative” (2013, 152). Perhaps the most notable Latinx on U.S. television today is Sofia Vergara, who has a costarring role on ABC’s Modern Family (2009–2020) and holds the distinction of being the highest-paid television actress of 2011 through 2018. Vergara plays Colombian-born Gloria Delgado-Pritchett, the much-younger wife of patriarch Jay Pritchett (Ed O’Neill). In the extended Pritchett family, Gloria serves as a marked contrast to Jay’s well-to-do children and grandchildren. While Modern

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Family’s large ensemble cast has many plot devices, those focused on Gloria center on the humor generated from Latinx stereotypes: her thick accent, sexualized body, quick temper, inability to drive, and cultural differences. Indeed, much of the dialogue afforded to Gloria centers on telling the family how situations would be handled very differently (and generally very violently) in her Colombian “village.” Vergara has been nominated for four Emmys, four Golden Globes, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards for her portrayal of Gloria, but her character is not without its many critics who consider Gloria to be the “hyperbolic embodiment of all stereotypes of Latinas” (Aldama 2013, 17). Vergara’s character provides an important example of the ways that U.S. television rewards stereotypical Latinx depictions. The advent of cable television programming has been another method by which Latinx television sitcoms have found greater audiences and representation. An example of this is Netflix’s reboot of One Day at a Time (2017–2019; Pop, TV Land, and Logo 2020–), which rescripts the popular 1974–1984 Norman Lear/ CBS series to feature a Latinx family. In the show, Penelope Alvarez (Justina Machado) is a U.S. Army Nurse Corps veteran struggling with PTSD and with the multiple demands of being a modern single mother of two in Los Angeles. Penelope’s mother, Lydia (Rita Moreno) also lives with the family. In the show’s first two seasons, it has addressed modern Latinx concerns such as sexism, homophobia, racism, citizenship, immigration, microaggressions, veterans’ issues, and a host of other political topics as they arise in the characters’ daily lives. Both Moreno and Machado have won Imagen Foundation Awards (as did Isabella Gomez who plays Penelope’s daughter Elena) in 2017. The Imagen Foundation, a group founded in 1983 by Helen Hernandez and Norman Lear to promote positive portrayals of Latinx entertainment, also awarded One Day at A Time as Best Primetime Television Program-Comedy in 2017. The show was nominated in all categories for 2018 as well. Lopez himself has attempted to return to television through two short-lived shows, Saint George (2014) on FX, and Lopez (2015–2017) on TV Land. Saint George was rather similar to George Lopez, with Lopez once again playing a semiautobiographical character, this time as a divorced history teacher and Rita Moreno No other figure in television history has been as central to Latinx television programming as Rita Moreno, who has the distinction of being the first Latinx to win an “EGOT” (i.e., Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony for her work in television, film, music, and theater, respectively). Moreno has long been acclaimed as “the media industries’ most critically-lauded Latina” (Beltrán 2009, 63). Her presence on Latinx television is unparalleled with featured and cameo performances on shows such as George Lopez (2002–2007), Ugly Betty (2006– 2010), Jane the Virgin (2014–2019), OZ (1997–2003), Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? (1991–1995), American Family (2002–2004), Cane (2007), Nina’s World (2015–2018), Elena of Avalor (2016–2018), and One Day at a Time (2017–). Additionally, Moreno has received a Golden Globe Award, Kennedy Center Honors, and the Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award.



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entrepreneur. In contrast, TV Land’s Lopez offers a more mockumentary version of Lopez as a stand-up comedian, with a similar self-referential humor akin to Seinfeld (1989-1988) or Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000–). Lopez, also cancelled for low ratings, had much to say about Latinx television and its struggles for representation, with several key episodes exploring George Lopez’s own popularity with Latinx viewers and comparable invisibility with Anglos.

VARIETY SHOWS, SKETCH COMEDY, AND TALK SHOWS Related to sitcoms, sketch comedy has long been popular within Latinx television, perhaps related to the networks’ tendency to launch sitcoms based on popular stand-up comedians such as George Lopez, Freddie Prinze, Luis Guzman, and Cristela Alfonso. One of the first of these is CBS’s Tony Orlando and Dawn (1974–1976), which was renamed The Tony Orlando and Dawn Rainbow Hour for the 1976–1977 season. Meant to replace Sonny and Cher’s own musical/comedy variety program, which ended in 1974, Orlando’s show focused heavily on his musical performances, along with guest interviews and some comedy sketches in between. Orlando, whose heritage is Greek and Puerto Rican, grew up in Hell’s Kitchen, New York, and became famous for songs such as “Candida” and “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree.” In 1993, Culture Clash became the first Chicano comedy sketch program, airing on several Fox regional stations from 1993 to 1995. During its thirty-episode run, writer-creators Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas, and Herbert Siguenza offered a comedy format centered on Latinx-Anglo cultural differences, and which featured several Latinx guest stars, such as Jimmy Smits and Edward James Olmos. A key feature was the show’s “word of the day” sequences that defined and described various Chicano slang expressions. The show also garnered a following for its humorous coverage of Latinx (particularly Chicano) cultures. However, while popular in syndicated markets, the show never received a national network release and was cancelled after two seasons. Culture Clash, the theater troupe of the same name, moved onto new projects, including “Culture Clash in AmeriCCa,” “Bordertown,” and “Chavez Ravine.” Fox once again attempted to launch a Latinx sketch comedy show in 1995: House of Buggin’. The show’s creator, John Leguizamo, had already achieved success with two TV Specials, Mambo Mouth (1991) and Spic-o-Rama (1993). Alongside Leguizamo was a cast that included Luis Guzmán, Jorge Luis Abreu, and Yelba Osorio. Together they generated skits and parodies that focused on Latinx media imagery in popular culture, such as “Crooks” (a parody of Fox’s Cops reality show), and a modernized West Side Story (1961). With House of Buggin’, Fox Network executives sought to duplicate their success with The Wayans’ In Living Color (1990–1994), but when the show didn’t achieve predicted ratings, the network asked Leguizamo to replace his Latinx cast members. Leguizamo declined, and the show was cancelled mid-season. In 2018, Leguizamo can be on Netflix, in Latin History for Morons, which is based on his one-man Broadway show. The special focuses on the ways that Latin Americans and Latinx have made

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contributions to history, mathematics, arts, and culture. The show seeks to counter the erasure that is commonplace within U.S. classrooms, challenging a Eurocentric curriculum that injures Latinx students like his son. The show focuses on revealing those contributions and helping students realize “‘You are important. You are authors. You are scientists. You are explorers. You are special. You are leaders. You are respected. You are the reason we are here” (Leguizamo quoted in Chan 2018). Mind of Mencia (2005–2008) was Comedy Central’s attempt to reformulate the Chappelle Show (2003–2006), after Dave Chappelle resigned during its third season. Mind of Mencia featured Honduran-born Carlos Mencia, combining his stand-up with related sketches, on topics such as “The Stereotype Olympics.” The show was criticized for being too similar in format and style to Chappelle’s own, as well as for its use of racial slurs and homophobic content. In 2008, Carlos Mencia declined to renew for a third season. In 2009, George Lopez attempted to launch a talk show, Lopez Tonight (2009– 2011), on TBS. The show was the first late-night, English-language talk show featuring a Latinx host. It was fairly successful against CBS frontrunner, The Tonight Show (1954–). However, when Jay Leno decided to return to The Tonight Show, ousting his replacement Conan O’Brien, TBS offered Conan his own show, moving Lopez Tonight from 11:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. (midnight), Pacific Time. Ratings plummeted, and in the end TBS decided not to renew Lopez Tonight. As with sitcoms, mixed-racial sketch comedy shows with Latinx cast members have met with greater success than Latinx-focused versions. For example, Al Madrigal has served as “The Senior Latino Correspondent” on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show (1996–) since 2011, and, from 2002 to 2013, Fred Armisen was a leading performer on Saturday Night Live (1975–), before launching Portlandia (2011–2018) and Documentary Now! (2015–) for IFC. In 2016, stand-up comedian Melissa Villaseñor became the first Latina cast member of Saturday Night Live in the show’s forty-five-year history. While her addition to the cast is celebrated, Villaseñor is only the third Latinx performer in the show’s four-decade run (Horatio Sanz being the first and Fred Armisen being the second). This offers yet another example of how underrepresented Latinx are in U.S. television programming. DRAMA As with sitcoms and sketch comedy programming, invisibility and stereotypical Latinx portrayals are all too common in drama programming. Most often, Latinx actors serve as walk-on or minor characters, often in the roles of domestic servants, undocumented workers, and gang members. A 2014–2016 Opportunity Agenda study likewise found that “50% of Latino immigrant characters had committed a crime of some sort” as part of the show’s plot premise (Recinos 2017). Dramatic programming has a long history of featuring Latinx characters in criminal roles. An early Western, The Cisco Kid (1950–1956), for example, featured a “bandit” named Cisco (Duncan Renaldo) and his sidekick Pancho (Leo Carrillo). Notably, however, Cisco and Pancho were also would-be Robin Hood figures, underdogs who helped bring criminals to justice when the legal system



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failed to do so. This put the show in stark contrast to the typical Western’s portrayal of Latinx as bandits. Critics, however, lamented the show’s embrace of the long-standing stereotype of Latinxs as heavily accented and prone to imprecise word choice and malapropisms. The show had an incredibly long run in syndication, which was followed by a television movie remake, starring Jimmy Smits as Cisco and Cheech Marin as Pancho, which aired on TNT in 1994. A break-out role was that of Frank “Ponch” Poncerello (Erik Estrada) on NBC’s CHiPs (1977–1983), a show focused on the California Highway Patrol. As a law enforcement officer, albeit one whose temper and combative personality often resulted in trouble, Estrada’s character did stand in stark contrast to the era’s roles for Latinxs as “sexually threatening males, criminals, gang members, drug dealers, and illegal aliens” (Larson 2006, 58). Thus, while CHiPs was truly a formulaic police procedural, with Ponch often stereotyped as a macho Latin Lover, CHiPs did offer one of the era’s few Latinx prime-time television roles. Ricardo Montalbán was another important Latinx actor in the late 1970s and early 1980s. On Fantasy Island (1977-1984), Montalbán plays the mysterious host Mr. Roarke, who grants guests’ fantasies in his unnamed Pacific Ocean island. Little is known about Mr. Roarke—his age, first name, or source of fantasy-granting powers are never revealed. Instead, the show focused each episode on the (predominately White) guests’ experiences on the island. The only element that codes Montalbán’s character as Latinx is his accent—and Montalbán’s own star power. Born in Mexico City to parents of Spanish descent, Montalbán was a well-known Hollywood film star, one often typecast as the Latin Lover, a role he certainly fulfilled as Zach Powers (aka Pablo Zacharias) on Dynasty (1985–1989), and its spin-off show The Colby’s (1985–1987). In all three shows, Montalbán’s characters were underdeveloped and racially ambiguous, a common tendency in Latinx casting. In Media & Minorities: The Politics of Race in News and Entertainment, Stephanie Greco Larson notes that alongside the scarcity of roles and a tendency to conflate the lived experiences of Latinx characters from varying ethnic backgrounds, “actors of Hispanic descent play white characters in order to get lead roles that are otherwise unavailable to them” (2006, 58). Offscreen, the dearth of quality roles for Latinx actors was also of concern for Montalbán himself, who cofounded the organization Nosotros to promote equity for Latinos in the entertainment industry. For his work, Montalbán won both the Nosotros’ Golden Eagle Award and the Mexican American Opportunity Foundation’s Aztec Award. Edward James Olmos, another Aztec and Golden Eagle Award recipient, was a primary Latinx figure in 1980s and 1990s television. As Lt. Martin “Marty” Castillo on NBC’s Miami Vice (1984–1989), Olmos played the commander of the Organized Crime Bureau’s vice division, winning an Emmy and Golden Globe award in 1985 and 1986, respectively. Like Montalbán, Olmos’s characters of the era were mysterious with little backstory to define character motivation. As Castillo, Olmos serves mainly as a foil character to the show’s two lead characters and consistent stream of one-episode Latinx villains, drug lords, and gang members. After guest starring in a wide variety of 1990s television shows, Olmos returned to television in the lead role of PBS’s 2002 American Family, a short-lived dramatic series centered on widower Jess Gonzalez (Olmos) and his adult

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Edward James Olmos Writer, director, actor, and producer, Edward James Olmos is a seminal figure in Latinx television (and film). Born in Los Angeles to parents of Mexican descent, Olmos got his start on television playing an array of characters on 1970s police shows like Kojak (1973– 1978), Starsky and Hutch (1975–1979), CHIPs (1977–1983), and Hawaii Five-O (1968–1980). He would win an Emmy (1985) and a Golden Globe Award (1986) for Best Supporting Actor for his work on Miami Vice (1984–1989). In 1988, Olmos was nominated for an Academy Award for his portrayal of Jaime Escalante in Stand and Deliver; his other notable film credits include Zoot Suit (1981) and Selena (1997). While Olmos has garnered several guest star roles on shows like The West Wing (as Supreme Court nominee Judge Roberto Mendoza), he is best known for his award-winning leading role as Admiral William Adama on Battlestar Galactica (2004–2009). His directing credits include the film American Me (1992), and the award-winning television movie Walk Out (2006), which focuses on the 1968 East Los Angeles student strikes for civil rights.

children. Created and directed by Gregory Nava – of El Norte (1983), Selena (1997), and Frida (2002) – American Family is notable as the first broadcast television drama to feature a predominately Latinx cast. More recently, Olmos has a new role on FX’s Mayans M.C. (2018–), a spin-off of the network’s popular Sons of Anarchy (2008–2014). Mayans M.C. centers on a Latinx motorcycle club in the fictional U.S.–Mexico border town of Santo Padre. Olmos plays Felipe Reyes, father to main character E. J. Reyes (J. D. Pardo), along with an ensemble of other Latinx actors in supporting roles, such as Richard Cabral, Raoul Trujillo, and Danny Pino. Perhaps the only actor to rival Edward James Olmos for TV’s most recognizable Latinx star would be Jimmy Smits. Like Olmos, Smits got his start on Miami Vice, playing the detective partner of James Crockett (Don Johnson); Smits’s character is killed in the show’s pilot episode, leading the way for Crockett to be paired with Ricardo Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas). Smits’s next major role was as Victor Sifuentes, a public defender turned pro-bono lawyer on NBC’s L.A. Law (1986–1994). Unlike other Latinx characters in the 1980s, Sifuentes undertook Latinx-focused cases, and discussed the racism he experienced as the only Latinx lawyer in a predominately White law firm. The role earned Smits an Emmy in 1990. After L.A. Law, Smits joined the ABC’s NYPD Blue (1993–2005) as Detective Bobby Simone, a character that self-identified as being born in Belize to French and Portuguese parents (Smits himself identifies as Puerto Rican). Simone often confronted his White partner’s racism and served in contrast to the show’s stream of Latinx criminals until Smits’s departure from the show in 1994. From 2004 to 2006, Smits was cast as senator and U.S. presidential candidate, Matthew Santos on The West Wing (1996–2006). The show’s creators reportedly modeled Smits’s Santos on then-Senator Barack Obama, and, in turn, Santos’s television success as the first major party minority candidate is perceived to have aided Obama’s own presidential run, nomination, and win (Freedland 2008). All of Smits’s characters defied Latinx stereotypes and garnered television nominations and awards. Smits’s characters continued to defy Latinx stereotypes in his other



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television dramas, In Cane (2007), Smits stars alongside Rita Moreno and Hector Elizondo as Alex Vega, son-in-law and heir to a sugarcane dynasty in Florida; on FX’s Sons of Anarchy (2008–2014), he plays Mexican American pimp Nero Padilla; on Fox’s 24: Legacy (2017), Smits portrayed U.S. Senator John Donovan; on ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder (2014–2018), he plays therapist Dr. Isaac Roa. Commentators have concluded that Smits’s roles exemplify a range of Latinx dramatic character possibilities. Benjamin Bratt is another notable Latinx drama television star. Like Olmos and Smits, Bratt started his career in the 1980s as walk-on and recurring characters in police procedurals, landing the role of Reynaldo “Rey” Curtis on NBC’s Law & Order (1990–2010), a character who also appears in several episodes of a spin-off show, Homicide: Life on the Street (1996–1999). After appearing in 95 episodes between 1995 and 2009, Bratt landed a recurring role on 24: Live Another Day (2014), Private Practice (2011–2013), Star (2016–2018), as well as a comedic turn as Javier Delgado, ex-husband to Gloria Delgado-Pritchett (Sofia Vergara) on Modern Family. Like Smits, Bratt’s career trajectory demonstrates the expansion of available roles for Latinx actors in drama television. As with sitcoms, multi-ensemble dramas have offered new forms of Latinx representation. Some key examples are Precinct Captain David Aceveda (Benito Martinez on The Shield (FX 2002–2008); imprisoned gang member Miguel Alvarez (Kirk Acevedo) on Oz (HBO, 1997–2003), a show which also featured Rita Moreno as Sister Peter Marie Reimondo; and Hugo “Hurley” Reyes (Jorge García) on Lost. Also notable in the television drama genre would be the Díaz family on HBO’s critically acclaimed Six Feet Under (2001–2005). Hector Federico “Rico” Díaz (Freddy Rodriguez) is an employee at Fisher and Sons Mortuary. Known for his skills and degree in mortuary science, Rico later becomes a business partner with the Fishers before launching his own business. The show also focused on Rico’s marriage to high-school sweetheart Vanessa (Justina Machado), a registered nurse, and their challenges—balancing a two-career home with childcare, clinical depression, infidelity, credit card debt, and prescription abuse just to name a few. Although the Díazes are supporting characters on the show, the show has won praise for its representation of Latinx characters as complex and well-rounded. Six Feet Under won the Screen Actors Guild Ensemble Cast Award for 2003 and 2004, and Freddy Rodriguez won an Imagen Foundation Award for supporting actor in 2003, 2004, and 2005 for this role. Another twenty-first century television drama to address and ultimately undermine Latinx surface stereotypes is AMC’s Breaking Bad (2008–2013). Set in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with continual forays across the U.S.–Mexico border, the show’s two White main characters Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and Jessie Pinkman (Aaron Paul), are crystal meth manufacturers and distributors, who come into continual contact with a wide range of Latinx characters. On the surface, there doesn’t appear to be much difference between the police dramas of the 1970s–1990s and Breaking Bad. After all, the show features one lone Latinx DEA agent Steve Gomez (Steven Michael Quezada) and an array of Latinx gang members and drug dealers that collectively perpetuate long-standing stereotypes. Beneath the surface, however, Breaking Bad’s Latinx characters all have significant backstories that offer

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insight into their choices and a level of humanity historically denied to Latinx characters. In “Breaking Bad and the Destruction of Latino Stereotypes,” Andrew Howe examines how “the series brings to the surface complicating social factors,” offering “increasingly complex depictions of Latino identity” (Howe 2014, 87). Howe highlights the ways that Steve Gomez isn’t stereotypically macho. Even the show’s most stereotypical character—Tuco Salamanca (Raymond Cruz)—differs dramatically from his fastidious rival Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) and his calculating cousins, highlighting the depth and diversity of the characters. The result is a “a border narrative” that calls into question Latinx stereotypes, offering a more complex portrait of Latinx television. This complexity and these backstories are likewise explored in the show’s prequel, Better Call Saul (2015–). Both Breaking Bad and its prequel also explore important Latinx and Mexican cultural traditions as well, including the Santisma Muerta rituals, the corrido (a Mexican/Mexican-American ballad focused on bandit as hero), and the narco-corrido (a revision of the corrido featuring the drug lord as bandit-hero). Breaking Bad was remade into a Spanish-language telenovela called Metástatis, which airs in the United States on Fox Latin America. Comparisons are often made between Breaking Bad and Netflix’s Narcos (2015–2017) and Narcos: Mexico (2018–), in that both focus on border narratives of the drug trade. Set and filmed in Colombia, Narcos follows the real-life drug ring led by Pablo Escobar (Wagner Manicoba de Moura) and attempts by American DEA agent Steve Murphy (Boyd Holbrook) to end his regime. Narcos: Mexico resets the series to follow a new drug ring after Escobar’s death. Both Netflix shows have an array of Latinx and Latin American actors in leading roles, and a significant use of Spanish dialogue (English subtitles), though many critics believe the show also perpetuates Latinx stereotypes related to drugs and gangs. Orange Is the New Black (2013–2019) offers a diverse racial cast, with a myriad of Latinx characters. Created by Jenji Kohan (of Weeds fame) and based on Piper Kerman’s memoir, Orange utilizes a series of flashbacks to reveal not only how the character came to be at Litchfield (a fictional, minimum-security, women’s correctional facility) but also how the racism, sexism, and classism each Latinx character experienced shaped and defined their personalities. Rather than conflating Puerto Rican, Dominican American, and other Latinx identities, as is often the case in U.S. television, Orange explores the conflicts and cultural differences between these ethnic groups. As such, the show features a very different portrait of Latinx identity than other television shows before or since. Another standout television drama is Starz’s Vida (2018–2020). Set in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, Vida focuses on the Hernandez sisters Lyn (Melissa Barrera) and Emma (Mishel Prada), whose mother Vida has recently died, leaving them collectively 70 percent interest in the neighborhood bar she owned and ran for decades. The other 30 percent has been left to Eddy (Ser Anzotegui), Vida’s female lover and roommate. For Emma, this revelation comes with the burden that Vida refused to accept Emma’s own lesbian identity. The show has been praised both for its portrayal of LBGQT issues and its reflection on the consequences of gentrification. Lorraine Ali (2018) notes that the show portrays “a Latinx community on the verge of whitewash, [yet] Taquerias, lavanderias and old bungalows with wrought-iron fences still outnumber gastropubs, art galleries and



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flipped remodels.” Like Orange Is the New Black, Vida has broken new ground in featuring Latina-centered story lines. SCIENCE FICTION A subgenre of television dramas, science-fiction shows with Latinx and multiracial casts offer some distinctions in representation from the larger genre. Here again, Latinx characters are more often seen in shows focused on multiracial casts or Latinx actors occupy roles where their characters are meant to be racially ambiguous as is the case with Mexican American Jessica Alba on Dark Angel (2000–2002), and Cuban American Gina Torres, on an array of science-fiction shows: Angel (1999–2004), Firefly (2002), Alias (2001–2006), Star Wars Rebels (2015–2018), and Westworld (2016–). While both Alba and Torres have also had roles on non-science-fiction dramas, their work in sci-fi depicts the ways that Latinx has become coded for an ambiguous form of racial difference. As with other television genres, the absence of Latinx characters in science fiction is notable. For example, while Star Trek (1966–1969) has long been lauded for its multiracial cast, it never featured Latinx cast members, in its sequels, prequels, and spin-off shows until Robert Beltran’s portrayal of Captain Chakotay on Star Trek Enterprise (1995–2001). Yet, while Beltran is Mexican American, Chakotay is meant to be a Native American character. On Deep Space Nine, the Spanish-speaking character of Enrique Muñiz (F. J. Rio) appears for three episodes of Deep Space Nine (1993–1999) in 1995, and Captain Erika Hernandez (Ada Maris) was also a three-episode character on Star Trek Enterprise (2001– 2005). None of these are leading roles however. There was quite a bit of hope that Dr. Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz) on Star Trek: Discovery (2017–), would become the first long-term Latinx character a Star Trek series, but his character was killed in 2018. Thus, while the Star Trek franchise has long been praised for its depictions of diversity, it has yet to showcase a long-standing Latinx character. With such a dearth of Latinx representation, Edward James Olmos’s character of Admiral William Adama on SyFy Channel’s Battlestar Galactica (2004–2009), a remake of the NBC 1978 television show, truly stands out as an exception. As Adama, Olmos’s character occupies a powerful leadership position, heading the military and aiding Laura Roslin, the surviving cabinet member who becomes president. The show focuses on many complicated relationships and difficult choices Roslin and Adama must make to ensure survival, and a semblance of democracy. Adama’s calm, intelligent, and compassionate decision-making stands in direct contrast to many of his subordinates, rival politicians, and civilians. Of all of his television roles, Olmos considers William Adama as “having the greatest impact in changing racial views” (“Edward James Olmos” 2014). Adama’s character is often described as Tauron in ancestry, and the show’s prequel, Caprica (2009–2010) makes the connections between Tauron and Latinx culture more pronounced by ascribing characteristics and historical events on Tauron to those in Latin American history. Tauron is described as agriculturally driven, long-ruled by imperialist colonizers, and deeply divided by postindependence civil wars. As a result, many Taurons have immigrated to Caprica, enduring

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“interplanetary racism and bigotry” as a result (Saldívar 2013, 161). One such immigrant family is Adama’s own, and the prequel begins before William’s birth, focusing on his father, Joseph Adama (Esai Morales), a lawyer who is often on the receiving end of Tauron racial slurs. Joseph also stands in contrast to his brother Samuel, who works for a powerful Tauron organized crime syndicate. The Adamas live in Little Tauron, an older part of Caprica City, where the Tauron language and customs abound. In all these ways, Taurons function as Latinx. The two-season series was cancelled before the show could develop the Tauron/Latinx relationship interconnections further, but Caprica is notable for its rare employment of Latinx characters, actors, and story lines in a science-fiction format. TELENOVELAS One of the most successful Latin American television genres is the telenovela (television novels). This format has also found success in Latinx television, and many U.S. telenovelas have been adapted from popular Latin American television shows. One primary example would be ABC’s Ugly Betty (2006–2010). The show tells the story of Betty Suarez (America Ferrera), a career-minded but quirky twenty-year-old looking to work in journalism. She is chosen to be the executive assistant at a fashion magazine, Mode, but it is not for her defining skills and savvy nor for her fashion sense; instead, she is chosen because she won’t tempt Daniel Meade, the womanizing editor-in-chief. Naturally, by the end of the series, Betty and Daniel have fallen in love. The show was based on the 1999 Columbian telenovela hit, Yo Soy Betty, La Fea (1999–2001). The U.S. version retains several of the telenovela’s characteristics, including the romance that bridges Betty’s class divide with her boss. However, other elements of the show are distinct to U.S. television programming. As writers Tanya González and Eliza Rodriguez y

Telenovela While the telenovela is often translated as “soap opera,” Latinx and Latin American telenovelas have important distinctions from U.S. soap operas, particularly with regards to viewership, format, duration, and content. While U.S. soaps are often relegated to morning programming, run for several decades, target female audiences, and have a rotating series of characters, telenovelas are typically evening shows, with both male and female viewers. Most telenovelas have a limited run (much like a U.S. miniseries) and focus on central characters and story lines. Many, though not all, telenovelas have politically focused content as well. Another distinctive feature of many telenovelas is a self-referential use of camp humor, evidenced through exaggerated, intentionally extreme plot devices, and emotions—sometimes with regards to the role of telenovelas in Latinx culture itself. Telenovelas are popular and influential throughout Latin America, and U.S. comedy-dramas like Ugly Betty and Jane the Virgin are adaptations of Venezuelan telenovelas. Spanish-language programming in the United States often features Latin American telenovelas, as well as those made and set in Miami (such as Univision’s Cosita Linda), Houston (Telemundo’s Tierra de Reyes), among others. Telenovelas’ global influence can be seen in the many Korean, Filipino, Turkish, and South African telenovelas today.



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Gibson contend, Ugly Betty utilizes the telenovela format to produce a mainstream television show that “addresses not only what it means to live in the United States as a first-, second-, or third-generation Mexican American, but also what it means to live within the interactions of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality” (2015, 3). Ugly Betty prominently featured the contrasts between Betty’s work and home to discuss these issues, and the show today still maintains a cult following. However, like the many Latinx shows in the past, ABC moved the show from time slot to time slot before cancelling it for low ratings, a persistent pattern in Latinx programming. While not specifically categorized as a telenovela, ABC’s Drama-Comedy series Desperate Housewives (2004–2012) also utilized many of the tropes and themes of the telenovela. Additionally, one of the show’s four primary family units was Latinx, the Solis family. As the series progressed, the depictions of Gabrielle Solis (Eva Longoria) and her husband Carlos (Ricardo Antonio Chavira) shifted from stereotypical to increasingly complexed and nuanced. In the initial season, Gabrielle Solis is an unfaithful, gold-digging, materialistic ex-model-turned-housewife who lives in fear of her quick-to-temper, machismo, business executive husband. More well-rounded characters emerged after both Gabrielle and Carlos experienced and survived a series of telenovela-like incidents, including Carlos’s blindness, their temporary downward mobility, the return of Gabrielle’s abusive stepfather, and even the revelation that their eldest daughter was switched at birth. Like the traditional telenovela, many of these plot devices were camp-like and outlandish, irreverently tongue-in-cheek. Yet a significant theme of Desperate Housewives was that the surface image each suburban family conveyed to the public was not the entire story. Notably, Desperate Housewives was also adapted into several Latin American telenovelas in countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, and Ecuador (as well as Turkey and Nigeria), further demonstrating its telenovela links. Lifetime’s Devious Maids (2013–2016) was a more purposeful attempt to develop a U.S. prime-time telenovela. Designed as dark dramedy with film noir elements and based on the Mexican telenovela Ellas son . . . La Alegría del Hogar (2009), Devious Maids focused on four Latina housemaids in Beverly Hills, with season one’s mystery being the murder of a fellow maid. However, the show was criticized for promoting Latina stereotypes, and Lifetime canceled it without resolving a season three cliffhanger. NBC attempted a parody show called Telenovela (2015–2016), focused on the backstage happenings of a Spanish-language telenovela whose star, Ana Sofia Calderon (Eva Longoria), cannot speak Spanish. Calderon’s world is further turned upside down when her ex-husband is hired to portray her love interest. The show received mixed reviews, and NBC cancelled Telenovela after one season. In 2019, Eva Longoria’s next project Grand Hotel, a telenovela about a Miami hotel owned and operated by a wealthy Latinx family, aired on ABC. Although receiving okay reviews and ratings, it was cancelled after one season. A more successful Latinx telenovela has been CW’s Jane the Virgin (2014– 2019), an adaptation of a Venezuelan telenovela. In this version, Jane Villanueva (Gina Rodriguez) is a twenty-something virgin, engaged to a police detective, who is mistakenly artificially inseminated. Soon after she agrees to have the baby,

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Jane starts to develop feelings for the biological father Rafael Solano (Justin Badoni), a wealthy hotel owner, who also happens to be her boss. In addition to this love triangle storyline, the show also focuses on Jane’s family—mother Xiomara (Andrea Navedo), grandmother Alba (Ivonne Coll), and long-lost father and telenovela star Rogelio (Jamie Camil). Jane the Virgin has been praised for featuring “a Latinx world that Anglos are a part of instead of the other way around” (Martinez qtd. in Jimenez 2016). The show is also notable for its humor, all-knowing narrator, exploration of multigenerational female experiences, and multilingual characters. A less self-referential and more serious telenovela is USA’s Queen of the South (2016–), which has been described as a Latina version of Narcos. Alice Braga leads a Latinx cast of supporting characters as Teresa Mendoza, a Mexican girl born into poverty who rises in power, now ruling over a large drug empire at the U.S.–Mexico border. An adaptation based on Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s novel and the Telemundo telenovela, Queen of the South was renewed for a fourth season in 2018. As a distinctive form of Latinx television style, telenovelas continue to be popular in both English and Spanish formats.

CHILDREN’S AND TEEN TELEVISION Television shows for children and teens have been another venue by which Latinx characters have found representation; they have also been popular with networks as a method by which to reach Latinx viewers from a very young age (Valdés 2002, 260). In the 1980s and 1990s, teen shows tended to focus on White protagonists, offering supporting cast roles to African American, Asian American, and Latinx characters. For example, two popular Latinx teen characters of the era were A. C. Slater (Mario Lopez) on NBC’s Saved by the Bell (1989–1993) and Rickie Vasquez (Wilson Cruz) on ABC’s My So-Called Life (1994–1995). While Lopez’s character offered little in terms of representation of Latinx identity, Cruz’s character, provided narrative plotlines that gave life to racism, domestic abuse, and homophobia. In more recent years, teen television has also been the site for television shows focused primarily on Latinx characters and themes. One of the first was Nickelodeon’s Brothers Garcia (2004–2007), a sitcom about four Latinx teen siblings in San Antonio, Texas. The show was a coproduction with Sí TV, a network designed to provide English-language programming to Latinx-focused audiences. More recent teen television shows have turned toward more dramatic themes. For example, Hulu’s East Los High (2013–2017) had an all-Latinx cast and crew and focused on themes of racial identity and coming-of-age in Los Angeles. Similarly, Netflix’s On My Block (2018–) centers on an inner-city neighborhood in Los Angeles, and a group of teens who band together to survive life’s challenges. Netflix ranked On My Block as its “top-binged show” for 2018 (Donegan 2018). Latinx representation in children’s programming begins with Rita Moreno’s role as Carmela on The Electric Company (1971–1997), a program designed to teach early reading skills to children. Moreno claims she saw The Electric Company as



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an opportunity to provide children with a sense of a Latinx presence on television (Beltrán 2009, 81), and her subsequent children’s television roles on Sesame Street (for which she won her first Emmy), Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego (1994– 1999), Elena of Avalor, Nina’s World, and The Magic School Bus have furthered this goal. The twenty-first century has seen several networks attempt to launch Latinx-centered children’s programming. For example, Nickelodeon’s Taina (2001–2002) starred Christina Vidal, alongside a predominately Latinx cast, as a Manhattan performing arts high school student who dreams of fame as a singer/ dancer. PBS’s Maya and Miguel (2004–2007) featured fraternal twins with Mexican and Puerto Rican parents. Language and multicultural learning, along with education and civics lessons, were at the heart of Maya and Miguel. Disney has generated a handful of Latinx children shows as well. Perhaps the most famous of these is Disney’s Wizards of Waverly Place (2007–2012), which helped to launch the career of Selena Gomez as one of three teen wizards in the Mexican-Italian Russo family. The show won 2009 and 2012 Emmy’s for outstanding children’s program; a film version of the show won an Emmy in this category in 2010 too. Disney’s Stuck in the Middle (2016–2018) was a teen sitcom focused on the middle child, Harley Díaz (Jenna Ortega), one of seven children in a Massachusetts Latinx family, who dreams of being an inventor. Ortega also serves as the voice of the younger sister on Disney’s Elena of Avalor, an animated adventure series (2016–2018) that focuses on Princess Elena (Aimee Carerro), who, having saved the kingdom from an evil sorceress, must learn how to rule Avalor with council from her grandparents. The show moved from Disney to Disney Jr. in 2018, and a debate has ensued as to whether Elena is Latina (the show’s executive producer claims she is; Disney declines to define Elena’s ethnicity (Moreno 2017). No discussion of Latinx and television would be complete without mention of Nickelodeon’s Dora the Explorer (2000–2006), an animated children’s program about a fearless seven-year-old and her adventurous quests with her monkey Boots and her signature purple backpack. The bilingual show, with its educational focus on cultural exploration and Spanish-language learning, has generated a franchise of children’s films, dolls, toys, and clothing lines. Dora was the most popular children’s program for 2001, helping to launch the network’s spin-off show, Go, Diego, Go! (2005–2006), which features Dora’s eight-year-old cousin Diego undertaking similar adventures. Both shows continue to be popular in syndication, offering early childhood education experiences in Latinx culture for children worldwide, and a live-action film focused on Dora’s high school adventures was released in Summer 2019.

SPANISH-LANGUAGE AND BILINGUAL NETWORKS A very significant element of Latinx television is Spanish-language programming, and the United States has two major Spanish-language networks: Univision and Telemundo. Univision is the largest provider of Spanish-language television

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programming and content in the United States, with sixty local markets and a series of cable-access channels such as Unimás, Galavisíon, and Univision Deportes. Although Univision began in 1955 as a single Spanish-only television station in San Antonio, Texas, it was soon acquired by a Mexican television conglomerate (a precursor to Televisa) in 1961, and much of Univision’s programming until recently has centered on rebroadcasting programs from other Latin American networks. Univision is also known for some of its own very long-running shows. Two notable examples would be Sabado Gigante [Giant Saturday] (1962– 2015), a variety show hosted by Don Francisco that mixed skits, music, and game show elements into a three-hour, Saturday evening program. Sabado Gigante’s fifty-three-year run is the longest in television history. Likewise, Univision had great success with El Show de Cristina (1989–2010), a talk show hosted by Cristina Saralegui who is often compared with Orpah Winfrey in terms of fame and influence. Telemundo, the United States’ second largest Spanish-language programming network, began in Puerto Rico in 1954; after a series of 1990s media mergers, Telemundo is now a subsidiary of Comcast/NBC Universal. Like Univision, Telemundo offers cable channels devoted to news and sports, but the majority of its programming consists of telenovelas, news and reality programming, and children’s entertainment offerings. Telemundo has also launched specialist networks, such as NBC Universo, a channel aimed at obtaining younger Latinx audiences. Telemundo is also noted for being the first Spanish-language network to add English captions, a shift geared at engaging wider Latinx audiences. Both Telemundo and Univision remain Spanish-language focused in content, with Univision having added English-language captions only in 2012. Some television scholars see this adherence to Spanish-language programing as a branding “strategy that has enabled them to assert unique expertise” (Chávez 2015, 5) in reaching Latinx viewers, whereas others note that “debates surrounding language usage within Latino communities are long-standing and contentious. The retention or loss of Spanish is sometimes employed as a cultural barometer to register the supposed ‘authenticity’ of a given Latino group or individual within that group” (Romero and Habell-Pallán 2002, 11). In Reinventing the Latino Television Viewer, author Christopher Chávez discusses a 2012 Pew Research Center study of Latinx language use, noting that 38 percent consider themselves to be Spanish dominant, 38 percent bilingual, and 24 percent English dominant (Chávez 2015, 112). Several bilingual networks have emerged to garner this larger and (and seemingly younger) English-Bilingual Latinx audience, including Estrella TV, and LATV. NUVO TV (formerly Sí TV) tried to garner this audience with English-language programming focused on Latinx cultural topics. Today, Chávez argues, the media industries envision Latinos “to be defined according to their youth, their heavy use of emerging technologies, their biculturality, and their proficiency in two languages” (2015, 65). Language programming is becoming increasingly bilingual as a result, and many U.S. Latinx television offerings (i.e., Jane the Virgin, Narcos, Queen of the South, Breaking Bad) have started to include bilingual scenes and subtitles too.



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ONLINE OFFERINGS, NEW DIRECTIONS, AND THE FUTURE OF LATINX TELEVISION With so few Latinx-centered shows on U.S. network and cable television, and with so many of those show cancelled after only one or two seasons, Latinx viewers have been increasingly turning to online platforms and format. This, too, is in keeping with research that U.S. Latinx audiences are “comfortable consuming television in a variety of mediums” and “spend 68 percent more time watching videos online and 20 percent more time watching videos on their mobile phones” than White viewers (Chávez 2015, 65). In 2012, YouTube created MiTú, a channel focused on capturing this Latinx viewing audience. With both Spanish and English offerings, MiTú has generated an array of internet programming, “webisodes,” such as Kat Call (which focuses on calling attention to the microaggressions Latinx experience, particularly racism, sexism, and homophobia), Las Jefas (a reality program about two sisters who open a traditional bakery), Stories of Us (interviews and features about Latinx events and communities), and La Cocina (a cooking show focused on the preparation of regional and traditional Latinx dishes). With over six billion views in 2014, MiTú showcases the Latinx programming of the future (Kozlowski 2014). Recognizing this emerging market, cable and satellite television programming are starting to offer Latinx-focused channels and bundling packages. For example, Sling TV, DirectTV, YouTube TV, and Xfinity TV Latino all offer collections of channels and programming focused on Latinx viewers interests and issues, culling from global programming, past and present. New cable channels are also emerging, such as El Rey, Sling Latino, and Fusion TV. Another important venue is Latino Public Broadcasting (LPB), a subsidiary of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, whose mission is “the development, production, acquisition and distribution of non-commercial education and cultural media that is representative of Latino people or addresses issues of particular interest to Latino Americans (“Mission Statement” 2019). With programming such as America by the Numbers, Voces, Latinos in 60 Seconds, and a variety of documentaries on the Latinx experience, LPB demonstrates the potential for Latinx and television representation into the future. While “no platform presents a profile of race/ethnicity that matches proportional representation in the U.S.” (Smith, Choueiti, and Pieper 2016, 16), the invisibility of Latinx-centered television programming is particularly startlingly given the Latinx proportion of the U.S. population, as well as their increasing economic power. As Uffalussy notes, “Hispanics in the US have over $1 trillion in purchasing power and represent more than half of US population growth between 2000– 2010” (2015). For much of the twentieth century, Latinx representations have relied on “tokenistic inclusion rather than integration” (Smith, Choueiti, and Pieper 2016, 16), and those token representations are often predicated on long-standing and harmful stereotypes. Some television programs like Jane the Virgin, Vida, and On My Block do signal new directions in Latinx representation, as do the Latinx-focused channels, on air and online. Television viewers today have far more mediums and platforms

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from which to choose; these new venues provide hope that the twenty-first-century programming will be more inclusive and diverse, better reflecting Latinx contributions and experiences. Kristin C. Brunnemer Further Reading

Aldama, Frederick Luis. 2013. “Multimediated Latinos.” In Latinos and Narrative Media, edited by Frederick Luis Aldama, 1–22. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Ali, Lorraine. 2018. “A Fresh Latinx View: Compelling Female Characters and Local Changes Drive Series.” Los Angeles Times, May 5. Anderson, Christopher. 1994. Hollywood TV: The Studio System in the Fifties. Austin: University of Texas Press. Beltrán, Mary. 2009. Latina/o Stars in U.S. Eyes: The Making and Meanings of Film and TV Stardom. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Berg, Charles Ramírez. 2002. Latino Images in Film: Stereotypes, Subversion, Resistance. Austin: University of Texas Press. Brown is the New Green: George Lopez and the American Dream. 2007. Directed by Phillip Rodriguez. Arlington: PBS Home Video. Chan, J. Clara. 2018. “John Leguizamo’s Required Reading for America.” The Atlantic, December  5. ­https://​­w ww​.­t heatlantic​.­com ​/­e ntertainment ​/­a rchive​/­2018​/­12​/­john​ -­leguizamos​-­latin​-­history​-­morons​-­must​-­reads​/­577633​/. Chávez, Christopher. 2015. Reinventing the Latinx Television Viewer: Language, Ideology, and Practice. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Cohn, D’Vera. 2015. “Future Immigration Will Change the Face of America by 2065.” Pew Research Center, October 5. ­http://​­w ww​.­pewresearch​.­org​/­fact​-­tank​/­2015​/­10​ /­05​/­f uture​-­immigration​-­will​-­change​-­the​-­face​-­of​-­america​-­by​-­2065​/. “Desi Arnaz.” 2014. PBS. ­http://​­w ww​.­pbs​.­org​/­wnet​/­pioneers​-­of​-­television​/­pioneering​ -­people​/­desi​-­arnaz​/. Donegan, Ryan. 2018. “2018 on Netflix: To All the Shows and Movies We’ve Loved Before. Netflix Media Center. ­https://​­media​.­netflix​.­com​/­en​/­press​-­releases​/­2018​-­on​ -­netflix​-­to​-­all​-­the​-­shows​-­and​-­movies​-­weve​-­loved​-­before. “Edward James Olmos” 2014. PBS. ­https://​­w ww​.­pbs​.­org​/­wnet​/­pioneers​-­of​-­television​ /­pioneering​-­people​/­edward​-­james​-­olmos​/. Fernandez, Maria Elena. 2007. “George Lopez Lashes Out at ABC.” Los Angeles Times, May 15. ­http://​­articles​.­latimes​.­com​/­2007​/­may​/­15​/­entertainment​/­et​-­lopez15. Freedland, Jonathan. 2008. “From West Wing to the Real Thing.” The Guardian, ­February  21. ­https://​­w ww​.­t heguardian​.­c om ​ /­world ​ /­2008​/­feb​ /­21​ / ­b arackobama​ .­uselections2008. Giordano, Ralph G. 2017. Pop Goes the Decade: The Fifties. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. González, Tanya, and Eliza Rodriguez y Gibson. 2015. Humor and Latina/o Camp in Ugly Betty: Funny Looking. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Gutiérrez, Félix F. n.d. “American Latino Theme Study: Media” National Park Service. ­https://​­w ww​.­nps​.­gov​/­articles​/­latinothemestudymedia​.­htm. Habell-Pallán, Michelle, and Mary Romero. 2002. Latino/a Popular Culture. New York: New York University Press. Howe, Andrew. 2014. “Breaking Bad and the Destruction of Latino Stereotypes.” In Breaking Bad: Critical Essays on the Contexts, Politics, Style, and Reception of



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the Television Series, edited by David P. Pierson, 87–102. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Jimenez, Celina. 2016. “Latinx Representation Making Small, Slow Steps Forward on the Silver Screen.” The State Press, February 5. ­http://​­w ww​.­statepress​.­com​/­article​ /­2016​/­02​/­latinx​-­t v​-­representation​-­on​-­silver​-­screen. Kozlowski, Lori. 2014. “MiTu, A YouTube Network Changing How Latino Content Creators and Audiences Connect.” Forbes, July 14. ­https://​­w ww​.­forbes​.­com​/­sites​ /­lorikozlowski​/­2014​/­06​/­27​/­mitu​-­a​-­youtube​-­network​-­changing​-­how​-­latino​-­content​ -­creators​-­and​-­audiences​-­connect​/#­7faf3a3176dd. LaloGuerreroChannel. 2008. “Culture Clash Show—Lalo Sings No Chicanos on TV.” YouTube  Video,  3.24,  November  21. ­https:// ​­ w ww​.­y outube​.­c om ​/­w atch​?­v​=​ ­JZt6lZ6RDAU. Larson, Stephanie Greco. 2006. Media & Minorities: The Politics of Race in News and Entertainment. Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield, 2006. “Mission Statement” 2019. Latino Public Broadcasting. ­http://​­lpbp​.­org​/­mission​-­statement​/. Molina-Guzmán, Isabel. 2013. “Latina Ethnoracial Ambiguity.” In Latinos and Narrative Media: Participation and Portrayal, edited by Frederick Luis Aldama, 143–160. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Molina-Guzmán, Isabel. 2018. Latinas and Latinos on TV: Colorblind Comedy in the Post-Racial Network Era. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Moreno, Carolina. 2017. “Sorry, Disney’s New Princess Elena Probably Doesn’t Count as Latina.” Huffington Post, December 6. ­https://​­www​.­huffingtonpost​.­com​/­2015​/­01​ /­29​/­disney​-­elena​-­of​-­avalor​-­latina​_n​_6573968​.­html. Omi, Michael. 2018. “In Living Color: Race and American Culture.” In Signs of Life in the U.S.A., 9th ed. Edited by Sonia Maasik and Jack Solomon, 462–473. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s. Pieraccini, Cristina, and Douglass L. Alligood. 2005. Color Television: Fifty Years of African American and Latino Images on Prime-Time Television. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt. Planas, Roque. 2017. “How John Leguizamo Pioneered One of Primetime TV’s First Attempts to Reach Latinos” Huffington Post, January 6. ­https://​­www​.­huffingtonpost​ .­com​/­entry​/­john​-­leguizamo​-­house​-­of​-­buggin​_us​_58640e33e4b0d9a59459e974. Recinos, Eva. 2017. “Why are Half of Latino Immigrant TV Characters Portrayed as Criminals?” The Guardian, November 14. ­https://​­w ww​.­theguardian​.­com​/­t v​-­and​ -­radio​/­2017​/­nov​/­14​/­why​-­are​-­half​-­of​-­latino​-­immigrant​-­t v​-­characters​-­portrayed​-­as​ -­criminals. Rincón & Associates. 2004. “Latinx Television Study.” LULAC, February 1. ­https://​­lulac​ .­org​/­assets​/­pdfs​/­mediadiversity​.­pdf. Robehmend, Natalie. 2018. “Highest-Paid TV Actresses 2018—Sofia Vergara Tops Ranking Again with $42.5 Million.” Forbes, October 25. ­https://​­w ww​.­forbes​.­com​/­sites​ /­natalierobehmed​/­2018​/­10​/­25​/ ­h ighest​-­paid​-­t v​-­actresses​-­2018​-­sofia​-­vergara​-­tops​ -­ranking​-­again​-­with​- ­42​-­5​-­million ​/. Saldívar, Samuel. 2013. “Dirty, Stinking Aliens: Latinos in Today’s Sci-Fi Televisual Blueprints.” In Latinos and Narrative Media: Participation and Portrayal, edited by Frederick Luis Aldama, 161–172. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Smith, Stacy, Marc Choueiti, and Katherine Pieper. 2016. “Inclusion or Invisibility?: Comprehensive Annenberg Report on Diversity in Entertainment.” USC Annenberg, February 22. ­http://​­annenberg​.­usc​.­edu​/­pages​/~​/­media​/ ­MDSCI​/­CARDReport​ %­20FINAL​%­2022216​.­ashx.

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Uffalussy, Jennifer Greyson. 2015. “Why Are Latino Viewers the Most Important for Networks?” The Guardian, January 1. ­https://​­w ww​.­theguardian​.­com​/­t v​-­and​-­radio​ /­t vandradioblog​/­2015​/­jan ​/­01​/­why​-­are​-­latino​-­viewers​-­important​-­for​-­networks. U.S. Census Bureau. 2016. “FFF: Hispanic Heritage Month 2016.” Census, October 12. ­https://​­w ww​.­census​.­gov​/­newsroom ​/­facts​-­for​-­features​/­2016​/­cb16 ​-­ff16​.­html. Valdés, M. Isabel. 2002. Marketing to American Latinos: A Guide to the In-Culture Approach. Ithaca, NY: Paramount Marketing Publishing.

Law & Order(1990–) NBC’s Law & Order franchise has depicted stories about the criminal justice system since the fall of 1990. Set primarily in New York City and its environs, the collection of series has depicted the diversity of that city by representing characters of many backgrounds, occupying a variety of positions with in the hierarchy of police, prosecutorial, and judicial systems. The franchise is comprised of the following series: • •

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Law & Order (1990–2010): often called the “Mothership” by its fandom, based in a fictional NYPD 27th precinct that investigates a wide range of crimes. Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (SVU, 1999–): based in the 16th precinct, the police squad focuses on sex crimes and other criminal actions facing vulnerable populations, such as child and elder abuse. Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001–2011): focuses on crimes investigated by the Major Case squad. Law & Order: Trial by Jury (2005–2006): based primarily on the “law” aspect of law and order, this series addresses the procedural aspects of the justice system from the perspective of attorneys rather than from police officers. Law & Order: LA (2010–2011): a parallel to the mothership, but based on a fictional version of the Los Angeles Police Department. Law & Order: True Crime (2017): serialized story lines, with entire seasons dedicated to a single, high-profile case; season one covered the trial of Lyle and Erik Menendez, convicting in 1994 for having murdered their parents.

The franchise was accompanied by a made-for-television film, Exiled: A Law & Order Movie (1998), a host of foreign adaptations, and a set of video games. The series occupies the same universe as multiple crime dramas, most of which were conceived by Dick Wolf, the creator of Law & Order. As a long-running police procedural franchise, Law & Order codified many of the tropes associated with the genre. With its revolving-door cast, episodic narrative structure, frequent use of diverse guest actors, and preference for action and legal resolution over character development, Law & Order not only challenged prevailing expectations about race, whiteness, and criminality, it subverted those expectations by highlighting crimes committed by White perpetrators, and by featuring a disproportionately large number of people of color as members of law enforcement teams.



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The original Law & Order series began as a police procedural whose racial balance paralleled that of previous series where law enforcement teams consisted largely—if not exclusively—of White men (Hill Street Blues (1981–1987) was a notable exception). Law & Order’s original cast included Richard Brooks as Assistant District Attorney Paul Robinette, the only character of color working alongside Executive A.D.A Ben Stone (Michael Moriarty), D.A. Adam Schiff (Steven Hill), Sergeant Max Greevey (George Dzundza), Detective Mike Logan (Chris Noth), and Captain Don Cragen (Dann Florek). No women occupied leadership in the original cast of law enforcement officials, until the replacement of Paul Robinette with A.D.A. Jill Hennessy (Claire Kincaid) and the replacement of Don Cragen with Lieutenant Anita Van Buren (S. Epatha Merkerson). In another departure from its immediate genre predecessors, and perhaps as a homage to earlier police procedurals such as Dragnet (1951–1959), the Law & Order franchise eschewed melodrama and character development, instead privileging episodic narrative focused sharply on criminal investigation and prosecution. In keeping with other procedurals, however, was the reliance on a created universe, consisting of fleshed-out settings and resources that could be used in multiple series: the fictional Hudson University, for instance, appears in several New York-based Law & Order series. Likewise, characters appear in multiple series, with a small number of obvious crossover episodes serving as a means to allow teams from one series to work closely with one another to solve particularly complex crimes. The procedural format also allows for extensive use of guest stars and featured actors, who increase the franchise’s ability to tell stories about diverse groups of people. This is particularly important, given the settings of the franchise series, New York and Los Angeles. As of the most recent census, both cities house racially diverse populations; neither city’s population consists of more than 35 percent non-Hispanic White persons. As majority-minority cities, both Los Angeles and New York merit the kind of racial representation depicted in later episodes of the original series and throughout the other entries in the franchise. Such Ice-T as Lieutenant Odafin Tutuola In the nineteenth season of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Odafin “Fin” Tutuola achieved the rank of lieutenant, a first for a person of color working in the fictional NYPD sex crimes unit. Ice-T’s small screen success—more than eighteen seasons as a regular cast member on a highly rated series—is highly ironic, given his prior success as a rapper whose most noted album, Body Count (1992), became famous because it included a track titled “Cop Killer.” Written out of frustration over unprosecuted cases of police misconduct, “Cop Killer” generated enough controversy to spur Ice-T to pull the album from shelves and rerelease it without the song. The furor over the track parallels the later furor over the supposed anti-cop sentiments expressed by the Black Lives Matter movement, depicted in several late-season episodes of SVU, where Fin’s character occupies a tenuous position inside a predominantly White police force accused of unfairly targeting communities of color.

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depictions are in keeping with the franchise’s explicit goal of televisual realism. That said, the franchise has been critiqued for supposedly underrepresenting crimes committed by persons belonging to racial and/or ethnic minority groups, by representing White criminality in higher numbers than those borne out in statistics on race and criminal conviction, and for minimizing the extent to which nonwhite persons are victims of crimes. That is to say, White characters are overrepresented as criminals and as victims in the Law & Order universe. This conundrum can be explained, perhaps, by the franchise’s tendency to overrepresent Whiteness generally, despite its efforts to avoid doing so through its diverse casting. Because the franchise consists of more than 1,100 episodes, it would be impossible to highlight enough specific episodes that directly address race in ways that reflect the franchise as a whole, this section will instead highlight episodes from the franchise that stand out because they represent race or recount stories about race that either subvert expectations established in the franchise, or because they bring to the screen stories that are not often told in television police dramas. In “Blood,” a 1997 episode from the Mothership, Detectives Lenny Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Reynaldo “Rey” Curtis (Benjamin Bratt) investigate the death of Karen Burdett. The detectives initially suspect suicide, it is determined that she was murdered, pushed out of a window by an unknown perpetrator. Josh Burdett (Stephen Mendillo), Karen’s husband, suggests that his wife took her own life. The couple had recently given up a child for adoption, and Burdett indicates that his wife was distraught because he had pressured her into making the decision to give up the child. As the detectives move to wrap up the investigation, they discover that the child in question was Black, despite having two apparently White parents. This discovery leads the team to suspect Karen of having been unfaithful, but they uncover a long-held secret: Josh Burdett is Black but has been passing for White his entire life. The existence of a Black child threatened to expose Burdett’s secret and served as the explanation of the decision to send the child away and as a motive to permanently silence his wife. This episode draws on very old literary and dramatic tropes regarding the dangers of passing for White, the fear that one’s secret can be revealed at any time. A similar premise underlies a later episode of SVU (“Mercy,” 2003), when the body of a baby is discovered. Upon examination, the baby is discovered to have been suffering from Tay-Sachs disease, a hereditary, debilitating, and ultimately fatal condition found almost exclusively in Jewish communities. Because the disease is so devastating, Jewish couples are usually tested before having children to see if both parents carry the gene and would therefore produce children who would have the disease. Medical Examiner Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie) guesses that the child was killed as an act of mercy to avoid months of suffering that would likely result in death before the age of one. In this instance, the ethnic identities of the child’s parents are not secret; Andrea (Elizabeth Mitchell) and Daniel Brown (Gregg Edelman) are known to be Jewish. The case hinges on an important distinction within Judaism between ethnicity and faith. Daniel Brown converted to Judaism, and, being of non-Jewish lineage, is an unlikely carrier of the Tay-Sachs gene, and therefore would not have been tested before getting married. Ultimately,



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it is revealed that Andrea had been having an affair with a coworker, who was the biological father to the deceased child. Andrea masterminded Sarah’s death, claiming it to be a mercy killing, but A.D.A. Alexandra Cabot (Stephanie March) argues, successfully, that Andrea murdered the child in order to bury a secret, not of her ethnic identity, but of her infidelity with the child’s biological father. Other episodes from the franchise draw on contemporary racial controversies as a basis for story lines. “American Tragedy” (SVU, 2013) a ripped-from-theheadlines episode combining the Trayvon Martin killing and the Paula Deen controversy. Cybill Shepherd plays Jolene Castille, a famous southern chef now residing in Manhattan. Castille claims to have been attacked by an unknown assailant, whom she shoots and ultimately kills. Complicating matters is a string of neighborhood attacks perpetrated by an as-yet-unidentified young Black man. Castille’s victim is Mehcad Carter (Moise Morancy), whose alleged crime poses the question of the episode: was Castille acting in self-defense or not? The episode displaces racism onto the south by creating a caricature of a southern racist who moves to the north and offends the supposedly liberal northerners with her overt, explicit racism against Black people. Castille employs Black men as servants, who, for instance, are not allowed to use the same restrooms as her White patrons. She expresses discomfort with Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), refusing to cede to his authority as a police officer because of his Blackness. The bluntness of her rac­ ism troubles everyone in the squad, but not to the extent that they reject her unverified claims of self-defense, which implicitly, and without evidence, cast Mehcad as a violent perpetrator. Fin is thus forced to repeatedly reframe the issue by reminding his captain and fellow officers that, based on the available evidence, Mehcad was a victim, not a suspect. Multiple episodes in the franchise deal with the complex ways in which racist acts of violence from the past come to bear upon the present. The Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode “Acts of Contrition” (2005) explains how White guilt over a past crime led a woman to lead a life of service. A few minutes into the episode, Sister Dorothy (Amy Wright) is murdered by an unknown assailant seeking information about another nun, information that Sister Dorothy withholds. After a complex investigation, the assailant, Eddie Roberts (Larry Gilliard Jr.) is identified. S. Epatha Merkerson as Lieutenant Anita Van Buren The longest-running character in the original Law & Order series, Anita Van Buren served as the first woman in the franchise to reach the rank of lieutenant and the first to lead a unit. Merkerson was aware of the dissonance created by her character’s achievement; she noted that the fictional Van Buren became a New York Police Department lieutenant before any woman had ever reached that rank in the real-life NYPD. Merkerson has also described challenges she faced as a Black woman cast member, noting in an interview for the Archive of American Television that series creator Dick Wolf expressed concerns—allegedly on behalf of the network—about Merkerson’s natural hair, leading Merkerson to wear a straight-haired wig when playing Van Buren throughout her sixteen-year stint on the show. That said, Merkerson has hailed the series, praising it for its decision to include women characters in positions of authority.

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Upon questioning, Eddie all but admits to having killed Sister Dorothy while in pursuit of Sister Olivia (Susan Misner), a younger nun who, along with Sister Dorothy, works to free young women who have become trapped in the sex trade. Given Sister Olivia’s status as a nun and as a heroic figure, she is accorded sympathy by the investigating team until Eddie explains why he was searching for Sister Olivia. Prior to entering the order, Sister Olivia was known as Angie DiMarco. As a teenager, DiMarco was involved in a brutal hate crime that lead to the permanent disfigurement and impairment of Roberts’s half-brother, Jimmy Jones (Barry Martin). As Eddie understands it, Angie lured his half-brother to the planned attack by asking him to meet her friend for a date. This friend, also White, triggered her racist ex-boyfriend by dating Black boys. Angie told this racist friend about the planned gathering, knowing that he would take his rage out on Jimmy. The revelation of DiMarco/Sister Olivia’s involvement in the hate crime leads to a conflict between Detective Robert Goren (Vincent D’Onofrio) and A.D.A. Ron Carver (Courtney B. Vance), who disagree over how to handle the now-disgraced nun. Goren wishes to gloss over her past indiscretions in light of her service, planning to use her solely for information to pursue the man who attacked Jones, who would be liable for Jones’s murder when he ultimately succumbs to his injuries. Carver, inspired by an impassioned speech from Roberts about the unfairness of White people evading justice for decades, wishes to hold DiMarco/Sister Olivia accountable for her involvement in the hate crime, a crime that would never have occurred without her involvement. The conflict is ultimately subverted when Di/Marco/Sister Olivia, overcome with guilt, confesses that she not only lured Jones to the scene, she also repeatedly kicked him, making her complicit not only in the conspiracy to harm Jones, but in his brutal attack as well. Her confession makes her fully liable for Jones’s injuries. Her life in service, her attempt at redemption for her past violent racism, ultimately does not protect her from justice. A racist hate crime from the past serves as the basis for a recent attack in an episode of SVU as well. In “Reparations” (2011), Jonah Dekker (Terence Howard) defends his cousin, Dwight Talcott (Vondie Curtis Hall) when he is accused of raping Catherine Harrison (Virginia Kull). As it turns out, Dwight did break into Catherine’s room with the intent to terrorize her, but, as the episode reveals, he never sexually assaulted her. His motive was revenge; decades earlier, Catherine’s grandfather Grant (Robert Hogan) and a group of young White men brutally attacked and raped Dwight’s mother, Lorna (Irma P. Hall). Those men never faced the consequences despite the heinousness of their actions. Dwight wanted to terrorize Catherine as a way of punishing Grant, but, because of the sexual trauma his mother faced, he couldn’t bring himself to assault Catherine; he broke into the room and scared her, but left without assaulting her. This revelation, ultimately corroborated by Catherine, begged the question why Catherine claimed to have been raped. After initially falsely accusing her Black roommate’s brother of assault before ultimately identifying Dwight as the man who broke into her room, Catherine explains that her grandfather taught her to assume that all Black men are rapists. She claimed to have been raped because she thought no one would believe that a Black man broke into her room but did not violate her sexually. In this case, the legacy of racism passed down from grandparent to grandchild resulted in two



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Black men being falsely accused of rape, the destruction of Catherine’s friendship with her roommate, and, ultimately, the end of Catherine’s relationship with her racist grandfather. Still, no formal punishment befalls him for his past crimes, and no justice is granted to Lorna, who was forced to open up about her trauma. Unlike earlier procedurals where Black characters served as “cool” figures, servants, or criminals, actors of color who star and costar in the Law & Order franchise appear in a wide range of roles. Each of the series eschews both respectability politics and the pigeon-holing characters of color into common stereotypical roles. The franchise does often resort to showing Black civilians as poor and undereducated, but also explicitly questions these stereotypes, such as when the squad is excoriated for assuming that a murdered young Black woman was a prostitute when she was, in actuality, a high-achieving college student (SVU: “Hysteria,” 1999). Likewise, Law & Order complicates stereotypes when Latinxs are assumed to be undocumented or unable to speak English—an assumption that questions the legal and cultural status of people based solely on their racial or ethnic identity—while simultaneously exploring the specific legal challenges that do face people who are victimized while undocumented and/or unable to communicate easily with law enforcement. Through these complexities, the Law & Order franchise codifies the contemporary police procedural, with its focus on realistic scenarios that seek to shed light on difficult, seemingly intractable social and legal problems rather than on melodramatic scenarios stemming from character relationships. The franchise also serves as a model for Dick Wolf’s parallel collection of series based in Chicago, and for a host of imitators and competitors, but none quite captured the racial diversity—and concomitant economic and educational diversity of Law & Order’s fictional New York. Aaron Gurlly Further Reading

Cunningham, Mark D. 2016. “Member of an Elite Squad: Ice-T and the Imagining of ‘Fin’ Tutuola.” In Rapper, Writer, Pop-Cultural Player: Ice-T and the Politics of Black Cultural Production, edited by Josephine Metcalf and Will Turner. New York: Routledge. Rapping, Elayne. 2003. Law and Justice as Seen on TV. New York: New York University Press. Rudolph, Jennifer D. 2017. “‘Whose Manhattan?’: Mapping Color-Blind Justice for Latinos on Law & Order.” Journal of Popular Culture 50: 983–1002. Sides, John. 2017. “The Surprising Racial and Gender Bias in ‘Law and Order.’” Washington Post, January 3.

Lee, Bruce(1940–1973) Although short-lived, Bruce Lee’s television and film career had a lasting impact. Best known for his athletic prowess and brilliance as a martial artist, Lee’s legacy can be seen throughout popular culture. Challenging the erasure of Asians within popular culture and bringing an uncommon level of depth and humanity, Lee’s performances are central to a history of Asian Americans on television.

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Born in 1940 in San Francisco, Bruce Lee grew up in Kowloon, Hong Kong. At a young age, Lee was introduced to the entertainment industry by his opera singer father, Lee Hoi-Chuen. After appearing in several films in Hong Kong, he moved to the United States, eventually enrolling at the University of Washington in 1961 to study drama. Leaving the school in 1964, he moved to California where he taught karate and participated in various Kung Fu exhibitions. It was the 1964 Long Beach International Karate Championships where Lee was led back to acting. Jay Sebring, the hair stylist to the stars, attended the event; that following week, he told producer, William Dozier, about Lee, who would ultimately reach out to him about a screen test. While known for his career in Hollywood, including films such as First of Fury (1972) and Enter the Dragon (1973), Bruce Lee broke into American popular culture through television. Appearing as Kato, the Green Hornet’s sidekick, on both Batman (1966–1968) in 1966 and 1967 and in The Green Hornet (1966–1967), Lee became an international superstar. Starring alongside of Van Williams, The Green Hornet tells the story of a crime-fighting duo: Britt Reid (Williams), the owner of a newspaper, who secretly fights crime as the green hornet, and Kato, his driver whose mastery of Kung-Fu proves invaluable as they battle various enemies. Although the “sidekick,” critics noted how Lee captivated audiences, dominating the screen with his charisma, athleticism, and skills. “Every kid, I believe, in America noticed that guy behind The Green Hornet—the one who could kick, the one who could punch, the one who could move so amazingly—all eyes centered on him,” argued Ric Meyers (Ellis 2015). “The makers of The Green Hornet had to actively restrain Bruce Lee from being himself because they realized every time, they saw the rushes that everything else was wiped off-screen.” Others would celebrate Lee for disrupting the stereotypes of Asian Americans as meek, as weak, and as otherwise laughable. Yet, despite Lee’s popularity, and the excitement that resulted from an Asian American actor appearing on television as a tough crime-fighter, his performance was not without criticism. Some lamented the perpetuation of long-standing stereotypes of Asian Americans as servants, as Kung Fu master, and as the benevolent sidekicks of White heroes. Noting the limits of inclusion and diversity, Vijay Prashad, in “Bruce Lee and the Anti-imperialism of Kung Fu: A Polycultural Adventure,” writes: “Lee experienced multiculturalism in a very constrained manner, one that tended to see culture as discrete, with authentic and pure histories now grudgingly accorded mild dignity. In The Green Hornet, Lee’s Kato did nothing to challenge the legendary stereotypes of the alien ‘heathen Chinee’ [sic] within the American White Republic” (2003, 53). Even Lee wasn’t happy with the role of Kato, questioning the show’s representation of Asians. Responding to a critic, who lamented television’s persistent anti-Asian stereotypes, Lee noted, “You better believe it, man. I mean it’s always the pigtail and the bouncing around, chop-chop, you know, with the eyes slanted and all that” (qtd. in Prashad 2003). Evident here, his contempt of the Kato charac­ ter was well-known. “Bruce really hated his performance in that show because he felt like he wasn’t really being himself,” noted his daughter, Shannon Lee, in a 2016 interview. “After doing ‘The Green Hornet,’ he made up his mind that he was



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going to show Hollywood what the authentic representation of an Asian man was in television and film and that was his goal” (qtd. in Hassan 2016) At one point during filming, Lee was mistaken for a chauffeur by a producer, who asked him to pick up another cast member. Soon after the end of The Green Hornet, a studio killed plans to cast Lee as the star of Kung Fu, noting he was “too Chinese” (Prashad 2003), instead casting David Carradine, a White actor. The lack of opportunities and authentic representations, alongside of these experiences with racism, shaped Lee’s cinematic choices going forward. His performance as Kato impacted Lee’s career in significant ways, facilitating his growing popularity in Hong Kong, and propelling his short-lived film stardom. Lee died in 1973. Almost fifty years after his death, Lee’s idea for a show is set for release on Cinemax. In the early 1970s, Lee pitched a show, entitled Warrior, to television executives. Unable to sell a show on “a Chinese martial artist exploring the American West” the idea languished for more than four decades. Justin Lin, director of Better Luck Tomorrow (2002), decided “to correct a wrong, to really try to honor what he was trying to do” (Lam 2019) by bringing Warrior to television. Set in the nineteenth century, the show follows Ah Sahm (Andrew Koji) as he moves to San Francisco in search of his sister. Battling various Chinese gangs, Sahm’s Kung Fu prowess is on full display in the show. Representing the legacy of Lee’s career, Warrior tells stories of the Asian Americans’ experience uncommon on television. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Ellis, James. 2015. “The Kato Show: Bruce Lee as the Green Hornet’s Sidekick.” Newsweek, November 20. ­https://​­w ww​.­newsweek​.­com​/ ­bruce​-­lee​-­king​-­f u​-­martial​-­arts​ -­390811. Hassan, Mohamed. 2016. “Over Four Decades after Bruce Lee’s Death, His Family Carries on His Legacy.” NBC News, July 19. ­https://​­w ww​.­nbcnews​.­com​/­news​ /­asian​-­america​/­over​-­four​-­decades​-­after​-­bruce​-­lee​-­s​-­death​-­his​-­family​-­n612496. Lam, Charles. 2019. “‘Warrior’ Will Bring Bruce Lee’s Ideas to TV Almost Half a Century after Studios Said ‘No.’” NBC News, March 27. ­https://​­w ww​.­nbcnews​.­com​ /­news​/­asian​-­america​/­warrior​-­will​-­bring​-­bruce​-­lee​-­s-​ ­ideas​-­tv​-­almost​-­half​-­n987731. Prashad, Vijay. 2003. “Bruce Lee and the Anti-imperialism of Kung Fu: A Polycultural Adventure.” Positions 11 (1): 51–90. Trevino. Chris. 2014. “Bruce Lee Put U.S. Martial Arts on the Grand Stage in Long Beach 50 Years Ago.” Long Beach Press-Telegram, August 1. ­https://​­w ww​.­presstelegram​ .­com ​/­2014​/­08​/­01​/ ­bruce​-­lee​-­put​-­us​-­martial​-­arts​-­on​-­the​-­g rand​-­stage​-­in​-­long​-­beach​ -­50​-­years​-­ago​/.

Leguizamo, John(1964–) John Leguizamo, a Colombia-born comedian and actor, is known for his wide array of Latino characters that tackle stereotypes. Born in Bogota in 1964, John Leguizamo spent his formative years in Queens, New York. Growing up in what was then the rough neighborhood of Jackson Heights, the young Leguizamo

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struggled through a turbulent childhood. His parents, Luz and Alberto, had moved to New York to give him a better life, but their constant fighting before divorcing when he was thirteen was a source of much pain. It also became central to his comedy act. His acting career began during his childhood, as he did voices and accents in an effort to stand out on the neighborhood playground. As a kid, Leguizamo would get into trouble for truancy and hopping subway turnstiles; eventually, he was arrested twice. He and his friend commandeered a subway PA system, performing an improvised comedy routine, an incident that ended in his arrest. Frustrated by their son, his parents sent him back to Colombia for a year to teach him a lesson. He returned just as mischievous as before. Fortunately for Leguizamo, a teacher at Murray Bergtraum High School recommended he try acting as an outlet for his excess energy. In 1983, he found the Sylvia Leigh Showcase Theater and began studying there. The same year, he landed an appearance in Madonna’s Borderline video. Thereafter, he studied acting at the Strasberg Theater Institute for two years. Following a one-year attempt to study drama at NYU, he left to join the comedy group, Off Center Theater. Leguizamo spent the latter half of the 1980s perfecting his stand-up routines and developing new stage personas. His first TV role was on the show Miami Vice (1984–1989). He would land small roles in Die Hard II in 1990 and Regarding Henry in 1991 following his film debut in Brian de Palma’s Casualties of War in 1989. That same year he also landed a feature role in the Indie film, Hanging with the Homeboys, a movie about two African Americans and two Puerto Ricans. Mambo Mouth (1991), Leguizamo’s first comedy show, began Off Broadway and was later picked up by HBO for their Comedy Theater Stories, winning an Obie Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, Vanguard Award, and a CableACE Award. While immensely popular among his fans, critics accused him of perpetuating anti-Latino stereotypes. He responded to critics by stating that he was using this forum as a “purge” of racism directed at the Latinx community. Spic-o-Rama was his 1993 follow-up to Mambo Mouth. This show sold out in Chicago before returning to New York, where it was well received, eventually airing on HBO, and winning several awards. As indicated by the title, this show was a further exploration of Latinx characters and stereotypes, portraying six members of a Jackson Heights family. That same year, he landed the role of Benny Blanco in the film Carlito’s Way, which won him critical acclaim. Next Leguizamo coauthored the show Freak: A Semi-Demi-Quasi-Pseudo Autobiography, with David Bar Katz, which simultaneously opened on Broadway and was published in book form. Riding the wave of his success, Leguizamo created a TV comedy-variety show called House of Buggin’ (1995), in which he also starred. Airing on the FOX network, the show was the first of its kind to feature an entirely Latinx cast, and it received fantastic reviews and an Emmy nomination. Despite the positive reception, it was canceled before the end of its first season when Leguizamo refused to let the network alter the show’s cast. Leguizamo continued a successful film career and received a Golden Globe nomination for his stunning performance as Chi Chi Rodriguez in the film To Wong Foo: Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (1995). He has also performed in



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many animated movies, including Titan A.E. (2000) and in the Ice Age series of films (starting in 2002), saying that he loved becoming an animated character and wanted to be the Latin Mel Blanc. Also, in 2002, he wrote and performed in yet another of his one-man shows called Sexaholix . . . A Love Story: Monologue. Once again, he was lauded for his energetically electric stage performance, which was aired on HBO. One of Leguizamo’s biggest roles was as the quirky and troubled Dr. Victor Clemente on ER (1994–2009) during the 2005–2006 season. Other ventures have included several television commercials, both as actor and director, for Burger King, the VW Beetle, and Cablevision. In 2017, John Leguizamo appeared at the first Immigration Arts Summit in New York City, where he spoke about Latinx contributions to American film, TV, and stage. He highlighted the vibrant culture and history of Latinxs, while questioning Latinx representation within the media. Noting that one in six Americans are of Latin descent, he wondered why Hollywood wasn’t reflecting that statistic. Citing that as the reason he started writing his one-man shows, he explained that it gave him an artistic outlet that didn’t force him to play a criminal. His 2017 Off Broadway show, Latin History for Morons, was his way of presenting Latinxs as he sees them—funny, intelligent people. He created a ninety-five-minute “cheat sheet” to explain the history and contributions of Latinxs from the Incas to pit bulls. Latin History was a culmination of his experience of being bullied as a child and his son’s own bullying experiences. John Leguizamo’s keen eye for observation, combined with his impression skills, have helped him create dozens of memorable Latinx characters, each one skewering stereotypes and helping foster a better understanding of Latinx culture. Christine Fiore Further Reading

Leguizamo, John. 1997. Freak: A Semi-Demi-Quasi-Pseudo Autobiography. New York: Riverhead Books. Osterhout, Jacob E. 2011. “‘Ghetto Klown’ Actor John Leguizamo Revisits Old Jackson Heights Neighborhood, Misses Food.” Daily News, February 21. Tressler, Bill. 2017. “John Leguizamo Speaks on Latin Representation in Entertainment, Announces New One-Man Show.” The Interrobang, July 20.

Liu, Lucy(1968–) Lucy Liu, an Asian American actress, was born and raised in Queens, New York, to Chinese immigrant parents. She grew up in Jackson Heights and graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1986. Her mother, a biochemist, and her father, a trained civil engineer who sold digital clock pens, met and married in New York City. While studying Asian languages at the University of Michigan, she earned a role in Alice in Wonderland. This opportunity proved to be a major turning point in her life, leading her to relocate to Los Angeles with hopes of a career in acting. In between auditions, she worked as a waitress. She landed “walk-on” roles in

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Beverly Hills 90210 (1990–2000), NYPD (1993–2005), ER (1994–2009), and the X-Files (1993–2018). In 1996, she got her big break, landing a role in Jerry Maguire, which would lead to increased opportunities on both the small screen and within Hollywood. Her transcendent breakthrough would come in Ally McBeal (1998–2002) when she was cast as Ling Woo during season two. The show, which appeared on Fox, chronicled the professional and personal lives of several Boston lawyers. Woo, after being introduced as a client suing a shock jock for sexual harassment, would soon join the firm. Her role earned critical praise, garnering both a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. Yet, despite her Cornell Law degree, her character and much of the plot would focus on her sexuality, her beauty, her use of sex as a tool of control and power. While affording her commercial success and increased opportunities, all while increasing the visibility for Asian American women on television, her character would prompt debate and criticism for its perpetuation of stereotypes of Asian American women as hyper-sexual, “exotic,” cold, and mean. According to Darrell Hamamoto, Ling represents “a neo-Orientalist masturbatory fantasy figure concocted by a white man whose job it is to satisfy the blocked needs of other white men who seek temporary escape from their banal and deadening lives by indulging themselves in a bit of visual cunnilingus while relaxing on the sofa” (qtd. in Lee 1999). Liu, herself, described her role as Ling Woo in Ally McBeal as one that follows in the tradition of representing Asian American women as “geishas” or “Dragon Ladies.” In 2004, Lucy Liu also appeared in the animated television series Maya and Miguel (2004–2007) as the voice of Peggy Lee. In 2008, she earned a leading role in ABC’s Cashmere Mafia (2008), a crime drama. While only lasting one season, her place on the show, as one of the only Asian American leading stars, represented yet another step forward for Asian American actors. In 2012, she would land the role of Jessica Tang in TNT’s Southland (2009–2013), securing a Critics’ Choice Television Award for Best Drama Guest Actress. In 2012, Liu took on the role of Dr. Joan Watson, the assistant to Sherlock Holmes, in CBS’s Elementary (2012–2019). Her playing a role that has historically been dominated by White male actors represented an important intervention. By embodying this known character, Liu was able to challenge hegemonic ideas about Asian foreignness, demonstrating that Asian Americans can be embodied within the larger society and its institutions, and challenging long-standing stereotypes about “foreignness” and the lack of assimilation of Chinese American immigrants. Lucy Liu has also been at the forefront in the fight for increased opportunities for artists of color. She has been vocal about racism and the problems resulting from the stereotyping of Asian Americans within popular culture. Images of the “obedient slave” and “subservient China Doll” tend to amplify the binaries of us versus them between groups in mainstream society. Liu has embraced the role, questioning the lack of diversity and the types of role afforded to artists of color. Her success and her privileges have provided her a platform. Lucy Liu belongs to the 1.5 generation. She bears both a distinct Asian American identity and an



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American identity. Her citizenship status, her perceived beauty, and her identity have afforded her opportunities on screen and to be vocal in the struggle for increased opportunities. As Shilpa Dave (2013) writes, possession of an “American” tone reinforces an individual’s [ethnicity] and an imbued sense of “national community” (2013, 11). Both on television and in Hollywood films, Lucy Liu has had a significant career. While her career has been defined by the limited opportunities and entrenched stereotypes that undermine the diversity of representations, her successes on screen and her activism have opened up doors for Asian American artists. Shilpashri Karbhari Further Reading

Dave, Shilpa. 2013. Indian Accents: Brown Voice and Racial Performance in American Television and Film. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Gupta, Amit. 2016. “Indian Is the New Black? The Rise of Indian-Americans on American Television.” The Round Table 105 (1): 43–55. Lee, Chisun. 1999. “The Ling Thing: ‘Ally McBeal’ Uses Ancient Oriental Secret.” The Village Voice, November 30. ­http://​­w ww​.­villagevoice​.­com​/­news​/­the​-­ling​-­thing​ -­6420272. Schulz, Stacey E. 2012. “Asian American Women Artists Performative Strategies Redefined.” Journal of Asian American Studies 15 (1): 105–127. Smith, S. E. 2013. “Lucy Liu Talks Candidly about Racism and Stereotypes in Hollywood.” Xo Jane, May 13. ­http://​­w ww​.­xojane​.­com​/­entertainment​/­lucy​-­liu​-­talks​ -­racism​-­in​-­hollywood.

Living Single(1993–1998) Living Single (1993–1998) was the first situation comedy to feature four successful African American women on a prime-time series. Created and executively produced by Yvette Lee Bowser, who became the first Black woman to create a successful series on network television, the series featured four twenty-something Black women of varying body types and skin tones. The lynchpin of the group is Khadijah James played by a popular rap artist, Queen Latifah, in her first starring role as an actress. Khadijah is the editor of Flavor magazine, a small independent publication catering to urban communities. She lives in a Brooklyn brownstone apartment with her gullible cousin/assistant turned aspiring actress from the Midwest Synclaire James (Kim Coles) and her childhood friend Regine Hunter (Kim Fields), a boutique buyer who constantly searches for a man with money. Although not technically a roommate, but present as much as the other women is Khadijah’s best friend and former college roommate Maxine “Max” Shaw (Erika Alexander), a skilled attorney. Also living in the brownstone is Kyle Barker (T. C. Carson), a stockbroker, and his roommate, the building’s handyman Overton Wakefield Jones (John Henton). The production history of Living Single reflects a confluence of multiple factors: Warner Brothers, the production company, had a holding deal (a contract agreeing to develop a show) with both Kim Fields and Queen Latifah, and needed

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to find them a television show to star in. FOX, a new network at the time, was trying to compete with the three major networks—ABC, CBS, and NBC—by using a niche marketing strategy of targeting younger more urban audience members. This underserved audience included, in large part, African Americans. By 1993, FOX was airing “the largest single crop of black-produced shows in television history” (Zook 1999, 4). Living Single satisfied the racial and age demographics that FOX was trying to establish with its programming. Initially the series was titled “My Girls,” although the name was changed as to avoid alienating male viewers. Yet, the focus would never stray from a show about Black women. The pilot episode features the women in the bathroom singing along to the popular Temptations’ song “My Girl.” Queen Latifah’s rap in the theme song also refers to the initial title, “I’m glad I got my girls.” Queen Latifah wrote and performed the series theme song. Her career as a female rapper was intrinsically linked to her character Khadijah. In fact, the season one episode “U.N.I.T.Y,” features Queen Latifah’s music video by the same name. The name of Khadijah’s magazine Flavor was also the name of Latifah’s record label and management company, Flavor Unit Records and Flavor Unit Entertainment, respectively. The success of Living Single helped establish Queen Latifah as bankable Black actress in Hollywood. While Living Single was a star vehicle for Queen Latifah, her character was not the breakout character of the show. To critics and fans alike, Max would be the standout character of the series. Unlike her peers, Max could not be easily placed into a stereotype or an existing racial trope. Khadijah was the matriarch of the group and the voice of reason; Synclaire was the naïve one in a manner similar to Chrissy Snow on Three’s Company’s (1976–1984) and Rose on The Golden Girl (1985–1992); and Regine was the man-hunting gold digger in ways resembling Sandra Clark on 227 (1985–1990). However, Max was skilled at verbal repartee and had an insatiable appetite for both sex and food. Early in the series, writers struggled to equally distribute lines to all four women, and as a result, Max was frequently seen with food in her mouth. Weekly, her quick wit was used to spar with Kyle, with whom she eventually has a series-long on-again, off-again relationship. Although “sexual relationships with no emotional attachment, gluttony, general lack of sentiment, and aggressiveness” is usually reserved for male characters, Max wears these traits with a kind of modern femininity (Guerrero 2013, 187). While challenging dominant gender roles, Living Single also leaves these stereotypes unscathed. In the final season, Max’s “masculine” qualities are explained when she visits a retreat and discovers that in all of her past lives she was male, so she decides that her purpose for being a woman is to have a baby. She independently goes to a sperm bank, and in a coincidental plot twist she discovers that Kyle made the donation. In the series finale, the couple decides to stay together and is later seen on an episode of UPN’s Half & Half (2002–2006), where it is revealed that the couple remains together but unmarried with their child. Despite being the number one show among Black viewers, Living Single did not enjoy mainstream success. Critics lambasted the series for its constant focus on the women either discussing or chasing men. The tension between romantic and professional success was a recurring narrative focus throughout the series.



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The show also suffered as FOX began to move away from niche programming, choosing to target mainstream (White) audiences. As a result, Living Single was cancelled and removed from the fall 1997 lineup. News of its cancellation led fans, with the help of The Tom Joyner Morning Show (1994–2019), a nationally syndicated radio show, to launch a “Save Living Single Campaign.” The unprecedented campaign included letter writing, phone calls, and emails to FOX demanding that Living Single be put back on the air. Remarkably, the series was brought back for a fifth abbreviated season. The season finale of the fourth season ended with Synclaire and Overton getting married, and the fifth season introduced a new male roommate for Khadijah and Regine, an aspiring songwriter named Tripp (Mel Jackson). During its five seasons, Living Single was a top-rated series among African American viewers. Demonstrating the creative possibilities and commercial potential of a show focused on the experiences of young Black women, Living Single transformed the televisual landscape. Embodying the diversity of the Black community and challenging the commonplace stereotypes of young urban African Americans as “poor,” “uneducated,” and members of the “underclass,” Living Single proved to be successful with fans looking for shows that spoke to their experiences, a fact that makes the show still popular many years after its cancellation. Ashley S. Young Further Reading

Bogle, Donald. 2001. Primetime Blues: African Americans on Network Television. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Guerrero, Lisa. 2013. “Single Black Female: Representing the Modern Black Woman in Living Single.” In African Americans on Television: Race-ing for Ratings, edited by David J. Leonard and Lisa A. Guerrero, 177–190. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. Smith-Shomade, Beretta. 2002. Shaded Lives: African-American Women and Television. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Zook, Krystal Brent. 1999. Color by Fox: The Fox Network and the Revolution in Black Television. New York: Oxford University Press.

Longoria, Eva(1975–) The youngest of four daughters, Eva Longoria was born March 15, 1975, in Corpus Christi, Texas. After earning a degree in kinesiology from Texas A&M University– Kingsville and finding success in teen beauty pageants (she was named Miss Corpus Christi in 1998), she moved to Los Angeles in pursuit of a career in show business. While she ultimately found success as an actress, director, producer, and activist, she also earned a master’s degree in Chicano Studies from Cal State Northridge. Her educational background and her passion for the arts anchored her career going forward. While appearing in a myriad of shows in small parts and guest appearances— General Hospital (1963–) in 2000; Beverly Hills 90210 (1990–2000) in 2000; The Young and the Restless (1973–) during the 2001–2003 seasons; and Dragnet in both 2003 and 2004 (2003–2004; 2006)—she made her breakthrough both on television and the culture at large with Desperate Housewives (2004–2012).

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Playing Gabrielle Solis, a former model who married a rich Latino businessman named Carlos Solis (Ricardo Antonio Chavira) on the widely popular show, many celebrated her role as groundbreaking because of the dearth of representation of Latina women on television. Other critics and scholars, however, questioned how her role reinforced dominant stereotypes of Latinas as “hot,” “fiery,” and hyper-sexualized. According to Debra Merskin, “Longoria’s prime time pinup status and promotional positioning in magazines reinforce the already prominent, oversexed, under-dressed decisive and divisive character she embodies on [Desperate Housewives]” (2007, 134). Merskin, in “Three Faces of Eva: Perpetuation of the Hot-Latina Stereotype in Desperate Housewives,” further argues that Longoria’s character was afforded little depth and voice, rather being reduced to little more than a sexual object in both the show’s narrative and for its viewers. “Gabrielle thrives on and feels validated by attention to her appearance. In nearly every episode, she is shown working out or on her way to or back from doing so” (140). Despite criticisms of her role and the ongoing debate about the value of visibility when it is the result of persistent stereotypes, Longoria gained immense popularity from her performance on Desperate Housewives. Longoria built on her popularity with Desperate Housewives, landing roles in Mother Up! in the show’s only season in 2013; in The Simpsons (1989–) in 2013; in Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2013–) in 2014 and 2015; in Telenovela (2015–2016) in 2015 and 2016; in Empire (2015–2020) in 2017; and in Jane the Virgin (2014–2019) in 2018. One show, which Longoria directed and produced (she also appeared on it in 2016), Devious Maids (2013–2016), chronicled the experiences of five Latina maids working for five Beverly Hills families. It prompted similar questions to those that plagued Desperate Housewives about its representational politics, especially as it relates to Latina women. Tanisha L. Ramirez (2013) described the show as a “wasted opportunity”; Lori Rackl, in the Chicago Sun-Times, similarly lamented the show’s replication of long-standing stereotypes: “Arming Latinas with feather dusters and dirty laundry isn’t the only stereotype at work in Devious Maids. The first two episodes are littered with clichés, set to the strumming of Spanish guitars” (qtd. in Sherwin 2013). Longoria disagreed with the criticism, highlighting that it was a step forward in that Devious Maids provided a platform for five Latina actresses, gave voice to the experiences of Latina maids working for White families, and otherwise challenged existing stereotypes. “When people talk about stereotypical maids, these maids are anything but. I think it’s important for us to have a dialogue of identity in our culture, and even though this show may not be your experience, it is a lot of people’s experience” (qtd. in Sherwin 2013). Challenging those who see any representation of Latinx maids as stereotypical and the desire to have more respectable representations, Longoria further noted, “They are playing maids, which is a realistic reflection of our society today in America. When we get any sort of backlash for—‘Oh, they’re playing the stereotypical maids’—my immediate response is, ‘So you’re telling me those stories aren’t worth telling, that those people are lesser than, that their stories aren’t worth exploring, that they have no complexity in



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their life because they’re a maid?’” (Ramirez 2013). Such debates persisted with not only her career but for other Latinx artists. Best known for her acting, Longoria has made her mark on television as both a director and producer. She has directed episodes of Black-ish (2014–) in 2017 and 2018; The Mick (2017–2018) in 2017 and 2018; Jane the Virgin in 2016; Telenovela in 2016; and Devious Maids in 2014. She has also served as a producer for a number of productions, including Mother Up!, Devious Maids, Telenovela, and numerous documentaries dealing with migrant workers, Latinx communities, and immigration. Amid the debates about her characters and the representations afforded to Latinxs who have followed her career, Longoria has used her platform to not only advance social justice causes and progressive politics but also to effect change within the entertainment industry. In 2018, she told Variety, “We’ve all felt like the industry has pitted us against each other and made us feel like there’s only room for one—but that’s not true. So if we unite and create opportunities for each other and pull each other up, there could be a lot more success for representation on TV” (qtd. in Turchiano). David J. Leonard Further Reading

Merskin, Debra. 2007. “Three Faces of Eva: Perpetuation of the Hot-Latina Stereotype in Desperate Housewives.” Howard Journal of Communications 18 (2): 133–151. Ramirez, Tanisha. 2013. “Eva Longoria’s Devious Maids Is a Wasted Opportunity.” Huffington Post,  May  3. ­https:// ​­ w ww​.­huffingtonpost​ .­c om ​ /­t anisha​ -­l​ -­r amirez​ /­e va​ -­longorias​-­devious​-­maids​_b​_3210204​.­html. Sherwin, Adam. 2013. “Desperate Housewife Eva Longoria Defends New Drama Devious Maids from ‘Sexy Latina’ Stereotype Attack.” The Independent, June 25. ­https://​­w ww​.­independent​.­co​.­u k​/­arts​-­entertainment​/­t v​/­news​/­desperate​-­housewife​ -­eva​-­longoria​-­defends​-­new​-­d rama​-­devious​-­maids​-­f rom​-­sexy​-­latina​-­stereotype​ -­attack​-­8672745​.­html. Turchiano, Danielle. 2018. “Eva Longoria Discusses Her Drive to ‘Encourage’ Her Community to ‘Speak for Themselves.’” Variety. ­https://​­variety​.­com​/­2018​/­t v​/­features​ /­eva​-­longoria​-­walk​-­of​-­fame​-­d irecting​-­philanthropy​-­r epresentation​-­i nclusion​ -­interview​-­1202746447​/. Villarreal, Yvonne. 2013. “A Dust-Up over Latina Roles in ‘Devious Maids.’” Los Angeles Times,  June  1. ­http://​­w ww​.­latimes​.­c om ​/­e ntertainment​/­t v​/­showtracker​/­la​-­et​-­st​ -­devious​-­maids​-­latina​-­stereotypes​-­20130602​-­story​.­html.

Lopez, George(1961–) With a career defined by ample success as a stand-up comedian and an effort to bring stories of the Latinx community to television, George Lopez has faced ample obstacles to bring depth and humanity to the small screen. Facing criticism that his roles perpetuate stereotypes all while enduring the challenging realities of Hollywood, Lopez’s career demonstrates the unique experiences of artists of color. Born in Mission Hills, California, in 1961, Lopez experienced significant difficulty throughout his childhood. His father, Anatasio Lopez, left his family when

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Lopez was a mere two-months-old; a decade letter, his mother Frieda Lopez followed suit, leaving George to be raised by his grandparents. His challenging childhood, one defined by poverty, alienation, bullying resulting from the color of his skin, and ridicule of his “lumpy head” (Navarro 2002), would not only become a theme anchoring both his comedy and television work but also this hardship would inspire him to focus on a career in entertainment. “I’m an only child, and they were really kind of disconnected,” noted Lopez in a 2003 article. Grandma probably was the most disconnected. There wasn’t a sense of family. So I developed this relationship with TV, and when I saw Freddie Prinze (of “Chico and the Man”) in 1973, it really changed my life because not only was he a stand-up comedian, he also had his own show. So from the time I was 11, I wanted my own show and I wanted to be a comedian. (qtd. in Baron 2003)

Following years performing in comedy clubs, Lopez got his break in 2000 when Sandra Bullock approached him about developing a television show for ABC. Blending together his own life experiences and autobiography alongside of a more idyllic and universal family experience, The George Lopez Show (2002–2007) told a story of a Mexican American working-class family. It brought into focus his own heartache and struggles growing up as it offered plotlines that highlighted his “emotionally abusive” childhood (Navarro 2002). While seeking to tell the story of a Mexican American two-parent family, a working-class family struggling with everyday realities, a family that finds joy and happiness in love, community, culture, and each other, Lopez sought to also highlight his own autobiographical pain. It brought his own experiences into focus—ones that Lopez described as having “a huge, huge layer of sadness” (qtd. in Navarro 2002). For example, in the show’s first episode, George connects with his aunt, only to learn that his father, who he believed was dead, was indeed alive, setting off debate about whether he should find him. Such narratives reflect the show’s willingness to address despair and heartache amid the normal trappings of the situation comedy (universal plotlines; comedic relief) and its efforts to bring the story of a rarely seen Mexican American family to television. In 2007, ABC cancelled The George Lopez Show. Lopez was angered by the decision, noting how television was more likely to give opportunities to cavemen than Chicano/as. “So a . . . Chicano can’t be on TV but a . . . caveman can? And a Chicano with an audience already? You know when you get in this [TV series business] that shows do not last forever, but this was an important show and to go unceremoniously like this hurts. One hundred seventy people lost their jobs” (qtd. in Kimball 2007). The cancellation of The George Lopez Show was not an end to Lopez’s presence on television. Soon thereafter, he appeared on Reno 911! (2003–2009), a parody of Cops (1989–2020), as Mayor Hernandez, for two years starting in 2008. While landing several roles as the voices of various characters in several animated films, including Beverly Hills Chihuahua (2008), Marmaduke (2010), The Smurfs (2011), and Rio (2011), he also entered into the late-night talk show arena with Lopez Tonight (2009–2011). After a couple of seasons, it too was cancelled. Challenging those who saw the cancellation as the result of TBS simply wanting to replace him



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with Conan O’Brien or as the result of the low-ratings/his failures, Lopez noted, “I don’t think TBS wanted that show, I don’t think they wanted that demographic. You can’t be on late night and be safe, that’s a recipe for failure” (qtd. in “George Lopez Said TBS Didn’t Want ‘Lopez Tonight’ or the Show’s Demographic” 2014). Soon thereafter, he returned to situation comedies with FX’s Saint George in 2014. Lasting only ten episodes, Saint George chronicled the daily challenges, relationship woes, and family dynamics of a recently divorced Mexican America entrepreneur (Lopez). In 2017, he returned to television in Lopez. Struggling to find an audience (it aired on TV Land), the show lasted two seasons. Like previous shows, it blended together Lopez’s stand-up and his own story. Even more true to life, Lopez plays an entertainer, balancing the sometimes competing demands and expectations of the entertainment industry and the Latinx community. Struggling to find opportunities on television, George Lopez broke down walls throughout his career. As the first Chicano on late night television, and one of the first to tell stories of a Mexican American family, Lopez has brought a level of humanity to American television. While not without critics, Lopez’s blend of comedy, autobiography, and politics influenced television in important ways. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Baron, Neil. 2003. “Tough Childhood Inspires George Lopez’s Comedy, TV Show.” Seattle Times, December 5. ­https://​­archive​.­seattletimes​.­com​/­archive​/?­date​=​­20031205​ &­slug​=​­georgelopez05. Deggans, Eric. 2016. “TV Land Series Doesn’t Capture George Lopez’s Swagger, Our Critic Says.” NPR, March 30. ­https://​­w ww​.­npr​.­org​/­2016​/­03​/­30​/­472365298​/­george​ -­lopez​-­s​-­t v​-­land​-­series​-­isn​-­t​-­insightful​-­or​-­f unny​-­enough​-­our​-­t v​-­critic​-­say. “George Lopez Said TBS Didn’t Want ‘Lopez Tonight’ or the Show’s Demographic.” 2014. Huffington Post, March 26. ­https://​­www​.­huffingtonpost​.­com​/­2014​/­03​/­26​ /­george​-­lopez​-­late​-­night​_n​_5036182​.­html. Kimball, Trevor. 2007. “George Lopez: ABC Sitcom Star Feels Dumped.” TV Series Finale, May 15. ­https://​­tvseriesfinale​.­com​/­t v​-­show​/­george​-­lopez​-­abc​-­sitcom​-­star​ -­feels​-­dumped​/. Navarro, Mireya. 2002. “A Life So Sad He Had to Be Funny; George Lopez Mines a Rich Vein of Gloom with an All-Latino Sitcom.” New York Times, November 27. ­https://​ ­w ww​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2002​/­11​/­27​/­a rts​/­l ife​-­so​-­sad​-­he​-­had​-­be​-­f unny​-­george​-­lopez​ -­mines​-­rich​-­vein​-­gloom​-­with​-­all​-­latino​.­html​?­mtrref​= ​­w ww​.­google​.­com.

Lopez, Jennifer(1969–) Affectionately known by her legions of fans as “J.Lo,” Jennifer Lynn Lopez is an actress, recording artist, dancer, entrepreneur, and fashion designer of Puerto Rican heritage. She is one of the most notable Latina celebrities in the United States and throughout the world today. Her prominent television roles include her stint as a “Fly Girl” dancer on Damon and Keenan Ivory Wayans’1990s comedy show In Living Color (1990–1994), her appearances as a judge on the reality television musical talent program American Idol (2002–2016) in the early 2010s, and her most recent starring role on NBC’s police-themed drama series Shades of Blue

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(2016–2018). In addition to her television roles, Lopez has also released eight musical albums and has starred in more than twenty-five feature films, including Selena (1997), Out of Sight (1998), The Cell (2000), Angel Eyes (2001), The Wedding Planner (2001), El Cantante (2007), and The Boy Next Door (2015). Lopez was born on July 24, 1969, in the Castle Hill neighborhood of the Bronx, New York City. Her mother was an elementary schoolteacher, while her father worked as a computer technician. Lopez attended Preston High School and participated in track, tennis, softball, and gymnastics during her youth. In 1990, she would first appear on television as a “Fly Girl” on the Fox network’s In Living Color, where she remained until 1992. On the show, Lopez was featured alongside comedian Jim Carrey and actors Tommy Davidson, David Alan Grier, Keenan Ivory Wayans, Damon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, and Kim Wayans. Lopez’s role as one of the leading “Fly Girls” helped expose mainstream American audiences to urban dance styles, music, and fashion. Lopez credits fellow Nuyorican dancer and actress Rosie Perez, the program’s dance choreographer, with helping her land her role on In Living Color. However, Lopez departed the program after two seasons due to rivalries with other Fly Girls and amid allegations that the show’s producers mistreated her. Nevertheless, the notoriety she garnered from In Living Color paved the way for her subsequent career in motion pictures, music, and a return to television. Lopez starred as a judge on American Idol during the show’s tenth and eleventh seasons in 2011 and 2012. During her two seasons on the show, Lopez assessed musical talent alongside the show’s veteran judge Randy Jackson, who had been with the American Idol since its inception in 2002, and Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler, who also joined the show in 2011. The Fox network paid Lopez $15 and $20 million for her first and second seasons as a judge, respectively, indicating her status as a major audience draw. However, she left American Idol after two seasons, claiming that the time requirements as a judge limited her ability to pursue her passions for acting and singing. In 2014, she would return to judge for three additional seasons, alongside of singers Keith Urban and Harry Connick Jr. On Shades of Blue, Lopez stars alongside Ray Liotta as Brooklyn detectives in a show that brings to life issues of police corruption and brutality. Lopez portrays Detective Harlee Santos, a single Latina mother who is the heart-and-soul of her unit. Aside from starring on the show, Lopez also serves as one of the executive producers of Shades of Blue alongside Ryan Seacrest, Jack Orman, Adi Hasak, Benny Medina, Barry Levinson, Nina Wass, and Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas. From the initial fame she accrued on In Living Color, Lopez went on to establish a successful career in film and music, making her one of the most multitalented celebrities in modern American society. She made her motion picture debut with a cameo in the 1995 film My Family/Mi Familia, in which she played a young Mexican American mother wrongfully deported during the Great Depression. Later that year she starred alongside Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson in Money Train. However, her breakthrough as a major motion picture star came in 1997, when she portrayed the fallen Tejana singer Selena Quintanilla in Selena, and in the process, she became the first Latina actress to earn one million dollars for a starring role in a film. Lopez released her debut pop/R & B album, On the 6,



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in 1999. On the 6 sold more than six million copies; to date, Lopez has released eight original music albums. However, Lopez’s most profound cultural impact may have been her influence in prompting a shift in U.S. ideals of feminine beauty. Upon achieving superstardom as an actress, Lopez immediately garnered attention from the fashion industry, magazines, and the general public for her beauty. Media attention on Lopez’s curvy figure and caramel complexion challenged preexisting Eurocentric standards of feminine beauty dominant in North American society at the time, which emphasized a fair complexion, a tall stature, and a slender build, as exemplified by supermodels. For Him Magazine ranked J-Lo first in their list of the “100 Sexiest Women” in both 2000 and 2001, and the British publication, Celebrity Bodies, declared her the “Best Female Body” in 2000. Other media outlets, such as VH1 and Maxim, People, and Stuff magazines have also ranked Lopez very high in their respective polls of most beautiful entertainers. More so than any other celebrity, Lopez has challenged the understanding of beauty in mainstream, Anglo-American culture. Her meteoric rise to fame during the 1990s also corresponded with a growing presence and visibility of Latinx celebrities in the United States. Lopez, along with fellow actress Salma Hayek, recording artists Ricky Martin, Marc Anthony, Enrique Iglesias, Big Punisher, and Fat Joe, baseball player Sammy Sosa, and professional boxer Oscar De La Hoya all achieved mainstream recognition as the twentieth century drew to a close. The rise of Latinx celebrities mirrored a simultaneous profound demographic shift in American society, as Latinxs surpassed African Americans to become the nation’s largest minority group. Lopez’s ascent to international fame gave a public face to the dramatic growth and social, cultural, and economic influence of Latinos in the United States. Justin D. García Further Reading

Chiu, Melody. 2016. “Jennifer Lopez Opens up about Motherhood, Love and Her Legacy.” People, March 31. ­http://​­people​.­com​/­celebrity​/­jennifer​-­lopez​-­opens​-­up​-­about​ -­motherhood​-­love​-­and​-­her​-­legacy​/. Koerner, Allyson. 2015. “Jennifer Lopez Talks Selena Quintanilla’s Legacy & Her Powerful Words Show How Inspiring the Singer Still Is.” Bustle, March 31. h­ ttps://​­www​ .­bustle​.­com ​/­a rticles​/­73239​-­jennifer​-­lopez​-­t alks​-­selena​- ­quintanillas​-­legacy​-­her​ -­powerful​-­words​-­show​-­how​-­inspiring​-­the​-­singer​-­still. Lopez, Jennifer. 2015. True Love. New York: Celebra. Negrón-Muntaner, Frances. 2004. Boricua Pop: Puerto Ricans and the Latinization of American Culture. New York: New York University Press.

Luke Cage(2016–2018) African American superhero Luke Cage, of the eponymous Netflix series, originated in a 1972 Marvel comic; he was the first African American superhero to have his own self-titled comic. Cage reflected different cultural influences in several reinventions from the 1970s to early 2000s. Netflix reintroduced Luke Cage

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in its series Jessica Jones (2015–2016) in 2015, later giving him his own series in 2016. The series willingness to engage issues facing African Americans and actor Mike Colter’s thoughtful portrayal of the character has attracted praise and critical interest. Luke Cage was the first African American superhero with his own self-titled comic book (Luke Cage, Hero for Hire, Marvel Comics, 1972). The product of an all-White and male creative team, the original Cage character differed from contemporaries Black Panther (an educated African prince) and the Falcon (a middle-class social worker), as a high school dropout with a tumultuous background. Cage’s attire reflects the 1970s Blaxploitation films and disco with a metal headband, bracelets, unbuttoned silk shirt, and a cut chain-link belt buckled with a padlock. Christina Bearden-White (2014) argues that Cage’s belt represents broken bondage as a former prisoner and slave descendant. Unlike other African American superheroes (e.g., Wesley Snipes’s 1998 film Blade), Luke Cage is the first superhero series to employ almost completely all-Black writers and actors. Cage underwent prison experiments giving him impenetrable skin and superpowers. Cage was soon rebranded as Power Man (i.e., Black Power) and paired with White superhero Iron Fist to address protests about the lack of diversity and in an effort to attract more readers. When Luke Cage (actor Mike Colter) was introduced on the series Jessica Jones in 2015 as Jones’s (actor Krysten Ritter) partner, critics praised how the pair’s interracial romance avoided overemphasizing their differences. Cage’s spin-off follows after the character escapes an attack by Kilgrave. The series addresses accusations that earlier representations were White stereotypes with a gently spoken, well-read, barbershop janitor who helps others for free (i.e., often shielding them with his body); being from Georgia, Cage must earn Harlem locals’ trust. Luke Cage boasts an impressive African American cast and crew including showrunner Cheo Hodari Coker and stars Oscar-winning actor Mahershala Ali as nightclub owner Cornell “Cottonmouth” Stokes; four-time Emmy-winning actor Alfre Woodard as corrupt council-member Mariah Dillard; and Frankie Faison as Luke’s fatherly boss Henry “Pop” Hunter. Cage’s interests reflect his own African American perspective, specifically, he rejects reclaiming the N-word and supports Black cultural institutions (e.g., corner barbershops, local businesses, and Black churches). Series characters discuss issues affecting New York’s Black community (e.g., urban planning, benign neglect, and the Cross Bronx Expressway) and reference significant Black cultural or political figures (Beyoncé, Ralph Ellison, Donald Goines, Zora Neale Hurston, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., and Crispus Attucks). The series references African American culture in a myriad of ways. When Cage changes his name from Carl Lucas, it is due to Bible verse Luke 4:18 that speaks to Jesus’s work as a liberator just as Cage aims to liberate those who are exploited physically or economically; this verse is key to Black American faiths. The series is also argued to espouse a hip-hop theology emphasizing social action, community, and a God of the profane. Hip-hop is featured in the series soundtrack combined with blues and jazz elements reminiscent of the series Harlem setting. Showrunner Coker hopes the series will do for Harlem what The Wire (2002–2008)



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did for Baltimore. Other influences in the series aesthetic include aspects of film noir and the televisual western. The series also references painful eras in African American history. The prison experiments conducted on Cage reference the Tuskegee syphilis experiments. Showrunner Coker notes that his grandfather, a decorated soldier and Tuskegee Airman, was an inspiration for Cage as an African American hero who fights for all people. The Rolling Stone’s Rob Sheffield has labeled Cage “the first Black Lives Matter superhero” (Derry et al. 2017 125) noting how Cage’s bullet-hole riddled hoodies memorialize Trayvon Martin. Others cite a hoodie-clad Cage as representative of America’s disregard for Black/Brown lives. The series has proven a popular text for various cultural studies, media analyses, and critiques. Critics anticipate audiences either liking or hating the series writers’ frequent allusions to African American history, culture, and personages. Some critics praise how the series writers have countered media images of Black male illiteracy by depicting Cage and his boss “Pop” as well read as they cite literature ranging from popular fiction (e.g., Shaft by Ernest Tidyman), sociopolitical history (e.g., Attica: The Official Report of the New York State Special Commission on Attica), cultural history (e.g., Black Folktales by Julius Lester), and journalism/ criticism (e.g., The New Yorker) in their discussions. Actor Mike Colter reports initially feeling resistant to take the role, as he did not want to get pigeonholed into playing physically imposing characters who lacked dialogue; instead Colter found the scripts for Jessica Jones and Luke Cage had “nuance” (Smart 2016, 14). Other critics have questioned whether the series is aligned with liberals or conservatives in its identity politics as critics often cite movements like Black Lives Matter (BLM) in critical discussions of Luke Cage. Nathan Turner (2016) argues that the series “is the most conservative work produced in decades” for arguing for “personal identity and virtue, racial healing, and cultural pride” as opposed to what he describes as “the cult of victimization and race-war anarchy.” The importance of family, taking social responsibility, and presenting strong female characters, both good and evil, are cited as additional contributions made by the series to popular representations of African Americans. The show’s fans praised the show for its second season as it was a better balance of the frequent use of cultural references with action. Once could also argue that this perception of better balance might be due to audience members becoming more familiar with the series. In terms of cultural impact, critics cite Cage’s invincibility and resilience in light of the violence and oppression faced by Black Americans in real life as perhaps the greatest contribution of the series. Gordon Alley-Young Further Reading

Bearden-White, Christina. 2014. “No Middle Ground: Reexamining Racialized Images in Luke Cage, Hero for Hire.” International Journal of Comic Art 16 (2): 173–191. Derry, Ken, Daniel White Hodge, Laurel Zwissler, Stanley Talbert, Matthew J. Cressler, and Jon Ivan Gill. 2017. “Bulletproof Love: Luke Cage (2016) and Religion.” Journal for Religion, Film and Media 3 (1): 123–155.

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Moss, Charles. 2016. “Luke Cage Is Truly a Hero for His Time.” The Atlantic, September 30.­https://​­w ww​.­theatlantic​.­com ​/­entertainment ​/­archive​/­2016​/­09​/­luke​-­cage​-­gets​-­a​ -­new​-­story​/­502229​/. Smart, Jack. 2016. “Bulletproof.” Back Stage 57 (38): 12–15. Toliver, Stephanie. 2018. “Unlocking the Cage: Empowering Literacy Representations in Netflix’s Luke Cage Series.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 61 (6): 621–630. Turner, Nathan, 2016. “Netflix’s Luke Cage Is the Reply to #BlackLivesMatter ‘Anarchtivism.’” American Thinker, October 27. ­https://​­w ww​.­americanthinker​.­com​/­articles​ /­2016​/­10​/­netflixs​_luke​_cage​_is​_the​_reply​_to​_blacklivesmatter​_anarchtivism​.­html.

Race in American Television

Race in American Television Voices and Visions That Shaped a Nation

VOLUME 2: M–Z

David J. Leonard and Stephanie Troutman Robbins, Editors

Copyright © 2021 by ABC-CLIO, LLC All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Leonard, David J., editor. | Robbins, Stephanie Troutman, 1977– editor. Title: Race in American television : voices and visions that shaped a nation / David J. Leonard, Stephanie Troutman Robbins, editors. Description: Santa Barbara : Greenwood, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020027802 (print) | LCCN 2020027803 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440843051 (set) | ISBN 9781440849220 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781440849237 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781440843068 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Race on television—Encylcopedias. | Minorities on television—Encyclopedias. | Stereotypes (Social psychology) on television—Encyclopedias. | Television programs—United States—History—Encyclopedias. Classification: LCC PN1992.8.R24 R33 2021 (print) | LCC PN1992.8.R24 (ebook) | DDC 791.45/652900973—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020027802 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020027803 ISBN: 978-1-4408-4305-1 (set) 978-1-4408-4922-0 (vol. 1) 978-1-4408-4923-7 (vol. 2) 978-1-4408-4306-8 (ebook) 25  24  23  22  21   1  2  3  4  5 This book is also available as an eBook. Greenwood An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC ABC-CLIO, LLC 147 Castilian Drive Santa Barbara, California 93117 ­w ww​.­abc​-­clio​.­com This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America

Contents

Alphabetical List of Entries  vii Guide to Related Topics  xi Introduction xvii

A–Z Entries  1 About the Editors and Contributors  779 Index  789

Alphabetical List of Entries

VOLUME ONE African Americans and Television All-American Girl Allen, Debbie All in the Family Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, The American Crime American Gypsies Amos ‘n’ Andy Anderson, Eddie Ansari, Aziz A.N.T. Farm Arabs, Muslims, and Middle Easterners and Television Arnaz, Desi Asian Americans and Television Atlanta Banks, Tyra Barney Miller Benson Beulah Big Bang Theory, The Black Entertainment Television (BET) Blackface Black-ish Black Mirror Black Twitter

Bratt, Benjamin Burton, LeVar Carroll, Diahann Cartoons Chappelle’s Show Chi, The Chico and the Man Children’s Television Children’s Television Workshop Cho, Margaret Civil Rights Movement on American Television, The Civil Rights Pressure Groups Coleman, Gary Colorblind Racism and Television Colorism and Television Cooking Shows Cops Cosby, Bill Cosby Show, The Cox, Laverne Cristela Davis, Viola Daytime Emmys Dear White People Different World, A Diff’rent Strokes

viii

Alphabetical List of Entries

Doc McStuffins Dora the Explorer Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman Duck Dynasty DuVernay, Ava

Hip-Hop Holocaust on American Television Horror Shows on Television House M.D. How to Get Away with Murder

Emmy Awards Empire Equal Justice ER Everybody Hates Chris Eyes on the Prize

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings I Love Lucy In Living Color Insecure In the Heat of the Night I Spy Italians, Italian Americans, and Television

Fame Family Matters Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids Flip Wilson Show, The Food Network FOX Foxx, Redd Frank’s Place Fresh off the Boat Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The George Lopez Show, The Gimme a Break! Girlfriends Glee Gomez, Selena Good Times Greene, Graham Green Hornet, The Grey’s Anatomy Groundbreaking TV Shows Gumbel, Bryant Hall, Arsenio “Harvest of Shame” Harvey, Steve Haves and the Have Nots, The Hawaii Five-O and Hawaii Five-0 HBO

Jane the Virgin Jeffersons, The Jews and Television Jones, James Earl Julia Keeping Up with the Kardashians Kenan & Kel Key & Peele Kung Fu Latinx Communities and Television Law & Order Lee, Bruce Leguizamo, John Liu, Lucy Living Single Longoria, Eva Lopez, George Lopez, Jennifer Luke Cage VOLUME TWO Mad Men Magnum, P.I. Marin, Cheech Martin



Alphabetical List of Entries ix

M*A*S*H Master of None Miami Vice Mind of Mencia Mindy Project, The Miniseries Minstrelsy Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl Mod Squad Morita, Noriyuki “Pat” Murphy, Eddie Native Americans and Television Native American Television (NATV) News Media New Television Night Of, The Ni Hao, Kai Lan Northern Exposure Obama, Barack, Election of One Day at a Time Orange Is the New Black Oz Perry, Tyler Police, Detective, and Crime Dramas Queen Sugar Rashad, Phylicia Reality Television Redface Rhimes, Shonda Roc Rock, Chris Roots RuPaul Sanford and Son Scandal Science-Fiction Shows on Television Sesame Street

Sexism and Television Sheen, Martin Simpson, O. J. Sitcom Smits, Jimmy Soap Operas South Asians and Television South Central Star Trek Takei, George Telemundo The 1970s The 1980s The 1990s The 2000s 227 Ugly Betty Underground Univision UPN Vergara, Sofia Waithe, Lena Waters, Ethel Wayans Brothers, The Webster Welcome Back, Kotter Westerns West Wing, The What’s Happening!! / What’s Happening Now!! Whiteness White Shadow, The Winfrey, Oprah Wire, The Wrestling Yellowface Yo! MTV Raps

Guide to Related Topics

BROAD TOPICS Television Concepts, History, Themes, and Tropes Blackface Black Twitter Civil Rights Pressure Groups Colorblind Racism and Television Colorism and Television Daytime Emmys Emmy Awards Groundbreaking TV Shows Hip-Hop Miniseries Minstrelsy Redface Sexism and Television Whiteness Yellowface

Television by Decade 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s

Television by Demographic African Americans and Television Arabs, Muslims, and Middle Easterners and Television Asian Americans and Television Italians, Italian Americans, and Television Jews and Television Latinx Community and Television Native Americans and Television South Asians and Television

Television by Genre Cartoons Children’s Television Cooking Shows Horror Shows on Television New Television Police, Detective, and Crime Dramas Reality Television Science-Fiction Shows on Television Sitcom Soap Operas Westerns

xii

Guide to Related Topics

Television by Network Black Entertainment Television (BET) Food Network FOX HBO Native American Television (NATV) Telemundo Univision UPN

TELEVISION GENRES Children’s Television Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, The A.N.T. Farm Children’s Television Workshop Doc McStuffins Dora the Explorer Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids Ni Hao, Kai Lan Sesame Street

Comedies All-American Girl All in the Family Amos ‘n’ Andy Barney Miller Benson Beulah Black-ish Chappelle’s Show Chico and the Man Cosby Show, The Cristela Dear White People Different World, A

Diff’rent Strokes Everybody Hates Chris Family Matters Flip Wilson Show, The Frank’s Place Fresh off the Boat Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The George Lopez Show, The Gimme a Break! Girlfriends Glee Good Times Green Hornet, The I Love Lucy In Living Color Insecure I Spy Jane the Virgin Jeffersons, The Julia Kenan & Kel Key & Peele Living Single Martin M*A*S*H Master of None Mind of Mencia Mindy Project, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl Mod Squad One Day at a Time Roc Sanford and Son South Central 227 Ugly Betty Wayans Brothers, The



Guide to Related Topics xiii

Webster Welcome Back, Kotter What’s Happening!! / What’s Happening Now!!

White Shadow, The Wire, The

Reality Shows and Real Life Dramas American Crime Atlanta Black Mirror Chi, The Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman Empire Equal Justice ER Fame Grey’s Anatomy Haves and the Have Nots, The Hawaii Five-O and Hawaii Five-0 House M.D. How to Get Away with Murder In the Heat of the Night Kung Fu Law & Order Luke Cage Mad Men Magnum, P.I. Miami Vice Night Of, The Northern Exposure Orange Is the New Black Oz Queen Sugar Scandal Star Trek Underground West Wing, The

American Gypsies Civil Rights Movement on American Television, The Cops Duck Dynasty Eyes on the Prize Keeping Up with the Kardashians News Media Obama, Barack, Election of Wrestling Yo! MTV Raps

Television Movies and Miniseries “Harvest of Shame” Holocaust on American Television I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Miniseries Roots OTHER CATEGORIES Actors, Directors, and Producers Allen, Debbie Anderson, Eddie Ansari, Aziz Arnaz, Desi Banks, Tyra Bratt, Benjamin Burton, LeVar Carroll, Diahann Cho, Margaret

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Coleman, Gary Cosby, Bill Cox, Laverne Davis, Viola DuVernay, Ava Foxx, Redd Gomez, Selena Greene, Graham Gumbel, Bryant Hall, Arsenio Harvey, Steve Jones, James Earl Lee, Bruce Leguizamo, John Liu, Lucy Longoria, Eva Lopez, George Lopez, Jennifer Marin, Cheech Morita, Noriyuki “Pat” Murphy, Eddie Perry, Tyler Rashad, Phylicia Rhimes, Shonda Rock, Chris RuPaul Sheen, Martin Simpson, O. J. Smits, Jimmy Takei, George Vergara, Sofia Waithe, Lena Waters, Ethel Winfrey, Oprah Latinx Television American Crime Arnaz, Desi Bratt, Benjamin

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Chico and the Man Cristela Dora the Explorer George Lopez Show, The Gomez, Selena “Harvest of Shame” Jane the Virgin Latinx Communities and Television Leguizamo, John Longoria, Eva Lopez, George Lopez, Jennifer Marin, Cheech Mind of Mencia One Day at a Time Sheen, Martin Smits, Jimmy Telemundo Ugly Betty Univision Vergara, Sofia Westerns

African Americans and Television African Americans and Television American Crime Amos ‘n’ Andy A.N.T. Farm Atlanta Banks, Tyra Benson Beulah Black Entertainment Television (BET) Blackface Black-ish Black Mirror Black Twitter



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Burton, LeVar Carroll, Diahann Chappelle’s Show Chi, The Civil Rights Movement on American Television, The Civil Rights Pressure Groups Coleman, Gary Cosby, Bill Cosby Show, The Cox, Laverne Davis, Viola Dear White People Different World, A Diff’rent Strokes Doc McStuffins DuVernay, Ava Empire Everyone Hates Chris Family Matters Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids Flip Wilson Show, The Fox Foxx, Redd Frank’s Place Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The Gimme a Break! Girlfriends Good Times Groundbreaking TV Shows Gumbel, Bryant Hall, Arsenio Harvey, Steve Haves and the Have Nots, The Hip-Hop How to Get Away with Murder I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings In Living Color

Insecure In the Heat of the Night I Spy Jeffersons, The Jones, James Earl Julia Kenan & Kel Key & Peele Living Single Luke Cage Martin Miniseries Minstrelsy Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl Murphy, Eddie News Media Night Of, The Obama, Barack, Election of Orange Is the New Black Oz Perry, Tyler Queen Sugar Rashad, Phylicia Reality Television Rhimes, Shonda Roc Rock, Chris Roots RuPaul Sanford and Son Scandal Simpson, O. J. South Central 227 Underground Waithe, Lena Waters, Ethel Wayans Brothers, The

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Guide to Related Topics

Webster Welcome Back, Kotter What’s Happening!! Winfrey, Oprah Wire, The Yo! MTV Raps

Asian Americans and Television All-American Girl Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, The Ansari, Aziz Asian Americans and Television Cho, Margaret Fresh off the Boat Green Hornet, The Hawaii Five-O Kung Fu Lee, Bruce Liu, Lucy Master of None Mindy Project, The Miniseries Morita, Noriyuki “Pat” Ni Hao, Kai Lan Reality Television

South Asians and Television Takei, George Westerns Yellowface

Native Americans and Television Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman Greene, Graham Miniseries Native Americans and Television Native American Television (NATV) Northern Exposure Redface Westerns

Whiteness and Television All in the Family Big Bang Theory, The Colorblind Racism and Television Duck Dynasty Glee Mad Men Reality Television Westerns Wrestling

M Mad Men(2007–2015) During its eight-year run on the cable channel AMC (formerly American Movie Classic), Mad Men has repeatedly won the Emmy, the Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild Award, the Writers Guild of America Award, and the Producers Guild of America Award for Best Drama Series. Created by Emmy and Golden Globe-winning executive producer Matthew Weiner, Mad Men had an eight-year and ninety-two-episode run on television, amassing a significant fan base and popularity within the broader culture. Mad Men was born out of Matt Weiner’s deep “dissatisfaction” with the assembly-line storytelling and endless recycling of canned jokes that defined modern television. Set in 1960s New York, Mad Men chronicles the lives of men and women working at Sterling Cooper, an advertising agency on Madison Avenue. The series explores the ways that gender roles shaped family and work life complicating the nostalgic narrative of traditional family values during this era. Mad Men revolves around the “self-made” man Don Draper (Jon Hamm), Sterling Cooper’s talented creative director. Draper is all about freedom, spontaneity, and unpredictability. He refuses to sign a contract at Sterling Cooper and never discloses anything about his tragic past. Draper grew up as a fatherless child and was forced to live in a poor and abusive home on a Midwestern farm. It is later revealed in the first season that Don Draper’s true identity is Dick Whitman. Whitman enlisted to fight in the Korean War and found the perfect opportunity to escape from fighting and start a new life. After he is wounded and the real Don Draper is killed by Whitman’s mistake, Whitman switched their dog tags. Draper’s body goes home to Whitman’s family and Whitman reinvents himself as Don Draper. Represented as egotistical, self-centered, and driven by a yearning for power, Don Draper also seems lost, never fully aware of why he does what he does, let alone of who he is. Draper’s self-destructive behavior and antics makes him a nightmarish boss to his secretaries, who never seem to know if he is about to skip out on a crucial meeting to surprise his West Village mistress with an afternoon visit, or to his wife, who sends him out in the middle of the party to fetch a birthday cake only to find him sprawled in a drunken heap on the living room floor eight hours later with a new puppy for his daughter. While his marriage to his young wife Betty (January Jones) appears to be picture-perfect, it is anything but idyllic. Feeling incomplete, Draper consistently seeks comfort in affairs, alcohol, and an obsessive dedication to his advertising agency. Draper’s self-destructive

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behavior ruins his marriage with Betty and with his second wife, Megan (Jessica Paré), and his relationship with the advertising firm. The show documents Don Draper’s self-realization, chronicling his efforts to redeem himself and his relationships with colleagues and children. Much of the show focuses on the treatment in the workplace. In the context of Mad Men, the gender divide is normative. The show attempts to balance between representing the gender politics of the 1960s and exposing the sexism and misogyny that defined that era. Sexual innuendos and harassment are as commonplace as smoking and drinking before noon. Women exist in a world where White, heterosexual, upper- and aspiring middle-class privileged men run companies while women are relegated to the secretarial pool. Regardless if women seek to manage their work to progress in their professional lives, it appears that their progress is always stunted. At the start of the show, Peggy Olsen (Elisabeth Moss) was Don Draper’s secretary. Her aptitude for advertising resulted in a promotion to advertising copywriter. She is the only woman on the company’s creative staff and the only secretary to advance that way. After her promotion, Peggy is excluded from meetings and decisions at the company. Moreover, Peggy is subjected to sexist comments at the meetings such as the Relaxacisor campaign (Don: “From what I understand, it provides the pleasure of a man without the man.”) or the Mohawk Airlines account (Ken: “If you want to go somewhere, go up her skirt.”) or the Playtex account (Ken: “Peggy, do you wear Playtex and, if so, why?” Peggy: “I do and I agree with the 95 women we surveyed about how well it fits.” Ken: “I find they both open easily.” When it came time for Peggy to ask for equal pay, Don rebuffs her request, reminding her of the gendered power structure. They go back and forth in conversation until Don snapped and said: You were my secretary and now you have an office and a job that a lot of full-grown men would kill for. Every time I turn around you’ve got your hand in my pocket. . . . There’s not one thing that you’ve done here that I can live without. You’re good. Get better. Stop asking for things. Close the door.

Similarly, the show engages in discourses around race and racism. While critics have argued that race represents the show’s biggest blind spot, as people of color are largely invisible on the show, it knowingly or unknowingly spotlights the powers and privileges of whiteness. Still, except for Don Draper’s maid Carla (Deborah Lacey) and his secretary Dawn Chambers (Teyonah Parris), African Americans are limited to elevator operators, doormen, food cart vendors, and janitors. They are peripheral and undeveloped characters. The marginalization of African Americans displays the everyday racism that White people held toward people of color during the 1960s as White men and women routinely exhibit racial prejudices. In one episode, Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) berates an African American elevator operator when he had to share the elevator car with an African American janitor. In season three of Mad Men, Roger Sterling, copartner at the advertising firm serenades his bride and guests in “blackface” by singing “My Old Kentucky Home.” Paul Kinsey (Michael



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Gladis), a copywriter at Sterling Cooper, mocks and demeans an African American food cart vendor in an effort to impress Peggy. Later, Kinsey develops a relationship with an African American woman, who inspires his involvement in civil rights activism. It appears that Kinsey’s activism is superficial as his investment in African Americans has more to do with his relationship, individual growth, and acceptance, instead of a commitment to Black lives. Allison Perlman, an assistant professor of Film and Media Studies at University of California, Irvine said this about the complicated nature of race on the show: We can view the racist comments, actions and attitudes of the characters as a relic of an earlier era, the ugliness beneath the beautiful surfaces on parade in the programme. On the other hand, by expansively exposing racism and by showcasing an indifference to discrimination and inequality, the series indicts nearly all white Americans in the propagation of injustices. Mad Men provokes white viewers to think through their own complicity in less dramatic forms of racism and to question whether the myriad of ways that racial discrimination operated in our society then have been truly upended. (Perlman 2010, 220)

With nostalgia for the past and perplexing characters, Mad Men is a show that garnered much attention for its portrayal of an advertising agency from the 1950s to the 1970s. The show revolved around discourses in racism and sexism that put the show in very controversial discussions, year after year. Some scholars reward the show for portraying an “authentic” 1960s’ America, while scholars believe that the show perpetuates archaic racial and gender normatives. Regardless of opinion, Mad Men has and will continue to generate conversations for years to come. Amir Asim Gilmore Further Reading

Butler, Jeremy G. 2010. “‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’: Historicizing Visual Style in Mad Men.” In Mad Men: Dreams Come True TV, edited by Gary R. Edgerton, 55–71. London: I. B. Tauris. Deggans, Eric. 2015. “‘Mad Men’ Finale: A Love Letter to Fans Filled with Mostly Happy Endings.” NPR, May 18. ­http://​­w ww​.­npr​.­org​/­2015​/­05​/­18​/­407619617​/­mad​-­men​ -­ends​-­how​-­was​-­the​-­finale. Edgerton, Gary R. 2010. “The Selling of Mad Men: A Production History.” In Mad Men: Dreams Come True TV, edited by Gary R. Edgerton, 3–24. London: I. B. Tauris. Haralovich, Mary Beth. 2010. “Women on the Verge of the Second Wave.” In Mad Men: Dreams Come True TV, edited by Gary R. Edgerton, 159–176. London: I. B. Tauris. Maloyed, Christie L. 2014. “Mad Men and the Virtue of Selfishness.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 42: 16–24. doi:10.1080/01956051.2013.787041. Mendelsohn, Daniel. 2011. “The Mad Men Account.” The New York Review of Books, February 24. ­http://​­w ww​.­nybooks​.­com​/­articles​/­2011​/­02​/­24​/­mad​-­men​-­account​/. Ong, Yi-Ping. 2012. “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: Mad Men and Moral Ambiguity.” MLN 127: 1013–1039. doi:10.1353/mln.2012.0126. Perlman, Allison. 2010. “The Strange Career of Mad Men: Race, Paratexts and Civil Rights Memory.” In Mad Men: Dreams Come True TV, edited by Gary R. Edgerton, 209–225. London: I. B. Tauris.

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Rine, Abigail. 2013. “The Postfeminist Mystique; or, What Can We Learn from Betty Draper?” Pop Matters, April 14. ­http://​­w ww​.­popmatters​.­com​/­feature​/­170266​-­the​ -­postfeminist​-­mystique​-­or​-­what​-­can​-­we​-­learn​-­f rom​-­betty​-­draper​/. Rose, Lacey, and Michael O’Connell. 2015. “The Uncensored, Epic, Never-Told Story behind ‘Mad Men.’” The Hollywood Reporter, March 11. ­http://​­www​.­hollywoodreporter​ .­com​/­features​/­mad​-­men​-­uncensored​-­epic​-­never​-­780101. White, Mimi. 2010. “Mad Women.” In Mad Men: Dreams Come True TV, edited by Gary R. Edgerton, 147–158. London: I. B. Tauris.

Magnum, P.I.(1980–1988) One of the most iconic television shows of the 1980s, with its “exotic” location, exciting plotlines, and handsome leading man (Tom Selleck as Thomas Magnum), is Magnum, P.I. Premiering in December 1980 on CBS to replace the long-running Hawaii Five-O (1968–1980), Magnum, P.I. aired over 148 one-hour episodes and 7 two-hour episodes. Over its eight years, it received numerous awards and nominations. It would become a cultural phenomenon. Magnum’s bright Ferrari would come to define the show. In fact, several items from the show, notably a red Hawaiian shirt worn by its title character, are housed in the National Museum of American History. Behind only M*A*S*H (1972–1983), Cheers (1982–1993), Seinfeld (1989–1998), and Friends (1994–2004), Magnum P.I.’s final episode entitled “Resolutions” (1988) would be the fifth most viewed series finale in television history. According to some scholars, in addition to enriching the popular culture of its day, Magnum, P.I. offered a nuanced, engaging, and thoughtful portrayal of the Vietnam War. Representations of Vietnam War and its aftermath were commonplace throughout the 1970s and 1980s television, and film Magnum P.I. offered a less sensationalized narrative of life after the war. In many ways, Vietnam and Hawaii were the stars of the show. Throughout the series, Hawaii serves as an emotional limbo for the show’s main characters who are unable to fully return home psychologically after the Vietnam War. For other critics, the show’s lack of diversity and representation of Hawaii’s indigenous communities represented not only a missed opportunity but also a continuation of popular culture willingness to imagine Hawaii as an “exotic” playground for White tourists. In other words, for a show shot and set in Hawaii where people of color are commonplace, it was striking and telling that few would find a place on the small screen, in the show’s storylines, and even behind the scenes. Magnum, P.I., which successfully blends elements of action, adventure, comedy, and mystery, follows the adventures of Thomas Sullivan Magnum IV, an ex-U.S. Navy SEAL who works as a private investigator. Living in the guesthouse of an elaborate estate on Oahu, at the request of its mysterious owner, wealthy novelist Robin Masters, Magnum, teaming up with his buddies, finds himself in a series of adventures, dilemmas, and challenges throughout the show. It is assumed that Mr. Masters wants Magnum there for security. Orson Welles voices Masters, but his face is never shown. Jonathan Quayle Higgins III (John Hillerman), an



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ex-British Army Sergeant Major and British socialite with strict discipline, manages the estate. Theodore “T.C.” Calvin (Roger E. Mosely), an ex-U.S. Marine Corp. helicopter pilot who returned from Vietnam to start charter helicopter tourist business, is central to the show’s plot lines. Although T.C., Magnum’s most-trusted friend, is Black, the show offers little insight into his identity, experiences, and backstory. In fact, its narrative leaves viewers with clear impression that his blackness and therefore race is irrelevant to his experience or that of any other character. One conservative commentator celebrated this part of the show as evidence of its colorblind apolitical storytelling. “Magnum's most trusted friend is Theodore Calvin (aka T.C.) with whom he served in Vietnam. T.C. is a former Marine helicopter pilot who now runs a charter service in Hawaii. Race only appears in anodynes like his affinity for Kwanzaa (hey, I didn't say the show is perfect!),” writes Brad Schaeffer (2015). “What matters is that he is a loyal, intelligent and a respected brother-in-arms who never lets Magnum down when he needs help. In an age before the politically correct tsunami swept the culture, T.C. was just, well, great guy T.C.” Orville Richard Wright (Larry Manetti), a former U.S. Marine Corp. door gunner and weapons specialist who manages a private beachfront club, is Magnum’s other close friend. Represented through his snobbery and his proximity to wealth (as with Higgins), he, alongside of Magnum, embodies the class diversity of White America. All three characters are Vietnam War veterans, and the Vietnam War (1955– 1975) is an important recurring theme throughout the series. It is featured in many flashback scenes and in story lines dealing with issues faced by Vietnam veterans after the war. “The show is unique in its positive portrayal of the American Vietnam Vet—indeed, it was the first show to take this stance” (Magnum-mania, n.d.). With regard to the show’s reflections on the Vietnam War, timing is everything. When President Jimmy Carter was in office (1977– 1981), it was too soon for many Americans to even want to think about Vietnam, which had just ended a handful of years earlier. According to Brad Schaeffer (2015), “But with the ascendency of the Ronald Reagan Revolution a more optimistic and patriotic sense of national self emerged in the new decade. America had confidence to look back on Vietnam and begin coming to terms with its significance.” Some scholars, however, insist that the show doesn’t romanticize the war. “Nor does it take any simple position in relation to the war. Instead, the series constantly questions the dialogue of history, fiction and memory that constructs—and limits—our experience of events” (Anderson 1987). In fact, some argue that the show is more about Vietnam and Magnum’s rediscovering himself as a survivor than a detective show, especially since he was not necessarily good at solving mysteries in the first place. The show was shot almost entirely on location on Oahu, and “most episodes featured a large contingent of local, Oahu-based actors” (Magnum-mania, n.d.). The setting of Hawaii plays a critical role in the characters’ lives. In addition to providing scenery, it is the physical manifestation of the psychological place where

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Magnum resides. The war is over, and he is out of Vietnam, but he has not returned home to the mainland where he grew up. For the entirety of the show, he and his friends remain emotionally somewhere in between. In this regard, Hawaii becomes a character of the show in itself. “The lush, exotic backdrop was as much an integral part of the new program as it was for its predecessor (Hawaii Five-O)” (Hamamoto 1994). However, Daryl Hamamoto argues that unlike Hawaii Five-O, the setting lacked a strong recurring nonwhite or indigenous presence. Hue, for example, is clearly absent more than she is present. And “a Japanese American police officer, Lieutenant Tanaka (Kwan Hi Lim), would appear on occasion, but for the most part Magnum P.I. marked off this tropical paradise as the exclusive preserve of Euro-Americans” (Hamamoto 1994). In fact, Tanaka dies unceremoniously in the final season and is treated more like a prop than a significant recurring character. Despite the homogeneity in the show, and its centering of whiteness, there were a number of important recurring characters of color that included police detective Tanaka and undercover operative Michelle Hue (Marta DuBois). Hue, a Eurasian woman Magnum meets while serving in Vietnam, plays a limited but important role in Magnum’s troubled past. He marries her then loses her, believing for years she was killed in the bombing of Saigon. Then he finds her again and they reunite briefly, before he loses her once more. He learns five years later that he has a daughter with her and sees her once again, and then she is gone for good. Guest stars were also featured regularly. including Pat Morita and Mako Iwamatsu. Magnum, P.I. provided a richness in terms of writing and story lines, all while offering important historical perspectives on the Vietnam War and its veterans. Like many television programs and films, Hawaii would be cast as the role of the space in-between for those who have fought in Vietnam but never fully returned. Yet, despite the centrality of Hawaii to the show, and even the presence of Hawaiian “extras,” the show’s focus, from its plotlines and its main character, was that of whiteness. In 2018, twenty years after the show’s last airing, Magnum P.I. (2018–) once again appeared on televisions across the nation. While the core elements of the show remain intact, the new version sought to update the class show. Despite some efforts to bring diversity to 2018 version—Jay Hernandez, a Mexican American actor, playing Magnum; Perdita Weeks playing Juliet Higgins—critics lamented the lack of Asian representation, the absence of Latinx writers, and the overall “whitewashing” of Hawaii. In twenty years, while some things had changed, the centering of whiteness and the erasure of people of color persisted. Jean A. Giovanetti Further Reading

Anderson, Christopher. 1987. “Reflections on Magnum, P.I.” In Television: The Critical View, 4th ed., edited by Horace Newcomb. New York: Oxford University Press. ­http://​­magnum​-­mania​.­com​/­A rticles​/ ­Reflections​_Magnum​.­pdf. Hamamoto, Darrell Y. 1994. Monitored Peril: Asian Americans and the Politics of TV Representation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.



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Houghton, Rianne. 2018. “Magnum PI revival accused of whitewashing, with campaign group demanding showrunner be replaced.” Digital Spy, September 14. h­ ttps://​ ­w ww​.­d igitalspy​.­c om ​/­t v​/­u stv​/­a 866197​/­m agnum​-­pi​-­r eboot​-­2018​- ­c ast​- ­c riticism​ -­whitewashing​-­accusations​/ Kiefer, Halle. 2018. “Magnum P.I. Has a Latino Lead, But No Latinx Writers, As ‘It’s Incredibly Hard to Find Writers.’” Vulture, August 6. ­https://​­w ww​.­v ulture​.­com​ /­2018​/­08​/­magnum​-­p​-­i​-­ep​-­acknowledges​-­lack​-­of​-­latinx​-­writers​.­html Larson, Stephanie Greco. 2006. Media & Minorities: The Politics of Race in News and Entertainment. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Magnum-Mania. n.d. “About the Show.” ­http://​­magnum​-­mania​.­com​/­About​/­About​_Show​ .­html. Schaeffer, Brad. 2015. “‘Magnum P.I.’: 35 Years Old and Still Full of Conservative Lessons for Generation X.” The Blaze, December 15. ­http://​­w ww​.­theblaze​.­com​ /­contributions​/­magnum​-­p​-­i​-­35​-­years​-­old​-­a nd​-­still​-­f ull​-­of​-­conservative​-­lessons​ -­for​-­generation​-­x ​/.

Marin, Cheech(1946–) Known for his voice-overs and for his comedic talents, Cheech Marin has amassed a stellar career on both television and on film. Navigating long-standing obstacles, including a long history of racism and entrenched stereotypes, Marin has found success as a comedian, an actor, and as a voice for countless animated Disney characters. Richard Anthony “Cheech” Marin was born on July 13, 1946, in Los Angeles, California. His nickname came from his love for fried pork skins or “chicharrones.” Marin grew up in South Central LA, a predominantly African American community, where violence and crime were rampant. By the age of seven, he had witnessed a few homicides. He was one of only a few Latinxs at his school. Wanting his family to have a better life, his father requested a transfer to the Granada Hills Police Department, located about twenty miles north of downtown Los Angeles in a predominantly White suburban community. Yet, life in Granada Hills was not idyllic as anticipated for Cheech. As soon as he set foot in his new school, he experienced bullying and racism. His father quickly recognized the racism and enrolled him in a Catholic school. Yet, there he experienced abuse from the nuns. Still, he excelled in his studies. He was a straight A student with a knack for making the classroom laugh. Marin graduated from college from what is now California State University, Northridge in 1968 with a degree in English. In his last college semester, he took a ceramics class as an elective and his love for pottery began. His talent would be his ticket out of the country to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War. While in Canada, he became an apprentice to Ed Drahanchuk, a local potter in Calgary. Later he would move to Vancouver where he would link up with Tommy Chong, who owned a strip club. There they worked together to transform the business and bring in more clientele. Marin would play music, write

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short skits that were performed by women who worked at the club, and occasionally act. Soon, the duo, who would be known as Cheech & Chong, moved to Southern California to work with producer Lou Adler to record a comedy album. Marin and Chong won a Grammy in 1973 for their second album, Los Cochinos or the sleazy guys. In 1978, they released their first movie, Up in Smoke. Marin portrayed a wannabe lowrider Chicano whose 1960s Chevy Impala is called “The Love Machine.” The movie was in the top twenty grossing movies that year, and it became iconic of the Chicano culture of the 1970s. Another important movie written, directed, and starred by Marin is Born in East LA, which was released in 1987. Although a low-budget movie, it made $18 million in the box office. In this movie, Marin plays Rudy, a Chicano who lives in his mother’s home, eats her home-cooked meals, and works as a mechanic. He is accidentally deported to Mexico during a factory immigration raid. While Marin made a name for himself as a stand-up comedian and on film, particularly in giving voice to countless animated Disney characters, he has had a successful television career. He has appeared in about three dozen TV series, including Jane the Virgin (2014–2019), American Dad (2005–), Lost (2004–2010), Grey’s Anatomy (2005–), Dora the Explorer (2000–2015), George Lopez (2002–2007), Resurrection Blvd (2000–2002), South Park (1997–), Tracey Takes on . . . (1996–1999), and Married with Children (1986–1997). He has also appeared in more substantive ways as both a recurring character and as a star. In The Golden Palace (1992–1993), a spin-off of The Golden Girls (1985–1992), he portrayed Chuy Castillos, a hotel chef; in Judging Amy (2004– 2005), he played Ignacio Messina, a landscape architect pursuing love with the mother of the main character, Judge Amy; and in Rob (2012), he played Fernando, Rob Schneider’s father-in-law. His most notable television appearance came up with Nash Bridges (1996–2001) where he costarred with Don Johnson in a buddy cop show. He portrayed a law enforcement inspector named Joe Dominguez, a role that he received several American Latino Media Arts Awards nominations for during the course of show. While following in the footsteps of countless shows and films that paired White cops with those of color, as evidence of racial progress and the power of interracial friendships and cooperation, Marin saw the role as personal. “Because of my generation, I had a rebellious attitude, but I always had a deep respect for cops because I knew what they had to go through,” noted Marin in “Marin’s Role Reminds Him of His Father” (qtd. in Slewinski 1996). “The greatest part, and this is really ironic, I ended up playing my father. He was a cop for 30 years—LAPD—so I grew up with cops. A couple of my uncles were cops, and all my dad’s friends were cops.” With this role and countless others in both television and film, Marin has opened up the doors to many other Latinx artists, especially Mexican Americans including Paul Rodriguez, George Lopez, and Gabriel Iglesias. While facing criticism about the perpetuation of anti-Latinx stereotypes, Marin has defended the work. After the release of Rob, Marin noted “I don’t think you want to stay away



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from the stereotypes, I think you want to confront them and deal with them” (qtd. in Slewinski 2012). Evelia Sanchez Further Reading

Marin, Cheech. 2017. Cheech is not My Real Name . . . But Don’t Call Me Chong. New York: Grand Central Publishing. Miranda, Carolina A. 2017. “Cheech Marin, a Singular Renaissance Man, Talks about Comedy, Pottery, Pot, Art and His New Memoir.” Los Angeles Times, March 29. ­https://​­w ww​.­latimes​.­com ​/­entertainment​/­a rts​/­m iranda​/­la​-­et​-­cam​-­cheech​-­marin​ -­autobiography​-­20170329​-­htmlstory​.­html. Pellechia, Thomas. 2018. “Cheech Marin Is Still Smokin’ After All These Years—As an Entrepreneur.” Forbes, May 9. ­https://​­www​.­forbes​.­com​/­sites​/­thomaspellechia​/­2018​ /­05​/­09​/­cheech​-­marin​-­is​-­still​-­smokin​-­after​-­all​-­these​-­years​-­as​-­an​-­entrepreneur​/. Slewinski, Christy. 1996. “Marin’s Role Reminds Him of HIs Father.” New York Daily News, August 16. ­https://​­www​.­chicagotribune​.­com​/­news​/­ct​-­xpm​-­1996​-­08​-­16​-­9608160202​ -­story​.­html. Slewinski, Christy. 2012. “Worst Latino Stereotypes on Television: Will Rob Schneider and Cheech Marin Break the Cycle?” The Huffington Post, January 13. h­ ttps://​ ­w ww​.­huffpost​.­com​/­entry​/­worst​-­latino​-­stereotypes​-­on​-­television​_n​_1190276.

Martin(1992–1997) During the 1990s, there was a boom of Black-cast sitcoms on network television aimed at drawing the long-neglected demographic of Black viewers. Countering the programming of the mostly White-cast series on ABC, NBC, and CBS, the fledgling FOX network offered programs such as Living Single (1993– 1998), Roc (1991–1994), In Living Color (1990–1994), South Central (1994), The Sinbad Show (1993–1994), and New York Undercover (1994–1999) aimed at attracting not only audiences of color but also audiences that were younger, hipper, and more urban than those targeted by the more established big three networks. One of the most popular programs of the era was Martin, which aired on Fox from 1992 to 1997. Martin centered on the misadventures of an ornery Detroit talk radio host Martin Payne (Martin Lawrence) and his often-contentious relationships with his girlfriend Gina Waters (Tisha Campbell) and their friends: Pamela James (Tichina Arnold), Cole Brown (Carl Anthony Payne II), and Tommy Strawn (Thomas Mikal Ford). Lawrence rose to prominence first as a stand-up comedian and then as an actor in films such as Do the Right Thing (1989), House Party (1990), House Party II (1991), and Boomerang (1992). He also appeared during one season (1987–1988) of the sitcom What’s Happening Now! (1985–1988). Yet, Lawrence’s prominence on television came about as a result of being the host of HBO’s popular stand-up comedy show, Def Comedy Jam (1992–1997). The show’s popularity and his comedic influence furthered his ascendance, cultivating a strong following among

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young viewers, particularly hip-hop fans. His stardom would propel Martin on television and the cultural zeitgeist. Sexually explicit jokes and musings on romantic relationships were staples of Lawrence’s stand-up routines; these same themes were prominently featured in Martin. With Martin and Gina’s relationship, Martin was one of the first sitcoms to feature a young urban professional Black couple, reflecting a broader trend in 1990s sitcoms, which shifted from focusing on families to romantic relationships and friendships. Marketed as offering a Black male perspective on relationships, Martin often poked fun at the fragility of the male ego; reflecting what Def Comedy Jam producer Stan Lathan describes as Lawrence’s ability to represent the hip-hop generation’s struggles with “trying to maintain this macho exterior even though they have a lot of inner sensitivity and insecurities” (Bogle 2001, 416). Frank Owen (1994) observes that seeing Martin wrestle with his insecurities was part of the show’s draw. He writes, “Watching [Lawrence] dissolve into a pathetic, whimpering mess reminds you that nobody does the Black male ego in crisis funnier than Martin Lawrence” (76). This is evident in Martin’s pilot episode, “Beauty and the Beast.” During his radio show Martin embarrasses Gina by claiming that she does whatever he tells her to do. Upon listening to the show with her coworkers, Gina and Pam storm over Martin’s apartment and confront him in front of Cole and Tommy. After Gina reveals that Martin, despite his claims to the contrary, cried while watching Bambi (1942), the couple retreats to their bedroom to continue their discussion privately. At the height of their argument, Martin orders Gina to leave, only to beg her to stay when she walks toward the door. After the couple resolves their differences and walk out to rejoin their friends, Martin requests that Gina give the impression that he “won” the argument to save face with Cole and Tommy. Lawrence’s ability to play multiple characters ranging from Martin’s mother, Mama Payne, to Kung Fu master Dragonfly Jones to a past-his-prime ladies’ man Jerome was another aspect of Martin’s appeal. For many viewers, Sheneneh Jenkins, Martin’s volatile neighbor was the most endearing of his characters. Lawrence described Sheneneh as representing the “around the way girls” that he knew growing up. Martin also relied heavily on a hip-hop aesthetic, demonstrating an investment in the culture both visually and sonically. The show’s theme was a frenetic breakbeat produced by Kid from the rap group Kid N Play. Hip-hop and R & B artists, The Notorious B.I.G., Keith Washington, and Jodeci guest-starred on the show. Martin also often wore athletic attire that was popular among hip-hop fans and clothing from the hottest urban fashion designers like Pelle Pelle, Karl Kani, and Cross Colours. Martin was not without its controversies. The show was polarizing; often loathed by older viewers as much as it was lauded by younger ones. Martin’s failure to adhere to the clean-cut middle-class sensibilities set forth by The Cosby Show (1984–1992) drew the ire of none other than Bill Cosby himself. For some critics, Martin trafficked in many of the stereotypes that had historically plagued Black popular culture representations like the buck, sambo, and the sapphire.



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Black film and television scholar Donald Bogle compared some of the imagery on Martin to that of Amos ‘n’ Andy, a sitcom from the 1950s that was deemed so offensive by the NAACP that it was banned from broadcasting on network television. Despite Lawrence’s proclamations that the show depicted a loving relationship between a Black man and a Black woman, critics often labeled Martin as misogynist pointing to Martin’s interactions with Gina as well as his bickering with Pamela James. Kristal Brent Zook (1999) argues that “the antiwoman hostility expressed on the series is masked by the show’s ‘romantic’ pretext” (54). Furthermore Sheneneh was viewed by many as a “stereotypical caricature of a ghetto ‘homegirl’” (Zook 1999, 57). Additionally, during Martin’s final season off-screen conflict between Lawrence and Campbell profoundly impacted the show. Campbell filed a sexual harassment suit against Lawrence, who according to court documents was viewed as such a threat to Campbell that she requested that the show’s producers install an emergency panic button in her dressing room. During taping of the fifth season, Campbell walked off the set, ultimately returning under the condition that she and Lawrence would longer appear on-screen together. Martin continues to be repurposed throughout a variety of popular culture modes from music to fashion. Similar to Good Times’s J. J. Evans’s “Dy-no-mite,” Martin is credited with popularizing several catchphrases including “Talk to the hand,” “Was up,” and “You go Girl.” Furthermore, the shows’ characters and episodes are continually referenced in popular culture; often appropriated for memes, inspiring dance crazes, and name-dropped in hip-hop songs. Patrick Johnson Further Reading

Bogle, Donald. 2001. Prime Time Blues: African Americans on Network Television. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Means Coleman, Robin. R. 1998. African American Viewers and the Black Situation Comedy: Situating Racial Humor. New York: Garland. Owen, Frank. 1994. “Got to be Real.” Vibe 2 (3): 72–76. Zook, Kristal Brent. 1999. Color by Fox: The Fox Network and the Revolution in Black Television. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

M*A*S*H(1972–1983) M*A*S*H (1972–1983), created by Larry Gelbart (1928–2009), was adapted from the 1970 feature film M*A*S*H, itself an adaptation from Richard Hooker’s 1968 novel MASH: A Novel about Three Army Doctors. The show, like the novel and film, chronicles the experiences of army doctors near the front lines of the Korean War (1950–1953). The show is noted for its comedic writing and effective use of dark humor and satire. It has been called both “comedic satire” and “dramedy.” Due to its timing and subject matter, M*A*S*H is considered to be an allegory and criticism of the Vietnam War (1955–1975), which was nearing its end when

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the series premiered on CBS on September 17, 1972. However, some critics claim M*A*S*H generalizes war so much, it is ineffective in its criticism of any specific war in particular. The show’s popularity helped the series survive several major cast member changes and it spans eleven years and 251 episodes. This is much longer than the actual Korean conflict, which lasted slightly over three years. M*A*S*H remains one of the highest-rated shows in U.S. TV history, and its finale, “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen,” was the most watched and highest-rated single television episode in U.S. television history at the time. Later that year the spin-off AfterMASH (1983–1975) debuted on CBS although it would only last 31 episodes. Another show, Trapper John M.D. (1979–1986), was based on the character of the same name from M*A*S*H. While M*A*S*H is highly credited for its excellence in writing and storytelling, it is widely criticized for its weak portrayal of Asians. The show is set in Uijeongbu, South Korea, yet its focus remains on its White characters. With the exception of Corporal Maxwell Q. Klinger (Jamie Farr), who is Lebanese American, the only roles featuring people of color were peripheral, including Nurse Lieutenant Kealani Kellye (Kellye Nakahara), Nurse Lieutenant Ginger Bayliss (Odessa Cleveland), and Captain Sam Pak of the Republic of Korea Army (Pat Morita). Of these, the only character who receives any character development is that of Kellye and that doesn’t occur until the show’s final season. Captain Oliver Harmon Jones (Timothy Brown), who was Black, appeared in six early episodes living alongside of three White doctors: Hawkeye Pierce (Alan Alda), Frank Burns (Larry Linville), and John McIntyre (Wayne Rogers), in “the Swamp,” the appropriately named tent where the doctors lived. In season 4, BJ Honicutt (Mike Farrell) would replace Captain McIntyre; two seasons later, Charles Emerson Winchester III (David Ogden Stiers) would move into the Swamp as Linville left the show. Other characters included Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan (Loretta Swit); Lt. Col. Henry Blake (McLean Stevenson, seasons 1–3); Father Mulcahy (William Christopher); and Col Sherman Potter (Harry Morgan, seasons 4–11) Other Asian characters filled more stereotypical roles such as farmer/villager, houseboy/housekeeper, prostitute, war bride, peddler/hustler, orphan, and enemy. According to Ashley Stevens (2016), these stereotypes were used to reassure Americans of White superiority during the Vietnam and Cold Wars. For example, in the pilot (1972), a Korean houseboy, Ho-Jon (Patrick Adiarte), has been accepted into Hawkeye’s alma mater, and the camp raises funds to send the boy to Maine by raffling a weekend in Tokyo with an attractive nurse. The “Ho-Jon” were young Korean boys, some as young as eight or nine, who found work in the units in exchange for food or shelter and were often found in and around military camps during the Korean War. However, “the theme of white patron serving as a sponsor to a promising nonwhite subordinate is not uncommon in American popular culture” according to Darrell Hamamoto (1994), and there are several story lines “invoking this particular manifestation of white paternalistic power relationships” throughout the series.



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Another example of White patronage can be seen in “The Moose” (1972) when Sergeant Baker (Paul Jenkins) arrives at the camp with his “Moose” (American slang for young female servant). Hawkeye is outraged and wins the girl named Young Hi (Virginia Ann Lee) in a card game in order to gain her freedom, but she refuses to leave her new master. When her family is contacted and Hawkeye asks them to take her home, the head of the family, a young boy, claims that if she returns to the family, she will be sold into servitude again. “But thanks to coaching by Hawkeye and Trapper John concerning the exercise of individual rights versus familial obligations, Young Hi tells her pimp/brother to ‘shove off’” (Hamamoto 1994). In “The Chosen People” (1974), a Choon Hi (Clare Nono), a Korean girl says Radar (Gary Burghoff) is the father of her child. A blood test proves that Radar is not the father but was so named by the girl because of his kindness. This episode takes a glimpse at some of the social issues involving interracial babies who were the product of unions between American military personnel and Korean women and girls. Many of the Korean women and girls involved in these situations were ostracized and the children of these unions faced a life of discrimination when abandoned by their fathers. In this case, Radar plays the role of potential White savior who has the ability to rescue the child from such a fate. Outside of Kellye, the majority of Asian characters in M*A*S*H have little more than walk-on roles. In addition, most of the Korean characters were played by actors who were not Korean, but were Japanese, Chinese, or Vietnamese. This supports the idea that all Asians are interchangeable. In “Hey, Look Me Over” (1982), Nurse Kellye is upset because Hawkeye flirts with all the other nurses, but not her. She tells him off, and Hawkeye sees her in a different light after seeing her work with a dying patient. This episode is significant because it is the first and only time an Asian cast member plays a major role in M*A*S*H that is outside a stereotype. Yet while her issue with Pierce may not be entirely based on race, she still makes reference to the fact that Hawkeye may not be paying attention to her because she isn’t “five-foot-nine and slinky with long blond hair and a perfect little nose that would fit in a bottle cap” (“Hey Look Me Over”). Although rarely exploring issues of race and nation, while offering little in terms of diversity, and although giving little attention to the experiences of

LOVE AND M*A*S*H Interracial relationships were featured in M*A*S*H, including marriage, although interracial marriage was not entirely legal in the United States until 1967 (ACLU 2016). “In Love and War” (1977), Hawkeye falls in love with a Korean villager. The relationship ends when she moves south to bring orphans to safety. In “Goodbye, Farewell, Amen” (1983), Klinger marries a Korean woman who is searching for her parents. Ironically, after spending most of the series trying to get back to the United States, he stays with her in Korea to help find them.

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Koreans, M*A*S*H was widely popular and critically acclaimed. Addressing the horrors of war, through comedy, galvanized audiences searching for humor and relief from these difficult subjects. Jean A. Giovanetti Further Reading

ACLU. 2016. “Loving v. Virginia: The Case Over Interracial Marriage.” ACLU 100 Years. ­https://​­w ww​.­aclu​.­org​/­loving​-­v​-­virginia​-­case​-­over​-­interracial​-­marriage. Fat Heffalump. 2016. “A Tribute to Nurse Kellye.” Fat Heffalump, March 27. ­https://​ ­fatheffalump​.­wordpress​.­com ​/­2016​/­03​/­27​/­a​-­t ribute​-­to​-­nurse​-­kellye​/. Hamamoto, Darrell Y. 1994. Monitored Peril: Asian Americans and the Politics of TV Representation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. “Hey Look Me Over.” Mash Episode Scripts. ­http://​­www​.­springfieldspringfield​.­co​.­uk​ /­view​_episode​_scripts​.­php​?­t v​-­show​= ​­mash​&­episode​= ​­s11e01. ­History​.­com. 2016. “The Real M*A*S*H: Asian Characters.” ­http://​­w ww​.­history​.­co​.­uk​ /­shows​/­the​-­real​-­mash​/­videos​/­the​-­real​-­mash​-­asian​-­characters. “M*A*S*H.” n.d. ­TV​.­com. ­http://​­w ww​.­tv​.­com​/­shows​/­mash​/. “Nurse Kellye of ‘M*A*S*H’ Still Gets Fan Mail for Breakthrough Role.” 2016. NPR, April 3. ­http://​­w ww​.­npr​.­org​/­2016​/­04​/­03​/­472859133​/­nurse​-­kellye​-­of​-­m​-­a​-­s​-­h​-­still​ -­gets​-­fan​-­mail​-­for​-­breakthrough​-­role. O’Connor, John J. 1991. “Reviews/Television; Hawkeye and Company in a ‘M*A*S*H’ Salute.” New York Times, November 25. ­http://​­w ww​.­nytimes​.­com​/­1991​/­11​/­25​/­news​ /­reviews​-­television​-­hawkeye​-­and​-­company​-­in​-­a​-­m​-­a​-­s​-­h​-­salute​.­html. Stevens, Ashley Marie. 2016.”American Society, Stereotypical Roles, and Asian Characters in M*A*S*H.” Masters thesis. Bowling Green State University. Viet Voice, The. 2014. “Asians in M*A*S*H.” ­http://​­w ww​.­vietvoice​.­net​/­asians​-­mash​/.

Master of None ( 2015–) Taking place in New York, Netflix comedy’s Master of None follows Dev (Aziz Ansari) and a group of his friends. Season one (2015) and season two (2017) each consisted of ten episodes focusing on their everyday experiences, challenges, joys, and heartaches. While following the template of the sitcom, critics have highlighted how Master of None weaves in serious discussions of race, class, gender, and sexuality. According to writer, Sharan Shetty, Master of None complicates the discussions of race and characters of color when “Ansari and co-creator Alan Yang practice equal-opportunity implication, an approach that treats people of color as conflicted, accountable human beings who are constantly making decisions about how to pass, how to assert themselves, and how to inch around the trapdoors of racism while being prodded by ulterior motives” (Shetty 2015). Master of None features a multiracial cast: Aziz Ansari as Dev Shah, a commercial actor; Noel Wells as Rachel Silva, Dev’s girlfriend in season one; Eric Wareheim as Arnold Baumheiser, Dev’s close yet cliched “White friend”; Kevin Yu as Brian Chang, the “onscreen version of co-creator Alan Yang, Dev’s chill, super-good-looking friend” (Jung 2015); Lena Waithe as Denise, Dev’s lesbian



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friend; and Alessandra Mastronardi as Francesca, Dev’s love interest in the second season. Ansari’s real-life parents, Shoukath and Fatima, play his parents in the sitcom. Issues of race, gender, and sexuality are weaved into most episodes. “Indians on TV” (season one, episode four) starts with snippets from various TV shows and movies where Indians and Whites “playing Indian” are shown to highlight the history of racial stereotypes in American culture. This is followed by a plotline where Dev and friend Ravi (Ravi Patel) both audition for the role of a cab driver. During the audition, Dev is asked to read his lines with an Indian accent. He refuses, at which time he is told that he would not be called back. After the audition, Dev tells Ravi about “Three Buddies” a show that’s holding additions. Soon thereafter, Dev is accidentally forwarded an email thread from the producer, Jerry Danvers (Adam Grupper) where he says “Both (Dev and Ravi) are great, but there can’t be two. Let’s meet them both and see who can curry our favor, hahaha.” Denise and Brian encourage Dev to leak the email, but Dev’s agent tells him to let it go that he might get it “Friends money.” Danvers apologizes to Dev, taking him to a Knicks game at where he meets the rapper Busta Rhymes in the VIP lounge. Dev decides to ask Busta’s opinion about how he should handle Danvers’s email remarks. Busta tells him to be strategic: “I don’t think you should play the race card. Charge it to the race card.” In the end, neither of them gets the role on “Three Buddies,” but they are unexpectedly approached by another producer who hopes Dev and Ravi will star in an Indian version of “The Perfect Stranger.” The catch: both of them have to do an Indian accent. The episode ends with Ravi and Dev debating about what they should do and their friend Anush discovering that the Indian character on Short Circuit 2 (1988) is played by a White actor in brownface. Race, representation, and the daily confrontations of racism is central to a number of episodes. In “Parents” (season one, episode two), audiences are introduced to Dev and Brian’s fathers, their childhood, and their experiences of immigrating to the United States. Dev’s father, Ramesh (Shoukath Ansari), who is a doctor, experienced racism when he met with the hospital director. The director spoke to him really slowly, asking, “Do you understand?” Brian’s parents, who immigrated from China to the United States in the early 1980s, were turned away at a restaurant and told that there were no tables when the restaurant was clearly empty and had plenty of seating. “I think they don’t want to seat us because we’re Asian,” said Brian’s father, Peter (Clem Chung), to his mother. Both fathers were shown making great sacrifices so that their sons could have a better life in America. In one scene, Dev and Brian discuss how Asian parents never praise their kids. Brian tells Dev: “I just feel like Asian parents, they don’t have the emotional reach to say they’re proud or whatever. Have you ever hung out with a White person’s parents, though, they are crazy nice? I had dinner once with my last girlfriend’s mom. And by the end of that meal, she had hugged me more times than my family has hugged me in my entire life.” The episode progresses and Dev and Brian discover the struggles their fathers have overcome to establish a new life in the United States.

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Brian reconnects with his father, and Dev’s father tells him that he’s done a good job with acting. Race, gender identity, and the challenges facing young people of color are all central themes in Master of None. “First Date” (season two, episode four) shows Dev using a popular dating app to meet several women. In the course of the episode, there are several discussions of the fetishizing of Asian women and Indian cliques. One of Dev’s dates explains that one of the White girls in her Indian clique, did the “Indian head bob.” Dev responds by saying, “No! She can’t do that. That’s for Indian use only.” Sexist remarks via dating app is highlighted when several women gave examples of how men would send pictures of their penis or remarks about women’s breasts in texts. One of his dates, a Black woman says “Being a black woman on these (dating) apps—completely different situation. Compare to my white friends, I get way less activity. I also find that I rarely match with guys outside of my race.” Dev responds: “Same for me. A lot of my matches are Indian women. I did read somewhere that the people who usually do worse are Asian men and Black women.” In the episode “Thanksgiving” (season two, episode eight) tackles the issues of race and sexuality. Denise is seen at a series of Thanksgiving dinners where she struggles with coming out to her family. Racial difference is also a theme. Denise’s mom, Catherine, played by Angela Bassett, explains to young Denise that Dev is actually Indian and not Black. “Look, both of you are minorities. It’s a group of people who have to work twice as hard in life to get half as far, and, Denise, you a Black woman, so you gonna have to work three times as hard. And you’re both going to be disenfranchised.” Later, when Denise comes out to her mom in a diner, her mom says “I don’t want life to be hard for you. It is hard enough being a Black woman in this world. Now you want to add something else to that?” Denise’s girlfriend, Michelle (Ebony Obsidian), explains that she lived in Shanghai for two months and “mostly I just took pictures with people who thought I was Beyoncé. This one restaurant even put my picture up on the wall, I just didn’t have the heart to tell them the truth.” Denise and Dev discuss police violence with the case of Sandra Bland at another dinner. The episode ends with Catherine finally accepting Denise’s sexuality and her girlfriend into the family. In an era where the representation of South Asians persists, Master of None is a groundbreaking sitcom that explores the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality through comedy. Critically acclaimed, having received multiple awards, including several Emmy Awards, Master of None has elevated conversations about identity through storytelling. Yung-Hwa Anna Chow Further Reading

Jung, Alex. 2018. “Alan Yang’s Art-House Comedies.” Vulture, September 26. h­ ttps://​ ­w ww​.­v ulture​.­com ​/­2018​/­09​/­alan​-­yang​-­forever​-­master​-­of​-­none​-­parks​-­recreation​ .­html.



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Moylan, Brian. 2015. “Master of None: Aziz Ansari Makes a Sitcom with Soul.” The Guardian, November 6. ­https://​­w ww​.­theguardian​.­com​/­t v​-­and​-­radio​/­2015​/­nov​/­06​ /­aziz​-­ansari​-­master​-­of​-­none​-­netflix. Shetty, Sharan. 2015. “Charge It to the Race Card.” Slate, November 11. ­https://​­slate​.­com​ /­c ulture​/­2015​ /­11​/­r ace​-­i n​ -­m aster​-­of​-­none​ -­w ith​ -­a ziz​ -­a nsari​ -­t he​ -­n etf lix​-­shows​ -­depiction​-­of​-­indian​-­americanness​-­took​-­my​-­breath​-­away​.­html.

Miami Vice (1984–1989) One of the most popular and innovative television series of the 1980s, Miami Vice ran for five full seasons between 1984 and 1989. NBC aired the program on Friday nights at 10:00 p.m. (in 1986, NBC moved it to 9:00 p.m. on Friday) as part of its prime-time weekend lineup. An action-packed and thrilling crime drama, Miami Vice depicted the efforts of an undercover detective unit within southern Florida’s Metro-Dade Police Department battling organized crime, narcotics trafficking, extortion, and prostitution. Created by Anthony Yerkovich, while Michael Mann served as the series’ executive producer, Miami Vice brought a cinematic aesthetic to the small group. Starring Don Johnson (as Detective James Crockett), Phillip Michael Thomas (as Detective Ricardo Tubbs), Edward James Olmos (as Lieutenant Martin Castillo), Olivia Brown (as Detective Trudy Joplin), and Saundra Santiago (as Detective Gina Calabrese), Miami Vice would launch several careers, propelling them into stardom that would transcend television culture. Airing during the Reagan era, when the federal government’s escalation of the War on Drugs and First Lady Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” antidrug campaign pushed the issue of drug abuse and drug trafficking into the national spotlight, Miami Vice gave voice these broader political discourses. Given its Miami-Dade County setting—one of the most cosmopolitan and ethnically diverse regions of the United States—Miami Vice was one of the earliest programs on network television to depict a heavily multiracial and multiethnic cast and to incorporate plot elements that reflected multicultural themes. The show’s action primarily revolved around its two lead characters, James “Sonny” Crockett and Ricardo “Rico” Tubbs. Crockett and Tubbs are partners within the undercover Miami Vice unit in which they serve. Crockett, is a former standout college football star at the University of Florida drafted into the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. During the show’s first season, Crockett is in the midst of an emotional divorce that has arisen due to his wife’s frustration with the time-consuming nature of Crockett’s occupation and the subsequent mental anguish it causes for both her and Crockett. Crockett is an eight-year veteran of the force when Miami Vice begins. Tubbs, by contrast, is a detective with the New York Police Department (NYPD) at the show’s outset but relocates to Miami by the end of the first episode in order to track down the drug trafficker who murdered his brother. Whereas Crockett’s whiteness is made clear, Tubbs’s specific racial background is never disclosed during the series, although various character idiosyncrasies and plot developments

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seem to suggest that he is Afro-Latino. For example, Tubbs speaks fluent Spanish, and in a season two episode titled “Whatever Works,” Tubbs immediately recognizes a series of bizarre, grisly murders as bearing the symbolism of Santería, a Caribbean Afro-Latino religious tradition. Their racial and biographic difference would be central to the show’s plot. Replicating the narrative form commonplace within interracial buddy films and television shows, Miami Vice imagined a world where friendship and shared goals can lead to racial transcendence. During the series, the Miami Vice undercover detective unit is headed by two Latino lieutenants; the first is Lt. Lou Rodriguez (played by Gregory Sierra), who is mortally wounded by a hitman who attempts to kill Crockett. Lt. Martin “Marty” Castillo, a former Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent who was assigned to anti-narcotics operations in Southeast Asia during the 1970s, joins the unit after Rodriguez’s passing midway through the first season. Castillo’s stoic demeanor contrasts sharply with Crockett’s wisecracking nature and Tubbs’s easygoing and flashy persona. Miami Vice also features two women of color in key supporting roles. Gina Calabrese and Trudy Joplin play undercover agents impersonating prostitutes in an effort to both bust “johns” and obtain vital information regarding the drug trade, organized crime, and other criminal activities. Gina Calabrese is a Cuban refugee whose family fled to southern Florida following Fidel Castro’s rise to power; she and Crockett experience a brief romantic fling during Crockett’s divorce; however, the relationship quickly dissipates and the two maintain a strictly platonic relationship for the duration of the series. Trudy Joplin, nicknamed “Big Booty Trudy” on the street, is Gina’s African American partner. Additionally, Pam Grier (who gained fame as the lead actress in numerous “blaxploitation” films of the 1970s, such as Coffy and Foxy Brown) occasionally made guest appearances in episodes of Miami Vice as Valerie Gordon, an NYPD detective and Tubbs’s former girlfriend. While some critics claim that Miami Vice has contributed to a perpetuation of negative stereotypes against racial and ethnic minorities through its depiction of Black and Latino drug dealers, extortionists, criminals, and gangs, others dispute such claims. Others, however, praised the show for its representations of people of color. Presented with wholeness and humanity, and depicted outside the stereotypes commonplace on television, characters of color were central to narrative of Miami Vice. One of the most popular television programs of the 1980s, Miami Vice has profoundly impacted American television and U.S. popular culture more broadly since its initial release. Aside from its place as one of the first prime-time dramas to feature a multiracial cast of protagonists, Miami Vice was also one of the first television programs to incorporate contemporary Billboard Top 40 music as part of its soundtrack. Throughout the show’s five-season run, Miami Vice featured hit singles from Bon Jovi, Phil Collins, Glenn Frey, Cyndi Lauper, Tina Turner, ZZ Top, and many other popular recording artists. One musical scene has particularly come to epitomize the action and ambiance of Miami Vice. This scene occurs during the 1984 pilot episode in which Crockett and Tubbs are driving through Miami’s neon-lit streets at night in Crockett’s Ferrari convertible; neither



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character speaks as Phil Collins’s “In the Air Tonight” pulsates and conveys the somber mood and steely resolve that both men feel. This scene has become so iconic of 1980s television in general that CNN used a clip of it as the advertisement for the network’s 2016 documentary series The Eighties. Miami Vice also changed television through providing a platform for guest appearances and cameos from established celebrities in its episodes—with guest appearances from actors such as Pam Grier, Bruce Willis, and Ed O’Neill, boxer Roberto Durán, rap group The Fat Boys, and singers Willie Nelson and Gene Simmons, among others. The 2002 video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, which is set in a fictionalized Miami in 1986, drew heavily upon episodes and characters from Miami Vice, and Phillip Michael Thomas provided voicework for one of the game’s central characters. Miami Vice was also modernized and reimagined as a 2006 Hollywood film release in which Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx were cast as Crockett and Tubbs, respectively. The original series inspired the 1986 video game Miami Vice for the Commodore 64 home computer, while the film version inspired Miami Vice: The Game for the PlayStation Portable system in 2006. Justin D. García Further Reading

Murray, Noel. 2012. “How Miami Vice Launched the ’80s on TV, Then Died with Its Decade.” AV Club, August 2. ­http://​­w ww​.­avclub​.­com​/­article​/ ­how​-­imiami​-­vicei​ -­launched​-­the​-­80s​-­on​-­t v​-­then​-­died​--­83262. Sanders, Steven. 2010. Miami Vice: TV Milestones Series. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press. Viglucci, Andres. 2014. “The Vice Effect: 30 Years after the Show That Changed Miami.” Miami Herald, September 28. ­http://​­www​.­miamiherald​.­com​/­news​/­local​/­community​ /­miami​-­dade​/­article2266518​.­html.

Mind of Mencia (2005–2008) A sketch show airing on Comedy Central, which featured Latinx comedian Carlos Mencia, Mind of Mencia (2005–2008) built on the traditions of Chappelle’s Show (2003–2006). Filling Chappelle’s time slot, it too tackled racial issues, using satire to provoke conversations about difficult issues. However, Mind of Mencia never lived up to the expectations set up by Chappelle. It was never as successful in terms of ratings (in its second season, it was the network’s ninth highest rating show) nor did it elicit similar critical praise, with commentators and viewers unhappy with the show’s representational offering. Throughout its time on the air, Mind of Mencia sparked debate as to whether its deployment of long-standing stereotypes highlighted the absurdity of racism or simply reinforced racist ideologies. Arguing that their willingness to stereotype every community and point out the absurdity of racial stereotypes, racist language, and political correctness, Mencia and his supporters praised the show for inspiring important conversations and reclaiming racist stereotypes and words from their dehumanizing and hurtful intent. Still others, celebrated the power and

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importance of a prominent Latino comedian being on television, especially on Comedy Central in Chappelle’s timeslot. Guillermo Avila-Saavedra, in “Ethnic Otherness versus Cultural Assimilation: U.S. Latino Comedians and the Politics of Identity” (2011), writes about the importance of the show, situating it within a longer history of Latinx comedians engaging questions about assimilation and Latinx identity. Reflecting on the use of racial slurs, he notes, “In his program, Carlos Mencía used indistinctly the terms ‘beaner’ and ‘wetback’ to refer to himself and other Latinos. These are two socially loaded terms that are seldom used casually.” Highlighting the multiple readings of Mind of Mencia’s use of racial jokes, slurs, and stereotypes, he concludes, “Reclaiming the insult serves a dual purpose in Latino comedy. On one hand, it grants non-Latino audiences’ permission to laugh at the ethnic joke. It demystifies the terms and brings out in the open what was formerly unmentionable. On the other hand, for Latino audiences, it brings them into the broader national audience by making Latino peculiarities a valid comic category” (282). For his critics, the symbolic importance of Latinx visibility or the potential in opening up space for important of conversations about race did not outweigh the show’s embrace of stereotypes, its lack of progressive politics, and its willingness to address certain issues within non-Latinx audiences. William Loeffler, in “Inside Jokes: Color-blind Racism and Racial Humor,” argues that rather than using comedy and satire to expose inequalities and foster critical conversations about racism, power, injustice, Mencia more often staged arguments about political correctness, reverse racism, and the fallacy in claims about racism. In other words, his comedy worked downward rather than upward toward power and dominant institutions. It reinforced the status quo, protecting whiteness and furthering the Othering of communities of color. He once described “political correctness [as] a form of racism” (Fernandez 2006). His show embraced this belief system. For example, in the “Dee Dee Dee Song” (August 13, 2016), he performs a song about the lack of work ethic and accountability in contemporary society. In one instance, he sings about racial preferences given to Latinxs and the community’s refusal to work hard and earn a seat at America’s table: They say no cause I’m black, so we lower the standards. They say no cause I’m white, so we lower the standards. They say no cause I’m Asian, so we lower the standards. No habla Ingles, so we all become Spaniards. And you wake up one day and you don’t have the skills To get a better job so you’re stuck on the grill. You’re wondering why Julio took your job, But you forgot to see you’re as dumb as a knob . . . So they outsource your job to some guy named Habib Cause he works harder than you and he’s got five degrees. And you’re asking yourself “how could this happen to me?” I’ll tell you why, homie! Cause you’re . . . dee dee dee

In another segment entitled “Wetback Mountain” (March 22, 2006), Mencia comments about the stereotypes facing Latinxs as “drug dealers” and “pimps” and



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remaking Hollywood’s Brokeback Mountain. Despite making the audience think the film was about an intimate relationship between two Latinx men, we learn that their secret lives in one without assimilation: eating burritos, wearing ponchos, and playing with pinatas. Within the critiques of Hollywood’s persistent embrace of stereotypes and its commentary on the demands of assimilation, the segment’s title, and its simplistic understanding of identity gave the show’s critics much to talk about. In another segment, “The 2nd Annual Stereotype Olympics” (August 19, 2007), five competitors, each embodying a different racial stereotype, battle in a hip-hop dance. In the end, the Black male competitor defeats the White gay man. While making clear how the segment is about stereotypes, it does little to undermine or challenge them, leaving them intact all while erasing the harm and hurt that comes with them. In 2008, after four seasons, Carlos Mencia decided to end the show’s run on television. The show, while short-lived, prompted ample debate about the role of comedy in conversations about race and identity, the importance of inclusion, and what the role of television programming should be in addressing difficult issues. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Avila-Saavedra, Guillermo. 2011. “Ethnic Otherness versus Cultural Assimilation: U.S. Latino Comedians and the Politics of Identity.” Mass Communication and Society 14 (3): 271–291. Fernandez, Jay. 2006. “He’s on PC Patrol; Comedy Central’s Carlos Mencia Believes ‘Political Correctness Is a Form of Racism.’” Los Angeles Times, July 12, E1. Loeffler, William. 2008. “Race Issues Fill the Mind of Carlos Mencia.” McClatchy-Tribune, Business News, November 13. Loeffler, William. n.d. “Inside Jokes: Color-blind Racism and Racial Humor.” Duke University: Study of Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in the Social Sciences. h­ ttps://​­regss​ .­t rinity​.­d uke​ .­e du​ /­s ites​ /­r egss​ .­t rinity​.­d uke​ .­e du​ /­f iles​ /­5 0​ %­2 0MB​ /­m anuscript​ _humor08​.­pdf.

Mindy Project, The (2012–2017) Premiering on FOX on September 25, 2012, The Mindy Project was the first show created, written, produced, directed, and acted in by a woman of color, Mindy Kaling. Running for a total of three seasons on FOX, it was subsequently aired on Hulu. While the show includes several dynamic characters—Morgan Tookers (Ike Barinholtz), Jeremy Reed (Ed Weeks), Danny Castellano (Chris Messina), Tamra (Xosha Roquemore), and Beverly (Beth Grant)—The Mindy Project is a vehicle for the comedic prowess, storytelling, and stardom of Mindy Kaling. In the show, she plays an Indian American doctor named Mindy Lahiri, an OB/GYN. She epitomizes the Asian “model minority” myth: upwardly mobile, highly educated, competitive, and successful. Yet, critics have noted the show challenges the model minority myth, adding depth and complexity with its portrayal of Dr. Lahiri as

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obnoxious and having a propensity to engage in loud-mouthed chatter. Some commentators have additionally argued that the success of the show lies in the refusal of these stereotypes often associated with Asian American women. There is nothing demure or docile about Dr. Mindy Lahiri. Others have been less generous in their praise, questioning whether the show’s representation of a successful Asian American doctor as flawed, clumsy, obnoxious, and selfish, makes her nonthreatening and more palatable to White audiences. Still others have celebrated how The Mindy Project shatters multiple glass ceilings in terms of gender and race. It challenges American television’s racialized beauty standards based on a White ideal type. An unconventional protagonist in terms of her unusual, larger-than-life presence on screen, Mindy is brown, curvy, plus size, and comfortable in her own skin. As her character says in season one, “There’s a premium on White women with perfect looks. I’m O for two!” What the show does best is showcase a young Asian American women’s ongoing negotiations with body image vis-à-vis White beauty standards that dominate American television. Body positivity and body acceptance remain central themes throughout the show’s five seasons. Critics have noted that Dr. Mindy Lahiri personifies a type of American rugged individualism that is usually reserved for White Americans. Mindy subverts this racial reality in achieving a level of assimilation that is unmatched. However, there is an element of truth here as well. Some highly educated, professional Indian Americans are experiencing unprecedented levels of socioeconomic well-being, so much so that they might move through U.S. life without experiencing the material consequences of racism. Yet, racism is shown at other levels. Assimilation takes work and exacts a toll on communities of color. For Americans of color, their racial or ethnic otherness remains a barrier when it comes to being seen as “real” Americans. This becomes an important subtext of the show and can be seen with the show’s representation of Mindy’s sex life. The Mindy Project chronicles Mindy’s sexual encounters with White men, breaking all sorts of sexual/racial/gender taboos. It’s unlike any other portrayal of South Asian women on U.S. television. Evident in her dating choices and sexual conquests, her sexual life becomes a vehicle for engaging discourses around assimilation, acceptance, and the tensions of “fitting in.” In many ways, Mindy is committed to being recognized as “fully American,” a luxury most people of color cannot take for granted. Across multiple episodes, Mindy can be seen striving for real Americanness and full acceptance. For instance, she also consistently displays her prowess in American pop culture references as if to prove this very point. South Asian Americans are traditionally portrayed as “model minorities” and “exemplars of assimilation” while simultaneously having to contend with persisting patterns of racialization (Wolock and Punathambekar 2015). This paradox recurs on the show as its assimilationist narrative runs parallel to one where as a second-generation Indian immigrant there continues to be the perception that Dr. Mindy Lahiri is “not from this country” or “didn’t grow up here.” We



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see this play out as her costars explore her Indian American identity. The “forever foreign” Asian stereotype recurs on the show, with Mindy trying to refute it. For instance, when a White male costar refers to her Christian pastor boyfriend as reaching out to Mindy as a potential convert from the “emerging world,” Mindy interjects with, “you mean suburban and from Boston.” What the show fails to do often is go beyond such passing one-line racial zingers from Mindy. From being racially profiled at the Empire State Building (season one) to her White boyfriend’s mother’s reservations about their relationship (season three), we get fleeting glimpses of what it means to be a brown woman in twenty-first-century America. Despite its embrace of diversity and its willingness to challenge longstanding racial discourses, The Mindy Project avoids conversation on race. It is established in season one that Mindy Lahiri will not share the spotlight with another woman or person of color. We see this reflected in her annoyance when her friends invite a “new model of her” (young Indian woman) to a party. In another episode, she is afforded the opportunity to mentor another woman of color. However, when the seeds for a serious, no-holds-barred conversation on race are sowed, the supporting cast lends a lightness to it, preventing any ground-breaking racial dialogue from taking root. Her White costars scoff at her in those instances where her own racial identity is made clear. This portrayal mirrors how the U.S. mainstream deals with “race,” by downplaying its omnipresence. The White ensemble cast notes that she is “just playing the race card” if she brings up her racial identity, and their reaction is justifiable given how inconsistent Mindy herself is on race. As a result, her identity is easily dismissed, very much in step with the overall assimilationist tone of the show. Critics have bemoaned lost opportunities, as the show never delves deep into the messy topic of race. In “Mindy Lahiri is a Racist,” the show creates a platform for in-depth conversation on racism. Yet for some commentators, it ends up leaving the audience thinking that racism is little more than individual prejudices and bigotry. In other words, racism is addressed at the level of individuals being “racist,” while the racialized context and systemic racism are left alone. By the end of season five, we see attempts to get to the heart of racism and sexism in American life. In “Mindy Lahiri Is a White Man,” the realities of White privilege and the racist obstacles endured by women of color are explored. After being rejected for the head of obstetrics position at the hospital, with a White male colleague being picked over her, Mindy wishes to be a White man. On transforming into a White male, she discovers that with privilege, “Your life is so carefree, you start wondering why other people don’t just help themselves. Because you think life is just as easy for everyone else.” Important realizations, nonetheless, Mindy goes back to being an Indian American woman as she misses being “different” and “interesting.” This episode tackles the issue of racial bias and gender-based discrimination and even shows Mindy’s outrage and eventual retreat. We also get a glimpse of how systemic racism works when the hiring committee responds with, “Honestly, our last department head was a black woman. . . . She was great. She was fine. But we thought we’d go in a different direction.” In the end, the show falls short in expanding these conversations in important ways. The

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Mindy Project does not go far enough to challenge whiteness on American television. The lack of critical engagement with race on the show can be linked to “colorblindness,” with Kaling’s self-presentation afforded an “honorary white” status (Sood 2016). While offering progress in terms of representations of South Asians and providing a platform for women of color on television, critics have argued that The Mindy Project hardly moves the needle when it comes to race. For them, it misses an opportunity to critically explore what it means to be a brown woman, a second-generation immigrant, and an Indian American doctor, against the larger racial tapestry of U.S. life. Yet, for Kaling, this was never her intention for the show. For her it was simply about entertainment, with the hope that doors would open resulting in additional opportunities. Kavitha Koshy Further Reading

Sood, Sheena. 2016. “Colorblind Racism in Media: Mindy Kaling as an ‘Honorary White.’” In Race and Contention in Twenty-First Century U.S. Media, edited by Jason A. Smith and Bhoomi K. Thakore, 100–116. New York: Routledge. Wolock, Lia, and Aswin Punathambekar. 2015. “Race and Ethnicity in Post-Network American Television: From MTV-Desi to Outsourced.” Television & New Media 16 (7): 664–679.

Miniseries A miniseries is a limited, predetermined number of television episodes comprising one main, fictional story line. Being longer than a movie but shorter than a regular series, this format lends itself to commercially risky material, such as that which features people of color or subjects that might be uncomfortable to White viewers. Indeed, it was the adaptation of Alex Haley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning saga of enslavement, Roots, that truly established the format as a ratings winner. The Roots miniseries (1977) became a template for the development of many miniseries that followed and affiliated the format with stories about people and places beyond White America. Since then, the miniseries has emerged as one of the nation’s most popular vehicles for telling stories about communities of color, communities outside the United States, and those otherwise marginalized voices. Still, for some critics, the miniseries genre has centered whiteness by presenting people of color as victims needing rescue, villains to be destroyed, or minor characters ancillary to the main plot, if they are depicted at all. ILLUMINATING BLACKNESS The miniseries secured its place as a commercially reliable format because of a story about African American family history. Adapted for television from drafts of Alex Haley’s 1976 award-winning bestseller, Roots (1977) broke ratings records when it aired and continues to be one of the most-watched shows

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in television history. Airing for eight consecutive nights on ABC, Roots was seen in approximately 70 percent of U.S. households during its first run. It told the story of four generations of an enslaved Black family, beginning with the life a young Mandinka warrior (Kunta Kinte) who was captured and sold into slavery, then ending with his descendants’ triumphant arrival in Tennessee to build a new home as free people. Roots’s broadcast was the first-time mainstream media had depicted chattel slavery from the point of view of the enslaved. It stimulated a national discussion by countering erroneous but widely held notions that enslaved people were cared for and loved by their masters, that the enslaved happily accepted their conditions, and that Africa was an uncivilized wilderness full of savages. Wrapped in a version of the American Dream narrative, Roots’s reframing of African American history gained wide acceptance. Two years later, ABC aired a sequel. Roots: The Next Generations (1979) picked up Alex Haley’s family story in 1882, documenting their experiences through the 1960s. While some reviewers praised this production for stronger writing and acting than its predecessor, others expressed concern about its bourgeois, integrationist racial politics. In contrast with the indominable resistance of Kunta Kinte (LeVar Burton) and his daughter Kizzy (Leslie Uggams), these generations of Kinte descendants make ongoing efforts to cooperate with White community leaders despite Jim Crow era oppression. This cooperative attitude facilitates many of their successes, which arise through the interventions of White patrons. So, while some audiences found the miniseries inspiring and hopeful, others termed this story of Black family life “a political failure.” For the show’s network and producers, Roots: The Next Generations was a commercial success. It reached 110 million viewers in the United States during its first run, even though it faced competition in the ratings from NBC’s Black-themed miniseries, Backstairs at the White House (1979). ABC’s sequel also beat out the competition in awards, taking home Emmys for Best Limited Series and Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series, whereas NBC’s production received none. Nevertheless, the highest ratings that week went to sitcoms and a broadcast of Gone with the Wind (1939), signaling that this small trend in African American miniseries—Roots, King (1978), Roots II, Backstairs at the White House—would be coming to its close. In 1986, the life story of the first Zulu King, Shaka, came to U.S. television. In five two-hour episodes, Shaka Zulu chronicles his late eighteenth-century origins as a “bastard” son prophesized to lead his tribe into a period of ruthless violence, on to his fulfilment of that prediction as he incorporates neighboring tribes into a mighty and feared Zulu nation. While Shaka is an anti-hero, the production frames African tribal life as superstitious, despotic, and rife with injustice. In fact, Shaka’s unending thirst for war appears to be caused by growing up in such a community. His commitment to focus and discipline contrasts with the lazy habits of the countrymen he trains. Framing Shaka’s character as exceptional reinforces racist stereotypes of Black indolence. Through its bombastic depictions of magic and “witch doctors,” Shaka Zulu also employs the “magical negro” stereotype,

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which would be repeated often in miniseries when White protagonists required otherworldly intervention, such as Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All (1994) and The Stand (1994). Still, some viewers found affirming representations of blackness within the miniseries, perceiving Shaka as a symbol of Black power and self-determination. In 2000, HBO aired The Corner, a six-part miniseries based on David Simon and Ed Burns’s account of life in the West Baltimore drug trade. Adapted for television by David Simon and David Mills, The Corner focuses on the stories of one African American family. Its depiction of drug dealing and addiction was reviewed as uncompromising, realistic, and harrowing. While most of the characters live in poverty, without any safety nets, and under constant threat of arrest, they display compassion, wit, and intelligence. Their struggles are depicted as the result of living with few options for economic advancement or effective drug treatment and lacking a stable social support network. Attempts to escape crime and addiction continually fail, leading audiences to conclude that there is no hope for these compelling characters. Each episode begins and ends with scenes framed as interviews between Director Charles S. Dutton and one of the main characters. This formula contributes to the show’s aura of realism, but it also positions audience members as tourists or anthropologists observing an exotic culture. The Corner’s depiction of African Americans “on the front lines of America’s war on drugs” as helpless and cordoned off from the rest of the nation was awarded Emmys for writing, directing, and best miniseries, as well as a Peabody Award. The show’s success proved auspicious for writer David Simon as well as the miniseries’ actors, many of whom went on to play roles in Simon’s next acclaimed series: The Wire (2002–2008). In 2016, Roots got a reboot. Produced in the spirit of popular education, the eight-hour miniseries aired simultaneously on History, A & E, and Lifetime over Memorial Day weekend. It was also made available for free online viewing. While almost universally well-reviewed by critics for the quality of the production and its efforts to improve historical accuracy, the Roots reboot failed to find the wide audience of its predecessor. Instead, an FX miniseries about the murder trial of O. J. Simpson generated widespread public interest. The People vs. O. J. Simpson (2016) portrays the investigation into the murders of Ronald Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson as well as the resulting murder trial and acquittal of football superstar and actor, O. J. Simpson. Audiences learn the story from multiple perspectives. This approach enables the show to convey complex interactions of race, class, and gender that defined the characters’ options and influenced their decisions. Simpson’s insistence that his fame, wealth, and social milieu made him a post-racial subject— “I’m not black; I’m O.J.!”—sharply contrasts with how his defense team represents him as a victim of racial profiling and an attempt to frame him. Meanwhile, Defense Attorney Johnnie Cochran challenges Assistant Prosecutor Christopher Darden’s commitment to the Black community, arguing that serving as a prosecutor is in direct opposition to the interests of African Americans. Conflict about the “right” way to be Black stubbornly underlies most of the narrative. Ultimately, no

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one in the story is innocent, and there are no heroes. Instead, The People vs. O. J. Simpson offers what most miniseries do not: a complex depiction of Black masculinity.

THE AMERICAN WEST Whether as the epic of Westward Expansion, the horror of Native American genocide, or merely as a setting for romance and adventure, the American West has been a frequent miniseries trope since the 1970s. For example, Centennial (1978) offered viewers a story of life along the South Platte River in Colorado from the mid-eighteenth century to the late twentieth. Although the first two episodes focus on interactions between Arapahoe, Pawnee, and European traders, thereafter Indian characters begin to move to the sidelines. Camera angles frame events through the standpoint of White settlers—ranchers, farmers, traders, and laborers. These White protagonists feel disturbed and sad about the broken treaties, massacres, and confinement to reservations but also powerless to affect anything. Throughout the miniseries, visual motifs, dialogue, and voice-over narration evoke the notion that the old will always be destroyed by the new. By this logic, the responsibility for how Indigenous peoples have been affected by colonization belongs to no one. As such it comes as little surprise when a White character in the last episode reflects on the plight of Indigenous peoples, concluding that they “formed an indigestible mass in the belly of progress and had to be regurgitated.” Centennial frames other people of color as part of progress. Immigrants from Japan and Mexico are shown working hard on the farm of a German immigrant, the key to its growing success. Decades later, when the same Mexican immigrant family faces racial profiling and corruption in the legal system, a rich, White resident comes to their aid. In Centennial’s final episode, descendants of these Mexican immigrants run a successful restaurant, suggesting that their troubles with racism are in the past. In this narrative, the incorporation of Mexican and Asian immigrants is just another facet of progress. Ten years later, the four-part miniseries Lonesome Dove (1989) presented Native Americans in an even less sympathetic light. The story focuses on the friendship and business partnership of Call (Tommy Lee Jones) and Gus (Robert Duvall). “Half-breed” Indian Blue Duck, played by White actor Frederic Forrest in makeup and prosthetic nose, operates as the story’s main villain. Key to the plot is Blue Duck’s kidnapping and vicious treatment of young Lorie (Diane Lane), who the protagonists had been protecting on their journeys. He intends to give her to a group of Comancheros in exchange for killing Gus. Later, Blue Duck is captured. Instead of accepting the gallows, he chooses murder-suicide by throwing himself out a window, taking a deputy with him. Additional characters are killed by Indians as they travel (uninvited) through tribal lands, but audience assumptions that such travel is innocent contributes to the impression that Blue Duck is not merely a bad apple, but part of a larger phenomenon of “unprovoked” Indian aggression.

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The 2005 miniseries Into the West aimed to convey a multicultural perspective on Westward Expansion. Covering the years 1825 to 1890, events are depicted through the eyes of a Lakota family as well as a White one. To achieve this, Indian advisors provided insight on rituals, Indian characters spoke the languages of the communities they represented, and Indian cast members were employed. The plot was structured to provide equal time for the experiences of Indians and colonists, giving audiences the impression that its narrative was fair and balanced. From the first episode, however, the Lakota grapple with visions predicting the demise of their people. Foreboding music haunts their segments, whereas optimistic music characterizes those featuring White explorers and settlers. By the end of the final episode the dire prophesy of the Lakota holy man Growling Bear has almost completely come to pass. A method to prevent the Lakota’s destruction is found in the practice of storytelling. This conclusion leaves viewers with a sense of hope, while also allowing White audiences to conclude that they are doing their part simply by watching this program. Like Centennial, Into the West depicts American history as more the unfolding of destiny than the results of purposeful intention. ENCOUNTERING ASIA While miniseries have rarely included Asian American characters, Asia has been the setting for some of the most popular. Most unite the adventure tale and war drama with the history of American military actions in East Asia and the Middle East. Such shows emphasize the heroism (or at least the good intentions) of American men on behalf of Asians whose freedom is threatened by their despotic countrymen. But showcasing these (mostly) White men is only part of the cultural work done by these programs. By depicting Asians in Asia and not Asian Americans, they perpetuate the stereotype that, in the United States, Asians are always foreign. Generation Kill (2008), for example, approached the 2003 invasion of Iraq from the perspective of one U.S. Marine battalion. Based on a book by Rolling Stone journalist Evan Wright and adapted by David Simon and Ed Burns, it aimed to depict the invasion of Iraq authentically from the perspective of the marines involved. The miniseries features Native American, Latino, and White marines; however, Asian-American marines do not appear. Iraqi interpreters play important roles in the story, but their characters are not developed. Enemy Iraqis are referenced by the characters with total contempt. Civilian Iraqis are depicted as victims (of both Saddam Hussein and the U.S. military), though not passive ones. Primarily, the marines see Iraqi civilians as an inconvenience, though at times they express a frustrated desire to win over their hearts and minds. Two years later, HBO’s The Pacific (2010) depicted Asian characters with even less complexity. This miniseries was based on the life stories of three marines who fought in the Pacific theater of World War II, and it is told from their perspective. In one key scene, it seems as if the marines’ racial

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dehumanization of the Japanese will be challenged. While at attention in the barracks, a private voices his impatience to kill some “Japs.” His sergeant shouts angrily that a Japanese solder should never be underestimated as a “buck-toothed cartoon.” Instead, Japanese soldiers should be respected for their military experience and commitment to killing Americans. They are vicious, but skilled, enemies, he explains. Thus, one caricature is replaced with another. This may be a historically accurate portrayal of American soldiers, but the producers might have chosen to include a story line from the perspective of a Japanese soldier or a Japanese American member of U.S. Military Intelligence Service in their epic tale of World War II’s Pacific theater. The 1980 blockbuster miniseries, Shōgun, provided a more romanticized view of Asia than those framed as war dramas. Richard Chamberlain stars as John Blackthorne, a British navigator who pilots a Dutch ship to Japan in the early seventeenth century. Following a rocky beginning in which his ship runs aground, he and the crew are taken prisoner, and the Europeans face numerous tortures, Blackthorne earns the favor of Lord Toranaga (Toshiro Mifune), the area’s regent and competitor for the position of Shōgun. Japanese dialogue transpires without subtitles, giving viewers unfamiliar with the language a sense of the confusion felt by Blackthorne. To assist with his adjustment to Japan, Toranaga assigns Lady Mariko to serve as his translator and teacher, which benefits non-Japanese-speaking viewers, as well. Over time, Blackthorne adapts to Japanese culture and becomes one of his Lord’s most effective samurai lieutenants, saving his life on multiple occasions. Because of Blackthorne’s assistance, Toranaga defeats his rivals and rises to the position of Shōgun. Thus, even as seventeenth-century Japan is shown to have a complex culture characterized by beauty, intelligence, and honor, Lord Toranaga’s success is made possible by the intervention of a White savior who has inexplicably become Japan’s best samurai. Miniseries continue to introduce American audiences to people and places not commonly depicted in typical television series. Yet, critics have questioned their impact. As they have in the past, most miniseries also continue to frame these people and places in ways that define them in relation to whiteness, which has been allowed a moral complexity denied to other racial categories. Ami Sommariva Further Reading

Ball, Erica, and Kellie Carter Jackson, eds. 2017. Reconsidering Roots: Race, Politics, and Memory. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Delmont, Matthew F. 2016. Making Roots: A Nation Captivated. Berkeley: University of California Press. De Vito, John, and Frank Tropea. 2010. Epic Television Miniseries: A Critical History. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Scherer, Paul H. 1991. “The Use of Television Mini-Series as the Basis for History Classes.” The History Teacher 25 (1): 105–108.

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Minstrelsy Minstrels are a form of racially charged entertainment that began in the 1800s. Highly controversial because of its racist depictions of African Americans, minstrels were mundanely featured on cartoons and appeared on sitcom television shows. Black performers had to walk the fine line of appealing to their White audience, challenging negative stereotypes of Black life, and being comical. Yuval Taylor and Jake Austen (2012a) state that “the whole idea of Blackface and minstrels remains confusing because of the boundaries of acceptable racial humor fluctuate hourly. Does blackface celebrate or mock Black Americans?” While some critics have dismissed minstrelsy as fun and part of a history of comedic entertainment, others have concluded that minstrelsy is a fundamentally racist practiced tradition where White people would perform a show or an act and would pretend to be a “stereotypical” Black person. White actors would achieve this by painting their face Black, which is known as Blackface. Minstrelsy presents Black life as carefree; in absence of oppression, responsibilities, and burdens. Minstrelized African American characters are imagined as returning to “true self”: lazy, crazy, and irresponsible. According to Melvin Watkins (1991), minstrelsy “presented the Black character as being stupid, as being comical, as being basically a frivolous character  .  .  . characterization of blacks then reaffirmed what mainstream America had been thinking all along.” Despite the dehumanizing consequences of minstrelsy, its embrace within the entertainment industry ironically provided opportunities for Black artists. Black Blackface vaudeville stars like Bert Williams were heralded as dignified geniuses. Black performers like Mantan Moreland and the comedian-filmmaker Spencer Williams were able to lead successful dual performing lives. African American performers were able to distinguish themselves from their White counterparts by bringing a different dimension to the caricatures and providing coded messages to their Black audiences.

THE ORIGINS AND THE HISTORY No one truly knows when the first White person dressed up in Blackface, but many scholars attribute the popularity of Blackface to Thomas Dartmouth “Daddy” Rice. In 1830, Rice became well known for his Blackface character called Jim Crow. The “Father of Minstrelsy” was born in New York in 1808, became a traveling actor in the 1820s, and performed all over the country. Traveling throughout the South, Rice would incorporate observations from everyday encounters, exaggerating the speech patterns, songs, and dances he witnessed during his interactions with Blacks throughout the South. Using these observations and others from living in an integrated northern neighborhood, along with humor and exaggeration, he developed his first Black stage character, “Jim Crow.” With jig-like footwork, tattered clothing, and a burnt-cork Blackface mask, Rice accompanied his new song with an explosive dance that he claimed to have learned from an African American slave.

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According to music scholar Jon W. Finson: “the primary function of Blackface wasn’t just to invoke the ‘other’, but as a masquerade” (qtd. in “Blackface” n.d.). During times of celebration, people wore clothes of other people to take their identities. Common workers might dress up as an aristocrat or deliberately dress down to be a pirate. Dressing up in Blackface allowed actors to safely mock or protest while hidden behind a caricature. Minstrel performers could safely question authority while claiming to be acting out authentic African American expressions. Rice’s imitation of being Black further perpetuated stereotypes that were extremely popular with Whites in both the North and South. Although he did not label his act a minstrel show, his use of Blackface, Black stereotypes, and the overall popularity and financial success from the show forever changed popular culture. Rice’s “Jim Crow” set the standard for White minstrel troupes such as the Virginia Minstrels. The Virginia Minstrels were the first White minstrel troupe to perform. The group formed in 1842 because of songwriter Daniel Decatur Emmett. He and his three companions created a performance of singing and dancing in Blackface to the accompaniment of live instruments. The Virginia Minstrels, made their first public appearance in February 1843 in a New York City theater. The performance became so popular that other performers donned Blackface as demand for minstrel shows grew. A year after in 1844, a Blackface minstrel troupe called the Ethiopian Serenaders formed, and they played at the White House for the U.S. president and his friends.

THE ROLE AND STRUCTURE OF MINSTREL SHOWS The role and structure of minstrel shows changed over time, but the racist caricatures of Blacks remained. Before the American Civil War, proslavery Whites used the racist stereotypes of Blacks to counter the abolitionist movement. White performers defended slavery by donning Blackface to portray Black people as those who need to be civilized by their White slave masters. Moreover, Blacks were also portrayed as happy and content with their life on the plantation and fearful of life outside of it. With the dramatic increase in the popularity of minstrel shows in the years following emancipation, Whites continued to don Blackface in performances, which would go on to define the meaning of Blackness for many Americans who by choice or geography had little contact with Blacks. By the mid-1840s, Blacks began perform as minstrels. William Henry Lane or “Master Juba,” the inventor of tap dancing became one of the first Blacks to perform in Blackface for White audiences. Initially, Blacks were able to participate in minstrel shows only by declaring themselves as “real coons.” To meet the expectations of both White and Black audiences, Black minstrels donned burnt cork to blacken their already dark skin and performed comedy routines using the traditional caricatures and racist stereotypes (Padgett, n.d.b). Despite becoming established as performers by the 1860s, Black performers’ contribution ironically did little to alter the racist tradition for it only

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reinforced the Black stereotypes already ingrained both in the theater and in the society. Minstrelsy was at its peak popularity from the 1850 to 1870 with theaters devoted to minstrel entertainment. After 1870, the popularity of the minstrel show declined rapidly, and in 1919, only three troupes remained in the United States. Despite the decline, minstrelsy remained visible in cinema and on television well into the 1950s and beyond. Amateur minstrel shows continued to be performed into the 1960s. High schools, fraternities, and local theater groups would usually perform shows in Blackface. While the Blackface amateur minstrel shows would wane in popularity during the1960s, because of organizing and agitation from Black emancipatory movements, minstrelsy and Blackface remain omnipresent within popular culture.

MINSTRELSY’S STEREOTYPICAL CARICATURES At its core, Blackface minstrelsy is based on stereotypes and caricatures. Minstrelsy represents blackness in a “person” who has: “wide eyes and a surprised mouth signified by the Blackface makeup; the huge, carefree, tooth-baring grin; shucking; shabby rural rags or absurdly flashy urban attire; country dialect or would-be-urban malapropisms; superstitious fears of ghosts and boogeymen; comic razor fights; dice games; watermelon and chicken theft; extreme sloth” (Taylor and Austen 2012a). Within Black male minstrels, there are five archetypes that important to understanding the genre. The first archetype is the coon. The coon is a shiftless, uneducated clown, while the second archetype, the dandy is his northern “brother,” that is a free man who thinks that he is better than others. The third is the trickster, who will play practical jokes on anyone regardless of the consequences. From the nineteenth-century stereotype, the fourth archetype is the Tom. The Tom is an older Black man who has seen hard times and is to be pitied. Harriet Beecher Stowe created the Tom and after the 1853 publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, he began to appear in minstrel shows. The fifth and last archetype to mention is the Buck, who is depicted as a dangerous killer. The Buck is depicted as a large Black man with a propensity for violence and sexual violence against White women. He became a stock figure of Ku Klux Klan literature, and was used to justify countless lynchings and appeared in the pro-Klan film The Birth of a Nation (1915). Moreover, there are racist depictions of Black women and children within minstrelsy. The four well-known archetypes of Black women are: The Mammy, the Jezebel, the Sapphire, and the Welfare Queen. The mammy is a large domestic Black woman with large breasts, who devotes her whole life to taking care of a White family. She is loyal and kind, superstitious, religious, gives cleaning tips, and is always at the ready to advise the household. The Jezebel is a promiscuous Black woman with an insatiable sexual appetite whose reputation ensures that her credibility is doubted. This archetype has gone on to perpetuate the justification the rape and sexual abuse of Black women, arguing that it would be “impossible to

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rape women that promiscuous” (Jardim 2016). The Sapphire is a strong Black woman who is aggressive, stubborn, sharp-tongued, and male domineering. The welfare queen was imagined as an unmarried Black woman with a plethora of children, who is lazy, unambitious, and content to sit home and live off government assistance. Two well-known archetypes of Black children are Sambo and Golliwog/Pickaninny. Sambo is one of the most enduring stereotypes in America. The character came from The Story of Little Black Sambo (1899) by Helen Bannerman. The little tale was about a dark-skinned boy who tricked a group of hungry tigers. Sambo was always happy, carefree, irresponsible slave who was ready to serve his master. As a result of his nature, Sambo was reliant on his White master for direction, which helped justified the need for slavery in America. The Golliwog/Pickaninny are racial slurs and racist caricatures of Black children. Golliwog was the name of a rag doll that donned Blackface. Both Golliwog and Pickaninny depicted Black children as mischievous and immune to pain. These archetypes have appeared countlessly in television.

BLACKFACE MINSTRELSY IN TELEVISION The racist caricatures of Black people in minstrelsy were also present in cartoons during the 1930s and 1940s. Dubbed the “Golden Age of Animation,” these cartoons were racist. Cartoons made by Warner Brothers, Metro Goldwyn Mayor, Walter Lantz, and other animation studios, reinforced dehumanizing and antiblack stereotypes. A primary example of this is Little Nemo, created by Winsor McCay. Created in 1905, “Little Nemo” became an animated cartoon called Little Nemo in Slumberland in 1911. A central character common to both works is Impy, a grass-skirt-wearing cannibal who utters gibberish such as “google-greegle-gimpleg-bumble.” Black cannibals and other stereotypical caricatures would appear continuously in cartoons. One example is the Uncle Tom archetype in cartoons. In the 1937 cartoon “Uncle Tom’s Bungalow,” Uncle Tom is seen cowering from the whip of Simon Legree, who is the cruel slaver driver in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Uncle Tom is eventually able to buy his freedom because of his lucky dice. The second example is Micky Mouse. Micky Mouse took cues from vaudeville and minstrel shows wearing tattered clothes and working to the sound of music. The third example is Bosko, who was the first Looney Tunes character. He was a Black man who would strum a banjo and break out in song and dance at any moment. His depiction reinforced long-standing stereotypes that Black people were lazy and shiftless. This is also seen in the 1941 Walter Lantz cartoon Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat. In the cartoon, Black people spend their time sleeping in Lazytown until a woman singer sashays off a riverboat and motivates the lethargic people to dance and shimmy. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, Amos ‘n’ Andy was the most popular radio program in the United States. Created by White actors Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, Amos ‘n’ Andy started as a popular comedy radio show.

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Building on a tradition of minstrelsy, with Gosden and Correll portraying Amos and Andy, the show continued with the stereotypical portrayals of Black men. Amos was dense and naive but also honest, dedicated, and hardworking, while Andy was good-natured, lazy, conniving, and a pretentious dandy. Throughout the show, Amos and Andy were called “dumbbells” and “rubes” instead of racial slurs. On June 28, 1951, the Columba Broadcasting System (CBS) brought Amos and Andy to television with The Amos ‘n’ Andy Show (1951–1953). Gosden and Correll were the producers and the show starred two Black actors as the leads. The show follows the characters through their misadventures in Harlem; frequently being misled out of their money. As a result of its reliance on dehumanizing stereotypes and mocking racial representations, the show faced harsh criticism from the NAACP and other activists. The Beulah Show, starring Hattie McDaniel, was the first American television situation comedy to star an African American. It first ran on CBS radio from 1945 to 1954, and ABC ran the television show from 1950 to 1953. Beulah, a housekeeper and cook for the Henderson family, could solve many problems that her White coworkers could not. Many of the episodes began close-up, revealing only the face of an African American actress. Beulah’s image was the personification of the Black “mammy” archetype made popular through the Blackface performances and minstrel shows. As with the television show Amos ‘n’ Andy, the NAACP condemned the show because they believed Beulah depicted negative Black stereotypes. Ironically, African Americans were ardent fans of the show. African Americans who admired Beulah did not simply set aside their “blackness” so they could laugh, alongside their White neighbors, at the stereotyped ridiculousness of Black life. Instead, supporters had found something redeeming and universal in the “characters” who graced the screen. Beulah offered a medium through which antiquated racial ideologies could be challenged. Gimme a Break!, which starred Nell Carter, was a television comedy series that aired from 1981 to 1987. Carter’s character in the show is the personification of the “Black mammy” archetype, as other Black women had played before her. Nell Harper (Nell Carter) is asked by her by friend Carl Kanisky (Dolph Sweet) to serve as the family’s housekeeper, helping to raise his daughters (Julie, Katie, and Samantha) alongside of caring for her foster son, Joey. Season four of the show had the most controversial episodes of the show. In the episode entitled “Baby of the Family,” Samantha is angry at Nell for not letting her go on fishing trip and gets back at her by dressing up Joey in Blackface to sing “Toot, Toot, Tootsie” in front of Nell’s Black friends at church. The song itself has a contentious history. Al Jolson, a famous White entertainer that donned Blackface throughout his career, wrote the song, which faced significant protest. The racist incident led to a confrontation back at home between Nell and Samantha, as Nell tried to explain to Samantha what Blackface meant to the African American community. Diff’rent Strokes is a comedy sitcom that aired from 1978 to 1986. The premise of the show followed many other socially conscious sitcoms during the

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1970s and 1980s. Starring Gary Coleman (Arnold Jackson) and Todd Bridges (Willis Jackson), the show is about Phillip Drummond (Conrad Bain), a widowed millionaire taking care of his late housekeeper’s children (IMDb). Many of the plotlines addressed issues of race, like in the episode “Guess Who?.” Drummond’s daughter Kimberly (Dana Plato) has a new love interest named Roger, who turns out to be a bigot because he will not let his sister go on a date with Willis. Roger’s prejudice against Willis is captured on audiotape by Arnold recording as he hides under the bed. To get back at Roger, Kimberly appears in Blackface, wears an afro, and questions if Roger would have a problem with her if she were Black.

THE RACIAL PIXIE THAT ENDED CHAPPELLE’S SHOW At the height of its popularity, Dave Chappelle and his show the Chappelle’s Show (2003–2006) was arguably the best thing in comedy. Whereas the history of comedy was one of dehumanization and the perpetuation of stereotypes, Chappelle used satire in an effort to resist dominant representations. His show often parodied modern representations of African Americans, ranging from crack addicts, dice players, and to hip-hop stars. As the show gained popularity, Chappelle became increasingly uncomfortable wondering if his satirical intervention was in fact successful. Rather than challenging existing racism, he worried that the show was breathing life into a larger tradition of racism and minstrelsy. The prospects of White fans quoting his characters in Black dialect were too reminiscent of the history of minstrelsy. On the production of the third season of Chappelle’s Show in 2004, Chappelle left the show indefinitely. In May 2005, TIME magazine reported that he left his show in part due to one controversial sketch entitled: “Stereotype Pixies.” The stereotype pixies or “racial” pixies were a personification of offensive generalizations about a particular racial or ethnic group. Brandishing a cane and dancing to banjo music, the Black pixie tempted and chided Chappelle into the stereotype of ordering fried chicken. The pixie is a singing, dancing Chappelle painted in Blackface and wearing a vaudeville-esque suit, grinning and yelling “Hallelujah.” After a crew member laughed at the sketch condescendingly, Chappelle found himself bothered by the skit, demanding that it not be aired. The TIME article discussed Chappelle’s own thoughts on the matter: He was taping a sketch about magic pixies that embody stereotypes about the races. The black pixie—played by Chappelle—wears blackface and tries to convince blacks to act in stereotypical ways. Chappelle thought the sketch was funny, the kind of thing his friends would laugh at. But at the taping, one spectator, a white man, laughed particularly loud and long. His laughter struck Chappelle as wrong, and he wondered if the new season of his show had gone from sending up stereotypes to merely reinforcing them. “When he laughed, it made me uncomfortable,” says Chappelle. “As a matter of fact, that was the last thing I shot before I told myself I gotta take f_____— time out after this. Because my head almost exploded.” (Spring 2006)

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Minstrelsy was featured on television not only as comedic relief for White audiences but also to challenge racial stereotypes of Black life. These racist caricatures gave Black performers the opportunity to be a lead character on a television show. Moreover, those Black pioneers helped pave the way for other Black performers to get acting roles. Scholars still debate if the ends justified the means because it is uncertain if minstrels provided a space for racial and political commentary or if it further perpetuated racist stereotypes of African Americans.

CONCLUSION Minstrelsy has a Duboisian “double consciousness” tradition. On one hand, it is inherently racist because of racist depictions of Black people with Whites painting their faces Black. On the other hand, it also gave Black artists and actors the space to express themselves, as well as make audiences laugh. The minstrel tradition has been an umbilical cord that has fed contemporary performers. Its polarizing legacy is hard to harmonize, as performers bear the weight of generations of racial oppression and racism. The minstrel tradition is the dark history of America that performers are trying to explore and critique. Scholars argue that the minstrel tradition is simply not relegated to the history books; it is all around us in modern-day entertainment. Amir Asim Gilmore Further Reading

“Blackface.” n.d. History of Minstrels: From ‘Jump Jim Crow’ to ‘The Jazz Singer.” University of South Florida library special and digital collections exhibits. ­https://​ ­exhibits​.­lib​.­usf​.­edu ​/­exhibits​/­show​/­minstrelsy​/­jimcrow​-­to​-­jolson ​/ ­blackface. Bean, Annemarie, James V. Hatch, and Brooks McNamara, eds. 1996. Inside the Minstrel Mask: Readings in Nineteenth-Century Blackface Minstrelsy Paperback. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Crowder, Courtney. 2012. “The Minstrel’s Legacy.” Chicago Tribune, October 1. ­http://​ ­a rticles​.­chicagotribune​.­com ​/­2012​-­10 ​- ­01​/­features​/­ct​-­prj​- ­0930 ​- ­d arkest​-­a merica​ -­20121001​_1​_blackface​-­printers​-­row​-­new​-­book. Dubb, Ruth. 2013. “Racism in Animation.” Museum of Uncut Funk, February 2. ­http://​ ­museumofuncutfunk​.­com​/­2013​/­02​/­02​/­racism​-­in​-­animation​/. Gordon, Crystal. 2016. “Real Housewives of Atlanta: Modern Day Minstrels.” Hub Pages, August 5. ­https://​­hubpages​.­com​/­entertainment​/ ­Real​-­Housewives​-­of​-­Atlanta​-­A​ -­Modern​-­Day​-­Minstrel​-­Show. Green, Laura. 1998–1999. “Stereotypes: Negative Racial Stereotypes and Their Effect on Attitudes toward African-Americans.” Perspectives on Multiculturalism and Cultural Diversity 11 (1). ­https://​­w ww​.­ferris​.­edu​/ ­htmls​/­news​/­jimcrow​/­links​/­essays​ /­vcu​.­htm. Jardim, Suzane. 2016. “Recognizing Racist Stereotypes in U.S. Media.” Medium, July 26. https://medium.com/@suzanejardim/reconhecendo-esteri%C3%B3tipos-raci stas-internacionais-b00f80861fc9. Junkies Staff, S. n.d. “Movies with Actors in Black Face.” Screen Junkies. ­http://​­www​ .­screenjunkies​.­com​/­movies​/­movie​-­lists​/­movies​-­with​-­actors​-­in​-­black​-­face. Learning from a Legacy of Hate. n.d. “Birth of a Nation.” ­http://​­www​.­bsu​.­edu​/­learning fromhate​/­m​_birthnation​.­htm.



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Lee, Youyoung. 2013. “A History of Blackface in Movies: From ‘Birth of a Nation’ to ‘White Chicks.’” Huffington Post, November 3. ­http://​­www​.­huffingtonpost​.­com​ /­2013​/­11​/­01​/ ­history​-­of​-­blackface​_n​_4175051​.­html. Lott, Eric. 2013. Love & Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class. 20th ed. New York: Oxford University Press. Padgett, Ken. n.d.a. “Blackface!” Blackface. ­http://​­black​-­face​.­com​/­Stepin​-­Fetchit​.­htm. Padgett, Ken. n.d.b. “Blackface! Minstrel Shows.” Blackface. ­http://​­black​-­face​.­com​ /­minstrel​-­shows​.­htm. Rampell, Ed. 2015. “‘The Birth of a Nation’: The Most Racist Movie Ever Made.” Washington Post, March 5. ­https://​­w ww​.­washingtonpost​.­com​/­posteverything​/­w p​/­2015​ /­03​/­03​/­the​-­birth​-­of​-­a​-­nation​/?­utm​_term​= ​.­a1272b66b9f6. Richards, Mark. 2012. “What Drove Nell over the Edge in ‘Gimme a Break!’?” Lite 98.7, July 31. ­http://​­lite987​.­com​/­what​-­drove​-­nell​-­over​-­the​-­edge​-­in​-­gimme​-­a​-­break​/. Spring, Corey. 2006. “The Sketch That Made Chappelle Say ‘Enough.’” NewsVine, July 14. ­http://​­spring​.­newsvine​.­com​/­_news​/­2006​/­07​/­14​/­287958​-­the​-­sketch​-­that​-­made​ -­chappelle​-­say​-­enough. “Stephen Foster Black Face Minstrelsy.” 2001. PBS, April 23. ­http://​­w ww​.­pbs​.­org​/­wgbh​ /­amex​/­foster​/­sfeature​/­sf​_minstrelsy​_10​.­html. “Stepin Fetchit, Hollywood’s First Black Film Star.” 2006. NPR, March 6. h­ ttp://​­www​.­npr​ .­org​/­templates​/­story​/­story​.­php​?­storyId​= ​­5245089. Taylor, Yuval, and Jake Austen. 2012a. “Darkest America: Black Minstrelsy from Slavery to Hip-Hop.” Pop Matters, September 13. ­http://​­w ww​.­popmatters​.­com​/­feature​ /­162955​-­darkest​-­america​-­black​-­minstrelsy​-­f rom​-­slavery​-­to​-­hip​-­hop​/. Taylor, Yuval, and Jake Austen. 2012b. Darkest America: Black Minstrelsy from Slavery to Hip-Hop. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Watkins, Melvin. 1991. “What Was It about ‘Amos ‘n’ Andy’? New York Times, July 7. ­http://​­w ww​.­nytimes​.­com ​/­1991​/­07​/­07​/ ­books​/­what​-­was​-­it​-­about​-­amos​-­n​-­andy​.­html​ ?­pagewanted​= ​­all. Worrell, Lacey. 2006. “Diff’rent Strokes: The Complete Second Season” [Review of TV show DVD]. ­http://​­www​.­dvdtalk​.­com​/­reviews​/­20017​/­diffrent​-­strokes​-­the​-­complete​ -­second​-­season​/. Zakos, Katharine P. 2009 “Racial Satire and Chappelle’s Show.” Master’s thesis, Georgia State University.

Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl (2011–2013) Long before the critically acclaimed and immensely popular HBO show Insecure, Issa Rae, alongside Tracey Olivier, created Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl (aka Awkward Black Girl) in 2011. This YouTube series would not only launch Rae’s career but also demonstrate the power and potential of new technology in opening up spaces of creative expression. Giving voice to experiences often erased and marginalized on television, Awkward Black Girl would generate a huge fan following. Awkward Black Girl represented and explored the experiences of Black millennials. At the time of the show’s filming, Rae was a member of a Black creative collective in Los Angeles, California, that would prove important for the development of this show and countless others. Yet, for critics and commentators, the

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importance of Awkward Black Girl extends beyond the show itself but in demonstrating that there was a market and desire to watch shows about young Black women. Throughout history, stereotypes of Black women, including the “Mammy,” “Sapphire,” and Jezebel remained constants in film and television. In response, Black artists have responded by creating characters that challenged these misrepresentations. These characters often highlighted a “positive version” of Black life that closely mirrored a type of respectability politics. Historians have noted that these representations sought to highlight the “best of the race” because of their association with wealth, power, and education. While these representations were meaningful, critics have argued that these characters failed to highlight the complexity and humanity of Black women. Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl fills this void and pushes against this belief that Black Americans lack emotion and are robotic in their performance of everyday life. Too often, Black characters have been portrayed as either super wealthy, respectable, middle class or as low-income, street smart, gang-affiliated, leaving little room for nuance or representations beyond these particular stereotypes. The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl follows J (Issa Rae), a twentysomething millennial attempting to navigate adulthood the best way she knows how. Similar to Rae’s character on Insecure, J works a job that she is not necessarily fond of. She’s a call center representative for the company Gut Busters, a distributor of weight loss pills, a job that leaves her unfulfilled professionally and personally. She is not alone in her contempt for her work environment. Her relationship with her best friend, Cece (Sujata Day), who also works for Gut Busters, formed the basis of countless plotlines. The show focused on their relationship and that with several other characters including Boss Lady (Hanna Patten), whose bigotry often conflicts with her desire to be racially inclusive. One of those moments includes Boss Lady returning to work with her hair cornrowed. Other characters include Nina (Tracey Olivier), J’s coworker and arch nemesis who finds joy in competing with J and Fred (Madison T. Shockley III), who eventually becomes one of J’s potential love interests. The show also revolves around J and her propensity to find herself in sticky situations where her social awkwardness, a central theme of the show, is on full display. For instance, the first episode opens up with J enjoying her morning ride to work listening to “Booty Shorts” a song reminiscent to tracks made by City Girls or Cardi B. J finds herself in a conundrum as a troublesome work colleague attempts to talk to her at a stop sign as she listens to the music. During this scenario, we hear J trying to figure out what would be the best response: Should she pretend she is talking on her cell phone, should she decrease the speed she is driving, or should she simply ignore the colleague? While the spectacle of the stop sign episode is laughable, it also highlights how everyday moments can lead to extremely awkward situations. Another example of how everyday interactions can be cringeworthy is episode four, season one, titled “The Icebreaker” where J and other work colleagues are forced to play two truths and a lie as a way to build community in the workplace. Throughout the exchange, J attempts to be polite but



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struggles with her inability to hear Darius, a work colleague who whispers when he talks. One point in their conversation she becomes flustered and thinks, “Is there a limit on the number of times I can ask this baby voiced ***** to repeat himself? Or pretend to understand it?” During the interaction, the audience watches as J pretends to enjoy the conversation and strains to understand Darius. J thinks Darius is laughing and proceeds to anxiously laugh when suddenly she realizes he is coughing. Although J attempts to put her best foot forward and get to know her coworker, her fear of looking a particular way leaves her in a social situation that’s less than optimal. Throughout the series, J uses hip-hop as an escape to process personal and professional situations. J’s rhymes are often profanity laced and gritty, which is seemingly ironic because her raps are sometimes about ordinary situations like heartbreak and horrible coworkers. J’s raps are highlights to the show, but they are also important markers that exhibit how multifaceted Black women characters in film and television are. Celebrated for its innovation, creativity, and forward thinking, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl worked to counter the belief that Black people fit neatly in a specific box, that to be authentically Black one must embody a certain aesthetic, identity, or culture. J’s self-professed awkwardness and passive aggressiveness provided a medium that highlighted the complexities of Black femininity, providing a platform that challenged antiBlackness all while spotlighting the full humanity of African Americans. Rae’s character was the epitome of Tamara Harris’s words, “We’re not perfect, but we’re no more flawed than anyone else. In fact, most Black women believe it’s pretty good to be us. . . . Some of us are workhorses. Some of us are angry. Some of us are promiscuous. We are all and none of these things. Black women are human—with all the complexities that implies” (2015, 123). For critics and fans alike, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl would transform television because of its new approach, because it would launch Rae’s career, and because it proved the power of online spaces to bring unheard voices into focus. Malika T. Butler Further Reading

Bradley, Regina N. 2015. “Awkwardly Hysterical: Theorizing Black Girl Awkwardness and Humor in Social Media.” Comedy Studies 6 (2): 148–153. Cunningham, Phillip L. 2013. “‘Get a Crew . . . And Make It Happen’: The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl and New Media’s Potential for Self-Definition.” In African Americans on Television: Race-ing for Ratings, edited by David J. Leonard and Lisa Guerrero, 402–413. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger Publishers. Gammage, Marquita M. 2019. “Introduction.” In Challenging Misrepresentations of Black Womanhood: Media, Literature and Theory, edited by Marquita M. Gammage and Antwanisha Alameen-Shavers, 1–8. New York: Anthem Press. Harris, Tamara Winfrey. 2015. The Sisters Are Alright: Changing the Broken Narrative of Black Women in America. Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler. Tounsel, Timeka N. 2018. “Productive Vulnerability: Black Women Writers and Narratives of Humanity in Contemporary Cable Television.” Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society 20 (3): 304–327.

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Mod Squad (1968–1973) The one-hour crime drama Mod Squad, which aired on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) from 1968 to 1973, was one of the first television programs to feature an African American actor who received equal billing with the series costars. The series was popular because of its counterculture (nonmainstream society) premise, its exploration of contemporary issues, and the cast of young actors. During its run, the Mod Squad received eight Golden Globe nominations (with one win in 1971 for Peggy Lipton as Best Actress in a TV Drama), seven Primetime Emmy Award nominations, three Writer’s Guild Award nominations and one Director’s Guild nomination. Executive Producers were Aaron Spelling and Danny Thomas. Spelling bought the idea from police officer Bud Ruskin. Ruskin supervised a Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department team of young officers who worked on undercover narcotics in the 1950s. Conventional television crime dramas in the 1960s featured middle-aged, White, male actors as police officers and detectives. The youth movement was not represented in these network programs. The Mod Squad was the first to have young undercover cops. The network hoped to attract younger viewers, so it promoted Mod Squad as modern and contemporary: one Black cop, one White cop, and one blonde. Several ABC affiliate stations were concerned about the racial mix of the cast. They thought the network was pandering to the youth movement. The show’s success ended their concerns. The Mod Squad starred Clarence Williams, Michael Cole, and Peggy Lipton. Williams portrayed Lincoln ‘Linc’ Hayes, who was raised in the Watts section of Los Angeles, California. Cole portrayed Peter ‘Pete’ Cochran. Cochran came from a wealthy Beverly Hills family but was disowned because of his behavior. Lipton portrayed Julie Barnes. Barnes lived in San Francisco, California, with her mother who was a prostitute. Barnes ran away from home and settled in Los Angeles. Each member of the squad had been arrested for a crime. Hayes was the angry young man who was arrested during the Watts Riots. Cochran stole a car. Barnes was arrested for vagrancy. Each was on probation and given a choice of doing time in jail or working undercover for the Los Angeles Police Department. They did not want to be police officers or work undercover. Taking the job kept them out of jail and gave them a chance to help other young people who got into trouble with the police. The squad was supervised by veteran police Captain Adam Greer (Tige Andrews), who served as commander, mentor, and father figure to the three troubled teens. The police undercover program employed young officers who could infiltrate certain criminal organizations without being noticed. Older officers would stand out because of their age and be identified as police. No one else in the police department knew their identities or assignments. The Mod Squad worked a variety of cases. The team infiltrated a high school to break up a car theft gang, went undercover in prison, and tracked a serial strangler whose victims were young, blonde actresses.



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Episodes often dealt with socially relevant topics: abortion, illegal immigration, domestic violence, child neglect, campus protest, antiwar demonstrations, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), racism, and the illegal drug trade. Whereas other shows avoided controversial topics, out of fear of alienating viewers and sponsors, The Mod Squad used its narrative to engage in these important discussions. The network even protested an episode in which Linc kissed Julie. The executives feared backlash from viewers and some affiliates. Producers argued the kiss showed the characters were bonding, becoming friends, nothing more. The episode aired with the scene intact. The network received no complaints. The Mod Squad never carried guns or fired a gun. The squad shutdown illegal operations run by adults so the adults could not take advantage of other teens. The teens were given a second chance. The police arrested those running the operations. The Mod Squad ended its run in 1973. The cast reunited in 1979 for the movie The Return of Mod Squad. The original cast returned to solve the attempted murder of Captain Greer. Linda Briley-Webb Further Reading

Bianculli, David. 2016. The Platinum Age of Television from I Love Lucy to The Walking Dead: How TV Became Terrific. New York: Doubleday. Brooks, Tim, and Earle Marsh. 1994. The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946–Present. New York: Ballantine Books. Spelling, Aaron, and Jefferson Graham. 1977. Aaron Spelling: A Prime-Time Life. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Morita, Noriyuki “Pat”(1932–2005) While known for his performance as Mr. Miyagi in the cult classic The Karate Kid (1984), a role he earned an Oscar’s nomination for, Noriyuki “Pat” Morita established himself as an actor almost twenty years earlier on television. Appearing in over eighty television shows spanning four decades and countless more television movies and Hollywood films, Pat Morita was one of the most productive actors of his generation. Despite his resume, his career is reflective of a generation of Asian American actors whose place within American film and television was defined by limited opportunities and stereotypes, including the subservient Asian and the perpetual foreigner. Born in 1932, in Isleton, California, to Momoe and Tamaru Morita, Japanese immigrants who labored in California fields, Morita had a childhood of immense hardship. Plagued with tuberculosis, he spent most of his childhood at a Shriners Hospital in San Francisco. Following spinal surgery, he was released from the hospital, only to be taken into custody along with his family and thousands of other Japanese Americans as part of the nation’s internment and relocation program. Morita described the period as particularly difficult: “One day I was an

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invalid. The next day I was public enemy No. 1 being escorted to an internment camp by an FBI agent wearing a piece” (qtd. in Associated Press 2005). At the conclusion of World War II, his family opened a restaurant in Sacramento, California, called Ariake Chop Suey. It was there where his passion for entertainment took hold, propelling him into stand-up comedy and then television. Morita made his mark on television after landing a reoccurring role on M*A*S*H (1972–1983) as Sam Pak (1973, 1974), a South Korean officer. Evident of the lack of roles available for Asian American actors, there were few opportunities even on M*A*S*H, a show based on the Korean War. For some critics, Morita’s portrayal of Pak challenged existing stereotypes all while resisting the narrative that portrayed America and the White G.I. as the savior of Korea. Pak, a surgeon and an officer, gave voice to the humanity of Korea, its life prior to the war, and the ways that South Koreans were fighting to protect their own future. For others, his character was peripheral and underdeveloped. Yet, in other ways, his character remained inside the history of Asian stereotypes. Soon thereafter, he landed a role as Arnold in Happy Days (1974–1984). He played the role of the owner/cook of Arnold’s Drive-in, the local hangout where much of the show’s action and conversations took place. Some critics questioned the show’s replication of the long-standing stereotypes of the heavily accented Asian cook. However, Morita believed that Arnold transcended the stereotype and offered depth, diversity, and humanity to Asian American characters. For him, Arnold encapsulated the power and potential to use humor to bring people together. During this time, he stayed busy, appearing in a number of shows, including Sanford and Son (1972–1977) as both Ah Chew and Colonel Hiakowa, Police Women (1974–1978), Kung Fu (1972–1975), and Welcome Back, Kotter (1975– 1979), where his performance as Taro Takahashi led CBS to develop a spin-off with Mr. T and Tina (1976). Lasting only five episodes, Mr. T and Tina was the first Asian American sitcom on television. Mr. T and Tina chronicles the life of Taro Takahashi, a Japanese inventor, and his White wife played by Tina Kelley, in Chicago. The show’s opening credit established its focus on cultural conflict all while replicating long-standing stereotypes of the foreign Asian other. With shots of sumo wrestlers, Mt. Fuji, and Buddha, alongside of iconic images of Chicago, the show’s orientation around Takahashi’s integration into the United States anchored the show. Airing on Saturday night opposite two popular shows, Bob Newhart Show (1972–1978) and Emergency! (1972–1977), the show was never given a chance. Morita returned to Happy Days in his role as Arnold. Throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, Morita continued to appear in a number of shows including Chico and the Man (1974–1978) in 1977, Blansky’s Beauties (1977) in its only season, Starsky and Hutch (1975–1979) in 1977, The Love Boat (1977–1987) in 1977 and 1978, The Incredible Hulk (1978–1982) in 1978, Laverne & Shirley (1976–1983) in 1980, and Magnum, P.I. (1980–1988) in 1982. In 1987, he landed a starring role in Ohara (1987–1988). Playing a Japanese-American police lieutenant named Ohara, Morita’s character “used the



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power of meditation to solve crimes in Los Angeles and often said things like, ‘The winter is cold, but the robin has a song to sing’ or ‘The ox without a cart is only good for slaughter’” (Chow 2015). The show lasted only one season; it proved important in the effort to increase opportunities for Asian American actors in leading roles. Soon thereafter he reprised his role as Mr. Miyagi in a short-lived television version of The Karate Kid (1989). He continued a career of supporting roles and mostly guest appearances throughout the 1990s and 2000s, with spots on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990– 1996) in 1994, Murder, She Wrote (1984–1996) in 1996, Married with Children (1986–1997) in 1996, Family Matters (1989–2004) in 1998, The Hughleys (1998– 2002) in 2000, Baywatch (1989–2001) in 2000/2001, and many others. In 1986, he landed the role as Mike “Grandpa” Woo in Nickelodeon’s The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo (1996–1998) over multiple seasons. Part of the network efforts to diversify its children’s lineup, The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo chronicled the adventures of an Asian American girl who moonlighted as a detective. “The show followed a young girl named Shelby Woo, who lived with her innkeeper grandfather and moonlighted as a junior detective with the local police—although most adults wished she just stayed out of the way,” writes Grady Smith (2011). “Shelby would usually track down three very clear suspects, and through a series of clues and reasoning, she would solve the case!” While appearing in other shows and films up until his death in 2005, The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo was his final significant role in a productive career. Like many peers, his career was defined by limited opportunities and long-standing stereotypes. “The movie and TV industry has never had many roles for Asian-American men, and it seemed for a while that they all went to Mr. Morita. He made his debut as ‘Oriental No. 2’ in ‘Thoroughly Modern Millie’ in 1967 and never stopped working,” wrote Lawrence Downes (2005) in the New York Times. “He hit two peaks—as Arnold the diner owner on TV’s ‘Happy Days’ and the wise old Mr. Miyagi in the ‘Karate Kid’ movies—and spent the rest of nearly 40 years roaming an endless forest of bit parts. Sadly, his career was defined by limited opportunities and longstanding stereotypes. . . . Whenever a script called for a little Asian guy to drive a taxi, serve drinks or utter wise aphorisms in amusingly broken English, you could count on Mr. Morita to be there.” His immense resume and his pioneering efforts have a lasting impact. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Associated Press. 2005. “‘Karate Kid’ Star Pat Morita Dies at 73.” Today Show, November 25. ­http://​­www​.­today​.­com​/­id​/­10202732​/­ns​/­today​-­today​_entertainment​/­t​/­karate​-­kid​ -­star​-­pat​-­morita​-­dies​/#.­W04niy2ZOgQ. Chow, Kat. 2015 “A Brief, Weird History of Squashed Asian-American TV Shows.” NPR, February 5. ­https://​­www​.­npr​.­org​/­sections​/­codeswitch​/­2015​/­02​/­05​/­383520596​/­a​-­brief​ -­weird​-­history​-­of​-­squashed​-­asian​-­american​-­tv​-­shows. Downes, Lawrence. 2005. “Goodbye to Pat Morita, Best Supporting Asian.” New York Times, November 29, A.26.

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Downes, Lawrence. 2011. “Pat Morita Discusses How Arnold Rose above the Stereotype on ‘Happy Days’—Emmy TV Legends.” YouTube, August 29. h­ ttps://​­www​.­youtube​ .­com​/­watch​?­v​= ​­UMq19Dih5wY. Smith, Grady. 2011. “‘The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo’ Nostalgia.” Entertainment Weekly, September 10. ­http://​­ew​.­com​/­article​/­2011​/­09​/­10​/­the​-­mystery​-­files​-­of​-­shelby​-­woo​ -­nostalgia​/.

Murphy, Eddie(1961–) Known for performances in any number of films, including 48 Hours (1982), Trading Places (1983), Beverly Hills Cop (1984), Coming to America (1988), Boomerang (1992), and Shrek (2001), and for successful stand-up career, Eddie Murphy’s career launched on television. Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1961, Murphy endured a tumultuous childhood, which included his parent’s divorce, his father’s untimely death, and a stint in foster care. By the age of fifteen, Murphy already had begun performing stand-up comedy. Murphy was nineteen when he joined the cast of Saturday Night Live (1975–), becoming an instant star on the popular comedy sketch program even as Black actors were finding less and less opportunity throughout television. This was no different for SNL, which lacked diversity in its cast and a consistent ability and commitment to engage in pressing issues around racism, segregation, and inequality. Murphy brought a new sensibility that challenged SNL, its audience, and society as a whole, to move beyond colorblind narratives. “His cutting, hilarious and insightful sketches like ‘Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood’ and ‘White Like Me’ made fodder of race, racism and white privilege,” writes Jessica Goldstein (2015). According to Raquel Gates (2013), Murphy “blended the brash social satire of comedians like Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor with the more affable, safe, storytelling of Bill Cosby” (151). Challenging those scholars who dismissed Murphy’s SNL sketches as either apolitical or a continuation of the minstrel tradition, Gates and other critics argue that his sketches and overall performance “contained aspects of subversive black humor that spoke to black audiences and black perspectives” (Gates 2013, 152). Whether singing a song as Buckwheat, the racist character from Our Gang (1922–1938), or impersonating Stevie Wonder, Buckwheat, Michael Jackson, or James Brown, Murphy’s performance on SNL was memorable each and every week. Yet, his work was more than entertaining comedy; it was edifying and challenging. It was powerful in its refusal to ignore racism. “Eddie never catered to SNL’s mostly white audience, that’s for sure. His most popular running sketch was ‘Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood,’ which was basically Mr. Rogers in the projects (and almost always ended up with him escaping the police),” notes Bill Simmons (2011) in Grantland. “His most popular ‘Weekend Update’ character was Raheem Abdul-Muhammed (who vented about various injustices while always finding a way to play the race card). His most popular running characters were



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Mr. Robinson, Velvet Jones (a goofy pimp) and Dion (a gay hairdresser who wanted to sleep with various black celebs).” In his first featured performance as part of the Weekend Update, Murphy played Raheem Abdul Muhammad, who offered commentary on Ohio’s decision to require each team to carry two White players. There he offered critical discussions of cultural appropriation and White entitlement. “In the 1960s, we wore platform shoes; then y’all had to perform in platform shoes. In the early 1970s, we braided our hair; then in the late 1970s y’all had to braid your hair. Now it’s the 1980s, we’re on welfare and by the end of next year y’all going to be on welfare too” (qtd. in Gates 2013, 160). In other performances, Murphy played Tyrone Green, who offered critical commentary on whiteness, White privilege, and race in America. In “Images,” he recites a poem about killing his White landlord. In another, Tyrone performs “Kill white people” with his reggae/Rasta band, singing “kill the white people, but buy my record first” in front of a group of White veterans. In “White Like Me,” a sketch that repurposes John Howard Griffin’s book Black Like Me, Murphy “goes undercover as a white man to investigate the reality of racial difference” (Gates 2013, 165). Satirizing “liberal White racism” all while “paying homage to black comedic traditions” (Gates 2013, 165), Murphy is able to powerfully discuss the realities of American racism through humor, providing a vehicle for both Whites and Blacks to engage in difficult dialogues. Murphy’s rising star didn’t insulate him the realities of racism. “He was a smash hit, a superstar, but his fame didn’t insulate him from the realities of being a young, Black guy in New York. Fellow cast members and writers at the time recall that, even when he was the biggest thing on the show, Murphy couldn’t hail himself a cab” (Goldstein 2015). While television propelled Murphy’s career into Hollywood, he returned to television as writer, producer, and star of two shows: Royal Family (1991–1992) and The PJs (1999–2001). Providing an opportunity for both himself and Redd Foxx to return to television, Murphy created and produce The Royal Family. Chronicling the lives of a mail carrier played by Foxx, and his wife played by Delia Reese, The Royal Family brought the stories of an Atlanta working-class Black family to small screen. Unfortunately, Foxx died of a heart attack mid-way through its first season. The initial success of the show did not continue without Foxx. The PJs, an animated comedy, chronicles the experiences of residents who are living in public housing. Murphy voiced Thurgood Orenthal Stubbs, the manager of the projects, who refused to address the many issues facing residents. Despite giving voice to the experiences of African Americans living in public housing, its representations and narratives promoted widespread criticism. In 1999, Spike Lee described the show as “hateful towards black people” (Tucker 1999). Stanley Crouch, a prominent Black intellectual, similarly called the show “mediocre . . . a third-rate update of Amos ‘n’ Andy and The Honeymooners” (Tucker 1999).

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An award-winning film star and one of the foremost comedians in American history, Eddie Murphy began his career on television. Altering the landscape of television comedy and forever changing Saturday Night Live, Murphy’s influence on television, especially on comedy approaches to discussions of race, has been tremendous. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Gates, Raquel. 2013 “Bringing the Black: Eddie Murphy, and African American Humor on Saturday Night Live.” In Saturday Night Live and American TV, edited by Nicholas James Marx, Matthew Scott Sienkiewicz, and Ronald Becker, 151–172. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press. Goldstein, Jessica M. 2015. “The Forgotten, Subversive History of Eddie Murphy on ‘SNL.’” Think Progress, February 11. ­https://​­archive​.­thinkprogress​.­org​ /­the​-­forgotten​-­subversive​-­history​-­of​-­eddie​-­murphy​-­on​-­snl​-­9698270ff80f​/. Hill, Doug, and Jeff Weingrad. 1989. Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live. New York: William Morrow. Simmons, Bill. 2011. “The Career Arc: Eddie Murphy.” Grantland, November 10. h­ ttp://​ ­grantland​.­com ​/­features​/­eddie​-­murphy​/. Tucker, Ken. 1999. “‘The PJs’ Stirs Controversy.” Entertainment Weekly, March 5. ­http://​ ­ew​.­com​/­article​/­1999​/­03​/­05​/­pjs​-­stirs​-­controversy​/.

N Native Americans and Television Amid a history of racial segregation and the persistence of racial stereotypes about Native Americans, television has long been an “information source” on Indigenous communities. The role of television in teaching about Native Americans has long troubled many activists and scholars who have questioned the cost and consequences of representations that have historically portrayed Indigenous communities as uncivilized, savage, and undesirable. A history defined by the lack of Native Americans within the television industry and the perpetuation of a long-standing history of racial stereotyping, the story of Native Americans in television is equally a history of resistance and organizing. Television plays an immense role in contemporary society. Televisions are present in the majority of American homes, in American schools, in fitness centers, in automobiles, and are virtually accessible in any location through a laptop, tablet, or smart phone. In fact, “the average American today is tuned-in to television for 5 hours and 15 minutes per day, with the lion’s share of viewing devoted to primetime programming” (Tukachinsky, Mastro, and Yarchi 2015, 18). Television takes up a substantial portion of the day. It is no wonder that scholars, activists, and others consistently highlight the ways that television shapes our worldview on race, gender, sexuality, history, and countless other things. Scholars argue that the importance of television rests with its pedagogical lessons; through seemingly fictional representations of reality, television offers ideological lessons and commonsense ideas that shape our interactions each and every day. The impact of television and popular culture can be seen with impact on racial views. In fact, “there is also evidence that white viewers’ perceptions of the socioeconomic status of some racial groups are affected by what they see on television” (Tan, Fujioka, and Lucht 1997, 270). In their article, Alexis Tan, Yuki Fujioka, and Nancy Lucht address the connection between the existence of stereotypes and personal interactions. What they found was that non-Natives’ perceptions of Native Americans were reinforced and shaped by stereotypes, indicating (1) television plays an important role in the perpetuation of stereotypes of Native Americans and (2) because of social distance and segregation, viewers who have minimal interactions with Native people are heavily influenced by television. Additionally, Tan, Fujioka, and Lucht also assert that “information learned first is more influential than information learned subsequently since first impressions form the foundation on which later experiences are evaluated” (1997, 270). If viewers are first introduced to Native people through a television show, then their first impressions of Native people will be based on the portrayal of Native

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character(s) on the show they watched, contributing to cultural misunderstanding, microaggressions, and belief in stereotypes.

INVISIBILITY AND REPRESENTATION While television has a specific role in creating public perceptions, invisibility and representation are often common concerns that scholars encounter and explore when addressing Native Americans in television. These concepts often shape public perceptions, and in turn impact the lived experiences of both Native and nonNative viewers. Invisibility is a type of representation in the absence of representation. Invisibility, or the lack of inclusion, is more complex than merely being excluded. According to Stephanie Fryberg and Sarah Townsend, invisibility is “the absence of positive or any representations of oppressed groups, particularly those whose voices are typically excluded from the dialogue about what is good or right in America” (2008, 173). The absence of inclusion on television, as well as any humanizing and empowering representations, contributes to the creation and promotion of stereotypes. Scholars and activists argue that when representations do not exist, voices are silenced, which leads to lack of consideration of that particular group’s perspective, experiences, or humanity. Scholars and activists alike have argued that invisibility leads to oppressed populations, such as Native Americans, being ignored and reimagined by outside groups with little to no knowledge about the issues that Native American communities face. In “The Psychology of Invisibility” Fryberg and Townsend highlight the implications and descriptions of invisibility. Fryberg and Townsend, both Native scholars, have done empirical research on invisibility. In their work, they claim that “majority group members enjoy the tacit privilege of being positively represented in multiple ways in the American cultural imagination, whereas people associated with minority groups are often represented in ways that have negative and limiting resonances or they are not represented at all—that is, they are invisible” (2008, 173–174). The popular 1990s television show Friends (1994–2004) can be used as an example to illustrate the connective tissue between privilege and (in)visibility. The six main characters are all White and Monica and Ross’s Jewish heritage is only mentioned in passing. Occasionally, there is a character played by an actress of color, but most of the cast is White. Despite it taking place in New York City, Asians, Latinxs, Blacks, and Indigenous are rarely seen on the show. Avoiding dominant stereotypes that figure prominently within American popular culture, the absence of inclusion of communities of color on Friends renders them invisible. The lack of diversity of Friends has prompted long-standing critique for both its erasure and its privileging of whiteness—for furthering the hypervisibility of White bodies at the expense of invisible people of color. As Fryberg and Townsend note, “invisibility is not just a case of disappearance or of the lack of representation; rather, it is continually reproduced by an active ‘writing out’ of the story that both reflects and reinforces the status quo” (2008, 175).



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Scholars have concluded that erasure is the result of a myriad of factors, including the absence of knowledge about communities of color within predominantly White productions staffs. It is not easy to create characters outside of a lived experience, and if television writers and producers are predominantly White, then television shows will feature predominantly White casts and characters. Worse yet, the lack of personal interactions comes within an environment where the daily consumption of stereotypical images and representations of Native Americans and other communities of color shape knowledge and the production of narratives. Michael Ray FitzGerald claims that “most ideas about” Native Americans “come from film and television” (2014b, xi). Creating characters based on what is learned through television only serves to continue the stereotypes in representational issues of the past. For scholars, commentators, activists, and viewers alike, when looking specifically at Native Americans in television, it is imperative to examine not only the inclusion of Native actors and characters but also how those characters are portrayed. Native Americans characters have traditionally been created based on stereotypes. To add to Fryberg and Townsend’s notion of invisibility, FitzGerald claims that one “form of stereotyping was the elimination of Native Americans altogether, a lie by omission that implies that they simply do not—or perhaps should not—exist” (2014b, xiii). In their article about race and ethnicity in prime-time television, Riva Tukachinsky, Dana Mastro, and Moran Yarchi extend FitzGerald’s claim by stating that “Native Americans face an unprecedented form of invisibility on television, often entirely absent from the TV landscape. Across the most recent content analyses, Native Americans (approximately 1% of the U.S. population) are found to represent between 0.0% and 0.4% of the characters on primetime television” (2015, 19). Their work makes clear that when Native Americans do not exist in representations of daily life in television shows, then it is more difficult for non-Natives to realize that Native Americans exist in reality as well. This invisibility on the screen perpetuates an invisibility in real life, furthering misinformation and the lack of Native voices in social and political aspects as well. Such erasure doesn’t merely undermine the visibility of Native American experiences and humanity, shaping non-Indigenous views that are based in stereotypes, but impacts identity and community formation within Native American communities. Native Americans are left with an inability to realize and assert their identity in television, while also struggling to find a sense of belonging in the real world (Fryberg and Townsend 2008, 174). While often rendered invisible, contributing to the widespread stereotype that Native American communities are no longer present in contemporary society, inclusion is rarely empowering. Another common television stereotype of Native Americans is that of alcoholism (Tan, Fujioka, and Lucht 1997, 266). This stereotype is often considered closely with the stereotype that Native Americans “are lazy, don’t work hard, and can’t keep a steady job” (Tan, Fujioka, and Lucht 1997, 266). Widespread televisual representations of Native American as alcoholics, lazy, or lacking ambition shape perceptions of Indigenous communities within daily life.

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One of the reasons that these stereotypes exist is a lack of knowledge about Native Americans in general. In public schools across the country, Native Americans’ histories and cultures are glossed over, providing students with minimal knowledge about Native communities. Often when Native communities are discussed, they are done so based on prejudices and misinformation. Stereotypes are a real threat to Native individuals and Native communities, and they are commonly perpetuated in television.

CHALLENGES Scholars and activists have long noted the challenges that exist for Native Americans in television as twofold. There are existing tropes and stereotypes that influence the development and creation of characters, and thus the way they are portrayed, and then there is the role of the audience. While these two concepts can be examined separately, exploring the connections between the tropes and stereotypes presented in a program and the role of the audience is imperative in understanding the complexity of the various challenges of the portrayal of Native Americans in television. It has been asserted that “Indians have been treated with suspicion and were the first obvious victims of media bias” (Tan, Fujioka, and Lucht 1997, 267), which can be better understood through an examination of tropes and the perceived audience members and their potential desires. When television programs were first introduced, the most common trope was that of the sidekick, accompanied by the noble/ignoble savage perceptions. The idea of the sidekick goes back to the early 1950s, with the creation of characters such as Tonto in the television show The Lone Ranger (1949–1957). Early in the film industry, “classic American Westerns were developed during the silent era of motion pictures. When sound entered the picture industry (1930), Indians were rarely given the chance to speak” (Tan, Fujioka, and Lucht 1997, 267). While this was the most common trope in the early Hollywood, the sidekick Indian would dominate the televisual landscape, whether as part of a reoccurring role or as a one-off. Tonto is the most commonly known sidekick, as he was often the comedic relief in what was usually a more serious depiction of law and order in the Wild West. The original Tonto, in the Lone Ranger films and on the television series, was played by Jay Silverheels, a Mohawk actor from Canada. In this era, Natives were meant to be seen and not heard, and were often depicted as the enemy. If a Native character was not a silent, menacing enemy, then they were the silent or comedic sidekick. Tonto was no different. He, for example, “spoke in clipped baby talk. He was portrayed as inferior to the Lone Ranger in every area, such as shooting ability and speed, except for wisdom, which was a positive quality, ‘acceptable’ for an Indian to possess. Tonto’s only purpose was to serve his white master” (Tan, Fujioka, and Lucht 1997, 267). Scholars argue that the Native sidekick served two purposes. First, the Native sidekick allowed viewers to see what it meant to be a good Indian. A good Indian “is one who appears on command—to help enforce Anglo-American law and



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order—and recedes when not needed” (FitzGerald 2014a, 84). Second, the trope serves to create a binary. If an Indian is not a good Indian, then they must be a bad Indian, or an Indian who is free-willed and does not bend to the desires of White men. While originally with the Lone Ranger, and overcoming some changes because of protest and organizing, the Indian sidekick remains visible in modern-day television programming, in shows like Walker, Texas Ranger (1993– 2001), which will be closely examined later in this chapter. The concept of a good Indian versus a bad Indian carries over into another trope, that of the noble or ignoble savage. The sidekick trope, and its utterance as either noble or ignoble savage, limits Native Americanness to two flattened identities. Not only doing more to say more about whiteness, these representations deny Native Americans on- and off-screen humanity, history, or voice. The Native sidekick falls under the noble savage binary, as he does what he is asked by his White counterparts, does not question authority, and strives to assimilate into White culture, leaving his Native ways behind. The ignoble savage, however, is the opposite. These Native characters refuse to be subservient; they question authority, refusing to abandon traditional (“savage” and “uncivilized”) practices. The noble/ignoble savage trope is defined not in relation to Native Americans, but in relation to their White counterparts. Fryberg and Townsend state that “the group that defines who is seen and what is good is often the group in power. The group in power is often associated with what is good, whereas the less powerful groups are associated with what is less good or are rendered invisible” (Fryberg and Townsend 2008, 176). Therefore, the noble savage is one that associates with their White counterparts or strives to assimilate into the dominant White culture. Conversely, the ignoble savage refuses to assimilate, going against the dominant White culture. This trope does have an impact outside of television, which demonstrates how much influence television has on real, lived experiences. Natives who live on reservations are often seen as ignoble or primitive, as they tend to adhere to more traditional cultural practices. Natives who live in urban areas, also referred to as Urban Indians, are generally associated with being a noble savage, or someone who attempts to assimilate into the dominant White culture. The concepts of the sidekick and the noble/ignoble savage binary result in the ideas of model minorities and stoic Indians. Sidekicks can be categorized as model minorities because “they are ‘good Indians’ who help enforce Anglo-American norms. Like the Indianized white heroes, these figures [are] cultural hybrids, physically Native but intellectually and spiritually ‘apprentice white men’” (FitzGerald 2014a, 68). To be a good Indian, to be a model minority, Native characters, and thus Native people, have to think like White people. While the model minority narrative is often attributed to Asian Americans, it is not limited to one racial or ethnic group. While the model minority sounds like it would be a positive attribute, it is imperative to remember that there is no such thing as a positive stereotype. A stereotype, by nature, reduces a group of people to a base characteristic, ignoring the complexities, histories, traditions, and other aspects of a racial or ethnic group. Similar to the model minority stereotype is that of the stoic Indian.

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In early Westerns, Native men who would sit on horseback along the horizon and look down upon the city below often showed no emotion. They sat tall upon their horses and rarely needed to converse with their counterparts or any other characters. A prime example of the stoic Indian is the Keep America Beautiful public service announcement that could be seen on television during the 1970s. The commercial features a Native man—Iron Eyes Cody, who was actually an Italian American with no Native ancestry—sitting in a canoe or standing alongside a road, watching people litter. At the end of the commercial, a single tear runs down his cheek. Iron Eyes Cody is always pictured as sitting or standing tall, staring into the distance, with a face devoid of emotion. Even when the single teardrop falls, Iron Eyes Cody’s face does not betray any other emotion. The dominance of these images undermines the development of Native characters in television shows. Either invisible or simply reinforcing these dehumanized stereotypes that say more about whiteness than Indigeneity, the types of representations afforded to Native Americans shapes their experiences outside of the television media. Studies have found “evidence linking media exposure with viewer’s racial attitudes” (Tukachinsky, Mastro, and Yarchi 2015, 18). The most damaging evidence claims that “media consumers who report learning about race/ethnicity from television were more likely to endorse negative stereotypes” (Tukachinsky, Mastro, and Yarchi 2015, 20). If Native Americans comprise only 1 percent of the nation’s population, then there is a significant number of people in the United States who have not met a Native American. If those same individuals only know about Native Americans based on what they see in television programs, then their knowledge is limited and misinformed, resulting in negative perceptions that carry over into their interactions with other people, especially Native Americans they may meet or interact with in the future.

AUDIENCE Scholars argue that if the role of television is to create a cultural hub, then the portrayals of racial and ethnic groups are intentional. Writers, directors, and producers want a certain perception conveyed in order to tell the story they want told and in the ways, they want to tell it. This collaboration results in the anticipation of a specific audience. Writers, directors, and producers will have a specific target audience in mind when creating, casting, and recording television programs. The target audience is not chosen for their beliefs, necessarily, but for their potential willingness to look at images and contexts within the television show and understand and accept the intended message. The main question writers tend to ask themselves is who their audience is intended to be, or what they might want from their audience. Understanding who the audience is allows the writer to imagine what the audience might accept and what the audience will refuse to accept, therefore understanding the limitations on the content that the writer can create, and thus what directors and producers can realize in the development of the script to the screen. This idea of who the audience is and what they are looking at is also



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known as the gaze. The concept of the gaze began with Laura Mulvey’s theory on the male gaze, which describes the commodification of women for the voyeuristic pleasure of men. This can, however, translate to a broader notion to be applied to film or television as a whole without specifically assessing the male gaze. For instance, when viewing a television show such as Game of Thrones (2011–2019), the audience’s gaze is not meant to be sexualized. Instead, the audience’s gaze is focused on the movements and facial expressions of the characters as a voyeuristic way to determine the motives and intentions of the characters. While the male gaze can be assessed in Game of Thrones, it is not the only way the audience’s gaze can be assessed and there is significance and an importance to assessing multiple forms of the gaze. The portrayal of characters of color and other marginalized representations, notes many film critics and scholars, can be assessed through the male gaze and through the notion of the gaze as a broader concept. Not every television program intends the audience to view characters in the same way, but examining the characters’ dress, actions, and speech allows for a greater understanding of what the writers, directors, and producers intended for the audience to believe and to make connections between different television programs. One of the most significant aspects of understanding and applying the theory of the gaze is the ability to understand what underlying messages are contained in a television program. Being able to recognize the intended perceptions of a character, be it individually or as a racial or ethnic group as a whole, allows for an understanding of how stereotypes, tropes, and misinformation are utilized and promoted in various ways, which often leads to a critical reading of the television show as a text and an appreciation for what the television show does right and where the television show needs to improve or change.

REAL-WORLD INFLUENCES For many scholars and activists, including those within Native communities, there are two fundamental issues for Native Americans in television. One issue is the lack of representation, which includes the invisibility of Native people and the inclusion of tropes and stereotypes. The other issue is that of “positive” representation. Native Americans are severely underrepresented in television programs, constituting “the most severally [sic] underrepresented group. Out of 2,336 regular characters in 12 television seasons, merely three characters were coded as Native American” (Tukachinsky, Mastro, and Yarchi 2015, 24). The lack of representation and inclusion is not limited to Native Americans; “ethnic minorities are largely excluded from primetime television. Most strikingly, Native Americans are almost entirely absent. These results are consistent with past content analyses, which reported very few, if any, Native American characters in their sample” (Tukachinsky, Mastro, and Yarchi 2015, 25). A lack of representation on television, of which the majority of Americans spend hours viewing daily, is a means of limiting knowledge and acknowledgement of minority racial and ethnic groups, which has real-world consequences.

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Real-world consequences of lack of representation include interpreting the attributes of a fictional character to a real human being and interpreting the fictional depictions of television shows as reality, or at least a reflection of it. Additionally, “minority social groups with low group vitality lack political power and access to the media industry and are therefore symbolically alienated and marginalized by the majority group that controls the media” (Tukachinsky, Mastro, and Yarchi 2015, 34). Not only does the lack of representation impact real-world experiences but also the alienation resulting from the lack of representation contributes to further marginalization and continued invisibility. Invisibility and the lack of representation, coupled with the use of tropes and stereotypes to create characters, are harmful not only to those groups being depicted or ignored, but it also hurts viewers. Television programming impacts audiences, irrespective of racial and ethnic identity, as “the quality and quantity of ethnic and racial representations can influence a wide range of cognitive, affective, and behavioral outcomes ranging from how audiences perceive, feel about, and treat different groups” (Tukachinsky, Mastro, and Yarchi 2015, 20). These cognitive and behavioral outcomes influence personal perspectives that carry over into social interactions, education, and even the workplace. While there are several negative constraints resulting from representation and inclusivity, there are also positive constraints. Because television serves as a pedagogical space that shapes our worldview, increasing positive representations for otherwise marginalized groups will lead to more inclusive and accurate roles for Native characters. Studies have shown that “positive media representations of ethnic minorities can have pro-social effects, fostering egalitarian beliefs and positive intergroup attitudes. Even brief exposure to positive and likeable media figures of color can enhance audience members’ racial attitudes, at least temporarily” (Tukachinsky, Mastro, and Yarchi 2015, 20). While there is still a need for inclusivity and positive representation, a shift in inclusivity and positive representation has gradually started. This shift has resulted in and will continue to result in increased positive perceptions of Native Americans, increasing inclusivity, and improved social, and hopefully even political, relations.

INCLUSION OF NATIVE AMERICANS IN TELEVISION There are several aspects to consider when examining the representation of Native Americans on television. More often than not, the experiences of Native Americans are one where “representation in the fictional world signifies social existence; absence means symbolic annihilation” (Gerbner and Gross 1976, 182). There are three types of representation—visual, textual, and historical. Each type of representation is a separate yet connected component that impacts the inclusion and portrayal of Native Americans in television and has influenced inclusion and portrayals in the past. Visual representations are exactly what they seem to be—representations of an idea, people, or event that takes on a visual form. Visual representations can be photographs, paintings, drawings, commercials, posters, or for this immediate discussion, television shows. The medium of



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visual representations varies, but all mediums are subject to the same ideologies. When considering Native American visual representations, it is important to keep in mind that “because social representations help individuals identify potential ways of being in a given context, the absence of a social representation provides information about who belongs and who does not, who is successful and who is not, and who engages in such a profession and who does not” (Fryberg and Townsend 2008, 177–178). Visually, this would take the form of a Native character being excluded from social interactions in a television show focused on predominantly non-Native characters, or the one Native character of a television show portrayed as an unsuccessful student, incompetent employee, or as not being intelligent enough to be successful. In the Westerns of early television, “the western hero must, as an Indianized white man, be connected with the wilderness” (FitzGerald 2014b, 30). Visually, this would include images of land, water, or a close connection to the environment, similar to the Iron Eyes Cody commercial of the 1970s. Visual representations of racial and ethnic groups are common and are often seemingly subtle. Native American characters in the early Westerns were often depicted wearing headdresses, even if the tribal group being presented did not traditionally wear a headdress. In more modern television shows, Native Americans are presented visually as having dark skin, high cheekbones, large noses, and sometimes are even presented as racially ambiguous. The style of their clothing is often a subtle way characters are represented. Consider how clean, modern, and new the clothing of a character appears based on the setting of the television show. If all other characters have new, clean, and modern clothing but the Native characters do not, then there is an underlying statement or assumption being made about that character, and subsequently Native Americans as a whole. How characters are dressed and the dialogue they are given combine to provide a visual representation based on the writers’ understanding of the racial or ethnic groups being presented while also considering how these aspects contribute to and influence the gaze of the audience. These often-subtle aspects of television shows are sometimes overlooked or dismissed as seemingly unimportant or as an afterthought, although they are always more complex and intentional; after careful thought and reflection, their importance and the consequences become apparent and can no longer be ignored. Much like visual representation, textual representations are also common and exploit the tropes and stereotypes about Native Americans. Michael Ray makes this clear: “nearly all American Indian stories are told from the viewpoint of a white protagonist” (FitzGerald 2014b, 9) and “television writers simply make Native Americans into anything they want them to be” (FitzGerald 2014a, 77–78). More often than not, Native Americans are not included in the creation and production of representations of Native characters in film and television. Scholars and activists have argued that even when Native Americans are consulted, often their suggestions are ignored or only partially considered. The lack of Native American actors, writers, directors, and producers in the television industry is cyclical and factors heavily into the dialogue Native people are often provided or in the dialogue their non-Native counterparts are provided. The dialogue provided to Native

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American characters is important, but so is the dialogue the non-Native characters are provided, especially as it relates to the Native characters. The way Native characters are spoken to and about reflects how Native characters are viewed by other characters on the show. If television is a fictional reflection of real life and real-world experiences, then the case can be made—and is often made by scholars such as Adrienne Keene, Cornel Pewewardy, and Stephanie Fryberg—that the manner in which Native people are treated, spoken to, and spoken about in television reflects and impacts real-world interactions with and perceptions of Native Americans. In their study on the influence of television, Gerbner and Gross address how influential characteristics of television are on real-world experiences and perceptions. They claim, “the structural characteristics of television drama are not easily controlled. They reflect basic cultural assumptions that make a show ‘entertaining’— i.e., smoothly and pleasingly fitting dominant notions of morality and power” (Gerbner and Gross 1976, 189). In absence of inclusion and diversity, the representations, narratives, and included dialogue are shaped by the cultural assumptions and widely held stereotypes about Native Americans. Therefore, the dialogue about and toward Native characters is more likely to be stereotypical or degrading than empowering and reflective of lived Native experiences. Dialogue is a sig­ nificant component to textual representations and will be discussed in more detail in the next section when addressing the television show Sons of Anarchy (2008–2014). It is imperative to remember, however, that textual representation is more than just dialogue; it is also how scenes are staged and can even include nonhuman components such as music or landscape. In fact, “the land and how it is portrayed is a crucial issue in most westerns. After all, the land is the prize: who controls it and how it is to be used is generally the primary issue” (FitzGerald 2014b, 33). If a non-Native character is visually placed on the land and appears to have productive crops and fertile land, then this positive representation both textually and visually leads to the interpretation that the non-Native character deserves the land and is a successful, contributing member to society. If a Native character is visually placed on seemingly barren land, or even is depicted as not using the land at all, then the interpretation is that they are not deserving of the land. This was a common trope in early Westerns, especially as manifest destiny and land grabs had taken place not too long before. The issue of who controls land, how it is used, and ownership of land has been an issue for Native Americans for centuries, is reflected in treaty rights, and often leads to court cases and political debates. When considering textual representations, dialogue, music, and scenery should be considered as these components can be interpreted as texts both independent of and in collaboration with visual and historical representations. Historical representations encompass both representations of history and representations of Native Americans as historical peoples. There is a long history of poor historical representation in television and other forms of media. According to Fryberg and Townsend, “different constructions of history, understanding of merit, and ways of being a person become obscured by overreaching mainstream American constructions” (Fryberg and Townsend 2008, 173). There has been a recurring issue



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of only discussing American history through a lens that makes America look great in order to evoke a sense of national pride. An example of this can be found in critiques of the PBS special The American Stranger, which critiqued government policies regarding Native Americans as the show explored issues faced by tribes in Montana (Wilson 1999). The problem then becomes that parts of American history are not taught or explored from various perspectives, which happens disproportionately as one looks at the presentation of Native American history. The result is that film and television programs perpetuate historically inaccurate information at the expense of Native Americans, fueling the already existing tropes, stereotypes, and biases about Native American communities and individuals. For the most part, “television representations of American Indians are set in the late 1800s, during the last stages of the conquest of the continent” (FitzGerald 2014b, 2). This includes early Westerns such as The Lone Ranger (1949–1957), but also includes some more modern television programs such as Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1993–1998). While historical representations often provide inaccurate and misleading information about the past, they also place Native Americans as existing only in the past. Native Americans in modern society are often elided, insinuating that Native Americans no longer exist. According to Native scholars, if historical representations are not actively implying that Native Americans no longer exist, then they are taking away from Native Americans’ agency over their current lives and representations of those lives. Agency, or the power to determine what information is provided, how it is provided, when it is provided, and in what

Iron Eyes Cody: The Man Who Built a Career Out of a Created Native American Ancestry Actor Iron Eyes Cody (1904–1999) is best known for portraying a Native American in the “Keep America Beautiful” Public Service Announcements (PSA) in 1971. In the PSA, Cody is shown crying as he surveys a landscape covered in litter and declares littering a “crying shame.” Cody subsequently advocated against littering. Cody portrayed Native American characters in many films and TV shows from the 1920s to 1990s. Rarely out of his braided wig, buckskin jacket, and moccasins when in public, Cody was often recognized. Born Oscar DeCorti in Kaplan, Louisiana, Cody was believed to be the second of four children born to southern Italian immigrants Francesca Salpietra and grocer Antonio DeCorti. Cody’s maternal half-sister May has claimed that Cody often expressed as a youth that he wanted to be a Native American. Cody’s brothers, Joseph and Frank, also portrayed Native Americans in Hollywood westerns. Some media outlets (e.g., The Times-Picayune (New Orleans), The Times (London)) questioned Cody’s Native American identity prior to and at the time of his death while many other media did not. While living, Cody claimed that his mother was a Cree from northern Canada and his father was an Oklahoma Cherokee named Thomas Long Plume. In his “autobiography” My Life as a Hollywood Indian (1984), Cody claims an Oklahoma boyhood, the birth name Little Eagle, and he reflects on his experience in Hollywood films including The Paleface (1948), A Man Called Horse (1970) (e.g., Cody claims producers wanted him to scalp someone in the film but he refused) and Westward Ho the Wagons! (1956).

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context it is provided, is essential for all racial and ethnic groups. Having agency over representations allows Native Americans to determine how they are seen, what people know about the issues they face and how different each tribe is, how the information is provided, when it is appropriate to be presented, and in what context the information should be shared. Having agency over these aspects of representation allows non-Natives to better understand Native people, allows Native people to determine how they want to be seen, and it allows Native people to actively take a role in creating and providing information in creative and positive ways.

SHOWS Discussing the history of Native Americans in television and the current issues of Native Americans in television means nothing without an examination of actual television shows. While impossible to cover every show, reflecting on the representational and narrative offerings of several shows—Walker, Texas Ranger, Sons of Anarchy, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2015–2019), and Navajo Cops (2011)— provides a glimpse into the history and themes that encapsulates Native Americans on television. Popular in the 1990s, Walker, Texas Ranger starred Chuck Norris as the lead Texas Ranger, Cordell Walker. Every episode was filmed in Texas, which was a point of pride for the show. According to FitzGerald, “Walker is the only successful, long-running network program to feature a Native (half-Cherokee) lawman in a starring role” (2014a, 69). When Walker, Texas Ranger aired, however, harmful representations were still incredibly common in television (FitzGerald 2014a, 70). In fact, the only visible people of color in the show were Walker’s partner and sidekick, James Trivette, played by Clarence Gilyard Jr., a brief stint by Nia Peeples, and several criminals, all of whom are Mexican and African American. A White or White-passing actor, giving the appearance of a mostly White cast, played every other character. Given this erasure, given the violent history of the Texas Rangers, and given the long-standing dehumanization of Native Americans on televisions, scholars and activists have criticized the show for its representation of Native people. Of equal importance, criticism has focused on Norris’s whiteness and the ways that Walker’s identity is depicted on the show. His identity is never questioned, whether he is on the job or participating in Native customs with his uncle, Ray Fire Walker (portrayed by Floyd “Red Crow” Westerman). There are several instances throughout the series where Walker switches from being a White upstanding lawman to a Native man willing to bend the law to get the job done. For Walker, “Indianness becomes his secret identity that emerges whenever superhuman or spiritual qualities are needed—whenever the Euro-American intellect is not enough” (FitzGerald 2014a, 68). Not only do Native Americans not have the ability to identify as non-Native at will, Walker’s ability to do so in certain circumstances demonstrates a common misconception about Native Americans—that they are willing to break the law to do what they



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believe necessary, or that they are super spiritual beings with the ability to transform themselves into something almost magical. This misrepresentation perpetuates racist undertones in other areas, such as the proclamation of having a spirit animal or the claim that hauntings take place because a building was built over an old Indian burial ground; both stereotypes are found in episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger and can be found both on and off the screen. In one episode, a Comanche ghost summons the dead to stop construction on a burial site, which is “a common theme related to manifest destiny: Natives are obstacles who impede progress by their very presence, even though these Natives are already dead. Walker seeks counsel from White Eagle, a medicine man at the Cherokee reservation, who explains that Running Wolf is a skinwalker who must avenge the death of his ancestors” (FitzGerald 2014a, 73). There are several issues with this episode. First, President Bill Clinton passed the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in 1990. NAGPRA protected burial sites and Native remains from destruction and upon finding any remains at a construction site, all construction would be halted until the remains were identified and could be properly removed or recovered. Second, the only Cherokee reservation is in North Carolina, making Walker’s visit with White Eagle unlikely. Third, skinwalkers are Navajo beings, not Comanche beings. Issues like the ones described above are present throughout Walker, Texas Ranger and speak to larger history of Native Americans on television. The representation of Native spirituality in Walker and other shows has been addressed numerous times. According to FitzGerald, “Walker’s writers freely invented ‘religious rituals’ that have no analogue in Native culture; some Cherokee scholars have found this insulting, especially in view of the fact that Norris himself claims to be half Cherokee” (FitzGerald 2014a, 74). Richard Allen notes, “‘Norris distorts not only Cherokee but the broad sweep of Indian culture,’” and Robert Conley’s response that “Walker’s portrayals [are] ‘absurd and insulting,’ adding, ‘Norris seems to know nothing about Cherokee culture. Furthermore, he does not seem to give a damn enough to try to find out’” (qtd. in FitzGerald 2014a, 80–81). Walker embodies the practice of White shamanism, a “practice of whites adopting and synthesizing Native and Eastern spiritual principles. According to Hobson, white shamanism began in 1970s US literature with a group of poets who felt they had achieved a sort of Native spirituality through the use of peyote. These practices were later agglomerated into a hodgepodge of Eastern and American Indian philosophies that came to be called New Age spiritualism” (FitzGerald 2014a, 76). The fact that there is a term for this misrepresentation in both fiction and reality indicates there is a substantial issue with the bastardization of Native religions. One of the tropes employed in the Walker series is that of the noble savage, or the good Indian. In the series, “Walker is the perfect Good Indian: a temporary one. He does not overstay his welcome, or make demands, or remind Anglo-Americans that he is Native and they are not. When Walker’s inner Native is no longer useful, it goes back into hibernation until, like a genie, it is summoned again. Thus, ‘the only good Indian’ is one who appears on command—to help enforce Anglo-American law and order—and recedes when not needed” (FitzGerald 2014a, 84).

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This trope can also be found in Sons of Anarchy. Members of the Sons of Anarchy motorcycle club often work at the Teller-Morrow garage as a means of legitimate employment. One of the tasks of the garage is vehicle repossession. In one episode, two club members repossess a van from the fictional Wahewa reservation. Upon inspection, the club members found homemade bullets in the back of the van. The club president, upon learning the information, made a deal with the chief of the Wahewa reservation to supply bullets for the motorcycle club. The chief negotiates pay, but otherwise is compliant. There is no debate, as the Sons of Anarchy are quick to assert their dominance. In this way, the chief of the Wahewa is portrayed as a good Indian, as he does as he is asked without causing trouble. Another issue with Sons of Anarchy is the language used when referring to the Native characters. One of the club members, Opie, often refers to the Wahewa women using derogatory terms. Later in the series, Opie gets remarried and the ceremony is conducted on the Wahewa reservation. Although the series is set in California, the Wahewa chief claims the prayer he offers for the couple is of Apache origin. This example of White shamanism is one of many issues with representation of Native people on Sons of Anarchy and other television shows. In the Netflix original series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, one of the characters’ parents is Native and lives on a reservation. A non-Native woman plays Jacqueline White, who goes to every length to conceal her Indigeneity. There are few instances of her visiting her parents on the reservation. On the occasions that she does visit her family, played by Gil Birmingham and Sheri Foster, Jacqueline is portrayed as a buffoon and is often corrected or mocked by her parents. Jacqueline is a secondary character, resulting in limited development or information about her family. The little information viewers get about Gil Birmingham and Sheri Foster is that they are Native American. Their identity shapes and is influenced by how they are represented on the show. They are often dressed in dated yet modern clothes, live in a dated yet modern house, and chastise Jacqueline for denying her Native roots. Most often, however, they are absent from the series, as is any reference to Jacqueline being Native. This can be seen as a means of diminishing the desire to be Native American and as an inadvertent claim that Native Americans are not relevant. Jacqueline’s parents certainly are not relevant to her everyday life as they are rarely mentioned or seen. When examining shows like Walker, Texas Ranger, Sons of Anarchy, and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, it may seem as if all representations of Native Americans in television are negative if they exist at all. While misrepresentation, invisibility, and stereotypes are problems, not all television shows are negative. Navajo Cops focuses on Navajo people, Navajo land, and Navajo traditions. The series not only portrays Navajo people who have broken the law but also portrays law-abiding Navajo people. The series addresses issues of sovereignty, including when and how state agencies have the right to enter tribal lands and intervene in cases, and cultural practices such as prayer. Navajo Cops addresses issues facing Navajos living on Navajo land, and in doing so provides a sense of agency for those involved with the production to choose how, why, and when their voices, cultures, and practices are conveyed. Navajo Cops is often a more complex



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and humanizing representation of Native people yet does so through a reality show on policing. ACTORS The majority of Native American actors are primarily in the film industry, although sometimes they have found work within television. Jason Momoa, Floyd “Red Crow” Westerman, Zahn McClarnon, Tatanka Means, and Gil Birmingham are all Native actors who have found roles on television. If this list appears small, that’s because it is small. That does not in any way diminish their contributions. Jason Momoa, who is Native Hawaiian, is well-known for his role as Khal Drogo on HBO’s Game of Thrones, and he is currently starring in the Netflix original Frontier, although that show is set in Canada. Momoa is also playing the role of Aquaman in DC’s The Justice League (2017) and Aquaman (2018). Floyd “Red Crow” Westerman is a Dakota actor best known for his television roles in Walker, Texas Ranger, Dharma & Greg, and his role as Ten Bears in the film Dances with Wolves. Zahn McClarnon, Hunkpapa Lakota, is known for his roles in Longmire (2012–2017), and Frontier (2016–); he also plays the role of Toshaway in the AMC series The Son (2017–2019). McClarnon is also known for his roles in films such as Mekko (2015), a film written and directed by Sterlin Harjo (Muscogee-Creek and Seminole), The Cherokee Word for Water (2013), which is also a Native film production, and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002). Tatanka Means is the son of Oglala Lakota activist Russell Means, who was one of the leaders of the American Indian Movement (AIM) in the 1970s, and also an actor and model. His film work includes A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014), and Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2014), and he has appeared on television in Comanche Moon (2008) and The Son (2017–2019). Gil Birmingham is a Comanche actor who has appeared in the Twilight saga films, Shouting Secrets (2011), and the Native film The Doe Boy (2001). Birmingham’s television appearances include The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and House of Cards (2013–2018).

Status of Native Hawaiians In the United States, Native American communities fit in two categories: federally recognized or state recognized. In other words, either the federal government recognizes a tribe as a sovereign nation or a state is the source of recognition. This status shapes interactions with both the state and federal government. As of 2016, there are over 566 federally recognized tribes across the country that have legal rights protected by treaties and more current legislation such as Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 (NAGPRA). Federally recognized tribes are recognized as domestic dependent nations with inherent rights to self-determination. Native Hawaiians, however, are not afforded these same rights despite being recognized as an Indigenous group in an American state. There is currently a push to recognize Native Hawaiians as domestic dependent nations, but the shift has not yet occurred.

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The Son In April 2017, AMC premiered a new show The Son, which is based on a Phillip Meyer novel. Eli McCullough, played by Pierce Brosnan, is the show’s main character. The Son is set in late 1800s and explores the tumultuous era of early Texas history. More notably, the show has several Comanche historical consultants, costume designers, and actors. On The Son, Native American actors play Native characters; the most well-known Native actors in the show are Tatanka Means and Zahn McClarnon. The inclusion of Native American consultants, actors, and costume designers represented a big step in the inclusion of more Indigenous people and voices in television. The Son appears to be a promising contribution to television that will bring more awareness to Native American history, allow agency for Native actors and Native people, and provide much-needed positive and accurate representation.

These actors are important for several reasons. First, each actor contributes to the representation of Native Americans in television. Just by taking on these roles, these men have opened the door for other Native actors to enter the television industry and have become role models for Native youth. Second, these actors are important because they provide hope for future involvement of Native people in the television industry. If these men can access the roles that they have since the 1990s, and those roles are expanding with the creation of programs like The Son, then surely there will be a greater need for Native actors. Third, the development of television programs The Son and Frontier are indicative of a new wave of programs that provide agency for Native people. The roles might be minor, or they might be major roles. The development of the characters during the writing process might be problematic, but they might also be strong and great representations of Native peoples. Whatever the case may be, Native actors are starting to take more and more of these roles, and in response more and more Native characters are being included in television shows. There is a demand to be heard, and the television industry has taken notice and, at least at the present time, the future of Native characters and Native actors in television is optimistic. Yet, this progress leaves much room for improvement given the relative invisibility of Native Americans on television, given the limited opportunities for Indigenous actors, particularly women, and given the persistence of stereotypes. What changes have occurred have been the result of resistance from artists and activists, those demanding representation and opportunity. LOCAL NEWS Local news broadcasts are often not part of the discussion concerning representation in television. The discussion usually focuses on prime-time television, as prime-time television usually has more viewers that local news broadcasts. Local news broadcasts, however, are also reflective of societal views on race and ethnicity and promote the views of the majority. Not only do local news stations cover



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important stories but they are also spaces of potential opportunities for Native Americans. Paula Poindexter, Laura Smith, and Don Heider conducted a study on the representation of race and ethnicity in local news programming. Their study found that there has been little change in the coverage of people of color since 1968, coverage that should be considered racist is still approved for airing, and the way people of color are covered in local news influences how they are perceived across the country (Poindexter, Smith, and Heider 2003, 525–527). Because of the function of local news, the data gathered by Poindexter, Smith, and Heider is troubling because reality is presented in a racially biased manner, promoting racial biases in viewers. The study also found that issues specifically concerning race and discrimination comprised fewer than 3% of the stories. Education represented only 2% of the news stories. The perpetrator’s race or ethnicity was reported in 60% of the crime stories, and of those stories, more than half (51%) of the perpetrators were White and 41% were Black. Latinos represented only 2% of the perpetrators and Asian Americans 1%. At first glance, it appears that White perpetrators dominated crime news coverage, but an examination of the racial focus of a reporter-delivered story revealed that Black-focused stories (69%) were almost two and a half times more likely than White-focused stories (28%) to be about crime. (Poindexter, Smith, and Heider 2003, 531)

While news stories do not address racial discrimination, they do report the races of those who commit crimes when reporting on incidents in the area. Not only is the content of news stories an issue in representation but also so is the inclusion of Native Americans in the field of journalism. There is one Native American organization, the Native American Journalists Association, or NAJA, that works on behalf of Native journalists. However, NAJA does not always receive the same opportunities afforded other journalism organizations. In 2005, CNN created a scholarship program for African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latinos, but did not include Native Americans in their scholarship program (Trahant 2005, 30). In response to this oversight, “NAJA’s then-president Dan Lewerenz said, ‘Native people are the most underrepresented of all minorities in national network news. I don’t know of a single Native person currently working in news production for CNN. CNN could have taken tremendous strides toward correcting these imbalances but chose not to. That’s what makes this particularly painful” (Trahant 2005, 30). Lewerenz’s point was clear—there is a choice on whether or not to open opportunities to Native professionals, and often that choice is not made. Recent studies from Ball State and the Radio-Television News Directors Association show that “Native Americans comprise only three-tenths of one percent of those working in broadcast media” (Trahant 2005, 30). Additionally, “the number of Native Americans working at the network level has been frozen” since the early 1990s, at less than two dozen (Trahant 2005, 30). The lack of Native contributions to the field of journalism is a dismal reminder of why representation matters. To expand career opportunities in the field, more Native Americans need to realize their dreams and goals of succeeding in the industry. However, if few Native Americans have done so in the past, then there is no representation to encourage or even foster a desire to enter into journalism. If Native Americans cannot see themselves reflected in an area, then it will not seem

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achievable to them, and the cycle of poor representation and lack of inclusion will continue.

CONCLUSION Invisibility and (mis)representation defines the experiences of Native Americans on television. It is a story of both erasure and the persistence of dehumanizing stereotypes and tropes. The types of representation of Native Americans have consequences; “Being from an invisible group may place a person at greater risk of being devalued or stigmatized because of their social identities” (Fryberg and Townsend 2008, 189). While some areas of the television industry are improving by offering more Native actors’ roles in shows and creating more roles for Native actors, some areas, like local news broadcasts, still have improvements to make. Representation for Native Americans is crucial to the development of understanding, empathy, and awareness of Native issues among non-Native audiences. Representation is also crucial for Native Americans to see themselves represented in television and take agency over their voices, histories, and roles in television and in society. Kelli Pyron-Alvarez Further Reading

Dowell, Kristen. 2013. Sovereign Screens: Aboriginal Media on the Canadian West Coast. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. FitzGerald, Michael Ray. 2014a. “American Masculinity in Crisis: Cordell Walker and the Indianized White Hero.” American Indian Culture and Research Journal 38 (2): 67–88. FitzGerald, Michael Ray. 2014b. Native Americans on Network TV: Stereotypes, Myths, and the ‘Good Indian’. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Fryberg, Stephanie A., and Sarah Townsend. 2008. “The Psychology of Invisibility.” In Commemorating Brown: The social psychology of Racism and Discrimination, edited by Glenn Adams, Monica Biernat, Nyla R. Branscombe, Christian S. Crandall, Lawrence S. Wrightsman, 173–193. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Gerbner, George, and Larry Gross. 1976. “Living with Television: The Violence Profile.” Journal of Communication 26 (2) (Spring): 172–199. Kilpatrick, Neva Jacquelyn. 1999. Celluloid Indians: Native Americans and Film. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Mihesuah, Devon A. 1996. American Indians: Stereotypes, & Realities. Atlanta, GA: Clarity Press. Poindexter, Paula M., Laura Smith, and Don Heider. 2003. “Race and Ethnicity in Local Television News: Framing, Story Assignments, and Source Selections.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 47 (4): 524–536. Raheja, Michelle. 2010. Reservation Reelism: Redfacing, Visual Sovereignty, and Representations of Native Americans in Film. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Schweninger, Lee. 2013. Imagic Moments: Indigenous North American Film. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Shotton, Heather, Shelly C. Lowe, and Stephanie J. Waterman, eds. 2013. Beyond the Asterisk: Understanding Native Students in Higher Education. Sterling: Stylus Publishing.



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Singer, Beverly. 2001. Wiping the War Paint off the Lens: Native American Film and Video. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Tan, Alexis, Yuki Fujioka, and Nancy Lucht. 1997 “Native American Stereotypes, TV Portrayals, and Personal Contact.” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 74 (2) (Summer): 265–284. Trahant, Mark. 2005. “Broadcast News: The Absence of Native Storytellers.” Nieman Reports 59 (3) (Fall): 30. Tukachinsky, Riva, Dana Mastro, and Moran Yarchi. 2015 “Documenting Portrayals of Race/Ethnicity on Primetime Television over a 20-Year Span and Their Association with National-Level Racial/Ethnic Attitudes.” Journal of Social Issues 71 (1): 17–38. Wilson, Pamela. 1999. “All Eyes on Montana: Television Audiences, Social Activism, and Native American Cultural Politics in the 1950s.” Quarterly Review of Film and Video 16 (3–4): 325–356.

Native American Television(NATV) In the face of systemic stereotyping and misrepresentation within the mass media, Native Americans have sought to bring more visibility to their people and their stories through increasing the number of Native Americans appearing on screen and those working behind the cameras. Native American Television (NATV) is an organization dedicated to this mission. A Washington, DC, area multimedia organization, NATV focuses on training Native Americans to pursue careers in the news media. Charles “Chuck” Kaster originally created NATV as a nonprofit organization in the 1990s. While originally conceived with the idea of creating a Native American news channel, the organization has since evolved into something bigger. NATV also emphasizes journalism training in and around the White House and U.S. government in Washington, DC, especially as it relates to budget, environmental, and representational issues facing Native Americans. In 1973, KYUK-TV, an offshoot of KYUK radio that broadcast in the Yup’ik language, was created as the first Native American television station in Bethel, Alaska. Shortly after, the Native American Public Broadcasting Consortium (NAPBC) was formed in in 1977. Sponsored by the U.S. Public Broadcasting System (PBS), the NAPBC came into existence with the goal of getting Native Americans involved in creating and executing media projects for and about Native Americans. The organization largely administered grants for public television program series about the lives and issues of Native Americans (e.g., Real People, People of the First Light). In 1995, the organization changed its name to Native American Public Telecommunications, Inc. (NAPT). In the years since NAPBC/NAPT and KYUK-TV, Native Americans in the United States have arguably focused more attention on creating radio stations as opposed to television channels. Exceptions include: KRSC-TV, which began broadcasting regionally in 1987 from Claremore, Oklahoma, and is owned by Rogers State University; WKRS-TV carries some programming from First Nations Experience Television (FNX) that was launched in southern California

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in fall 2011. Other small and regional outlets include Red Nation Television (RNT), which began as a streaming service in 2006 and is now a subscription-based service based in Los Angeles, California. Also CATV47, Cheyenne and Arapaho Television, is a local television broadcaster started in Concho, Oklahoma, in 2012. In Canada, Aboriginal People’s Television Network (APTN), based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and launched nationally in 1999, reaching an estimated 90 percent of Native American households in the country. APTN claims to be the first national broadcaster in the world focused on Indigenous issues. It is the sister network of All Nations Network (ANN) launched in 2016 and based in New Mexico. Unlike many of these TV outlets that are regional channels, NATV has always been focused on becoming the first nationwide Native American cable channel devoted to news content all while also training the next generation of Native American journalists. While NATV currently trains Native Americans to work in the media and produces news content impacting the lives of Native Americans that is shared via its website, it has yet to realize its original goal of a nationwide cable network. NATV’s original mission emphasized serving Indigenous communities. By using twenty-first-century multimedia technology, NATV sought to inform and educate Americans on Native American issues, history, and culture. Related to its mission are NATV’s originally stated objectives. The first was to create a grassroots newsgathering network that built upon the existing tribal nation structure in the United States. The second objective was to strengthen the Native American news organization’s ability to report on people, events, and issues within Washington D.C. The third and final objective was to provide Native American students training in digital media and government at a Washington, DC-based facility. NATV has arguably not realized its objective to create a consistent nationwide structure insofar as it has not realized a nationwide cable network to date. Currently, it produces print news stories and videos, made available via its website, relating to Native American issues in the federal government and in and around Washington, DC. Regarding its objectives to cover Washington, DC, and make it more accessible to Native American journalists and to train Native American journalists in media and government, NATV does seem to have achieved these goals. NATV had initially set up a partnership with the Columbia School of Broadcasting (in operation since 1964) in Fairfax, Virginia, to structure its media-training content and Columbia’s president, William Butler, has served as NATV’s studio operations director. NATV also has used the production and training facilities of Capitol Productions TV (CPTV) (NATV’s parent organization) and Virginia Tech University. NATV offers a Washington semester multimedia education and technology program that trains and certifies Native Americans for jobs in TV studio and field production. NATV’s program is meant to complement rather than replace existing offerings of Native American journalism programs. NATV’s program focuses on four major areas. The first area emphasizes digital studio and field production including training in camera, sound, and lighting as trainees film congressional



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hearings and legislative committees dealing with issues of importance to Native Americans (e.g., education, environmental policy, health care, and housing). The second area of NATV’s program emphasizes journalism as it claims to give participants the access to interview members of Congress, attend White House press conferences, and interact with media professionals at the National Press Club and Senate and House Radio-Television Press Gallery. The third area of NATV’s program focuses on government awareness as it claims to teach participants key elements of government (e.g., legislative process and history, grant writing, and budget and regulatory processes). A fourth area emphasized by NATV’s program provides an environmental studies course in order to teach participants about environmental issues and federal policies affecting the environment. NATV argues that these last two areas, though not completely journalistic in content, are necessary to educate students to better understand the news and the media as it relates to these two areas. Students are also trained in areas like web development. NATV estimates that each year it trains about thirty students aged 18–24 as part of its Washington semester program. William Butler, president of the Columbia School of Broadcasting said of NATV, “The goal is to set up a cable TV network that addresses all Native American issues—but also to train our own reporters and our own editors” (qtd. in Walker 2006). Individuals who have served on the board of NATV include chairman James May (Cherokee) and public affairs officer and entertainment community liaison Tara Ryan (Chickasaw/Choctaw). NATV board members have included John Echohawk (Pawnee), who has served as executive director of the Native American Rights Fund, Joe Garcia (Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo), who has served as president of the National Congress of American Indians, and Natalie Charley (Quinault), a marketing and public relations consultant and who has served as a member of the Potlatch Fund board of directors. Robert Cohencious, executive producer of Native American Television, also works as a media advocate on Native American representation issues including abolition of the Washington D.C. football team’s use of a racial slur as its name and mascot (in July 20202, plans to retire the name and mascot were announced). In addition to being a freelance producer and camera operator, Cohencious cites among other credentials, membership in the Native American Journalists Association beginning in 2015. Cohencious is also the founder of the previously mentioned CPTV. Elizabeth Lorenzen has served as NATV’s Capitol Hill and White House production coordinator. A NATV studio, located in Suite 524 of the Hall of States in Washington, DC, was given the name the “Chuck Kaster Studio,” to honor the memory of NATV’s founder who died in September 2002 from cancer before seeing his vision for a nationwide NATV channel fully realized. The studio was thought to be a first step in making a network a reality. Establishing studio production and training facilities in the Hall of States, which is located just across the street from the U.S. Capitol building was considered necessary to making NATV accessible to national newsmakers, policymakers, and the larger news media. Executive director at the time Randy Flood, a government relations specialist and consultant

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based in Norfolk, Virginia, supported the studio naming. In support of the NATV network, Flood argued that the 500 tribal nations in the United States could provide a news network if each of these tribal nations was represented by but one reporter. Neither Kaster nor Flood, despite overseeing NATV, have Native American heritage. NATV while not reaching its goal of achieving a nationwide cable television network for Native Americans has instead capitalized on its ability to offer journalism and technology training to Native American reporters and journalism students. This is notable given the lack of Native American representation within the ranks of those working in the journalism both in front of and behind the camera. Based on statistics from the Poynter Institute of Media Studies, it was estimated that of over 55,000 reporters, editors, and photographers working for newspapers that only about 300 of those people were Native American when NATV was conceived. By training thirty Native Americans per year through its Washington semester program, NATV could potentially double the Native Americans journalists working in the media in just ten years if every graduate pursued journalism as a professional career. Yet the challenge of increasing the representation of Native Americans in the ranks of journalists is not just about creating but also retaining journalists in the field. One challenge facing Native American journalists doing community-based reporting is navigating the complicated and sometimes harsh political implications of reporting on controversial community issues. Randy Flood envisioned NATV as a cultural preservation tool and yet the organization has not hesitated to cover issues that challenge Native American communities including controversial issues of sovereignty and rights of nations in relation to U.S. federal law and the role of gaming or gambling in determining the economic futures of Native American communities. The importance of Native American media projects like NATV is underscored by Laura J. Milliken, an Ojibwe TV producer for APTN, who argues that as a child popular TV shows left her with a distorted view of Indigenous culture and she rarely saw Native characters except as negative portrayals (Elash 2017). Through its history, NATV has dedicated itself to fostering positive and relevant media representations of Native Americans. Through producing empowering content and training future journalists, NATV has contributed to the diversity of the television media. Gordon Alley-Young Further Reading

Alia, Valerie. 2012. The New Media Nation: Indigenous Peoples and Global Communication. New York: Bergham Books. Butler, Monica Lynnette. 2008. “Check Your Local Listings: Indigenous Representation in Television.” Doctoral dissertation, Arizona State University. Cruz, Lenika. 2016. “A TV Network for Native Americans.” The Atlantic, February 19. ­https://​­w ww​.­t heatlantic​.­com ​/­e ntertainment ​/­a rchive​/­2016​/­02​/­n ative​-­a mericans​ -­television​/­463392​/. Elash, Anita. 2017. “Native Americans Don’t Have Their Own TV Channel: A Canadian Network Wants to Change That.” The World, March 13. ­ https://​­ www​ .­ pri​ .­ org​



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/­stories​/­2017​- ­03​-­13​/­native​-­americans​-­don​-­t​-­have​-­their​-­own​-­t v​-­channel​-­canadian​ -­network​-­wants​-­change. Kays, Holly. 2015. “Native American Journalists Face Unique Issues When It Comes to Free Press.” Smoky Mountain News, March 26. ­http://​­w ww​.­smokymountainnews​ .­com​/­news​/­item​/­16265​-­native​-­a merican​-­journalists​-­face​-­u nique​-­issues​-­when​-­it​ -­comes​-­to​-­f ree​-­press. “Native American Television Inc. is Coming!” 2006. Pow Wows. ­http://​­forums​.­powwows​ .­com​/­f 26​/­native​-­american​-­television​-­inc​-­coming​-­34329​/. Singer, Beverly R. 2001. Wiping the War Paint Off the Lens: Native American Film and Video. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Walker, Dionne. 2006. “Native American Cable TV Network in the Works.” Independent Record, July 19. ­http://​­helenair​.­com​/­news​/­national​/­native​-­american​-­cable​-­t v​ -­network​-­in​-­works​/­article​_63a4e00f​-­7afa​-­5836​-­92e3​-­961e51f9c3a6​.­html. Walker, Richard. 2007. “Nationwide Native News Channel Envisioned.” h­ttps://​ ­i ndiancountrymedianetwork​.­c om ​/­n ews​/­n ationwide​-­n ative​-­n ews​-­c hannel​ -­envisioned​/.

News Media Television as an entertainment media was an instant draw among viewers. The ability to see people, and not just hear voices over the radio was absolutely mesmerizing. Television was an extension of photography and would be used as photography: to affect social and cultural opinions. Now people could watch moving pictures in the comfort of their homes. In the late 1940s, the information and entertainment medium of television was introduced to the United States. In 1950, 9 percent of all households had one television set. By 1960, consumer demand exploded, as 90 percent of all households had at least one television set. The influence of television news shows was minimal until the early 1960s. Up to that time the major three networks, ABC, NBC, and CBS only offered one newscast daily. Usually in the evening, the broadcast was ten minutes long, which dictated the exclusion of significant national and international information. All networks expanded to fifteen minutes by the mid- to late 1950s and then to thirty minutes by 1963. Even with a thirty-minute news show, news was allotted approximately twelve to fourteen minutes, sports and weather fought over ten minutes, and the rest was used by commercials. From the inception of television news, the networks and individual stations were run exclusively by White males. From top to the bottom, from the CEO to the CFO, from news department executives, to producers, directors, studio camera operators, reporters, anchors, and everyone in-between, White men were in control. Critics not only lamented the lack of diversity but how that would shape the types of stories covered. The approach to the news was invariably privileging White voices and experiences. There would be little time for lengthy investigations and little interest in producing “Special Reports” on the experiences of communities of color, which cost money and didn’t generate a lot of commercial interest. The one exception was thirty-minute reports done by Edward R. Murrow.

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Murrow established his reputation as a radio broadcaster from London during the siege of Britain during World War II. Returning to the United States, he joined CBS and began broadcasting his weekly reports on See It Now. These programs were broadcast from 1951 to 1958. Producer Fred Friendly worked with Murrow on the broadcasts. Their most famous news broadcast was on March 9, 1954. The entire episode of the program addressed Senator Joseph McCarthy’s recent actions in attempting to ferret out Communists in the United States. By using film and audio clips of his speeches, See it Now exposed McCarthy as a liar and a bully. ABC News also played an important part in the downfall of McCarthy by broadcasting live the McCarthy hearings, which began on April 22, 1954. ABC, which had no daytime schedule of programming, was the only network to air the McCarthy hearings in their entirety. From the late 1950s to the early 1960s, viewers saw little snippets of television news about the civil rights movement in the South. Images of African Americans being knocked down by fire hoses, guard dogs whipped into a frenzy and attacking people, vicious police beatings on the streets of southern cities did move decent citizens of the United States to question what was happening and why. Yet according to commentators, it would be naive to believe civil rights information coming in from the South made huge changes in the North when so little time was allotted with short reports. At the same time, there was expressed confusion from White audiences about African Americans and why voting rights were needed. Few news sources offered an explanation about the obstacles put in front of African Americans to ensure many could not register to vote, and if they did register how they were often kept from voting by threats, violence, and intimidation. While true that television news in the early 1960s was a help in raising awareness of southern civil rights issues, it was not the end-all to be-all, and not the huge catalyst for change as mentioned in some reports. It would be many years before documentaries, especially shown on the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), would have the impact of providing deeply informative and lengthy civil rights information. National news broadcasts stumbled along trying to figure out its “identity” and its relationship to viewers. With the televised debate between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960, news executives began to recognize how they might influence public opinion. When John Kennedy was sworn in on January 20, 1961, viewers began to believe that possibly this young, bright president just might be the conduit to bring some degree of racial equality and understanding among the ethnic groups in the United States. Many concluded that when Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, Texas, in November 1963, the hopes of racial change were dashed across the nation. As part of the national mourning many people watched nonstop television news coverage of the assassination, and then the almost unbelievable murder of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby in front of a phalanx of police officers, reporters, and live cameras. Lyndon Baines Johnson, now President Johnson, returned to Washington quickly and over several weeks made sure Kennedy’s Civil Rights Act came to fruition. By now, there was no question of the powerful images that could be telecast into everyone’s living room.



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The social unrest of the 1960s continued to be a focus of major news, especially the multiple assassinations of public figures. Medgar Evers, an African American civil rights activist in Mississippi was shot and killed outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi, four months before the JFK murder in Dallas, and one week after Evers’s home was firebombed. Evers’s killing was reported with little detail and with little coverage. In February 1965, Malcolm X, a former member of the Nation of Islam was gunned down while making a speech in New York City. The murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968 was really a shot heard around the nation. African Americans expressed deep shock and despair over the loss of the man rightly considered by them as the leader of the broader African American population. Whites also respected King although that respect often was filtered through a racial perspective that saw King as an African American moderate (a “token”) and less of a racial threat than some African American activists. As word of Dr. King’s death spread around the United States, riots broke out in at least 100 cities. The death toll was reported at 39, with at least 2,500 people injured. That night, Robert Kennedy spoke in Indiana and urged residents to try to stay calm. Kennedy talked about how he felt when told his brother had been gunned down just five years earlier. When Robert F. Kennedy was murdered only four months later in Los Angeles, California, the White press went so far as to question whether there was any future for better race relations. There were other major new stories throughout the 1960s, prime among them the televised Vietnam combat. This television war was never officially declared a “war” by the Department of Defense (DOD) in the United States and was called the U.S. War in Vietnam. Television viewers were becoming spoiled by the “instantaneous” nature of news programs popping up when they were scheduled, and during the Vietnam conflict there were more frequent “Special Reports” with reporters’ brief updates. Time was expensive and many reports were fed back to the United States by satellite phones. Other reports were read by a reporter, but the footage seen was usually from battles filmed the day before, allowing time for shipping the film to London, on the battlefield, or to the United States to develop prior to broadcasting. As the number of soldiers being shipped to Vietnam rapidly increased in 1965–1967, the increase in casualties also increased. By 1967, the troop total was near 500,000. American deaths jumped to 5,373, which was 2,000 more than the previous year. Young, mostly White men began looking for a way to avoid the draft. There were a number of exemptions: being enrolled in college, being the sole provider for a family or an elderly parent, or claiming health disabilities. Some disabilities were real, others creatively imagined. Religious beliefs against war was another possible exemption. Young African American men did not have a lot of these options, and they were brought home and seen on television in body bags in record numbers. The casualty numbers were often hard to pin down. But there did seem to be a disproportionate number of African Americans killed compared to White soldiers. In 1966, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara started a program called “Project 100,000.” The program lowered the enlistment standards. The next three years included recruitment of over 200,000 soldiers

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through “Project 100,000.” Forty-one percent of these men were African American, although African American men only made up about 11 percent of the U.S. population. Canada claimed that over 20,000 men, mostly White, moved to Canada to dodge the U.S. draft. One prominent African American man who garnered huge attention in the U.S. television press as a self-described draft dodger was a boxer by the name of Cassius Clay. He was a well-known and popular athlete. In 1964, Malcolm X recruited Cassius Clay into the Nation of Islam. Clay then changed his name to Muhammad Ali and refused to accept his draft into the military in Vietnam on religious grounds. Thus, began a contentious fight between Ali and the government, a fight followed by the television news media, where everyone took sides. Television reporters asked why Ali wouldn’t fight for a country that provided him so much, as if he hadn’t earned his championships in the ring. David Susskind used his weekly television program, The David Susskind Show, to pummel Ali, making the following statements, in part, “I find nothing amusing or interesting or tolerable about this man. . . . he is a disgrace to his country . . . he is a simplistic fool and a pawn.” Susskind repeated most of these sentiments during a radio interview on The Eamon Andrews Show in the United Kingdom (UK). Responding to these criticisms, Ali capitalized on his charisma and ubiquity on television to offer a clear explanation for his choices. Ali said, in part, “My conscience won’t let me shoot my brother or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America. . . . They never called me nigger, they never lynched me . . . they didn’t rape and kill my mother and father . . . Just take me to jail.” These comments were made during an interview on the Howard Cosell Television show. Cosell was a friend of Ali throughout his career, one of the few White TV sports broadcasters to stand up for him. Ali became almost an instant icon for the antiwar protestors. When Ali refused to accept his draft status, he was quickly arrested, charged, and convicted of a felony. Avoiding jail while waiting on appeal, he was stripped of his license and several of his titles were taken away. By the time his appeal was granted in 1971, the public tide against the Vietnam War was turning against the U.S. government. The increasing number of television pictures showing body bags returning from the fighting took its toll on public opinion and even government officials. Television news played a substantial hastening of the end of the Vietnam conflict.

TELEVISION AND THE SHAPING OF OUR PERCEPTION OF RACE AND CRIME Beginning in 1970, news coverage has been increasingly focused on ratings. Higher ratings meant an increase in how much a station could charge for commercials. It was commonly known among the people who decided what news to cover that crime was a ratings grabber. According to critics, this has contributed to a focus on more sensationalized stories, including those dealing with crime. This ethos repeated almost daily somewhere in some newsroom was



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boiled down to five words: “If it bleeds, it leads.” The race was then on to find the most noxious crimes, the most devastating fires where people were burned to death (and referred to, off-air, as “crispy critters”), stabbings, beatings, shootings, rapes (especially involving children), horrible auto accidents with mangled cars and people. Crime reporting began to look like movies with no end. Reporting of crimes perpetrated by African Americans against Whites were cited more often even when the crime statistics did not bear out those reports. The news stations were slow to report on the growing threat of shootings by police officers against African American young men, even to the point of almost ignoring those crimes. The attitude of the news media was that if African Americans were killing each other, who really cared? If police were killing African American young men they probably deserved it, so why take up precious news time to cover those stories? Substantial research reports, done mainly in the 1990s and into the 2000s acknowledged the news bias based on the issues of race and crime. In 2000, Travis L. Dixon of the University of Michigan and Daniel Linz of UC Santa Barbara published in the Journal of Communication the results of their studies of local television news broadcasts in Los Angeles and Orange counties in California and found that, when compared against relevant crime data, “African-Americans were overrepresented as perpetrators . . . and further the study showed that whites were overrepresented as police officers, despite significant numbers of racial minorities in law enforcement in the counties studied” (Dixon and Linz 2006) Since then, Travis Dixon, now at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has updated his research with a paper published in 2015 in Communication Research, along with Charlotte L. Williams of the University of Arkansas. “The Changing Misrepresentation of Race and Crime on Network and Cable News,” looked at a wide range of news programming, concluding that not only does television news reflect longstanding racial stereotypes, but their dissemination also influences racial views and policy opinions.

DIVERSITY IN THE NEWS BUSINESS During the years between 1970 to (roughly) 1990, network and local news shows occasionally hired a few African American anchors or reporters. The first African American male network and local anchor was Max Robinson. Robinson was first hired in 1959 for a “White only” job in Portsmouth. He was situated behind a white screen as he read the news. His White coanchor didn’t have that restriction. One night, Robinson removed the screen so viewers could see he was African American. He was fired the following day. Robinson moved to the Washington, DC, area and covered local news for WTOP in 1969. In this job, he was awarded two local Emmy Awards. His excellence in reporting led him to a threeanchor position for ABC’s World News Tonight in 1978. Robinson anchored from Chicago, Peter Jennings was in London, and Frank Reynolds anchored in Washington, DC. Robinson left ABC in 1983 and finished his career as the first African American anchor at WMAQ-TV in Chicago. He died in 1988. Before his death,

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Robinson ardently campaigned for better and more realistic broadcasting of stories relevant to African American lives. He also founded the National Association of Black Journalists. In 1980, CNN hired their first African American male anchor Bernard Shaw, who anchored and reported from 1980 until his retirement in 2001. By 2018, CNN added some other African American anchors, including Don Lemon and Fredricka Whitfield. CNN now boasts a fairly inclusive and diverse staff. January 25,1980, brought forth the only pay-TV channel owned by an African American male, Robert L. Johnson. He called it the Black Entertainment Television (BET) division. In 1983, it became a complete channel with full programming, including an attempted news show in 1988. The news program(s) were not a popular choice for viewers, and BET became a channel with awards shows, music shows, situation comedy reruns, and some Christian programming. Johnson, then a multimillionaire, retired in 2005 and BET was purchased by Viacom for $3 billion. In 1982, ABC hired Carole Estelle Simpson, an African American female news anchor. She was the weekend anchor for ABC World News Tonight. The first African American female to broadcast radio news in Chicago, she would anchor the weekend show from 1988 to 2003. She had a contract with ABC until 2005. After that, she moved to WMAQ-TV and on to NBC News in 1975, becoming the first African American female to anchor a major network newscast. The Public Broadcasting System (PBS) hired Gwen Ifill in 2004. She moderated the vice-presidential debates in 2004 and 2008, first between Dick Cheney and John Edwards and then between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin. From August 2013 to October 2016, she was the coanchor of the daily PBS Newshour, and on Fridays she anchored Washington Week. Ifill died in November 2016 from breast and endometrial cancer. Following in the footsteps of these cultural TV icons were increased numbers of reporters of color, mostly in local news shows across the United States. Cities with more racially diverse populations tended to hire more racially diverse anchors and reporters. In Los Angeles, Fox News hired the Emmy award-winning anchor and reporter Tony McEwing in 1993 to report for and anchor news segments for their Good Day LA morning show. Prior to his employment at Fox News he had anchored for twelve years at KXTV-10 in Sacramento, California. McEwing was still at Good Day LA in 2019. There are other anchors of color (mostly male) who have worked in city news departments, most regularly in Chicago, New York, Washington, DC, Baltimore, and Dallas, but few as long as McEwing. There are only a handful of network news anchor positions available. As of 2019, Lester Holt, an African American male was the lead anchor for NBC: the only person of color to anchor a network newscast at that time.

CHANGE IN NEWS STRUCTURE IMPACTS NIGHTLY COVERAGE By the late 1980s to early 1990s, most mainstream TV outlets had been sold or restructured. Entertainment companies were the big buyers, sometimes in



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collaboration with other money-rich companies that wanted to add television outlets to their portfolios. These sales drastically changed the content of national news broadcasts, as news departments became less focused on news reporting and more on news events. News broadcasts became more entertainment focused, and major news stories became more like mini-movies, with lengthier newscasts focused on one story. NBC was bought from Radio Corporation of America (RCA) by General Electric (GE) in 1986. In 2003, French Media merged with GE, forming NBC Universal. In 2011 Comcast purchased a controlling interest in NBC Universal and in 2013 acquired the remaining GE stock. In 1996, ABC became a subsidiary of the Disney Media Networks, a division of the Walt Disney Company. It was not unusual for the last story on the network news presentation to be a preview for an upcoming Disney movie, or an advertisement for a re-release of Disney classics. Cable News Network (CNN) made its debut in 1980. It was the world’s first 24-hour cable news outlet. CNN is owned by AT&T’s Time Warner division. Fox News is owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of 20th Century Fox. Fox was created by Rupert Murdoch, launched in 1996 and in 2018 faced a challenge from his daughter for control of the company. In 1999, CBS Corporation was purchased by Viacom. The new CEO, Laurence Tisch did immeasurable damage to CBS, firing staff, reporters, and anchors; closing overseas news bureaus and cutting budgets to barebones. CBS, which split from Viacom in 2006, never recovered from the cuts of their overseas bureaus. CNN stepped in and became the go-to station for natural disasters, wars, and other massive tragedies. The advent of cell phones with cameras began showing viewers more violent crimes, especially those against African Americans by police officers and potential crimes located in smaller communities. On March 3, 1991, Rodney King was beaten almost to death by Los Angeles police officers. The police reported that King had been speeding, was pursued by LAPD officers, eventually numbering twenty-one, and that King was beaten by three of the officers while the others watched. Video of the beating was taken by a passer-by and was shown almost constantly by local TV stations, as well on the national newscasts. The White press routinely reported this horrific attack as an aberration. Black press reported an entirely different story: that King’s beating was part of a much wider practice by the LAPD and that there had been frequent protests and complaints up to and including Police Chief Daryl Gates with no resolution. In 1994, Orenthal James (O. J.) Simpson, a well-recognized retired football player was arrested for the slashing murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and a waiter, Ron Goldman who happened to be returning a pair of glasses Ms. Brown had left at the restaurant nearby. The murders were horrific. There were no television news cameras or cell-phone videos covering the crimes. The White-backed news media outlets lined up on the side against Simpson, an African American, and the Black-owned magazines and newspapers lined up supporting the innocence of Simpson. When the judge decided to allow cameras in the courtroom, the circus marched right through the doors. The judge played to the cameras, the

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prosecutors and defense attorneys played to the cameras, and approximately 5.5 million people watched daily from home and work for the entire 134 days of the trial. CNN and Court TV provided twenty-four-hour, seven days a week coverage (24/7). NBC finally caved for the ratings and began broadcasting at least one show about the trial each week. Reporters were even interviewing each other. The judge asked for Larry King’s autograph. According to Ellen Caldwell, the Simpson trial would forever change television news, “In both analyses, the journalistic media frenzy and ‘Simpsonization’ of the case shaped and potentially distorted the world of the reader and viewer. The media’s implicit racism and the birth of the 24-hour-news-coverage brought us into the world we know today, where TV lineups are abound with ‘reality’ shows, hyper-news coverage, and true-life crime stories” (2016). Every television outlet watched as CNN ratings ballooned during the Simpson trial, and they could not ignore the call of increased revenues. Within two years, every network began airing a variety of crime shows. In 2005, PBS’s Frontline published a thorough report entitled Rating the Media’s Performance, comprised of lengthy interviews with television critics, executives, and anchors. They were all asked questions about the coverage of the Simpson trial and were almost unanimous in giving the television outlets failing grades. Two decades later, the news media remains a source of debate and controversy surrounding its coverage of racial issues, its role in perpetuating stereotypes, and its potential to give voice to persistent inequalities and color lines. Evidence of its place as both a truth teller and concealer, the television news continues to play a vital role in shaping conversations about race and racism. Maria Elena Raymond Further Reading

Babb, Kent. 2014. “How the O. J. Simpson Murder Trial 20 Years Ago Changed the Media Landscape.” Washington Post, June 9. ­https://​­w ww​.­washingtonpost​.­com​/­sports​ /­redskins​/ ­how​-­t he​-­oj​-­simpson​-­murder​-­t rial​-­20​-­years​-­ago​-­changed​-­t he​-­media​ -­landscape​/­2014​/­06​/­09​/­a6e21df8​-­eccf​-­11e3​-­93d2​-­edd4be1f5d9e​_story​.­html. Barthel, Michael. 2016. “Five Key Takeaways about the State of the News Media in 2016.” Pew Research Center. ­http://​­w ww​.­journalism​.­org​/­2016​/­06​/­15​/­state​-­of​-­the​-­news​ -­media​-­2016. Caldwell, Ellen. 2016. “O. J. Simpson: Media Spectacle Then and Now.” JSTOR Daily, April 25. ­https://​­daily​.­jstor​.­org​/­o​-­j​-­simpson​-­media​-­and​-­spectacle​-­then​-­and​-­now​/. Dixon, Travis, and Daniel Linz. 2006. “Overrepresentation and Underrepresentation of African Americans and Latinos as Lawbreakers on Television News.” Journal of Communication 50 (2) (June): 131–154. Dixon, Travis, and Charlotte Williams. 2015. “The Changing Misrepresentation of Race and Crime on Network and Cable News.” Journal of Communication 65 (1) (February): 24–39. Lowry, Brian. 2017. “O. J. Simpson Hearing: A Blast from the Media Past.” CNN, July 20. ­https://​­money​.­cnn​.­com​/­2017​/­07​/­20​/­media​/­t v​-­coverage​-­oj​-­simpson​/­index​.­html. Madrigal, Alexis. 2018. “When the Revolution Was Televised.” The Atlantic, April 1. ­https://​­w ww​.­theatlantic​.­com ​/­technology​/­archive​/­2018​/­04​/­televisions​-­civil​-­r ights​ -­revolution​/­554639​/.



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Pew Research Center. 2005. “Rating the Media’s Performance.” ­https://​­www​.­pbs​.­org​ /­wgbh​/­pages​/­f rontline​/­oj​/­themes​/­media​.­html. Pew Research Center. 2017. “Americans’ Online News Use Is Closing in on TV News Use.” September 17. ­https://​­w ww​.­pewresearch​.­org​/­fact​-­tank​/­2017​/­09​/­07​/­americans​ -­online​-­news​-­use​-­vs​-­t v​-­news​-­use​/.­ Wihbey, John. 2005. “Racial Bias and News Media Reporting: New Research Trends.” Journalist’s Resource, May 20. ­https://​­journalistsresource​.­org​/­studies​/­society​ /­news​-­media​/­racial​-­bias​-­reporting​-­research​-­t rends​/.

New Television New Television can be defined various ways: (1) it is the incorporation of original content creation on various television viewing platforms with the emphasis on providing a less mainstream content but a content that is not readily accessible and relatable. It is, thus, about creating a space for more specific viewers without the requirement of being accepted by all U.S. viewers. (2) It also represents the ways that television viewers can access content, including the creation of digital television such as on demand, DVR, and streaming. By the late 2010s, scholars and commentators began to define new television as a combination of all of the above: it refers to the means to make content conveniently accessible; on demand viewing of prior television series and films; and the viewing of original content created for a broader range of audiences in the age of internet streaming. Scholars note that the ability to create original content for specific audiences allows new television to create a more inclusive relatability for viewers. Greater access for viewers across racial, ethnic, and national lines has resulted in increased diversity across television. Much of this increased representation has occurred in original content by various cable networks and online platforms that evolved from only rebroadcasting films and series created by other networks. Original content allows networks to rely less on the productions of other networks and film companies. Original content has become the central component defining new television.

THE GENERATION OF CABLE TELEVISION AS NEW TELEVISION Hernan Galperin, in New Television, Old Politics: The Transition to Digital TV in the United States and Britain (2004), concludes that the technology of High Definition Television (HDTV) began in Japan during the 1980s. Galperin states that the production of televisions with HD technologies in Japan created a need and desire from the U.S. government. In the 1980s, the U.S. government initiated a program with hopes to digitize television through a series of policies that incentivized companies that previously had been averse to economic risk. The United States had previously attempted Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) but with little success because of the overall lack of support and investment from companies.

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At this moment, the United States saw an introduction of original content. The Home Box Office (HBO) cable channel was the pioneer of original paid for television and film creation. HBO began in 1972 by Time Inc., with the original purpose of showing uncut and commercial-free movies at the cost of the cable subscriber. In the 1980s, HBO began expanding with another station, Cinemax, in order to compete with Showtime, another premium cable channel created in the likeness of HBO. HBO’s focus on original content would not truly gain recognition until the late 1990s. The Sopranos (1999–2007), along with Sex in the City (1998–2004) and the miniseries Band of Brothers (2001), began a succession of productions that would be synonymous with HBO and its focus on original content. These shows brought a new type of content, creating something for adults whose viewing habits differ from what major broadcasting stations were able to provide. Over time, HBO would become more diverse in its content and in the racial makeup of the characters in their series and films. HBO’s creation of original content was not solely available on subscribers’ cable boxes, but it was also sold in VHS and DVD form to continue profit in the aftermarket. HBO’s most diverse shows in content and characters began with The Wire (2002–2008), which was a series located in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, sharing the various experiences of the people residing within this inner city and the consistent presence of the police. The series displayed realities of the social situations in U.S. inner cities, without a necessity to cover up or hold back content. It was a catalyst for the creation of textbooks dedicated to analyzing the series in regard to race, policing, violence, drug use, and various other realities in U.S. American society that have often been depicted incorrectly in television and film. HBO began this new reality-type scripted television. HBO paved the way for original television content resulting in more and more networks, including AMC and USA, and eventually streaming services like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu focusing on original content.

NEW TELEVISION AND THE WORLDWIDE WEB In the 2000s, the new television as we know it today launched. The connection of the Worldwide Web with digital television was the first endeavor. Between the year 2000 and 2015, the number of persons around the world, with access to the internet, improved massively. In 2000, three in twelve persons in developed countries, such as the United States, had access to the internet. By 2015, ten in twelve persons in these same countries had access to the internet. According to the Pew Research Center, by 2017, Americans owned a cellphone at the rate of 95 percent, with 77 percent of those cellphones being smart phones. This was a significant increase in just a few years. In 2011, Pew found that only 35 percent of Americans owned smartphones. This major increase aligns with the increase of streaming videos, from YouTube to more professionally developed video content on platforms such as Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video. Due to the digital technology, first promoted in the 1980s, the technologies of communication have become



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interconnected, creating a platform of television access that does not reside simply in traditional television channels that adhere to preset broadcasting times, but rather, it allows for access at any time and potentially from anywhere, as long as the internet is available. Smartphone technology has created increased availability and accessibility of television content. Scholars note that accessibility is mostly defined as being able to watch television, but the content and representation within shows defines another form of accessibility for the audience. Content and representation in television is important in keeping and increasing viewers. Due to the more independent nature of new television in digital forms, viewers have more content options, and the production of television has become more diverse in all realms. However, the realm of streaming television that focuses on the creation of original content has allowed viewers with specific niches to get cheaper and more convenient access to the content they enjoy.

THE DIVIDE AND THE MOVE TO THE WORLDWIDE WEB FROM CABLE The habits of television viewing are not the same for every television viewer. Nevertheless, the traditional viewing of prescheduled broadcasting on a home television has decreased for all Americans. Watching television on time shifted platforms (such as on demand and DVR) and online has increased in recent years. According to the Nielsen Company, Americans have increased time-shifted viewing by an hour a month in the third quarter of 2014 and increased online viewing by four hours in the same period. The data shows that there is a continual increase in online viewing of television. Netflix, along with other streaming companies, those that allow viewing of their video content online, have extended the digital formatting of the 1980s. Television historians and other commentators have argued that Netflix, responding to shifting viewers’ habits and shifting technologies, has transformed the television landscape. By 2017, the major streaming companies had created their own original content to compete against other streaming providers and, of course, the networks accessed through cable. Building on HBO’s focus on original content. Netflix saw an opportunity to not only stream television shows and movies but also to create its own content as well. Netflix began in 1997 as a company accessed through the internet to have DVDs mailed to costumers at home for a monthly fee, in which the customers return the DVD at any time, also through the U.S. postal service. One decade later, Netflix began streaming content, which greatly increased their subscriptions. By 2010, the company had over 20 million subscribers (CNN). Prior to 2012, the streaming services of Netflix contained content from other networks only, until the release of their first original content show Lilyhammer. In 2013, Netflix announced officially the launch of original content production as a new endeavor, with their second series, House of Cards (2013–2018), starring two-time Academy Award winner Kevin Spacey. During its first season, House of Cards received eight Emmy nominations; that following year, it received thirteen nominations, placing Netflix on the map for original content, and in line with

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HBO’s original path. In 2013, the chief content officer of Netflix, Ted Sarandos, stated that their goal was “to become HBO faster than HBO can become us” (Adalian 2015). Continuing to follow HBO’s trajectory, Netflix began showcasing more diverse content as it became more stable with its audience and more respected in its original content, just as HBO had done. In 2013, the Netflix original series Orange Is the New Black (2013–2019) premiered. By 2014, it was Netflix’s most watched original series. This series chronicles the experiences of a diverse group of incarcerated women, offering yet another look at the injustice faced inside and outside of America’s system of mass incarceration. While Orange Is the New Black was not the first television prison drama, it would be a pioneer in terms of representation of women’s prisons. Its representation highlighted the diversity of the experiences of incarcerated women, not only challenging existing narratives but also paving the way for more diverse content on Netflix. By demonstrating a market for shows focused on and reflecting a level of diversity in characters and content, Orange Is the New Black would transform television in significant ways. Just as HBO became more critically acclaimed and diverse original content proved sustainable, Netflix was also able to invest more in diverse content, including content that would focus on the experiences of one community even as it demonstrates the diversity and range of experiences within that community. For example, Netflix began producing Luke Cage (2016–2018) in 2016. Building on the popularity of the Marvel superhero comic of the same name, Luke Cage (Mike Colter) chronicles the experience of a man who gains his newfound abilities following a prison experiment on him that left him with super strength and unbreakable skin. After escaping from prison and moving back to Harlem, he eventually starts his career as a crime fighter, battling the underbelly of his community. Minus two main characters, Hernan “Shades” Alvarez (Theo Rossi), and Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson), all main characters are Black. They include Academy Award nominee Alfre Woodard who plays Mariah Dillard and Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali who plays Cornell “Cottonmouth” Stokes. Luke Cage not only focuses on the heroics of the show’s main character but also offers a glimpse at the community that he resides in, including numerous story lines about a group of powerful women of color committed to justice. Commentators have praised the show for its efforts to celebrate Black history, to showcase the music of Black artists from the past and present, and for its social commentary. Scholars have argued that Netflix’s success reflects their ability to move quickly in show creation and in the development of new concepts and ideas. Their lack of overhead is part of the reasons for their success. Major networks have spent decades creating data on and providing analysis of what is and what is not good television, what times are best for what shows, what content is most likely to receive continued viewers, and what character types will be most attractive to viewers. Streaming content producers are less wedded to these formulaic approaches. Content creators like Netflix and other online streaming companies often speak about differences in working for these platforms, which allow for more creativity, greater diversity in terms of racial



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representation, story lines, and so much more. For example, the Netflix drama Narcos (2015), primarily set in Columbia, brings a set of story lines, voices, and experiences rarely shown on television. Chris Brancato, cocreator of the series expressed a hesitancy in requesting the use of Spanish in the series due to prior experiences with network television. While wanting to use Spanish subtitles in 30 percent of the show, Netflix encouraged him to go as high as 40 percent. Cindy Holland, the vice president of original content at Netflix, prioritized the vision of the content producers and the viewing habits of Netflix subscribers. At Amazon, another leading streaming platform with original content, the head of the studios, Roy Price, focuses on saying yes to a production idea based on the “underlying humanity of the characters, regardless of how they look” (Boboltz and Williams 2016). One of Amazon’s most popular shows, Transparent (2014–2019), chronicles the experiences of a trans woman, Maura (Jeffrey Tambor). Bridget Bedard, the show’s cocreator, stated that Amazon allowed greater freedom in exploring this story line. This is commonplace with new technology television. Jayson Jackson, who worked on What Happened, Miss Simone? (2015), highlighted another difference. During his experiences at Netflix, he noticed that a willingness to produce shows that lacked star power or celebrities was often seen as the driving force behind a profitable show. Critics note that streaming shows, like their counterparts on broadcast network television, still have areas to improve with respect to diversity in representation. Yet, they continue to push content otherwise unavailable within popular culture, giving voice to experiences, story lines, and voices otherwise erased from mainstream culture.

CURRENT AND FUTURE STATE OF STREAMING As of 2016, the Morgan Stanley annual survey on video streaming showed that Netflix occupied the number one spot for non-cable and premium networks in original programming. HBO would come in second, followed by Showtime, Amazon, and Hulu. The Morgan Stanley survey revealed that subscribers to Netflix listed original content as their reason for maintaining subscriptions at 45 percent. In 2016, Netflix was scheduled to release thirty-one original shows totaling 600 hours. Netflix’s creation of original content would also lead television networks to begin hosting their own content online in a pay streaming service, which would make content licenses more expensive or even impossible for Netflix and other streaming companies. Major television networks already make their shows available free online although with commercials. More recently, these same networks, like CBS, have created paid spaces where viewers can access shows without commercials. This model has affected other streaming services. For example, current CBS series are not available on Hulu. Even the originator of new television has changed with the advances within the industry. HBO now has a streaming service. HBO Go is an application available

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to subscribers of HBO or those who simply want to watch its content online. In 2020, HBO launched HBO Max, which not only made movies and their original content available via streaming but also added a myriad of other original content and popular programs unavailable elsewhere. Across all streaming services, the costs of streaming non-original content, has furthered the importance of creating new original content. For example, as Disney moved its films and shows off other platforms onto its own Disney+, which launched in November 2019, or Friends (1994–2004) went off Netflix (to HBO Max), there has been increased pressure to create new original programming that is both innovative and meeting needs of viewers. Ava DuVernay’s 13th (2016) is evident of this approach. This documentary is evidence of both the business and creative models embraced by Netflix, not only in terms of providing a platform for diverse creation but also in extensive accessibility. As Netflix creates more streaming productions, the aftermarket access that HBO had in creating and selling VHSs and DVDs is currently not a part of Netflix’s production. 13th is accessible by persons with internet and Netflix access only—it creates a hindrance. Netflix gave permission to group screenings of the documentary for educational purposes, that was and still is highly utilized. On their Media center site Netflix states: “The documentary [13th] may only be accessed via the Netflix service, by a Netflix account holder. We don’t sell DVDs, nor can we provide other ways for you to exhibit the film. The screening must be nonprofit and noncommercial. That means you can’t charge admission, or solicit donations, or accept advertising or commercial sponsorships in connection with the screening” (Netflix). With high demand, Netflix created the avenue to meet it. As new television continues to grow, Netflix, along with other streaming companies, will encounter hurdles. However, evidence from the past four decades shows that technology will continue to alter television not only in terms of how, where, and when viewers watch but the types of content available, demonstrating the ways new television technology can foster diversity and equity on and off screen. LaToya Brackett Further Reading

Adalian, Joseph. 2015. “How Netflix’s Original Programming Is Poised to Outpace the Top Cable Networks, in One Chart.” Vulture, July 28. ­http://​­www​.­v ulture​.­com​ /­2015​/­07​/­netflix​-­original​-­programming​-­hbo​-­fx​.­html. Boboltz, Sara, and Brennan Williams. 2016. “If You Want to See Diversity Onscreen, Watch Netflix.” Huffington Post, February 26. ­http://​­www​.­huffingtonpost​.­com​ /­entry​/­streaming​-­sites​-­diversity​_us​_56c61240e4b0b40245c96783. CNN. 2014. “A Brief History of Netflix.” CNN, July 21. ­http://​­www​.­cnn​.­com​/­2014​/­07​/­21​ /­showbiz​/­gallery​/­netflix​-­history​/­index​.­html. Davidson, Jacob. 2015. “Here’s How Many Internet Users There Are.” TIME, May 26. ­http://​­time​.­com​/­money​/­3896219​/­internet​-­users​-­worldwide​/. Galperin, Hernan. 2004. New Television, Old Politics: The Transition to Digital TV in the United States and Britain. New York: Cambridge University Press. McAlone, Nathan. 2016. “Netflix Now Has Better Programming than HBO, According to New Survey.” Business Insider, April 11. ­https://​­w ww​.­businessinsider​.­com​ /­netflix​-­has​-­better​-­programming​-­than​-­hbo​-­2016​- ­4.



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Newswire. 2014. “Content is King, But Viewing Habits Vary by Demographic.” Newswire, December 3. ­http://​­www​.­nielsen​.­com​/­us​/­en​/­insights​/­news​/­2014​/­content​-­is​-­king​ -­but​-­viewing​-­habits​-­vary​-­by​-­demographic​.­html.

Night Of, The (2016) Premiering on Home Box Office (HBO) network on July 10, 2016, and airing until August 28, 2016, The Night Of proved to be a critical success, captivating a small community of viewers. The pilot was made available two weeks earlier, June 24, 2016, for HBO’s on-demand and online streaming services. The show was written by cocreators Steven Zaillian (Schindler’s List, 1993; Moneyball, 2011) and Richard Price (The Wire, 2002–2008; The Deuce, 2017–2019). Filming for the show took place in and around New York City, including inside the Queens Detention Facility (Ellis-Petersen 2016). It won five Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie to Riz Ahmed. The show’s ratings climbed as it progressed, the premiere attracting about 774,000 viewers the day it was aired and the finale 2.1 million viewers, for an average 7 million viewers per week. An eight-part miniseries, The Night Of is a contemporary crime drama inspired by the first season of the 2008 British television show Criminal Justice. It follows the grisly murder of Andrea Cornish (Sofia Black-D’Elia), a twenty-two-year-old White woman, and Nasir “Naz” Khan (Riz Ahmed), the Pakistani-American college kid accused of murdering her. While the show is primarily a foray into the injustices of the American criminal justice system, Naz’s ethnicity and religion play a predominant role in the series’

Ahmed, Riz (1982–) Riz Ahmed plays the lead role, Nasir “Naz” Khan, in HBO’s The Night Of. Ahmed was born in London, England, on December 1, 1982. A son of Pakistani immigrants, Riz has built an acting and rapping career on the need for more cultural representation of minorities. His first film role was in Michael Winterbottom’s 2006 The Road to Guantanamo, a docudrama depicting the story of the “Tipton Three,” British citizens of South Asian descent who were detained and tortured by the U.S. government as enemy combatants while traveling to Pakistan and Afghanistan. The three were detained in 2001 and released, without charge, in 2004. The film depicts the extrajudicial detentions by the U.S. government during the onset of the War on Terror with a critical lens. Ahmed has been an outspoken critic of caricatures and harmful stereotypes. He has drawn attention to activism through his roles and has tried to promote more racial and ethnic representation across media, speaking at the U.K. House of Commons on the subject and, in his Emmy Award acceptance speech for The Night Of (2016) in 2017, acknowledging the work of South Asian Youth Action (SAYA) and the Innocence Project, groups working in the development of programs for South Asian youth in New York City and for the exoneration of wrongly convicted persons, respectively.

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plot and subtext, highlighting the Muslim American experience in post-9/11 New York City. Embracing noir themes (sinister crimes, moral ambiguity) and style (the lighting remains dark and shadowy throughout), the show takes the viewer into the seedier crevices of the criminal justice system, from fluorescent-tube lit courtrooms to the damp prison cells of Riker’s Island. The scene of the crime is presented in the pilot: a ten-million-dollar brownstone on the Upper West Side, full of taxidermy and vintage furnishings, a well-stocked alcohol cabinet, and an upstairs bedroom bloodied from the twenty-two stab wounds that pierced Andrea’s body. As the events of the night unfold, Naz passes out from a cocktail of amphetamine, Special K, alcohol, and ecstasy, and a block of time is missing from his memory from when he is in the bedroom where Andrea was killed to when he awakens in the kitchen. Within that darkened memory lays Andrea’s murder. This is where The Night Of, unlike other crime dramas, opens up a space for commentary on race and ethnicity and on the stereotypes and biases prevalent in American society. The show links its characters’ racial, ethnic, and cultural biases to this blank space and shows that therein lies the opportunity for both defense and prosecution to portray Naz as a particular kind of person by playing on his ethno-religious identity. The jury then decides which person they believe the defendant to be. John Stone (John Turturro), Naz’s defense attorney and a lowly “precinct crawler” who earns his keep by plea-bargaining for low-level criminals, describes the trial process to Naz: “They come up with their story, we come up with ours. The jury decides which they like better” (episode two, “Subtle Beast,” 2016). In the finale, “The Call of the Wild,” the prosecutor for the District Attorney Helen Weiss (Jeannie Berlin) shows the jury a redacted file from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in her closing argument: “When you file a request for a document from the FBI under the Freedom of Info Act, this is what you get,” she says. “It’s called a redacted document, edited to render unreadable any content the FBI deems a threat to national security, or more often to the security of the workings of the FBI itself. Redaction equals self-preservation.” (Episode eight, “The Call of the Wild,” 2016)

That The Night Of directly links redaction as a tool for the self-preservation of national security to Naz’s memory carries with it a particular weight precisely because it invokes the real-life redaction practices utilized by the State and especially the City of New York Police Department (NYPD) and FBI under the USA Patriot Act (2001) to widely expand surveillance targeting Muslims, tactics which have been argued infringe on civil liberties. Naz’s case can be seen as a metaphor taken to its end—a Muslim American man profiled, detained, and made criminal by the State before an investigation is undergone; and a public that follows suit in its own judgments. The show takes great lengths to connect the trial to its national context, which highlights the theme of Muslim criminalization post-9/11. Naz’s character is shown to come of age as a South Asian youth in that context—harassed in school, profiled, and subjected into a particular narrative. Within the narratives of both the defense and



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prosecution, images and symbols become meticulously worked over. Stone switches shirts with Naz just before the jury enters because he says the blue Naz has on is a gang-affiliated color, and he says that he does not like Naz’s newly adorned neck tattoo because “it’s on the jury side” (episode eight, “Call of the Wild,” 2016). The ocular nature of racism becomes an important element in the performative space of the courtroom. The Night Of is a show about seeing. Naz himself says that the reason he picked up the supposed murder weapon and fled was because he “knew how it looked” (episode eight, “Call of the Wild,” 2016). The show also depicts how one’s ethnicity and religion can become a symbol for an entire community. Naz and his criminal charges become a symbol for Pakistanis in New York City, and because Naz was caught in his father’s taxicab, he becomes a symbol for the “Muslim-looking” taxicab class. As Naz’s trial is picked up by the media, images of hate crimes against Sikh taxicab drivers, fueled by Islamophobia and in retaliation for Andrea’s murder, spread across the television screens and newspapers within the show’s universe. “Muslims Go Home” is painted across the wall in Naz’s Jackson Heights neighborhood and his family’s home is attacked with stones through its windows. Naz being Pakistani and Muslim is used in the defense’s narrative, too. Stone and his co-counsel, Chandra Kapoor (Amara Karan), argue for Naz’s innocence by describing him as somebody who comes from a good Pakistani family, a responsible and moral kid. What is attributed to his Muslim-ness and his Pakistani-ness becomes a decidedly marked theme of the show. Is he a teenager like any other who snuck out of his parents’ home for a party or is he a repressed “Muslim freak [who] carved up a girl in Manhattan?” (episode two, “Subtle Beast,” 2016). Some critics have argued that the entire point of the show is not if Naz committed the murder or not, but that Naz’s arrest and subsequent trial turns him into a criminal. Any innocence that Naz has is wasted away during his imprisonment; he is befallen to the criminal justice system. To survive Riker’s Island, he starts to smuggle in, deal, and use opiates; nearly beats a man to death; and plays accomplice to an actual murder when he distracts the security guards as Freddy, a Riker’s veteran who takes Naz under his wing, slits another inmate’s throat. The criminalization of people of color is a crucial thematic in the show. The viewer sees almost exclusively Black and Latino men in and along all stops on the way to Riker’s prison, some who maintain that they have been wrongfully convicted. In the show’s final scene, Naz is seen using heroin at the banks of the Hudson River under the George Washington Bridge, where he and Andrea Cornish shared a moment the night she was murdered. The Night Of has been criticized for falling into the trap of the White savior complex with Turturro’s Stone coming to Naz’s defense and ultimately saving him from a life of imprisonment. While Chandra, the Indian American attorney, is shown to be a strong defense attorney through the majority of the trial, she becomes involved in a scandal of ethics in danger of being disbarred. This plot point leaves Stone, the brazen White man, as Naz’s last defense. The Night Of stands as a representation of how race and ethnicity are apparent within the criminal justice system, and of the way in which racial and cultural

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profiling becomes a naturalized part of that system. It serves as a crime drama that portrays the criminal justice system as one in which, in situations of doubt, preconceived narratives tied to a person’s race and ethnicity can determine whether one is deemed criminal or innocent, beyond reason. Talib Jabbar Further Reading

Adalian, Josef. 2016. “The Night Of Finale Drew the Show’s Best Ratings Yet.” Vulture, August 30. ­http://​­www​.­v ulture​.­com​/­2016​/­08​/­night​-­of​-­finale​-­drew​-­the​-­best​-­ratings​ -­yet​.­html. Concepcion, Jason. 2016. “Rikers Island has Turned Naz into a Criminal.” The Ringer, August 22. ­https://​­w ww​.­theringer​.­com​/­2016​/­8​/­22​/­16040024​/­the​-­night​-­of​-­episode​ -­7​-­recap​-­97a697cd5d5. Ellis-Petersen, Hannah. 2016. “‘It’s Crazy, Scary’: Drama The Night Of Exposes ‘Predatory’ US Justice System.” The Guardian (Culture), July 8. Griggs, Yvonne. 2018. Adaptable TV: Rewiring the Text. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Okeowo, Alexis. 2016. “Riz Ahmed’s Tragic Transformation on ‘The Night Of.’” The New Yorker, August 30. ­https://​­www​.­newyorker​.­com​/­culture​/­culture​-­desk​/­riz​-­ahmeds​ -­tragic​-­transformation​-­on​-­the​-­night​-­of. Sen, Mayukh. 2016. “Where The Night Of Goes Wrong on Race and Criminal Justice.” Vulture, August 19. ­http://​­w ww​.­v ulture​.­com​/­2016​/­08​/­night​-­of​-­goes​-­wrong​-­on​-­race​ .­html.

Ni Hao, Kai Lan (2007–2011) Created in 2007, Ni Hao, Kai Lan built on the successes of Nickelodeon’s Dora the Explorer (2004–2014), bringing diversity, an emphasis on multiculturalism, language acquisition, and difference to children’s programming. Inspired by the experience of Karen Chau, the show’s creator, Ni Hao, Kai Lan taught children Mandarin all while highlighting Chinese culture through interactive story lines. The history of animated American television is one defined by both the lack of diversity and the ubiquity of racist caricatures and stereotypes. From Looney Toons (1930–1969) to Popeye (1960–1962), from Tom and Jerry (1940–1967) to countless other cartoons, the history of children’s animated television is one littered with racist representations, blackface, and dehumanizing representation that consistently imagined communities of color as uncivilized, not fully human, and savage. In the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement when countless organizations demanded changes to television and with shifting television demographics, Nickelodeon, Disney, and other networks sought to bring diversity to the airwaves. Reflecting the rise of multiculturalism and other efforts that highlighted difference without addressing issues of racism or injustice, the post–civil rights era of animated kid’s television has been defined by an embrace of safe diversity. In Kids Rule!: Nickelodeon and Consumer Citizenship, Sarah Banet-Wiser (2007) argues that these shows “employ several different strategies of representing race: race



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either is represented as hip or cool, as a kind of aesthetic style or it is represented through the lens of authenticity, with ‘real’ tropes structuring the narrative of the program. The inclusion of explicitly racial images . . . coincides with the exclusion of a specifically racial agenda, so that inclusion functions as a kind of exclusion” (171). While recognizing the importance of increased diversity on television, especially for kids of color who rarely saw themselves on televisions, critics also lamented the types of representation offered by Nickelodeon, Disney, and other networks. For them, the embrace of a multiculturalism that focused on culture—language, food, and holidays—and inclusion (with the exception of African Americans who even amid the diversity movement were excluded), lessened the potential impact of these shows. Two shows that were emblematic of not only safe multiculturalism but also an embrace of story lines that sought to capitalize on the diversity market while telling universal stories were Dora the Explorer and Ni Hao, Kai Lan. It is no wonder that these shows have been linked from the inception of Ni Hao, Kai Lan. Commentators have compared Ni Hao, Kai Lan to Dora the Explorer given that each centered on a young female character and both focused on language acquisition, with Dora teaching Spanish words and phrases and Ni Hao providing children with Mandarin lessons. In this regard, Nickelodeon embraced the importance of not only Chinese American viewers but also the value of bilingualism and the importance of the Chinese language in the twenty-first century. “Vocabulary words will be a regular feature, which may be the right idea at the right time, as interest in the study of Mandarin increases in the United States. An estimated 50,000 American children are being taught Mandarin in public schools, with an additional 50,000 studying in private settings,” noted Michael Davis (2007) in a New York Times review of the show. “Next month the first 2,000 high school students will take the College Board’s new Advanced Placement exam in Mandarin.” Dora and Ni Hao, Kai Lan also centered on stories about the relationship between a young child and various animal characters. In Ni Hao, Kai Lan, Kai-lan Chow goes on adventures with a monkey (HoHo), a tiger (Rintoo), Koala (Tolee), and several others. The show also focuses on her relationship with her grandfather (YeYe), providing a representation of cultural sharing and family that cuts across generations. According to the show’s description, YeYe “was born in China and lovingly passes on his exciting traditions to his granddaughter.” The show uses their relationship as a site for cultural exchange, for the reproduction of cultural traditions, and for learning. Their relationship also sought to spotlight the power of family, a representation rare for Asian Americans within the history of television. According to Pam Kaufman, then a chief marketing officer at Nickelodeon, Ni Hao, Kai Lan was historic because of its representation of a Chinese American family. “This is the first to show a Chinese-American intergenerational family” (qtd. in Tan 2017). As with Dora, Nickelodeon celebrated the power in creating a show where Asian Americans generally, and Chinese Americans more specifically, could see themselves. Within a television environment where representations of Asians Americans remain elusive; within the space of kid’s programing where few

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portrayals of Asian American could be found; and within a history where Asian Americans were routinely mocked, ridiculed, and dehumanized, Ni Hao, Kai Lan provided an important intervention. “We know kids want to see themselves on TV,” noted Pam Kaufman said (qtd. in Tan 2017). While embodying the educational messages (how to deal with frustration, patience and taking turns, jealousy, and disappointment) and aesthetics (call and response) of most children’s programs, Ni Hao, Kai Lan embraced multiculturalism in ways not seen within other shows. According to its website, a curriculum associated with the show, Ni Hao, Kai Lan was sending a message about “biculturalism.” Noting that “if Dora and Diego popularized bilingualism, Kai-lan will weave together being bilingual and bicultural.” To be both bilingual and bicultural is to be American. Seeking to move beyond holidays, food, festivals, and knowing bits of another language, Ni Hao, Kai Lan sought to introduce viewers to Chinese culture and customs, history, and community. “The show will familiarize the viewing audience with elements of Chinese and Chinese American cultures to promote multicultural understanding in the next generation and goes beyond featuring ‘culture’ as only ethnic food and festivals. Instead, it celebrates growing up in an intergenerational family, having friends from diverse backgrounds, and ‘habits of the heart’ that are Chinese American” (Jussel 2008). Dora the Explorer is one of America’s most successful animated television shows, especially since the civil rights movement. Reflecting its embrace of safe multiculturalism, shifting demographics, and a history of stereotypes and erasure on television, Dora laid the groundwork for an entire generation of children’s programming. Ni Hao, Kai Lan followed suit, bringing a story of Chinese culture through Mandarin in important ways. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Banet-Wiser, Sarah. 2007. Kids Rule!: Nickelodeon and Consumer Citizenship. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Davis, Michael. 2007. “Cartoons with Heart . . . and a Little Mandarin.” New York Times, April 15. ­https://​­w ww​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2007​/­04​/­15​/­arts​/­television​/­15davi​.­html. Goodman, Tim. 2008. “‘Ni Hao, Kai-lan’ like Mandarin Dora.” SF Gate, February 6. ­https://​­www​.­sfgate​.­c om​/­news​/­a rticle​/ ­Review​-­Ni​-­Hao​-­K ai​-­lan​-­l ike​-­Mandarin​ -­Dora​-­3295631​.­php. Jussel, Amy. 2008. “‘Ni Hao, Kai-Lan’ Chinese Skype, & Mandarin Media.” Shaping Youth, January 17. ­http://​­shapingyouth​.­org​/­ni​-­hao​-­kai​-­lan​-­chinese​-­skype​-­mandarin​-­media​/. Tan, Emily. 2017. “Nick Jr. Explores Chinese Version of Hit Show ‘Dora.” AdAge, October 1. ­https://​­adage​.­com​/­article​/­print​-­edition​/­nick​-­jr​-­explores​-­chinese​-­version​-­hit​-­show​ -­dora​/­120772.

Northern Exposure (1990–1995) Northern Exposure tells the story of a New York doctor who moves from the fast-paced excitement of a cosmopolitan city to a fictional Alaskan village, Cicely. Finding humor in his adjustment to living in an Alaska village, Northern



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Exposure is equally concerned with challenging dominant stereotypes surrounding Native Americans. The protagonist, a Jewish physician fresh out of medical school, Dr. Joel Fleischman (Rob Morrow), must move to Cicely to pay back school loans. There, he is to serve as the community doctor. The story then turns on the efforts of the villagers to educate Fleischman, urging him to leave behind the culture and habits of his beloved New York City so that he can better understand his new neighbors. Although the show introduces viewers to an ensemble of characters who comprise the supporting cast, which is mostly White, the first two who greet Fleischman in the pilot episode are Indigenous. Ed Chigliak (Darren Burrows) arrives at the bus stop in his pickup to get the doctor and soon thereafter confesses his obsession with film and a desire to explore the world beyond rural Alaska. The curious and soft-spoken Chigliak—actually half American Indian and half White—engages life through the lens of famous directors and their films. When Fleischman enters his mostly empty office, he meets Marilyn Whirlwind (Elaine Miles), a heavyset Native woman known for her taciturn nature and penchant for telling stories. Marilyn emerges as a central voice in the series, frequently sharing instructive knowledge about Indian peoples. The rest of the cast includes Maurice Minnifield (Barry Corbin), Cicely’s bigoted, millionaire mayor, a retired astronaut, is constantly trying to transform Cicely into a tourist landscape dominated by casinos, hotels, and spas. Chris Stevens (John Corbett), the Harley-riding disc jockey on the sole radio station KBHR, is a long-haired philosopher, performance artist, and poet who lives in a trailer. He reads to his radio audience passages from classical literature, and in effect, is the de facto “narrator” and moral compass of the show. Maggie O’Connell (Janine Turner) is a bush pilot who flies her Cessna transporting folks to and fro in the

Shooting in Alaska Northern Exposure is only one of several programs set in Alaska, as earlier shows framed Alaska as a particular version of the Wild West, a remote frontier where whiteness reigned. Yet, collectively, and unlike Northern Exposure, they omitted portrayals of Native American peoples, so that the Alaskan wilderness to which White folks ventured was a culturally empty space. Protagonists, of course, embody rugged individualism. Two early programs that exploited this space were The Alaskans (1959–1960) and Klondike (1960– 1961). Both centered on the gold rush, the former starring Roger Moore as prospector Silky Harris. In 1974, the short-lived series Kodiak aired on ABC, starring a State Police officer who chased criminals across the wilderness. In recent decades, the common format of these shows seems to be reality TV, from Slednecks to Alaskan Bush People. Such programs highlight the trials of White rural folks struggling to make a living in rugged wilderness. Northern Exposure creator Joshua Brand, fully aware of the broader cultural narrative invoked by Alaska, remarked, “We used Alaska more for what it represents than what it is. It is disconnected both physically and mentally from the lower forty-eight, and it has an attractive mystery.”

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sparse region. Emerging as a foil to Fleischman’s neurotic, obsessive persona, she and the doctor have an on-again, off-again romance throughout the series. Northern Exposure’s mise-en-scène often created such bizarre narratives, if only to tease out the irony of such clichés. But beyond the obvious satire, the relationship of siblings Chris and Bernard is portrayed the way the program commonly portrayed racial issues, by surrounding them with a utopic optimism. Airing in 1992, an important episode titled “Thanksgiving” challenges White people to confront the genocidal history of the holiday. Every year, Cicely hosts a Day of the Dead parade and a Thanksgiving feast. Upon learning about this annual ritual, Dr. Fleischman is taken aback when told that the Native American community celebrates by throwing tomatoes at White folks because tomatoes symbolize blood, Marilyn clarifies, “but they don’t hurt.” Marilyn encourages him to march in the parade since—like the Indigenous—he seems to have lost hope, and Joel himself reasons that, as a Jew, he is an “innocent bystander.” Nonetheless, after Ed later “nails” him with a tomato, he stares in disbelief, splotches of red all over his shirt. Marilyn explains the ritual: “Death, like the White man, wasn’t happy in his own land. He didn’t think his kingdom was big enough. He wanted more. One night, when the good spirit was asleep, Death attacked the world. He killed a lot of people, and he took the Chief’s prettiest daughter as his bride. She pretended to be a good wife, but one day she secretly fed him a pumpkin seed. The pumpkin grew and grew inside death. Finally, he exploded, and a million pumpkin seeds covered the earth.” Marilyn continues, “A lot of people died, but a good thing came out of it, too.” She added “It’s the same with white people. They cleared the forest, they dug up the land, and they gave us the flu. But they also brought power tools and penicillin and Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.” Although some critics praise Northern Exposure for its willingness to challenge stereotypes about Native Americans, largely through its representation of Native Americans within a contemporary framework and through its presentation of the diversity of the indigenous Alaskan community, it is not without problems. Beyond the makeup of the cast, in which White folks prevail and Native characters are fewer—a problem plaguing numerous shows and movies—the particular dynamics of Native identity are largely ignored. Situated in Alaska’s hinterland, numerous Native Americans portray “extras” in Cicely, obviously a regional home to many Indian people. But the Native Americans in Northern Exposure are not identified by tribal affiliation, remaining generically Indian. Likewise, the show offers no specificity in its representation of Native Alaskans. Are these folks Tlingit, Athabaskan, or Inupiat? Do they speak Native languages? These unanswered questions flatten the experiences and histories of Cicely’s American Indian characters. Annette Taylor specifically critiqued the show for the erasure of Native identity, noting that in later seasons, greater effort went into locating the Native characters within specific cultural traditions, but not always with success. For example, although Marilyn wears Cayuse-Nez Percé regalia at a Pow Wow in season one, later she seems to embrace a Tlingit identity. “She wore a Chilkat robe and danced under an archway of classic Tlingit design”



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(1996, 239). She recites the raven creation myth, but omits the Tlingit distinction of a second raven. To further complicate matters, in later seasons, the fictitious Cicely “shifted” to the west, an Inupiat area. A Tlingit community would be very much out of place in such a region. One of Northern Exposure’s more interesting engagements with race centers on Chris and his half-brother, Bernard Stephens (Richard Cummings Jr.). Chris is White, while Bernard is African American, and they grew up unaware of the other’s existence, each sibling born to separate mothers, due to the dalliances of their White father. Bernard wanders into Cicely, late in the show’s first season, running into Chris, but the two do not yet know they are brothers. Chris begins “sharing” Bernard’s dreams, some of which center on Africa, and after several days, they realize that they are indeed brothers. Uniquely in-tune with one another, Chris even declares that he, too, is Black. While the show offers progressive televised renderings of racial difference and avoiding color-blindness, some argue that Northern Exposure never pushes its critique quite far enough, steering clear of the structural and viscerally painful dimensions of race and ethnicity. Charles Fruehling Springwood Further Reading

James, Beverly. 2004. Cultural Politics and the Mass Media: Alaska Native Voices. Champaign: University of Illinois Press. Taylor, Annette S. 1996. “Cultural Heritage in Northern Exposure.” In Dressing in Feathers: The Construction of the Indian in Popular American Culture, edited by Elizabeth Bird, 229–244. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Williams, Maria Shaa Tláa, ed. 2009. The Alaska Native Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

O Obama, Barack, Election of In 2008, Barack Hussein Obama was elected as the forty-fourth president of the United States. This event, establishing the first African American president, was widely recognized as historic. Obama’s rise and the 2008 election were intertwined with television. On Tuesday, July 27, 2004, Barack Obama gave the keynote address during the second day of the Democratic National Convention. At that moment, he was a little-known state senator from Illinois, concurrently mounting a U.S. Senate campaign. Although prominent Democrats also spoke that evening, including Senator Edward Kennedy and former governor Howard Dean, Obama’s remarks outshined all others. As described by a New York Times reporter, “some political consultants said it was the best keynote address they had heard in years. And suddenly, on Wednesday, Mr. Obama could not walk around town without being swarmed” (Archibold 2004). Party leaders, donors, and rank-in-file members were all excited about Obama. The reporter continued: “As he moved through rooms and hallways, whispers followed: perhaps the man who had just passed would be the first Black president of the United States” (Archibold 2004). Extending the impact, millions of viewers heard and saw the newcomer on the Convention stage because the speech aired on prime-time television. Dubbed the “One America Speech,” Obama’s keynote utilized his personal story to give an optimistic portrait of America. “My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya,” Obama said (2004). “He grew up herding goats, went to school in a tin-roof shack. . . . While studying here my father met my mother. She was born in a town on the other side of the world, in Kansas. . . . My parents shared not only an improbable love; they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation.” Later, in one of the most well-remembered passages, Obama stated: “Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America; there’s the United States of America” (Obama 2004). With these words of unity and patriotism, Obama captured legions of admirers. Commentators noted how Obama’s engaging story, charisma, and flattering characterization of America resulted in engaging television and was precisely the sort of speech the Convention planners had hoped for. That year, the Democratic nominee for president was then Senator John Kerry, who met Obama while campaigning in Illinois. Kerry and the Convention staff selected Obama to bring some youthful enthusiasm to the proceedings and were not disappointed. Kerry was

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defeated in the general election, but Obama’s 2004 speech propelled him to win his 2004 U.S. Senate race and to national prominence—four years later he was running to be president. After a contentious Democratic primary contest against then Senator Hillary Clinton, Obama won the nomination and faced Republican Senator John McCain. Here too, television played a significant role in Obama’s eventual success. His campaign’s fundraising and advertisement spending, especially on television, gave Obama a critical advantage. “If money is the measure, the Obama and McCain campaigns resided in difference galaxies. From the first of September to Election Day, the Democrats outspent their opponents in national broadcast and cable by over $20 million” (Kenski, Hardy, and Jamieson 2010, 266). The Obama campaign was able to raise and spend larger sums because it refused federal elections funds. The McCain campaign, on the other hand, accepted the federal funds and associated limits on private donations. Since 1976, the Federal Election Commission has offered federal funds for presidential elections. Breaking from convention, Obama was the first presidential candidate to reject federal funds, allowing him to collect unlimited donations. Capitalizing on his growing celebrity, some of which was the result of his presence on television and his campaign’s use of the television airways and new technology, Obama would raise a total of $745.7 million for his primary and general election campaign. In comparison to the $84.1 million McCain received in federal funds, Obama successfully raised significant funds that would prove invaluable during the campaign. Obama’s campaign launched two particular TV advertising strategies. One was a thirty-minute infomercial that aired on seven networks during prime time on Wednesday, October 29. It would reach approximately 34 million viewers. Titled “American Stories, American Solutions,” the program featured vignettes of a diversity of middle-class Americans describing their economic hardships. One story profiled Rebecca Johnston, a White married mom of four in North Kansas City, Missouri, whose family struggled to pay their mortgage. Another story featured Larry Steward, a Black retired railroad worker from Sardinia, Ohio, who had to take a retail job to pay for his wife’s medical bills. These vignettes were interspersed with Obama making campaign promises to cut taxes for the middle-class, eliminate wasteful government spending, and work to make the American Dream available for all Americans. The program also featured several well-known Democrats explaining their support for Obama. Verifying the success of the promo, researchers found that “those who watched the Obama infomercial were significantly more likely to vote for him” (Kenski, Hardy, and Jamieson 2010, 295). The other strategy, microtargeting, used cable television to target specific audiences. This tactic uses extensive consumer research to construct tailored messages for particular viewers (Kenski, Hardy, and Jamieson 2010, 306). Microtargeting is particularly suited for cable TV because, unlike standard broadcast stations, cable channels tend to appeal to certain demographics. For example, “Lifetime skews heavily toward women and ESPN just as dramatically to men. BET attracts Blacks and Univision, Hispanics. To reach independents 25–54 years of age, the buyer purchases Comedy Central, TLC, or Discovery” (Kenski, Hardy,



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and Jamieson 2010, 279). With his larger advertising budget, Obama successfully used microtargeting to communicate to potential voters. The 2008 election generated great interest as people across the nation and around the world wondered if the United States would elect its first Black president. At 10:00 p.m. Central Time, the various networks declared Obama the victor. The conclusion of the campaign was a momentous television event, as millions watched on broadcast and cable. As reported in The Huffington Post, “Over 71 million people watched the Election Night coverage, making it the most viewed event of the political season and the most watched television event since the [2008] Super Bowl (which drew 97.5 million viewers) and the highest-rated election night since 1980” (Shea 2008). Along with the election results, television viewers saw huge crowds celebrating in Chicago’s Grant Park, the site of Obama’s official election-night rally. While 70,000 crammed into the park to celebrate and hear Obama’s acceptance speech, another 125,000 gathered in the streets around the park. The massive crowds cheered, cried tears of celebration, and chanted “O-bam-a, O-bam- a!” (Broder and Davey 2008). Among those openly expressing emotion, viewers saw Jesse Jackson and Oprah Winfrey shedding tears of joy. The fact that America had elected its first Black president was a major theme of the event. As the election approached, many still wondered if America was ready to elect a Black man to the highest office. Therefore, many were elated at the result, believing that America had transcended its racist past, at least for that moment. Obama’s victory speech both reflected and reinforced this perception, as he described the victory as a new step toward “a more perfect union.” Speaking in front of a wall of American flags, Obama described a 106-year-old Black woman named Ann Nixon Cooper who voted for him in Atlanta. She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that “We Shall Overcome.” Yes we can. A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change. Yes we can. (“Full Transcript” 2008)

Elements of Obama’s victory speech, images in the broadcast—like Jackson and Winfrey weeping—and the broader media coverage, created a popular frame that cast the election as an American triumph over its racist past. Thus, practically everyone—supporters and opponents—were able to partake in the moment. Even the election-night coverage on the conservative Fox News channel was somewhat positive, pausing what had been relentless criticism of Obama. As recorded in Salon, Fox commentator Juan Williams spoke about the historical significance of the moment. Republican political consultant official Karl Rove said “the idea of ‘an African-American candidate who was aspirational and inspirational, who appealed to the better angels of our nature, is very powerful. It’s a night for our country to celebrate, and for the world to celebrate’” (qtd. in O’Hehir 2008). Commentators have noted that the election-night broadcast of Obama’s victory was an extraordinary event in television history, partly because of the large viewing

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audience. Its importance could also be seen as a moment of racial catharsis, making it especially compelling TV and ensuring it would be referenced for years to come. Marc Arsell Robinson Further Reading

“American Stories, American Solutions: 30 Minute Special.” 2008. ­BarackObama​.­com, October 29. ­https://​­www​.­youtube​.­com​/­watch​?­v​= ​­GtREqAmLsoA. Archibold, Randal C. 2004. “Day After, Keynote Speaker Finds Admires Everywhere.” New York Times, July 29. ­https://​­w ww​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2004​/­07​/­29​/­us​/­democrats​ -­convention​-­boston​-­illinois​-­candidate​-­day​-­after​-­keynote​-­speaker​-­finds​.­html. Barack Obama. 2008. Biography Channel. New York: A & E Television Networks. Broder, John M., and Monica Davey. 2008. “Celebration and Sense of History at Chicago Party.” New York Times, November 5. ­https://​­w ww​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2008​/­11​/­05​/­us​ /­politics​/­05chicago​.­html. “Fox News Announces Obama as President Elect—11/04/08—HQ.” 2008. YouTube, November 6. ­https://​­www​.­youtube​.­com​/­watch​?­v​= ​­13qfS2NZ2xg. “Full Transcript: Sen. Barack Obama’s Victory Speech.” 2008. ABC News, November 4. ­http://​­abcnews​.­go​.­com​/ ­Politics​/ ­Vote2008​/­story​?­id​= ​­6181477​&­page​= ​­1. Kenski, Kate, Bruce W. Hardy, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson. 2010. The Obama Victory: How Media, Money, and Message Shaped the 2008 Election. Oxford: Oxford University Press. O’Hehir, Andrew. 2008. “I Watched Fox News for Five Hours Last Night.” Salon, November 6. ­http://​­www​.­salon​.­com​/­2008​/­11​/­06​/­watching​_fox​/. Saslow, Eli. 2008. “The 17 Minutes That Launched a Political Star.” Washington Post, August 25. ­http://​­w ww​.­washingtonpost​.­com ​/­w p​-­dyn ​/­content ​/­a rticle​/­2008​/­08​ /­24​/­A R2008082401671​.­html. Shea, Danny. 2008. “Election Night 2008 Ratings: 71.5 Million Watch Obama Victory, ABC, CNN Tops.” Huffington Post, December 6. ­http://​­www​.­huffingtonpost​.­com​ /­2008​/­11​/­05​/­election​-­night​-­2008​-­ratin​_n​_141633​.­html. “Transcript: Illinois Senate Candidate Barack Obama.” 2004. Washington Post, July 27. ­http://​­w ww​.­washingtonpost​.­com​/­w p​-­dyn​/­articles​/­A19751​-­2004Jul27​.­html.

One Day at a Time (2017–) Cocreated by Gloria Calderón Kellett and Norman Lear, One Day at a Time is a remake of a 1970s television show with the same name. Originally featuring a White family, the 2017 Netflix version not only centers on a Latinx family but also gives voice to themes and issues centering on race and ethnicity. The choice of casting a Latinx set of actors plays into the show’s story line: three generations of Cuban Americans living under a single-roof, supported by a single mother (Penélope Alvarez, played by Justina Machado), often accompanied by a friendly White Canadian landlord, who often takes up the father-figure role while still embodying a hipster identity of a single man in a position of relative power (Dwight Schneider, played by Todd Grinnell). In addition to its narrative focus on gender and sexual roles, many of the episodes address issues around the contentious politics of race and ethnicity in contemporary U.S. society.



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Critics have noted that having a majority Latinx cast disrupts the “sharp white background” (Kearney 2017) of most U.S. media. Although Latinxs are often described as the largest ethnic minority group in the United States, as Laura Bradley (2018) notes, “One Day at a Time Captures a Community Most TV Ignores.” The show’s majority-Latinx writers consistently tackle numerous topics that often affect Latinxs populations. During its Netflix run, “ideas that would normally be relegated to an ‘issues episode’—racism, mental illness—are part of the emotional fabric of the show, and handled with a light but sensitive touch” (Long 2018). Several characters are forced to deal with situations in which racism disrupts their day-to-day lives. An example of this is the first episode of season two, when the youngest Alvarez (Alex, played by Marcel Ruiz) does not want to be associated or seen with his family. Viewers later learn that this was because of comments like “go back to Mexico”—comments he received after being heard talking Spanish in the streets of Los Angeles, California. Mental health is constantly referenced, as the family deals with divorce and homophobia as a few examples, but it is most intensely featured as an issue that the main character confronts as a veteran and single mother contending with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. Racism is also addressed from the standpoint of the complicated composition of multiracial Latinx peoples, especially when the young teenage daughter, Elena (played by Isabella Gomez) discovers that she has a specific social privilege because she can “pass”—a term that is often used to indicate how fair skin people of color can be perceived to be White. Being an activist type teenager, Elena feels conflicted about how she, unlike other members of her family, does not readily read as a person of color precisely because of the color of her skin. In an interview for Vanity Fair, Gloria Calderón Kellett admitted that this was a topic close to her heart (Bradley 2018), presumably because she also passes. Although not explicitly addressing racism within Latinx communities, opening a conversation about differential treatment of Latinx peoples based on their skin color is one of the most applicable expressions of the differences between race and ethnicity that is made readily available for broader audiences watching the show. Issues around immigration also come up in the second season, as the eldest Cuban American in the family, Lydia Riera (played by Rita Moreno) strives to legally change her citizenship status along with the Canadian landlord. Of course, the two have experienced different repercussions for not being legally recognized U.S. citizens, but once again the specificity of the show’s character development portrays a larger story of contentious politics around questions of undocumented migration in the United States in 2018. Not explicitly mentioning the governmental bodies that regulate citizenship issues, the main objective for her to gain citizenship is to be able to vote in upcoming elections. Once again, the repercussions for Cuban Americans who are not documented as legal citizens is certainly different than those undocumented immigrants fleeing Central American countries, but addressing the issue calls up questions around the (in)humanity of (un)documented migrants.

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On Cuban American Migration It is important to understand the history of Cuban immigration to the United States while watching One Day at a Time. Migration policy experts hold that “immigrants from Cuba have held a uniquely preferential position in U.S. immigration law, owing to Cold War–era tensions between the two rivals” (Batalova and Zong 2017). After the Cuban revolution, large-scale Cuban migration to the United States has been variously regulated through policies like the Cuban Adjustment Act from 1966 to the 1995 “wet-foot, dry foot” policy, which originally allowed Cubans entering the United States to pursue permanent residency and was altered by President Barack Obama in 2017 as part of efforts to normalize Cuban–U.S. political relations. Despite the development of these different policies, the long-standing Cuban Adjustment Act provides for a faster path to citizenship for Cubans than for other immigrant communities. The show highlights the Cuban migration history through an emphasis on the nostalgia that characters like Lydia demonstrate for life in Cuba during the 1950s, prerevolution.

While not unique to One Day at a Time, viewers often take up issue with the way Latinx characters are cast; for some, the fact that Rita Moreno and Justina Machado are both Puerto Rican women portraying Cuban American characters affects the authenticity of the show. For example, an IMDb reviewer writes, “I love it! I would have given it a full on 10, but the actors portraying Cubans aren’t Cuban,” which demonstrates that there seems to be an ethical dilemma with Puerto Rican actresses playing Cuban American women. For a show that highlights the importance of identity and culture, the decision to cast non-Cuban actors has elicited critiques of the flattening of Latinx identities. Yet, for others One Day at a Time succeeds in addressing issues of race and ethnicity in the United States today. Despite critical successes, its efforts to add to diversity in front of the camera and behind the scenes, and its willingness to tackle important issues, Netflix cancelled One Day at a Time after three seasons. Following social media protests and expression of disappointment, Pop announced its plans to air season four starting 2020. Karrieann Soto Vega Further Reading

Batalova, Jeanne, and Jie Zong. 2017. “Cuban Immigrants in the United States.” Migration Policy, November 9. ­https://​­www​.­migrationpolicy​.­org​/­article​/­cuban​-­immigrants​ -­united​-­states. Bradley, Laura. 2018. “One Day at a Time Captures a Community Most TV Ignores.” Vanity Fair, January 26. ­https://​­w ww​.­vanityfair​.­com​/ ­hollywood​/­2018​/­01​/­one​-­day​ -­a t​ -­a​ -­t ime​ -­s eason​ -­2​ -­r eview​ -­i nterview​ -­r ita​ -­m oreno​ -­j ustina​ -­m achado​ -­g loria​ -­calderon​-­kellett. Chaney, Jen. 2018. “One Day at a Time Is Back, and Rest Assured, It’s Still Great.” Vulture, January 25. ­http://​­w ww​.­v ulture​.­com​/­2018​/­01​/­one​-­day​-­at​-­a​-­time​-­season​-­t wo​ -­review​.­html​#­comments. Dávila, Arlene. 2012. Latinos, Inc.: The Marketing and Making of a People. Berkeley: University of California Press.



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Kearney, Mary Celeste. 2017. “‘Against a Sharp White Background’: Toward Race-Based Intersectional Research in Youth Media Studies.” Cinema Journal 57 (1): 119–124. Long, Crispin. 2018. “The Sitcom Triumphs of ‘One Day at a Time.’” The New Yorker, August 21. ­https://​­w ww​.­newyorker​.­com​/­recommends​/­watch​/­the​-­sitcom​-­t riumphs​ -­of​-­one​-­day​-­at​-­a​-­time.

Orange Is the New Black (2013–2019) Orange Is the New Black is an award-winning Netflix show that chronicles the experiences of incarcerated women. While documenting the experiences of a diverse group of characters whose stories, identities, and experiences reflect the heterogeneity of prison life, the show initially focused on the story of a young White bisexual woman named Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling), who ends up in prison after being charged with conspiracy and money laundering. According to creator Jenji Kohan, Piper Chapman, an artisanal soap manufacturer convicted on a drug charge who is presented as the main character of the show, was made to serve as “her ‘Trojan horse’—a way to get a show on the air (because ‘white lady goes to prison’ was an arc that was easier to sell to mostly white TV executives)” (VanDerWerff and Ray-Harris 2019). By centering on a White woman, the show leveraged her privileges to give voice to the experiences, challenges, and voices of women of color living within mass incarceration. Indeed, the show showcased a diverse cast of women and characters in terms of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, body size, and mental health abilities. In addition, the scope of their personalities and the depth of who they were as people before and during incarceration were brought to light in unique ways. Whereas so much of public discourse reduces incarcerated individuals to labels—“felons”; “prisoners”; “convicts”—Orange Is the New Black works to tell the stories of those locked up in one of America’s numerous prisons. It seeks to break down the alienation and division that defines mass incarceration. In moving the representation beyond the stereotype, Orange Is the New Black humanizes those serving time in America’s prisons. It chronicles the experiences that preceded being locked up, showing the events leading up to their individual incarcerations. They are depicted as people who loved, sacrificed, made mistakes, and dealt with the cards they were given the best way they knew how. At the same time, critics celebrated the show for its honest and raw portrayal of the realities of life behind bars. The show focuses on the intimacies of prison life by narrating how prison shapes relationships both within and beyond the prison walls. While spotlighting violence, injustice, and despair, all commonplace within representations of America’s prisons, the incarcerated characters on the show are portrayed in ways that reveal moments that are empowering, vulnerable, and triumphant. In “State of the Uterus,” Lorna (Yael Stone) deals with the physical and mental difficulties of being pregnant while incarcerated. Meanwhile, Gloria (Selenis Lyva) experiences the adjustment resulting from the onset of menopause.

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When the doctor notes the symptoms of menopause, she retorts that those symptoms seem more like “symptoms of being incarcerated.” Eschewing the dramatic and the sensational, Orange Is the New Black embraces story lines that expose the day-to-day hardships and struggles that define the experiences of incarcerated people. Yet, unlike so much of popular and media culture, which tends to focus on the experiences of men, Orange Is the New Black gives life to the substantive ways that gender and sexuality shape the experiences of these incarcerated women. It reveals the ways that their experience is shaped by gender; it speaks to how a diverse group of women navigate confinement and isolation and spotlights how sexuality, sexual expression, and sexual fluidity operates within the prison space. The show’s seriousness is mitigated by moments of comedic relief seen in interactions between the women and as they find ways to cope with life in prison. Through jokes, friendships, and tears, women are shown navigating life behind bars by coping and making do with the few resources that are available to them. Another important feature of the show can be seen with its representation of how the incarcerated women formed cliques as a means of survival and empowerment. While some formed cliques with women who share similar racial, ethnic, or cultural backgrounds, others formed cliques led by strong-willed women who were regarded as intimidating or powerful. The cliques are represented almost like high school cliques in which there were those who are more powerful than others and those cliques that are made up of members that seemed not to fit into any clique. For many of the women, being far away from home and being forced to create new familial bonds was the biggest challenge. While phone calls and visit times were available to the women, like almost every amenity, time and access were limited and dependent on financial resources. Orange Is the New Black also showcased how the variety of challenges experienced in prison took a toll on the mental health of women. Orange Is the New Black has been both praised and criticized for its approach to hot pop culture and political topics like Black Lives Matter, police and prison corruption, modern-day feminism, solitary confinement, and immigrant detention camps. While it was criticized for what some viewed as a flattened depiction of its characters of color, the show would also be praised for not shying away from sensitive and controversial topics, giving voice and a platform to these important issues. In the groundbreaking season five, the show takes on the very controversial issue of police brutality and state-sanctioned violence. A riot breaks out in the prison after a scuffle between Poussey (Samira Wiley) and a correction officer ends in her getting killed. Out of the riot, a movement develops that demands rights and adequate facilities for the incarcerated women. Throughout this season, each episode’s story lines raised questions about the presumed threat that Black and Brown bodies are regarded with in the eyes of law enforcement and society in general. Through the chaos and the demonstrations, the incarcerated women managed to shed light on the injustices within the prison industrial complex—injustices including the profiteering of missteps and misdemeanors of the prison inmates. In the same season, a corrections officer is mistaken for an



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inmate and killed by a fellow guard. This results in federal investigators’ conspiring to blame the homicide on one of the incarcerated women. Throughout season six and in many other points of other seasons, correction officers are seen beating and verbally and emotionally abusing the women that are housed at the prison. They are particularly harsh on the women who were accused of inciting the riot of the prior season. In season six, federal investigators decide to pin the death on Tastee (Danielle Brooks), and she prepares to defend herself at trial. She asks her close friend “Black Cindy” (Adrienne C. Moore) whether a certain hairstyle said, “wrongfully accused”? Tastee is adamant that she is innocent of the federal charges brought against her even though she pleads guilty to charges regarding her involvement in inciting the riot. Her perseverance in standing up for herself have viewers cheering and rooting for her during the trial. She seeks to avoid the death penalty but also to send a message about false accusations and the false hiking up of criminal charges to further criminalize women from vulnerable backgrounds and populations. The legacy of Orange Is the New Black is multifaceted. It propelled the careers of several prominent actresses including Dascha Polanca (Daya), Laverne Cox (Sophia Burset), Danielle Brooks (Tasha “Taystee” Jefferson), and Uzo Adoba (Suzanne “Crazy Eyes”). These women, and those many others, brought a level of diversity unusual on television. “Then there was the matter of whose stories ‘Orange’ told. The era of celebrated TV that preceded it had a preferred protagonist type: mostly white, mostly men, mostly like the sorts of people who ran TV networks,” notes James Poniewozik (2019). “The next era would be open to a wider range of identity, color, sexual orientation and life experience. And ‘Orange’ was instrumental in busting those gates open.” In opening doors for untold stories, Orange Is the New Black added to ongoing conversations about mass incarceration. Alongside activists demanding changes to the world’s largest prison system, popular culture would be instrumental in humanizing the experiences of those swept away by mass incarceration. Orange Is the New Black embodied this push and demonstrated the potential in the power of popular culture. And finally, the show spotlighted the potential of streaming as both a new medium and as a continuation of the history of scripted television. “As one of the first streaming phenomena, ‘Orange’ taught us about this too,” noted Poniewozik in the New York Times. “Its cultural reach wasn’t immediately apparent; we didn’t, and still don’t, have the kind of independent ratings figures for it that we do for network and cable series.” With a huge fan base, robust discussions about the show’s story lines and broader significance, and widespread critical praise, its importance inside and outside of television is evident. Basheera Agyeman Further Reading

Householder, April Kalogeropoulos, and Adrienne Trier-Bieniek. 2016. Feminist Perspectives on Orange Is the New Black: Thirteen Critical Essays. New York: McFarland.

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Kerman, Piper. 2011. Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison. New York: Spiegel & Grau. Poniewozik, James. 2019. “‘Orange Is the New Black’ Taught Us What Netflix Was For.” New York Times, July 17. ­https://​­w ww​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2019​/­07​/­17​/­arts​/­television​ /­orange​-­is​-­the​-­new​-­black​-­final​-­season​.­html. Schwan, Anne. 2016. “Postfeminism Meets the Women in Prison Genre: Privilege and Spectatorship in Orange Is the New Black.” Television and New Media 17 (6). ­https://​­journals​.­sagepub​.­com ​/­doi​/­abs​/­10​.­1177​/­1527476416647497. VanDerWerff, Emily Todd, and Ashley Ray-Harris. 2019. “Orange Is the New Black Celebrated Diverse Women. It Also Exploited Their Stories.” Vox, August 7. h­ ttps://​ ­w ww​.­vox​.­com​/­2019​/­8​/­7​/­20754146​/­orange​-­is​-­the​-­new​-­black​-­diversity​-­final​-­season​ -­review.

Oz (1997–2003) This series depicted the inner workings of the Oswald State Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison located in a fictional upstate New York Community. Race, religion, politics, and ideology frequently serve as a dividing force among inmates, with White supremacist gangs, members of the Nation of Islam, Black gangs, Latinx gangs, and other characters forced into tenuous allegiances based on race, religion, or ethnic identity. While not directly addressed by the series, the demographic breakdown of the prison population in the show reflects the then contemporary effects of mass incarceration on communities of color, with disproportionate numbers of Black and Latino inmates housed in the prison. Created by Tom Fontana, Oz was HBO’s first scripted dramatic series and a predecessor to other series that focused on the lives of inmates, such as FOX’s Prison Break (2005–2017) and Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black (2013–2019). Benefiting from the representational, creative, and narrative possibilities afforded by its airing on cable (HBO), Oz was certainly novel in its graphic depiction of violence—particularly sexual violence—among inmates and between prison staff and inmates. The series was also part of the wave of contemporary dramatic series based on antiheroic characters, whose actions blur the lines between right and wrong in ways that question the very concept of legal justice. At the helm of the prison was the world-weary warden Leo Glynn (Ernie Hudson), and a somewhat more idealistic unit manager Tim McManus (Terry Kinney). The two frequently clashed over ideological disagreements stemming from their varied approaches to controlling inmate behavior, with McManus believing in the power of redemption, and Glynn stressing the importance of strict control and order. McManus’s idealism leads him to formulate Emerald City, an experimental unit that seeks to encourage good behavior among inmates by providing rewards and freedom. Commentators have questioned why, despite the potential to subvert expectations about race and power through the casting of Hudson as the person in charge of the prison, the series ultimately reinforces dominant expectations about race. In the end, the ultimate authority over the prison sits with the state’s White



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governor (Željko Ivanek). Rounding out the cast of authorities are corrections officer Diane Whittlesey (Edie Falco), and recurring characters Dr. Gloria Nathan (Lauren Vélez), Sister Peter Marie “Sister Pete” Reimondo (Rita Moreno), and Father Ray Mukada (B. D. Wong). As spiritual leaders and as persons of color, Sister Pete and Father Mukada provide guidance to staff and inmates alike, but lack formal institutional power within the prison, as does Dr. Nathan, whose commitment to providing care to prisoners puts her at odds with the formal power structure in Oz. Other criticisms of the show have highlighted similar marginalization of persons of color with the show’s narratives. While present in an effort to show the racial disparities, characters of color remain in the periphery. Within Oz, the central story lines are primarily dedicated to White characters: nonviolent prisoner Tobias Beecher (Lee Tergesen), White supremacist leader Vern Schillinger (J. K. Simmons), and master manipulator Ryan O’Reilly (Dean Winters), whose conviction for a nonviolent offense lands him, like Beecher, in prison. The audience is initially invited to identify with Beecher as Emerald City’s newest inmate in the premiere episode. His introduction to life behind bars—stemming from a conviction for drunk driving—spotlights the goings-on of the maximum-security prison. Beecher is quickly introduced to other inmates of color, including Muslim Brotherhood leader Kareem Saïd (Eamonn Walker), whose erudite eloquence belies his criminal history of arson and attempted murder. He also meets murderer Simon Adebisi (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), psychotic offender Miguel Alvarez (Kirk Acevedo), and former drug dealer/series narrator Augustus Hill (Harold Perrineau). These meetings occur during the series earliest moments, which also feature the rape of a young Black gay prisoner, which the episode uses as an opportunity to discuss the problem of homophobia among Black communities. Because much of Oz’s dramatic conflict stems from interactions between its racially segregated gangs, every episode offers ample opportunity to explore manifestations of racial disharmony. Yet, critics have questioned the show’s reliance on racial stereotypes, with nearly every Black and Brown inmate behind bars for violent offenses and/or drug convictions, while the show’s White inmates are incarcerated for a variety of nonviolent offenses (see Luke Perry’s appearance as embezzler Jeremiah Cloutier as an example). However, more nuanced treatments of racial conflict occasionally arise, as they do in the season five episodes “Variety” and “Impotence,” where the question arises of what exactly constitutes whiteness, when prisoner James Robson (R. E. Rogers) is ultimately forced out of the Aryan Brotherhood by Schillinger after having received a gum graft from a Black donor. Is Robson still entitled to the privileges of whiteness after his body has been polluted by tissue from a Black person? Robson seeks to evade the question by removing—in an intensely graphic scene—the tissue graft from his own mouth. Unfortunately, for Robson, as Schillinger argues, the damage has already been done. Blackness has already pervaded Robson’s very being, permanently subverting his claims to racial purity, even after the offending graft is purged from his body.

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Since its final episode aired in 2003, television has seen nothing quite like Oz. Although it received mixed critical reception, Oz was hailed as part of the early wave of series that took advantage of the relative freedom of cable networks to explore difficult, controversial topics, and to depict those topics in unflinching ways. Orange Is the New Black follows in Oz’s representational footsteps as a multiracial series set in a women’s prison, but replaces much of Oz’s gritty violence with humor. Oz may come across as a bit dated given its dearth of persons of color among the ranks of institutional authorities, a problem largely averted by the contemporaneous Law & Order franchise, but stands as a pioneering series that pushed the boundaries of what constitutes acceptable television material. Aaron Gurlly Further Reading

Copeland, Kameron J. 2017. “‘I Do Feel the Fire!’: The Transformations of Prison-Based Black Male Converts to Islam in South Central, Malcolm X, and Oz.” Journal of Religion & Film 21 (1): 1–59. Jarvis, Brian. 2005. “The Violence of Images: Inside the Prison TV Drama Oz.” In Captured by the Media: Prison Discourse in Popular Culture, edited by Paul Mason, 154–172. Portland, OR: Willan Publishing. Claudia Schippert. 2012. “From Oz to Lockup: Bringing Prison Life (Back). TV/Series 1. ­https://​­doi​.­org​/­10​.­4000​/­t vseries​.­1540. Wlodarz, Joe. 2005. “Maximum Insecurity: Genre Trouble and Closet Erotics in and out of HBO’s Oz.” Camera Obscura 20 (1 (58): 59–105. Yousman, Bill. 2009. “Inside Oz: Hyperviolence, Race and Class Nightmares, and the Engrossing Spectacle of Terror.” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 6 (3): 265–284.

P Perry, Tyler (1969–) Tyler Perry was born Emmitt Perry Jr. on September 13, 1969, in New Orleans, Louisiana. While Tyler Perry is most known for his cinematic career, his contributions to television are equally important. Most notably, his programs have increased diversity on-screen and behind the scenes. Since 2007, Perry has created, written, directed, and produced four sitcoms and three one-hour dramas for basic cable channels TBS, OWN, and TLC. He is also a significant employer of African Americans within the television industry. Before emerging as a major player within television, Perry was a successful playwright and filmmaker who credits Oprah Winfrey for his career. During an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show (1986–2011), Winfrey discussed writing as a method of emotional release, so Perry started journaling, which he turned into his first play, I Know I’ve Been Changed, which focuses on adult survivors of child abuse. In 1992, he moved from his hometown of New Orleans, Louisiana, to Atlanta, Georgia, to focus on his theater career. By 1998, I Know I’ve Been Changed was cited as critical success. During this time, he continued to write, star, direct, and produce plays. In his second play, I Can Do Bad All by Myself (1999), Perry introduced his audience to his milestone character Madea Simmons, an outspoken, pistol-wielding grandmother (also performed by Perry). The audience’s response to Perry resulted in the character returning in Perry’s third play, Diary of a Mad Black Woman as well as Madea’s Family Reunion, Madea’s Class Reunion, Madea Goes to Jail, and Meet the Browns. Perry’s plays were very successful on the urban theater circuit; from 1998 to 2004, his plays grossed over $50 million in ticket and merchandising sales. During this time, Perry wanted to expand into television. He met with several networks, but Perry declined their offers due to the lack of total creative control on his projects. He then concentrated his efforts on film by adapting his play, Diary of a Mad Black Woman for the silver screen. The film was released in February 2005 and started his cinematic career. Perry adapted several of his plays into films such as Madea’s Family Reunion (2006), Why Did I Get Married? (2007), Meet the Browns (2008), The Marriage Counselor (2008), Madea Goes to Jail (2009), I Can Do Bad All by Myself (2009), Madea’s Big Happy Family (2011), and A Madea Christmas (2011). In 2006, Perry decided to venture into television a second time. Despite the successes of his films, Perry had to fight to maintain complete creative control when he began focusing on television. By self-financing ten episodes of his sitcom, House of Payne (2007–2012), about a blue-collar multigenerational Black

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family living in Atlanta, Perry established a framework for independence and complete creative control. Debmar-Mercury also handled the distribution, providing the series to local stations around the United States. Recognizing the show’s popularity, TBS ordered additional episodes of House of Payne. Perry’s 100-episode deal with TBS was unprecedented; not only did TBS pay Perry $200 million but also this upfront order guaranteed automatic syndication for the series. TBS retained exclusive rights to the series for fifteen months, and then the show would be available for syndication. Perry’s entry into television came at a time when there was a lack of Black-oriented sitcoms on broadcast network television. When House of Payne debuted on TBS in 2007, the only Black-oriented sitcom on network television was Everybody Hates Chris (2005–2009) on CW. The success of House of Payne on TBS prompted a resurgence of Black-oriented sitcoms on cable, most specifically on TBS, BET, and TVOne. During its run, Perry produced 254 episodes of House of Payne, and the series surpassed The Jeffersons (1975–1985, 253 episodes) as the longest running Black-oriented sitcom in television history. During its run, Perry also created two additional sitcoms for TBS; Meet the Browns (2009–2011) and For Better or Worse (2011–2012). In 2012, Perry signed a production deal with the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) to develop the channel’s first scripted series. Perry would create a new sitcom Love Thy Neighbor (2013–2017) and an hour-long drama The Haves and the Have Nots (2013–). OWN also ordered new episodes of For Better or Worse (2011–2017), which originally aired on TBS. The popularity of his shows on OWN has led its overall viewership to double. In 2014, OWN ordered a second hour-long drama from Perry, If Loving You Is Wrong (2014–2020), a televisual adaptation of his film The Single Moms Club (2014). In 2016, Perry created a third drama enti­ tled Too Close to Home (2016–2017), for The Learning Channel (TLC). After the series premiere in August 2016, TLC ordered a second season. It is not uncommon for characters from Perry’s plays and films to overlap into his television programs. For example, in season one of House of Payne, Madea visits the Paynes. Meet the Browns (2009–2011) is an adaptation of Perry’s play and film and includes Madea’s daughter, Cora Simmons, and her father, Leroy Brown; both characters also appeared in Perry’s plays and movies. On Love Thy Neighbor, Floyd, a secondary character on House of Payne, is a main character. He runs a restaurant with his sister-in-law Hattie Mae Love; both characters also appear in his other works. Moreover, the Paynes have appeared in episodes of Love Thy Neighbor. For Better or Worse is a television spin-off of Perry’s film Why Did I Get Married and Why Did I Get Married Too? (2010); the series follows the lives of two characters from the film Angela and Marcus Williams. Although Perry’s sitcoms are set in Atlanta, Georgia, he alters the specific location with his dramatic series. His first dramatic series, The Haves and the Have Nots, another play adaptation, is set in Savannah, Georgia, and focuses on the lives of two wealthy families and one lower-class family. If Loving You Is Wrong is set in the fictional town of Maxine, Ohio, and focuses on four women who live



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in the same neighborhood. Too Close to Home focuses on Annie Hayes, who leaves her job in Washington, DC, after a political scandal and returns to her hometown of Happy, Alabama. In 2008, Perry opened Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta, which would be the first African American–owned film and television studio in the United States. In 2015, Perry acquired Fort McPherson, a decommissioned Army base outside of Atlanta. The new TPS campus is 330 acres and contains soundstages, backlots, and post-production facilities. Perry’s films and television programs have resulted in 400 jobs in the Atlanta, Georgia, area. While his television career has been one of popular success, his most lasting contributions have come with his efforts to increase opportunities for African Americans, particularly in leading roles. His continued efforts not only yield increased diversity on-screen but also have created employment opportunities behind the scenes. Perry employs more African Americans than any other studio. Moreover, Perry continues to add to the diversity of the television landscape. If Loving You Is Wrong and The Haves and the Have Nots have multiracial casts with African American, Caucasian, and Latino leading characters; Too Close to Home is a largely Caucasian cast. Through his programs and TPS, Tyler Perry is making noteworthy changes to racial representations on-screen as well as increasing diversity behind the scenes. Danielle E. Williams Further Reading

Braxton, Greg. 2016. “With a New 330-Acre Site to Create His Dreams, Tyler Perry Is in the Driver’s Seat.” Los Angeles Times, October 16, E.1. Lee, Felicia R. 2007. “Talking the Dream, Growing the Brand.” New York Times, June 6, E.1. Manigault-Bryant, LeRhonda, Tamura A. Lomax, and Carol B. Duncan, eds. 2014. Womanist and Black Feminist Responses to Tyler Perry’s Productions. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Metz, Nina. 2006. “Tyler Perry’s Big Gamble; Multi-Faceted Actor Is Banking on Himself in Rare TV Project.” Chicago Tribune, June 18, 7.5. Munoz, Lorenza. 2007. “Studios Aren’t Only Show in Town for Tyler Perry; the Writer-Producer Known for Requiring Creative Control Gets an Unprecedented Deal at Cable’s TBS.” Los Angeles Times, April 24, C.1.

Police, Detective, and Crime Dramas On American television today, there are a plethora of television shows that focus on crime. These shows take various forms and perspectives, including police dramas, which focus on the police interactions with crime and suspects, reality television programs, detective dramas, which that focus on police detectives and the legal system, and crime dramas, those shows centered on criminals and criminal enterprises. Police, detective, and crime dramas are some of the most-watched prime-time television programs in America, and it is because these shows are so popular that an examination of the genre is important.

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DIVERSITY AND REPRESENTATION OF RACE AND ETHNICTY Given the importance of television within American society, and given the ways that race has been contested on the small screen, it should not surprise that the types of representations afforded to people of color prompts widespread discussion. Among the ample research, it is clear that African Americans are confined to certain shows. One study found that “Black Americans are disproportionately featured in sitcoms and crime dramas. When in dramas, Black Americans are featured in mixed-race casts whereas on sitcoms they appear in predominantly Black casts. Although some longstanding stereotypes linger in this content, when taken as a whole, the contemporary primetime television landscape has been found to offer a more respectable array of portrayals of Blacks than offered in previous decades” (Tukachinsky, Mastro, and Yarchi 2015, 19). Another study found similar results; “African American characters comprised less than 10 percent of all criminal suspects in fictional primetime television, nearly five times below real-world figures. In contrast, portrayals of African Americans on the news and in reality-based programs such as Cops are considerably more negative” (Mastro and Robinson 2000, 387). These two studies demonstrate that, in current decades, there has been increased frequency in humanizing, empowering, and respectful representation, through both predominantly Black television shows and in mixed-race television shows. While there are still improvements to be made, the inclusion of Black actors in roles that depict Black people in a “positive” manner are on the rise and benefit not only Black communities but also the way in which Black people are understood by nonblack audiences. Other racial and ethnic groups are not as well represented, however. Studies have found that for Latinxs in prime-time television, “when they are seen, they are relegated to a fairly limited set of roles (and have been for several decades), which often revolve around themes of sexuality, criminality, subservience, or intellectual ineptitude” (Tukachinsky, Mastro, and Yarchi 2015, 19). It appears that while television has made strides in terms of representations of Black Americans, it has not made those same strides for Latinxs. Because intersectionality is an issue that is often ignored, it is also important to note how often Latinos are cast as varying shades of brown and rarely as Black, completely erasing the existence of Afro-Latinxs. Additionally, “The lack of visibility of . . . Latinos, speaks volumes about the symbolic value of African American characters on dramatic network television. African American characters in this context become, almost by default, the primary symbol of diversity in America. Their visibility creates the appearance, and possibly the perception, of diversity” (Nama 2003, 32). This perception is not only harmful to Black communities but also to other racial and ethnic communities as well. On one hand, Black people are seen as the only form of diversity on television, and on the other hand, Latinxs, in addition to Asians and Native Americans, are rarely seen on-screen at all, rendering them invisible on-screen and off.



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PROGRAMS Several scholars have critiqued and condemned television programming for lack of inclusivity over the years, yet it remains an issue. For example, while examining The Shield (2002–2008), Chopra-Gant offers a critical intervention as it relates to the limited racial and gender diversity within this detective program. Chopra-Gant found that “one of the major complaints leveled against some of the most successful American television programs of recent years has been the lack of visibility of non-White characters and the absence of engagement with issues concerning race and ethnicity” (Chopra-Gant 2007, 663). He goes on to claim that “in some of the most significant television shows of recent years there has been a noticeable shortage of ethnic minority characters” (Chopra-Gant 2007, 664). This is true not only of police, detective, and crime dramas, but of other genres of television programming as well. The issue is not only with lack of racially and ethnically diverse characters but also with the way those characters are represented and the way in which various aspects of race and ethnicity are explored. Chopra-Gant writes, Surveying some of the most recent successes in the television crime drama genre it may seem that there is a reasonably good presence of non-White characters in key roles and, crucially, in roles that do not problematize race or ethnicity. Against this, however, I would argue that the evident liberal desire not to present race as a problem goes so far in these shows that racial and ethnic difference almost disappear; we may see non-white faces but there is an almost complete absence of any attempt to address the issues relating to race and ethnicity that continue to exist in multicultural societies. (Chopra-Gant 2007, 665)

Chopra-Gant’s article focuses not on the inclusion of a racially and ethnically diverse cast, but on how those characters interact with one another and if those characters’ races and ethnicities are incorporated into the content of the show. Chopra-Gant asserts that, while the cast may be diverse, the characters’ experiences stemming from their races and ethnicities may be ignored, and the absence of those experiences undermines the complexities that people of color may face.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine While Brooklyn Nine-Nine is a half-hour sitcom, it is a police and detective program that has a diverse cast and addresses intersectional issues. The show stars several actors of color: Terry Crews, Andre Braugher, Stephanie Beatriz, and Melissa Fumero. Additionally, the character played by Andre Braugher is gay, which allows the show to incorporate and address intersectional experiences. The show comically approaches issues such as racial profiling, homophobia, dating, and workplace interactions. Because it is a comedy, it is light-hearted in an approach to more serious topics, yet the program does not shy away from providing examples of lived experiences to which some audience members may relate.

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When viewing police, detective, and crime dramas, issues of race, diversity, and inclusion become more complicated because of the nature of the genre. Scholars have established that “Fictional crime-based dramas often contain formulaic plots, in which (1) a violent crime occurs, (2) investigators attempt to capture the perpetrator, and (3) good prevails over bad” (Parrott and Parrott 2015, 71). It is no longer necessary, then, to consider every single police or detective drama, as this formula applies to almost every single show. Law & Order (1990–2010), Blue Bloods (2010–), Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–1999), Chicago P.D. (2004–), and Cops (1989–2020), to name a few, are examples of programs within this genre in which the formula is clearly applied. This formula makes assessing and critiquing police and detective dramas less time-consuming, as the critique of one program can usually apply to multiple programs. Scott and Caroline Parrott claim that once the formula is established and recognized, the next step is to concentrate on “This fictional world of crime and punishment, with its focus on victimization and perpetration, [which] presents ample opportunity for storylines in which characters either embody or defy traditional gender and racial stereotypes concerning who commits violence and crime and who falls victim to violence and crime” (Parrott and Parrott 2015, 71). A broad understanding of the formula and pitfalls of representation in police and detective dramas allows for a more specific and focused examination of the issues in independent television programs. Once alternative television programs have been assessed, the critiques of those shows can in turn be applied to more broad and generic discussions of issues of representation in the police, detective, and crime drama genre as a whole. It is important to note that while police and detective dramas follow the formula outlined by Parrott and Parrott, not all crime programs follow that same formula, as shall be discussed in a closer examination of the crime television programs Sons of Anarchy (2008–2014) and Orange Is the New Black (2013–2019). These crime dramas, and others like them in which the plot follows a criminal or criminal organization, offer a different perspective from police and detective dramas, which results in a different formula for development. Police and detective dramas focus on the point of view of police officers and detectives, and therefore a formula can be developed and broadly applied. Crime dramas present a differing perspective, resulting in the audience rooting for the criminal protagonist to be successful, making Parrott and Parrott’s formula ineffective.

Reality Television Cops is one of the longest-running reality television programs to date. It first aired in March 1989 and has remained relatively unaltered since its inception. Cops follows various law enforcement agencies as selected officers patrol the streets and answer dispatched calls. Another popular television show, airing on A & E, is Beyond Scared Straight (2011–). This program examines various youth intervention programs and their participants from across the country. The participants and their behaviors are identified, and the program shows their reactions



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to spending a supervised day in a local jail, including their interactions with inmates who have been selected to speak with the youth. A lesser-known reality television show is Jail (2007). The Spike program takes the idea of Cops one step further by exploring the booking and holding process once individuals have been arrested. An episode of Cops usually follows officers from at least two major cities in the United States. There is a camera person in the front seat with an officer, filming a range of activities from high-speed chases to routine traffic stops to drug busts. The officer being filmed usually explains the nature of the job at the beginning of the segment and then summarizes what occurred once a suspect has been arrested. Cops has been the center of several studies and critiques. One such quantitative study “found that White characters were more likely to be portrayed as police officers while Black characters were more likely to be portrayed as criminal offenders” (Parrott and Parrott 2015, 73). While there are few to no studies specifically on Beyond Scared Straight or Jail, the data from the Cops study remains the same. Reality television shows in which law enforcement are filmed interacting with criminal suspects tend to portray law enforcement as predominantly White while suspects are predominantly Black. The problem with Cops and similar shows is that “exposure to reality-based crime programs, although not exposure to fictional crime shows, has been linked to viewers’ elevated perceptions of crime rates among African Americans” (Tukachinsky, Mastro, and Yarchi 2015, 20). Because the shows are classified as reality television, viewers often believe the programs accurately mirror real life. This reality component—the idea that the program is an accurate and inclusive example of actual events and lived experiences—leads viewers to internalize the images they see and classify those events and experiences as true, thus leading to (mis) conceptions of people solely based on race and ethnicity. Following the killing of George Floyd and resulting protests in 2020, Paramount Network announced its cancellation. Other shows, like Live P.D. (2016–2020), faced similar fates, demonstrating a shifting landscape with respect to television’s representation of police and crime.

Fictional Police and Detective Television Two of the most popular fictional police and detective dramas are Law & Order and Criminal Minds (2005–2020). Law & Order is a long-running NBC program with several spin-off series. Law & Order began in the 1990s, and spin-off series include the popular Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999–) and the less-popular series Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001–2011), Law & Order: Trial by Jury (2005–2006), and Law & Order: Los Angeles (2010–2011). Criminal Minds follows the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI as they profile and hunt murderers, rapists, and kidnappers across the country. Both Law & Order and Criminal Minds have characters who are racially and ethnically diverse, such as the Jewish character John Munch (played by Richard Belzer) who had appearances in several police and detective dramas, and actors such as Jesse

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Martin, Ice-T, and Shemar Moore, who play detectives in Law & Order and Criminal Minds, respectively, but the programs on the whole are not racially or ethnically diverse. Rarely do these programs or others like them address racially or ethnically related experiences of those characters. While it is not a current program, New York Undercover is an example of police and detective dramas that has largely gone unrecognized. New York Undercover was a detective series in the mid- to late 1990s. The program is similar to Law & Order and other detective programs such as NYPD Blue (1993–2005), Homicide: Life on the Street (1993– 1999), and The Shield (2002–2008), as all these programs focus on the detectives and their attempts to solve crimes and ensure justice. However, New York Undercover (1994–1999), has a rather diverse cast, and it is this diversity that warrants a place in discussions of representations of race and ethnicity in detective and crime television. Fictional police and detective dramas, although they follow the same formula, are not exactly the same. Even among the various spin-off series of Law & Order, there are some significant differences. Parrott and Parrott noted in their study that When researchers examined the 2000–2001 season of Law & Order and NYPD Blue, they found that African American characters stood greater chance than White characters to be portrayed as criminal offenders. A mixed-methods examination of the 2003–2004 season of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit reported that the program underestimated the real-world prevalence of Black criminal offenders while overestimating the prevalence of White victims when compared to crime statistics from Manhattan, New York, the setting of the television program. (Parrott and Parrott 2015, 73)

It is clear from Parrott and Parrott’s study that there can be racial and ethnic diversity among the cast of a fictional police and detective drama, even within a series franchise such as Law & Order. The complexities of a racially and ethnically diverse cast, however, do not always necessarily include story lines that humanize people of color or offer critical interventions that challenge the existing narratives surrounding crime, race, and the criminal justice system. Similar to Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, some detective dramas, such as Homicide: Life on the Street, present “black people not in positive or negative lights but as textured individuals” (Mascaro 2005, 10). In his study of the Homicide series, Thomas Mascaro found that Homicide is one of the few detective dramas that offers several episodic plots that demonstrate various issues that Black men face, both as law enforcement agents and as criminal suspects. Homicide: Life on the Street and New York Undercover are examples of two police and detective dramas that offer a racially diverse cast. At least two of the main characters are people of color. In Homicide, two of the lead detectives are played by Andre Braugher and Yaphet Kotto (both starring in at least one hundred episodes each), while New York Undercover features Malik Yoba and Michael De Lorenzo cast as the primary detectives on the show. While these two shows offer a diverse cast, studies have found that this diversity is not common within the genre. In Mastro and Robinson’s quantitative study, they found that of the racial breakdown of police officers in television programs, “Caucasians constituted the largest group at 75 percent” (2000, 390). The study also found that “African Americans



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followed at 19 percent while Latinos and Asian Americans comprised only 4 percent and 3 percent of the television police population, respectively. No Native American officers were identified” (Mastro and Robinson 2000, 390). Even though these dramas are fictional, the casting of predominantly White actors to play roles in law enforcement sends a message to viewers that they should expect to see a predominantly White police department in their own neighborhoods, which consequently tells viewers who are not White that they have no place in law enforcement. Mastro and Robinson posit, as do other scholars, that the quantity and quality of images are significant. Their study, among other studies, finds that “television portrayals of officers tends to overrepresent minorities while depictions of criminals are underrepresentative of minorities” (Mastro and Robinson 2000, 394). While this could be seen as “a positive distortion of the relationship between race and representation in the criminal justice system, of greater concern may be the types of images portrayed” (Mastro and Robinson 2000, 394). In other words, the inclusion of various races and ethnicities as both law enforcement and criminals is not necessarily negative, but the characteristics of the roles they play are equally as significant as the inclusion of racially and ethnically diverse actors in the programs. Consider Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as an example. In season sixteen, episode ten (“Forgiving Rollins”), officer Rollins comes face-to-face with a former colleague, an officer from Atlanta, who raped her during her time at the Atlanta precinct. Not only should audiences consider the casting of the officer (in this episode, the officer from Atlanta is a White male), but the characteristics of the officer as well. As a police officer, he is expected to uphold the law and be a strong leader in the community. While the officer in this episode is a leader among his fellow male officers within his squad, he is a rapist, and the women he works with know of his offenses. It is not enough to include a racially and ethnically diverse cast, as the roles in which actors are cast is also an important aspect to consider. One way to look at this issue is to consider what the difference in perception might be if the officer in this episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit had not been White, and then explore examples of this perception in similar programs. A program may have several racially or ethnically diverse main characters, but if those characters are not written with complexity, depth, and humanity, the inclusion of a diverse cast is inconsequential at best, as race-based perceptions and stereotypes are likely to persist. The results of Mastro and Robinson’s study “suggest[s] that the viewing of fictional programming may lead to associations of minorities with crime, victimization, and criminal justice themes. As a result, fear and apprehension may be aroused in Caucasian viewers when interacting with minorities, especially young male minorities” (Mastro and Robinson 2000, 394). This does not mean that fictional police and detective dramas should cease to exist. The study, and others like it, indicate that these programs should be more considerate of who is represented, how they are represented, and how intersectional race, ethnicity, crime, the legal system, class, gender, and sexuality are in the real world, as these fictional shows have

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real-world implications as demonstrated by Mastro and Robinson, Mascaro, and Parrott and Parrott.

Crime Television There are several television programs that focus on criminals and criminal enterprises, yet our focus will be on Sons of Anarchy and Orange Is the New Black (2013–2019). Sons of Anarchy (2008–2014) follows the fictional motorcycle club of the same name as they expand their organization through gun and drug sales. Family drama is the downfall of the main characters Jackson Teller, his mother Gemma, and stepfather Clay. Orange Is the New Black (OITNB) is a Netflix series based on Piper Kerman’s memoir, Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison (2010), which follows Piper as she navigates the Litchfield women’s prison in upstate New York. While both of these programs focus on criminals and/or criminal enterprises, they do so from differing perspectives. Sons of Anarchy focuses on the perspective of main character Jackson Teller, also known as Jax. The show follows Jax as he engages in criminal activity with his motorcycle club, learns how to be a father, gets married, and loses friends and loves one over time. Jax perspective is one fraught with stress, deceit, and violence. OITNB, on the other hand, is from the perspective of several incarcerated women. While the series is based on Piper Kerman’s memoir, the series contains vignettes of several inmates to tell their stories and further the plot. Sons of Anarchy is set in California, and audiences might expect a more diverse cast. However, the motorcycle club is predominantly White. One club member, Juice (Theo Rossi), is a multiracial man whose race and identity haunt him throughout the series. He must not only hide from his club members the fact that his father is Black, but he is later manipulated and exploited because of it, by both club members and law enforcement. In the series, motorcycle gangs are divided by racial identification. A rival motorcycle club, the Mayans, are an exclusively Hispanic organization, while the One-Niners are an exclusively Black organization. A. Nama asserts that it should be considered “how African American representation, dramatic network television and the issue of racial meaning are linked” (Nama 2003, 22). While Nama’s assertion is valid, it is crucial to expand this analysis to other racial and ethnic groups. Audiences and scholars should consider the complexities of race and identity in context with the actions of the character and the intent of the program. Juice and Sons of Anarchy is a prime example. Commentators have noted the importance of audiences considering what they know about motorcycle clubs, what they know about race and ethnicity within motorcycle clubs, how accurate the representation of race is within the show, and in what ways race and ethnicity intersect with the premise of the show, depictions of motorcycle clubs, and even the state of California. Unlike Sons of Anarchy, the characters in OITNB are racially and ethnically diverse. While OITNB features queer women, women of color, queer/trans women of color, and an overall wide range of racially and ethnically diverse characters,



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there are still elements of the show that require critical examination. In an article about the multiculturalism within the series, Christina Belcher claims that “Piper Chapman ignores structural difference and claims a parity with the women of color and queers who surround her. The premise of OITNB, and the memoir on which it was based, depends on wealthy, White Piper forging a relationship with a working-class lesbian involved in an international drug smuggling ring, thus landing her in prison, a deviation from the path of the model citizen” (Belcher 2016, 491–492). The series begins with a focus on Piper, a White woman who has come forward to accept responsibility for her role in a criminal enterprise. While it might seem like Piper is trying to do the right thing, the show demonstrates how her character tries to overlook the complexities of race within the prison system as she interacts with her peers. One example of Piper’s denial of the complexities of race is in season three, when she forms an illegal organization within the prison. Piper’s employees include Maritza and Flaca, two young Hispanic women. Piper demonstrates her failure “to understand structural racism and its effect on the women she employs” (Belcher 2016, 492) when she accuses Flaca of stealing all the profits, confronting her and threatening violence while Flaca is in the chapel praying for her ill mother. It is not until another inmate confronts Piper about her behavior and explains how problematic her actions are that Piper begins to consider the complexities of race. While the show itself can be applauded for broaching the lack of understanding behind the complexities of race, there are still issues within the show in regard to racial and ethnic representation. The series acknowledges racial segregation within the prison system, as it alternates focus on Piper and her White friends (predominantly upper-middle class with a few exceptions), lower-class White prisoners (primarily meth addicts and White supremacists), Black prisoners, Latinx prisoners, and elderly prisoners. Those who do not fit into this category are often overlooked unless they relate in some way to one of the other racial groups. In fact, there are but two Asian prisoners, one of whom is depicted through her relation to the White and Black prisoners, and the other who was showcased in one episode and later to be mostly forgotten. The one episode that acknowledged an older Asian prisoner’s life and perspective was titled “Ching Chong Chang,” which was not well received by Asian and other viewers due the derogatory title. Both Sons of Anarchy and OITNB have primarily segregated casts, which results in misrepresentation of racial and ethnic groups not just by omitting their presence in the series, but by not addressing the complexities and intersectionality of race, ethnicity, crime, and social class. Nama refers to Edward Said’s Orientalism as a means of understanding and approaching issues of racial representation. Nama quotes Said as claiming that “‘Othering’ is a representational practice used to construct a racial representation that denies or flattens differences within a racial or ethnic group” (2003, 23). Audiences and writers should consider the type of violence that is portrayed by specific racial or ethnic groups and how that crime impacts those communities in order to grasp and address the intersectionality between race and/or ethnicity and crime. Truly understanding how and why these depictions effect audiences and their perceptions of race and ethnicity in reality.

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CONSEQUENCES OF POLICE, DETECTIVE, AND CRIME DRAMAS One way to approach an analysis of representation in police, detective, and crime dramas is through what is known as Cultivation theory. Cultivation theory, as described by Parrott and Parrott, is a tool to explore how viewers adopt the perceptions they have of a specific racial or ethnic group based on what they repeatedly see on television, especially in relation to crime, violence, and the real world (2015, 71). Through Cultivation theory, they found that “in essence, people who watch large amounts of television over extended periods of time often develop perceptions of the real world that closely reflect the television world” (Parrott and Parrott 2015, 72). Cultivation theory offers is way of dissecting this phenomenon through a dissection of viewing habits. First, the agent of delivery must be ascertained. This can be any medium, but in Parrott and Parrott’s study, the medium is specifically television. Next, the consistency of the picture should be considered. Audiences should ask themselves who is being depicted in which way, when, why, and how. Asking and answering these questions allows audiences to critically evaluate the representation of a racial and ethnic group within a specific program or genre of programs to determine what message is being sent, what message is being received, and how that message reinforces traditional or mainstream power structures (Parrott and Parrott 2015, 72). Cultivation theory informs scholarly research, offering four significant consequences of police, detective, and crime dramas. The first consequence is that “less screen time means less time to participate in the narrative” (Nama 2003, 33). Without screen time, those not being represented, or those who are minimally represented, are not allowed to contribute to the narrative that depicts how their communities are either represented or perceived. This lack of inclusivity is a means of silencing a community or erasing their voices, and in essence tells audiences that those voices are insignificant. The second consequence is that “the genre of television drama is framed as drawing heavily from official discourses and ‘playing’ to the expectations of its viewing audience” (Nama 2003, 25). Depending on the program, this may be a positive or negative consequence. For Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, this is a positive consequence because, as discussed earlier, the series offers more “positive” roles for Black Americans within the context of crime and the legal system. Conversely, this is a negative consequence in the shows Cops and Criminal Minds, in which people of color are often depicted as criminals and are rarely viewed in law-abiding or enforcers of justice roles. Programs like Law & Order and Homicide: Life on the Street portray arrest and trial procedures, informing many audience members of the legal process. This results in the third consequence that is characteristic of police, detective, and crime dramas. George Gerbner and Larry Gross found in their research that “a former New York City police official has complained that jury members have formed images and expectations of trial procedures and outcomes from television which often prejudice them in actual trials” (Gerbner and Gross 1976, 178). From the moment a crime is committed until the suspect attends trial, audiences now have preconceived notions about how the process works and what law



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enforcement should and should not be doing, which is not always reflective of actual state and federal laws. This impedes audience members when they sit on juries or have friends or acquaintances who encounter legal problems. The knowledge gained from repeatedly viewing police and detective dramas informs advice provided and interactions with law enforcement or legal aid, which can result in varying consequences. The final consequence of police, detective, and crime dramas is the perceived threat of violence. Mastro and Robinson discuss research conducted by Weaver and Wakshlag, in which 108 undergraduate students were surveyed. The finding of the study indicates that of those who were surveyed, those who were not direct victims of crime but had viewed violent television programs had higher levels of fear of a crime being committed than those who were victims of crime (Mastro and Robinson 2000, 386). Programs like Criminal Minds contribute to this fear, as episodes depict individuals and families going about their daily lives when they are involuntarily caught up in a criminal enterprise or violent event. If someone going about their daily business can be a victim of a crime, then surely it can happen to anyone. Therefore, audiences who regularly watch programs like Criminal Minds begin to internalize this fear, even if they have never before been a victim of a crime. CONCLUSION Ultimately, police, detective, and crime dramas are more than entertainment; they promote perceptions of reality based on violence, often at the expense of racially and ethnically diverse groups. With all the police, detective, and crime dramas on American television, it is easy to see that “violence is the simplest and cheapest dramatic means available to demonstrate the rules of the game of power” (Gerbner and Gross 1976, 183). Violence is a form of entertainment, depicting a lifestyle or fantasy that audiences can participate in without leaving the comfort of their homes. While police, detective, and crime dramas are enjoyable, there are issues within the programs that warrant attention. Audiences and scholars alike should “examine interactions between and among different races and analyze whether members of various cultures can see common interests and values and make good faith efforts to achieve mutually beneficial objectives” (Mascaro 2005, 10). Scholars, critics, and activists note the importance of not only thinking critically about the content being conveyed but also how it is conveyed and the consequences of the content as a whole. It is not enough to look at how racially and ethnically diverse people are represented in police, detective, and crime dramas, but how those representations impact real-life perceptions of racial and ethnic groups. Kelli Pyron-Alvarez Further Reading

Belcher, Christina. 2016. “There Is No Such Thing as a Post-Racial Prison: Neoliberal Multiculturalism and the White Savior Complex on Orange Is the New Black.” Television & New Media 17 (6): 491–503.

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Chopra-Gant, Mike. 2007. “The Law of the Father, the Law of the Land: Power, Gender and Race in The Shield.” Journal of American Studies 41 (3): 659–673. Dowell, Kristen. 2013. Sovereign Screens: Aboriginal Media on the Canadian West Coast. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. FitzGerald, Michael Ray. 2014a. “American Masculinity in Crisis: Cordell Walker and the Indianized White Hero.” American Indian Culture and Research Journal 38 (2): 67–88. Gerbner, George, and Larry Gross. 1976. “Living with Television: The Violence Profile.” Journal of Communication 26 (2) (Spring): 172–199. Mascaro, Thomas A. 2005. “Shades of Black on Homicide: Life on the Street: Progress in Portrayals of African American Men.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 33 (2): 10–19. Mastro, Dana E., and Amanda L. Robinson. 2000. “Cops and Crooks: Images of Minorities on Primetime Television.” Journal of Criminal Justice 28: 385–396. Nama, A. 2003. “More Symbol than Substance: African American Representation in Network Television Dramas.” Race and Society 6: 21–38. Parrott, Scott, and Caroline Titcomb Parrott. 2015. “U.S. Television’s ‘Mean World’ for White Women: The Portrayal of Gender and Race on Fictional Crime Dramas.” Sex Roles 73: 70–82. Poindexter, Paula M., Laura Smith, and Don Heider. 2003. “Race and Ethnicity in Local Television News: Framing, Story Assignments, and Source Selections.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 47 (4): 524–536. Tasker, Yvonne. 2012. “Television Crime Drama and Homeland Security: From Law & Order to ‘Terror TV.’” Cinema Journal 51 (4) (Summer): 44–65. Tukachinsky, Riva, Dana Mastro, and Moran Yarchi. 2015. “Documenting Portrayals of Race/Ethnicity on Primetime Television over a 20-Year Span and Their Association with National-Level Racial/Ethnic Attitudes.” Journal of Social Issues 71 (1): 17–38.

Q Queen Sugar (2016–) An hour-long dramatic series on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), Queen Sugar is an adaptation of Natalie Baszile’s book of the same title. The book focuses on Charley Bordelon, a young widow who reconnects with her southern roots after inheriting her father’s sugarcane farm in rural Louisiana. The idea to adapt the book into a series came after production of Selma (2014), a film that was directed by Ava DuVernay and costarred Oprah Winfrey. During a visit to her Maui home, Winfrey recommended that DuVernay read the book. DuVernay took Winfrey’s advice, connecting with the book as she too grew up in the same area of Los Angeles that Charley, a character in the book, lived in. DuVernay also has family from the same part of Louisiana that is referenced in the text. These connections and her budding relationship with Winfrey led them to team up in the production of Queen Sugar, which would be DuVernay’s first television series, which she cocreated with Oprah Winfrey. In February 2015, OWN announced that they made a straight-to-series order for Queen Sugar. The show would be produced by Harpo Films and Warner Horizons Scripted TV; DuVernay was announced as the showrunner/executive producer. In adapting the book for television, DuVernay made some creative changes starting with setting the story in the fictional town of St. Josephine, Louisiana. Instead of being a widow with a daughter, Charley (Dawn-Lyen Gardner) was cast as a married woman who would take her son, Micah (Nicholas L. Ashe) back to Louisiana following the passing of her father. DuVernay would also add a new Bordelon sibling, Nova (Rutina Wesley). In addition to being the show’s executive producer, DuVernay also wrote and directed the first two episodes. In the first episode, Ernest Bordelon (Glynn Turman) has a stroke and dies. The series proceeds to focus on the Bordelon siblings, Charley, Nova, and Ralph Angel (Kofi Siriboe) as they deal with their father’s death and the challenges resulting from their inheritance of his sugarcane farm. Nova Bordelon, the eldest sibling, lives in New Orleans and works for a local newspaper. Charley Bordelon-West lives in Los Angeles and is a sports manager; her only client is her husband, Davis (Timon Kyle Durrett), an NBA player. In the series premiere, upon hearing the news of her father’s stroke, Charley returns with her son to St. Josephine. Ralph Angel, the youngest sibling, has been out of prison for six months but continues to run afoul with the law. In one instance, he leaves his son at a park as he robs a convenience store, handing the money over to his aunt, Violet (Tina Lifford), who has been helping take care of his son, Blue

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(Ethan Hutchison), while he was incarcerated. Violet insists that Ralph Angel give the money to his father; he tells his father that he won it in a craps game. In addition to grieving, the Bordelon siblings also are dealing with an inherited sugarcane farm and the financial, political, and racial tensions of being Black farmers in rural Louisiana. In St. Josephine, the sugarcane industry is dominated by two wealthy White families, the Landrys and Boudreauxs. The Bordelons refuse to sell the land and decide to run their father’s farm. During this process, they learn about the obstacles that African American farmers face in obtaining loans from the local banks as well as the problems caused by the monopoly that the Landry and Boudreaux families have on the sugarcane mills in the area. The Bordelons also struggle with personal and family issues. Charley discovers her marriage is less than ideal when her husband is accused of gang-rape along with his fellow teammates. Nova also deals with ample drama, as her White lover is a married police detective. While the show embraces dramatic interpersonal drama, much of it focuses on broader social issues including police brutality and the prison industrial complex. For example, it explores the challenges that Ralph Angel has finding a job, which is a condition of his parole. The show’s story line also focuses on the difficulties of being a single parent, as well as dealing with his son’s mother, a recovering drug addict, who comes back into their lives. Before the series premiere, OWN announced that the show had been renewed for a second season. Queen Sugar made its debut with a two-night event on September 6 and 7, 2016. The first two episodes averaged 2.4 million viewers, and the entire first season averaged almost two million viewers weekly. The series averaged over two million viewers an episode in its second season. In August 2018, weeks before the season three finale, OWN announced that the show would return for a fourth season in 2019. The series is one of OWN’s most popular shows and is one of the top ten scripted series on cable for women aged twenty-five to fifty-four. Queen Sugar, along with Greenleaf (2016–2020) and The Have and Have Nots (2013–), have made OWN the number one cable channel for African American female viewers. In addition to increasing African American inclusion onscreen, Queen Sugar has increased diversity behind the scenes. Within the television industry, directing remains a male-dominated field and DuVernay wanted her show to be more gender-inclusive. Every episode of seasons one through three has been directed by a woman. In addition, women are in key positions behind the scenes, including director of photography, editing, producing director, writers, music supervisor, and post-production supervisor. Danielle E. Williams Further Reading

Arceneaux, Michael. 2016. “The Complexities of the Black Family: How Queen Sugar Is an Honest Look at Our Current State.” Essence, November 30. ­https://​­w ww​ .­essence​.­com​/­entertainment​/­queen​-­sugar​-­black​-­family​-­structure​-­finale​/. Butler, Bethonie. 2016. “Ava DuVernay and Oprah’s ‘Queen Sugar’ Makes a Powerful Statement about Family and Loss.” Washington Post, September 5. ­https://​­w ww​ .­w ashingtonpost​ .­c om ​ /­l ifestyle​ /­s tyle​ /­ava​ -­d uvernay​ -­a nd​ -­o prahs​ -­q ueen​ -­s ugar​



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-­makes​-­a​-­powerful​-­statement​-­about​-­family​-­and​-­loss​/­2016​/­09​/­04​/­9e030206 ​- ­6bcb​ -­11e6​-­99bf​-­f 0cf3a6449a6​_story​.­html. Littleton, Cynthia. 2017. “Oprah Charts New Path Toward OWNing the Future.” Variety 336 (18): 22. O’Connell, Michael. 2018. “‘Queen Sugar’ Renewed for Season 4 at OWN.” Hollywood Reporter, August 8. ­https://​­w ww​.­hollywoodreporter​.­com ​/­live​-­feed ​/­queen​ -­sugar​-­season​- ­4​-­ava​-­duvernay​-­s​-­own​-­d rama​-­renewed​-­1133181. Qureshi, Bilal. 2017. “The Cultural Consolation of Ava Duvernay’s Queen Sugar.” Film Quarterly 70 (3): 63–68.

R Rashad, Phylicia(1948–) Phylicia Rashad (formerly Ayers-Allen) was born in Houston, Texas, on June 19, 1948. She graduated from Howard University in 1970 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theater. She is best known for her role as the beloved matriarch Clair Huxtable on the highly successful sitcom The Cosby Show (NBC, 1984–1992). During the Reagan era, her portrayal of Clair Huxtable became the most formidable presence of Black womanhood on television even as the series was said to have promoted colorblind ideology through its focus on racial assimilation and upward mobility associated with the achievement of the American Dream. Rashad began her career on the theater stage and developed much of her craft through the mentorship provided by New York City’s Negro Ensemble Company (NEC). Her debut performance came as a Munchkin in The Wiz on Broadway in 1975. The understudy for Sheryl Lee Ralph in the original Broadway production of Dreamgirls, Rashad quit the company when she did not receive an offer to play the role of Deena Jones after Ralph left the production. Following a brief stint on the ABC daytime soap opera One Life to Live (1968–2012) as publicist Courtney Wright in the early 1980s, she won the role of Clair Huxtable on actor-comedian Bill Cosby’s new network sitcom, which would catapult Rashad into television stardom. The Cosby Show premiered on NBC in 1984. Set in Brooklyn, New York, the sitcom followed the lives of married couple Clair and Cliff Huxtable and their children: Sondra (Sabrina Le Beauf), Denise (Lisa Bonet), Theo (Malcolm Jamal-Warner), Vanessa (Tempestt Bledsoe), and Rudy (Keisha Knight Pulliam). Clair, a lawyer, was the television representation of the successful working woman gracefully balancing her professional and personal obligations. Unlike matriarchs Florida Evans (Esther Rolle) of Good Times (1974–1979) or Louise Jefferson (Isabel Sanford) of The Jeffersons (1975–1985), Clair came to epitomize the respectability politics of African American middle- to upper-middle-class women. Clair’s refined nature was articulated in her gestures, speech, and even attire. She was always depicted as poised in the face of familial conflict and her discipline allowed her to serve as a foil to husband Cliff; such a dynamic reflects Rashad’s own on-set navigation of acting opposite funnyman Cosby who frequently went off script and improvised scenes. Rashad’s demeanor, especially as expressed through her stare and voice, would become emblematic of Clair’s no-nonsense attitude toward parenting. In a memorable season six episode “Off to See the Wretched,” she utilizes her prowess as an attorney to interrogate teenage daughter Vanessa who lied to her about attending

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a rock concert in Baltimore. While Rashad-as-Huxtable emotionally resonated with Black audiences, the de-emphasis of race on the series allowed for it to reach a wider viewership. Therefore, Rashad broke industry barriers of racial and gendered representation to become a universal model mother figure. The actress would reunite with television husband Bill Cosby on the sitcom Cosby (1996–2000) in the role of Ruth Lucas. Once again, she portrayed the steadfast and well-mannered wife that frequently functioned to contain husband Hilton’s antics each episode. Rashad continued to work with Cosby after the series was cancelled, also voicing the character of Brenda in Nickelodeon’s animated program Little Bill (1999–2004). In 2001, Rashad was honored with the Muse Award for Outstanding Vision and Achievement by the New York Women in Film and Television. Yet she continued to return to theater throughout her television career. She became the first African American woman to win the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her turn as Lena Younger in the 2004 revival of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun. She reprised her role in the made-for-television movie version of the play that aired on ABC four years later. In 2008, Rashad also costarred as Big Mama in the all-Black cast production of Tennessee Williams’s Pulitzer prize-winning play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof that was directed by her famous younger sister, Debbie Allen. She was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 2016. Rashad has appeared in a variety of television series, miniseries, and movies over the years that span across genres. Over three seasons, she portrayed villain Diana DuBois on the hit prime-time soap Empire (2015–2020). As the matriarch of one of the most elite African American families in New York, the character aligns with the actress’s decades-long tendency to take on maternal roles. Rashad’s turn as a nemesis of the Lyon family in Empire can be seen as a tribute to her iconic place in television history as both a reference to her status as preeminent mother figure as well as glimpse into her bold future on the small screen. From her iconic role on The Cosby Show to her continued presence on television in shows like Station 19 (2018–) to 13 Reasons Why (2017–2020), from her performances in the Creed franchise to her family’s contributions to the performing arts (her sister is Debbie Allen, legendary chorographer and director; her daughter is Condola Phylea Rashad, an actress best known for her role as Kate Sacker in Showtime’s Billions (2016–), Phylicia Rashad has left her mark on American television and popular culture on the whole/ Brandy Monk-Payton Further Reading

Gray, Herman. 1995. Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for “Blackness.” Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Jhally, Sut, and Justin Lewis. 1992. Enlightened Racism: The Cosby Show, Audiences, and the Myth of the American Dream. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Marks, Peter. 2010. “Phylicia Rashad’s Star Trajectory to Arena Stage’s ‘Every Tongue Confess.’” Washington Post, October 24. ­http://​­www​.­washingtonpost​.­com​/­wp​-­dyn​ /­content​/­article​/­2010​/­10​/­21​/­AR2010102107430​.­html.



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“Off to See the Wretched.” 1990. The Cosby Show, season six, episode twenty-three, directed by Carl Lauten and Malcolm-Jamal Warner, April 5, on NBC. “Phylicia Rashad.” 2010. Archive of American Television, ­EmmyTVLegends​.­org. ­http://​ ­w ww​.­emmytvlegends​.­org​/­interviews​/­people​/­phylicia​-­rashad.

Reality Television Over the last fifteen years, there has been an explosion of reality television programs that are semi-guided, if not semi-scripted. Critics have noted that reality television reflects both the importance of race and the unwillingness to confront racism in substantive and constructive ways. Yet to these same commentators, notwithstanding their focus on race, the majority of these shows provide a very limited and stereotypical view of race. A quick look at the thousands of television programs reveals that the people on television are overwhelming White. Smith, Choueiti, and Pieper (2016) referred to this deficiency as an epidemic of invisibility after analyzing more 21,000 characters and behind the scenes workers on more than 400 films and television shows. They found just 28.3 percent of the characters with dialogue were from nonwhite or racial ethnic groups, despite this demographic making up nearly 40 percent of the U.S. population. Yuen (2016) discussed the structural barriers that minority actors face in the industry. These barriers also extend to the talent agents’ offices, at auditions, and on sets as too often White male gatekeepers dominate Hollywood while breeding a culture of ethnocentric storytelling and casting. Reality television follows the same trend with respect to the levels of whiteness. In terms of people of color, there are more reality shows with Blacks, but they are still generally stereotyped, marginalized, and underrepresented even on those reality television shows centering on Blackness. Every other racial group is essentially invisible on reality television with few exceptions, like The Shahs of Sunset (2012–), Washington Heights (2013), and Family Karma (2020–). Scholars have noted that the ways that reality television represents communities of color reflect the lack of diversity within television networks, production teams, and television as a whole, resulting in the maintenance and perpetuation of stereotypes. In an interview with Mannen (2016), an anonymous member of 2009’s Real World: Cancun (2009) cast, under the pseudonym “Pat,” pulled the curtain to reveal the process. Pat explained the five ingredients that networks look for in order to cast a successful drama-filled series as follows: (1) they look to cast certain types of people. (2) Some of the smaller events are staged. (3) Producers encourage conflict using various techniques. (4) Cast members are docked if no-show for events or not following producers’ lead. (5) Cast members must follow final product of show, even if a lie. Case in point, in 2016, Masika Kaylsha from Love and Hip Hop: Hollywood (2014–) told the radio hosts from The Breakfast Club morning radio show that the relationship between her and Mally Mall was all a product of the show’s production and that there was never a relationship between them.

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Along these same lines, networks treat racial and cultural identities as commodities, only vaguely connecting to the social conditions from which they emerge. These racial and cultural identities are constructed by the use of frequent and familiar gender, ethnic, and class tropes and stereotypes. Racial and ethnic stereotypes are created in the fabric of the show by a string of images affecting the viewers’ behavior and ideology, creating what Baudrillard described as “hyperreality.”` The merger between the real, complicated world of race blends with the stereotypical simplistic tropes presented by reality television to make the real world less significant than the one created by the show. The hyperreality has real world effects on popular ideas of minority groups (such as promiscuous Black men like on Real World and women being unable to get along like on Basketball Wives (2010–) and Bad Girls Club (2006–)), on cultural appropriation without cultural understanding (i.e., Kylie Jenner’s lip kits for fuller lips), and on microaggressions. Also, because individuals on the shows are seen creating their own problems through their decisions and behaviors, it creates individualistic interpretations of social issues. These effects make reality television into a sort of peculiar institution that is both difficult to understand outside its context and easily absorbed by its viewers.

ORIGINS Scholars have noted that from its very beginning, race and reality television played important roles as television struggled for relevancy. Despite its importance in America since the 1970s, television was not initially taken seriously because it was only thought of as a toy for the rich. Its explosion in popularity from the mid-1947 to the end of 1948 in part because of reality shows, including news shows, talk shows, and game shows. The emergence of Candid Camera (1948–2004) would prove influential in the expanded importance of television programing. The show placed ordinary people in planned scenarios where they were unaware of themselves being filmed. It was the first instance in a sort of voyeuristic television that allowed people to view and consume other lives from the comfort of a home. According to Balkin (2004), this was an important step for the culture which right after World War II and into the 1950s, emphasized White, conservative values and the sense of moral superiority that would make the world safe for democracy. Candid Camera helped to create a safe, White space that supported White supremacy, reproduced through simple humor. Reality television, as we now know it, was cemented by the 1970s family documentary An American Family (1973). Many scholars and commentators consider this show to be the precursor to today’s reality shows. The introduction to the show announced that this was not a typical American family; rather it was just an American family. Still the fact that it was a White, upper-class family in an essentially racially homogeneous place, spoke to how the ideal American family was being imagined within the show and the broader cultural landscape. The show dealt with serious issues such as divorce and the son coming out, and while these issues resonated with many Americans, the class, autonomy, and ability to be able to be seen as individuals all are the privilege of whiteness.



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WHITENESS AND TELEVISION According to Pozner (2010), up until about 2006, the predominantly White representations of race on reality television shows resulted in marginalization, tokenism, and typecasting of people of color. This can be seen with Stephen from Real Word: Seattle (1998), who is presented as the angry Black man, who eventually assaults another female cast member for calling him gay, which he denied then, though he eventually came out. It is equally visible on Cops (1989–2020), which furthers the stereotype of Blacks and Latinxs as criminals. When asked by Michael Moore, why a show was not being produced that examines the root cause of crime, former Cops producer Dick Herlan said this, “Angry does well, hate does well, violence does well, tolerance and understanding and trying to learn to be a little different than you were last year, does less well in the ratings” (qtd. in Moore 2003). Pozner (2010) argues that Flavor of Love (2006–2008) shifted reality television, ushering in a new era where shows were defined by their minorities cast and use of racial stereotypes. Flavor of Love featured Flavor Flav, a member of Public Enemy, one of the most political and socially conscious hip-hop groups in history, in his quest to find love. According to Pozner, the show was a modern-day minstrel show that operated as a counter to The Bachelor (2002–). Describing Flavor Flav’s introduction to the group of women on the first show, Pozner writes: Outside their suitor, a Black man twice their age sported an oversized hot pink suit, a glittery bow tie, a black top hat, with a giant clock on a chain around his neck. When he grabbed the doorknob to enter the manor, the camera zoomed to the short white gloves, the sort worn by the servants and minstrels. (179)

The mansion was often filthy, with chicken bones and beer bottles scattered about. The women vying for his attention were stripped of their identities, as Flav groped their bodies and forced nicknames on them. Names like Nibblz (who had prominent nipples), Bootz (because seeing her made him “wanna knock boots”), Red Oyster (because she looked Asian) and Thing 1 and Thing 2 (for twins on season three) encapsulates the sexualizing representation that reduced the women to their bodies. During the finale, the person chosen as the winner was given a gold mouth grill instead of a rose or ring (Pozner 2010). Pozner (2010) noted that the popularity of Flavor of Love would usher in a new era for reality television as it meant that networks saw opportunities in shows with primarily Black casts. Following its framework, subsequent shows would rely on racial, gender, and sexualized stereotypes rooted in colonialism, slavery, xenophobia, and White supremacy.

RACIAL STEREOTYPES Reality television, like other media, is full of racial stereotypes. Darling (2004) highlights a history where Black men are portrayed as hypersexual, violent, lazy, or all three. Darling offers several examples from reality television, including Real World (1992–) and the Big Brother (2000–) series. (1) On the first season of

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the Real World, racially conscious and contentious Kevin was accused of throwing a candlestick at his White female roommate—Julie. (2) On the second season of the show, David gets kicked out of the house because the women of the house feel threatened due to his roughhousing. (3) In 1997 and 1999, Syrus and Tek are presented in highly sexualized ways with significant emphasis on their bringing lots of women back to the house. (4) In 2000, William from Big Brother is booted because he is seen as hostile and Gervase from Survivor admits on the show that he does not work and is the laziest cast member. According to scholars, control is a big theme among the characterization of Black men. Both the lack of sexual control exercised by Black men and the need for institutional control to fix this. This was fully elaborated with the story line of Peter Gunz, on the fourth season of Love and Hip Hop: New York (2010–). Peter was expecting children with two women pregnant at the same time, which were to be his eighth and ninth child by five different women. In one episode, he is asked why he keeps having kids, he says very contrite, “I don’t know.” In another moment, one of his adult daughters notes that he needed a vasectomy. While these conversations happen with many men with multiple children, its inclusion fits within a larger history of social control and criminalization Black male sexuality. The stereotype of the hypersexual absentee father was equally visible within Oxygen’s failed attempt to launch All My Baby’s Mamas, which chronicled the life of now deceased Black rapper Shawty Lo and his ten baby’s mamas, in 2013. Although the show never aired, the trailers and promos showcased an out of control Black man, surrounded by women who represented different stereotypes, including the jealous baby mama. This is hardly the first narrative example of inept Black fatherhood, which is a popular narrative in reality television. Much was made of Stevie J being a deadbeat dad on early seasons of Love and Hip Hop: Atlanta (2012–). The Real Housewives of Atlanta (2008–) has made this a major issue through the years. Early seasons showed Nene Leakes looking for her father after finding out that the man she thought was her father was not. Kenya Moore’s struggles with both parents have been well documented on the show. Kandi’s daughter Riley and Sheree’s kids also struggle in their relationships with their fathers. Scholars note that the hypersexual Black male represents but one side of the presentation of Black male sexuality on reality television. In this regard, reality television creates a monolithic view of male homosexuality. Black male homosexuality is represented by ultra-feminine men who are typically cosmetologists or “designers.” They are often introduced as best friends to Black female characters such as Miss Lawrence who was Sheree’s best friend on Real Housewives of Atlanta. Ultimately, they still exert a certain masculine power as they are often in positions to instruct and correct women, whether it is Derek J from Fashion Queens and Earvin Johnson III for Rich Kids of Beverly Hills (2014–2016) and EJNYC (2016), or Miss J from America’s Next Top Model (2003–). The term “baby mama,” which is frequent in reality TV, is important because it shows that not only are old stereotypes being repackaged by networks but also new stereotypes are being created by networks and popularized by reality television. Hill (2005) asserts that stereotypes are being created as a result of the



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Atlanta In terms of reality television, the city of Atlanta has become an important place as the home for most reality programs with primary Black casts. There is a broad range of shows that showcase successful cast members like Braxton Family Values, T.I. Family Hustle, The Rap Game, Married to Medicine, and Cutting It: Atlanta. These shows highlight the fact that Atlanta has a large number of successful Blacks. For years, Atlanta has represented Black success and intellectualism in a diverse urban area with a nice mix of southern hospitality and big city hustle. As a historic place of Black resistance, it is a common place for tourism. The cultural hotspot, diverse population, cost of living, and welcoming attitude toward to television crews are some of the reasons that networks are drawn to the city. But the influx of these reality television shows Atlanta has had an unintended and maybe intended consequences. There are concerns that the gaze of reality television has made the culture view Atlanta as more monolithic and as a “Black” city that is associated with all the negative stereotypes. According to Kunbi Tinuoye (2012), many in Atlanta have spoken out about this. Former Morehouse president Robert Franklin said, “They represent Atlantans as more materialistic, narcissistic and less thoughtful and socially conscious than we are.  .  .  . Most of the images are imbalanced, frivolous and misleading.” Atlanta native Sarah Estes believes that the shows are giving the city a bad name, saying that “it’s embarrassing that my hometown is being portrayed this way.” Atlanta represents a sort of geographical or environment racism. It also shows how powerful race is in ascribing understanding and how far-reaching its effects are both on television and in society as a whole.

globalization of controlling images. The baby mama, a woman whose identity is attached to a man who she is only connected to through a child, is one such example. She is dehumanized and reduced to a breeder whose sole responsibility is to a have a child with a man who doesn’t want to be with her and acts as a caretaker of sorts for his kids. Frequently, Black women are characterized as the angry black woman, who is willing to use force if need be in order to get her way. Nene Leakes, from The Real Housewives of Atlanta, and Tammi Roman, of Basketball Wives (2010–), are often shown bullying other cast members. Tammi has frequently got into physical altercations. This narrative is evident in other shows including Little Women of Atlanta (2016–) and Little Women of LA (2014–). As the only Black woman cast member on the Little Women of LA, Tonya is often portrayed as angry, having a bad attitude, and rude. She has been shown bullying several of the women, most notably trying to fight cast member Jasmine during her introduction to the show for not speaking to her at a party years ago. She calls herself “Little Boss,” threatening any women who doesn’t see her point of view. The first season Little Women of Atlanta also saw cast member Monie constantly talking about fighting and even throwing a drink on eventual cast member Juicy. Even as Monie went to anger management and reformed her image, the label continued to follow. While stereotypes prevail, reality television also becomes a space where people of color, particularly women, give voice to real world issues. On the first season of Love and Hip Hop: Atlanta, K. Michelle talked about being abused by Memphiz, who at the time was married to Little Wayne’s ex-wife, Toya. In an episode of The

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Real Housewives of Potomac (2016–), Karen speaks about being raped, giving a speech to an anti-violence organization. On racially integrated reality television shows, Black women are often ridiculed and marginalized, replicating long-standing stereotypes. For example, in one episode of Dance Moms (2011–2019), dance studio owner Abby questions why one of the Black girl dancers wasn’t better at an African ballet duet given that “she looks the part.” In another episode, the show’s only Black dancer is assigned a solo that replicates stereotypes of Black women. When the dancer’s mother asked why, she said it was because she was preparing her for a dance world where this is the type of roles that she would get. On Toddlers and Tiaras (2009–2016), it is widely known that blonde-haired, blue-eyed contests already had an advantage in the beauty category and generally win over other groups of girls because of “facial beauty.” Young Black children are often characterized as not smiling enough and not having enough “facial beauty.” Other than shows produced by Univision and Telemundo, Latinxs are similarly stereotyped, appearing as workers on home makeover shows or workers. Zoila, the maid on Flipping Out (2007–), is represented as a caricature against the backdrop of her White employer, Jeff, who buys expensive houses and frequently threatens to fire her. The recent Cartel Crew (2019–) follows a group of Latinx who are breaking away from their families’ drug-trafficking pasts. It focuses on their journey to create their own way, but they are never too far from the drug culture, constantly being drawn back to their families as a result of murders and past deals. Also, many Latinxs get absorbed into primarily Black shows. Mariah Lynn, Cardi B, Cisco Rasado, Erica Meena, Cyn Santana from Love & Hip Hop New York; Joseline Hernadez from Love & Hip Hop Atlanta and Love & Hip Hop Miami and Andrea and Amanda Salinas, known as the Tiny Twins from Little Women of Atlanta are examples. Because they are associated with Black shows, they get absorbed by Black stereotypes as well. The Shahs of Sunset (2012–) is currently the only major show in the United States that focuses on the lives of the Middle Eastern community. The individuals on the show all self-identify as “Persian” and are wealthy. The show’s narrative reinforces long-standing stereotypes about the Middle Eastern community. These concessions fit in the racialized ideas and are presumably the only way that the show has been successful. When Asian Americans do appear on reality television, their image is at least partly corrupted by stereotypes. According to Deery (2015), Asian Americans on career shows like Top Chef (2006–) and Project Runaway (2004–) are presented as creative and emotional, though there is an emphasis on expertise over passion. Also, they are usually mocked as a result of their overly stereotypical behavior. William Hung from American Idol (2002) and Bobby Trendy from Anna Nicole Show (2002–2004) reality show are early examples of Asian men being seen as the Asian geek, asexual, and social awkward or overly feminized. Asian women are presented as sexually submissive, passive, and eager to please men in general. The next section explores this more.



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Beyond the ubiquitous stereotypes within reality television, the aesthetics and narratives of the genre consistently imagine communities of color as exotic others. For example, on food television, on HGTV, and in other reality shows, communities of color inside and outside the United States are often depicted as exotic backdrops, playgrounds, and otherwise different from “normal” (White) communities. For example, in season four of the Amazing Race (2001–), the teams arrive in Mumbai and gaze upon the poverty on the streets. Reichen and Chip wonder how the city got so grotesque and ask, “What happened?” Kelly states, “This is my worst nightmare,” in response to the crowdedness and stench of the area. Shows like the Amazing Race reinforce an otherness by controlling the circumstances with the American dollar and by visiting areas that reinforce preconceived notions like poor parts of the city and traditional events like Hawaiian Luau, which taken out of context, reinforce the underdeveloped nature of the people and culture. ETHNIC STEREOTYPES While providing a platform for the production and dissemination of racist representations, reality shows also promulgate White ethnic stereotypes. Shows like Mob Wives (2011–2016), Amish in the City (2004), Amish Mafia (2012), Breaking Amish (2012), Gypsy Sisters (2013–2015), My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding (2012–), The Jersey Shore (2009–2012), and Ladies of London (2014) portray “a whiteness of a different color” (Jacobson 1999) highlighting long-standing ethnic, class, and geographic ideas of White difference. One of the more ubiquitous inscriptions is the Italian mobster or the “guido” identity. The idea of the thuggish, uneducated, working-class has been highlighted in shows like Jersey Shore. Growing Up Gotti (2004–2005) featured the daughter of John Gotti, the former mafia boss of the Gambino crime family, and her sons. Much of the draw was the stereotypical Italian accents and constructed looks. Mob Wives has been equally successful in deploying the Italian as mobster motif. The series features women who are wives or daughters of criminals that the show portrays as mobsters. The women are constantly talking about someone as a snitch or rat. They are aggressive and always talking about fighting. A couple of years ago, amid increased interest in Roma culture, often referred to as the “gypsy” or “traveler” shows, these reality shows deployed ethnic stereotypes. One episode of My Big Fat Gypsy Weddings features a 14-year-old girl, whose parents are throwing a Halloween party for her to find her a husband. Shot in a mobile home park in Georgia, the show reinforces the idea that the gypsy community is without roots.

WHITE TRASH Reality television is also responsible for reinforcing dominant class-based stereotypes about Whites. There are a large number of shows that exploit poor rural White stereotypes, thereby reinforcing dominant narratives about whiteness. Isenberg (2017) documents the history of poor Whites in America, which dates

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back to the British colonial era. The White poor have been dismissed and demonized as swamp people, rednecks, degenerates, White niggers, waste people, and White trash among others. Reality TV continues this history, representing poor Whites as filthy, uneducated, trapped in the past, racist, uncivilized, and expendable. Here Comes Honey Boo Boo (2012–2014), Swamp People (2010–), My Big Redneck Family (2014–), Party Down South (2014–2016), My Big Redneck Wedding (2008–), Redneck Island (2012–), and the once popular Duck Dynasty (2012– 2017) are a few of the shows that have been broadcast over the last few years. Scholars argue that these shows reinforce middle- and upper-class superiority that is seen as “normal” to whiteness. On Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, little Honey Boo Boo, whose given name is Alanna, would scream out, “You better redneckognize.” Whether attending Redneck Olympics, flying the confederate flag, or bobbing for pig feet, these reality shows pathologized southern poor whiteness, thereby normalizing White as middle-class, cosmopolitan, and sophisticated. Critics argue that the demonization of the LGBTQ community or communities of color in these shows provides a sense of superiority even as it normalizes and privileges White middle-class identities. My Big Redneck Wedding similarly features people getting married in camouflage and shotguns. There are canopies made of beer cans and ATV marriage vehicles. These shows support and reinforce mainstream whiteness and create White scapegoats for overt racist actions. They are even blamed for electing Trump, despite research that says White college grads had a bigger effect (Henley 2016). In his study of fan interactions on Facebook with Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, Calvacante (2014), found that fans of the show loved the perceived self-assured attitude and happiness of the show. The author concludes that these acts of social defiance legitimize the happiness of the disenfranchised. The symbolic power of Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson can be seen in the emergence of closely related survivor shows like Alaskan Bush People (2014–), Mountain Men (2012–), Ice Road Truckers (2007–), and Man vs Wild (2006–2011). Scholars argue that these shows legitimize a definition of masculinity that centers mastery over nature. Hernadez (2014) concludes that Robertson and other men on Duck Dynasty represent White southern masculinity. This masculinity has three main constructions: (1) the hunter, (2) the Christian gentleman/masculine martial ideal, and (3) White trash redneck. Similarly, Deadliest Catch (2005–) offers a retreat by reinforcing masculinity. In their analysis of the show, Buchanan (2014) concludes that patriarchy is an important draw to the show. Highlighting the ship’s crew navigating severe storms and typhoons that pose serious threats, amid talk of getting home to the families, the show focuses on how being man is about action and proving yourself against nearly impossible odds.

RACE AND COURTROOM DRAMA Court shows are particularly large part of daytime reality television lineup. Interestingly, a majority of the judges on the most popular shows are Black. The judges on Judge Mathis (1999–), America’s Court with Judge Ross (2010–), Judge



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Faith (2014–2018), Supreme Justice with Judge Karen (2013–), Divorce Court (1999–), Justice with Judge Mablean (2014–), Couples Court (2017–), and Lauren Lakes Paternity Court (2013–) represent an anomaly in both law and television. Of these shows, the People’s Court (1981–) and Justice for All with Christina Perez (2012–) have judges who identify as Latinx. As in other areas of television, Native Americans, Asians, and Latinxs are absent from the positions of power. Commentators argue that looking at these judges does give a false narrative that Blacks occupy positions of power within America’s criminal justice system. It promotes an enlightened racism view because it reinforces the idea that the United States is the land of opportunity, a place where racism no longer limits opportunities, and a nation where so long as Blacks work hard they will succeed. Jhally and Lewis (1992) first explored this idea while conducting focus groups on The Cosby Show (1984–1992). The authors found that while Whites readily accepted the Cosbys as neighbors, it did not reduce stereotypes about Blacks. On most of the court shows, litigants represent various racial groups and socioeconomic classes. They are basically treated the same. However, on Lauren Lakes Paternity Court, litigants are heavily people of color and poor. Scholars note that the show focuses on their behavior, leading viewers to see Blacks and Latinxs as lacking self-control. The judge, who is Black woman, often scolds these mostly Black and Latinx women and men about their promiscuous behavior. Her rhetoric helps perpetuate the negative stereotypes such as the Sapphire, Welfare Queen, and Hot-blooded Latina. The men and women are often scolded for their loose behavior to which the judge frequently calls them kids, who are “babies having babies.” Lakes represents the image of the Black Lady, meant to counter claims of Black female promiscuity. She preaches about breaking the cycle and not to raise kids in broken families. Respectability politics and condemnation of minority sexuality are a large part of the message of the show, and she often comes across as somewhat of a blunt instrument as she screams at them to grow up and espouses patriarchal ideas about fatherhood. Her advice is steeped in the European ideas of sex, family, and appropriate behavior. The fact that she is Black disarms many of the would-be critiques and allows for guilt-free consumption of the racial, gender, and class stereotypes that reinforce policies that benefit the middle and upper class, while at the same time trivializing their issues due to institutional racism, sexism, and classism.

CONCLUSION The consumption of reality television without critical analysis is problematic because these shows are simultaneously devoid of reality and a site for the production and teaching of dominant racial ideologies. While providing an escape, a safe point of entry to transcend one’s own life, all while allowing participation in a culture of gossiphication, reality television provides a powerful level of cultural and social voyeurism. Race is central to this process, whereupon racist stereotypes and racialized narratives become a fixture of this escapist process.

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It is equally important to remember that the narratives are controlled by the network and not the individuals. Individuals are at the mercy of these networks that cultivate an image that may not be representative of who they are. Reality television creates a false sense of agency that supports the colorblind philosophy. This philosophy transmitted through a racial lens that brings historical baggage at times warps perception. Myron T. Strong Further Reading

Allen-Young, Gordon. 2014. “Bigger, Fatter, Gypsier: Gender Spectacles and Cultural Frontlines in My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding.” In Reality Television: Oddities of Culture, edited by Allison F. Slade, Amber J. Narro, and Burton P. Buchanan, 123– 142. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Balkin, Karen. 2004. Reality TV. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press. Baudrillard, Jean. 1994. Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Buchanan, Burton P. 2014. “Portrayals of Masculinity in Discovery Channel’s Deadliest Catch.” In Reality Television: Oddities of Culture, edited by Allison F. Slade, Amber J. Narro, and Burton P. Buchanan, 1–20. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Cavalcante, Andre. 2014. “You Better, Redneckognize! Deploying the Discourses of Realness, Social Defiance and Happiness to Defend Here Comes Honey Boo Boo on Facebook.” In Reality Television: Oddities of Culture, edited by Allison F. Slade, Amber J. Narro, and Burton P. Buchanan, 39–58. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Collins, Patricia Hill. 1999. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Revised 10th Anniv. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge. Collins, Patricia Hill. 2005. Black Sexual Politics. New York: Routledge. Cox, Nicole B. 2014 “Bravo’s ‘The Real Housewives’: Living the (Capitalist) American Dream?” In Reality Television: Oddities of Culture, edited by Allison F. Slade, Amber J. Narro, and Burton P. Buchanan, 77–100. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Darling, Cary. 2004. “Reality TV Encourages Racial Stereotyping.” In Reality TV, edited by Karen F. Balkin, 40–43. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press. Deery, June. 2015. Reality TV. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Drew, E. M. 2008. “Surviving the ‘Race Wars’: Reality Television and the (Re)production of Racial Ideology.” Conference Papers, American Sociological Association, 1. Edwards, Leigh H. 2013. The Triumph of Reality TV: The Revolution in American Television. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. Escoffery, David S. 2006. How Real Is Reality TV?: Essays on Representation and Truth. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Ferrari, Matthew P. 2014. “‘Born’ Survivors and Their Trickster Cousins: Masculine Primitive Ideals and Manly (Re)Creation on Reality Television.” In Reality Television: Oddities of Culture, edited by Allison F. Slade, Amber J. Narro, and Burton P. Buchanan, 213–236. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Gans, Herbert. 1971. “The Uses of Poverty: The Poor Pays All.” Social Policy 2 (2): 20–24. Harris-Perry, Melissa. 2013. Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.



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Haynes, Julie. 2014. “I See Swamp People: Swamp People, Southern Horrors and Reality Television.” In Reality Television: Oddities of Culture, edited by Allison F. Slade, Amber J. Narro, and Burton P. Buchanan, 249–262. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Henley, Jon. 2016. “White Wealthy Voters Gave Donald Trump the Victory, Exit Polls Show.” The Guardian. ­https://​­w ww​.­theguardian​.­com​/­us​-­news​/­2016​/­nov​/­09​ /­white​-­voters​-­victory​-­donald​-­t rump​-­exit​-­polls. Hernadez, Leandra. 2014. “I Was Born This Way: The Performance and Production of Southern Masculinity in A & E’s Duck Dynasty.” In Reality Television: Oddities of Culture, edited by Allison F. Slade, Amber J. Narro, and Burton P. Buchanan, 21–38. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Hill, Annette. 2005. Reality TV: Audiences and Popular Factual Television. London: Routledge. Isenberg, Nancy. 2017. White Trash: The 400 Year Untold History of Class in America. London: Penguin Books. Jacobson, Matthew Frye. 1999. Whiteness of a Different Color. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Jhally, Sut, and Justin Lewis. 1992. Enlightened Racism: The Cosby Show Audiences and the Myth of the American Dream. Boulder, CO: Westview. Kavka, Misha. 2012. Reality TV. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Mannen, Amanda. 2016. “I Was on MTV’s The Real World: It Was Not What You Think.” ­http://​­w ww​.­c racked​.­com​/­personal​-­experiences​-­2036​-­i nside​-­manufactured​-­l ife​ -­real​-­world​-­cast​-­member​.­html. Moore, Michael. 2003. Bowling for Columbine. MGM Home Entertainment. Pozner, Jennifer L. 2010. Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth about Guilty Pleasure TV. Berkeley, CA: Seal Press. Press, Andrea L. 1991. Women Watching Television: Gender, Class, and Generation in the American Television Experience. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Sastre, Alexandra. 2014. “Hottentot in the Age of Reality TV: Sexuality, Race, and Kim Kardashian’s Visible Body.” Celebrity Studies 5 (1/2): 123–137. Slade, Allison F., Amber J. Narro, and Burton P. Buchanan. 2014. Reality Television: Oddities of Culture. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Smith, B. C. 1981. Women in Television. New York: Walker. Smith, Stacy, Marc Choueiti, and Katherine Pieper. 2016. “Inclusion or Invisibility?: Comprehensive Annenberg Report on Diversity in Entertainment.” USC Annenberg, February 22. ­http://​­annenberg​.­usc​.­edu​/­pages​/ /media/MDSCI/CARD Report%20FINAL%­2022216​.­ashx. Tinuoye, Kunbi. 2012. “Black Atlantans Fed Up with Reality TV Reputation.” The Grio. ­Thegrio​.­com​/­2012​/­07​/­03​/ ­black​-­atlantans​-­fed​-­up​-­with​-­reality​-­t v​-­reputation. Tremlett, Annabel. 2014. “Demotic or Demonic? Race, Class and Gender in ‘Gypsy’ Reality TV.” Sociological Review Monograph 62 (2): 316–334. Turner, Graeme. 2004. Understanding Celebrity. London: Sage. Turner, Graeme. 2006. “The Mass Production of Celebrity: “Celetoids,” Reality TV and the Demotic Turn.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 9 (2): 153–162. Turner, Graeme. 2010. Ordinary People and the Media: The Demotic Turn. London: Sage. White, Deborah Gray. 1999. Too Heavy a Load: Black Women in Defense of Themselves, 1894–1994. New York: W. W. Norton.

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Redface Redface refers to the practice of non-Native American people, or those with limited or distant Native origins, who publicly claim to be, speak for, or perform as Native Americans (including costume play, mimicry, and parody) for financial gain, notoriety, social privilege, cultural denigration, cultural critique, entertainment, cultural misunderstanding, and/or deception. Using red theatrical makeup, masks, and/or Native American accoutrements in an effort to represent an “Authentic Native American,” the name comes from the cultural misnomer of referring to Native Americans’ complexion as red. Hollywood and television have a long tradition of redface by casting actors of various races or ethnicities as Native Americans. Often embodying stereotypes, such as war paint, braided hairstyles, costumes consisting of animal fur, skin, or feathers and beads, and/or broken speech (i.e., redvoice), the tradition of redface is one based in the dominant White imagination. Redface appeared in pre-visual media (e.g., radio, books, and print) through the use of stereotypical speech, character descriptions, and those claiming to speak for or from a Native American perspective. Redface was a popular visual/performance trope in wild western traveling shows, vaudeville, and Yiddish theater from the nineteenth century onward, and it has earlier origins rooted in colonial America. New digital media further disseminates problematic redface performances while also generating new opportunities for positive Native American representations. DEFINING AND LOCATING THE ORIGINS OF REDFACE Redface is related to terms describing other conventions of performing as another race including blackface, brownface, and yellowface. The practice of “becoming Indian” as a form of redface derives from the history of U.S. colonists playing Indian as a means of constructing new American identities in an effort to compare and contrast themselves to Native Americans. Playing Indian saw a resurgence during the revolutionary era as European Americans asserted their identities as Americans. An early instance of playing Indian was the Boston Tea Party, in December 1773, when protesters stormed a British trading ship named the Dartmouth while dressed as Native Americans and making what one historian called “a chorus of Indian war whoops” (Lane 2008, 1728). The protestors threw British tea into Boston harbor to protest colonial taxes imposed without representation in the British government. In an independent America, playing Indian and redface continued in popular traveling wild west shows (e.g., Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show) and exhibitions that were not only popular in the United States but also in Europe, reaching their height

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in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Native American Anthropologist Arthur C. Parker (a Seneca) spoke out against wild west shows for homogenizing many distinct Native American identities into singular symbols (e.g., the Sioux war bonnet) and depicting wild savages concluding, “show Indian is not the real Indian any more than the circus white man is the real white man” (qtd. in Smithers 2013, 270). Redface was a popular performance element of both vaudeville and Jewish theater. Jewish performers contrasted the alienation of Native Americans in the American West with Jewish immigrants in American cities. Cultural studies scholar Peter Antelyes (2009) studied Jewish writers and theater performers of the early twentieth century and found that performers and writers from Fanny Brice to Bernard Malamud created American Jewish identities by identifying with, parodying, and distancing themselves from their popularly imagined images of a Native American. Redface performances by Jewish performers like Fanny Brice, which were meant to critique racial discourses that placed Jews outside of White culture, claim connection with Native Americans as an alienated race based in being alienated others. The ability of Jews to become Native American illustrates their higher status as members of White society. Other themes in Jewish redface stage performances included channeling female ethnic sexuality, challenging anti-Semitism, and questioning Jewish attitudes regarding gender roles and home life. In fact, some Jewish thinkers questioned whether Native Americans were one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel and while the intention of such thought was to create a common bond such hypothesizing unintentionally negated Native Americans’ own histories and creation stories.

REDFACE IN FILM AND TELEVISION Given that Native Americans were first photographed by Thomas Edison in the late 1800s, it is ironic that classic Hollywood came to be so associated with the perpetuation of redface performance. The best-known Hollywood redface performances are by Iron Eyes Cody, who became a household name with his appearance in the “Keep America Beautiful” PSA’s of the 1970s. Appearing in over a hundred films and countless television shows, Cody eschewed his Louisiana Italian American origins and claimed instead that he was a Native American from Oklahoma. Other Italian American actors such as Anthony Caruso and Vitto Scotti portrayed Native Americans on screen yet did not claim Native American heritage. Often appearing in public in Native American garb, Cody was widely accepted as a Native American because, according to UCLA Cherokee anthropologist Russell Thorton, “He looked like what white Americans thought Indians should look like” (qtd. in Aleiss 1999, 31). Other performers who attempted to pass as Native American in Hollywood include Buffalo Child Long Lance (The Silent Enemy, 1930), who claimed Canadian Blackfoot Indian heritage but was born Sylvester Clark Long, and silent film actress Mona Darkfeather (Darkfeather, The Squaw, 2011), who was not a Seminole Indian as she claimed but Josephine M. Workman. Other actors who performed as Native Americans in Hollywood

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include Burt Lancaster in Apache (1954), Tom Laughlin playing half-Navajo in Billy Jack (1954), and Charles Bronson as a Navajo in Never So Few (1959). The large number of redface performances in Hollywood sits in contrast to the limited number of roles available to Native Americans. A few Native Americans have earned recognition for their work in film notably the Canadian-born performers Chief Dan George as Best Supporting Actor for Little Big Man (1970), Graham Greene as Best Supporting Actor for Dances with Wolves (1991), and Buffy Sainte-Marie who won Best Original Song for An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) for the song “Up Where We Belong.” Redface performances carried over into the burgeoning media of television as it relied heavily on quickly and inexpensively made westerns in its early years. One popular series in the 1940s and 1950s The Lone Ranger (1949–2057) starred Native American actor Jay Silverheels (born Harold Smith on Canada’s Six Nation’s Reserve in Brantford, Ontario) as Tonto. The original series was a 1930s radio serial where Irish-American John Todd played Tonto. Replicating the history of redface, Todd gave Tonto the broken English speech that Silverheels would later use on television. Called Tonto-speak, his broken English style of speaking can be seen in different redface performances across film and television. It might also be termed redvoice and is heavily criticized for its cultural inauthenticity and for presenting Native Americans as unintelligent and savage. It was also at this time that White actors Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll performed in a mock African American vernacular as Black characters in Amos ‘n’ Andy (1928–1960) on the radio. The Tonto role itself has been praised as “positive” given that Tonto saves the Lone Ranger’s life following a brutal gang attack. Johnny Depp would later evoke controversy for playing Tonto in Disney’s remake of The Lone Ranger (2013) for using Tonto-speak and for not sufficiently substantiating his own Cherokee/Creek heritage claims. Elements of redface performance appear across television shows, even those without a western theme where they appear as a plot and/or comedic device. In an episode of I Love Lucy, “The Adagio” (1951), Lucy mimics a Parisian Apache dancer to secure a place in husband Ricky’s nightclub act. Despite this one episode, where problematic depictions of Native American culture are used for comedic effect, the series I Love Lucy (1951–1957) is often referenced for presenting one of the first “positive” ongoing depictions of an interracial marriage on U.S. television. In The Munsters (1964–1966), “Big Heap Herman” (1966), Herman Munster accidentally wanders into an Indian village where he is mistaken for an ancient spirit, and the villagers try to marry him off to a young woman. The episode mirrors Herman and his family’s outsider status with that of the Native American villagers who are depicted as existing outside of mainstream society and as performing their race for the amusement of White tourists. While Herman’s neighbors find him frightening and off-putting, the Native American villagers mistakenly embrace him as a revered spirit in their own attempt to connect to their own traditions. The episode is a critique of social aspirations (e.g., to be reviled by one social group but revered by another) and the search for racial identity (e.g., tourists defining self as the opposite of Native Americans, while Native Americans search for a connection to their own

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cultural past). In The Brady Bunch (1969–2074) episode “Slumber Caper” (1970), the Brady boys are positioned as a Native American “tribe on the warpath” who play pranks on the Brady girls as symbolic White settlers, while in “The Brady Braves” (1971), the family are “adopted” into a Native “tribe.” As with The Munsters episode “Big Heap Herman,” “The Brady Braves” prominently positions White characters by giving them symbolic Native American status. In a Saved by the Bell (1989–2000) episode, “Running Zack” (1990), Zack played by Mark-Paul Gosselaar, an actor of Jewish, Dutch, and German ancestry, gives a presentation dressed in Native-style garb with feather headdress and face paint. The character of Zack Morris exaggerates his family ancestry to complete a class assignment that would allow him to compete in a track meet. Gosselaar would later apologize in 2016 for mocking Native American culture in the redface tradition. Gosselaar had previously cited “Running Zack” to be one of his favorite Saved By the Bell episodes; however, fans’ and critics’ feedback allowed him to see the cultural insensitivity of the episode. In an episode of My Wife and Kids (2001–2005), entitled “Michael’s Tribe,” Michael Kyle (Damon Wayans) elects himself “Chief Bald Eagle” for his youngest daughter’s Indian Princesses meeting. This episode highlights how non-Native American television characters’ appropriation of Native American identities is an acceptable form of cultural play for both adults and children. This episode, as with others discussed above, shows Native American culture being appropriated by non-Native characters assuming powerful roles such as chief, princess, medicine man, and/or brave, and this emphasis on powerful roles distracts from how Native Americans and their culture have been devalued and marginalized outside of popular culture. Cultural studies scholar Dustin Tahmahkera argues that as an African American sitcom character playing “Indian,” Michael Kyle (Damon Wayans) appropriates not only “Indianness” but also whiteness (Tahmahkera 2008, 339–340). Tahmahkera and others cite other examples of television series characters appropriating Native American identities such as The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968)—e.g., “Aunt Bee’s Medicine Man”; The Beverly Hillbillies (1962–1971)—e.g., “The Indians are Coming”; King of the Hill (1997–2010)—e.g., “Spin the Choice”); The Family Guy (1999–)—e.g., “The Son Also Draws,” “Petergeist,” “The Life of Brian”; Yes, Dear (2000–2006)—e.g., “Dances with Couch”; and The Simpsons (1989–)—e.g., “Little Big Girl.” The growth of social media and new media technologies continues to alter the representation of Native Americans. Research on popular user-generated videos (UGV) on platforms like YouTube found that Native Americans speaking for themselves, addressing racism in open conversation, engaged in prosocial activities (e.g., educating others about political issues), and in ways that identify specific tribal origins received high ratings by online viewers. Yet, those representations that replicate the history of redface, that recycle Western images of savage Native Americans, are equally popular (Kopacz and Lawton, 2011). Meanwhile, long-standing resistance and organizing from Native American communities continues as television, Hollywood, and White America as a whole continues to don redface. Mocking and profiting off representations that reinforce dominant

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stereotypes of Native Americans as savage and exotic, as from the past and uncivilized, all while legitimizing narratives and images of whiteness as that of civilization, the redface practices continue within popular culture. Gordon Alley-Young Further Reading

Adler, Jerry. 2013. “Behind the Mask.” Smithsonian 44 (4): 60–61. Aleiss, Angela. 1999. “Iron Eyes Cody: Wannabe Indian.” Cineaste 25 (1): 30–31. Antelyes, Peter. 2009. “‘Haim Afen Range’: The Jewish Indian and the Redface Western.” MELUS 34 (3): 15–42. Brady, Erik. 2014. “Native American Activists Seek to Eliminate ‘Redface.’” USA Today, July 21. ­https://​­www​.­usatoday​.­com​/­story​/­sports​/­2014​/­07​/­21​/­native​-­americans​-­redface​ -­san​-­francisco​-­giants​-­washington​-­redskins​/­12967437​/. Cobb, Russell. 2014. “Among the Tribe of the Wannabes.” This Land 5 (15): 8–10. Friedberg, Lilian. 2001. “Mule Minus Forty Million Acres: Topographies of Geographic Disorientation and Redface Minstrelsy in George Tabori’s Weisman und Rotgesicht.” New German Critique 84: 55–86. Kopacz, Maria A., and Bessie Lee Lawton. 2011. “Rating the YouTube Indian.” American Indian Quarterly 35 (2): 241–257. Lacroix, Celeste C. 2011. “High Stakes Stereotypes: The Emergence of the ‘Casino Indian’ Trope in Television Depictions of Contemporary Native Americans.” Howard Journal of Communications 22 (1): 1–23. Lane, Jill. 2008. “ImpersoNation: Toward a Theory of Black-, Red-, and Yellowface in the Americas.” PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 123 (5): 1728–1731. Miller, John J. 2005. “Honest Injun?” National Review 57 (5): 34–35. Smithers, Gregory. 2013. “The Soul of Unity: The Quarterly Journal of the Society of American Indians, 1913–1915.” American Indian Quarterly 37 (3): 262–289. Tahmahkera, Dustin. 2008. “Custer’s Last Sitcom: Decolonized Viewing of the Sitcom’s ‘Indian.’” American Indian Quarterly 32 (3): 324–351.

Rhimes, Shonda(1970–) Born in 1970, Shonda Rhimes went on to become one of the nation’s foremost television writers, producers, and creators in the twenty-first century. She developed and oversaw a number of television shows that transformed the small screen in terms of both diversity and the complexity of stories she brought into homes throughout the United States. Rhimes grew up with her five older siblings in Chicago, Illinois. Her father, Ilee Rhimes Jr., was a college professor, while her mother, Vera Rhimes, served as a university administrator. Attending Dartmouth College, she was active in the school’s Black Underground Theater Association. Majoring in film studies and English, she graduated in 1990. She later earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts where she studied screenwriting. Working various jobs inside and outside of the entertainment industry after graduation, Rhimes got her first big opportunity as cowriter of Introducing



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Dorothy Dandridge (1999), a made for HBO biographical film on the famed singer and actress that won multiple awards. After writing the scripts for Crossroads (2002), a film featuring Brittney Spears, and The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004), a sequel to the largely popular Disney film, Rhimes would turn her attention to television, forever changing the medium. With Grey’s Anatomy (2005–), and ultimately Scandal (2012–2018), both of which she created, and served as head writer and executive producer, Rhimes turned ABC on Thursday night to Shondaland. Building on the popularity of not only medical shows and those with multiracial ensemble casts, Shonda Rhimes found widespread critical and ratings success with Grey’s Anatomy, a show on the life and times of a Seattle hospital. Part medical drama, part soap opera, Grey’s Anatomy is as much about relationships as it is about medical treatments and the daily struggle to save lives. From its inception, Rhimes embraced blindcasting, which Kristin Warner (2014) describes as “the process of not writing race into the script, is often considered a progressive step toward actors’ equality” (631). Grey’s Anatomy, with a number of character of color, including Dr. Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson), Dr. Christina Yang (Sandra Oh), Dr. Preston Burke (Isaiah Washington), Dr. ­Richard Webber (James Pickens Jr.), Dr. Calliope “Callie” Torres (Sara Ramirez), Dr. Jackson Avery (Jesse Williams), brought a level of diversity to television, not only in terms of race but also through Rhimes’s centering of women and LGBTQ characters. Yet, for Rhimes, characters should not be defined by their race, gender, and sexuality. Her embrace of the blindcasting approach has been a defining quality of Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice (2007–2013), and the other “Shondaland” shows. Yet this approach to diversity has prompted critics to question whether her story lines and the representations in her shows deny the importance of identity. According to Warner “the pitfalls of blindcasting as well as its larger purpose in the process of reinforcing a colorblind, post-race society need to be unearthed” (631). Warner not only questions the celebratory tone afforded to blindcasting but also argues that such narratives provide legitimacy to narratives that claim racism no longer plagues the United States: “What’s more, her investment in normalizing non- racialized characters exemplifies the liberal individualist discourse of a post-racial America. In this revisionist history, all the sins of the past are absolved in the heroic efforts of a few dissidents during the Civil Rights era” (637). Others, including Rhimes herself, have rebuffed criticisms about her show’s reticence on issues of race and racism. Rhimes has consistently argued that television’s demand that characters of color enact race in particular ways not only limits opportunities but undermines the realism of their characters and the television world they inhabit. “When people who aren’t of color create a show and they have one character of color on their show, that character spends all their time talking about the world as ‘I’m a black man blah, blah, blah. That’s not how the world works,” notes Rhimes. “I’m a black woman every day, and I’m not confused about that. I’m not worried about that. I don’t need to have a discussion with you about how I feel as a Black woman, because I don’t feel disempowered as a black woman” (qtd. in Rosenberg 2013). Similarly, writing in 2014 prior to release of

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Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder (2014–2020), both of which explored race and racism more explicitly, Alyssa Rosenberg (2013) described Rhimes approach to racial issues as follows: “While race on Rhimes’s shows is omnipresent, it is not often discussed explicitly. This has led to a second-order critique of her shows: that they are colorblind, diverse in a superficial way, with the characters’ races rarely informing their choices or conversations.” Whether in response to critics or reflecting a shifting racial landscape inside and outside of American television, Rhimes approach to race shifted with both Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder. Through their interrogation of America’s racial history, through engagement with the politics of Black hair and colorism, through their centering on Black womanhood, and their embrace of Black Twitter, both Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder have a racial politics unseen with previous Rhimes’s shows. Alongside of a more explicit exploration of how racism and sexism shape the lives of her characters, and more attention to these issues within various story lines, Rhimes has also shown a willingness to “call out racialized sexism and redefined Black female respectability” (Joseph 2016) in the era of Obama and Black Lives Matter. While Rhimes shows aren’t about race, the depth and humanity afforded to the Black women starring in these two shows—Kerry Washington as Olivia Pope and Viola Davis as Annalise Keating —highlights the importance of these shows within a larger history of race on television. Rhimes consistently speaks about the importance of these interventions; she concludes that creating story lines centering on Black women and otherwise imagining a world uncommon to American television is significant: “We’ve created a world in which we’ve stopped seeing these characters on televisions and it’s a magical anomaly that they’re there. Getting to be a three-dimensional character on television isn’t something that only happens to White people” (qtd. in Rao 2018). Despite widespread success, not even Rhimes’s show has been a hit. While Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal were not only critical and rating successes, but cultural phenomena, other shows like Off the Map (2011), The Catch (2016–2017), Still Star-Crossed (2017), and For the People (2018–2019) were less popular productions for Shondaland. Over her career, Rhimes has won three Golden Globe awards and many others from the Director's Guild of America, the Writer’s Guild of America, and Producer’s Guild of America. More than this recognition from her peers and from critics, Rhimes’s impact can be seen in the complexity of the stories she tells on her shows, in the issues and themes she tackles with her work, and with her commitment to diversity and humanizing representations. Her shows consistently provided a platform and opportunity for Black artists, and others of color, uncommon throughout the history of television. And while race (and gender) aren’t central to any of her show’s plotlines, although they became more prominent with Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder, her successes have opened up doors for Black artists and for story lines previously unseen on television. “If you look at how television has changed since then, Rhimes ushered in a way to tell stories about black people that didn’t merely revolve around their blackness,” writes Ira Madison (2018). “Being black is a



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given in any situation, after all, so why stake a character’s entire story on race? It’s how we now have series like Black-ish, Atlanta, Insecure, Queen Sugar, Luke Cage, Power and more that tell black people’s stories without always hinging them on how we react to whiteness.” Commentators, activists, academics, and artists frequently offer praise in her direction, celebrating her career: for her embrace of blindcasting, her critical success as a storyteller, and her willingness to challenge existing conventions. Her shows have opened up opportunities for actors, writers, and producers of color, all while challenging viewers to rethink race, gender, and sexuality, especially as it relates to what types of roles and plots are to be expected on television. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Fogel, Matthew. 2005. “‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Goes Colorblind.” New York Times, May 8. ­h ttps://​­ w ww​.­n ytimes​ .­c om ​ /­2 005​ /­0 5​ /­0 8​ /­a rts​ /­t elevision ​ /­g reys​ -­a natomy​ -­g oes​ -­colorblind​.­html. Joseph, Ralina L. 2016. “Strategically Ambiguous Shonda Rhimes: Respectability Politics of a Black Woman Showrunner.” Souls 18 (2–4): 302–332. Madison, Ira. 2018. “How Shonda Rhimes and Olivia Pope Changed TV with ‘Scandal.’” The Daily Beast, April 22. ­https://​­w ww​.­thedailybeast​.­com​/ ­how​-­shonda​-­rhimes​ -­and​-­olivia​-­pope​-­changed​-­t v​-­with​-­scandal. Rao, Sameer. 2018. “Shonda Rhimes on How ‘Scandal,’ Olivia Pope Have Changed Hollywood.” Colorlines, April 18. ­https://​­www​.­colorlines​.­com​/­articles​/­shonda​-­rhimes​ -­how​-­scandal​-­olivia​-­pope​-­have​-­changed​-­hollywood. Rosenberg, Alyssa. 2013. “‘Scandal’ Creator Shonda Rhimes on Race in Her Shows —And How White Writers Handle Race.” ThinkProgress, May 10. ­https://​­thinkprogress​ .­org​/­scandal​-­creator​-­shonda​-­rhimes​-­on​-­race​-­in​-­her​-­shows​-­and​-­how​-­white​-­writers​ -­handle​-­race​-­63b567f200f3​/. Warner, Kristen J. 2014. “The Racial Logic of Grey’s Anatomy.” Television & New Media 16 (7): 631–647.

Roc (1991–1994) Sharing much in common with 227 (1985–1990), Amen (1986–1991), Frank’s Place (1987–1988), and the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990–1996), Roc chronicles the lives of middle-class Black families. Highlighting the cultural identities of its characters and the communities in which they lived, Roc embraced universal story lines that cut across communities. Yet, like Amen and 227, Roc presented a world inhabited almost entirely by persons of color, with White characters only occasionally appearing on screen. Depicting a world where its characters inhabit a televisual universe that itself seems to be Black, rather than a Black “ghetto” housed within a predominately White world, Roc highlighted the diversity of the Black experience. The Emersons, a hard-working, middle-class family, are headed by Eleanor (Ella Joyce), and the titular character, Roc (named Charles, and played by Charles S. Dutton). Rounding out the family were Joey (Rocky Carroll), who spent as

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much time playing the field as he did playing the trumpet as a professional instrumentalist, and Andrew (Carl Gordon), father to Roc and Joey. They live alongside neighbors and other community members who run the gamut from extreme wealth (as manifested by Larry, played by Samuel L. Jackson), to dire poverty. Rather than assigning destitution to a cast of Black characters and using White actors to serve as wealthy foils in episodes that address economic privilege, Roc highlights the class and professional diversity in the Black community. Made by HBO Independent productions, but broadcast on FOX, Roc, more than most of its sitcom counterparts, delved into the serious political and social problems associated with Black urban communities in the early 1990s. While critics lamented the ways that The Cosby Show (1984–1992) largely avoided such issues and how A Different World (1987–1993) discussed those issues framed through the experiences of one-off characters, Roc, following in the footsteps of several other Fox shows—Living Single (1993–1998), In Living Color (1990– 1994), South Central (1992)—depicted these struggles as central to the lives of the main cast. While it shared the multi-camera format common to comedic series of the era, Roc quickly evolved from standard sitcom fare into a hybrid comedy/drama unlike other programs airing at the time. Later episodes would center on stories where characters close to the Emerson family are both engaged in and suffer from gang-related crime. Such material gave the series a more clearly dramatic tone compared to other Black sitcoms of the period. The series also featured frequent performances of musical styles associated with Blackness, with Joey being a jazz musician who later associates with the Downtown Divas (portrayed by the award-winning R & B “girl group” EnVogue), whose talents are periodically displayed in the series. When the series explored more challenging issues, it did so with surprising ferocity for a sitcom. For example, in the two-part ending to season two, titled “To Love and Die on Emerson Street,” audiences see the effects of drug dealing and gang violence, not through a cautionary tale where a new character arrives, struggles, and disappears. Rather, the episodes show how Roc and his friend Calvin (played by rapper Heavy D) get embroiled in a murder plot as they attempt to find resolution for the drug problems facing their Baltimore neighborhood. The drug dealer in question is the brother of a member of the Downtown Divas, and, as the episode reveals, the murder in question is revealed to have been committed by a series regular, as an attempt to eliminate the scourge of drugs from the community. The tragedy, rather than disappearing from the series story line, serves as a basis for the subsequent season, inspiring a main character to run for office on a platform of community reform, and forever altering the structure of the Emerson family. Other episodes dealt—somewhat more humorously—with other social issues that were beginning to receive national attention in the early 1990s. In the eighth episode of the first season, “Can’t Help Loving That Man,” Andrew’s brother Russell (Richard Roundtree of Shaft fame), announces his intention to marry his male lover, much to Andrew’s consternation. While the episode provides a basis for



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exploring discomfort around same-sex desire in a way that makes sense for a 1991 sitcom, the series breaks ground when it reveals that Andrew’s primary objection to Russell’s partner is not his gender, but his race. Russell’s fiancé is White, and that serves as the stumbling block the episode is designed to resolve. Given the subsequent and far-reaching assumptions about homophobia in Black communities, the episode subtly stands as a counterargument to the claim that Black Americans are disproportionately disapproving of same-sex relationships. Distinct from the other comedic programs, Roc regularly featured hot-button issues of the day, reflecting on them in ways that complicated the traditional crisis and resolution structure of network sitcoms. Its legacy can be seen in its clear successors; Black-ish (2014–), as of late, has addressed issues of racial prejudice in lieu of economic instability, a move that makes sense given Black-ish’s setting in a well-to-do southern California suburb. Dramatic series such as BET’s The Quad (2017–2018) have also taken an unflinching look at issues that parallel those seen in Roc. Aaron Gurlly Further Reading

Levine, Elana. 2008. “Distinguishing Television: The Changing Meanings of Television Liveness.” Media, Culture & Society 30 (3): 393–409. Rosenberg, Howard. 1991. “Fox’s ‘Roc’ a Bit Better Than Usual Garbage.” Los Angeles Times, August 24. ­https://​­w ww​.­latimes​.­com​/­archives​/­la​-­xpm​-­1991​- ­08​-­24​-­ca​-­788​ -­story​.­html. Snetiker, Mark. 2015. “Rocky Carroll on Roc’s 1991 Same-Sex Wedding: Television Is Always Ahead of the Curve.” Entertainment Weekly, June 29. ­https://​­ew​.­com​ /­a rticle​/­2015​/­0 6​/­29​/­r ocky​-­c arroll​-­r emembers​-­t vs​-­f irst​-­s ame​-­s ex​-­wedding​-­we​ -­werent​-­t rying​-­set​-­policy​/. Zook, Kristal Brent. 1999. Color by Fox: The Fox Network and the Revolution in Black Television. New York: Oxford University Press.

Rock, Chris(1965–) Christopher Julius Rock, an African American comedian, is known for his honest, insightful racial humor on television, the stand-up stage, in films, and throughout public discourse. Able to navigate through multiple mediums, Rock has been an important voice on issues of race, identity, culture, and countless more for much of his career. Born on February 7, 1965, in South Carolina, Rock’s family soon moved to Brooklyn. Rock, the eldest of seven children, claims his comedic influence came from his grandfather, Allen Rock’s preaching style. He is the son of Rosalie, a teacher/social worker for special needs children, and Christopher Julius Rock II, a truck driver. Rock’s three younger brothers, Tony, Kenny, and Jordan, are also in the entertainment business. As a child, Rock was bused to predominantly White neighborhoods for school where he was the only Black kid in his grade. Cruelly hostile, the White kids threw bags of urine at him. Rock cites his experiences with racist bullying and beatings for his strength and resiliency. As he got

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older, the torment and beatings intensified, and his parents pulled him out of James Madison High School. He dropped out of school altogether, working as a fast-food restaurant worker, mental health center orderly, busboy, and a newspaper truck unloader. Even then, Rock was paving the way for his career as a comedian and actor. His razor-sharp wit, inspired by his hero, Richard Pryor, entertained his coworkers, igniting the flame of comedy and propelling him to a new career path. In 1984, Chris Rock began his comedy career, performing stand-up in New York’s Catch a Rising Star. From there, he hit the comedy club circuit and found work as an actor in such television shows as Miami Vice (1984–1990). It wasn’t long before he got noticed. Eddie Murphy attended one of Rock’s nightclub performances at Manhattan’s Comic Strip Club in 1986, and soon after befriended him and became his mentor. Believing in Chris Rock’s talent, he offered him a part in his HBO special, Uptown Comedy Express, and in 1987, Murphy offered him his first movie role in Beverly Hills Cop II, giving his career a boost. In 1988, he starred in Keenan Ivory Wayans’s movie, I’m Gonna Git You Sucka, a parody of Blaxploitation films of the 1970s. This exposure earned him appearances on The Arsenio Hall Show (1989–1994). Rock joined Saturday Night Live (1975–) as a featured cast member in 1990. He became one of the Bad Boys of SNL, along with cast mates Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, David Spade, and Rob Schneider. He portrayed such hilarious characters as Luther Campbell, Onski, Old Man Ernie, and talk-show host Nat X (while most of the other actors portrayed less ethnically diverse, less controversial characters, sticking to flawed Americans and Europeans). In 1991, he released his first comedy album, Born Suspect, and received accolades for his role as a drug-addicted informant in the movie New Jack City (1991), a role he prepared for by spending time on the streets of Brooklyn with a drug addict. Saturday Night Live was his springboard to national recognition. By 1993, Rock grew dissatisfied with SNL, noting how he felt like, “the adopted [Black kid] with great white parents.” Leaving SNL, he joined the cast of In Living Color (1990-1994), which was subsequently canceled the following year. The mid-1990s were a time of introspection for Rock as his career came to a halt. Unable to find acting work, he turned his attention to perfecting his comedic delivery, honing his acting skills, and improving his stand-up act. Using the work of legends such as Don Rickles, Eddie Murphy, and Richard Pryor as his inspiration, Rock joined with HBO to create his smash comedy special, Bring the Pain, which earned him two Emmys. Rock’s career began to soar as he found new acting roles and he covered the 1996 presidential election on Comedy Central. In 1997, HBO signed him to host his own show, The Chris Rock Show (1997– 2000), a late-night comedy talk show. This show was edgy in content, pushing boundaries of political correctness. One episode contained a display of racist toys such as “Mr. Sweet Potato Head,” “Pin the Evidence on the Brother,” and the “Harass Me Pedro” doll; another showed an ad for “Nigga Please” cereal.



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Chris Rock’s comedic influence came from various sources, but one of his most noticeable motivators, one that often lies under the surface of other topics, is racism. This is clearly evidenced in his televised bit entitled “Ni***az vs Black People,” which appeared in Bring the Pain (1996). While having experienced antiblack racism, which most certainly shapes his comedic voice, his focus extends past White America. In this bit, he reflects on how some within the African American community have created divisions between themselves and “ni——as.” Here, Rock weaves together a story about Black prejudices and the ways that the community buys into and perpetuates long-standing stereotypes. Rock would later drop this routine following criticism for his use of the word N-word. Barack Obama referenced Rock’s routine during a 2008 Father’s Day speech saying, “Chris Rock had a routine. He said some—too many of our men, they’re proud, they brag about doing things they’re supposed to do. They say ‘Well, I—I’m not in jail.’ Well, you’re not supposed to be in jail!” Chris Rock’s career continued to flourish as he released new comedy albums and landed more acting roles in such films as Beverly Hills Ninja (1997), Lethal Weapon 4 (1998), and Doctor Doolittle (1998). Yet, he never left television, producing The Hughleys (1998–2002), which tells the story of a Black family living in a suburban Los Angeles. In 2005, he debuted his new TV show on CW entitled Everybody Hates Chris (2005–2009), which was closely based on his own troubled teenage experiences and set between 1982 and 1987, several years later than Rock’s reality. The show, narrated by Rock, chronicled the story of Chris, a teenager growing up in Brooklyn, New York, attending a predominantly White school, helping at home with his two siblings, and struggling with the daily troubles of middle school. Fans watched as TV Chris navigated his way through one potential disaster after another, displaying the scrappy nature of the real Chris Rock and introducing them to the child who grew to be the resilient Hollywood presence we see today. The critically acclaimed series ran from 2005 to 2009. In recent years, Chris Rock has continued to be a presence in the comedy world, producing and acting in movies, shorts, and providing voice-overs in popular animated shows. Chris Rock’s comedy and scripted television shows confront race and racism head-on. His childhood experiences with bias and bullying, along with his Black comedic influences, help shape his monologues and sketches. Using his sharp eye for observation, he provides humor that is highly personal and deeply insightful. Christine Fiore Further Reading

Baumann, Nick. 2008. “Obama Channels Chris Rock.” Mother Jones, June 16. h­ ttp://​ ­w ww​.­motherjones​.­com​/­mojo​/­2008​/­06​/­obama​-­channels​-­chris​-­rock. Rock, Chris. 1997. Rock This. New York: Hyperion Books. Rodrick, Stephen. 2017. “Chris Rock in a Hard Place: On Infidelity, His New Tour and Starting Over.” Rolling Stone, May 18. ­http://​­w ww​.­rollingstone​.­com​/­t v​/­features​ /­chris​-­rock​-­cover​-­story​-­on​-­his​-­new​-­tour​-­and​-­starting​-­over​-­w479496.

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Roots (1977) Airing on ABC in January 1977, Roots transformed not only television but also the conversation about slavery, race, and African American history. Based on Alex Haley’s Roots: The Saga of an American Family, which was published only one year before the miniseries, Roots altered the history of television not only for its elevation of the conversation about African American history, slavery, and American racism and through the embrace of the historic miniseries but also through highlighting its potential to impact the culture as a whole. Spanning a total of eight episodes over twelve hours, Roots tells the “epic story of the black American odyssey from Africa through slavery to the twentieth century” (Gray 1995, 77–78), highlighting the “horrors of slavery,” heroism, resilience, cultural power, and nobility of African Americans (Gray 1995, 78). Spotlighting the violence, the terror, and brutality of the trans-Atlantic slave trade through the story of Kunta Kinte (LeVar Burton) and his family and revealing a history that destroyed African communities, split apart families, and otherwise normalized the systemic violation of black bodies, Roots was equally a story of resistance, family, communal survival, economic mobility, and success. The success of Roots, and its transformation of television as a space of serious storytelling and artistry, reflected the contributions of numerous well-established film and theater actors and actresses as well as several emergent stars, including Burton, Olivia Cole (Matilda), John Amos (Older Kunta Kinte/“Toby”), Louis Gossett Jr. (Fiddler), Ben Vereen (Chicken George Moore), Vic Morrow (Ames), Chuck Connors (Tom Moore), Sandy Duncan (Missy Anne Reynolds), Lloyd Bridges (Evan Brent), Cicely Tyson (Binta), Lorne Greene (John Reynolds), Georg Stanford Brown (Tom Harvey), Maya Angelou (Nyo Boto), O. J. Simpson (Kadi Touray), and Burl Ives (Sen. Arthur Justin). The importance of Roots is evident in both its documentation of slavery in the United States and as an effort to force (White) America to confront the ongoing legacies of racism. On the heels of the civil rights and the Black Power movements, and ongoing efforts to both challenge dominant stereotypes and break down the walls of exclusion in popular culture, education, and society as a whole, Roots was clearly invested in giving voice to untold stories, challenging existing representations of Africa, Black people, and slavery, and otherwise educating the larger populace. In narrative and its representations, Roots challenged existing representations of slavery, African Americans, whiteness, and American history as a whole. “There is little doubt that the success of Roots helped to recover and reposition television constructions and representations of African Americans and blackness from their historic labors on behalf of white racism and myths of white superiority,” writes Herman Gray (2004). “But the miniseries also contributed significantly to the transformation, in popular imaginary, of the discourse of slavery and American race relations between blacks and whites” (78). Similarly, Jesse Jackson, reflecting on the power of Alex Haley’s work, and the miniseries noted, “He made history talk . . . he lit up the long night of slavery. He gave our grandparents personhood. He gave Roots to the rootless” (qtd. in Taylor 50).



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Viewers, critics, and scholars celebrated Roots for telling the story of Africans in the United States, for reimagining Africa, and for making the history of slavery visible. “African-Americans had always understood the period of slavery in America, but most of us had really learned about it, not in public schools, but in churches,” noted Walter Fields, an NAACP leader in New Jersey. “Because in public schools it wasn’t really being taught. It was a pretty radical idea to do a television series that was focused on slavery. It made Americans confront an ugly period in our past. You could hide a textbook. You could change the narrative of a speech. But you couldn’t run away from ‘Roots’” (qtd. in Beckerman 2017). Others praised the miniseries for bringing humanity, depth, and voice to the story of enslaved Africans. Reversing a history of erasure and a history of popular culture that both sanitized slavery and focused on whiteness, Roots offered a genealogy of the African American experience. In other words, it centered on giving voice to the experiences, voices, and humanity of Black people. While White characters were also central to the story line, at its core Roots was both a story about African Americans and one told by African Americans. According to Alison Landsberg, “Roots may have marked the first time many white people had been able to identify with blacks as people” (2004, 103–104). Yet, despite and because of the show’s centering of slavery, its focus on “one family’s struggle to maintain continuity and identity in the shadow of the dehumanizing institution of slavery” (Tucker and Shah 1992, 328), and its narrative attention on the African American experience, it was also a miniseries that told the story of White people. While this materialized in the film with several characters, it was most visible in the publicity that led up to its airing. From the start, ABC executives were wary about the project because audiences were generally reluctant to watch historic dramas and because “dramatic portrayals of nonwhites held little appeal for most [White] viewers” (Bogle 2001, 242). Yet, the success of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974), a film based on the book of the same name telling the story of an enslaved African American girl, proved important in convincing ABC of the show’s potential. Additionally, efforts by the producers of Roots to sensationalize through emphasis on sex and violence, and to cast prominent White actors in significant roles, prompted ABC to greenlight the miniseries. In the leadup to the airing of Roots, “its producers primarily were concerned about attracting white viewers” (Tucker and Shah 1992, 328). According to Larry Sullivan, an executive at the time, “Our concern was to put a lot of white people into the promos. Otherwise, we felt the program would be a turnoff” (qtd. in Tucker and Shah 1992, 328). Another executive, Brandon Stoddard, echoed these sentiments, “We made certain to use actors” that “white viewers had seen a hundred times before, so they would feel comfortable” (qtd. in Tucker and Shah 1992, 328). Hoping the involvement of White celebrities and the sight of White actors would ease anxiety and potential anger from White viewers, this publicity approach in the leadup to the airing of Roots not only highlights perceived challenges of reaching White audiences but the desire to educate, inspire conversation, and force a reckoning with America’s violent history of slavery.

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Reflecting not only its subject matter and its intervention in American popular culture, Roots, with a multimillion-dollar budget and star-studded cast, was celebrated for its cinematic marvel. It received an amazing thirty-seven Emmy nominations, winning nine awards, including Outstanding Limited Series, Outstanding Lead Actor for a Single Appearance in a Drama or Comedy Series (Louis Gossett Jr.), Outstanding Single Performance by a Supporting Actor in a Comedy or Drama Series (Edward Asner) and Outstanding Single Performance by a Supporting Actress in a Comedy or Drama Series (Olivia Cole). It also received a Golden Globe Award, a Peabody Award, and countless other awards. With over 130 million people watching the final episode (more than half the population of the United States), it is still the second most watched series finale in the history of American television (this episode is also the third most watched episode of any kind). Changing how Americans thought about slavery, its history, and the African American experience, Roots also transformed television. It inspired networks to invest in this sort of medium. As one of the earliest miniseries and the first to be aired on consecutive nights, its popularity and critical acclaim ushered in a new era for television. Roots laid the foundation for other docudramas, which “blend[ed] fact and fiction in a soap opera package” (qtd. in King and Leonard 2017, 114.). It also inspired greater diversity on television, evident with the airing of Holocaust (1978) and Queen (1993), as well as additional shows focused on history. Its successes and its cultural importance can be seen in the number of sequels and related television movies—Roots: The Next Generations (1979), Roots: The Gift (1988), and Queen (1993), and its ultimate remake in 2016 on the History Channel. It can also be seen in its cultural impact. Roots was more than a show. It was a cultural moment. Cities, corporations, and communities across the nation held events to both celebrate its airing and to further the discussion. In New York City, a department store held a “Roots Week,” providing shoppers with heritage lessons and genealogy tips. Over fifty cities declared “Roots Weeks” during its initial airing. In Tennessee, the home state of Alex Haley, May 19–21, 1977, was designated “Alex Haley Days.” According to Donald Bogle (2001), Roots sparked “conversations throughout the nation: in classrooms, dormitories, offices elevators—and on the streets” (240). Its impact was long-standing, inspiring other artists, the development of Roots classes at universities across the nation, the rise of genealogical testing, and so much more. “For an entire generation of young Blacks, Roots, also opened up a discursive space in mass media and popular culture within which contemporary discourses of blackness developed and circulated,” writes Herman Gray (1995). “I would place Roots in dialogue with the reactivation and renewed interest in black studies and the development of African-centered rap and black urban style” (78). Roots transformed a nation in bringing to life slavery and the history of African Americans on television. Inspiring those inside and outside of television to look deeper at American history, a recognizing of sorts, it also presented the violence and brutality of slavery in benign ways, failing to see the centrality of slavery and White supremacy to American life. Still, its impact could be felt for years to come in so many different ways. David J. Leonard

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Further Reading

Ball, Erica, and Kellie Carter Jackson, eds. 2017. Reconsidering Roots: Race, Politics, and Memory. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Beckerman, Jim. 2017. “‘Roots,’ the Miniseries That Changed America, Turns 40.” North Jersey, January 17. ­https://​­www​.­northjersey​.­com​/­story​/­entertainment​/­tv​/­2017​/­01​/­17​/­roots​ -­alex​-­haley​-­levar​-­burton​-­leslie​-­uggams​-­african​-­american​-­history​-­slavery​-­television​ /­96169412​/. Bogle, Donald. 2001. Primetime Blues: African Americans on Network Television. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Delmont, Matthew. 2016. Making Roots: A Nation Captivated. Berkeley: University of California Press. Gray, Herman. 1995. Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for “Blackness.” Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. King, C. Richard, and David J. Leonard. 2017. “Letting America off the Hook: Roots, Django Unchained, and the Divided White Self.” In Reconsidering Roots: Race, Politics, and Memory, edited by Erica Ball and Kellie Carter Jackson, 113–128. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Landsberg, Alison. 2004. Prosthetic Memory: The Transformation of American Remembrance in the Age of Mass Culture. New York: Columbia University Press. Taylor, Helen. 1995. “‘The Griot from Tennessee’: The Saga of Alex Haley’s Roots.” Critical Quarterly 37 (2): 46-62, 48. Tucker, Lauren R., and Hemant Shah. 1992. “Race the Transformation of Culture: The Making of the Television Miniseries Roots.” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 9 (4): 325–336, 328.

RuPaul RuPaul Andre Charles, an African American drag queen, singer, and television personality was born on November 17, 1960, in San Diego, California. Best known today for his hit reality television series RuPaul’s Drag Race (2009–), in which contestants compete to become “America’s Next Drag Superstar,” RuPaul has sought to alter the representations available on television and within culture as a whole. RuPaul had a very strong determination to become “Supermodel of the World” from a young age. Initially working the drag scene in Atlanta in the latter part of the 1970s, RuPaul moved to New York City in the early 1980s, conquering the club scene there. In these early manifestations, RuPaul’s drag persona bears different influences than the “Glamazon” of today. Many early photographs of him reveal a much more Genderqueer persona through the Atlanta period, one which blurs the lines of the conventional heteronormative gender binary that separates masculine and feminine. In addition, some photographs demonstrate deliberate critiques of race through drag—for example, a Black drag queen wearing a Confederate flag mini-skirt significantly and effectively challenges a number of racial and gender stereotypes. In New York, his drag was influenced by the flamboyance of the Club Kids’ scene, of which Lady Bunny, a frequent guest on RuPaul’s television programs, was also a member. RuPaul’s drag has moved through different stages—from a more openly critical form of drag to what some say is a mainstream or “commercial” form. In the

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1970s and early 1980s, RuPaul very explicitly challenged America’s construction of race and femininity: “If idealized femininity is white, it is also heterosexual, bourgeois, and homogeneously Euro-American” (Rhyne 2004, 187). Like other African American drag queens, such as Vaginal Crème Davis, RuPaul does evoke a “discontinuity not only between her male body and feminine performance, but also between her queerness and Black masculinity” (Rhyne 2004, 185). While there is still some critical engagement with conventional stereotypes of feminine beauty and race in RuPaul’s contemporary “Glamazon” drag, the more mainstream exposure garnered by RuPaul’s Drag Race, particularly with its move from Logo TV to VH1 in its ninth season, is problematic. As José Esteban Muñoz argues, “commercial drag presents a sanitized and desexualized queer subject for mass consumption, representing a certain strand of integrationist liberal pluralism. The sanitized queen is meant to be enjoyed as an entertainer who will hopefully lead to social understanding and tolerance” (1997, 85). In what may be his first big break, RuPaul appeared in the 1989 music video for the B-52s “Love Shack.” He has made numerous cameos in films and television series from the 1990s to the present. His first television show, The RuPaul Show, ran from 1996 to 1998. He released his first album, Supermodel of the World in 1993—three singles from that album charted at numbers 1 and 2 on Billboard’s Hot Dance Music / Club play chart: “Supermodel” at no. 2 and “Back to My Roots” and “A Shade Shady (Now Prance)” at no. 1. In 1996, she signed a contract to be the face of MAC Cosmetics. He has won numerous awards for both his television series, including a 2016 Emmy as Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program, and for his LGBTQ activism: the 1999 GLAAD Vito Russo Award given to a media personality who has furthered LGBTQ equality. While RuPaul’s success may contribute toward the goal of acceptance of the LGBT community in twenty-first-century America, Muñoz alerts us to the possible costs of commodifying an important art form of Gay culture—acceptance results from excising the raunchier elements and some of the critical edge from drag. In other words, the implication is that the LGBT community can only be accepted within parameters determined by the heteronormative mainstream, and, in the case of African American drag queens, the heteronormative mainstream continues to be largely defined by White morality, stereotypes, and taste. Thus, RuPaul’s success should be viewed through an awareness of how heteronormativity has impacted his drag through his career and how it defines him as queer and African American in order to be aware of the appropriation of LGBT culture by “integrationist liberal pluralism.” Jim Daems Further Reading

Muñoz, José Esteban. 1997. “‘The White to be Angry’: Vaginal Davis’ Terrorist Drag.” Social Text 52 (3) (Autumn–Winter 1997): 80–103. Rhyne, Ragan. 2004. “Racializing White Drag.” Journal of Homosexuality 46 (3–4): 181–194.

S Sanford and Son (1972–1977) In 1972, comedy and the sitcom genre were drastically transformed with the introduction of NBC’s majority Black-cast television sitcom, Sanford and Son (1972– 1977). Based on the BBC Television program Steptoe and Son (1962–1974), Sanford and Son propelled an urban Black family into the national spotlight. Similar to its fellow Tandem Productions affiliate, All in the Family (1971–1979), Sanford and Son focused on the everyday trials and tribulations of an elderly man, with one major difference: Fred Sanford (Redd Foxx) was Black. Joined by his son Lamont (Demond Wilson), the show chronicles the challenges they faced as poor businessmen running a junk and salvage yard in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Inspired by his performance as a junk man in Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970), Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin (Tandem Productions) believed that Foxx could become a national star as he would be able to pull-off an Americanized version of the leading character in the popular British sitcom. With the success of All in the Family at CBS, Tandem also pitched them the idea of Sanford and Son. After deliberation, CBS ultimately denied the pitch. According to Lear, in efforts to have NBC approve the show, it’s rumored that Lear and Yorkin snuck NBC executives into CBS studios wearing hats and sunglasses to discuss the show. Ultimately, NBC saw the potential and the show was in motion. While replicating the formula of All in the Family and other sitcoms, Sanford and Son would become a vehicle for Foxx’s stand-up routine, which he would adjust to comply with the confines, rules, and politics of national television. Until this point, Foxx had been featured in small film spots but was primarily known for his very critical (for some his routine was offensive, rude, and raunchy) stand-up comedy shows and party records. His move to the mainstream through television was nothing short of an artistic transformation for any performer. Much like Archie Bunker, Fred Sanford became renowned for his various racial epithets and prejudice directed at both Blacks and nonBlacks alike. Yet, the show also made clear that Sanford’s bigotry was distinct from Bunker’s given America’s racial history and each man’s own experiences. For Sanford, his experiences of American racism shaped his racial outlook. Through the series, the narrative would highlight how his interactions with the government, law enforcement, and his inability to obtain health care, social security benefits,

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and countless more would contribute to his prejudices and his belief in stereotypes. In watching episodes of All in the Family, one never sees the Bunkers in vast financial ruin; somehow, they are always stable with food to eat and a dependable roof over their heads. However, in Sanford and Son, the circumstances were much different. Almost every episode dealt with the Sanfords’ facing the fear of being unable to pay rent, running a successful business, and not knowing if there would be enough food for the next meal, difficulties that their White counterparts never dealt with. In many ways, Sanford and Son was in dialogue with popular representations, social science research, and political discourse that so often dehumanized and pathologized urban Black families. Challenging those who imagined the inner cities to be overrun with welfare recipients, criminals, and those in poverty, Sanford and Son highlighted a community made up of the working poor, which could be found throughout America. Yet, the show also reinforces widely held stereotypes about the cultural values and work ethic of single-parented homes. A widower, Fred Sanford raises Lamont without a mother. At the same time, from their attire to their few precious belongings, the Sanford family exudes the image of poverty. Strapped in dusty old work boots and a ripped jacket, at the beginning of everyday Lamont struggles to start the rusty pickup truck to make his daily junk collections. Meanwhile, Fred sits lazily at home complaining about his old age, his imaginary heart attacks, and his arthritis seeking sympathy from his overworked and frustrated son. Along with the Sanfords, the recurring characters of the show embody the commonplace stereotypes of the Black urban poor. Among these characters is Fred’s Holy Roller sister-in-law (played by Esther Rolle), her alcoholic husband (played by Raymond Allen), and Fred’s old pals (played majorly by Whitman Mayo and blue comedians LeRoy and Skillet), who are unwilling to admit that they’re old, spending their days watching television and drinking beer with Fred. Trapped by a culture of Black poverty, they all struggle to either make ends or secure the American Dream, although Fred is constantly trying to make it rich. Many episodes revolve around the possibility of Sanford, usually through some scheme, of getting rich. His hope of transcending the confines of poverty usually comes crashing down. Finding humor in his failures, Sanford and Son recycles narratives that imagine Black America as failing to take the necessary steps to fulfill the American Dream. Sanford and Son directly engaged the major issues facing Black America at the time. In “Fred Sanford Legal Eagle,” Lamont Sanford challenges a twenty-five-dollar traffic ticket, which he believes was given to him unlawfully as the result of the prejudice of a White police officer. Unable to afford a lawyer, Lamont attempts to represent himself in court. At the first sight of struggle, Fred Sanford rises to boastfully shout, “Your Honor, I am his counsel!” Now assuming the position of the lawyer, Fred questions that White officer about his prejudice. He stands over the officer sternly and asks, “What do you got against Black drivers?” The courthouse audience (all Black) yells in support of the question. Maintaining order, the judge (himself a Black man) pounds his gavel and shouts,



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“Stick to the matter at hand!” In response, Fred states, “That’s what’s wrong with the court? A Black man ain’t got no chance around here,” but, without hesitation, the judge counters, “I’m Black.” Dismissive, Fred says, “Well you the judge, that don’t count.” As the courthouse audience stands to applaud, the judge is again forced to regain order of the courtroom. Fred then re-approaches the officer asking why he doesn’t arrest White drivers, when the officer claims that he does the Fred boastfully states, “Well where are they? Look at all these Niggas in here. . . . Look around here, there’s enough Niggas in here to make a Tarzan movie!” Fred asserts that a courtroom is where one goes to get justice and that he “Demands justice!” Amid the comedic interludes, Sanford and Son offered important commentary on the realities of being Black and living in America. While replicating stereotypes and falling into the traps of all too many sitcoms, Sanford and Son provided a window to which viewers are able to witness the history, culture, and the agency of Black performers on screen and within the broader world. Adrien Sebro Further Reading

Acham, Christine. 2000. “‘Sanford and Son’: Televising African American Humor.” Journal of Film and Television 20 (2) (Spring–Summer): 75–89. Leckenby, John D., and Stuart H. Surlin. 1976. “Incidental Social Learning and Viewer Race: ‘All in the Family’ and ‘Sanford and Son.’” Journal of Broadcasting 20 (4): 481–494. Leonard, David J. 2013. “Consciousness on Television: Black Power and Mainstream Narratives.” In African Americans on Television: Race-ing for Ratings, edited by David J. Leonard and Lisa A. Guerrero, 16–33. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.

Scandal (2012–2018) Scandal is an American television series that focuses on the sensational and spectacle of American politics. Produced by award-winning executive producer Shonda Rhimes, who is also credited with the creation and production of How to Get Away with Murder (2014–2020) and Grey’s Anatomy (2005–), Scandal combines the drama of a soap opera with the real-life drama seen in Washington, DC. Salamishah Tillet describes Scandal as a “mix of dark comedy, over-the-top melodrama, hot-button social issues—and passionate sex scenes” (2018). Inspired by the career of Judy Smith, a former aide to George H. W. Bush, Scandal chronicles the work of a crisis management team headed by Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington). Pope, along with her associates—Huck (Guillermo Diaz), Abby Whelan (Darby Stanchfield), Quinn Perkins (Katie Lowes), and Harrison Wright (Columbus Short)—solve puzzles of murders, kidnappings, and intricate political scandals. “The series was a wildly entertaining yet thoughtful examination of political power in the United States, as well as who had it, who wanted it, and who was never going to get it,” writes Emily Todd VanDerWerff (2018). “Scandal was a show that was interested in the often morally dubious methods that Olivia and the

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‘gladiators’ at her political crisis response firm deployed to solve problems.” At its core, Scandal was a show about the drama and cutthroat nature of DC politics, offering a critical morality tale about the compromises one must make to maintain power and control. Scandal opens with a woman being tricked by one of Pope’s team members. She is at first uninterested in the prospect of a job as a “gladiator” until she learns it is under the direction of “the” Olivia Pope. Despite the fact that Olivia is not visible in this scene, it sets the tone for her prominence in D.C. and within the show. Within this very first episode, it is clear that Pope is not beneath using methods such as blackmail and intimidation to conduct business. For Pope, her ascendance as a by any means necessary crisis manager is unsurprising given that both of her parents were villains in their own right. Her father Rowan (Joe Morton) ran a secret government agency that carried out tortures and assassinations and her mother Maya (Khandi Alexander) was an assassin herself. Throughout the show viewers see an evolution in Pope. While the series opens up with Pope’s character being an assured hero, further seasons unveil that Pope occasionally dips into the dark side of morality and ethics. For instance, in season five, episode seventeen, viewers watch Pope kill for the first time when she murders Andrew Nichols (Jon Tenny) after he threatens to kidnap her for the first time. While Pope’s personality is straightforward and bleak, her character is a complex one affected in many ways by her career, her familial and romantic life. In addition to a complicated family life, viewers also find out about a past and possibly ongoing romantic affair between Pope and the President Fitzgerald Grant III (Tony Goldwyn). This love affair is particularly scandalous not only because one of the partners is the president of the United States but also because of the racial dynamics of the relationship. While Pope is a powerful Black woman in the secretive world of politics, an interracial love affair is not only scandalous in the fictious realm of the show but is a challenge to existing relationships on television. While rarely directly mentioning race, their relationship made race, especially given America’s racial history, a core theme. “‘Scandal’ has been consistently concerned with race. When we first learned that Olivia and Fitz were seeing each other, “Scandal” played with her fear that she was Sally Hemings to his Thomas Jefferson,” writes Alyssa Rosenberg (2014). “Olivia is free, rather than enslaved, and a prominent businesswoman and political operator, but Fitz occupies an office with vastly expanded authority. Race is not the only source of the power differential in their relationship, but the racial difference between Fitz and Olivia inflects that profound imbalance.” Yet, in contrast to stereotypical interracial relationships on TV in which the female partner is Black, their relationship appears one of mutual respect and genuine love. Olivia not only counsels him on affairs of the presidency but affairs regarding his wife Mellie (Bellamy Young), who eventually comes to the realization that Olivia offers a unique appeal to Fitz that she is unable to. Despite the fact that her husband cheats on her and she seems neglected as viewers’ attention is drawn to the Fitz and Olivia relationship, producers did not allow her story of self to be dismissed. Mellie’s story line is filled with overcoming struggle, finding



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voice, and her own empowering moments. Both characters show that while their occupations require them to put on brave faces, they both show themselves to be flawed in their own ways. A key component of the series is that this powerful imagery of a Black woman is neither over-sexualized nor downplayed. Pope appears in full control of her romantic and sexual affairs. She is depicted as confident, stylish, bold, and all-around powerful. Critics have celebrated Rhimes’s production of the character as a groundbreaking twist to the usual depictions of strong Black woman as successful but lonely or undesirable. In the show, it is clear that Olivia is not only a boss in D.C. but a powerhouse in many aspects of her life. Her brilliance and intuition are continuously glorified and celebrated by other characters and even by herself at times. The depiction of her intuition as uncanny is one aspect of the show that many find quite appealing. “To see a black female character as someone who is a little messed up, doesn’t have it all right, dealing with their own demons—that is what it is to be fully human and be a fully realized character,” says actress Naomi King (qtd. in Obell 2018). In addition to the confidence she conveys on screen, Olivia Pope is also known for the catchphrase that would transcend the show. After handling a gladiator situation by her own (shady) means, she’s often heard saying “it’s handled.” This catchphrase has made its way into popular culture by way of twitter and Instagram memes as well as the iPhone “gifs” that are used to convey emotions. Additionally, the show picked up a lot of traction through social media interaction and specifically through its use of live tweeting on Twitter. Die hard fans of the series were able to interact with one another and discuss the events of the show in real time. The success of this television series has been undeniable despite the original doubts that a Black female protagonist could be a hit on mainstream television. Creator Shonda Rhimes says “it never occurred to me that there would be a problem making a show with an African-American lead. I was more surprised at how surprised everyone was than anything else. I felt good storytelling is good storytelling” (Tillet 2018). In addition to the show running for a total of seven seasons, it has been awarded and nominated for numerous awards, becoming the “highest-rated scripted drama among African Americans” in 2013 (Obell 2018). The show also won the AFI awards TV Program of the Year in 2014 in addition to multiple Primetime Emmy Award nominations. While its popularity waned in later years, its legacy, particularly its centering on a Black woman as lead character, could been seen throughout the television world. Basheera Agyeman Further Reading

Adams, Simone, Kimberly R. Moffitt, and Ronald L. Jackson, eds. 2019. Gladiators in Suits: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Representation in Scandal. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Obell, Sylvia. 2018. “In Creating ‘Scandal’ and Olivia Pope, Shonda Rhimes Changed the TV Landscape.” Buzz Feed News, April 19. ­https://​­www​.­buzzfeednews​.­com​ /­article​/­sylviaobell​/­scandal​-­series​-­finale​-­legacy.

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Rosenberg, Alyssa. 2014. “Black Power, Black Responsibility and the Big Question for Olivia Pope from ‘Scandal.’” Washington Post, April 14. ­https://​­www​.­washingtonpost​ .­com ​/­news​/­act​-­four​/­w p​/­2014​/­04​/­18​/ ­black​-­power​-­black​-­responsibility​-­and​-­the​-­big​ -­question​-­for​-­olivia​-­pope​-­from​-­scandal​/. Tillet, Salamishah. 2018. “The Gladiators of ‘Scandal’ Leave the Arena.” New York Times, April 12. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2018​/­04​/­12​/­arts​/­television​/­scandal​-­finale​-­shonda​ -­rhimes​-­kerry​-­washington​.­html. VanDerWerff, Emily Todd. 2018. “5 Ways Scandal Changed Television Forever.” Vox, April 20. ­https://​­www​.­vox​.­com​/­culture​/­2018​/­4​/­19​/­17259142​/­scandal​-­series​-­finale​ -­review​-­recap​-­impact.

Science-Fiction Shows on Television Science fiction has a long history on television. While its long-standing popularity reflects its cultural importance and the successes of shows from Star Trek (1966– 1969) to Twilight Zone (1959–1964), from Lost (2004–2010) to Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003), from The X-Files (1993–2016) to Futurama (1999–2013), from Sense8 (2015–2018) to Black Mirror (2011–2019), it is equally about the ways that science fiction expands the imagination. In creating a world apart from reality, science-fiction television has also been important in terms of diversity, in terms of pushing conversations about race and racism, and in terms of other taboo subjects. The significance of science fiction (“sci-fi” or “SF”) as a vehicle by which race and ethnicity can be explored on television is sometimes overlooked. This is because the genre has the capability of discussing these and other social issues without being explicit. Through the various tropes (plot devices), characters, and themes that are specific to sci-fi, race and ethnicity can be examined in ways that provide distance between viewers and the subject matter, allowing for reflection without necessarily making viewers uncomfortable. The use of these various devices was especially prevalent in early sci-fi television, though more recent programs have become more overt in their discussions of race and ethnicity. Whether openly or through the use of these distancing techniques, sci-fi has the unique ability to “go where no one has gone before” (to borrow a term from the Star Trek franchise) in terms of introducing, maintaining, and/or challenging ideas about race and ethnicity within the medium of television. WHAT IS SCIENCE FICTION? Science fiction is a broad genre that explores the relationships among humans, their societies, and science and technology. The genre overlaps with other genres, including horror, fantasy, and even the western, which relies on some similar themes: the journey to and/or discovery of so-called new lands, survival in harsh environments, and an often-simplistic understanding of good versus evil. Areas of interest within the genre include (but are not limited to) the following: travel through space and time; intelligent life on other planets; alternate realities or



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dimensions; technology and the human body; the involvement of science and technology in war; the evolution of the human race; the political, social, and cultural futures of human groups; and the end of the world. Most sci-fi can be classified into two groups: “hard” and “soft.” Hard sci-fi emphasizes the roles of science and technology in solving human problems. An early example of hard sci-fi in literature is Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon (1865), which provides researched scientific details about the building of a rocket in order to land people on the moon. Soft sci-fi, on the other hand, tends to emphasize human relations and questions about morality and philosophy rather than the specific scientific elements. In literature, the novel Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley would be included in this category as the story of a scientist who creates, as an experiment, a monstrous man who can think and feel. Whether hard or soft, science fiction can usually be identified by its scientific, technological, or fantastic elements, and these elements affect the ways in which humans interact with each other and with themselves.

SCIENCE FICTION ON TELEVISION Science fiction has been represented on television almost since commercial broadcasting began in 1947, though not always with the same degree of frequency or popularity. Initially, sci-fi was represented through programming designed for children, including shows such as Captain Video and His Video Rangers (1949–1955), Rocky Jones, Space Ranger (1954), Space Patrol (1950– 1955), and Tom Corbett, Space Cadet (1950–1955). These early programs took place hundreds of years in the future and featured all-white casts of characters who went on adventures in space, including meeting aliens on other worlds. As television technology became more sophisticated and more capable of portraying fantasy stories, the genre experienced several waves of popularity between the 1950s and today. While issues of race and racism have not always been at the forefront of science-fiction programming, some argue that the stories portrayed in early science-fiction shows often betray racial tensions disguised as interactions with alien beings. The figure of the “alien Other,” who represents not only the extraterrestrial but also someone of a race or ethnicity other than White, was common in both film and television at the beginning of the Cold War. This figure was used in various ways. Sometimes the alien was portrayed as an exotic and dangerous invader, as typified by the cold, emotionless Martians in the classic film War of the Worlds (1953). A symbol of the fear of being overwhelmed by Communism in the United States, the Martians have also been used to explain how the theme of “alien invasion” applies to the invasion of racial minorities into previously white-dominated spaces in society. While these aliens are seen as dangerous, other aliens who look like (White) human beings are portrayed in different ways. In the show My Favorite Martian (1963–1966), the character of Uncle Martin (Ray Walston) is actually an alien who has crash landed on Earth. He is

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portrayed as a little strange, funny, and intelligent, but not dangerous. His human friend Tim (Bill Bixby) struggles to keep Uncle Martin’s identity a secret for the alien’s safety rather than the safety of his fellow Earthlings. Similarly, in Lost in Space (1965–1968), a whole family of (White) aliens is stranded on Earth, where they must struggle to blend in so that they are not discovered. In these and other cases, race is not discussed openly and representation by racial minorities in human roles is almost nonexistent. However, race and ethnicity as issues of identity can still be inferred from these early works by the ways that “aliens” are portrayed. THE TWILIGHT ZONE As the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s gained traction, sciencefiction television became one arena in which issues of race could be explored at least covertly. The anthology series The Twilight Zone (1959–1964), created by Rod Serling (1924–1975), intentionally used the cover of fantasy and science fiction to examine questions about morality and the human condition, usually through stories that put ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. While it was not the only science-fiction television anthology series (an anthology is a type of show that uses different characters and situations for each episode), The Twilight Zone was hailed as something unique in its structure, storytelling, and effects. The structure of each episode included an opening narrative monologue from Serling, which served as a point of entry for viewers, an often ironic or “twist” ending for the characters, and then a closing narrative monologue from Serling. The use of “mind games” and plot twists were highly effective in drawing and keeping viewers’ attention, and The Twilight Zone was well received for most of its five seasons. The show quickly entered mainstream popular culture and has remained both relevant and iconic with regard to its format as well as its attention to social issues. The show’s success was due, in part, to the ways in which it asked

Rod Serling and the Cloak of Sci-Fi Thanks in no small part to his service in World War II, Rod Serling had a highly developed moral conscience and an interest in challenging what he considered harmful social norms. Although he had a successful writing career in television after the war, he grew frustrated with the conservative tendencies of the networks that often fought his attempts to write on political and moral themes. Eventually he turned to science fiction and fantasy, which allowed him to disguise his concerns for real-world issues behind his eerie stories of people who found themselves entering The Twilight Zone. Serling realized that science fiction as a genre could do what other genres could not: it could create distance between viewers and subject matter, allowing him to explore such complex issues as racism without triggering panic among the networks. He is famously noted as saying, “I found that it was all right to have Martians saying things Democrats and Republicans could never say” (PBS).



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viewers to consider viewpoints outside what they had always known—a condition that was also true in the United States more generally. “As America entered a new age as a world leader and nuclear power, Americans were coming into contact with new cultures and peoples that forced them to reconsider their own self-identity” (Pounds 1999, 30). Shows such as The Twilight Zone and others that it influenced, including The Outer Limits (1963– 1965), provided mechanisms by which viewers could explore questions such as race and ethnicity without explicitly connecting those questions to political movements. The Twilight Zone took some risks throughout its tenure, including featuring episodes with nearly all-Black casts. “The Big Tall Wish” (1960) tells the story of an aging boxer named Bolie Jackson (Ivan Dixon) who is attempting to make a boxing comeback. While readying for a match, he has an argument with his white manager and attempts to punch him, injuring his hand. His injury makes it extremely unlikely that he will win the match, but he attempts to fight. He is knocked to the mat, and while being counted out by the referee, a young boy by the name of Henry (Steven Perry) who idolizes Bolie and is watching the fight via television, makes a fervent wish. Suddenly, Bolie finds himself having won the match. When he confronts the boy that evening, he insists that magic does not exist. Although Henry pleads with Bolie to believe in the wish, Bolie finds himself unable: “I can’t believe . . . I’m too old, and I’m too hurt to believe.” Bolie’s inability to believe in Henry’s wish causes a reversal of fortune, and Bolie winds up losing the match after all. He returns home in defeat, but in his last conversation with Henry, he comes to a realization: “Maybe there is magic, and maybe there’s wishes, too. I guess the trouble is . . . there’s not enough people around to believe.” Critics note that this episode serves multiple functions. The presence of Black actors playing roles outside of the menial ones normally available to them allowed white audiences to see these characters in a more three-dimensional way, rather than as stereotypes. Using the analogy of boxing, Serling offered commentary on the current state of race relations and the fight for civil rights within the United States without explicitly entering into these conversations and issues. To an audience member in 1960, the connection to race and the civil rights movement would be more readily apparent, especially for Black viewers. The Twilight Zone proved that science-fiction television could have a wider scope and impact than as simple children’s programming, especially with regard to connecting to audiences on social issues, and its popularity demonstrates the ability of science-fiction television to address possibly controversial social issues in a meaningful way. Despite The Twilight Zone’s covert focus on social and philosophical issues, most of its episodes still featured all-White or nearly all-White casts, and this is true of the majority of science-fiction television throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Characters representing other races (such as Asian and Native American roles) tended also to be played by white actors (a phenomenon known as whitewashing). This absence of diversity within science fiction would change with the arrival of Star Trek in 1966.

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STAR TREK Racial representation widened considerably with Star Trek (1966–1969). Created by Gene Roddenberry (1921–1991), the show is set in the twenty-third century after the people of Earth have united in a global utopia and become capable of interstellar space travel. The primary characters are the crew of a starship called USS Enterprise who are on a five-year exploratory mission under the direction of Starfleet, a quasi-military service organization run by the United Federation of Planets. The show has often been compared to a western. In Roddenberry’s initial sales pitch for the show, he described it as similar to the popular show Wagon Train (1957–1965), but set in outer space. Roddenberry had several goals for Star Trek. First, he wanted to show television’s potential as a medium. To that end, he sought to ensure that every episode was shot in color, a practice that was not normal for the time period. He also tried to secure a larger than average budget for special effects. Finally, he worked to disassociate science fiction with children’s programming by hiring well-known writers to pen various episodes. Among these authors were Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch, and Harlan Ellison, as well as previous writers for shows such as The Twilight Zone, including Jerry Sohl and George Clayton Johnson. Another goal was to demonstrate that science fiction could be a useful genre not only for entertainment but also for exploring social issues such as race, gender, and class. To further that agenda, the crew of the Enterprise featured not only the White American captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), but also other White characters who represented various regions of the world: the American South in Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Scotland in Montgomery “Scotty” Scott (James Doohan), and Russia in Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig). Additionally, the crew was comprised of several characters of color, including Asian helmsman Hikaru Sulu (George Takei) and Black female communications

Nichelle Nichols Almost Quit Star Trek Although she had less speaking time and screen time than stars William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, Nichelle Nichols’s Lieutenant Uhura challenged the representational landscape, embodying racial diversity on Star Trek. As a lieutenant and communications officer on the Enterprise, Uhura was very different from the standard roles offered to Black women at the time (usually maids or other menial positions). Her involvement with the show nearly ended after the first season when she was invited to work on Broadway. After giving Gene Roddenberry her resignation, she attended a celebrity function and met civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who told her he was very enthusiastic and happy about her work on the show. King was instrumental in convincing Nichols to remain on Star Trek, telling her that she could not leave because “for the first time on television, we [Black people] will be seen as we should be seen every day: as intelligent, quality, beautiful people who can sing, dance . . . but who can go into space.” Thanks to King’s intervention, Nichols remained with the show until it was cancelled (EmmyTVLegends.org).



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officer Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols. The crew also included a half-human, halfalien science officer named Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy). Although Spock was played by a White actor, Roddenberry thought to mitigate this somewhat through his alien qualities, allowing the half-Vulcan character to comment on and sometimes challenge “human” (read as American) ideals and values. Together, the Enterprise crew represented the most diverse set of primary characters seen on television at the time. Not only were the nonwhite characters visible, but they also played prominent roles in the functioning of the Enterprise. Having a diverse crew gave Star Trek the option to pursue actions and events in their stories in relatively new ways. For example, the show claimed to portray the first scripted interracial kiss on American network television, though this claim is sometimes disputed. In “Plato’s Stepchildren” (1968), the crew investigate the people of a planet they had thought was uninhabited. The leader of these people is a dictator who, along with the rest of his group, is able to use the power of his mind to control people. Toward the end of the episode, he forces Captain Kirk to kiss Uhura. The kiss received ample attention and surprisingly little negative backlash. Rather, fans sent celebratory messages and mail to Nichelle Nichols as a result of that episode. In addition to having a diverse crew, Star Trek featured several episodes over its three-year run that centered on various social issues, including race. One of the most well-known of these is the episode “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” (1969). The Enterprise crew capture a humanoid alien who has stolen a Starfleet shuttlecraft. The right side of his face is white, and the left is black. Named Lokai (Lou Antonio), he reveals that he is a refugee from the planet Cheron, where his people have been brutally treated for thousands of years. A short time later, the crew meet Commissioner Bele (Frank Gorshin), also from Cheron, who is in pursuit of Lokai. Bele is in most ways similar to Lokai except that the colors on his face are reversed (black on the right, white on the left), making his face a mirror image of Lokai’s. Bele claims that Lokai has murdered thousands in the name of freeing his people, an unnecessary exercise since they are not slaves (though they once were). Lokai refutes Bele’s statement, noting that slavery does not end once the chains come off if they are not allowed to live with equality and dignity. Throughout the episode, Bele alternately tries to convince and force Captain Kirk to take the two men back to Cheron so that Lokai can be punished. When they finally arrive, they discover that the entire population of the planet has died and that the planet itself has become a post-apocalyptic wasteland thanks to the war and hate between their peoples. Lokai and Bele both escape to the planet’s surface, presumably to continue their fight and ultimately to kill each other. Using the cover of the two aliens, the episode makes some rather pointed comments about contemporary social relations, inviting viewers to compare Lokai’s and Bele’s irrational hate for each other to humanity’s own racial struggle. Initially, Bele tries to convince Captain Kirk that his people enslaved Lokai’s out of love, saving them from savagery—an argument that was long used to justify slavery in the United States and elsewhere. Later, Bele notes that Lokai is an inferior breed based solely on the colors of his face, leaving Kirk and Spock obviously

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confused. Finally, after the two men have returned to Cheron, the crew discuss their prospects. Uhura notes that the whole situation makes no sense, to which Spock replies, “To expect sense from two mentalities at such extreme viewpoints is not logical.” Sulu then points out, “Their planet’s dead. Does it matter now which one’s right?” Spock responds, “Not to Lokai and Bele. All that matters to them is their hate.” Uhura asks Kirk if hate is all the two men ever had. A saddened Kirk responds, “No. But that’s all they have left.” Overall, the episode serves as both a reminder and a warning that hate and fear based on color (when in all other ways the two beings are the same “breed”) can and likely will lead to destruction. With episodes such as these, Star Trek had an impact on how viewers could consider the issues of race and ethnicity through the lens of science fiction. But as some argue, the show was not perfect in its attempt to represent racial equality. The third-season episode “The Paradise Syndrome” (1969) may be considered controversial in its depiction of Native Americans. Many if not all of the actors who play Native roles in this episode are White, contributing to the whitewashing of American television. Further, the episode depicts Native Americans in some stereotypical ways: they have only one unified culture (as opposed to the multitude of cultures among Native groups) and are peaceful but “primitive,” with a close and simple connection to nature but without any advanced understanding of technology. While this sort of depiction may be viewed as positive, others argue that it is racist because it is simplistic as well as false. Additionally, some critics have noted that Star Trek also has problems in the way it represents some alien races. For example, episodes from the original series that featured the Klingons depicted them as having some stereotypical Asian traits such as being cunning and manipulative. As representation of Klingons progressed through the show’s various spin-offs, more Black actors were used to portray them, and more make-up and prosthetics were used to modify their physical appearance to be physically darker in skin color as well as more menacing. Revelations about Klingon culture included violent tribal rituals, rites of passage, and other social practices. As a race, they are generally characterized as more aggressive than cunning, more prone to violence, traits stereotypical of Black communities in the United States. Even the Klingon language was made to sound harsher than most human languages. Racial characteristics can also be determined for other alien groups, as well: Romulans as devious, Ferengi as greedy and self-serving, and so on. These racial characteristics, critics argue, undermine the show’s goal of allowing individuals to be visible beyond those racial characteristics. Star Trek has had five spin-offs: Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973–1974), Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993– 1999), Star Trek: Voyager (1995–2001), and Star Trek: Enterprise (2001–2005). Most of these spin-offs continued to make strides in both representation and content regarding race and ethnicity. The Next Generation featured Klingon security chief Worf (Michael Dorn), Black, blind engineering chief Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton), half-human, half-alien counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), and android helmsman Data (Brent Spiner). Deep Space Nine provided the Star Trek



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universe with its first Black captain in Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) as well as featuring several alien characters, and Voyager included not only female captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) but also Native American first officer Chakotay (Robert Beltran, who is Latino), Black Vulcan Tuvok (Tim Russ), Asian operations officer Harry Kim (Garrett Wong), and many alien characters in both primary and secondary roles. Enterprise, though overall less diverse than its predecessors, did include Asian communications officer Hoshi Sato (Linda Park) and Black helmsman Travis Mayweather (Anthony Montgomery). In addition to an increasing diversity of characters, each show produced episodes that specifically addressed issues such as colonization, cultural differences, and power relations between humans and various alien groups. Although it has ultimately come to be seen as iconic in both the science-fiction genre and in the television medium, the original Star Trek’s impact was not immediately felt, and racial diversity in science-fiction television representation or programming did not see a large increase between the 1970s and the 1990s. While there were several sci-fi programs throughout the 1970s and 1980s, many of them were short-lived, lasting between one and three seasons. These included a reboot of The Twilight Zone (1985–1987), which did not have the staying power of its predecessor. Among the primary themes of sci-fi television of the 1970s and 1980s, space travel was less prevalent, though shows such as Battlestar Galactica (1978–1980) and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979–1981) were relatively successful. Many shows more often used story lines that allowed for comment on domestic issues such as the involvement of the United States in Vietnam, as well as social inequality. As is often the case with sci-fi, these issues were not always expressed openly, relying instead on metaphor and allegory. As an example, the television spin-off Planet of the Apes (1974–1975) takes its cue from the film by using an advanced ape civilization in Earth’s far future in order to explore issues of race and ethnicity in social relations. Generally, when aliens were present in these shows, they continued the long tradition of using the “alien Other” to examine differences in culture and identity. The situational comedy (sitcom) Mork & Mindy (1978–1982), for example, features a humanoid alien who has landed on Earth in order to study humans. The miniseries V: The Final Battle (1984) uses reptilian aliens disguised as humans in order to comment on issues of identity and power.

CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE FICTION ON TELEVISION One show that explored issues of race and ethnicity somewhat more openly was Alien Nation (1989–1990), a spin-off from the 1988 film of the same name. The show takes place five years after an alien ship crashes in the Mojave Desert in southern California, leaving its population of alien slaves and their masters (called Overseers) stranded on Earth. Dubbed “Newcomers” and alternately called by the derogatory term “slag,” the aliens, known among themselves as the Tenctonese, must learn to live among humans, many of whom despise them.

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An added wrinkle in this scenario is that the majority of the Overseers are angry at the loss of their power and positions. As such, several of the show’s story lines revolve around disgruntled masters attempting various ways to recuperate their slaves or regain power. The central characters are human police detective Matthew Sikes (Gary Graham) and his Newcomer partner George Francisco (Eric Pierpoint). Together, Sikes and Francisco not only solve crimes together but also undertake the messy process of learning to understand each other. The standard “buddy cop” thematic device is used to explore Sikes’s oftenunconscious biases against Newcomers. Through these interactions, he usually learns a valuable lesson about himself by the end of each episode. Through his exchanges with Francisco and his family, Sikes and the show’s viewers receive glimpses into Tenctonese biology, culture, and sexuality, which are then contrasted by their relationships with humans. The Newcomers are routinely ridiculed, even brutalized by humans, and the reasons can be compared with similar real-world discussions about Latino immigrants: they are unattractive (all Tenctonese are pale-skinned, bald, and have varied patterns of brown spots on their heads), they are “naturally” stronger, and they reproduce more quickly, which incites fear among humans that they will “take over” thanks to their superior biology. To add to that threat, the Newcomers are accused of taking jobs away from humans. Further, the humans find their eating habits unsavory, since the Newcomers enjoy eating spoiled foods. The Tenctonese language and their religious rituals also become points of discomfort, as they seem inscrutably exotic to humans. In short, the show very openly equates the Newcomers with both Latinx and Black communities. The eventual friendship between Sikes and Francisco provides the mechanism by which the show makes statements about social inequality among these groups. And although the show makes use of the “alien Other” trope, the overt comparisons between the Newcomers on television and real communities were impossible to miss. Another short-lived series that provides the inverse of Alien Nation is Earth 2 (1994–1995). In this scenario, a small group of human colonists crash onto the planet they were meant to colonize, far from their intended landing site. During their long journey to their original touchdown point, the humans discover that the planet is already occupied by two different groups of indigenous sentient beings, the Grendlers and the Terrians. The Terrians have a symbiotic relationship with the planet, a fact that creates problems for a powerful human political group who had plans to colonize the planet themselves. Although the show had little time to develop beyond the colonists’ initial landing and learning to live on an alien planet, the increasingly complicated relationship between the humans and the indigenous groups resonated with historical connections to the interactions between white settlers and Natives in the Americas. As does Alien Nation, Earth 2 uses science fiction to explore past atrocities and present legacies of racial oppression through the filters of space travel and alien beings. Currently, science-fiction television is more varied in its content than perhaps at any time in its history. The parameters for what can be deemed “science



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fiction” have broadened significantly in recent years to include not only classic story lines about space/time travel and aliens but also superheroes, mutants, zombies, paranormal experiences, and more. The proliferation of alternative stories and characters is due in part to the advent of cable and satellite television beginning in the 1990s, as the major networks looked for less possibly controversial programming. More recently, companies who operate primarily on the internet, such as Netflix and Hulu, are now producing original content. Moving to cable, satellite, and the internet has allowed science-fiction shows to experiment more liberally with plotlines and characters, as well as to be more openly political in their content. One example of the possibilities available through alternative (non-network) science-fiction programming is The Walking Dead (2010–). Airing on the cable network American Movie Channel (AMC), the show is part of a subgenre of science fiction usually labeled post-apocalyptic fiction. In this scenario, a group of people who have survived a zombie apocalypse must learn to survive in a new (and much harsher) world dominated by the undead. Because The Walking Dead airs on a cable network, it has had some leeway in casting choices in order to best reflect the graphic novels on which the show is based. This includes hiring lesser known actors of various races and ethnicities. Although the show revolves around a central white character, the supporting cast can be argued to be one of the most diverse on television, and many of the characters have strong support by viewers in their own right. Another example of alternative programming is Netflix’s Sense8. The show was created by the Wachowskis, who are known for the blockbuster science-fiction film The Matrix (1999) and its sequels. Sense8 tells the story of eight strangers who develop a psychic connection with one another. Through this connection they are able to see through each other’s eyes (as well as use their other senses), communicate with each other from anywhere on the planet, and make use of each other’s languages and skills. As the eight characters become more aware of each other and their common situation, they also discover that another, similar group wants to kill them. Because of this threat, they must come together as a group in order to protect themselves. The show is ambitious both in its complicated storytelling and its global scope. “The eight” as they are sometimes referred to come from cities all over the world: Chicago, San Francisco, London, Nairobi, Seoul, Mexico City, Mumbai, and Berlin. None of the actors’ roles are whitewashed, and filming takes place at each of these various locations. Additionally, the first season takes care not only to provide the overall plot but also to delve into the personal struggles of each character as they come to terms with having such an intimate connection with people who are very different from them. In this way, the show is quite open in its exploration of the ways in which race and ethnicity (as well as gender, sexuality, and class) affect human relationships. The eight are not given a choice in who they are connected to; they are forced to learn about each other and deal with any differences that may hinder their group connection. Sense8 may be an uncommon example of the state of science-fiction television at present, since few shows are as large in scope. But in terms of the ability to

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explore complex social issues without resorting to covert methods that keep viewers at a distance, the internet, in particular, has been a useful tool in promoting shows that television networks may consider too risky to air. However, classic tropes and characters will likely remain an important part of science-fiction television regardless of the method of transmission, and they will continue to serve as a vehicle by which audiences grapple with race and ethnicity. Tiffany A. Christian Further Reading

“About Rod Serling.” 2003. American Masters, PBS. ­http://​­www​.­pbs​.­org​/­wnet​ /­americanmasters​/­rod​-­serling​-­about​-­rod​-­serling​/­702​/. Adare, Sierra. 2005. “Indian” Stereotypes in TV Science Fiction: First Nations’ Voices Speak Out. Austin: University of Texas Press. “The Big Tall Wish.” 1960. The Twilight Zone, season one, episode twenty-seven, directed by Ronald Winston, April 8, on CBS. ­http://​­w ww​.­t v​.­com​/­shows​/­the​-­t wilight​-­zone​ /­the​-­big​-­tall​-­wish​-­12611​/. Carroll, Noel, and Lester H. Hunt, eds. 2009. Philosophy in The Twilight Zone. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. “Nichelle Nichols.” 2010. Archive of American Television, ­EmmyTVLegends​.­org. ­http://​ ­emmytvlegends​.­org​/­interviews​/­people​/­nichelle​-­nichols. Pounds, Micheal C. 1999. Race in Space: The Representation of Ethnicity in Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. Telotte, J. P., ed. 2008. The Essential Science Fiction Television Reader. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press.

Sesame Street(1969–) Sesame Street (1969–) is a not-for-profit, educational television program for preschoolers. It has received countless accolades for writing, direction, performance, music, design, public service, and for its “positive” representations of African Americans, Latinxs, Asian Americans, and Native Americans. Approximately 70 percent of people raised in the United States between 1971 and 1991 watched Sesame Street as children on a regular basis. The origin of Sesame Street has been traced to a small 1966 dinner party at the Manhattan home of documentary producer Joan Ganz Cooney. Lloyd Morrisett, a VP at the philanthropic Carnegie Corporation, was among the guests. Dinner conversation on how television commercials captivate young audiences led to the idea of using television to teach basic skills to preschoolers nationwide. Cooney drafted a proposal to conduct a feasibility study on this idea. With Morrisett’s support, Carnegie awarded her the funding to conduct it. Results of the study indicated that leading educators and child psychologists felt that the idea was worth a try in spite of the fact that most preschool pedagogy emphasized the need for a close, personal relationship between teacher and student, which television could not provide. Cooney envisioned a show with universal appeal. Costing several million dollars to produce, she would need to acquire additional financial support to



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make it happen. Although the Ford Foundation was interested in supporting a project like hers, it became clear that their much-needed support would require that the show focus on “the disadvantaged child.” Yet Cooney resisted framing the show as exclusively dedicated to this audience. Instead, her final proposal for the program asserted that all preschoolers, regardless of race, class, ethnicity, gender, social status, or culture, had the same developmental needs; a unified curriculum would transcend social divisions. Only in the promotional campaign would separate efforts be required to attract and serve a diverse audience. The Ford Foundation and other financial backers were persuaded to support this approach. With funding secured, Cooney formed the Children’s Television Workshop (CTW). It became the first production unit with the capacity to develop and thoroughly test a TV-based curriculum. Learning objectives were developed by an interdisciplinary team of educators, children’s book authors, child psychologists, and television professionals through a series of contentious summer seminars. Each segment was created to serve these learning objectives and then tested with preschool viewers to determine its effectiveness and whether it should be broadcast. The educational goals of the first season emphasized cognitive skills, but each year they were reevaluated, expanded, and reprioritized. Cooney decided early on that, although White professionals dominated the production and research teams, the cast would be multiracial. This would help the program “show indirectly that color didn’t matter,” as curriculum specialist Jane O’Conner had suggested (qtd. in Morrow 2008, 75–76). Writer Jon Stone suggested that the set depict a city block on which the characters would live. A narrative situated in this urban space would serve as the main through-line of each episode, while “commercials” for letters, numbers, and other concepts would interrupt the street scenes. Tests showed that the street scenes were less successful in holding viewer attention than those involving animation, puppets, or film clips. Although one CTW advisor suggested that incorporating story lines about real-life problems faced in poor urban neighborhoods would make the street scenes more relevant to the target audience, this suggestion did not gain traction. Instead, the producers followed suggestions that the street be made “a vital, vibrant place where [the child] is in control” (Morrow 2008, 98). Toward this end, they added more of Jim Henson’s Muppets. Ultimately, the first season’s main characters included several Muppets, including Big Bird, Bert, Ernie, Oscar, and Kermit, alongside four human adults, the elderly Jewish shopkeeper Mr. Hooper (Will Lee), White industrial arts teacher Bob (Bob McGrath), Black science teacher Gordon (Matt Robinson), and his Black stay-at-home-wife Susan (Susan Long). Additionally, the show included small roles for children, celebrity guest stars, and a range of minor Muppet characters. While ratings and educational testing during the early years of Sesame Street indicated that the program was watched by a large majority of its target audience and that its lessons were effective, the program did not escape critique. Some of this critique surrounded its fast-paced format and the concept of teaching through television. Other critiques, however, concerned Sesame Street’s representations of

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women and people of color. During the first season, the National Organization of Women (NOW) complained that the only female character on the show, Susan, enacted a retrograde femininity that was passive, subservient, and lacked a strong individual purpose or identity. The Sesame Street team had wanted the show’s Black couple to epitomize a family with a strong father figure, which would counter stereotypes about female-headed Black families. Initially, they believed that creating such an image would be helped along by depicting the wife as a full-time homemaker. After considering NOW’s critiques, the second season of Sesame Street included a story line in which Susan returned part-time to her career as a public health nurse, with Gordon’s permission (Morrow 2008, 155–158). Civil rights activists found that some of the characters and curriculum reinforced racial stereotypes. The whip-smart, rhyming Muppet named Roosevelt Franklin developed and voiced by Matt Robinson in “black vernacular” is an important example. While the character was beloved by Sesame Street’s Black writers and performers, vigorous opposition emerged from affluent Black community members, including CTW’s VP of Community Education Services, Evelyn Payne. Testing in 1971 showed that viewers responded particularly well to the Muppet, but critics overpowered supporters. Roosevelt Franklin was phased out by 1975. Latinx activists also expressed vehement critiques of the program. In April 1971, a group of Latinx advisors were invited by CTW to a meeting about expanding Sesame Street’s efforts in bilingual education. The Latinx advisory team decided to meet without CTW staff, locking them out of their own meeting, to strategize about how to remedy “the poor quality and patronizing nature” of the bilingual program (Morrow 2008, 154). Ultimately, the advisory team requested that Sesame Street cede them control of the bilingual curriculum. While this did not come about, CTW internalized their critiques and suggestions, revising Sesame Street’s cast, curriculum, and staffing as a result. Over the decades to come, Sesame Street would continually respond to critiques about race and gender representation on the show. Through additions to the human cast with Latinx characters of Luis (Emilio Delgado) and Maria (Sonia Manzano), Black female photographer Olivia (Alaina Reed Hall), Indigenous Canadian singer Buffy Sainte-Marie, and Asian American shop-owner Alan (Alan Muraoka), Sesame Street was accountable to constituent feedback. Female Muppets were added, though slowly. An increasing emphasis on cultural pride and the participation of guest stars also operated as methods for improving the show’s diversity. Performances by guest stars often focused on the show’s increasing concern with instilling its viewers with self-respect and confidence. Reverend Jesse Jackson’s 1971 appearance on the show is a memorable case in point. Using the technique of call-and-response, Jackson performed the poem “I Am—Somebody” with young cast members. In this segment, the well-known civil rights leader speaks each phrase and then pauses to wait for the assembled children to repeat his words in unison. The camera cuts back and forth between medium shots of Jackson, who sits of the concrete stoop of 123 Sesame Street, and medium shots of children assembled in the neighboring empty lot. Upon reaching the lines, “I am/God’s child,” the camera focuses on two Black children who appear to be participating quite enthusiastically.



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They turn their faces toward the camera, away from Jackson, as they speak the final lines, “I am/Somebody.” Cutting back to Jackson, the segment shows the civil rights leader smiling and asking the children to give themselves a hand. Concerns about “rising racial unrest” during the late 1980s inspired Sesame Street to launch a four-year race relations curriculum in 1990 (Fisch and Truglio 2001, 69). Previously, the show’s approach to racial difference was indirect and focused on depicting an integrated community where all problems could be solved through kindness and cooperation. Although ethnic traditions were discussed and celebrated, systemic inequalities and racial prejudice were not depicted. The new curriculum furthered the show’s ongoing celebration of cultural diversity but also directly addressed racial prejudice for the first time. For example, in episode 3140 (1993), the human teen characters Gina and Savion engage in some innocent play as they walk to the store from the subway entrance around the corner. They hold hands as they jump on an old mattress that is waiting for trash collection, and they play a brief round of one-on-one basketball, were Savion blocks Gina’s attempt at a layup by grasping her at the waist and swinging her around. Someone unknown sees their interactions and decides to vent their spleen over the phone to Gina and Savion, who receive the call at the pay phone in Hooper’s Store. Viewers do not hear what is said, but Gina and Savion respond with indignant outrage. Nearby, Telly Monster overhears the confrontation, becoming anxious. As Savion and Gina try to explain, Telly struggles to understand, asking: “What does color got to do with being friends?” The episode goes on to trace Telly’s dismay and rejection of the notion that friendship should be impeded by color. Gina and Savion ultimately demonstrate how to respond to expressions of racial hatred by delivering loud raspberries through the pay phone’s mouthpiece. At the close of the episode, they brazenly walk off hand in hand. Additional segments within this curriculum (such as two segments focused on children visiting the homes of friends with racial identities different from their own) emphasized that differences between bodies and cultures were neutral rather than hierarchical, passing over the implications of these differences in American life. Rather than addressing the structural dimensions of racism, the race-relations curriculum focused on interpersonal relationships and personal feelings while simplifying the complexities of race into colors, textures, and shapes. The 1990s were a time of great changes for Sesame Street. Many of the key members of the original team passed away, including composer/musician Joe Raposo in 1989, Muppet creator/performer Jim Henson in 1990, writer/producer/ director Jon Stone in 1997, and writer/composer/lyricist Jeff Moss in 1998. Losing several of Sesame Street’s most prominent creative minds at the same time that children’s programming on cable networks was severely eroding their market share led to several changes in the set, cast, and format of the show. In 1993, the set was expanded “around the corner,” adding several new buildings, businesses, and characters (Davis 2008, 317–321). Four years later, after research indicated that the expansion created confusion among viewers, it was dropped. Sesame Street’s near monopoly on educational television for preschoolers eroded as new networks and media technologies emerged in the 1990s and 2000s. Cable network programs such as Blue’s Clues (1996–2006) and Dora the Explorer

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(2000–2014), as well as PBS’s own Barney and Friends (1992–2010), acquired portions of Sesame Street’s audience share. Simultaneously, the age range of Sesame Street viewers shifted from three- to five-year-olds to two- to four-year-olds. To appeal to this younger audience, Sesame Street created a series of segments focused on Elmo, the furry, red Muppet developed and performed by the show’s first African American puppeteer, Kevin Clash. Appearing during the last fifteen minutes of each episode, these segments known as “Elmo’s World” premiered in 1998. More recently, the growing popularity of interactive, online, and streaming entertainment for children has eaten away at the show’s merchandizing and home video revenue. Facing recurring budgetary shortfalls, Sesame Street signed a five-season deal with HBO in 2015 to premiere all their new episodes on the premium cable network. The new episodes would air on PBS nine months later. This turn from public TV to paid cable was met with outrage by those who viewed it as abandoning the mission to serve poor and minoritized children, though the financial benefit to Sesame Street has enabled increased production of new content that is broadcast later on PBS stations. Sesame Street’s ongoing commitment to an experimental production model, in which new characters, formats, and content are continually developed and tested, has helped the program to sustain much of its popularity and prestige over several decades. As a result, Sesame Street has undergone quite a few major changes since its premiere. Enduring features, however, remain: a curriculum focused on basic literacy, self-esteem, and cooperation; the comedic antics of its Muppet characters; and its depiction of harmonious multiculturalism in an urban setting. Ami Sommariva Further Reading

Davis, Michael. 2008. Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street. New York: Penguin. Fisch, Shalom M., and Rosemarie T. Truglio, eds. 2001. “G” Is for Growing: Thirty Years of Research on Children and Sesame Street. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Morrow, Robert W. 2008. Sesame Street and the Reform of Children’s Television. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Ostrofsky, Kathryn A. 2012. “Taking Sesame to the Streets: Young Children’s Interactions with Pop Music’s Urban Aesthetic in the 1970s.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 24 (3): 287–304. Steel, Emily. 2015. “‘Sesame Street’ to Air First on HBO for Next Five Seasons.” New York Times, August 13. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2015​/­08​/­14​/ ­business​/­media​/­sesame​ -­street​-­heading​-­to​-­hbo​-­in​-­fall​.­html​?­mcubz​= ​­0.

Sexism and Television Sexism, or the unequal treatment based on genders and sexuality, has come to both mainstream America and to the forefront of feminist movements as an inherent feature of American society. In television and media, in both series and



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film, sexism continues to play a large role in shaping how understandings of sex and gender affect and impact identity at both the individual (personal) and collective (public) level. Sexism has also impacted popular discourse on many important aspects of identity and human relations. In particular, the persistence of stereotypical portrayals of women and feminine ideals points to the necessity for diversity on-screen, in the writers’ room, and behind the camera. Likewise, continued resistance to stereotypical characters and undeveloped female roles has led to much progress in the representations of gender and sexually diverse characters in American television. The Critical Media Project states that “the repetition of traditional gendered narratives and images in media has shaped cultural norms around what it means to be a man or a woman, masculine or feminine, often leaving little room for experimentation or nonconformity” (2018). As one of the primary agents of socialization, television’s treatment of issues regarding race, sexuality, and gender is critically important. As we watch television, we receive messages about society’s values and ideals. Thus, television has historically treated women and minorities in ways that are reflective of dominant social views at particular historical moments. For example, while Lucy and Desi Arnaz were embraced as an interracial couple in I Love Lucy (1951–1957), the Hayes Code (basically a morality clause imposing particular constraints on sexuality) meant that they were only allowed to be shown sleeping in separate beds, even though they were married. Over time, industry standards would change—in tandem with shifts in public opinion and in relation to other social movements—thereby opening up greater possibilities for television, in terms of characters, shows, and material relating to sex, gender, and race. However, these shifts are accompanied by stereotypes and continued traditional sex and gender norms and representations too. At another level, television sometimes takes up specific issues associated with sexism in the real world and everyday life. For example, Murphy Brown (1988– 1998; 2018) explored unplanned pregnancy and professional single-motherhood, which up until that point, had never been examined in a popular sitcom. Another controversy around gender and sexuality on television erupted when Ellen DeGeneres came out as a lesbian on “The Puppy Episode” of her 1997 sitcom, Ellen (1994–1998). While Ellen has gone on to become a household name for her talk show and a huge celebrity and icon of the LGBTQIA+ community, her coming out as a lesbian (via her character) on television was groundbreaking and met with many negative responses. So, what are we to make of sexism in television? What does television teach us about gender? Are we learning or unlearning sexism from the screen? What can we make of continued stereotypical portrayals of men and women on TV? What about breakthroughs in sex and gender representation with shows like Sex and the City (1998–2004), Girlfriends (2000–2008), Glow (2017–), and Pose (2018–)? In a wide variety of contexts, television has grappled with masculinity and femininity, sexual abuse and assault, workplace discrimination and harassment, and a host of other issues relating to sexism in American society.

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THE FAMILY AND GENDER ROLE SOCIALIZATION Television and the media are well-studied elements of socialization that confer the valuation of certain aspects and attributes of sex and gender. In addition to teaching about conceptions of manhood and womanhood over time, television also teaches about gender through representations of the family. The family, as a social unit, teaches us about acceptable forms of behavior and expression associated with gender norms. Historically, depictions of the family (or families) on television portrayed the traditional nuclear family, which consists of a legally married couple: a father—the patriarch and head of household, the mother as nurturer and homemaker, and two or more children. In the early days of television these families were predominantly White. Even today though television families are more racially and ethnically diverse, and sometimes include family members who identify as LGBTQIA+, it is still rare to see portrayals of family dynamics that are nontraditional in the most popular prime-time and mainstream shows. By failing to reflect the wide range of gender, racial, and ethnic diversity in American families, audiences receive limited representations of what constitutes a “normal” family. By extension, sex and gender expressions—masculinity, femininity, LGBTQIA+ identities and so on—are also conscripted and limited in how they are depicted in television.

UNDERSTANDING GENDER STEREOTYPES AND SEXISM Unlike sex, which refers to one’s physical anatomy and how that fits into one of two categories—male or female (based on biological factors), gender “refers to the physical, behavioral, and personality traits that a group considers to be normal, natural, right, and good for its male and female members. In other words, gender reflects our notions about what is appropriately feminine and masculine” (Ferris and Stein 2016, 247). Gender can “be implicit in the chores or privileges girls or boys are given at home (washing the dishes versus moving the lawn) the ways in which they are punished or disciplined, where they go or do not go, or what they are encouraged or forbidden to do. Specific behaviors and displays of emotion are attributed as masculine or feminine as well. Thus, gender is socially constructed in our daily interactions with others. And, we are socialized in the home and in other places to learn the acceptable parameters for gender expression. Despite growing movement and social discourse aimed at redefining gender as a spectrum, including gender nonconforming, trans-, and gender-queer spaces for identification, it is important to note that the overall concept of gender continues to exist as a binary (male/female) in our society. The reality, that gender exists on a broad spectrum with varying degrees of feminine or masculine expressions is very nuanced and still widely misunderstood. Contemporary television portrayals regarding gender and gender identity often do not reflect this reality; though there are some exceptions to the rule. A stereotype refers to the knowledge that an individual possesses about a particular group. The group could be men/women, racial/ethnic groups, class status, or sexual orientation. Stereotypes oversimplify complex information about



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individuals and categorize persons according to a group. Stereotypes can limit one’s capacity for objective judgment due to bias. Stereotypes associated with a certain group will often influence the way people process new information about an individual member of that group. For this reason, gender stereotyping creates expectations for how we view the behavior of men and women; it also influences how we treat men and women. Oftentimes, stereotypes and “isms” (racism, classism, ableism, sexism) go hand in hand. Sexism is the belief that men (males) are superior to women (females). Sexism persists due to ingrained gender bias and stereotypes about men and women. Gender inequality and sexism can be found in all past and present societies, and it is rooted in the rationale of patriarchy, or male-dominated society. In patriarchal societies, women occupy positions of less prestige and are rarely the “breadwinners” in traditional families. Unequal pay, pervasive sexual assault and harassment, and limited opportunities for women in the workplace are evidence of a patriarchal or male-dominated society. Patriarchal societies devalue women’s contributions to society, limit leadership for women, and often constrain women to the home. Patriarchy also restricts men from showing the full range of human emotions—especially emotions associated with weakness or vulnerability. We see these gender norms, stereotypes, and sexism reflected in reality shows, TV sitcoms, and commercials we watch. Gender biases become reinforced in stereotypical narratives on television. With our consumption of these narratives, we learn how society values certain characteristics in men and women. We also learn to differentiate the genders and, accordingly, to understand which behaviors are rewarded and which ones are unacceptable (or less valuable) in our society and culture.

SEXISM IN TELEVISION ADVERTISEMENTS Through role modeling in families and on-screen, children grow up learning appropriate standards for feminine and masculine behaviors. This limits our understanding of gender as the Critical Media Project suggests: “The traditional gender binary is so ingrained in our values, ideas, media and products, we see fewer alternative gender models that open up possibilities for transgender and non-binary gender identities” (Godwill and Collins 2018). Likewise, in commercial advertisements from cleaning products to makeup, beauty standards for women routinely interrupt sitcom favorites to introduce new trends to help viewers understand and obtain the feminine ideal. These commercials present society’s standard of beauty and reflect our ideals about physical fitness and attractiveness. When young, attractive models appear in beauty commercials, this influences our notion of beauty and what a woman should look like. Hence, repetitious narratives of the beauty ideal can also greatly influence our ideas about body image and physical appearances, forwarding an elusive standard that excludes most women. In order to sell the viewer a product, advertisements also convey notions of authority and ideas about where society believes men or women belong (in the kitchen or grocery store versus on a dirt bike or in a monster truck). Examples of these ideals

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are on constant display in television advertisements in commercial breaks that appear suddenly at the height of a suspenseful scene. The literature on sexism and television highlights themes in the analysis of gender stereotypes in commercials on TV. These themes include (a) an age discrepancy between men and women that appear in ads, (b) a stark contrast in clothing and setting, and (c) the dominance of male voiceovers in commercials. In a study entitled “Gender Stereotypes in Spanish and English Language Television Advertisements in the United States,” the author studied 394 ads from 2013 to examine differences in gender representation. The research concluded that there is a prevalence of gender stereotypes in commercials that echo the themes in gender bias commonly observed in advertisements (Prieler 2016, 275). The age difference between men and women acting in commercials is one of the common gender biases observed in commercials. Women actors and models are often younger than men, a preference that limits opportunities for older actresses while extending acting/modeling careers for men. The age difference is also likely tied to the discrepancy in dress between the genders. Women are often suggestively dressed in commercials, and this degree of dress would emphasize a youthful physique. Sexually suggestive dress also privileges men to gaze at seminude women. These representations not only forward a beauty standard that excludes older women but contributes to the objectification of women overall. When women are reduced to their body and beauty, viewers can learn to devalue women who do not look like the models imaged before us. Such a narrative would render older women invisible and strictly define an ideal of beauty that is unrealistic. Models, in general, have bodies that most people and consumers cannot relate to. So why do all the models, male or female, in underwear ads have perfectly shaped and ideal bodies? For these reasons, there continues to be much debate and criticism regarding the lack of diversity in representations of women in advertisements. Another variable studied is the setting or where the characters appear in the advertisement. Research shows that there are more women than men in home settings and more men than women depicted in the workplace. Prieler notes that women are 3.5 times more likely than men to be presented at home versus at work (2016, 281). When viewers learn that gender correlates to space or setting, we can have expectations about where men and women should be. Girls learn that women belong as teachers in schools, nurses in hospitals, or mothers at home. Hence, they may make decisions in life that reflect these expectations and may be less willing to consider a career in construction or as a math professor. Such influence can contribute to gender bias or our perception of when men or women seem out of place. There is a prominent tendency to market products according to stereotypes about gender. Women are often in commercials selling cleaning products like laundry detergent, and products for babies. These stereotypical depictions reflect and reinforce society’s understanding of gendered roles (i.e., women do the laundry and care for children). In the same manner, men continue to be central in commercials about lawn machinery, truck promotions, and condom advertisements. These ads point to society’s understanding of the activities that are appropriate for



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men or women. Men are allowed to buy condoms and have promiscuous sex, whereas women are portrayed as caregivers and as lacking sexual agency. The third theme in gender bias in advertising points to the predominance of male voiceovers in commercials. Media researchers report and explain this phenomenon, male-dominated voiceovers, as a result of society’s gender bias in favor of masculine voices. Male voices represent authority, an authority that can be trusted for recommendations in important purchases—from tech products to car insurance. Because femininity is associated with passiveness, women are unlikely to be associated with authority. The gender of the voiceover may reinforce the association of a specific gender with authority and knowledge. This discrepancy is quite large with men having about seven times more speaking time on air compared to women (Innovation Group 2017, 6). Moreover, others point to how advertising to a specific gender can contribute to normalizing gender roles (Ferris and Stein 2016,109). It is important to note that commercials also reflect the gendered reality of our daily existence. In order to sell a product, companies rely on being able to market their product as relatable to target consumer identities and desires. Or, as the author notes, “Boys eliminate their pimples and then can date the girls of their dreams; housewives are able to clean dirty clothes and are valued by their husbands. In general, people appear to become more beautiful and attractive by using a specific product, and then they are rewarded with love, success, and admiration” (Prieler 2016, 277). At the same time, exposure to television influences how we perceive real life. Television can distort our views of reality, and we can begin to believe that women should fit a mold of beauty or that women “belong” in the household. Likewise, deviations from what we see in the images presented to us can cause us to question the legitimacy and normalcy of say a man who likes makeup or a woman who enjoys male activities or hobbies. While commercials cultivate a worldview of social behavior, norms, and values, they also reflect a real world where gender is constructed in our daily interactions. Lastly, a poignant example of sexism in commercials comes with the Super Bowl game advertising. The big game commercials often include stereotypical images of women and men. Stereotypes of women as annoying “nags” or sexual objects for men’s play run through these prime-time advertisements. As companies bank on prime-time audiences and massive viewership to sell their products, it is important to question why gender stereotypes are important to these sales and what these commercials convey to us about a culture of sexism in television. In Super Bowl ads, we encounter peak viewership of sexually suggestive and highly stereotypical portrayals of both genders. In 2017, the Mr. Clean commercial (a cleaning product by Proctor and Gamble), insinuated that men who clean should be praised and rewarded with catching a beautiful woman in return (Poggie 2018). In keeping with the theme of women as sexual objects or goalposts for male conquest, the ad placed a woman in the passive role and positioned the man (represented by Mr. Clean) in the active role. In this passive role, the woman is depicted as submissive and only in need of a bit of convincing before she consents. The hype about Super Bowl commercials is related to the advertising industry’s profit made during the high viewership of the yearly highlight of the football

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game. The sports industry, especially football, is an arena of male domination. From the players to the broadcasters and commentators, we see a high level of male representation and a very low level of women represented. In the world of sports journalism, and broadcast journalism in general, sexism continues to play out on-screen and behind the scenes. For this reason, it is important to discuss how gender plays out in television journalism.

SEXISM IN BROADCAST JOURNALISM Gender bias in journalism manifests in the demand for journalists to appear or look a certain way. For women journalists, this is very much tied to our notions of women’s appropriate place in society (in the home) and a standard for how women behave and appear outside of the home. In a demand for attractive female journalists, our society’s valuation of women’s attractiveness (also a criterion for femininity) has created a beauty and dress standard for women journalists. This impacts the hiring practices of broadcast companies. The result is a requirement for female journalists to fit a beauty mold, prioritizing women’s looks over their news reporting skills. In a study entitled “Sexism on the Set: Gendered Expectations of TV Broadcasters in a Social Media World,” authors Finneman and Jenkins investigate industry expectations for women in broadcast journalism (2018). Using surveys as the method for their research, the authors asked American broadcast journalists how their viewership perceived their appearance and if they believed gender bias, in relation to their appearance, existed. As such, the study examined how television journalists see expectations about their gender presentations (appearances and performances) while on air. According to their research, “87.5 percent of the female journalists that responded said they had received criticism about their appearance [from viewers] compared to 57 percent of men” (2018, 486). They conclude that industry standards of appropriate appearance and dress continue to influence gender dynamics in newsrooms today (2018, 480). In addition, the demand for a certain type of femininity has led female journalists to perform gender in a way that ensures their job position and helps them cope with the frustrations that come with working in a male-dominated industry (483). The need for rapport is often intricately linked to how the audience identifies and trusts journalists. Finneman and Jenkins note that “television journalists are tied to a medium that has always required visual presence and personalization” (2018, 480). However, as women, such as Barbara Walters, entered the arena of broadcast journalism, these requirements shifted to a greater emphasis on the attractiveness of women broadcasters. This emphasis on beauty is inextricably linked to the audience’s perceptions of their quality of work as journalists. With the innovation of color television, an emphasis on clothing and makeup developed and necessitated the importance of general appearance on screen. The authors note that early on, journalists were cognitive of their appearance on camera and how it could contribute to their credibility. This, in turn, also applied to the credibility of women journalists. Hence, this valuation of beauty, before professional



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qualifications, and as a determining factor in credibility, has led the industry to reproduce beauty standards in the journalists they hire. In a world dominated by men, such as broadcast journalism, such discriminatory hiring practices have also combined with an industry infamous for allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct on set. It is common for women broadcasters to experience sexual harassment in studios and with coworkers off set. In fact, in a project where they publish journalists’ stories of harassment, Neason, Dalton, and Ho write that “determined to do their jobs, the subjects of harassment over expectations, make concessions, work around it, and—most often—work through it” (2018). For example, accusations about the culture of Fox News underline the pervasiveness of sexual harassment in the world of broadcast journalism. In addition, the #MeToo movement, aimed at raising awareness about the amount of sexual assault in Hollywood films and TV, also points to the sexism that women on-screen face behind the scenes. In a patriarchal society where men control much of what is produced and displayed on TV, women are confined to standards of body expression that are also controlled by men. In such a world, acceptable presentations of the body and femininity have limitations. These limitations—rigid expectations of how women should appear on screen—are reproduced in the world of broadcast journalism. It is important to point out that beauty standards in any patriarchal society are not objective, but subjectively defined by men. In a male-dominant culture, women do not have the power to set the standards of acceptance. In commodified visual culture, such as TV and film, these beauty standards likely reflect dominant narratives, determined by men, of what beauty is and what men and women should look like. In turn, women adhere to these standards out of internalization, industry standards, and the desire to succeed (Finneman and Jenkins 2018, 481).

SEXISM IN SITCOMS Often the roles men and women play in media echo and reinforce the ideas and values tied to masculinity and femininity. Ideals of femininity are associated with nurturing and being emotional and submissive. We see these play out in television commercials and on TV shows. On the other hand, the ideals associated with masculinity include power, aggression, domination, and active engagement. For this reason, men and boys might take on the role of the hero or protagonist, while women are often portrayed as more passive or nurturing in their roles. When women do take on the heroine role, they may simultaneously be depicted as sexual objects, who eventually become dependent on men. For characters who work in the professional world, men might have more powerful and prestigious jobs as politicians, athletes, doctors, or corporate leaders. Women, on the other hand, often portray more marginal roles as secretaries, nurses, etc., and their characters are often valued for beauty (Godwill and Collins 2018). When we watch sitcoms, it is important to look for gender biases. Underrepresented and undeveloped or ‘flat’ female characters often relegate women to supporting roles. One guiding question for considering gender bias in sitcoms includes: What messages do the

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plotlines, characters, and scenes convey to the audience about women in general? Modern Family (2009–2020) is illustrative in this regard. In this popular sitcom, two adult women are part of the main cast. Thus, we can say that the women, as central characters, do play significant roles in the show. The two women are Claire Dunphy (Julie Bowen) and Gloria Pritchett. Gloria (played by Latina actress Sofia Vergara) is married to Claire’s father, Jay Pritchett (Ed O’Neill). Claire and Gloria are both stay-at-home moms. They have also been divorced, and they’re both on their second marriage. The divorced aspect of the characters’ lives underpins the idea that each woman is flawed and initially unsuccessful in love and marriage. The idea that they are stay-at-home moms supports the traditional role of women in the domestic realm, as caretakers of home and children. Gloria appears stereotypical on two levels; as a Latina woman—she is akin to a sexy, feisty Latina—which is typical in terms of representations of Latina women on television (see also Devious Maids (2013–2016)). Likewise, as an immigrant she is depicted as a money-hungry “trophy wife.” On the other hand, the stereotype of women of color as tough and resilient also appears simultaneously as she is also portrayed as having a certain type of wisdom and strength that result from her experiences of growing up in a tough neighborhood in Colombia (Ferris and Stein 2016, 109). Claire, on the other hand, is a “daddy’s girl” who is initially jealous of Gloria. The common trope of the woman with “daddy issues” comes with Claire. Likewise, jealous rivalry between women is a common and long-standing trope in our society, and in this context, it plays out between Claire and Gloria. Likewise, the inevitability of motherhood for women also stands out with Claire. Motherhood is so central to her identity (and should be to every woman, according to our society), that she must redefine her identity as mother and leave the domestic realm of the house to find meaningful work as her children age. Indeed, it is only with an empty nest that a woman can leave the home to find self-fulfilling employment. In these ways, sitcoms like Modern Family provide powerful messages about gender roles and femininity to both female and male viewers. As for men, notions of masculinity are clearly displayed for male viewers. Aggressive lead roles by men who are successful in both love and career are the long-held staple for television. Often, the object of desire for an attractive male lead is a young and attractive woman whom he seduces with wit and power, despite a series of obstacles. In a similar way, stereotypes abound according to beauty—the good guy is attractive and the bad guy is well, less so. This sends clear notions of attractiveness associated with moral character to the audience. Likewise, this duality between good/evil also presents with evil women characters who are depicted as unattractive, as well, or demonic, such as with the classic Medusa and Cruella Deville characters. However, the trope of the sexy, evil (or dangerous) woman is also somewhat common. Sexist themes in television are not confined to sitcoms, broadcast journalism, and commercials; they can (and do) show up in other genres as well. Another sexist theme common in television dramas is that of the portrayal of intellectual women on the screen. In the introduction to the book, Smart Chicks on Screen: Representing Women’s Intellect in Film and Television, author D’Amore points to



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how “women’s intellect is rarely the center point of television or film narratives, and when it is, these women are often represented as socially awkward . . . or doomed to perpetual failure in intimate relationships” (2014, 3). In other examples, such as The Mindy Project (2012–2017), the central protagonist, Mindy, is a high-earning obstetrician who is obsessed with finding love. Her main concern for finding love overshadows her intellect and career as a successful medical professional. This theme overshadows many of the intelligent female leads in television dramas such as Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) in Scandal (2012–2018) and even the tech-savvy sleuth Penelope (Kirsten Vangsness) of Criminal Minds (2005– 2020). Also, if the women are nerdy or smart, they are “forced to trade their intellect for desirability” (D’Amore 2014, 3). In HBO’s Game of Thrones (2011–2019), other pertinent examples of sexism arise. In “Game of Thrones, Rape Culture and Feminist Fandom,” author Ferreday analyzes how rape culture and sexual violence manifest in graphic scenes (2015). From its onset, the show was controversial due to scenes with nudity, graphic sex, and extreme violence. Although these scenes are crafted for entertainment and ratings, it is also important to note how the differential treatment of male and female characters also mirrors men and women’s experiences in the real world. The prevalence of sexual assault in American culture and the current controversy over the understanding of consent (the #MeToo movement) cannot be ignored when scenes of rape play out on prime-time TV. Or, as Ferreday states, “the stories we tell ‘about’ rape . . . tell us a great deal about society’s attitude toward gender, sexuality, violence, property and family relationships” (2015, 23). Rape is a prominent narrative feature in films and in television series, and it is an overt and readily observed instance of sexism. Rape and lack of consent run throughout many violent scenes in Game of Thrones and frequent female nudity stands in contrast to rarely disrobed men. Two particular scenes of sexual violence stand out. In one of the show’s earlier seasons, Jaime Lannister (a knight) rapes his sister Cersei after grieving the death of their son (born from incest) in his funeral chamber. In another scene, Viserys Targaryen threatens to have his young sister Daenarys raped if she will not consent to being sold into marriage in exchange for warriors. When Daenarys refuses, her brother threatens to have her groom, Khal Drogo, his men, and the horses rape her. If she refused to marry, the ominous threat of rape by multiple men and even bestiality loomed as serious threats that could have been readily enacted. On her wedding night, her new husband Khal Drogo does indeed rape her. Although brutalized by Drogo, Daenarys forgives him and eventually falls in love with him. As she forgives her rapist, the idea of the benevolent rapist manifests. Instead of punishment, the rapist is forgiven because he is not “really” a bad guy and sexual assault is legitimized as a normal occurrence, a fact of life. As such, these scenes point to the idea of a benevolent rapist as common in our society, which gives rise to the eventual romance between a sexual assault victim and her perpetrator culminating in the fantasy of rape. As notions of gender and power are not isolated in our society, it is important to consider how the spectacle of sexual violence functions as pleasurable for the audience and to place the writing of such scenes within the context of a wider debate

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about rape culture and media presentation of sexual violence (Ferreday 2015, 21–22). As noted earlier, other social norms according to gender, such as unspoken rules or codes for how men and women are allowed to “feel” and/or express emotions are also depicted on-screen. The phrase “feeling rules” refers to the emotions, or feelings, that our society accepts, in accordance with gender binaries, for men and women. Feeling rules differ for men and women. While women are often stereotyped to be overly emotional and susceptible to crying bouts, men learn in their socialization that crying in public or expressing vulnerability are not permissible in our society. As such, strong male characters are rarely allowed to cry or to express the whole range of human emotion. Likewise, in Hollywood and in television, violence continues to be an exclusive monopoly for male actors and the characters they play; the exception being women and female characters enacting violence, evil and cruelty as revenge against men or against one another. Another issue resulting from sexism in television is the requirement for compulsory heterosexuality. This limits the diversity of lead roles, as gay characters often fall far from romantic dramas and into comedic sitcoms. In an article that encourages viewers to undertake critical reads of sexism in their favorite old(er) shows, Teen Vogue writer Bateman describes a hostile scene in an episode of the show Friends (1994–2004) entitled “The One with the Male Nanny” (aired in 2002). In this scene, the male character Ross interviews a male nanny and in a hostile tone mocks him asking “You’re gay, right?” Because the idea of a male nanny is outside of the acceptable performance of masculinity, Ross ridicules him. As such, the audience learns rules about gender roles and stereotypes about the male gender that discourage behavior outside of these norms (Bateman 2017). There are numerous examples of gender and sexuality being depicted in stereotypical, binary ways and used as comic relief or to reinforce heteronormative identities. However, there have been numerous strides in the last three to four years to incorporate a wider variety of genders and sexualities on sitcoms and dramas; one example would by the FX hit series, Pose.

RESISTANCE TO SEXISM IN TELEVISION Despite this criticism, shows like The Walking Dead (2010–) or Dear White People (2017–) potentially fill the gap in diversity and represent progress in the representation of more complex women characters (and characters who are people of color) on television today. The pushback to one-dimensional and marginal female characters has led to more diverse roles for women in contemporary shows. Snow White in Once Upon a Time (2011–2018) differs quite a bit from the version from childhood stories. Instead of the passive role in the traditional story that focuses on Snow White’s innocence and purity, the new adaptation depicts an independent and quick-witted version of Snow White. Likewise, as for representation, the notable Oliva Pope from Scandal is a strong-minded female protagonist who navigates White House scandals with intelligence and leadership—despite the everyday mishaps and troubles she faces outside of her job (Lee 2014).



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Likewise, Black-ish (2014–), a sitcom about a Black middle-class family, also pushes for a more inclusive definition of family and thus challenges stereotypical ideas about gender roles in family life. Moreover, these shows push for multidimensional notions of womanhood—that include race, class, and sexuality, to the forefront of discussions that highlight the various ways underrepresentation plays out both in life and on contemporary American television. The resistance to gender stereotypes in television and media has largely been led by women viewers. The rise of the #MeToo movement has brought sexism that occurs behind the scenes into mainstream conversations and debates. With this hashtag, the sexual assault that happens behind closed curtains in the film industry was brought to the forefront and became part of a national discourse about pervasive sexism in American culture. This discourse supports the notion that “there is a spectrum of abuses of power, some tiny and some huge, that all add up to a world where women’s voices, women’s work, and women’s sexual desires are ignored or devalued” (Jaffe 2018, 84). This spectrum of abuse (and its effects) are also perpetuated in the advertisements we view, the sitcoms we watch, and in newsrooms with women anchors, the importance of #MeToo in raising a collective voice about sexism on-screen and off is duly noted. Audience resistance to stereotypical portrayals of women characters has led to the convergence of television and social media. Social media outlets serve as forums to analyze and critique underrepresentation in sitcoms, stereotypical roles in advertisements, sexual harassment, and forms of sexism (more generally) in the world of television and film. Television networks, such as ABC, have also acquired forums on Twitter with a hashtag (#TGIT or Thank God it’s Thursday) for viewer commentary on its popular Thursday night lineup, which includes shows like Grey’s Anatomy (2005–), Scandal, and How I Met Your Mother (2005–2014). #TGIT allows for a participatory culture where Black female fandom expands the characterization of Olivia Pope to make sense of their own experiences in a radicalized and sexist world (Patterson 2018, 87). There have been other cultural milestones in television as our beliefs, as a society, have evolved. For example, Ellen DeGeneres is a well-adored, openly lesbian comedian and talk show host. We have also witnessed increasing diversity among models in advertisements—a move that potentially allows for championing body positivity for people of various sizes and physiques. Big gains have been won in representing full-figured women and women of varied racial and ethnic backgrounds. Still, we are perhaps very far behind in representing gender queer and nonbinary folks on the screen, though shows like Transparent (2014–2019) and Pose, are a start. Likewise, we have been slower to accept other physical stigmas, such as women who are disabled and those who do not fit into the dominant narrative of commercial beauty. While change has been slow in television’s depictions of realistic women and men that represent the spectrum of gender expression, the push for alternative, more complex narratives is gaining momentum. This pushback from women in marches and organizing on social media has also pointed to the need for more women working behind the camera and in writer’s rooms to produce shows that have better representation of women’s experiences on screen. Various social actors have contributed to the formulation of stereotypes and rigid gender norms; at the same time, a

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multitude of people (from all walks of life) participate in challenging these narratives. As Caroline Heldman states, “We now know that simply adding women to scripts will not solve gender inequality in entertainment media,” as it is necessary “to write female characters with more screen time, more speaking time, more prominence in the storyline, with more personal agency, and without objectifying them” (qtd. in The Innovation Group 2017, 6). With responsible and conscientious writing, the possibility to rearticulate gender, overturn stereotypes, and eliminate sexism may not only manifest on screen, but transform society and the real world as well. Courtney Sargent Further Reading

Bateman, Oliver Lee. 2017. “Why Sexism and Homophobia in Old TV Shows Is Such a Big Problem Today.” Teen Vogue, May 12. ­https://​­w ww​.­teenvogue​.­com​/­story​ /­why​-­sexism​-­and​-­homophobia​-­in​-­old​-­t v​-­shows​-­is​-­such​-­a​-­big​-­problem​-­today. D’Amore, Laura Mattoon. 2014. Smart Chicks on Screen: Representing Women’s Intellect in Film and Television. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Ferreday, Debra. 2015. “Game of Thrones, Rape Culture and Feminist Fandom.” Australian Feminist Studies 30 (83): 21–36. Ferris, Kerry, and Jill Stein. 2016. The Real World: An Introduction to Sociology. New York: W. W. Norton. Finneman, Teri, and Joy Jenkins. 2018. “Sexism on the Set: Gendered Expectations of TV Broadcasters in a Social Media World.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 62 (3): 479–494. Godwill, Francis, and Annie Collins. 2018. “Gender.” ­http://​­criticalmediaproject​.­org​ /­w p​-­content​/­uploads​/­2018​/­03​/­Gender​-­Topic​-­1​.­pdf. Innovation Group, The. 2017. “New Trend Report: Gender Bias in Advertising.” J. Walter Thompson Intelligence, June 29. ­https://​­w ww​.­jwtintelligence​.­com​/­2017​/­06​ /­new​-­t rend​-­report​-­gender​-­bias​-­advertising​/. Jaffe, Sarah. 2018. “The Collective Power of #MeToo.” Dissent 65 (2): 80–87. Lee, Alice. 2014. “Sexism in Modern Television Shows.” Her Campus, November 19. ­https://​­w ww​.­hercampus​.­com​/­school​/­pitt​/­sexism​-­modern​-­television​-­shows. Neason, Alexandria, Meg Dalton, and Karen K. Ho. 2018. “Sexual Harassment in the Newsroom: An Oral History.” Columbia Journalism Review, January 31. h­ ttps://​ ­w ww​.­cjr​.­org​/­special​_report​/­sexual​-­harassment​-­newsroom​-­survey​-­me​-­too​.­php Patterson, Eleanor. 2018. “Must Tweet TV: ABC’s #TGIT and the Cultural Work of Programming Social Television.” Transformative Works & Cultures 26: 87–96. Poggie, Jeanine. 2018. “Six Sexist Super Bowl Ads.” AdAge, January 12. ­http://​­adage​ .­com​/­article​/­special​-­report​-­super​-­bowl​/­most​-­sexist​-­super​-­bowl​-­ads​/­311835​/. Prieler, Michael. 2016. “Gender Stereotypes in Spanish and English Language Television Advertisements in the United States.” Mass Communication & Society 19 (3): 275–300.

Sheen, Martin(1940–) Most recognized for his role as President Josiah Bartlett on The West Wing (1999– 2006), Martin Sheen has amassed a stellar career on both television and the big screen.



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Born Ramón Gerard Antonio Estévez on August 3, 1940, to an Irish mother and a Spanish father, Sheen endured a difficult childhood growing up in Ohio. Overcoming an accident during birth that crushed his arm, polio, and the death of his mother, Estévez found his passion in both activism (at fourteen, he organized a strike of caddies in protest of their mistreatment and in demand of higher wages) and in performing. Despite his father’s objections, Estévez moved to New York City in hopes of fulfilling his dream of becoming an actor. This was only possible because of the help of Reverend Alfred Dapp, who not only provided him with funds to cover travel costs but served as counsel to both him and his father in an effort to bring the family together. Yet, the pathway to a career as actor remained challenging and difficult. After finding limited opportunities, a fact that he saw as the result of racism, Estévez, like so many other artists suffering because of discrimination, changed his name. During an interview with James Lipton on the Inside the Actor’s Studio (1994–), Sheen described the decision as difficult but necessary. “Whenever I would call for an appointment, whether it was a job or an apartment, and I would give my name, there was always that hesitation and when I’d get there, it was always gone,” Martin explained. “I thought, I got enough problems trying to get an acting job, so I invented Martin Sheen. . . . I thought I’d give it a try, and before I knew it, I started making a living with it and then it was too late. In fact, one of my great regrets is that I didn’t keep my name as it was given to me. I knew it bothered my dad” (qtd. in Ramirez 2011). After securing guest roles on numerous shows, including As the World Turns (1956–2010) in 1956, Route 66 (1960–1964) in 1961, Flipper (1964–1967) in 1967, Mission Impossible (1966–1973) in 1969, Hawaii Five-O (1968–1980) in 1970, and The F.B.I. (1965–1974) over multiple seasons, and parts in several television and Hollywood movies, Sheen earned critical acclaim with his performance in The Subject of Roses (1968), a role he originated on Broadway. His performance in the cinematic version ultimately earned him a Golden Globe’s nomination. Following several other successful performances, Sheen emerged as a star following a breakthrough performance in Terrence Malick’s Badlands (1973) and then another with Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979). In the decades that followed, Sheen appeared in numerous television shows and made-for-TV movies, as well as Hollywood films, including several appearances on Insight (1960–1984), and in Gandhi (1982), Kennedy (1983), Queen (1993), Murphy Brown (1988–1998), and The American President (1995). Yet, despite a lengthy career, it was his portrayal of President Bartlett in the widely popular The West Wing that propelled him to stardom. Originally only intended be a peripheral character (he was slotted to appear in five of the first twenty-two episodes), he drove the show to its critical success, a cultural phenomenon, and a television show that forever changed the American political landscape. “For budding politicos, The West Wing was a once-a-week life raft, an alternative universe where civic-mindedness, while buffeted, ultimately triumphed,” writes Juli Weiner (2012) in Vanity Fair. In many ways, Sheen’s portrayal of President Bartlett inspired and gave hope to a generation that found little possibility in American

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politics. “For liberals in particular, Martin Sheen’s Nobel Prize-winning, Latin-speaking President Bartlett was a soothing foil to George W. Bush’s down-home anti-intellectualism and execrable consonant swallowin’; it was as if each week Sorkin and his colleagues were writing the counter-factual, shoulda-been history of the Gore administration.” A ten-time Emmy nominee (with one victory for guest performance in Murphy Brown), and a five-time Golden Globe nominee (with one victory for best performance by an actor in The West Wing), Sheen has earned critical acclaim for his work throughout his career. His legacy, however, extends beyond his performances. The Sheen family has emerged as one of the foremost success stories within the entertainment industry. His three sons and lone daughter, along with his wife, have all had significant acting careers. Ramon Estevez has appeared on television and in numerous Hollywood films. Renée Estevez appeared multiple times on The West Wing; she additionally had guest roles in numerous shows including Growing Pains (1985–1992) in 1987, MacGyver (1985–1992) in 1987, and Jag (1995–2005) in 2000 and 2001, as well as roles in a number of films. Sheen’s two most famous children—Emilio Estevez and Carlos Estevez (Charlie Sheen)—both started their careers in Hollywood, becoming stars on the big screen and then on television. For Emilio, his roles in The Breakfast Club (1985), St. Elmo’s Fire (1985), Young Guns (1998), and The Mighty Ducks (1992) propelled a career as both an actor and director on shows like The West Wing, CSI: New York (2003–2010), Cold Case (2004–2013), and Two and Half Men (2003– 2015). Like his brother, Charlie established himself as a star in Hollywood, with roles in Platoon (1986), Wall Street (1987), Young Guns (1988), and Major League (1989), only to find success later on television with Spin City (1996–2002) and Two and Half Men. An accomplished actor and a father of several successful actors, Sheen’s legacy is equally seen in his commitment to using his platform in the name of social justice. Over multiple decades of activism, he has been arrested sixty-six times. Whether fighting on behalf of immigrants, the homeless, or the poor, or in protest of racism, gun violence, nuclear proliferation, capital punishment, the exploitation of children throughout the world, or any number of wars, he has been an advocate for social justice. According to University of Dayton president Dan Curran, Sheen consistently used “his celebrity status to be a voice for the voiceless” (qtd. in Archdeacon 2015). For Sheen, his legacy can be seen in both his iconic performances and with long-standing commitment to changing the world. “Acting is what I do for a living and activism is what I do to stay alive” (qtd. in Archdeacon 2015). David J. Leonard Further Reading

Allen, Cooper. 2014. “15 Years Later: ‘West Wing’ Cast Members, Producer Reflect on Political Show.” USA Today, October 13. ­https://​­w ww​.­usatoday​.­com​/­story​/­news​ /­nation​-­now​/­2014​/­10​/­13​/­west​-­wing​-­cast​-­martin​-­sheen​-­anniversary​/­16153423​/. Archdeacon, Tom. 2015. “Arch Interviews Martin Sheen: ‘Activism Is What I Do to Stay Alive’: Martin Sheen Says Lessons Learned in Dayton Have Guided Him



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Throughout His Life.” Dayton Daily News, May 9. ­https://​­w ww​.­mydaytondailynews​ .­c om​/­n ews​/­l ocal​/­a rch​-­i nterviews​-­m artin​-­s heen​-­a ctivism​-­w hat​-­s tay​-­a live​ /­V56zrNjcEVoR9LqGkLD3pM​/. Donnelly, Marea. 2015. “Battling Racism, Martin Sheen Changed Name to Realise Childhood Dream of Stardom.” The Daily Telegraph, August 3. ­https://​­w ww​ .­d ailytelegraph​.­com​.­au ​/­news​/ ­battling​-­r acism​-­m artin​-­sheen​-­changed​-­n ame​-­t o​ -­realise​-­childhood​-­d ream​-­of​-­stardom ​/­news​-­story​/­66d83d2c51069298e2b00fc700 b12d28. Ramirez, Erika. 2011. “The True Identity of Charlie Sheen: Tracing the Roots of the Estevez Family.” Latina, February 28. ­http://​­www​.­latina​.­com​/­entertainment​/ ­buzz​ /­t rue​-­identity​-­charlie​-­sheen​-­t racing​-­roots​-­estevez​-­family. Weiner, Juli. 2012. “West Wing Babies.” Vanity Fair, March 6. ­https://​­w ww​.­vanityfair​ .­com​/­news​/­2012​/­04​/­aaron​-­sorkin​-­west​-­wing.

Simpson, O. J.(1947–) Orenthal James “O. J.” Simpson was born in San Francisco, California, on July 9, 1947. He attended the University of Southern California and first came into the public eye as a phenomenal college football player, winning the coveted Heisman Trophy in 1968. The running back’s fame only heightened when he signed with the Buffalo Bills. His successful career in the National Football League (NFL), where he was popularly known as “The Juice,” opened up opportunities in the entertainment world, and he appeared on television in commercials as well as in various programs throughout the 1970s and 1980s. However, Simpson’s presence on television is most associated with the 1990s media spectacle of the trial for the gruesome double murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman. Simpson was charged with the homicides and the televised trial captivated the nation in 1995. His controversial acquittal of the crimes makes him one of the most notorious figures in U.S. public culture, and especially as it concerns racial politics and his own navigation of blackness. Simpson’s popularity as athlete would propel him to be the face of various products and services. Fittingly, he became part of the marketing of TreeSweet frozen concentrated orange juice. As scholars Leola Johnson and David Roediger argue (1997): “Simpson became the first black sports star to massively cross over from athletic hero to corporate spokesman and media personality” (41–42). His most lucrative deal was with the Hertz car rental company. Simpson was featured in many commercials for the “superstar in rent-a-car.” He is depicted as a businessman rushing through an airport to get a vehicle. In one advertisement, a group of White girl scouts shout “Go, O.J., Go!” as he runs as if they are fans on the sidelines of a football game. Here, his superspeed is equated with Hertz’s rapid service. The Hertz endorsement exemplified Simpson’s conflictual relationship to his identity as an African American. Despite the fact that his crossover success actually depended on him as a racialized commodity, his belief that he transcended blackness and was actually colorless fueled his persona until his criminal trial.

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In addition to commercial spots, Simpson also appeared in a number of television programs. His first credit is a nonspeaking role on Dragnet 1967 (1967–1970). He also costarred alongside Elizabeth Montgomery in the CBS made-for-TV movie A Killing Affair (1977) in which they play homicide detectives who begin an affair while working a case. Simpson hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live (1975–). Most notably, the football player had a brief cameo in the David Wolper-produced Roots (1977). Based on author Alex Haley’s novel, the groundbreaking miniseries is a genealogical exploration of his family’s origins on the African continent to their enslavement and, ultimately, freedom in the United States. In one sequence during the first episode, protagonist Kunta Kinte (LeVar Burton) trains to be a Mandinka warrior and knocks over a woman and her food while trying to hunt. He encounters an elder Kadi Touray, played by O. J. Simpson, who outruns him in an open field. Kadi converses with Kunta and forces him to apologize to his daughter, Fanta, before wishing him well on his journey: “I hope you catch your bird!” Much like the Hertz company, the production of Roots utilized and emphasized Simpson’s athletic skills, showcasing his physical features and ability to run in the scene. After retiring from the NFL in 1979, Simpson continued to pursue acting opportunities, appearing in Cocaine and Blue Eyes in 1983. He started his own film production company in 1979 called Orenthal Productions, which produced NBC’s Goldie and the Boxer (1979). He once stated: “I always put my fantasies in the realm of goals. The Oscar or the Emmy says you’ve reached a level of competence in this business, and I would love to have one” (qtd. in Goldberg 2014). From 1986 to 1991, Simpson starred in the HBO TV series 1st and Ten: The Championship about a fictional football team called the California Bulls. Soon thereafter, NBC picked up the TV movie pilot Frogmen, with Simpson playing John “Bullfrog” Burke, the leader of a Navy SEALs team. However, it was shelved and deemed “inappropriate” to air during the double murder trial. On June 12, 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were found stabbed to death outside of her residence in Brentwood, California. O. J. Simpson immediately became the primary suspect in the double murder of his ex-wife and her friend. Yet the celebrity did not turn himself in to authorities as expected and five days later, he was pursued by law enforcement in a low-speed highway chase that preempted regularly scheduled programming and was broadcast live all around the country. The chase is an infamous moment in public memory as audiences watched the aerial footage of the vehicular pursuit of Simpson in the now-iconic white Ford Bronco. The chase ended on the evening of June 17, 1994, with Simpson finally surrendering to arrest at his Brentwood estate. Beginning on January 25, 1995, the Simpson trial garnered much attention and contributed to the early success of 24-hour cable news. It created celebrities out of prosecutors Marcia Clarke and Christopher Darden as well as Johnnie Cochran, the helm of Simpson’s “Dream Team” defense. The most memorable moment of the trial came when Simpson was forced to try on the black leather gloves found at the crime scene and thought to be worn by the perpetrator of the murders. As he put them on in the courtroom, it was clear that they are not his size. Thought to



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have been evidence of guilt, the ill-fitting gloves became a visual that actually aided the defense. Cochran persuasively played “the race card” by cultivating a narrative that constructed Simpson as a victim of structural racism. During closing arguments for the defense and referring back to the glove demonstration, Cochran uttered the phrase: “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.” On October 2, 1995, Simpson was found not guilty of the murder charges to mixed reactions amongst Black and White America. Twenty years later, Simpson still occupied an important space in the U.S. cultural imaginary. He remained visible in the remediation of his life on the small screen. The Ryan Murphy limited television series The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story (FX) premiered on February 2, 2016, and was based on Jeffrey Toobin’s 1997 book The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson. The series follows the behind-the-scenes of the sensational double murder trial from both the perspective of the prosecution and defense. It boasts an all-star cast that includes Cuba Gooding Jr. as Simpson and John Travolta as Robert Shapiro, the architect of his defense. The program won Outstanding Lead Actor (Courtney B. Vance as Johnnie Cochran), Outstanding Lead Actress (Sarah Paulson as Marcia Clarke), Outstanding Supporting Actor (Sterling K. Brown as Christopher Darden), and Outstanding Limited Series at the 2016 Emmy Awards. In the same year, Ezra Edelman’s film O.J.: Made in America premiered as a part of the ESPN Film 30 for 30 series and won the 2016 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Divided into five installments, the project dives deep into the racial politics of Simpson’s rise to fame. In particular, early episodes situate the trial as embedded in historical race relations in Los Angeles, from the 1965 rebellion in Watts to the unrest in the city in the aftermath of the videotaped beating of Rodney King. With the specter of such racial tension and violence, an attorney like Cochran was partially able to make a claim of racial injury committed by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) against Simpson during the trial. Although acquitted of the murders, Simpson’s trouble with the law continued in civil court with the families of the slain and, ultimately, when he was found guilty of armed robbery in October 2008. He served a nine-year jail sentence in Nevada and was released in October 2017, becoming the subject of intense press coverage once again. In March 2018, the Fox network premiered O.J. Simpson: The Lost Confession?, a program that contains a previously un-aired interview with the star from 2006. In the interview, Simpson seemingly admits his role in the murders of Nicole and Ron. The executive producer of the two-hour special Terry Wrong comments: “It’s riveting television. You can’t turn away. He sucks you in. He’s charismatic and charming and at the same time, there’s something a little manic and a lot disturbing about him” (qtd. in Littleton 2018). In this way, Simpson’s television iconicity, from sports to scandal, continues to live on. Brandy Monk-Payton Further Reading

Goldberg, Haley. 2014. “The Hollywood Career O. J. Simpson Left Behind.” Los Angeles Times, June 12. ­http://​­w ww​.­latimes​.­com ​/­entertainment​/­movies​/­moviesnow​ /­la​-­hollywoods​-­oj​-­simpson​-­before​-­t he​- ­white​-­bronco​-­20140612​-­story​.­html.

606 Sitcom Johnson, Leola, and David Roediger. 1997. “‘Hertz, Don’t It?’: Becoming Colorless and Staying Black in the Crossover of O. J. Simpson.” In Birth of a Nation’hood: Gaze, Script, and Spectacle in the O.J. Simpson Case, edited by Toni Morrison, 197– 240. New York: Pantheon Books. Littleton, Cynthia. 2018. “Fox’s O. J. Simpson Special Offers Jarring ‘Window into His Psychology.’” Variety, March 8. ­http://​­variety​.­com​/­2018​/­t v​/­news​/­o​-­j​-­simpson​-­fox​ -­special​-­interview​-­1202721999​/. Morrison, Toni, ed. 1997. Birth of a Nation’hood: Gaze, Script, and Spectacle in the O. J. Simpson Case. New York: Pantheon Books. Williams, Linda. 2001. Playing the Race Card: Melodramas of Black and White from Uncle Tom to O. J. Simpson. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Sitcom Television, in general, and situational comedies, in particular, are much more than entertainment; they are windows through which we are able to see the history, culture, and the agency of performance both in life and on-screen. Never mind the brevity of the sitcom, its comedic emphasis, and its embrace of clichés, the sitcom is a sort of virtual textbook that embodies the mores, images, ideals, prejudices, and ideologies of its topical moment. A situation comedy or “sitcom” is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who carry over from episode to episode. A sitcom television program may be recorded in front of a studio audience, depending on the program’s production format. The effect of a live studio audience can be imitated or enhanced by the use of a laugh track. Sitcoms generally have a running-time of twenty to twenty-five minutes (without commercial breaks) and with their embrace of humor, single episodes are used as vehicles of a particular moral lesson. As Darrell Hamamoto expresses, “The study of the television situation comedy is an exercise in examining the relationship of popular art to its historically specific setting” (1991, 9). Surveying histories of television sitcoms in general offers a unique insight into what is understood as national American humor. The rise of mass culture throughout post–World War II United States took full advantage of the new working-class and their urge to consume more and more. As argued by Melvin Dubofsky and Athan Theoharis, “No aspect of postwar America so transformed popular styles and tastes as television” (1988, 84). The centrality of television within America’s post–World War II culture did not usher in a new moment for the representation of communities of color. In this early age of television, all popular situation comedy focused on the stories of White families, which “featured the husband as breadwinner and the wife as the guardian of the hearth” (Dubofsky and Theoharis 1988, 81). Mostly White cast family sitcoms of the 1950s onward—whether the perfect nuclear ones of Father Knows Best (1954–1960) and Leave It to Beaver (1957–1963) or the farcical family of The Honeymooners (1955–1956)—reflected the privileges of whiteness and displayed the culture’s dominant notion of family as White and middle class. These shows were largely focused on the everyday experiences of Whites raising a

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family and living in the suburbs and cities of America. Their content rarely discussed economic issues such as securing employment or social issues such as racial injustice and, in the few instances in which they did, their approach to such issues was strikingly different from the later shows that featured Black families like Sanford and Son (1972–1977), Good Times (1974–1979), and The Jeffersons (1975–1985). Critics noted how these shows replicated dominant ideas about gender roles, at least for White women. As White men returned home from defeating global fascism, White women were being called upon to take their “rightful place” in the kitchen. For White women, these shows told women that their domesticity was the highest form of female virtue. The pressures from outside were not limited to gender as situation comedies also engaged issues of race and felt pressure from activists demanding increased diversity on television. The effects of the Civil Rights Movement and the demands of inclusion can be seen in the shifting television lineup from the 1950s into the 1960s and 1970. Critical engagement with topical issues of varying communities such as poverty, employment, health, education, and culture, race-based sitcoms responded to their political moment, and network television (seeing profits and critical acclaim) followed suit by increasing the number of such shows. Production companies whose focus leaned toward race in their sitcom creations thus revolutionized both the subject matter and the business approach of network television. For a moment, the revolution could be televised on the sitcom. According to Christine Acham, “for cultural critics and members of the African American population to ignore television’s potential as a forum of resistance is to misread levels of vernacular meaning inherent in many African American television texts” (2005, xv). During this time, the televisual representation of Black characters was repeatedly coupled with a White counterpart in such popular network hits as the secret-agent series I Spy (1965–1968) and the middle-class Black single mother sitcom Julia (1968–1971). Although both shows presented a “respectable” and middle-class image of Blacks, commentators questioned how the lack of representation about inequality, persistent racism, and the larger struggle for racial justice limited their impact. Tandem Productions’ reintroduction of the all-Black sitcom in prime time, beginning with Sanford and Son, established the fact of Black family life on network television. Putting at the forefront matters of the Black community such as poverty, employment, health, education, and culture, Tandem’s Black sitcoms specifically responded to their political moment, and network television (seeing profits and critical acclaim) followed suit by increasing the number of such shows. Historians have argued their significance can be seen in how these shows would lay the foundation for the future of television, establishing a template for how to engage in key social issues and foster greater diversity. In “What Is Television Now?” Amanda Lotz discusses the early age of television beginning in the 1950s. During the “network era,” between 1952 and the mid-1980s, the original big three networks (ABC, NBC, and CBS) controlled, produced, and distributed all American television. This is particularly important because viewer access to Tandem’s all-Black sitcoms had to contend with a highly

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competitive network schedule, and competition from a variety of shows (mostly all-White) for a finite viewership. Lotz contends that the network era provided (at least until recently) the basic structure of television’s industrial organization and social role. The three networks had complete control over the nation’s viewing content and the images they saw on-screen. They “delivered content on a linear through-the-day schedule—shows were available only at appointed times” (Lotz 2009, 51). Moreover, to appeal to the broadest demographic they also relied heavily on “family viewing and the family audience” (Lotz 2009, 50). An entire family sitting in front of a television with a limited variety of viewing options, thus has a restricted power of choice. The networks in turn, with a finite roster of shows, had to seek images that featured broad and universal themes. As Lotz notes, they were pushed toward “homogeneous content likely to be accepted by a heterogeneous audience” (2009, 51). Throughout history, the sitcom has been a vehicle used to respond to the politics of the moment. The expansion of cable television from the traditional three network channels to a more expansive space has led to even more sitcoms. The growing platform has produced greater engagement with a diversity of issues, including race, gender, and political issues. Critics have noted that the use of comedy within situation comedies allows for sometimes-harsh critiques and engagement with issues including politics, economics, race, religion, and sexuality to name a few. Beginning in the 1990s, networks increasingly focused on reaching the White working-class and people of color. Sitcoms, such as Roseanne (1988–1997), Married with Children (1987–1997), and Home Improvement (1991–1998) built on the long-standing tradition of the situation comedy as a vehicle for detailing the experiences of White families all while bringing greater attention to the experiences of White mothers and those from the working-class. Other sitcoms, such as Family Ties (1982–1989), Cheers (1982–1993), Growing Pains (1985–1992), Full House (1987–1995), Frasier (1993–2004), Friends (1994–2004), Seinfeld (1989–1998), and Sex and the City (1998–2004) would similarly imagine the world through the experiences of whiteness whether in focusing on story lines about professionals, families, or young and single individuals. Yet, the situation comedy would also experience increased racial diversity following the successes of The Cosby Show (1984–1992) and similar other sitcoms featuring Black families. Two networks, UPN, the WB and FOX, would design their television lineup to reach marginalized viewers, resulting in greater diversity within the sitcom genre. Alongside of 227 (1985–2000), A Different World (1987–1993), Family Matters (1989–1998), The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990–1996), and Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper (1992– 1997), situation comedies featuring Black casts and story lines surrounding Black experiences would find support outside the traditional networks. Shows including ROC (1991–2004), Martin (1992–1997), Living Single (1993–1998), South Central (1994), Sister Sister (1994–1999), The Wayans Bros (1994–1999), Moesha (1996– 2001), The Steve Harvey Show (1996–2002), The Jamie Fox Show (1996–2001), Girlfriends (2000–2008), The Bernie Mac Show (2001–2006), That’s So Raven (2003–2007), and Everybody Hates Chris (2005–2009) would gain immense popularity during the 1990s and 2000s.

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More recently, in an era of streaming and digital services, sitcoms and their production have evolved in output and frequency. Critics have noted that consumption of the sitcom has rapidly taken a new form. Politically, images in sitcoms have taken on a post-racial identity. In The Post-Racial Mystique: Media and Race in the Twenty-First Century (2013), Catherine Squires investigates what race in television (and other media) looks like in this supposedly “post-racial society” that America is now in. Her findings help us to understand that the trope of the post-racial enunciates the demise of race and current network and prime-time television work to inventively redeploy other identity categories in a quest to formulate different ways of responding to race. Squires attributes many of these ideas of a postrace era to the age of President Barack Obama, some believing that we must be postrace if America now had a Black president. Using images such as mixed-race casts and blind-casting, this post-racial age attempts to deny racial inequality but in fact reinforces it as seen through sitcoms such as New Girl (2011–2018). Also, recently, changes in television technology, industry structure, and audience habits are dragging us into a post-television culture. Michael Strangelove’s Post TV: Piracy, Cord-Cutting, and the Future of Television (2015) takes on the task of defining this new phenomenon in media culture. In the late 2000s, television no longer referred to an object to be watched; it had transformed into content to be streamed, downloaded, and shared. Tens of millions of viewers have “cut the cord,” so to speak, and have abandoned cable television. As an alternative, they have tuned into online services like Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube, and they watch pirated movies and programs at an unprecedented rate. Commentators have argued that the internet will devastate the film and television industry. In 2012 around 3.4 billion movies and television shows were watched online through streaming services like Netflix. What this means to the sitcom genre is that many sitcom rights are bought by streaming services such as Netflix and archived on their site. Subscription-based services like Netflix again, are now producing shows such as The Ranch (2016–2020) and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2015–2019) resulting in increased diversity not only in terms of race and gender but the approach to the situation comedy. Yet, critics note that while changes to technology and the shifting political landscape are altering the types of representations available on television, the situation comedy remains a staple of television, offering not only comedic relief to the challenges of everyday life but also social commentary on some of society’s most challenging issues. Adrien Sebro Further Reading

Acham, Christine. 2005. Revolution Televised: Primetime and the Struggle for Black Power. Minneapolis: University Minnesota Press. Dubofsky, Melvin, and Athan Theoharis. 1988. Imperial Democracy: The United States since 1945. New York: Prentice Hall. Hamamoto, Darrell Y. 1991. Nervous Laughter: Television Situation Comedy and Liberal Democratic Ideology. New York: Praeger.

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Lotz, Amanda. 2009. “What Is U.S. Television Now?” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 625: 49–59. Squires, Katherine. 2013. The Post-Racial Mystique: Media and Race in the Twenty-First Century. New York: New York University Press. Strangelove, Michael. 2015. Post TV: Piracy, Cord-Cutting, and the Future of Television. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Smits, Jimmy(1955–) Dubbed “one of Hollywood’s hardest-working actors” (Fernandez 2017), Jimmy Smits has made a lasting contribution on television. Portraying roles previously unavailable to Latinx actors, serving as a role model for peers, inspiring those outside the entertainment industry to enter the professional worlds he merely inhabits on screen, and otherwise bringing depth beyond long-standing stereotypes, Smits has made ample contributions over multiple decades on television. Born July 9, 1955, in the Bronx to a Puerto Rican mother (Emilina) and a Surinamian father (Cornelis Leendert Smits), Smits grew up in working-class communities in New York and Puerto Rico. Inspired to become an actor in high school, Smits attended Brooklyn College (1980) and then earned his MFA from Cornell University in 1982. Although first appearing in the pilot for Miami Vice (1984–1990), Smits’s breakthrough came with L.A. Law (1986–1994), a widely popular television drama about a Los Angeles law firm. Exploring a range of social and political issues, from domestic violence to the AIDS crisis, from the death penalty to racism, L.A. Law provided a bridge between entertainment and everyday life, between popular culture and the culture wars, between television and critical social debates. Critics celebrated the show for its willingness to take risks and to tell stories through a diverse set of characters. Two of the show’s most prominent characters were Jonathan Rollins, played by Blair Underwood, and Victor Sifuentes, played by Smits. While not a central character to the show’s narrative, Sifuentes’s Latinx identity was front and center to his initial introduction on the show. At a police station in hopes of seeing his client, he tells the officer, who demands that he be frisked prior to entry, “You lay a hand on me and I’m gonna kick your fat butt.” Escorting Sifuentes out of the building, the officer refers to him as “José” and “Pancho freakin’ Villa.” Critics celebrated the show for providing a platform for “the first central Latino role in an American TV drama” (Fernandez 2017), and for offering an alternative representation to those in popular culture that typically portrayed Latinxs as criminals or laborers. When the show ended in 1994, only 11 out of the 800 prime-time roles were played by Latinx actors. Beyond embodying a profession and class status rarely afforded to Latinx characters on television, Sifuentes was afforded depth and humanity rare on television. “At first glance, Sifuentes, a sexy Casanova (one of several on the show) whose hot temper gets him into trouble, plays right into long-standing Latino



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stereotypes. But it doesn’t take long to realize that there is much more to the passionate, principled attorney,” wrote Sean Braswell (2015) in “The Latino Lawyer Who Revolutionized Television.” He notes further, “Over the course of the show, the character exposes viewers not only to issues of social justice and the challenges of proving oneself in a white-male-dominated workplace . . . but also to the internal struggles of a former public defender who has elected to take a more lucrative job at a private law firm.” Following his breakthrough role in L.A. Law, Smits joined the cast of NYPD Blue (1993–2002) in 1994, replacing David Caruso as the partner of the show’s lead character, Detective Andy Sipowicz (Dennis Franz). Smits’s Bobby Simone, whose parents were French and Portuguese, became a foil to the cantankerous, violent, and racist Sipowicz, often challenging his racism. Soon thereafter, Jimmy Smits joined the cast of The West Wing (1999–2006) in its seventh season as Matt Santos, a young Texas congressman who went on to run and win the presidency. Almost predicting the 2008 election, Santos was based on then Senator Barack Obama. Exploring not only themes of hope in an era of political cynicism but also issues surrounding his youth, race, and identity, his portrayal of Santos provided a bridge to the American political landscape. Since the end of West Wing, Smits has been busy, appearing as both leading actor and in reoccurring supporting roles in a number of television shows, including the widely successful Dexter (2006–2013), Sons of Anarchy (2008–2014), and Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2013–). Several other shows—Cane (2007), Outlaw (2010), 24: Legacy (2016–2017), and The Get Down (2016–2017)—were short-lived. Emblematic of his entire career, the litany of shows demonstrates the range of characters, which included a rum business owner, a pimp, a former Supreme Court Justice, an assistant district attorney, and a presidential candidate, Smits has played on television. In 2017, he joined the cast of How to Get Away with Murder (2014–2020), where he played Dr. Isaac Roa, Annalise Keating’s (Viola Davis) therapist. The opportunity to work with Viola Davis led him to join the show in its final season. “I like the show. I like the strides that show has made on so many different levels, but the bottom line for me was a chance to be able to work with Viola,” he told TV Insider. “When I sat down with her with Peter Nowalk, who’s the creator [and] the head writer on that particular show, it was just about having scenes with her and having to mix it up with her and create some kind of fireworks for the time that I’m going to be there.” (qtd. in Napoli 2017). Smits’s contributions to television extend beyond his performances on-screen. In addition to serving as a producer of both Cane and Outlaw, Smits dedicates his time and energy to diversity in the arts. He is cofounder (along with Sonia Braga, Esai Morales, Merel Julia, and Felix Sanchez) of the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts (NHFA). Founded in 1987, the NHFA works to tear down the walls that limit opportunities and progress for Latinx artists. Its mission is made clear on the NHFA website: “While the entertainment industry and its advertisers tap into the Hispanic community’s resources, programming still falls short of the need to expand and present U.S. Latinos in a more modern and contemporary

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manner. This omission deprives an entire community of a source of cultural pride and reality and the country-at-large of a true picture of the American mosaic.” In response, and through offering scholarships to aspiring artists, programming, advocacy, and outreach, NHFA is committed “to advance the presence of Latinos in the media, telecommunications and entertainment industries.” Jimmy Smits’s career is one defined by both its breath and by the quality of his performance. With eleven Screen Actors Guild nominations for NYPD Blue, The West Wing, and Dexter (one victory), twelve Emmy nominations for L.A. Law, NYPD Blue, and Dexter (one victory), four Golden Globe nominations for L.A. Law and NYPD Blue (one win), and countless other recognitions, Smits has been widely recognized for his successful performances. Breaking down barriers through a range of roles that brought depth and humanity to Latinx representations, all while fighting for increased opportunities for his peers, Smits has left a lasting imprint within and beyond the television industry. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Bobic, Chrissy. 2017. “Who Plays Isaac on ‘How to Get Away with Murder’? Jimmy Smits Is a TV Icon.” Romper, November 2. ­https://​­www​.­romper​.­com​/­p​/­who​-­plays​ -­isaac​-­on​-­how​-­to​-­get​-­away​-­with​-­murder​-­jimmy​-­smits​-­is​-­a​-­t v​-­icon​-­3211276. Braswell, Sean. 2015. “The Latino Lawyer Who Revolutionized Television.” OZY, September 23. ­https://​­www​.­ozy​.­com​/­flashback​/­the​-­latino​-­lawyer​-­who​-­revolutionized​ -­television​/­62130. Fernandez, Maria Elena. 2017. “Jimmy Smits on Playing Role Models, Villains, and Everything in Between.” Vulture, February 3. ­https://​­www​.­v ulture​.­com​/­2017​/­02​ /­jimmy​-­smits​-­on​-­24​-­legacy​-­the​-­get​-­down​.­html. Mink, Eric. 1996. “‘NYPD’ Really Works the Case of Racism.” New York Daily News, November 11. ­http://​­w ww​.­nydailynews​.­com​/­archives​/­entertainment​/­nypd​-­works​ -­case​-­racism​-­article​-­1​.­744272. Napoli, Jessica. 2017. “‘HTGAWM’ Star Jimmy Smits on Being Part of Shondaland, and the Importance of His Charitable Work.” TV Insider, November 2. ­https://​­w ww​ .­t vinsider​.­com​/­647769​/­jimmy​-­smits​-­how​-­to​-­get​-­away​-­with​-­murder​-­major​-­t wists​ -­interview​/. National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts. ­http://​­www​.­hispanicarts​.­org.

Soap Operas The soap opera, a programming genre that has its origins in radio, successfully transitioned to television and has deeply impacted storytelling on the small screen. Traditionally, soap operas have been seen as a mass cultural phenomenon that appeals only to (White) women. With its focus on the trials and tribulations of White womanhood, the serial melodrama has frequently excluded characters of color as protagonists across its programming history. Yet there has been a steady increase in racial representation on soaps that opens up the genre to issues concerning the politics of identity and difference.



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SERIAL MELODRAMA Serial melodrama is considered a feminized mode of television programming in which soap opera content emphasizes women’s concerns related to the family, and especially concerns related to mothering. In particular, the daytime serial or soap addresses the figure of the housewife as its ideal spectator. The housewife watches soaps while doing “women’s work” in the home and the melodramatic programs become an extension of her domestic life of cooking, cleaning, and taking care of children. Daytime soap operas align themselves with the “rhythms” of housework in their structure. The genre known for its excess emphasizes exposition and repetition. Most of all, soap operas lack narrative resolution and their resistance to closure parallels how a woman’s work is also never complete. Story lines often revolve around themes of family across generations. Employing large acting ensembles, daytime serials have a cast of characters who are usually divided according to kinship relations that are always subject to permutation. Familial dynamics are influenced by marriage, divorce, adultery, and especially parentage. A classic story line throughout soap opera history centers on mysteries of paternity due to romantic affairs. While the focus on mothering and family produces female viewer identification, the serial melodrama rarely understands such identification when it is racialized. The cultural stakes of daytime television are transformed by depictions of race and, especially, attempts to detail African American experience.

EARLY MILESTONES During the socially and politically charged climate of the civil rights movement, Ellen Holly became daytime’s first Black soap star on One Life to Live (ABC, 1968–2012; Hulu, 2013) in 1968. As a light-skinned African American woman, Holly was cast in the role of Carla Gray, a struggling Black actress who passed as White to avoid discrimination. The mysterious Carla was known as “Clara Benari” to most in the fictional town of Llanview, Pennsylvania, until it is revealed that she is the presumed dead daughter of former housekeeper Sadie Gray (Lillian Hayman). Carla Gray became involved in a love triangle with two doctors—one Black and one White. In the story line, Carla charms White physician Jim Craig (Robert Milli) who proposes to her knowing her racial identity. However, she breaks off the engagement and confesses her African American heritage to the entire town. Carla finally marries police captain Ed Hall (Al Freeman Jr.) in 1973, which became the first Black wedding depicted on a soap opera. Holly was as an original cast member on the series and played Gray for seventeen years. African American audiences gravitated to the show and its Black heroine. Yet the star confronted racism behind-the-scenes with producers and One Life to Live creator, Agnes Nixon. Holly reflects: “I was like an experiment in a petri dish, and I knew that the future of other Black people finding roles on the soaps would depend, to a degree, on how my situation seemed to be working out” (qtd. in Gordy 2012).

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Ellen Holly and One Life to Live’s Landmark Story Line In a Letter to the Editor published in the September 15, 1968, issue of the New York Times, theater actress Ellen Holly describes the plight of the light-skinned Black actor in the United States. In “How Black Do You Have to Be?” Holly critiques the entertainment industry’s emphasis on casting African American performers who have what are considered stereotypical African features. She comments on how she is frequently considered “too white” for roles even though she identifies with the experience of the “American Negro”—one filled with racial discrimination and oppression. For her, being Black is “something infinitely more subtle and profound than the color of one’s skin or the shape of one’s nose or the bangle one wears around his neck.” The incisive piece caught the eye of soap opera writer Agnes Nixon and Nixon cast Holly on her new serial One Life to Live as Carla Gray, a Black woman who passed as White. Holly became the first Black soap opera star, and despite her conflicts on set with Nixon, the famed soap opera actress continued to strive to break social and political barriers on daytime television with stories about women’s issues as they intersected with race and class.

In the mid-1970s, Days of Our Lives (1965–) introduced the Grants, an African American family: parents Paul (Lawrence Cook) and Helen (Ketty Lester), son Danny (Michael Dwight Smith), and daughter Valerie Grant (originally played by Tina Andrews). Valerie, a budding doctor, befriended and ultimately fell in love with a White character, David Banning (Richard Guthrie), when she and her family nursed him back to health for a year after a car accident. Valerie and David became daytime television’s first interracial couple. After months of talking, hand holding, and looks of longing, the two shared the daytime genre’s first interracial kiss in 1976. However, the love story was not received favorably by White audiences as producers received hate mail and were faced with the unpopularity of the coupling with predominantly White viewers who threatened to boycott the show. In the aftermath of the controversy, Guthrie commented: “I think we were educating people. Some people who were really racists were beginning to forget she was Black and I was White. If we could change 100 people’s minds, that is pretty important. I feel I was doing something important. We were pioneers” (qtd. in Rankin 1977). Although the two characters were engaged to be married, the racial politics of the romance proved to be too unpopular. The entire Grant family was written out of the series with Valerie leaving for medical school at Howard University in 1978. Ketty Lester—the veteran actress and singer who played Valerie’s mother, Helen Grant—noted at the time: “I’m not shocked by all this. . . . I’m an old Black woman. I have experienced discrimination every day of my life. I think the public didn’t want blacks on the show, period. It’s not NBC’s fault, or Corday Production’s fault. It’s show business: it’s life: it’s America. Richard can’t understand because he’s White. But I feel sorry for Tina if she thought things would be any different for her. She should know better. Things haven’t changed” (qtd. in Knoedelseder 1977).



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After Valerie’s brief return to the soap three years later (this time played by Diane Sommerfield), she was brought back to the screen again in 2016. Vanessa A. Williams takes on the role of the doctor who is revealed to have secretly had a son whose father is David (now-deceased), bringing closure to the star-crossed lovers’ story line over thirty years later.

BLACK LOVE: ALL MY CHILDREN AND THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS Daytime soap operas increasingly introduced African American characters into central story lines throughout the 1970s and 1980s after the success of the miniseries Roots (1977). Another Agnes Nixon production, All My Children (1970–2011), focused on the flourishing of Black love with Dr. Frank Grant (John Danelle) and his wife, Nancy (Lisa Wilkinson). Such long-term incorporation into a serial melodrama narrative provided lucrative opportunities for performers of color. John Danelle offered: “The soap does provide us a very viable living and a chance to use our skills as actors. . . . There is nothing in other fields for black actors today. TV shows like The Jeffersons are racist.” “At least on the soap,” he adds, “we are role models for just middle-class people—nice, normal people” (qtd. in Wansley 1978). Frank’s nephew, Jesse Hubbard (Darnell Williams), was a troubled young adult who fell in love with Angie Baxter (Debbie Morgan), a candy striper at the hospital. The two became daytime’s Black super couple in 1978 (Stern 1982). Gracing the cover of a 1984 issue of Soap Opera Digest, Jesse and Angie’s love story fulfilled a void on television of dramatized romance between African Americans. These characters and their relationship were important for Black viewers—already a large portion of the daytime television audience—to connect with emotionally. Both actors received accolades for their performances: Williams won two Daytime Emmy Awards (Outstanding Supporting Actor in 1982 and Outstanding Lead Actor in 1985) while Morgan won Outstanding Supporting Actress in 1989. Jesse was tragically shot and killed in 1988, and the moment in which Angie says goodbye to him on his deathbed remains an iconic moment in soap opera history. While Angie went on to appear in soap operas Loving (1983–1995) and The City (1995–1997), she and her soulmate Jesse (as well as their son Frankie) were reunited on All My Children twenty years later in 2008 after it is revealed that he faked his death to protect his family. The Young and the Restless (1973–) introduced Mamie Johnson (Marguerite Ray; Veronica Redd) in the 1980s, who served as patriarch John Abbott’s beloved maid. She was a mainstay in the household and became the surrogate mother to his three children. Her nieces went on to have prominent roles in the series: Doctor Olivia Barber (Tonya Lee Williams), and Olivia’s feisty younger sister Drucilla or “Dru.” (Victoria Rowell). During the early 1990s, the soap featured a love quadrangle with the two Barber sisters, private detective Nathan Hastings (originally portrayed by Nathan Purdee from 1985 to 1992), and well-to-do business executive Neil Winters (Kristoff St. John). Eventually, Olivia married Nathan and Dru married Neil. The

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latter couple’s tumultuous relationship reached a peak when Dru gave birth to Lily Winters in 1995, whose father is later revealed to be Neil’s younger half-brother, Malcolm (Shemar Moore). Now an adult, Lily (Christel Khalil) is a prominent character on the program. As for her mother, the character of Dru was written off the daytime drama in fantastical fashion in April 2007 by falling off a cliff. She is presumed dead and true to soap opera form; her body is never found. Joining the cast in 1990, Rowell’s relationship with producers of The Young and the Restless deteriorated over the years as she grew increasingly outspoken about diversity in the profession. The Daytime Emmy winner criticized the lack of opportunity for people of color to write or direct on The Young and the Restless and campaigned for Black performers to take center stage in publicity for the program. Rowell approached producers to gain reemployment years after her 2007 exit and when she was not rehired, she filed a discrimination lawsuit against the program and the CBS network. In the 2015 lawsuit, Rowell recounted a number of past racially charged incidents on set. For example, one actress wore an “oversized Afro wig to mock Ms. Rowell’s Afro-styled hair,” and “producers reinforced the hair-mocking incident by depicting Ms. Rowell’s hair as falling out on camera.” In another more insidious conflict, producers “suddenly created a storyline wherein Ms. Rowell's character became insane  .  .  . placed in a straight jacket [sic] on camera and dragged to an asylum” (Gardner 2015). Rowell further alleged in another lawsuit that the daytime serial Days of Our Lives would not cast her in another act of retaliation against her public advocacy for racial equity in the soap opera industry. Both complaints of discrimination and retaliation were settled and in 2017 the ex-soap star created the six-episode streaming series The Rich and the Ruthless for the Urban Movie Channel web platform. The dramedy is loosely based on Rowell’s popular books Secrets of a Soap Opera Diva: A Novel and The Young and the Ruthless: Back in the Bubbles. With Rowell starring as an aging soap star Kitty Barringer who attempts to make a comeback as Blue Sylla (perhaps inspired by her character), the program follows the backstage drama on daytime television’s only Black-owned soap opera. While Rowell’s stint on daytime TV ended on a sour note, it did reflect the continued fight for racial inclusion in the programming genre. There are still far less producers, writers, directors, and actors of color on soap operas than their White counterparts. Despite this fact, shows like The Young and the Restless notably launched the future prime-time television careers of African American individuals like Shemar Moore who achieved success on procedural Criminal Minds (2005–2020) and currently stars on the reboot of S.W.A.T. (2017–). Other Black actors have gone on to popular roles in film and on Broadway such as Black Panther’s (2018) Michael B. Jordan, who played Reggie Porter Montgomery on All My Children, and Tony Award winning Hamilton performer Renée Elise Goldsberry, who played Evangeline Williamson on One Life to Live. THE PRIME-TIME SOAP Daytime soap operas inspired the creation of prime-time serials such as Aaron Spelling’s Dynasty (1981–1989), which famously featured Julia (1968– 1971) star Diahann Carroll as Dominique Deveraux, the long-lost African



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American half-sister of patriarch Blake Carrington (John Forsythe). Devereux’s glamour coupled with her diva attitude produced some of the most electric scenes on the program, and especially with arch nemesis Alexis Carrington Colby (Joan Collins). Additionally, Black Hollywood heartthrob Billy Dee Williams appeared during the 1984–1985 season of the series as Brady Lloyd, Deveraux’s wealthy recording executive husband. Carroll’s stint on Dynasty ultimately fulfilled her goal of being “The first Black b----h on primetime TV” (Sanders 1984). Recent Black-produced programming on cable and network television has also taken up the format of the soap opera. Notably, Tyler Perry’s The Haves and the Have Nots (2013–) focuses on the lives of three families in the South: the rich and powerful Cryers and Harringtons as well as the poor Youngs. Their secrets and lies collide at the intersection of issues concerning race and class as well as gender and sexuality. Greenleaf (2016–) takes up the daytime serial’s penchant for scandal as reflected in the scene of the African American megachurch. Queen Sugar (2016–) and Being Mary Jane (2013–2018) both center on Black women’s interiority and intense emotional interactions between characters. Finally, Lee Daniels’s Empire (2015–2020) follows the Lyon family dynasty as they navigate personal and professional conflicts set against the backdrop of the cutthroat recording industry. The series indulges in camp excess epitomized by not only sensational story lines but also set design, costuming, and performance style. Empire, with its emphasis on Black music cultures, thus comes to represent the culmination of the racialized soap opera through its hip-hop melodrama. Brandy Monk-Payton Further Reading

Fisher, Luchina. 2017. “‘Young and the Restless’ Alum Victoria Rowell Returns to Soap Operas, but in a New Role.” ABC News, August 17. ­https://​­abcnews​.­go​.­com​ /­Entertainment​/­young​-­restless​-­alum​-­victoria​-­rowell​-­returns​-­soap​-­operas​/­story​?­id​ =​­49230235. Foley, Aaron. 2015. “The Unsung Legacy of Black Characters on Soap Operas.” 2015. The Atlantic, March 31. ­https://​­www​.­theatlantic​.­com​/­entertainment​/­archive​/­2015​/­03​ /­soap​-­operas​-­the​-­forgotten​-­birthplace​-­of​-­complex​-­black​-­characters​-­on​-­tv​/­388907​/. Gardner, Eriq. 2015. “Soap Opera Actress Sues over Not Being Considered for Reemployment.” The Hollywood Reporter, February 11. ­http://​­www​.­hollywoodreporter​.­com​ /­thr​-­esq​/­soap​-­opera​-­actress​-­sues​-­not​-­772573. Gardner, Eriq. 2017. “Victoria Rowell Ends Lawsuit against Soap Opera Producers.” The Hollywood Reporter, February 13. ­https://​­www​.­hollywoodreporter​.­com​/­thr​-­esq​/­victoria​ -­rowell​-­ends​-­lawsuit​-­soap​-­opera​-­producers​-­975576. Gordy, Cynthia. 2012. “Memoirs of a Black Soap Star.” The Root, March 28. ­http://​­w ww​ .­theroot​.­com ​/­memoirs​-­of​-­a​-­black​-­soap​-­star​-­1790890677. Knoedelseder, William K. 1977. “It’s Kaput for TV Soapdom’s Only Interracial Couple.” Washington Post, May 31. ­https://​­w ww​.­washingtonpost​.­com​/­archive​/­lifestyle​ /­1977​/­05​/­31​/­its​-­k aput​-­for​-­t v​-­soapdoms​-­only​-­i nterracial​-­c ouple​/­fa351e52​-­e368​ - ­4d9d​-­bf3c​-­83a3156a6db6​/. Modeleski, Tania. 1983. “The Rhythms of Reception: Daytime Television and Women’s Work.” In Regarding Television: Critical Approaches, edited by E. Ann Kaplan, 67–75. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.

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Modeleski, Tania. 1979. “The Search for Tomorrow in Today’s Soap Operas.” Film Quarterly 33 (1): 12–21. Rankin, Edwina L. 1977. “Behind the Scenes with TV’s Controversial Interracial Couple.” Jet, August 18. Sanders, Charles L. 1984. “Newest Sassy, Sexy Couple on Dynasty.” Ebony Magazine, October. Spence, Louise. 2005. Watching Daytime Soap Operas: The Power of Pleasure. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Stern, Caryl. 1982. “Black on TV’s ‘Soaps’: A Whole New Script.” New York Times, July 4. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­1982​/­07​/­04​/­arts​/­blacks​-­on​-­tv​-­s​-­soaps​-­a​-­whole​-­new​-­script​ .­html​.­ TV News Desk. 2012. “Actress Ellen Holly Speaks Out Against ‘One Life to Live.’” Broadway World, January 13. ­http://​­www​.­broadwayworld​.­com​/­bwwtv​/­article​/­Actress​ -­Ellen​-­Holly​-­Speaks​-­Out​-­Against​-­One​-­Life​-­to​-­Live​-­20120113. Wansley, Joy. 1978. “Thanks to All My Children, Lisa Wilkinson and John Danelle Lead Two Lives: Spliced and Split.” People Magazine, December 4. ­http://​­people​.­com​ /­a rchive​/­t hanks​-­to​-­all​-­my​-­children​-­lisa​-­w ilkinson​-­john​-­d anelle​-­lead​-­t wo​-­lives​ -­spliced​-­and​-­split​-­vol​-­10​-­no​-­23​/.

South Asians and Television As a new immigrant group, South Asians have been largely invisible and unrecognizable in the U.S. mainstream for much of history. Recently South Asian visibility on U.S. television has seen unprecedented growth, a trend that can not only be attributed to the 81 percent growth in this population between 2000 and 2010 but also to the growing socioeconomic significance of this community. This group has among the highest number of highly skilled professionals and people holding postgraduate degrees with incomes surpassing that of all other Asian groups, as well as the overall American median household income. We are beginning to see South Asian actors as ‘the’ person of color alongside a majority-White lead. For some critics and scholars, South Asian actors have become the new “stand-ins for diversity” on U.S. television. The inclusion of people of color on television is rarely central to the development of a story for television. It is usually an after-thought. As the South Asian actor Aziz Ansari put it, “You have . . . this movie or this TV show where they’re like, man, there’s a lot of white people here. It’s getting a little uncomfortable. Maybe he has a black friend. Let’s just throw a black friend in there. And there’s no real attempt at having real diversity” (qtd. in Maloney 2016). Since 2005, there has been an increased South Asian visibility and presence on television: Parminder Nagra on ER (1994–2009); Aziz Ansari in Parks and Recreation (2009–2015) and Master of None (2015–); Mindy Kaling in The Office (2005–2013) and The Mindy Project (2012–2017); Kunal Nayyar in The Big Bang Theory (2007–2019); Archie Panjabi in The Good Wife (2009–2016); Priyanka Chopra in Quantico (2015–2018); Hannah Simone in The New Girl (2011–2018); Kumail Nanjiani in Silicon Valley (2014–2019); Danny Pudi in Community (2009– 2015); Reshma Shetty in Royal Pains (2009–2016) and Pure Genius (2016–2017), and others. Amid the increased number of South Asians on television and the



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continuing potential for more complex and in-depth representations of South Asians, old Orientalist tropes persist, furthering narratives of South Asian racial “otherness.” While diversity has increased, story lines remain underdeveloped and clichés persist, with only a few exceptions. OLD TROPES/NEW TROPES Orientalism Edward Said defines Orientalism (1978) as the process by which Western nations collectively imagine themselves as a superior civilization by constructing their own image in opposition to an “exotic,” yet inferior “Orient.” The subtext of Orientalism pervades much of U.S. television’s portrayal of people from Asia and extends to South Asians as well. Vivek Bald (2015) further explains the Orientalist project as “double-edged” in nature when “desirable” South Asians are differentiated from the “undesirables.” According to Bald (2015) the desirables and undesirables are inextricably linked. The “desirables” become the norm against which the “undesirables” are measured or can measure themselves. This also manifests itself as benign racism whereupon White Americans appropriate and idealize aspects of Hindu culture or Indian immigrant success, masked as acceptance and mistaken for inclusion in mainstream TV programming. In post-9/11 cultural contexts, this binary good/bad is especially prominent. The ongoing history of South Asians on television embodies the double-edged aspect of South Asian acceptance and simultaneous fitting in within the United States. It embodies the desirability and undesirability of South Asians, which together upholds White dominance on television. For example, the cab driver, convenience store clerk, and other South Asian “undesirables” as well as “desirable” tropes such as computer engineers and doctors balance South Asian representation, keeping their visibility and significance in check. With the exception of The Mindy Project and Master of None, both created by South Asian writer/actors who are the central characters of their own shows, most representations of South Asians on television adhere to the Orientalist project. We see Orientalism epitomized in the show Quantico on network television, which stars Priyanka Chopra, as Alex Parrish, a South Asian FBI agent who is framed for a terrorist attack. Quantico focuses little on her character’s ethnic or racial difference background. While Chopra herself appreciates the show for calling out America for racial profiling, the plot reiterates old Orientalism-related tropes, where brownness indicates a perpetual foreign threat. Exotic, Love-Interest Priyanka Chopra fits the “desirable” category when it comes to South Asians on television. Additionally, her Miss World pageant-winning-looks meet American White standards of beauty, body image, and size, strengthening the desirability factor. There appears to be something strategic and deliberate about her inclusion. Some critics note that Quantico was a ploy by ABC, which largely

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caters to women with its Shonda Rhimes’s shows, to using Chopra’s character as “eye candy” for male viewers. “These Quantico ads felt like ABC was awkwardly trying to see what it might be like to market to dudes, 17.8 million of them,” writes Hillary Coker (2015. Moreover, as sexually “desirable,” South Asian women toe the line between being “exotic” and “not too exotic” (acceptable to an American audience). While their facial features and body types are typically in alignment with “White” norms, as seductresses (possibly representative of the world of the Kama Sutra), old tropes are very much in play. We might see weak attempts to correct such tropes as seen on The Big Bang Theory when one of the lead characters Leonard Hofstadter tries a few Kama Sutra moves on his Indian girlfriend, Priya Koothrappali (Aarti Mann). Priya responds with: “Just because you’re in bed with an Indian woman, you think that gives you permission to use crazy positions from an ancient Indian love manual?” (“The Prestidigitation Approximation,” season four, episode eighteen). While the retort here is significant, the reality that the exotic Kama Sutra trope exists on American television suggests that Orientalist tropes are always available and there for the taking, as easy “fall-backs” used to establish racial or ethnic otherness. There is also the docility and passivity of the “loyal and loving lotus blossom” (Washington 2012) that balances and enhances the sexual desirability of South Asian actors. Exoticness and submissiveness are compatible and offered up, as Washington (2012) argues, for the “Western subjugation” of South Asian women that takes place while these women are also shown as complicit in the colonial and patriarchal gaze that desires their bodies. For instance, “the two doctors on E.R.—Drs. Jing-Mei Chen and Neela Rasgotra—are indeed modern-day lotus blossoms. Rasgotra is a Yale medical school graduate, who, although obviously intelligent, is portrayed as indecisive and weak” (Washington 2012, 259), However, their demure, submissive, meek or virginal demeanor is often surprisingly countered by sexual proactive-ness. Similar to Priya Koothrappali mentioned above, Kalinda Sharma (Archie Punjabi) on The Good Wife was known for her sexual prowess; she was presented as a bisexual character, but not “too bi” (Wanga 2013). Mindy Kaling is probably the only exception here, who on The Mindy Project consciously challenges White American beauty standards and remains unapologetically comfortable with her brown and curvaceous body. Having the creative license in her own show to define her desires and sexual freedom, Kaling redefines and challenges the White beauty aesthetic, and the colonial and racial sexual scripts women of color on television are required to navigate. Transcending “Race”? Presentation of South Asian actors on U.S. television is binary; characterized by either “otherness” or “nothingness.” In other words, their inclusion is either profoundly ethnicized or racialized or just another brown body with no context. As much as Raj (Kunal Nayyar) on The Big Bang Theory is ethnicized, Kalinda Sharma’s brownness on The Good Wife remains unexplained.



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The appeal of the South Asian accent and its insertion into American sitcoms is noteworthy. It is meant to add comedic value, to be imitated, ultimately reiterating the “forever foreignness” of South Asians in U.S. life. On Disney Channel’s Jessie (2011–2015), Ravi is an Indian American kid who, despite being born and raised in the United States, has an inexplicable South Asian accent. On television, the second generation South Asian, who speaks without an accent, is less visible than the first generation, “fresh off the boat,” immigrant with a heavy accent. This is evident with Kunal Nayyar who plays Raj on The Big Bang Theory. His accent is a recurring joke on the show, especially when his best friend Howard does a near-to-perfect imitation of an “Indian” accent. On the other hand, for Mindy Kaling and Aziz Ansari, as second-generation South Asians in their own shows (The Mindy Project and Master of None), accent is never really a topic, even when Ansari has his parents on the show playing themselves. “Colorblindness” appears to be at the core of the “nothingness” associated with South Asian actors. In medical dramas such as ER and Grey’s Anatomy the trend is to ignore racial difference especially when it comes to interracial relationships. Colorblindness in dating is a common theme. At the same time, racial “otherness” might be enforced through marriage rituals or the introduction of South Asian families into the story line. As Shilpa Davé (2012) argues, “The rituals associated with Indian marriages accentuate how we think about American family values through an exaggeration of the representation of Indian marriage practices in US television. . . . We see how ‘Indian-ness’ is identified and racialized through the spectacle of arranged marriage narratives and wedding stories” (170). Entanglements with “arranged marriages” are common tropes. From Apu’s marriage on The Simpsons (1989–) to the character Divya on Royal Pains recently, there is a back-story of an arranged match, used to overemphasize and simplify cultural norms and difference. Despite the embrace of colorblindness or post-raciality, racialized punch lines are commonplace on sitcoms featuring South Asian actors. In The Big Bang Theory, whether it is Raj’s own disgust of India’s overpopulation or it is the White women on the show discussing Raj’s sexual prowess as “unknown” and possibly animal-like, racial jokes persist. As a result, racial difference is maintained through such representations of cultural difference. These subtle reminders are necessary to center and set apart White experience in American life; that is, the unremarkable twists and turns of the human experience (White = human) from the remarkable “otherness” of people of color. The otherness/nothingness binary is self-sustaining when processes of “othering” are used to reject or devalue difference, resulting in the invisibility or the “nothingness” of South Asian people. Anu Bhagwati (2015) writes, “In American pop culture, we’re mostly reduced to absurd caricatures. If we’re not computer-fixers or engineers, we’re taxi drivers, newspaper stand owners, or outsourced call center clerks with unbearably thick accents. More often, we’re simply ignored.” For this reason, South Asian “desirables” on TV are linked to the “undesirables.” In fact, “otherness” and “nothingness” are part of the same equation and the one-dimensional depictions of South Asians on television. For example, as the

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trope of the exotic godman or yogi lurks on television so does the more Americanized, successful South Asian. Both images are incomplete, but their mere inclusion makes them the new “stand-ins for diversity.” Taking Risks The portrayal of tough women, who get what they want, embrace promiscuity, kick butt, breaks with traditional gender norms associated with the South Asian community. Similarly, the character Raj on The Big Bang Theory is a meat-eater (as opposed to the vegetarian trope for Indian Hindus); he’s a good gourmet cook and generally knowledgeable on Western cuisine. Certainly, these are uncharacteristic twists. However, most shows depict “Indian culture” in stereotypical ways that does little to differentiate between identities and experiences. Story lines are laced with arranged marriages, patriarchal clichés, “third-worldness,” complaints about pollution and overpopulation, lavish weddings, and South Asian people as dramatic, overemotional beings, spiritual nonetheless. Tradition-bound, South Asian parents make crucial appearances in several shows to reiterate cultural otherness and so-called non-Western values. Focusing on “otherness” is easy. But to weave in racial and ethnic differences with more universally appealing story lines of heartbreak, joy, anger, pain, etc. requires skill and foresight. The success of the first season of the show Master of None indicates that a younger American audience is eager for more authentic representations on television. Moving beyond the terrorist trope or radicalized Muslim trope, Ansari’s work exposes the American audience to his parents, everyday South Asian Muslim Americans, and their hopes and dreams and experiences. That religion need not be on the forefront opens the audience to other lived realities.

JUSTIFIABLE REPRESENTATION? Approximately 71 percent of Asian representation is that of characters who inhabit professional jobs. While this looks like progress, Asian American doctors and international medical graduates who make up more than 25 percent of physicians in the United States are approximately 6 percent of physicians on TV. Of South Asian women, it is mostly Indian women who have attained visibility of television. The South Asian model-minority status is reflected with the presence of a number of doctors, engineers, and other professional characters on TV shows. This aspect of the South Asian story serves as a reminder of the viability of the so-called American Dream and the supposed “failure” of other racial minorities to seize the dream for themselves. The model-minority stereotype is used on these shows as the ‘‘ultimate ticket toward gaining social acceptance . . . [to] gain the full approval of White Americans’’ (Tuan 1999 8). Similarly, Jodi Melamed (2006) in discussing the popular UPS slogan, “What can brown do for you?” points out how UPS’s appropriation of the color brown “turns it into a slogan of happy subservience,



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promising efficient access to the networks of the global economy” (14). The aspirations of South Asians on television are mirrored in this slogan. In other words, the economic angle of South Asian inclusion cannot go unnoticed. That South Asians as a growing consumer group have among the highest incomes and purchasing power in the nation can be linked to their visibility and presence in the media. As Madhavi Mallapragada (2014) argues, “The notion that the consumption practices of a minority group is what can legitimately be the channel for greater levels of acceptance by the mainstream and maybe into the mainstream seems to be the product of twenty-first century framings of the model minority that has been recalibrated to better resonate with neoliberal capitalist agendas” (668). Model minorities are “valuable costumers” and under the auspice of neoliberal logic their representation in the media is necessary to their inclusion by the dominant society as essential consumers of American culture. “What can brown do for you?” therefore, could not be a better slogan to sum up the racialized location and purpose of South Asians in the American race relations’ landscape. The U.S. racial hierarchy is maintained on television. This is evident in the story of Raj, an astrophysicist, on The Big Bang Theory, whose inclusion is determined by what he brings as an immigrant, in terms of intellect and skills. However, in the pecking order on the show, he is fourth following the three White male leads. In many episodes as the four men sit around Sheldon’s (Jim Parsons) living room, Raj inevitably has the fourth set of lines. The pecking order is explicitly confirmed when Sheldon says, “[I]n our little group I am the smart one, Wolowitz is the funny one, and Koothrappali is the foreigner who tries to understand our culture and fails.” Being reminded of one’s “racialized place” in comparison to a White majority, lest one imagine no limits to one’s own aspirations, is reinforced through such scripts in various ways. It’s never too late to remind a well-seasoned South Asian character on a show (pun intended) of their subsidiary role or otherness. Therefore, deep into the life of The Big Bang Theory, in season nine, episode twenty-two, Raj being referred to as the “foreign friend” is not off limits. Although a main character does not call him this, he is fair game to a minor character who happens to be a White male.

To Represent or Not While Ansari handles race head-on on Master of None, Kaling is more frustrated by being called to “represent” in The Mindy Project. As she says on a panel, “It’s not like I’m running a country, I’m not a political figure. I’m someone who’s writing a show and I want to use funny people.” She wishes the show was 75 years in the future and she didn’t have to address the politics of “race.” The assimilationist aspirations of South Asians depicted on television deserve scrutiny as does the post-racial assumption associated with the model-minority image. Story lines that depict model-minority success tend to demystify race in U.S. life. Unequivocal support for post-racialness is central to this story. The choice of not acknowledging race or attributing both

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desirability and nothingness (no context) to South Asian actors is in and of itself a racialized script. Despite shying from being a spokesperson on race, Kaling with The Mindy Project often directly approaches racial topics such as interracial dating and body image politics. These themes recur and remain unresolved, much like the show creator’s goal. But having creative control over how much complexity of experience is discussed on a show, given that there are far fewer opportunities for people of color on television, most shows can do better. Like Aziz Ansari, Aasif Mandavi, as the one-time “Chief Brown correspondent” on the Daily Show (1996–), found an audience and platform from which to talk about immigrant-bashing, xenophobia, anti-Muslim attitudes, and Islamophobia. The casting on the TV show Mr. Robot (2015–2019) is another example of how inclusion on TV can be done differently. The show defies the need to “other” anything that deviates from the White norm. Trenton played by Sunita Mani and Mobley played by Azhar Khan, are main characters on the show. They are brown (South Asian) actors. They are also hackers. While Trenton wears a hijab, it is not a topic on the show. Instead we see some realistic portrayals of people from different backgrounds who share a kinship as hackers. The show is refreshing and the casting on the show does not appear forced or strategic. The growing economic influence of South Asians ensures their visibility in American popular culture. They are the new “stand-ins for diversity,” the outcome of the tension between South Asian racialization that is necessary for the sustenance of the U.S. racial order and the growing economic and sociopolitical influence of this racial minority group. Evident by the fact that Aziz Ansari hosted Saturday Night Live (1975–) in January 2017, and Hasan Minhaj hosted the White House Correspondents’ dinner in April 2017, it is clear we are in unchartered territory in many ways. South Asians are being held up as the new poster child at the confluence of post-racial-ness and economic prosperity. But their success story runs parallel to other racial myths that support the continuing denigration of people of color, keeping U.S. racial polarization in place. South Asian success on television is presented as “despite” their nonwhiteness and ethnic “otherness.” But their ethnic otherness is also essential to their “stand-in” status when it comes to diversity on TV. It is from within this fundamental tension that we see old and new South Asian tropes appear and reappear on American television. Kavitha Koshy Further Reading

Asian American Federation and South Asian Americans Leading Together. 2012. “A Demographic Snapshot of South Asians in the United States.” SAALT, July. h­ ttp://​ ­saalt​.­org​/­w p​- ­content​/­uploads​/­2012​/­09​/ ­Demographic​-­Snapshot​-­Asian​-­A merican​ -­Foundation​-­2012​.­pdf. Bald, Vivek. 2015. “American Orientalism.” Dissent, Spring, 23–34. Bhagwati, Anu. 2015. “ABC’s ‘Quantico’ Is a Breakthrough for South Asians on TV.” New Republic, September 27. ­https://​­newrepublic​.­com​/­article​/­122937​/­abcs​-­quantico​ -­breakthrough​-­south​-­asians​-­tv.



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Coker, Hilary C. 2015. “Hey ABC, about those Awful, ‘Sexy’ Quantico Ads: Can You Not?” Jezebel, June 10. ­https://​­jezebel​.­com​/­hey​-­abc​-­about​-­those​-­awful​-­sexy​-­quantico​-­ads​ -­can​-­you​-­1710328056 Davé, Shilpa. 2012. “Matchmakers and Cultural Compatibility: Arranged Marriage, South Asians, and American Television.” South Asian Popular Culture 10 (2): 167–183. Guliani, Parul. 2015. “Aziz Ansari and Mindy Kaling Have Very Different Approaches to Indian Identity—and There’s Room for Both.” Flavorwire, November 13. ­https://​ ­w ww​.­flavorwire​.­com​/­547588​/­aziz​-­ansari​-­and​-­m indy​-­kaling​-­have​-­very​- ­different​ -­approaches​-­to​-­indian​-­identity​-­and​-­theres​-­room​-­for​-­both. Jain, Parul, and Michael D. Slater. 2013. “Provider Portrayals and Patient–Provider Communication in Drama and Reality Medical Entertainment Television Shows.” Journal of Health Communication 18: 703–722. Mallapragada, Madhavi. 2014. “Rethinking Desi: Race, Class, and Online Activism of South Asian Immigrants in the United States.” Television & New Media 15 (7): 664–698. Maloney, Darby. 2016. “Aziz Ansari Brings ‘Genuine’ Diversity to ‘Master of None.’” 89.3KPCC, May 27. ­https://​­w ww​.­scpr​.­org​/­programs​/­the​-­f rame​/­2016​/­05​/­27​/­49231​ /­aziz​-­ansari​-­brings​-­genuine​-­diversity​-­to​-­master​-­of​/ Melamed, Jodi. 2006. “The Spirit of Neoliberalism: From Racial Liberalism to Neoliberal Multiculturalism.” Social Text 89 (24): 1–24. Noble, Matt. 2016. “Priyanka Chopra (Quantico) on ‘Calling Out Racial Profiling.’” ­h ttps://​­ w ww​.­g oldderby​.­c om ​ /­a rticle​ /­2 016​ /­p riyanka​ - ­c hopra​ - ­q uantico ​ -­r acial​ -­profiling​-­emmy​-­awards​-­news​-­135790864​/. Said, Edward W. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books. Takore, Bhoomi K. 2014. “Must-See TV: South Asian Characterizations in American Popular Media.” Sociology Compass 8 (2): 149–156. Tuan, Mia. 1999. Forever Foreigners or Honorable Whites? New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Tukachinsky, Riva, Dana Mastro, and Moran Yarchi. 2015. “Documenting Portrayals of Race/Ethnicity on Primetime Television over a 20-Year Span and Their Association with National-Level Racial/Ethnic Attitudes.” Journal of Social Issues 71 (1): 17–38. Wanga, Melanie. 2013. “Women of Color in Film and TV: So, Is There a Racial Bias, on ‘The Good Wife’? Bitch Flicks, March 1. ­http://​­www​.­btchflcks​.­com​/­2013​/­03​ /­women​-­of​-­color​-­in​-­film​-­and​-­t v​-­so​-­is​-­there​-­a​-­racial​-­bias​-­on​-­the​-­good​-­wife​.­html. Washington, Myra. 2012. “Interracial Intimacy: Hegemonic Construction of Asian American and Black Relationships on TV Medical Dramas.” Howard Journal of Communications 23 (7): 253–271.

South Central (1994) South Central, a half-hour drama-comedy (“dramedy”), joined a slate of Black-produced programs airing on Fox in 1994. The series was originally developed for CBS, but the network ultimately concluded that it was not a good fit for its audience. Fox had developed a commitment to airing shows with predominantly Black casts in its early years as a network, targeting African American viewers with shows that highlighted a range of Black experiences. South Central chronicled the struggles of the Mosleys, an African American family living in

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South Central Los Angeles. While the cast were primarily relative unknowns, it featured several future stars at an early point in their careers, including Larenz Tate and Jennifer Lopez. The series was praised for its specific and sympathetic portrayal of family life in South Central, in the wake of the 1992 Los Angeles Uprising. Michael J. Weithorn and Ralph Farquhar were television veterans by the time they created South Central. Weithorn, a White producer from New York, had previously written for several shows including Family Ties (1982–89) and The Wonder Years (1988–1993); he also had created True Colors (1990–1992), a sitcom about an interracial family. Farquhar, a Black producer from Chicago, had written for Married . . . with Children (1987–1997) and The Sinbad Show (1993–1994. He would go on to create Moesha (1996–2001). Farquhar told Kristal Brent Zook that he and Weithorn met with focus groups of Black single mothers in order to inform their approach to the story (1999, 36). South Central mixed traditional set-ups and punchlines with serious subject matter and dramatic consequences, and drew acclaim for humanizing a type of family not often shown on television. Early in the show’s pilot episode, Joan Mosley (Tina Lifford) is talking with her daughter Tasha (Tasha Scott) in the kitchen when she hears her teenage son Andre (Larenz Tate) exclaim, “Oh, man that bitch is fine!” She calls him to account for his language asking, “Am I a ‘bitch’? Is your sister a ‘bitch’?” Andre responds with the laugh line, “Can I answer those separately?” Joan’s foster son Deion (Keith Mbulo) is visible in the background. The exchange comically introduces viewers to the Mosley family, while spotlighting the drama and conflict central to the show’s plot. Andre likes hip-hop style and slang, and he and his sister have a playfully antagonistic relationship. Joan is trying her best to parent her children but worries about the limits of her influence. By the episode’s last act, the viewer learns that Andre’s older brother was the victim of a gang-related killing. Joan’s concern about Andre’s language, low-slung jeans, and choice of friends is really an expression of her desire to keep him safe. South Central reimaged what the sitcom looked like by weaving together standalone stories with continuous plotlines that were more commonplace in television dramas. In other words, the struggles or story lines of one episode did not end at the show’s conclusion; instead, the following week, the show would return to the same issues and plotlines. For example, in the show’s pilot, Andre buys a pager even though his mother forbids it. The following episode finds Joan renewing her request that he return it. Joan is out of work when the series begins, and her financial worries never abate. Tasha’s longing for her absent father is frequently raised in discussion and becomes the subject of its own episode. The family believes that Deion’s biological mother was addicted to crack, and his developmental issues are often a subject of concern. Episodes return again and again to Joan’s fears that Andre will become involved with gang activity. The show’s use of seriality allows characterization to deepen and conflicts to build over time. Episodes frequently conclude with warm moments, as in traditional sitcoms, but the program never implies that problems have been solved. In addressing a range of issues from violence to education, from poverty to class inequality, South Central brought a seriousness to prime-time comedic



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television. It also went to lengths to highlight the class diversity of the Black community, a reality often overlooked with urban communities. In one plotline, Andre undertakes a secret relationship with wealthy, college-bound Nicole (Maia Campbell). South Central was met with a notable amount of critical acclaim. Television reviewers maintained that the show was more similar to the socially relevant sitcoms of the 1970s than the current network slate of less ambitious family and relationship half-hours. It was most often compared to Good Times (1974–1979), a Norman Lear sitcom about an African American family living in Chicago’s Cabrini Green housing projects. In addition to glowing reviews, South Central was recognized by Viewers for Quality Television with a Founder’s award. Fox, citing low ratings, announced the cancellation of South Central, Roc (1991–1994), In Living Color (1990–1994), and The Sinbad Show in the late spring of 1994. Activists and interest groups expressed concern that this move would erase most Black-produced programming from broadcast prime time and protested the network’s decision. Kristal Brent Zook surmises that the cancellations were motivated by the network’s desire to seek a larger (Whiter) audience. Fox had recently secured NFL rights for $1.6 billion and needed to support this investment by increasing viewership numbers (1999, 102). A letter-writing campaign was launched in support of keeping these shows on the air. The Congressional Black Caucus also announced a plan to organize boycotts. While these efforts were unsuccessful, the legacy of South Central proved significant not only in demonstrating an important audience for Black-themed programming but in the desire to have a diversity of representation on American television. Caryn Murphy Further Reading

Ess, Ramsey. 2014. “‘South Central’: A Sitcom 20 Years before Its Time.” Vulture, October 17. ­w ww​.­v ulture​.­com​/­2014​/­10​/­south​-­central​-­a​-­sitcom​-­20​-­years​-­before​-­its​-­time​ .­html. Kimmel, Daniel M. 2004. The Fourth Network: How Fox Broke the Rules and Reinvented Television. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee. Perkins, Ken Parish. 1994. “‘South Central’ Dares to Be Realistic.” Chicago Tribune, April 4. ­articles​.­chicagotribune​.­com​/­1994​- ­04​- ­04​/­features​/­9404040031​_1​_ joan​ -­mosley​-­south​-­central​-­tasha​-­scott. Zook, Kristal Brent. 1999. Color by Fox: The Fox Network and the Revolution in Black Television. New York: Oxford University Press.

Star Trek (1966–) Out of a short-lived television series following a spaceship crew on its journeys through “the final frontier,” Star Trek developed into one the most popular science-fiction media franchises in television history. It encompasses six television series—Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS) (1966–1969), The Animated Series (1973–1974), The Next Generation (1987–1994), Deep Space Nine (DS9, 1993–1999), Voyager (1995–2001), and Enterprise (2001–2005)—and has

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spawned, to date, thirteen feature films, countless merchandising ventures, and a dedicated fan base. Star Trek has always been seen as a highly progressive program imagining a utopian society devoid of any racism, sexism, or inequality. First, cast members, writers, and fans of the franchise have long hailed TOS’s creator Gene Roddenberry as a visionary who incessantly advocated diversity on television in an age when studio executives were reluctant to hire people of color. In addition, the texts that comprise the Star Trek corpus often teach allegorical lessons about racial discrimination or violence and promote what many have interpreted as a liberal-humanist ideology (Kanzler 2007). Despite the franchise’s self-identification as a progressive, multicultural project, Star Trek has always also mirrored current hegemonic views of race and ethnicity. While its shows seldom depict discrimination among humans, they nevertheless project racial stereotypes and prejudices onto the manifold alien races and evoke an inherently deterministic and ethnocentric view of race. In his first draft for Star Trek: TOS Roddenberry described the series as “Wagon Train to the Stars” (Whitfield and Roddenberry 1991, 21): a television show that focuses on the episodic adventures of a spaceship crew exploring the great unknown of space while also employing well-known tropes recurrent in the genres of science fiction, the western, and melodrama. From the beginning, the diversity of the cast and characters was a source of conflict between Roddenberry’s team and the executives from Desilu Studios and NBC. The initial pilot, “The Cage,” was deemed too “cerebral” and unconventional because it featured, among others, a strong female character and a satanic-looking alien (Gregory 2000, 26). The second pilot “Where No Man Has Gone Before” marked a compromise between TV executives and the creative team, but it nevertheless served some unusual fare for television viewers in the 1960s. In fact, TOS was one of the first television programs to feature an integrated cast (Bernardi 1999, 11), and, over the course of its three-year run, the crew of the starship Enterprise came to include an African American female communications officer (Nichelle Nichols as Uhura), an Asian helmsman (George Takei as Hikaru Sulu), a Scottish engineer (James Doohan as Montgomery Scott), a Russian navigator (Walter Koenig as Pavel Chekov), and a half-human, half-alien First Officer named Spock (Leonard Nimoy). At a time when U.S. society was deeply divided about the Vietnam War, about racial, gender, and social inequality, and in fear of nuclear conflict with the Soviets, TOS signaled a departure from conventional television. In addition, many of the episodes allegorically addressed geopolitical and sociocultural conflicts such as the Vietnam War or the continuing fight for civil rights. Episodes such as “Errand of Mercy,” “A Taste of Armageddon,” or “Balance of Terror” offered dire warnings about the dangers of nuclear conflict, anti-communism, or imperialism, and the third-season episode “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” dealt with the history of slavery and racial discrimination in the United States and showed race as an arbitrary construct. In the episode, the Enterprise crew picks up two aliens who originate from the planet Cheron. Both look very similar to one another—one half of their body is painted black



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and the other painted white, but because there is a minor difference—one is black on the left side and the other on the right side—one group has enslaved and oppressed the other. To emphasize the progress human society has made in the space-time of TOS, the Enterprise crewmembers voice their disdain for the racial conflict on Cheron and show relief that, as Sulu comments, “There’s no such primitive thinking today.” Yet, the two aliens cannot put their differences aside, even when they learn that the entire civilization on Cheron has been destroyed as a result of the violent conflict. As one of the few episodes with a fairly bleak ending, “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” honed in on its antidiscriminatory message by cross-cutting between shots of the two survivors hatefully chasing one another and shots of the burning, hallowed ruins of their civilization in reddish colors. Through episodes like this, TOS presented a post-racial utopia in which the ailments of the twentieth-century had largely been erased—where “size, shape, or color makes no difference,” as Kirk put it in “Plato’s Stepchildren.” Nevertheless, the series also echoed some of the problematic hegemonic views of race in the 1960s and participated in the marginalization of its minority characters. Both Uhura and Sulu, while advancing beyond the negative and stereotypical representations of Asian Americans and African Americans found on television in the 1960s, merely serve as “background color” to the otherwise overwhelmingly White, male crew (Bernardi 1999, 41). They perform minor roles; their characters remain rather one-dimensional, and, in Uhura’s case, represent an exotic other on the Enterprise. Although as a communications officer she has more responsibility than the other female characters, she is nevertheless also subjected to the “male gaze” of both the audience and the male crewmembers and wears miniskirts and

A Groundbreaking Kiss The 1968 episode of TOS “Plato’s Stepchildren” went where—allegedly—no man had gone before on television: it featured a kiss between Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura. The episode has often been cited as the first instance that television broadcast an interracial kiss, but in recent years scholars and television buffs have unearthed earlier instances of interracial kisses on both British and U.S. television. Nevertheless, “Plato’s Stepchildren” continues to be celebrated by fans of the franchise and heralded as a milestone in (television) history. The episode itself was filmed and narrated in a way to make it more palatable to a 1960s audience: the kiss was not the culmination of a fledgling romance between Kirk and Uhura, but the two were rather forced to kiss each other by the inhabitants of a planet who had taken the Enterprise crew hostage and controlled their guests through telekinesis. In contrast to the kiss between Spock and Nurse Chapel, who had also been subjected to the Platonians’ mind games, the camera hardly lingered on Kirk and Uhura and their kiss was only shown once in close-up, whereas Spock and Chapel’s kiss was shown repeatedly. In her autobiography, Nichelle Nichols remembers that when she first read about the kiss in the script “the fact that this interracial kiss was going to take place at all didn’t make much of an impression on me at the time,” but that the episode garnered the largest amount of fan mail the producers ever received (Nichols 1995, 194, 196).

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elaborate hairstyles. In addition, however, she is presented as an exotic African American: she wears large, flashy earrings and hoops, her make-up is heavier than that of the other female characters, and she owns a collection of African masks and sculptures in her private quarters (Vettel-Becker 2014, 154). TOS’s practice of othering is even more explicit in its depiction of the various races the Enterprise crew encounters on their travels through space. Although human society has ostensibly overcome its propensity for racial discrimination, TOS merely projects 1960s racial stereotypes onto its alien characters. For instance, the Klingons, first introduced in “Errand of Mercy” as one of the main antagonists of the Enterprise, can be seen as a thinly veiled representation of Communist China. They are portrayed as an essentially aggressive, cunning, and totalitarian people, whose overall appearance strongly evokes orientalist images. With their darkened skins, thin moustaches, and staccato voices, they resemble the cartoonish villain Fu Manchu popularized in films and novels of the early postwar era (Bernardi 1999, 63). Even those episodes which offered a positive portrayal of other cultures still placed them in opposition to the members of the Enterprise crew who conform to an idealized image of the nineteenth-century explorers and colonizers on the frontier. In the episode “The Paradise Syndrome,” for instance, Spock, McCoy, and Kirk find descendants of earth’s Native Americans on the planet Amerind. Inexplicably, the Natives’ whole way of life has not changed at all since the nineteenth century on earth and resembles that of tribal culture in the Hollywood western of the 1950s and 1960s (Kanzler 2007): they are presented as a superstitious and slightly backward people, as “noble savages” who willingly accept Kirk—or “Kirok” as they call him—as their god-sent medicine man when he is left on the planet after having suffered memory loss. Kirk, in return, willingly adopts the Natives’ traditions and lifestyle, marries the tribe’s priestess, and leads a happy life until the tribe finds out that he is not a God after all and attempts to stone him and his pregnant wife. She dies in Kirk’s arms, while he is eventually rescued by his crew and continues on his space voyages. After its third season, NBC executives canceled TOS because of its poor ratings. Yet, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, as the series went into syndication and reruns of the series were broadcast, the series slowly gained a huge fan following and built momentum as a cult show in popular culture. Inspired by TOS’s popularity, Paramount Pictures, which by then owned the rights to the franchise, created Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG), the first of numerous live-action spin-offs of the original series. Like TOS, the new series also featured a multicultural cast that included a white android (Data played by Brent Spiner), a blind Black helmsman (Geordi La Forge played by LeVar Burton), a Klingon (Worf played by Michael Dorn), and a half-human, half-Betazoid female counselor (Deanna Troi played by Marina Sirtis), while the captain and his first officer were still White and male (Jean-Luc Picard played by Patrick Stewart and William Riker played by Jonathan Frakes). Yet, although TNG was again celebrated as another progressive following in the tradition of its originator, it was in some ways more conservative than its predecessor and emblematic of the neoconservative backlash in the Reagan–Bush era (Bernardi 1999, 111–112).



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Whoopi Goldberg and the Power of Representation Whoopi Goldberg was already an award-winning actress when she assumed the recurring role of Guinan, the bartender, in Star Trek: TNG. But she had also long been a fan of the Star Trek franchise, and it was because of her own relentless advocacy and persistence that the TNG producers ultimately wrote the role of Guinan for her. In fact, Goldberg herself cited Nichelle Nichols’s role of Uhura in TOS as one of the reasons for wanting to become a part of the franchise. In an interview Goldberg explained the tremendous impact Nichols’s performance had for her as a Black woman: “Before Star Trek there were no black people in the future in film or anywhere. . . . Then suddenly, here comes Star Trek with a hot black woman! That was a huge deal for me. It meant that a great many of us are going to go into the future, and I needed that. I wanted to pay homage to that” (Thomas 2014). Despite Star Trek’s problematic ideological underpinnings, Goldberg’s comments nevertheless illustrate that the series’ representational practices had a positive impact on people of color.

Even more than TOS, the new series subscribed to an essentialist view of race and identity. The Klingons are now, a century after the events of TOS, at peace with the Federation and one of them even works on the bridge of the Enterprise. They also no longer resemble their orientalist counterparts in TOS but are still depicted as an overwhelmingly primitive, quick-tempered, and aggressive race. Worf’s biography, in particular, reveals the biological determinism underlying TNG’s constructions of race and the Federation’s pressure to assimilate to the dominant, human(oid) culture (Bernardi 1999, 132). Humans raised Worf; yet despite his human socialization his character traits are depicted as essentially Klingon traits. His aggressive behavior, strange manners, and exaggerated sense of honor often lead to conflicts as he works on the Enterprise, which is connoted as a largely White, human space. Not only is his Klingon-ness marked as different, but Worf is also under constant pressure to adhere to the norms of the dominant culture. Even more problematic is that Worf’s portrayal often evokes negative stereotypes about African American men, by humorously pointing him out for his lacking personal hygiene or sexual prowess (Ott and Aoki 2015, 55). As in TOS, human discrimination is not eradicated in TNG but rather projected onto the other nonhuman races. Moreover, TNG’s shift from exploring the final frontier to safeguarding the Federation of Planets also exposes its underlying ethnocentric ideology. The Prime Directive, a decree that forbids Starfleet members to interfere in the affairs of other cultures or to assist them technologically, also serves to maintain the hegemonic power of the Federation and to marginalize other cultures located at the peripheries of the Federation’s universe (Ott and Aoiki 2015, 57). More often than not, this dichotomy between center and periphery is articulated along racialized lines. In the episode “Who Watches the Watchers,” for instance, the crew of the Enterprise assists a group of Federation researchers who have been studying the race of the Mintakans from a holographic observation outpost. The Mintakans’ resemblance to the Vulcans is striking, yet they are depicted as a hardly

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developed, superstitious race that in no way matches the intellectual and technological progress embodied by the crew of the Enterprise. This becomes obvious when, in a story line similar to that of “The Paradise Syndrome,” one of the Mintakans is beamed onto the Enterprise in an attempt to save his life, and he comes to believe that Picard has supernatural powers. In contrast to Kirk, “The Picard,” as the Mintakans refer to the captain, spends most of the episode trying to convince them that he is anything but a god and to minimize what he construes as cultural damage caused by the contact between the Enterprise crew and the Mintakans. Rather than developing TOS’s utopian project and imagining a truly progressive, multicultural universe (Ott and Aoki 2015, 54), TNG “capitulates to a utopian future where ‘race’ is determined by biology, miscegenation is still a taboo, and difference is either whitewashed or exaggerated and punished” (Bernardi 1999, 117). It was only in the following spin-offs, Star Trek: Voyager and DS9, less so in Enterprise, that the Star Trek franchise shook off some of its problematic underpinnings and envisioned a much more diverse and complex future. Voyager placed a White, female officer in the captain’s seat (Kathryn Janeway played by Kate Mulgrew) and in DS9 a Black, male officer commands the space station on which the series takes place (Benjamin Sisko played by Avery Brooks). With their dark story lines, complex characters, and serialized narratives spanning multiple episodes, Voyager and DS9 marked a departure from previous Star Trek texts, but they also exemplified larger changes in the television industry that had slowly moved into what has been called the “multichannel” or “post-network” era (Shimpach 2010, 15). Both series also allowed for much more nuanced representations and reflections on race and ethnicity. Through the characters of B’Elanna Torres (played by Roxann Dawson), a half-human, half-Klingon, and Seven of Nine (played by Jeri Ryan), a human assimilated by the Borg, Voyager explored the complexity of hybrid identities and showed the dire effects and consequences of assimilation—a direct contrast to TNG’s depiction of Worf. DS9, in particular, while still grounded in the overall Star Trek mythology, began to question the deterministic views of race underlying some of the previous texts. The Ferengi, a race first introduced in TNG and often read as an anti-Semitic representation, are still by and large depicted as corrupt, shrewd, and sexist, but in DS9 they no longer solely serve the purpose of comic relief. Instead, by developing the characters of Quark, Rom, and Nog, DS9 also offers a sympathetic portrayal and shows them as community leaders and caring family members. While the Cardassians, also first introduced in TNG, serve as the main antagonist, a Cardassian lives in exile on the space station. Throughout the series, Garak remains a mysterious character, a former spy working for the Obsidian Order, the Cardassian secret police, but he also stays loyal to the Federation’s cause. And with Benjamin Sisko the series offered one of the rare roles for Black men on U.S. television that were highly multidimensional and devoid of any stereotypes. In fact, the episode “Far beyond the Stars” that centers on Sisko’s Black identity, underlined both the progress humanity had made in the fictional world of DS9 and the progress the franchise as a whole had made by the dawn of a new century. In the episode, Sisko has visions in which he sees a Black science-fiction writer



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named Benny Russell (also played by Avery Brooks) living in New York in the 1950s. The rest of the episode mostly narrates Russell’s experiences as a Black man in pre–civil rights America and shows the systemic discrimination he has to endure at the hands of the police or his employers. When, back on the space station, Sisko wakes up from his dreams he realizes that his own biography would have been impossible for people of color in the past. More than that, the episode also affirms Star Trek’s faith in human progress and metaphorically underlines the significance of the representational practices that have always been at the heart of the franchise. While DS9 and Voyager differed from previous series in the franchise because of their more nuanced and complex representations of race and ethnicity, the franchise as a whole leaves an ambivalent legacy. Like many science-fiction texts, Star Trek has built a utopian future while remaining firmly grounded in present and past realities: it has offered viewers a glimpse at a fictional world that has ostensibly overcome all racial, gender, and socioeconomic differences, but more often than not it has also (inadvertently) reproduced contemporary hegemonic ideals and views on identity. With CBS’s announcement in 2015 that it would produce a new series, Star Trek: Discovery, it remains to be seen whether Star Trek in the new decade will make good on its promise “to boldly go where no one has gone before” and move beyond the ambivalent tendencies and problematic underpinnings characteristic of the franchise in the past. Katharina Thalmann Further Reading

Bernardi, Daniel Leonard. 1999. Star Trek and History: Race-ing Toward a White Future. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Brown, Mark. 2015. “TV Archive Discovers Couple Who Beat Kirk and Uhura to First Interracial Kiss.” The Guardian, November 20. ­https://​­w ww​.­theguardian​.­com​/­t v​ -­and​-­radio​/­2015​/­nov​/­20​/­t v​-­archive​-­discovers​-­couple​-­who​-­beat​-­k irk​-­and​-­u hara​-­to​ -­first​-­interracial​-­kiss. Gregory, Chris. 2000. Star Trek: Parallel Narratives. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Kanzler, Katja. 2007. “‘A Cuchi Moya!’: Star Trek’s Native Americans.” American Studies Journal 49. ­http://​­w ww​.­asjournal​.­org​/­49​-­2007​/­star​-­t reks​-­native​-­americans​/. Nichols, Nichelle. 1995. Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories. London: Boxtree. Ott, Brian L., and Eric Aoki. 2015. “Science Fiction as Social Consciousness: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Star Trek: The Next Generation.” In The Star Trek Universe: Franchising the Final Frontier, edited by Douglas Brode and Shea T. Brode, 53–63. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Shimpach, Shawn. 2010. Television in Transition: The Life and Afterlife of the Narrative Action Hero. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. Thomas, Marlo. 2014. “Star Trek: The Next Generation from Whoopi Goldberg.” Huffington Post, October 10. ­http://​­www​.­huffingtonpost​.­com​/­2014​/­03​/­07​/­star​-­trek​-­the​-­next​ -­genera​_0​_n​_4920721​.­html. Vettel-Becker, Patricia. 2014. “Space and the Single Girl: Star Trek, Aesthetics, and 1960s Femininity.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies 35: 143–178. Whitfield, Stephen E., and Gene Roddenberry. 1991. The Making of Star Trek. London: Titan Books.

T Takei, George(1937–) George Takei began his career as a film and television actor in the early 1950s. It would not be until the 1960s that he would gain a certain level of stardom. With his role as Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu in Star Trek: The Original Series (1966–1969), his place on television and within the national zeitgeist grew significantly. Takei’s importance transcended his contribution to the show as his positive portrayal in the diverse cast of Star Trek came at a time when Asian American characters were both rare and racially stereotypical. Beyond the Star Trek franchise, Takei has continued to draw attention to the importance of representation of Asian Americans in film and television throughout his career, while helping to commemorate the experiences of Japanese Americans in the twentieth century through his creative and philanthropic work. Since the 2000s, he has also used his influence as a pop cultural icon and social media star to advocate for LGBTQ rights. Born to Japanese American parents on April 20, 1937, Takei witnessed firsthand the discrimination and segregation of Japanese Americans in the 1940s when he and his family were forced to relocate to the internment camps Rohwer in Arkansas and Tule Lake in northern California. Takei’s family remained incarcerated for three years until the end of World War II. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Takei appeared in small roles in films like Hell to Eternity (1960) and on television shows The Twilight Zone (1959–1964) and Mission: Impossible (1966–1973). His peripheral place on television would change after he landed his breakthrough role as Sulu in Gene Roddenberry’s science-fiction TV series Star Trek. Takei’s portrayal of Sulu, as the energetic and determined helmsman of the starship USS Enterprise, defeated both the orientalist depiction of Asian Americans as exotic others and as stereotypical villains drawn in the racist, cartoonish fashion of the Yellow Peril trope. In his autobiography, Takei recalls that he quickly realized the symbolic impact and exemplary function of his role on Star Trek: “There on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, we saw our heroes, the good guys. And there at the helm console we saw Lieutenant Sulu, . . . one of our good guys—one of us. And he was Asian; his face looked like that of those on the six o’clock news. For the first time in the history of the American media at a time of war in Asia, there was a regularly visible counterbalance to the pervasive image of Asians as evil, of Asians as nemeses” (Takei 1994, 283). Nevertheless, Takei’s autobiography also details the struggles he had with producers and writers of the show who were reluctant to give Sulu more screen time or make his character more complex. He has remained adamant about the need to include Asian American characters in the utopian worlds of the Star Trek

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The Internment of Japanese Americans On February 19, 1942, roughly two months after the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japanese air forces, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which authorized the internment of Japanese Americans in parts of the West that were vaguely designated as military areas. Around 120,000 men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry— two-thirds of whom were U.S. citizens—were sent to internment camps scattered throughout the West. Anti-Japanese sentiments had run high for decades in communities on the West coast but were further exacerbated by World War II. The “relocation” of Japanese Americans, as the forced removal was euphemistically called, lastingly altered the communities in the West as the Japanese Americans were forced to abandon their homes, farms, and jobs and were only allowed to take those possessions they were able to carry.

franchise and publicly voiced his frustration whenever he felt that the franchise had veered off course from its racially diverse beginnings. Throughout his acting career but in particular in the last two decades, Takei has also become a vocal intersectional activist, fighting against racial inequality, discrimination, and for LGBTQ rights. Amidst debates surrounding the proposed legislation of same-sex marriage in California in 2005, Takei revealed that he was gay. Since then, he has used his public platform to speak out against sexual discrimination and joined several organizations and campaigns, including Human Rights Campaign’s “Coming Out Day.” Takei and his husband Brad Altman have also publicly celebrated their relationship to underscore the significance of (on-screen) representation: they held a public press conference when they had obtained their marriage license and were the first homosexual couple to appear on the reality television game show The Newlywed Game. In addition, Takei uses his Facebook presence, where has accumulated over ten million followers, to shed light on both racial and sexual discrimination. Takei was only five years old when he and his family were forced to relocate to Camp Rohwer, and he describes his memories of internment as “a child’s fragment of history” (Takei 1994, 40). Nevertheless, he has actively contributed to preserving the cultural memory of Japanese Americans, both through his work for the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles and his creative work. From 2015 to 2016, Takei starred in the Broadway musical Allegiance, which is based on his recollections of internment and follows the story of a Japanese American family being forced to relocate to a camp in Wyoming in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attacks. Takei has also repeatedly drawn attention to the internment of Japanese Americans in various videos and posts released on social media platforms to criticize the rise of xenophobic and racist rhetoric in politics in recent years, In 2017, the Japanese American National Museum honored Takei’s legacy with an exhibition titled “New Frontiers: The Many Worlds of George Takei,” which follows Takei’s footsteps from his time as a young Nisei to a world-famous television star and social media celebrity. Katharina Thalmann

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Further Reading

New Frontiers: The Many Worlds of George Takei. 2017. Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles, March 12 to August 20. Takei, George. 1994. To the Stars: The Autobiography of George Takei, Star Trek’s Mr. Sulu. New York: Pocket Books.

Telemundo (1984–) Telemundo, founded in 1984 and owned by Comcast/NBC Universal, is the second largest provider of Spanish-language content in the United States. With 54 million people within the United States’ Latin community, with a $2.3 trillion buying power, Telemundo is the fastest-growing television network in the country. Spanish-language media play a vital role in the social, political, and economic landscape of U.S. society, connecting many in the Latin community to their countries of origins and U.S. culture. Telemundo is a world-class media company that produces and distributes high-quality Spanish-language content through various platforms to the Latin community’s audiences in the United States and around the world. Its multiple platforms include the Telemundo Network, Telemundo Digital Media, and Telemundo International. The Telemundo Network is a Spanish-language television network that features original productions, theatrical motion pictures, news, and sports event. It reaches U.S. Latin viewers in 201 markets through its 17 owned stations, broadcast and MVPD affiliates. Telemundo strategically invests content for the bilingual and millennial audience. The target demographic of Telemundo includes 39 percent male and 61 percent female. When it comes to household income, 29 percent make between $30,000–$49,000 and 16 percent make $50,000 and $75,000. Twenty-nine percent have some college degree while 10 percent of the audience have graduated from college. When it comes to homeownership, 42 percent own a home and 59 percent rent. The age range is 21 percent (18–34), 38 percent (35–54), 41 percent 55+. In the United States, Telemundo operates NBC Universo, a separate channel directed toward young audiences. The headquarters is in Miami and has 1,900 employees worldwide. Most of Telemundo’s programs are filmed at an operated studio facility in Miami, where 85 percent of the network’s telenovelas are filmed. Universo is an American digital and satellite cable aimed at Latin viewers between the ages of 18 and 49. The content is tailored toward bilingual audiences consisting of sports, scripted reality shows, and music. The network headquarters is in Miami Springs, Florida, while the master control operations are housed at the CNBC Global headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. The network was founded by Empresas 1BC as GEMS television. Telemundo acquired it in 2001 and rebranded it as mun2, which was renamed NBC Universo in February 2015 to align with Telemundo’s sister English-language network ABC. In January 2017, the “NBC” brand was dropped to be titled “Universo.” As of 2015, Universo programming was available to approximately 39.326 million pay-TV households.

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Examples of programs broadcast by Universo include: 12 corazones, El Vato, I Love Jenni, and The Riveras. Digitalization and globalization are reshaping the media industry, and Telemundo is not only being impacted by it but also is a catalyst for this trend. Telemundo is reshaping the Latin community television by targeting millennials through digital devices. Telemundo Digital Media distributes original content across digital and emerging platforms including mobile devices and ­telemundo​ .­com. It also includes an operated full-power station in Puerto Rico that reaches 99 percent of all TV households. Telemundo’s social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are steadily growing with a total of 10.6 million global fans, the largest social media network of U.S. Spanish-language broadcast networks. Telemundo also became the first Spanish-language TV network to surpass the one million subscriber mark on YouTube, receiving YouTube’s Gold Button Award. Telemundo has also generated increasing engagement from 2014 to 2015 becoming the seventh-most-engaged brand on Facebook, and according to Rentrak, Telemundo was ranked the #1 Hispanic video-on-demand in 2015 for the fifth straight year. Telemundo International is the second largest provider of Spanish-language content worldwide by syndicating content to more than 100 countries in more than 35 languages. With a portfolio that includes original telenovelas, as well as music shows, Telemundo International distributes more than 200 programming slots dubbed and subtitled into more than 40 languages. Telemundo International is a division of the NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises. It is the international syndication and distribution of the U.S.-based Telemundo and NBC Universo networks and other leading products around the world. Its assets also include the pay-TV channel Telemundo International, which has distribution in more than twenty countries in Latin America, and the Telemundo Channel in Africa, which offers content dubbed in English and Portuguese to more than forty-eight countries in the region. Telemundo Africa is a division of NBC Universal’s Latin Enterprises and Content. It is the African syndication and distribution arm of the US-based Telemundo and NBC Universo networks. In 2006, Telemundo began its content distribution in the region with successful telenovelas such as Second Chance. With titles such as The Return, Maid in Manhattan, and the Clone, Telemundo International expanded to more than fifteen territories in the continent. In 2013, NBCUniversal International Television announced the launch of the first Telemundo branded pay-TV channel in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. Telemundo was the fifth channel brand from Universal Networks International to launch in Africa, premiering with four telenovelas: Aurora (2010–2011), My Heart Beats for Lola (2011), Behind Closed Doors (2011–2012), and Precious Rose (2012–2013). Telemundo offers to dub Spanish-language programming in English for South African and sub-Saharan countries, and in Portuguese for Angola and Mozambique. By 2014, Telemundo ranked among the top ten in the region. The African continent is the first region outside of Latin America served by Telemundo. Reflecting demographic shifts, the network has grown significantly in recent years, providing marketing opportunities for advertisers. Telemundo is the exclusive

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Spanish-language home of the FIFA World Cup through 2026, and the Summer Olympic Games through 2032. In 2018, Telemundo was the #1 live-streamed sports even in Spanish-language history with the coverage of FIFA World Cup. The World Cup was long aired on Univision but in 2018 was broadcast by Telemundo. Telemundo aired the 2019 Copa América Brazil and 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup France. The ad revenue was $2.1 billion in the 2017–2018 season. Univision remained number one in ad revenue at 875 million. For 2017–2018, Univision holds 45 percent of the market share while Telemundo holds 30 percent, according to SMI AccuTV. Among other Hispanic television networks, UniMás has an 11 percent share, Galavision a 3 percent share, Estrella TV a 3 percent share, Univision Deportes 2 percent, and Universo 2 percent, with 4 percent going to “other.” Telemundo has played a vital role in the broadcast of diverse cultures. In addition to the Latin-focused content, in 2018, Telemundo premiered the original La Sultana, a Turkish soap opera. It is a sixty-episode series based on the true story of Kosem, a slave girl who became a sultan and one of the most powerful women in the Ottoman Empire during the seventeenth century. While reaching a diverse audience is a goal for Telemundo, it is not immune to racial controversies. In 2018, two contributors to Telemundo’s morning show Un Nuevo Dia, James Tahhan and Janice Bencosme, were placed on suspension after making an inappropriate and insensitive gesture toward the Asian community after South Korea’s victory over Germany in the World Cup. Many critics contest that Univision and Telemundo do not represent Latino interests or identity. Some argue that “Hispanic media in the United States started as an ethnic media but ended up being primordially a niche media, relatively disconnected, although not completely, from the Latino population” (Jiménez, n.d., 2). In 2018, Telemundo’s award-winning El Poder en Ti corporate social responsibility platform launched a nationwide Latino empowerment campaign, Somos El Futuro: The Future Is Us. The campaign highlights the impact Latinos have on the United States’ economic future, social attitudes and cultural trends while aiming to enhance the Hispanic community’s power through civic engagement. Juliana Maria Trammel Further Reading

Comcast Spotlight. n.d. “Telemundo Network One Sheet Viewer Profile.” ­https://​­www​ .­c omcastspotlight​ .­c om ​ /­s ites​ /­d efault​ /­f iles​ /­Telemundo​ %­2 0Network​ %­2 0One​ %­20Sheet​.­pdf. Gómez, R. 2016. “Latino Television in the United States and Latin America: Addressing Networks, Dynamics, and Alliances.” International Journal of Communication 10: 2811–2830. ­https://​­w ww​.­researchgate​.­net​/­publication​/­301701359​_Latinoa​ _Television ​_in ​_the​_UnitedStates ​_ and ​_ Latin ​_ America ​_ Addressing ​_ Networks​ _Dynamics​_and​_Alliances. Jiménez, Raul de Mora. n.d. “Development of Hispanic TV in the United States Ethnic Television in the Context of Globalization.” ­http://​­www​.­portalcomunicacion​.­com​ /­dialeg​/­paper​/­pdf​/­180​_demora​.­pdf. Kenny, Brian. 2017. “Telemundo: The Fastest Growing TV Network in the United States.” Harvard Business School. Harvard Business Week, October 17. ­https://​­hbswk​.­hbs​ .­edu ​/­item ​/­telemundo​-­the​-­fastest​-­growing​-­t v​-­network​-­in​-­the​-­united​-­states.

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Lafayette, Jon. n.d. “Telemundo Gains in Flat Hispanic Ad Market: SMI.” Broadcasting Cable. ­https://​­www​.­broadcastingcable​.­com​/­news​/­telemundo​-­gains​-­in​-­flat​-­hispanic​ -­ad​-­market​-­smi. NBCUniversal. 2016. “NBCU Hispanics Plus, Bolstered by TELEMUNDO Digital Properties, Closes 2015 Reaching over 30 Million Users, up 16% Year-over-Year.” BusinessWire. January. ­https://​­www​.­businesswire​.­com​/­news​/­home​/­20160120006458​ /­en​/ ­NBCU​-­Hispanics​-­Bolstered​-­TELEMUNDO​-­Digital​-­Properties​-­Closes. Wilkinson, Kenton. 2015. Spanish-Language Television in the United States. New York: Routledge.

The 1970s Following the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, people throughout the United States continued to demand changes to the political, cultural, and economic structures. Amid these movements for change, activists sought to not only use television as a tool but also worked to change the stories and the landscape of television. Repelling the idea that television was pure entertainment, activists and organizers worked to change the prime-time televisual landscape in an effort to counter existing stereotypes and offer representations that captured the full range of experiences of those who had been historically marginalized in America. The 1970s was the last decade of the one-television family-viewing model in which the medium was born. Television in the 1970s saw transformative shifts in production, employment, and show content. We saw a retreat from rural and hillbilly life in shows like Green Acres (1965–1971), Petticoat Junction (1963–1970), and Beverly Hillbillies (1962–1971) to shows that depicted metropolitan life and cityscapes. With shows that ranged from the socially conscious to overtly sexual, this era had it all as the networks continued their race for ratings. Arguably the most viewed network of this time, CBS created its identity by not focusing on a specific genre but rather packaging a broad range of quality entertainment that fit various audience’s tastes. In the early 1970s, women’s rights organizations, such as the National Organization of Women and the Women’s Liberation Movement, rallied and fought to seek political, economic, and social reform that treated them as equals in the gendered hierarchy of that time. The Equal Rights Amendment, as legislation guaranteeing women protection and rights equal to those of their male counterparts, was a triumph of this struggle. Historians argue that this moment is of great importance because it made even clearer that women had voices and agency of their own. However, these voices were few and far between as the discourse around so many of their issues was controlled by men. Television producers were soon moved to attempt to respond to this changing social climate. The beginning of this process happened in 1970, a watershed year in American second-wave feminism and in American prime-time television. Bonnie Dow’s study of feminism on television, Prime-Time Feminism, evinces that the years between World War II and 1970 were not, as has sometimes been claimed, a time of total and untroubled acceptance of traditional gender roles. Instead, they were a time when the complex relationships among television entertainment, news media, and women’s magazines created a



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framework through which television viewers made sense of both the medium’s portrayal of feminism and the nature of feminism itself. She maintains, however, that the debut of The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–1977) and a “wave of media attention to women’s liberation in 1970 marked a qualitative shift in public consciousness of the presence of an organized feminist movement” (Dow 1996, xvi). Prior to this, prime-time television’s preferred mode of representing women was as happy housewives. The Mary Tyler Moore Show revolved around the exploits of Mary Tyler Moore, who had gained immense popularity from her role on the Dick Van Dyke Show (1961–1966). CBS had asked Mary Tyler Moore to create and star in her own show, guaranteeing thirteen episodes for the 1970 season, which she was able to produce through her own independent company, MTM Enterprises. Portraying Moore as an intelligent and competent single working woman, The Mary Tyler Moore Show offered a new vision of women on television. Dow argues that “Mary Tyler Moore’s greater longevity . . . the greater maturity and autonomy of its lead character, and its timing in relation to the women’s liberation movement made it, then and now, television’s breakthrough feminist representation” (Dow 1996, xvii). This moment is not without its critics. Mary Tyler Moore’s MTM Enterprises and Tandem Productions, which both dealt with social issues, differed in their treatment of race and class. MTM is an important counterpart and counterpoint to Tandem. MTM received more prestige and became the emblem of quality television among critics, while Tandem was considered crass, stand-up adjacent, and not nearly as literate. But MTM also continued to marginalize Black people and to avoid putting forward hot-button racial issues through the voice and perspective of centralized Black protagonists. Tandem put race and class front and center.

TANDEM PRODUCTIONS As Black communities marched into the 1970s, their fate in America underwent a drastic change. One criticism of the War on Poverty is that its attention to Black America created the grounds for the backlash that began in the 1970s. The perception by the White middle-class that they were footing the bill for services to the poor led to diminished support for welfare state programs. Much of White America viewed Great Society programs as supporting the economic and social needs of low-income urban minorities; they lost sympathy, especially as the economy declined in the 1970s. Prominent in the late 1960s and early 1970s amidst a social milieu of domestic bigotry and the effects of the Vietnam War, Black revolutionary movements and Black Power advocates emphasized racial pride and the creation of Black political and cultural institutions meant to nurture and promote Black collective interests and advance Black values. A great part of this revolution of blackness was Black representation in the media and arts and how these medias effected change in the real lives of Blacks in America. In particular, as a tool for information gathering and mass communication, television played a large role in social, racial, and cultural formation. During this time, the televisual representation of Black characters

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was repeatedly coupled with a White counterpart in such popular network hits as the secret-agent series I Spy (1965–1968) and the middle-class Black single mother sitcom Julia (1968–1971). Both of these series presented a more “respectable” and middle-class image of Blacks than previous television shows. They nonetheless lacked much dialogue regarding the issues facing the Black community about the struggle for justice. J. Fred MacDonald, in Blacks and White TV: African Americans in Television since 1948 (1983), argues that not only is television an integral part of American culture, it is both a reflector and creator of the popular consciousness insofar as it helps to disseminate relevant topical information and aids in the creation of dominant ideologies. He discusses the civil rights movement of the 1960s–1970s alongside of the increased visibility of African Americans within television. MacDonald argues that the increased visibility was not necessarily progress. On television, blackness was made albeit through new stereotypes and subordinate roles. The quality of African American performance was debased. Black sensibilities were ignored. Concern for racial injustice evaporated in entertainment and nonfiction shows. Although Blacks were consistently used in comedies, serious characterization of Blacks in other dramatic genres was limited and predictable. Moreover, he concludes that Black movement into production and management positions remained minimal, and the use of recognized Black talent, as well as the nurturing of new performers, was slight. One of the more popular production companies of the time period, Tandem Productions, reintroduced the all-Black sitcom in prime time, beginning with Sanford and Son (1972–1977), adding diversity to network television. Putting issues facing the Black community (including poverty, employment, health, education, and culture) at the forefront, Tandem’s Black sitcoms specifically responded to their political moment. Network television followed suit by increasing the number of such shows. Having met and worked together in early variety shows, including the Colgate Comedy Hour (1950–1955), Norman Lear and his long-term colleague Bud Yorkin came together to form Tandem Productions in 1959. In order to achieve greater creative control, Bud Yorkin stated that this partnership with Lear was developed as a package to write, produce, direct, and, most important, own their own content (Yorkin 1997). It was called “Tandem” because at its inception, its creators Lear and Yorkin, thought of themselves as “two guys on a tandem bicycle, pedaling uphill” (Lemack, n.d., 2). Coming from middle-class backgrounds, both men had the means, extensive credits, and diverse interests when Tandem Productions emerged, and the company was designed to allow them to pursue those interests individually or together, as they desired, and was suitable for any given project. Tandem was part of an innovative and expanding family of companies within the entertainment industry that focused on the development, production, and dissemination of television projects and theatrical motion pictures and the development and operation of cable and subscription television outlets, with diversification into support, allied, and adjunct entertainment fields. After completing a string of films, notably Come Blow Your Horn (1963), Divorce American Style (1967), and Cold Turkey (1971), Tandem soon found their true calling in the medium of



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television. After the directorial success of Tandem’s film, Cold Turkey, United Artists offered Lear a three-feature deal, an opportunity anyone would take. However, Lear refused the United Artists film deal when CBS offered a thirteen-episode television deal for what would come to be Tandem’s best-known show, All in the Family (1971–1979). Tandem Productions’ focus on television led to a string of acclaimed television shows that continued to challenge the social milieu by calling attention to the private sphere of a “typical” American household. It would spotlight previously concealed discussions about politics, race, economics, gender, and so much more. Tandem’s shows challenged society’s social conventions and were necessary for America to fully understand the true milieu of the historical moment. Earlier television series employed a point of view that ignored these issues in order to hide harsh realities that privileged individuals were unwilling to confront regarding race, gender, sexuality, and class to name a few. Norman Lear saw television’s silence on social issues was itself highly political because it tried to be apolitical. Before All in the Family, he writes, “for twenty years—until AITF came along—TV comedy was telling us there was no hunger in America, no racial discrimination, no unemployment or inflation, no war, no drugs, and the citizenry was happy with whomever happened to be in the White House . . . My view is that we made comedy safe for this reality . . . That reality included black people” (qtd. in Cullen 2020, 44). In describing the vast popularity of Tandem’s productions, producer (and Tandem associate) Brad Lemack states that the “national ratings services statistics indicate that over half of the nation’s population, as many as 120 million Americans, watch the television programs produced by the group [Tandem] each week” (Lemack, n.d., 2). With All in the Family securing the number one Nielsen rating throughout its run and Sanford and Son, Good Times, and The Jeffersons all securing top five positions next to it, it’s clear that Tandem possessed network dominance. The “painful laughter” that came along with the harsh realities of Lear’s sitcoms were integral to their success. As explained by Lear, “comedy with something serious in mind works as a kind of intravenous to the mind and spirit. After he winces and laughs, what the individual makes of the material depends on that individual, but he has been reached” (Lear 2014, 235). Critics, such as Michael Arlen, however, were less praiseworthy of Tandem’s approach to comedy. Arlen believed that the comedy in Lear’s shows (except for the laugh track) was mainly angry. Although Tandem’s shows address various social issues and themes, Arlen argued the show’s story lines were delivered through the hostility and anger of Lear’s characters, interrupted periodically by stage-business jokes or sentiment. Tandem’s later success was empowered by the groundbreaking impact of All in the Family. According to Lear, “All in the Family debuted and the career that had been launched years before we [Lear and Yorkin] met now reached the stratosphere” (Lear 2014, 203). According to Lear, the show came about when he read an article in Variety magazine on Till Death Do Us Part (original run 1966–1968, second run 1972– 1975) and its success in the United Kingdom. In 1971 television producers Lear and Yorkin, working with CBS, created All in the Family. The sitcom chronicled the life and times of Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Connor), a working-class bigot, his

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wife Edith Bunker (Jean Stapleton), their daughter Gloria Stivic (Sally Struthers), and their son-in-law Michael Stivic (Rob Reiner). Archie was an outspoken, narrow-minded White man, seemingly prejudiced against everyone who was not like him or his idea of how people should be. The two couples represent the real-life clash of values between the so-called Greatest Generation and the Baby Boomers. For much of the series, the Stivics (whose values are influenced and shaped by the counterculture of the 1960s) live in the Bunkers’ home to save money, providing abundant opportunity for them to irritate each other. All in the Family is often rated as one of the greatest television shows of all time. It became the first television series to reach the milestone of having topped the Nielsen ratings for five consecutive years. Although reviews and critics often lamented Archie and his on-screen persona, he was met with resounding praise by most viewers. In creating him, Lear believed that “the point of the character was to show that if bigotry and intolerance didn’t exist in the minds of good people, the average people, it would not be the endemic problem it is in our society” ( Lear 2014, 223). Archie was meant to symbolize an ordinary man sharing real-life prejudices probably felt by many behind closed doors. As noted by Todd Gitlin, “if the single most important factor in series success is the appeal of its major characters, then it is logical to launch a show with characters whose appeal is pretested. . . . When secondary characters are ‘spun off’ from current series to stand on their own, presumably they have already accumulated their followings on the road” (2000, 58). Spin-offs spring from the industry logic of putting capital to maximum use. Through the appeal of secondary characters, as well as the trusted name of Tandem, Maude was created as a spin-off of All in the Family. Maude (1972–1978) led to Good Times, where the show’s main character, Florida Evans (Esther Rolle), worked as Maude’s housekeeper. The Jeffersons would follow thereafter. All of these shows are inextricably linked and detail lineage on 1970s network television. Before All in the Family, sitcoms were predominantly segregated and featured all-white casts. Historians have concluded that All in the Family slowly fostered inclusion through its introduction of the Jefferson family as the Bunkers’ neighbors. The Jeffersons represented an integrated-privileged model in which, although Black characters were in leading roles, the series featured a racially integrated cast, all possessing financial privilege. The only popular Black sitcom created by Tandem Productions outside of the spin-off world of All in the Family was Sanford and Son.

Sanford and Son In Sanford and Son, Fred Sanford (Redd Foxx), a widower, raises Lamont (Demond Wilson) in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Scholars have argued that Sanford and Son was in dialogue with popular representations, social science research, and political discourse that so often dehumanized and pathologized urban Black families. Challenging those who imagined the inner



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cities to be overrun with welfare recipients, criminals, and those in poverty, Sanford and Son highlighted a community made up of the working poor, which could be found throughout America. Yet, to its critics, the show also reinforced widely held stereotypes about the cultural values, specifically the type of work ethic found in single-parented (Black) homes. In 1972, Sanford and Son drastically transformed the sitcom genre. Inspired by Foxx’s performance as a junk man in Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970), Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin saw Foxx as a potential national star, offering him the lead role. While CBS ultimately turned down the show, NBC saw the potential and the show was in motion. Based on the BBC’s Steptoe and Son (1962–1974), Sanford and Son propelled an urban working-class black family into the national spotlight, becoming NBC’s first all-Black cast sitcom. Sanford and Son would become a vehicle for Foxx’s stand-up material, which he would adjust to comply with the confines, rules, and politics of national television. Before the show, Foxx had appeared in several films but was primarily known for his very critical, and sometimes offensive, rude, and raunchy, stand-up comedy. His character would be seen in similar ways. Fred Sanford became renowned for his various racial epithets and prejudice directed at both Blacks and nonBlacks alike. Yet, the show also made clear that Sanford’s bigotry was distinct from Bunker’s given America’s racial history. For Sanford, his experiences with American racism shaped his racial outlook. While Archie’s racism was part of a larger system of oppressions, Fred’s prejudice represented a reaction to racial injustice. Reflecting the politics of the 1970s, Sanford and Son would highlight how Sanford’s experiences with racism, with the state, police, health care, social security administration, and so much more contributed to not only his prejudices but also his life experience and opportunities. Many story lines focus on economic uncertainty—Sanford’s anxiety about paying rent, his own business, and food insecurity. Fred is constantly in competition with other junk dealers, each of whom is looking to turn junk into financial stability. While focusing on poverty, the show also highlights the challenges that result from lacking basic necessities. Dressed in dusty old work boots and a ripped jacket, in a common scene Lamont struggles to start the rusty pickup truck as he starts his daily junk collections. Being successful, Stanford and Son laid a foundation, where future television shows would increasingly engage the political and social debates that dominated the headlines. Addressing racial injustice and a myriad of social issues, Sanford and Son represented the politics of television during the 1970s, where television saw a responsibility to engage in the pressing conversations, social movements, and debates within society.

Good Times Two years later in 1974, with the increasing demand for shows about the Black experience and the success of Sanford and Son, Tandem Productions created another television show that represented the daily struggles of the Black poor. Also featuring an all-Black cast, Good Times (1974–1979) garnered critical praise;

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high ratings led CBS to renew the program for the 1974–1975 season, as it was the seventeenth-highest-rated program that year. Good Times revolved around the Evans family, a Black family living in the projects on the south side of Chicago, Illinois. Critics have celebrated the show for its comedic elements and its ability to highlight political issues such as poverty, joblessness, crime, police brutality, and so much more. Deploying natural Afros, 1970s slang, and references to African American history, Good Times offered an additionally powerful Afrocentric flavor to its predecessor Sanford and Son. Although the Evans family struggled with poverty, the idea of a Black nuclear family on television was a step in the right direction regarding how visual culture depicted Black life. This image worked to slightly counter Moynihan’s research on “The Negro Family in America” and the view that a great majority of Black American families lived off of the matriarch, while the patriarch had walked out, divorced his wife, or was nonexistent. Much of the show revolves around the tension James Evans (John Amos) feels as a result of his sense of masculinity and the economic hardship he faces on a daily basis. To make ends meet, James works odd jobs at all hours of the day and night; he is always overworked, underpaid, and stressed. His wife Florida Evans also deals with the challenges of being poor and black in America. Florida spends her days taking care of her home and children as her husband works. Yet, Florida provides spiritual guidance and hope for the family. J.J. (Jimmie Walker) is the Evanses’ oldest child, blessed with supreme artistic skill; he uses his art pieces for get-rich-quick schemes and extra cash to take girls on dates. Thelma (BernNadette Stanis), the Evanses’ only daughter, like her mother, is a moral and spiritual center for the family. Michael (Ralph Carter), the youngest of the children, is a boy who is trapped in the spirit of 1960s civil rights and militancy. With aspirations of becoming a lawyer, he is constantly looked upon as the smartest member of the family. While each character has a distinct personality and embodies different sorts of identities, aspirations, and challenges, they are presented as a family based in love and support. Good Times not only provided opportunities for a number of Black actors and those behind the scenes but also for challenging long-standing stereotypes and the dehumanization of the Black poor, and for offering a space for voices otherwise marginalized and erased. It was not alone in this regard.

The Jeffersons Continuing the arc of racial development throughout the 1970s, The Jeffersons moved toward an integrated-privileged representation of blackness as it featured a wealthy Black family. The Jeffersons was the last show focusing on a majority Black cast before Lear and Yorkin ended their Tandem Productions partnership in 1975. According to Arriana McLymore, Norman Lear noted, in the 2016 interview on CNBC, that “the Black Panthers influenced him to make the Jefferson family more affluent and successful compared with the characters on his ‘Good Times.’”



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Like so much of the racial landscape of television, activists made a heavily impact on the types of story lines, the types of shows, and the resulting opportunities throughout the 1970s. In “How Norman Lear’s Historic Black Sitcoms Changed American Television,” Naima Cochrane (2019) highlights this history: Three Black Panther party members showed up a Lear’s production company one day to express their displeasure with Good Times. Lear recounted the story for an interview, saying, ‘They were pissed off that the only (black) family that existed, the (patriarch) had to hold down three jobs.’ The Panthers asked why there couldn’t be an affluent black family on television, and Lear listened. Maybe George and Weezy would have stayed next door to the Bunkers, or moved to the black middle-class Queens enclave Jamaica Estates, or back uptown to Harlem for the spinoff, but that random visit sent them to a deluxe apartment in the sky in Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

The Jeffersons was born as an answer to the criticisms of Tandem’s earlier shows. The Jeffersons revolves around George Jefferson (Sherman Hemsley), an arrogant patriarch, who, along with the rest of the family, moves from Queens to the wealthy Upper East Side of Manhattan owing to the success of his dry-cleaner chain. Its plotlines and comedy often invoke a “fish out of water” theme as the Jefferson family tries to assimilate into a world of rich White people. George frequently attempts to insert himself into the culture of the elite and the bourgeoisie by wearing three-piece suits tailored to fit, buying large musical instruments as furniture, having brunch, and tipping $20 bills to his doorman. However, his roots as a struggling Black man from an impoverished neighborhood in Harlem are consistently invoked as markers of his identity. Whether a humbling act or one meant to keep a Black man down even when he attains wealth, it’s clear that money can’t buy his way fully into a society that wasn’t built for him. The Jeffersons consistently challenged the idea that Black ascension and upward mobility made race disappear because although the characters had “moved on up,” their blackness and White racism isolated them from the culture and practices of old money. While the premise of the show was of Jefferson striking it rich and moving “on up” into wealth and the American Dream, many story lines focused on his conflicts with a white neighbor and family dynamics. Specifically, many episodes revolved around conflicts his wife, Louise “Weezy” Jefferson (Isabel Sanford), their son Lionel Jefferson (Mike Evans; Damon Evans), his mom (Zara Cully), and their back-talking and lovable maid Florence (Marla Gibbs). The show also spotlighted race relations through interactions between George and their British neighbor, Harry Bentley (Paul Benedict). More significantly, the show not only spotlighted George’s prejudices through his comments with another White neighbor, Tom Willis (Franklin Cover), but about his marriage to Black women, Hellen Willis (Roxie Roker). A first on television, this interracial couple was evidence of The Jeffersons willingness to address social and political issues. The Jeffersons eventually evolved into more of a traditional sitcom but with references to issues such as alcoholism, racism, suicide, gun control, being transgender, and adult illiteracy. Racial epithets were used occasionally, especially during the earlier seasons.

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Diff’rent Strokes In 1978, Diff’rent Strokes (1978–1986) debuted. The series told the story of Arnold (Gary Coleman) and Willis Jackson (Todd Bridges), two Black boys from Harlem who are taken in by a rich Park Avenue-living White businessman and widower named Phillip Drummond (Conrad Bain), for whom the boys’ deceased mother previously worked. The show was a parable of integration. Yorkin wanted the show to “put a Black child into a White man’s world” and discuss the various woes the White father and Black child deal within their daily lives. Sanford and Son, Good Times, and The Jeffersons marked a new approach to the representation of black people and blackness. They contributed to a revolution on television. Robin Means Coleman writes, “In Black-centered worlds and through Black-oriented circumstances, a never seen before consciousness was added to the comedic discourse in which race, racism, class, and cultural differences were explored” (1998, 94). Scholars have argued that Black sitcoms, especially in the 1970s, were integral to consciousness-raising as they complicated popular understandings of the Black situation in America. “African American humor,” in this case Black sitcoms specifically, “has been and continues to be both a bountiful source of creativity and pleasure and an energetic mode of social and political critique” (Coleman 1998 94). Similarly, Christine Acham, in Revolution Televised: Prime Time and the Struggle for Black Power (2004), argues that the 1970s saw Black actors, writers, and producers working to disrupt long-standing erasure, marginalization, and dehumanization. While the 1970s saw a number of sitcoms, it also saw the airing of several dramatic shows that addressed social injustice. The biggest television event of the decade was Alex Haley’s Roots miniseries (ABC, 1977). Based off of Alex Haley’s 1976 novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family, the series documents the history of slavery in America. Weary of the brutality of American chattel slavery that the show depicted, ABC television executives attempted to cut the networks predicted losses by airing the series over eight consecutive nights in January in one fell swoop. Receiving thirty-seven prime-time Emmy award nominations, and winning nine, Roots was critically celebrated, as it demonstrated how television could educate and inform, which was a central facet of the television of the 1970s. Adrien Sebro Further Reading

Acham, Christin. 2004. Revolution Televised: Prime Time and the Struggle for Black Power. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Arlen, Michael. 1975. “Media Dramas of Norman Lear.” The New Yorker, March 3. ­https://​­w ww​.­newyorker​.­com ​/­magazine​/­1975​/­03​/­10​/­the​-­media​-­d ramas​-­of​-­norman​ -­lear. “Bud Yorkin.” 1997. Television Academy Foundation, The Interviews, December 2. ­https://​­interviews​.­televisionacademy​.­com ​/­interviews​/ ­bud​-­yorkin​#­about. Cadet, Danielle. 2012. “‘The Jeffersons’: How Sherman Hemsley and the Sitcom Changed the Landscape of American Television.” The Huffington Post, July 25. h­ ttps://​ ­w ww​.­huffpost​.­com ​/­entry​/­the​-­jeffersons​-­show​-­legacy ​_n​_1701026.



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Cochrane. Naima. 2019. “How Norman Lear’s Historic Black Sitcoms Changed American Television.” Vibe, May 22. ­https://​­w ww​.­vibe​.­com​/­2019​/­05​/­norman​-­lear​-­black​ -­families​-­on​-­american​-­television. Coleman, Robin Means. 1998. African American Viewers and the Black Situation Comedy: Situating Racial Humor. New York: Garland Publishing. Cullen, Jim. 2020. Those Were the Days: Why All in the Family Still Matters. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press Dow, Bonnie J. 1996. Prime-Time Feminism: Television, Media Culture, and the Women’s Movement since 1970. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press Feuer, Jane. 1984. “MTM Enterprises: An Overview.” In MTM ‘Quality Television,’ edited by Jane Feuer, Paul Kerr, and Tise Vahimagi. London: British Film Institute. Gitlin, Todd. 2000. Inside Prime Time. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lear, Norman. 2014. Even This I Get to Experience. New York: Penguin Books. Lemack (Brad) Collection (PA Mss 58). n.d. University of California, Santa Barbara Special Research Collections. Leonard, David J., and Lisa Guerrero. 2013. African Americans on Television: Race-ing for Ratings. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. MacDonald, J. Fred. 1983. Blacks and White TV: African Americans in Television since 1948. Chicago: Nelson-Hall. McLymore, Arriana. 2016. “Norman Lear: ‘The Jeffersons’ Was Better Than ‘The Cosby Show.’” CNBC, August 23. ­https://​­www​.­cnbc​.­com​/­2016​/­08​/­23​/­norman​-­lear​-­the​ -­jeffersons​-­was​-­better​-­than​-­the​-­cosby​-­show​.­html. “Norman Lear.” 1998. Television Academy Foundation, The Interviews, February 26. ­https://​­interviews​.­televisionacademy​.­com​/­interviews​/­norman​-­lear.

The 1980s Per Reagan campaign advertisements, the 1980s brought a new dawn, “morning again in America.” Ronald Reagan and the “Silent Majority” were tired of social problems, protest, and to their mind, too much social and racial change. Under “Reaganstruction,” White Americans in particular desired a television president and television programming that promised a chance to feel good again. These viewers wanted to feel good about themselves, their changing political ideology, and their nation after an unsettling decade of malaise marked by declining political, economic, and social power. Viewers were in no mood for the explicitly racial, occasionally resistant programming of the previous decade highlighted by programs like Roots (1977), All in the Family (1971–1979), and The Jeffersons (1975– 1985). Critics have noted that in a decade of symbolism, representations of different races and ethnicities were just that, empty symbols of colorblind progress. While the 1980s television screen trafficked in more and more diversity, this form of inclusion and multiculturalism while celebrated was often devoid of necessary context, and for that matter, conflict. Did more “race” and races equate to social and racial progress? Reagan ideologues argued in the affirmative. So too did television pioneer Bill Cosby. Like most tidy narratives, however, scholars have problematized the progress of colorblindness and Cosby as at least partially bankrupt.

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Scholars remind us that television is a potent vehicle to circulate commonsense understandings of complex social issues such as race, space (urban v. suburban), culture, and class. Most television programs manage to either contain established commonsense understandings or resist said understandings through their content. Containment programming manages to perpetuate or reaffirm the status quo through positive affirmations of prevailing mores and orthodoxies, or, by failing to question, complicate, or challenge such perspectives. Resistance programming, ideally, accomplishes all of those difficult tasks. Resistance through characters, plots, and settings that confront accepted commonsense understandings of how the world works, who and who is not virtuous, and where virtue and vice are to be found. In the 1980s, American audiences were tired, tuned-out, and often resentful of resistance. Instead, the country and its people were more inclined to stop asking questions and celebrate the purported progress enjoyed post–civil rights. The decades’ most successful and enduring sitcom, The Cosby Show (1984– 1992), served as a perfect remedy. An upwardly mobile, highly successful nuclear family headed by Cliff Huxtable (Bill Cosby), a doctor, and Clair Huxtable (Phylicia Rashad), a lawyer. This family situation comedy took place largely in the confines of the Huxtables’ Brooklyn Heights brownstone, as Cliff and Clair navigated life with their five children—a regular, all-American family who happens to be Black. The blackness of the Huxtable family in this sense is mediated through the lens of family, the domestic, as well as middle-class mores. The Cosby Show was, in effect, offering viewers “safe diversity” (Leonard and Guerrero 2013, 122). This rested on an ability to deracialize the Huxtables, which helped explain the simultaneous lauding of the show for both de-emphasizing racial differences and for facilitating improved race relations. Perfectly encapsulating the logic of colorblindness, The Cosby Show was wildly successful because it represented race while failing to see or address its consequences. The Cosby Show is broadly representative of television sitcoms addressing race and ethnicity in the 1980s. Certainly, television and print media began to feature Black people. Minority images began to show up on the tube every night while more and more magazines carried black faces on their covers. Even urban radio stations came into vogue when Black-programmed stations, riding the emerging tide of hip-hop, pulled top ratings in big city markets. Nonetheless, apparent progress on its face, was marred, even moot, and sometimes pernicious. Despite the saturation of Black faces in this era—working within the confines of containment meant that such saturation was often filtered through the white gaze to reaffirm commonsense white middle-class viewpoints and mores. At the same time, Cosby-style programming obscured and denied the plight and perspectives of the nonwhite poor in a time of social, political, and economic trauma for said citizens. While The Cosby Show convinced many viewers that Blacks could be just like their White middle-class counterparts with hard work and cultural changes, the show’s symbolic utility also came in the sharp contrast between



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the Huxtables and contemporary representations of poor African Americans and Latinxs, often referred to and problematized as the “underclass.” Television news of the period—particularly after the moral panic surrounding crack cocaine touched off in 1986—emphasized menace and immorality, linking urban districts and racial difference with vice and disorder. Black and Latinx gangs, male criminality, “vanishing” black families, “welfare queens,” the crack mother, and teen pregnancy were all big-ticket items on evening news. Stripping blackness of the hard-won moral authority of the Civil Rights Movement, television news weighed heavily on the governing logics of the American people and their policymakers. Perhaps The Cosby Show could win back that moral authority and a modicum of dignity for the select few nonwhite citizens in similar positions as the Huxtables. But, for the vast majority of the Black and Latinx masses, Bill Cosby and containment-style television programming were hardly a counterweight to the damning images strewn across nightly news. The steady barrage of welfare dependents, drug dealers, and the weight of Willy Horton’s snarling face in the American imaginary proved too heavy a load. With so much real racial turmoil, why the sudden proliferation of Black-oriented situational comedies in the 1980s? Scholars argue that in times of social, political, and economic upheaval complicated structural failings can be recast in the situational comedy as personal and interpersonal problems that can be readily solved. Rather than spend the decade in hand-wringing frustration over complex historical processes of white flight, urban disinvestment, deindustrialization, mechanization, and even globalization; the problems of the period could be reduced to thirty minutes of conflict-resolution. Impersonal structural forces—the primary perpetrators of racial inequality—could be reduced to personal and interpersonal disputes easily overcome with the right attitude, a little personal responsibility, and hard work. The traditional arc of the situational comedy allows for artificial “resolutions” of such complicated problems at the episode’s end.

THE JEFFERSONS The Jeffersons (1975–1985) stages the American Dream within a Black family. The Jefferson family first established themselves in the prime-time lineup as neighbors of Archie Bunker on Hauser Street in the long-running sitcom, All in the Family (1971–1979). Moving away from their antecedent’s preoccupation with interracial conflict, The Jeffersons spin-off instead focused on conflict within the Black community. Although the show was produced by Norman Lear, a white man, and featured White writers, the program concentrated on the interior world of a Black family and its relation to a broader Black community, as well as the larger idea of blackness. Uniquely exploring Black identity, and perhaps, both pushing and setting the boundaries of blackness, The Jeffersons offered a new platform distinctly different from its predecessor, and its closest contemporaries

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like Good Times (1974–1979). The new emphasis on “intraracial place, rather than interracial progress” (Leonard and Guerrero 2013, 58) is worth exploring. So too is the way in which The Jeffersons’ seeming dedication to explicit blackness waned in the 1980s to many Black viewers’ dismay. From the very beginning of the series, the show emphasized the transition of the Jefferson family from the modest row houses of Queens to the posh high rises of Manhattan’s Upper East Side—a “deluxe apartment in the sky.” In transitioning from lower middle class to upper class neighborhood, the Jefferson family fiercely maintained their Black identity. The Jeffersons not only introduced audiences to the first professional Black middle-class family in television history but a family who was also unapologetically Black at the outset. In many episodes, Blacks alone pass judgment on Black attitudes and Black problems. The family struggles not primarily with hostile or unwelcoming white elites, but rather, with establishing an authentic Black identity, one that is wealthy without compromising its historical roots. Having labored to build his dry-cleaning business, the family patriarch George Jefferson wants to demonstrate his success with traditional markers of success while his wife, Louise, is more inclined to hold to her roots. This typical familial tug-of-war plays out in numerous circumstances, not excluding the initial episode where the two fight over the decision to hire a Black maid. Here, viewers finally see, if for a moment, the dynamism of blackness. Rather than a monolithic—often degrading and/or limiting representation of blackness—viewers are confronted with clear class differences between the Jeffersons and their potential hired help. George is bent on proving his status as a provider by removing his wife from domestic work, even if in their own home, by hiring a “domestic.” Louise, on the other hand, remembers the struggles of working as a domestic and admonishes George for making the role “sound like a disease.” By the 1980s, the arc of the show, its tenor and tone, began to change. This did not go unnoticed. In a 1983 TV Guide article titled, “As Their Blackness Disappears, So Does Their Character,” Mary Helen Washington lamented the declining significance of race on the show: “They don’t use the” N-word “on The Jeffersons anymore. There are no more jokes about playing ‘Pin the Tail on the Honky,’ and Louise has stopped saying, ‘ain’t’ and using double negatives. The Afros have been replaced by sleekly styled hairdos. Their references to Harlem and to George’s past life there have been almost totally eliminated” (Jacobson 2006, 42). In the new age of colorblindness, the families race figured less and less into the equation. Per Washington and others, show producers had ruined a “once-Black show” by catering to the changing whims of commercial appeal in the 1980s. Changing commercial tastes, we are to understand, recoiled from the thought of foregrounding race, let alone blackness, in prime-time programming. Instead, the prevailing ideology of the 1980s preferred narratives of assimilation and colorblind themes that rectified or ignored racial problems and racial difference, rather than confronting existing problems. Neutralizing and sanitizing blackness became the new normal as race and its import receded from view, fading to anything but Black.



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DIFF’RENT STROKES For many, Diff’rent Strokes (1978–1986) is memorable because of the sitcom’s scene-stealing star who first made his television debut on The Jeffersons, actor Gary Coleman. Probing beyond Coleman’s noted punchline—“What you talkin’ bout, Willis?”—the show’s premise, plot, and context mirror several common themes of 1980s programming with respect to race. First and foremost, the show begins as a narrative about the death of a Black mother. Scholars conclude that with an origin story steeped in long-standing narratives about Black families and alienated Black children, Diff’rent Strokes quietly began with a pernicious theme that pervaded the period. Much like other Norman Lear productions, the sitcom had a great deal of success leading to a spin-off, The Facts of Life (1979–1988), and another show with an eerily similar plotline in Webster (1983–1989), starring Emmanuel Lewis. Both Coleman and Lewis played characters that evoked images of a black man-child from popular culture’s past. White salvation and benevolence established the premise of Diff’rent Strokes. Mr. Drummond (Conrad Bain), a wealthy White widower living on Park Avenue agrees to look after his recently deceased Black housekeeper’s two sons, Arnold (Coleman) and Willis Jackson (Todd Bridges). “Mr. D” talks about the late housekeeper, the children’s mother in standard mammy terms, remembering her “great sense of humor” and reminding the children that she was “like” a “member of the family.” The boys for their part are described by Drummond as “orphans  .  .  . from Harlem.” Naturally, as the wealthy White man from Park Avenue “saves” the poor motherless children from poverty in Harlem, hilarity and racial resolution ensues for a white audience. The sitcom follows the tale, one that will be repeated in other sitcoms, of a White adoptive parent(s) and mentors who take on the onerous task of socializing Black kids and teens in a segregated White community with little connection to any larger Black family, community, culture, or history. Arnold’s character, in particular, was ‘a black kid before he was a human being.’ In Gary Coleman, producers had a preconceived notion in mind: “We needed a kid who had a kind of rough edge to him. Streetwise, if you will, who could show a little hostility at being pulled into a rich white neighborhood after his parents died, but wouldn’t appear so hostile that audiences wouldn’t like him” (qtd. in MacDonald 1983, 199). Through Coleman, blackness is seen as difference, livening up stories with uses of Black slang and “street smart” characters like Arnold added literal and metaphorical color to the white environs of the show. In the first season, the boys are visited by a social worker for a routine evaluation. After being encouraged by Drummond to be positive about their experience, Willis and Arnold put on a performance for the state authority referring to themselves as “Happy Willis” and “Delirious Arnold.” More obviously, they conspicuously try to “act White” and rich, attempting to mirror the tone and affect of Drummond’s prep-school daughter Kimberly (Dana Plato). When the social worker asks the children pointed questions regarding their level of comfort living in a “nonBlack” neighborhood and with a White patriarch, this significant reality is glossed over with a typical Coleman punchline: “No ma’am! If I miss seeing a

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Black kid my age, all I gotta do is look in the mirror.” Again, thorny questions of race, class, and place are eschewed with punchy humor. Following the visit, Drummond is flummoxed by the social worker’s questions, as well as her incredulity and surprise that the kids appear to be adjusting well. He repeats with frustration what the social worker said to him, venting to his now white housekeeper: “Black children belong with Black families.” After overhearing Drummond’s statement devoid of context, Arnold tells his brother: “And all this time I thought that was one dude who was colorblind.” Subsequently, the brothers respond by telling the social worker they would prefer a black adoptive family. Of course, like most sitcoms of the period, the episode ends with tidy racial resolution. Arnold repeats what he heard to Drummond and why they made their request. Seemingly dejected, Drummond concedes to Arnold, “I only want to do what’s best for you, ’cause I love you.” After a quick stay with an ultra-wealthy Black couple, the boys nonetheless have a change of heart, realize they love Mr. D too, and want to go back. Upon announcing their decision to Olivia Thompson (Fran Bennett), their new Black adoptive mother, Thompson offers a class pearl of colorblind mythology to advance the show’s central narrative: “Black or white, its love that counts.” Perhaps most important, the narrative arc switches from the best interests of the children to the best intentions of Mr. D, thereby displacing the Black family, and by shows end the Black mother.

WEBSTER Often noted as the “prime-time heir” to Diff’rent Strokes, Webster, starring Emmanuel Lewis (as Webster), borrowed much from the themes and plot of its predecessor, accomplishing much of the same problematic cultural work. Webster introduces audiences to George Papadopolous (Alex Karras), a sports newscaster and former professional football player, and his wife Katherine Papadopolous (Susan Clark), a socialite and philanthropist, who adopt Webster, the son of George’s former football teammate after his parents were killed in a car accident. As with Diff’rent Strokes, an affluent white family comes to the rescue of a Black child, presumably, without family. In the first episode, Webster arrives at the Papadopolous residence via courier service—much like a product rather than a child—instead of the authorities of an adoption agency or social services. Perhaps more problematic is Katherine’s response to the new arrival: “George, did we just buy a child?” Despite apprehension and explicit opposition from Katherine, George is won over by Webster’s persistence and desire for not only a family, but a family with him. The erasure of Webster’s previous Black family, and the trauma that would come with their sudden death recedes almost entirely in a feel-good story of safe integration. While George is won over, Katherine remains concerned about the prospects of interracial adoption. While exercising with her friend Ellen (Freddye Chapman), a Black woman who Katherine knows from her college days, she is told unequivocally: “I don’t think a white couple should be raising a black



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child.” Katherine takes this to her husband who asks: “What makes her the expert?” Most certainly, this was the wrong question for this white man to ask of this particular Black woman. Katherine responds: “Well, a housewife, mother of three, she’s black, she has a Ph.D. in Sociology specializing in the placement of minority children,” had written books on the subject, and was an “expert in her field.” Thoughtfully, Katherine tells her husband: “Webster has a right to know about his culture, about his background, about his heritage, about where he comes from.” Unfazed, George asks: “Do you think that kid in there has got a problem because we’re white?” The couple take the matter to Webster, a child who has just lost his parents, asking if their role as guardians “embarrasses” Webster. Following a conversation in which Webster is positioned to reassure two white adults and deny his embarrassment and affirm his interest in joining his new white family, Webster confides in his “Teddy”: “They wouldn’t ever want to hurt my feelings. But I don’t think they were telling the truth. I think I do embarrass them.” Not unlike Arnold from Diff’rent Strokes, Webster is Black, different, and potentially embarrassing to his new white family before he is simply human. Seeking to understand the very meaning of the word, Webster consults a dictionary with a friend arriving on this particular definition of embarrassment: “difficulty arising from the want of money to pay debts.” Webster, a child who recently endured unimaginable trauma and loss, internalizes that he presents a financial burden to George and Katherine. Thus, Webster sets out to remedy the situation by selling off his toys to neighborhood kids, raising $1.87. As both Webster and Katherine struggle with the potential difficulties presented by their situation—particularly in terms of race—George remains blissfully steadfast in his colorblindness. In a flashback scene to Webster’s birth, George is asked to be Webster’s godfather. After George asks whether the arrangement was okay, wondering how other people might react, Webster’s father Travis (Harrison Page) closes with a line and ethos nearly stolen from Diff’rent Strokes: “If people look at what we do as some kind of social statement, then that’s their problem. But I’m not giving you my kid to make a social statement. I’m giving you my kid because I love you, George Papadopolous. You got the same values, same standards, same soul.” Yet again, the narrative arc switches from the thorny issues of the best interest of the child to the best intentions of well-meaning white protagonist in George. Scholars have concluded that in both sitcoms, colorblindness is affirmed on an interpersonal level devoid of broader context. Tidy solutions to complicated problems abound, leaving viewers, particularly white viewers feeling good about race in the United States and their own role within such a historically complicated crucible. Numerous scholars have argued that both Diff’rent Strokes and Webster affirmed the broader politics of colorblindness and Reaganism. As one scholar aptly assessed the nuanced messaging of both programs: “In the symbolic universe of Reaganstruction, the vindication of white interracial adoption and the negation of the political demand for black family preservation that underwrites

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race-matching policy are grounded in the earnest and profound intimacy that blacks ostensibly feel toward whites and the moral acceptance and eventual reciprocation of that intimacy by their white obligates” (Leonard and Guerrero 2013, 109). GIMME A BREAK! Portrayals of black women as mammy characters proved remarkably durable during the 1980s. As Kristin Hunter Lattany reminds us: “Black stereotypes were put on the shelf in the 1960s and 1970s” only to reappear starkly in the 1980s, “and they came at us unrelentingly, without the relief of any realistically human Black portrayals” (Lattany 1984, 79). Starring Nell Carter, a musical and comedy stage actress, as Nellie Ruth “Nell” Harper, Gimme a Break! (1981– 1987) focuses on her experiences caring for a White family following the death of the mother, who was Nell’s friend . Following the formula of the era, Nell is Black and the family she cares for—the Kanisky family—is White. Because of Carter’s “plus-sized frame” and “sassy effect” the show was “clearly a 1980s update” of long-standing and remarkably durable mammy narratives (Leonard and Guerrero 2013, 378). Most of the show revolves around Nell’s caring for children, particularly a young White boy the Kanisky family took in named Joey (Joey Lawrence). Following the death of the Kanisky family’s father, Nell became Joey’s lone caretaker. Through much of the show, it is made clear that Nell sacrificed her education to pursue her dreams of being a singer, dreams that were ostensibly sidelined by her traditional role as mammy on the show. In one particular episode, the uses of the mammy stereotype are made explicit for the sake of humor. Visited by a childhood friend and competitor with an advanced education and apparent polish, said friend Addy Wilson (Telma Hopkins) prematurely, or perhaps with malice, ponders aloud: “Thank God, we finally put to rest that old stereotypical image of the black woman as an Aunt Jemima.” At that moment, Nell enters the room with a handkerchief around her head, a roller in the front, in the midst of doing laundry. Nell Carter, an enduring representation of the mammy archetype, enters the scene with irony. A sadness and lack of progress presented as humor. Yet again, returning to the staple of love—particularly interracial and intergenerational love in the 1980s sitcom—Nell defends herself by pulling her Addy into the kitchen and reminding her that she feels fortunate because she “gives lots of love and I receive lots of love . . . this family needs me and that’s all that matters.” Yet again, portrayals of love overcome a litany of problems that riddle the 1980s. Scholars conclude that such representation offered viewers a feel-good story with a happy mammy dutifully raising white children and sacrificing her own dreams out of love for them. The portrayal of a Black mammy with no family of her own, and apparently, no sense of longing or need for one, continued to be the most acceptable portrayal of Black women for prime-time comedies.



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TELEVISION NEWS Nightly television news of “rampaging” and “wilding” hordes of urban Black youth were regularly fodder for news coverage over rights to public space, race, and criminal justice. The saga of “subway vigilante” Bernhard Goetz (1984), as well as the Central Park jogger case in New York City (1989), augmented by sensationalistic television documentaries on the underclass and the emerging specter of crack assaulted television screens with negative and stereotypical images of poverty, blackness, drug abuse, the dissolution of family, and purported pathology. In particular, the CBS specials The Vanishing Black Family (1985) hosted by Bill Moyers, as well as 48 Hours on Crack Street (1986) hosted by Dan Rather, both advanced devastating critiques of blackness, the Black family, and the Black community. Television’s focus on crime and poverty within the Black community continued in 1989, as the reality-based crime show Cops (1989–2000) showcased Black drug users involved in the crack trade. Part and parcel of emerging racial and class-based tensions in cities like New York in the 1980s were fundamental battles over public space that often ended in the criminalization, brutalization, or murder of Black youth. Reports of rising crime and unsafe public streets and transport projected a clear culprit: the emerging underclass. In 1984, in an emerging prelude to the outsized reaction against crime and crack that targeted poor Black citizens in urban spaces, the “subway vigilante” Bernhard Goetz became a troubling cultural hero to many. Goetz, a White middle-aged man boarded the 2 train in Manhattan on December 22, 1984. Goetz knew the subway to be a dangerous place as he alleged that he had been mugged just three years earlier. Unsatisfied with the punishment meted out against his past offenders, Goetz resolved to mete out justice himself in the future. As such Goetz boarded the 2 train that day with an unlicensed revolver. He then fired the revolver five times at four young, Black teenage boys from the Bronx. Goetz alleged the boys had been preparing to mug him. He seriously injured all four boys, permanently paralyzing one of his victims. The subsequent trial and appeals would last into 1986 as Goetz became a hero for those increasingly frustrated with rising crime on public streets and transport. Goetz quickly became a symbol for those fearful of urban disorder and the poor, nonwhite underclass they sought to scapegoat. Despite the reality that all four boys were unarmed victims, their fearsome criminality became the dominant subject of public conversation after one of the boys—James Ramseur—was later arrested for charges related to robbery and sexual assault. Ramseur, Barry Allen, Troy Canty, and Darrell Cabey were reportedly looking for the time and a few cigarettes aboard the train. For their debatable transgression, each was seriously injured. Cabey—the victim of the final shot fired execution style—found himself permanently paralyzed and brain damaged. The last bullet severed Cabey’s spinal cord. Then U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani elected not to proceed with federal civil rights prosecution against Goetz finding “insufficient evidence” that race was a motive in the shooting. On June 16, 1986, a jury exonerated Goetz on all counts related to attempted murder and assault. Goetz would only be found guilty for criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree. Perhaps more instructive,

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Goetz was found guilty in a civil suit awarding $43 million in damages to victim Darrell Cabey. Goetz subsequently filed for bankruptcy. Similar cases dominated television headlines in the 1980s. The 1989 rape of Central Park Jogger Tricia Meili became perhaps the most widely sensationalized case of the decade as reports of “wilding” Black youth terrorizing citizens in Central Park as a veritable “wolfpack” and victimizing Meili dominated the nightly news. That five youth of color were quickly blamed and convicted of this heinous crime despite no physical evidence is in retrospect unsurprising and in fact instructive of the racial politics at work in the 1980s. The reality that Meili was also White, upwardly mobile, and a Vice President of Finance at Salomon Brothers further heightened the race and class-based politics of the incident. The kids, who came to be known as the Central Park Five, have subsequently been exonerated, many of whom work as criminal justice reform activists. The boys were awarded a $40 million dollar settlement for the miscarriage of justice. Historians have concluded that no news coverage, however, proved more damning in the cultural imaginary than the media-driven moral panic surrounding crack cocaine. The drug quickly became synonymous with urban decline, purported “pathology” in the Black family and poor urban communities, as well as the criminality of nonwhite residents and urban spaces. News specials, such as 48 Hours on Crack Street and The Vanishing Black Family, advanced and reinforced existing stereotypes of blackness and urban districts. The contexts ignored and erased by the sitcoms of the Crack Era made coverage of the issue all the more damning. Contrasted with the success of the Huxtables or the assimilation of other Black characters and families in popular sitcoms of the decade, the saturated coverage of the crack trade, the emerging mythology of the “crack mother,” and tired tropes surrounding a culture of poverty proved to many that poor Black urbanites were failing because of their own lack of personal responsibility. Why couldn’t they be like The Cosby Show’s (1984–1992) Huxtables? At the height of the crack panic, CBS aired the quintessential Crack Era news special, 48 Hours on Crack Street. In an advertising promo for the debut of the prime-time special, Dan Rather set the tone with his narration: “Tonight CBS News takes you on the streets, to the warzone for an unusual two hours of hand on horror.” Filmed in one frenzied weekend, the special netted roughly fifteen million viewers across the United States. Two years later, its success would spawn the 48 Hours franchise still on-air decades later. Not to be outdone, NBC aired Cocaine Country (1986) the same week. Noting the competing network’s success pedaling the fear of crack, blackness, and the city, ABC parlayed the crack ratings blitz in a five-part series entitled, DRUGS U.S.A (1986). just ten days later. Network news had found the shifting pulse of the nation’s viewers—their fears, their fantasies, their deeply rooted and nearly reflexive instincts at the nexus of race, urbanity, drugs, and crime. The panic over crack reaped the twin rewards of higher ratings and lower overhead costs. As studio headquarters were located in the relative epicenter of crack, networks could relay sensational coverage throughout New York’s five boroughs expeditiously and cheaply. While the costs for



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networks were low, the costs for the bodies and spaces being exploited for nightly news ratings were extraordinarily high. Other news specials engaged the emerging specter of crack from different angles, namely its purported effects upon the Black family and urban communities. Much like Daniel Patrick Moynihan before him, anchor Bill Moyers earnestly set out to understand and aid a people and “culture” in distress. In seeking to understand and mitigate urban poverty, both men made gross generalizations. On January 25, 1985, Moyers and CBS aired a widely applauded two-hour special originally entitled: The Vanishing Family: Crisis in Black America. That the special received wide critical fanfare in part explains the context of the Crack Era’s onset and the damaging cultural effects of television news with respect to race and class. Parallels between the Moynihan Report and the CBS special were not lost on the New York Times, who argued in their own review that while the special “never mentions the Moynihan Report,” it was “resuming the old discussion” (Corry 1986). In addition to presenting the Black family as broken and matriarchal, the special heavily emphasized the perceived failures and inadequacies of young Black men. Coverage of education and inequitable access to opportunity in a world of declining wages for unskilled workers did not figure into pundit coverage. Instead CBS repeatedly portrayed young Black man as violent, shiftless, and criminal—supported with the false credibility of misleading statistics divorced from context and nuanced explanation. The report posits to viewers that one in twenty-one young Black men will be killed before the age of twenty-one. Nearly half of all young Black men in the “inner city” were said to be arrested before they reached the age of eighteen. Rather than focus on why police sought the need to arrest a large conglomerate of nonwhite minors, CBS emphasized Black and urban criminality. The broadcast suggested that young Black men were entirely disinterested in family life and all too interested in sex—trading in durable stereotypes historically rooted in white supremacy. One young father tells Moyers: “That’s all they be doing around here, making babies and stuff, making babies.” Another young man reported to a visibly disgusted Moyers that he had six kids by three different women, explaining: “Welfare gives them the stipend for the month. So what I’m not doing the government does.” To drive home the “cycle of poverty” noted prominently in Moynihan’s 1965 report, CBS asked young mother Brenda if her little boys would one day get married. Brenda replied that she wasn’t sure, but the boys would probably be “free-lancers.” Moyers responded cuttingly: “Free-lancers? Like their fathers? That does seem to be the pattern.” Young Black women on welfare—a pervasive trope of the Crack Era—are also excoriated. Reaffirming popular tropes of the “Welfare Queen,” one young mother seemingly unaware of the cultural weight of her remarks confided in Moyers: “I don’t think I would have had the second two children if I didn’t think welfare was there. I don’t like welfare because it makes me lazy.” Newark social worker Carolyn Wallace, a Black woman, confirmed such sentiments stating: “It’s not right to have children out of wedlock, welfare needs to be changed, you’ve got to take responsibility.” Most damning, Wallace argued: “It’s not racism I’m fighting right

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now. It’s the lack of motivation, we’re destroying ourselves.” In a political age dominated by rhetoric regarding personal responsibility and family values, Moyers’s work made sweeping claims that “in cities all over America the traditional family no longer exists.” Which families in particular were failing was not left to the imagination: “What becomes of the black family in a world where values have been turned upside down?” The special helped set the stage for many of the pervasive themes of the Crack Era, particularly on television news. Urban districts and the culture within them were identified as the locus of the problem. Moreover, young Black men were labeled dangerous, violent criminals with little interest in work, family, or traditional values. For their part, Black women were portrayed as haplessly dependent on welfare. The difficult job of parenting children along with little funds is all but overlooked. The special was widely lauded as Moyers’s status as a Liberal obfuscated the racialized nature of his work. With avowed liberals and Black community members offering candid soundbites, staggering credibility was lent to the culture of poverty thesis. Juxtaposed beside the morally upright, successful, family-oriented Huxtables, it became hard to acquit the purported underclass for their persistent poverty.

THE COSBY SHOW Why was The Cosby Show the most consistently highest-rated prime-time television program of the 1980s? While simultaneously presenting a contained, feelgood story of racial uplift through the Huxtable family’s upwardly mobile environs, the lessons extolled by the family’s patriarch Cliff Huxtable (Bill Cosby) emphasized what Richard Campbell and Jimmie Reeves have called “Cultural Moynihanism” (1994). Often through absence and silence, a portrait of the Black masses, as well as the obstacles presented by the politics and social climate of the period, is obscured. Instead, scholars conclude that The Cosby Show pushed the idea that the inculcation of appropriate moral values, personal responsibility, and a sound work ethic could break the cycle of dependency and poverty. David Courtwright (1996, 230) has argued that in a period when the Moynihan Report was “politically rehabilitated”—as well as socially—The Cosby Show’s success coupled with its moralizing suggested that the Black masses simply needed to work harder and make better choices. More damaging, it left the impression that anyone, regardless of race or place or class could make it in America, if only they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. Unlike shows that would follow such as A Different World (1987–1993) and Frank’s Place (1987–1988), the self-contained world of the Huxtables’ brownstone demonstrated the hallmarks of containment-style 1980s television as well as its preferred viewers: “For many shows based on the situations and experiences of Blacks, the conventions of television production . . . serve to discipline, contain, and ultimately construct a point of view. Not surprisingly, the point of view constructs and privileges white middle-class audiences as the ideal viewers” (Gray 1995, 71). While ostensibly representing blackness and racial



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progress, The Cosby Show also managed to obscure and minimize blackness in ways that are amenable to a white audience. Cosby himself commented that he would not deal with the “foolishness of racial overtones” on the show (Gray 1995 , 80). The Huxtable family proved universally appealing because they were merely a middle-class family who happened to be Black. With race in the background rather than the foreground, audiences were responsive to The Cosby Show throughout the decade. Scholars have argued that in presenting a singular view of middle-class blackness, The Cosby Show seemed unwilling to critique and engage other aspects of the Black experience. In particular, the sitcom rarely commented on the economic and social disparities facing millions of Blacks outside the middle class, particularly those of the purported “underclass.” Herman Gray notes, “While effectively representing middle-class blackness as one expression of black diversity, the show in turn submerged other sites, tensions, and points of difference by consistently celebrating mobility, unlimited consumerism, and the patriarchal nuclear family” (1995, 82). In effect, the Huxtables were walking billboards for the politics of colorblindness and other staples of Reagan-style New Right ideology, such as the virtues of family values, bootstrap capitalism, and personal responsibility. Readily identifiable to the white middle-class counterparts, yet distinct from the Black poor, the Huxtables advanced comforting images of middle- and upper-class Black people with appropriate backgrounds, values, and accordingly the viewer is to understand, the success that comes with such commonalities. The Huxtables—later to be followed by exceptional forces such as Oprah, Michael Jordan, and even Tiger Woods—were in the words of Craig Watkins “model minorities”—wildly successful racial minorities held up as everyday examples of what merit and hard work can achieve in a colorblind society (Watkins 1998). All were celebrated by neoconservatives, presenting both to counter the purported dependence of the underclass and to affirm their commitment to colorblindness and racial equality. For some, the fundamental miscalculation of the show—an attempt on Cosby’s part to represent the Black family with dignity—turned out to be the inability of positive images of blackness to counter the saturation of negative images of blackness strewn across the public sphere, particularly on nightly news set against the emergence of crack cocaine. In fact, scholars have argued that the existence of images like the Huxtables and other model minorities gave negative assertions of blackness—what others have called “cultural Moynihanism”—safe harbor as objective rather than racist: “The existence of positive or in this case normalized middle-class representations in many ways legitimizes those stereotypical, negative, and otherwise harmful representations” (Leonard and Guerrero 2013, 121). For Cosby, the mission was to counter said images by sticking to the long-held politics of respectability, self-help, and uplift. In countless interviews and in particular after the show’s run, Cosby railed against television’s emphasis on the black masses, particularly the purported “underclass” that Cosby often cast as part of the problem for a lack of values, motivation, and education. In his attempt to recuperate Black respectability through the trope of the stable and unified Black middle-class family, The Cosby Show may have wittingly or unwittingly served as

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a foil to justify and undermine poor Black families of the period. Per Sut Jhally and Justin Lewis: “The only way to explain the failure of most black people to achieve what the Huxtables have achieved is to see most black people as intrinsi­ cally lazy or stupid” (qtd. in Hunt 2005, 75). In a study of how viewers internalized the sitcom, scholars found that many respondents came away with several misguided beliefs that undergird Reagan ideology in the era of colorblindness: enhanced Black beliefs in the utility and prevalence of both integration and assimilation; a wider belief by viewers that in fact a much larger black middle class existed at the time; and most troublingly, those that did not “make it” increasingly internalized feelings of failures. Respondents also frequently blamed the black poor for their own failings (Hunt 2005, 65–67). Each episode began with a shot of the Huxtable brownstone’s exterior, a symbol of domesticity, progress, and the American Dream. To his credit, Cosby insisted on creative control and did much to ensure that Black culture, albeit not all Black culture, permeated the show’s set (the Huxtable family home), soundtrack, and general milieu. Cosby went as far as to hire Harvard professor Dr. Alvin E. Poussaint to ensure the shows “realism.” The goal was to “infuse black culture in a seamless way” through music, art, references to black theater and colleges (Pieraccini and Alligood 2005, 44). Most notably, through Cliff Huxtable’s consistent dedication to his alma mater, a fictional Historically Black College or University (HBCU) called Hillman College. Traces of Hillman are everywhere throughout the show, occasionally driving plot, and permanently in the background at home as Cosby frequently wore his Hillman College sweatshirt. The children’s rooms also seamlessly integrate elements of Black culture, if often apolitical, such as posters of Duke Ellington, Michael Jackson, and Michael Jordan. Ultimately though, some critiques have argued this is the problem, all traces of blackness recede to the background or remain symbolic without a requisite investigation of its meaning. For some, The Cosby Show had merely reduced blackness to aesthetics—Theo’s high-top fade or Denise’s natural hair. When blackness or Black politics were offered the potential to be less muted, NBC affiliates often intervened. One otherwise innocuous set detail attracted the ire of commercial brass, an “Abolish Apartheid” poster in Theo’s bedroom. While the poster remained in the shot due to Cosby’s insistence, the issue itself was never directly addressed as it would be in later shows such as A Different World. Television historians have concluded that the juxtaposition of symbolic, yet safe, representation set against the invisibility and erasure of substantive representations and explorations of blackness is exactly what made The Cosby Show a ratings success perfect for its age. Providing proof positive of the meritocratic American Dream, the Huxtables presented race via a Black family where many viewers commented, “you can’t notice it at all.” Simultaneously, some Black viewers critiqued the show because the family acted “just like white people” (Hunt 2005, 77–78). The soft bigotry, the failure to see, is grounded in the period’s broader failure or unwillingness to see race, class, and structures of inequality in an honest or nuanced way. The Cosby Show offered consistent ratings success. To



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many, the show’s message suggested only one way to achieve the American Dream without white skin, compromise and assimilation: “The Huxtables represent the compromise between black and white culture that is unconsciously seen as a prerequisite to black success” (Hunt 2005, 78).

A DIFFERENT WORLD Following the unprecedented ratings of The Cosby Show, NBC producers sought to extend their success by recreating the HBCU experience, initially following the Huxtables’ daughter Denise (Lisa Bonet) to her father’s alma mater, Hillman College. Similarly, A Different World enjoyed ratings success, especially in Black households, where the show ranked number one in 1987 through 1992 representing the longest run at the top for any show among Black viewers (Pieraccini and Alligood 2005, 45). Perhaps the most notable progress that explains the success of the show is not what was in front of the camera, but rather, those working behind the scenes. After season one, Debbie Allen was hired to improve the show’s ability in representation of Black student life at an HBCU. Allen herself an alumna of Howard University fit the bill. More important, the writers themselves were diverse, from various backgrounds, although mostly educated at predominately elite White institutions. Perhaps most pathbreaking, the seven-member writing team consisted of more women than men (Gray 1995, 99). The presence and authority of Black women permeated the show, its set, the theme song, and episode as well as character arcs. The deliberate emphasis on gender and racial diversity in all aspects of production contributed to the new and distinctive character of the show. Progress behind the scenes often translated on screen as the show “commandeered mainstream television conventions to present black life and issues in new, entertaining, and sometimes poignant ways” (Gray 1995, 94). While the show still operated under the traditional auspices of network television of the period—namely conflict, resolution, and stasis—the show found room in unconventional spaces to explore more diverse perspectives within Black culture and Black experience. Beginning with the thematic hook sung by Aretha Franklin, the opening montage and the stories it framed announced and celebrated cultural difference: “A different world.” In this respect, A Different World moved well beyond The Cosby Show as it did not cater to and through the lens of whiteness. The sitcom distinguished itself from The Cosby Show and other shows of the period by explicitly situating itself within a broader set of Black social and cultural discourses, especially cinema, hip-hop, sports, and African American Studies. Through the sitcom, A Different World contributed to a process Cornel West has described as the “African Americanization” of U.S. popular culture. In the 1980s, A Different World represented one of the few sitcoms willing to engage, with some degree of authenticity and nuance, cultural tensions and emerging debates regarding sexuality, violence against women, and colorism within blackness. By deliberately emphasizing differences in backgrounds, class, and complexions in their casting, the show “broke with television’s conventional

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construction of African Americans as monolithic” (Gray 1995, 98). Rather than allowing race to recede, showrunners celebrated the dynamism of black people, Black culture, and the Black experience. In one episode, Kim (Charnele Brown), a premed student, confronts painful memories from elementary school where she had been the object of ridicule because of her dark skin. Recalling the painful childhood memories when confronted with negative stereotypes and imagery in memorabilia from the old South, Kim first refuses to participate in a campus event for Black History Month. In the same episode, a light-skinned Whitley (Jasmine Guy) discovers that her great grandparents were slave owners. In this respect, the episode probes the complex ways “black women’s bodies are often at the intersection of race, class, and gender, both within blackness and in relations between blacks and whites” (Gray 1995, 98). Quite deliberately, all of the shows primary characters functioned within the ensemble to embody a wide range of positionality and experience within Black life. Whitley, the pampered and light-skinned southern belle; Freddie (Cree Summer), the politically correct neo-urban hippie; Dwayne Wayne (Kadeem Hardison), the b-boy with interest in computers; Ron (Daryl Bell), the self-absorbed, on-the-make entrepreneur; Kim, the serious, often reserved and high-achieving student; and Jaleesa (Dawnn Lewis), a nontraditional student who returns to college at age twenty-six following a divorce. Scholars have concluded that the show spoke unapologetically to a Black audience about the diversity of the Black experience. The sitcom’s ratings success in Black homes then should come as no surprise. Writers used classroom scenes to discuss the contributions of often erased or marginalized Black historical figures. References to musicians, athletes, celebrities, clothes, and hair more clearly spoke to a Black audience with less concern in mediating content for the delight, security, and understanding of a White audience. Brimming with intertextual references to black popular culture, current events, and contemporary debates about blackness, A Different World managed to change the terrain while playing within the confines of traditional conflict-resolution sitcoms of the period. Traversing themes and issues like racial conflict, Apartheid and corporate investment in South Africa, sexual harassment and sexual violence, HIV/AIDS, and Affirmative Action, A Different World did its best to provide just that—different and timely programming for Black audiences hungry for genuine representation and dialogue over issues germane to Black life at the time.

FRANK’S PLACE Despite its short run, Frank’s Place managed to stretch conventions of 1980s television much like A Different World, using location as a vehicle to celebrate and explore Black southern culture in New Orleans. Frank Parrish (Tim Reid), a professor of Renaissance History from Boston, inherits a New Orleans restaurant from his father with little knowledge of New Orleans, and even less regarding the maintenance and managing of a restaurant. Over the course of the twenty-twoepisode arc, audiences, along with Parrish, learn the nuances of managing a



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restaurant. Parrish’s journey allows the audience to learn about the nuances of Black culture in New Orleans. The primary characters include a nearly all-Black cast, most of whom work in the restaurant or have become fixtures: Miss Marie (Frances E. Williams) the “waitress emeritus,” an elderly Black woman; Big Arthur (Tony Burton), a Black chef, and his White assistant, Shorty (Don Yesso); Anna-May (Francesca Roberts), a middle-aged Black waitress; and Tiger (Charles Lampkin), the elderly Black bartender, and his assistant, Cool Charles (William Thomas Jr.), also black. The clientele of the local community includes a variety of Black business owners and community leaders like Mrs. Bertha Griffin-Lemour (Virginia Capers), a funeral home director, and Reverend Deal (Lincoln Kilpatrick). Frank’s Place was a rich portrait of a small Black business in a working-class neighborhood. Not unlike Zora Neale Hurston’s work to affirm and celebrate the daily dignity of Black working-class life, Frank’s Place offers a noble and serious representation of the Black working-class experience that stands out from other programming. Actress Rosaline Cash identified this emphasis as a departure from standard commercial television with respect to race: “In my neighborhood I saw people who I respected: the shopkeeper, the butcher, the cobbler . . . the man who used to come through and sharpen knives. . . . I never saw that on screen” (qtd. in Gray 1995, 119). In an era of programming that emphasized interpersonal conflict resolution to ignore more substantive social and political issues, Frank’s Place offered a different type of narrative. CBS had experienced a drop in its ratings during the previous season. It was temporarily willing to experiment with Frank’s Place, affording the show’s producers Hugh Wilson and Tim Reid significant latitude. Minimal interference from network executives allowed Wilson and Reid—both southerners, Wilson (White) and Reid (Black)—to use their own life experiences and collaborate with a largely Black crew to humanize, offer depth, and otherwise tell stories centered around Black history and culture. Black culture was central to the lives of the characters, the setting, and structure of the show. In this respect Frank’s Place was different, offering a counter to the familiarity, absence, and silences of The Cosby Show and like-minded programming. If the Harlem Renaissance of the early part of the twentieth century was an attempt by Black artists to define and redefine blackness on their own terms, shows like A Different World and Frank’s Place made their own small contributions on the television screen, and an era where blackness was often ignored, minimized, rescued, or demonized on sitcoms and nightly news. In providing alternative representations, Frank’s Place attempted to rewrite and redefine Black culture and Black subjectivities: “The aspirations, pressures, joys, and troubles of waiters, cooks, and regular folks were represented with integrity rather than with the derision, exaggeration, and marginalization that too often are found in other television representations of blacks and working-class people” (Gray 1995, 121). Much like Hillman College served as a vehicle through location, the chosen setting of New Orleans was in many ways its own character, allowing for a historical and contemporary exploration of race and place. Before launching the

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show, the coproducers took several trips to New Orleans to get a feel for the “ambience and texture” of life—frequently visiting with ordinary folks in the community. They were especially interested in, and succeeded admirably given their limitations, in getting an “interior sense” of the local Black business community. Both producers likened their experience on those early trips as to that of oral historians (Gray 1995, 115). The montage opening of the show intentionally foregrounds Black New Orleans with shots of riverboats, the Mississippi River, the French Quarter, Congo Square and Creole custom, food, and culture. The history of New Orleans, particularly as a center for cultural and diasporic exchange is also explored. In one episode, a group of touring African musicians are treated to dinner. After the musicians are treated to dinner, they have a long discussion with staff about food, music, and culture, especially those they have in common— highlighting continuity in the African Diaspora. For scholars, that Frank’s Place remained a commercial failure despite receiving positive critical reviews highlights the limitations of challenging dominant television structures. It also raises questions not only of what viewers expected, but what they were willing to consume in an era when most gravitated toward predictability and a return to a variety of old norms, many of them troubling, with regards to race. The show demanded competence, patience, and engagement from its audience. In the words of Herman Gray, the show may have, “required too much work; it may have asked too much of an audience for which African American culture remained a fuzzy and distant experience” (Gray 1995, 125). Nonetheless, Frank’s Place intentionally emphasized Black people, Black culture, and the Black community without the mediation of the white gaze. When asked about his vision for the show coproducer Tim Reid explained: “I didn’t want to do a half hour of silliness. . . . It’s not enough anymore for a black to be able play parts written for whites. . . . Too often I’ve seen talented blacks gain some power, only to lose it because they are afraid that they won’t be hired again if they write their kind of stories” (qtd. in Gray 1995, 116).

CONCLUSION In April 1992, the final episode of The Cosby Show dovetailed with another flashpoint of race, power, and inequality in the United States; the second day of the Los Angeles Uprising following the murder of Latasha Harlins, the beating of Rodney King, and the subsequent acquittals of both sets of offenders. Set against imagery of Los Angeles burning, replete with historically rooted expressions of desperation, rage, and frustration, the limits of The Cosby Show and the mirage of colorblindness appeared to be on full display. In a sign that programming would have to do more to engage rather than sublimate the full range of Black experiences, particularly that of the Black masses, The Arsenio Hall Show (1989– 1994) scrapped regular programming for the evening to focus on the meaning and historical context of the uprisings. While Hall’s show would have plenty of its own problematic racial and cultural politics, the willingness to interrogate race and racial problems with substance rather than symbolism pointed to an



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exhausted system of obfuscation and containment. Much like the sitcoms of A Different World and Frank’s Place, programming was moving toward spaces that allowed for authentic Black expressions of Black life, and a range of Black lives at that. Michael J. Durfee Further Reading

Burns, Sarah. 2012. The Central Park Five: The Untold Story behind One of New York City’s Most Infamous Crimes. New York: Vintage Press. Byfield, Natalie. 2014. Savage Portrayals: Race, Media and the Central Park Jogger Story. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Campbell, Richard. 1991. 60 Minutes and the News: A Mythology for Middle America. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Campbell, Richard, and Jimmie Reeves. 1994. Cracked Coverage: Television News, The Anti-Cocaine Crusade, and the Reagan Legacy. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Correy, John. 1986. “TV: ‘CBS Reports’ Examines Black Families. The New York Times, January 25, 49. Courtwright, David. 1996. Violent Land: Single Men and Social Disorder from the Frontier to the Inner City. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. 1989. “TV’s Black World Turns—But Stays Unreal.” New York Times, November 12. ­https://​­w ww​.­nytimes​.­com​/­1989​/­11​/­12​/­arts​/­t v​-­s​-­black​-­world​ -­t urns​-­but​-­stays​-­unreal​.­html. Gray, Herman. 1995. Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for Blackness. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Hunt, Darnell M. 2005. Channeling Blackness: Studies on Television and Race in America. New York: Oxford University Press. Hunter-Lattany, Kristin. 1984. “Why Buckwheat Was Shot.” MELUS: Ethnic Images in Popular Genres and Media 11 (3): 79–85. Jacobson, Matthew Frye. 2006. Roots Too: White Ethnic Revival in Post-Civil Rights America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Jhally, Sut, and Justin Lewis. 1992. Enlightened Racism: The Cosby Show, Audiences, and the Myth of the American Dream. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Leonard, David J., and Lisa A. Guerrero. 2013. African Americans on Television: Race-ing for Ratings. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. MacDonald, J. Fred. 1983. Blacks and White TV: Afro-Americans in Television since 1948. Chicago: Nelson-Hall. Pieraccini, Christina, and Douglass Alligood. 2005. Color Television: Sixty Years of African American and Latino Images on Prime Time Television. Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt. Smith-Shomade, Beretta E. 2003. Shaded Lives: African American Women and Television. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Smith-Shomade, Beretta E. 2013. Watching While Black: Centering the Television of Black Audiences. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Torres, Sasha. 1998. Living Color: Race and Television in the United States. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Watkins, Craig. 1998. Representing: Hip-Hop Culture and the Production of Black Cinema. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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The 1990s Representations of race on American television in the 1990s found African Americans, Latinxs, and Asian Americans mainly in sitcoms. Scholars argue that what happened in the 1990s continued the long-term trends that started in the 1970s with Black performers finding roles on shows in a handful of comedies. However, by the 1980s, the African American sitcom would focus on middle-class Blacks such as the Huxtables on The Cosby Show (1984–1992) and young African American college students on A Different World (1987–1993). People of color also found success in the first half of the 1990s either in mixed ensemble casts or on shows stressing idealized, classless environments. By the late 1990s, sitcoms, as well as dramas, had become hyper-segregated with shows being deliberately framed as either Black or White, with only a handful of ensemble multiracial casts. By far, two shows symbolized how far television programming had moved away from the types of story lines and representations offered by The Cosby Show: The Fresh Prince of Bel Air (1990–1996) and In Living Color (1990–1994). Fresh Prince starred rapper Will Smith as William “Will” Smith, alongside James Avery as Philip Banks, Tatyana Ali as Ashley Banks, Alfonso Ribeiro as Carlton, and Karyn Parsons as Hilary Banks. The show focused on Will, a streetwise teenager, moving across the country to live with his wealthy Black family in California. While occasionally focusing on social issues, the majority of episodes revolved around fish-out-of-water comedic involving Will assimilating into the wealthy Bel Air neighborhood. Compared to The Cosby Show, which had a distant relationship with hip-hop culture, and A Different World, which was slightly more tolerant, featuring rap music and occasional performance by rappers like the young duo Kris Kross, Fresh Prince embraced hip-hop. With Smith rapping the introductory theme song (“Yo Home to Bel-Air”) and numerous rap and hip-hop stars appearing on the show regularly like Boys II Men, Bell Biv Devoe, and Queen Latifah, Fresh Prince staged hip-hop and blackness in significant ways. While Smith’s success in the music world itself (earning the first Grammy ever in the category of rap) aided Fresh Prince, the show also benefited from the growing popularity of music channels like MTV, VH1, and BET. Beyond appearances by fellow rappers and musicians, Smith and NBC used the release of his rap records (and music videos) as parts of the show helping to promote Smith and Fresh Prince. “Boom! Shake the Room,” a single from Smith’s album, Code Red, was given a world premiere on NBC following the end of a Fresh Prince episode. But both Smith and NBC were careful to market the use of rap music toward a family-friendly, pop music genre avoiding the much more explicit and grittier gangster rap of Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg who were also popular in the early 1990s. Finally, whereas Cosby kept some distance from his onscreen persona Cliff Huxtable, Smith made the onscreen persona and himself virtually identical. Although Fresh Prince was not explicitly based on Smith’s life, many details, such as Will coming from Philadelphia and being raised by a single mother, were



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borrowed from Smith’s personal biography. This formula would be used repeatedly in future shows, such as Moesha (1996–2001), with singer Brandy’s Moesha Mitchell playing essentially a variation of her good-girl media image. Despite the massive success of Fresh Prince, NBC had trouble duplicating its success. Fresh Prince executive producer Quincy Jones created a show Out All Night (1992) set in the same fictive universe, featuring Patti LaBelle as manager of a nightclub, in which Parsons appeared as Hilary. In another Jones-produced sitcom In the House (1995–1999), Ribeiro, Ali, and Avery appeared as their Fresh Prince characters in several crossover episodes, but despite the nearly identical formula of a rap star (LL Cool J) anchoring a sitcom, neither In the House nor Out All Night lasted beyond a few seasons on NBC. Although not a global phenomenon like Fresh Prince, Fox’s sketch comedy show, In Living Color, developed a significant following. Featuring Keenen Ivory Wayans, Jim Carrey, Marlon Wayans, Jamie Foxx, Chris Rock, Steve Park, and Rosie Perez, In Living Color blended music and comedy together alongside of social commentary. In Living Color was perhaps the most racially diverse program of the early 1990s featuring a Black-majority cast with Asian American (Park), Latinx (Perez), and White (Carrey) performers. Although Perez did not perform in the sketches themselves, she choreographed a troupe of dancers, the Fly Girls, featuring a young Jennifer Lopez. Unlike both The Cosby Show and Fresh Prince, In Living Color was directly political, commenting on the 1992 presidential race, the 1992 Los Angeles uprising, affirmative action, and other social issues. However, the main appeal of the show was the dexterity of the performers in imitating celebrities as well as representing original characters like Jim Carrey’s Fire Marshall Bill. While there were differences, In Living Color followed several elements set forward by the successes of Fresh Prince. Whereas the first season featured a theme song sung by singers, the second season and every season thereafter of In Living Color featured a rap song from Heavy D. Similarly, rap songs were incorporated directly into the show with rappers appearing near the end to perform a song. Music and music videos were also alluded to within the show with Carrey, Wayans, and others spoofing famous pop and rap artists like Madonna and Jackson. It was also highly transnational making fun of black but non-American Caribbean reggae artist Shaba Ranks. Another hit Fox show, Martin (1992–1995), also incorporated music and hip-hop imagery but less directly. Starring black comedian Martin Lawrence, Martin focused on the titular character’s life as a DJ. Taking a page from In Living Color, Lawrence like Carrey performed several characters on the show. Fox, in particular, made attracting African Americans and other communities a priority, airing a number of shows including The Sinbad Show (1993–1994), South Central (1994), The Show (1996), Roc (1991–1994), and Living Single (1993–1998) designed to appeal to that audience. Martin, however, was not without its critics. Commentators lamented its embrace of sexist and hyper-masculine tropes and themes that were commonplace to television programming in the 1990s. While women played a strong role in several Fox programs like Living Single and South Central, an overwhelming number

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of programs focused on the travails of male protagonists. Relatedly, none of the popular sitcoms (Martin, Fresh Prince) featured LGBTQ characters. In fact, the LGBTQ community was often demonized and mocked. Similarly, Still other critics celebrated these shows not only for the increased diversity they brought to television but also the range of experiences represented alongside of a willingness to address social issues. For example, Roc looked at the lives of a working-class black community and also featured a number of plotlines concerned with social issues. In its series finale, “You Shouldn’t Have to Lie” (1994), Roc addressed the AIDS epidemic. Learning that his friend’s daughter is HIV-positive, Roc and the audiences were educated about the many facets of the AIDS epidemic. Several episodes of Fox’s 90210 (1990–2000) also addressed AIDS. While critics celebrated these episodes as challenging existing stereotypes and educating the public about this health crisis, others questioned whether the framing of AIDS as a disease anyone could get ignored the specific role (and impact) the disease had on communities of color and the white LBGTQ community. For the most part, the first half the 1990s had people of color appearing in sitcoms; in many cases, this era was defined by a male singer/rapper or comedian playing the leading star. House of Buggin’, featuring John Leguizamo, an all-Latinx sketch show, lasted only a single season (1995). Similarly, Asian American comedian Margaret Cho’s ABC sitcom All-American Girl (1995) also was on the air for only a single season. While these programs did not find commercial success, their significance can be seen in the increased visibility afforded to both the Asian American and Latinx communities, with their efforts to break down barriers, and through their giving voice to the experiences long ignored by television. The Fresh Prince-Martin formula exercised a strong influence on network programming. Yet, replicating the success that Smith had was elusive. By latter half of the 1990s, television programming would become more inclusive as it relates to women. At the same time, television became less and less racially diverse. Two factors affected the shifting focus onto white female-centric shows. One was the rise of the WB and UPN as rival networks to ABC, NBC, and CBS. Whereas the networks historically targeted a broad audience, the WB and UPN were willing to settle for a smaller but more loyal viewership: young white people. Second, Fox retreated from its earlier commitment to bringing diversity to television and otherwise telling stories of marginalized communities. In an effort to compete with the major networks, Fox leveraged its diverse television lineup to not only reach audiences historically ignored but also to differentiate itself from its competitors. However, once Fox established itself as a viable television network, especially after it landed the NFL, it steadily moved to whitewash its programming. Amid this a vacuum, UPN and WB embraced the niche strategy that FOX had pioneered, albeit with shows that centered whiteness in an effort to reach white youth audiences. Still, it also produced a number of shows that centered on African American characters. The WB aired shows such as Sister, Sister (1995–1999), The Wayans Brothers (1995–1999), The Jamie Foxx Show (1996–2001), and The Steve Harvey Show



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(1996–2002). The UPN produced Malcolm and Eddie (1996–2000), Sparks (1996– 1998), and Moesha (1996–2001). Unlike its predecessors, these shows focused on a female star or stars like Brandy on Moesha and the Mowry twins on Sister, Sister. Alongside of its shows that featured a number of black performers, these networks also sought to reach white youth audiences with a number of shows that offered all-White worlds. The WB had Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003) and Felicity (1998–2002), both of which had nearly all-White casts. Buffy is complex because its focus on whiteness is addressed internally. In a very memorable monologue, Mr. Trick, an African American demon, says “I mean, admittedly, it’s [Sunnydale] not a haven for the brothers. You know, strictly the Caucasian persuasion here in the dale.” While each of these shows had black, white, and Latinx actors in either recurring or regular roles, each network embraced a marketing strategy that focused on reaching either black or white audiences depending on the show. For example, while Moesha was quite popular with African Americans, it was only a minor hit among white audiences. As Yvette Lee Bowser, creator and executive producer of Living Single lamented: “This industry should not make the assumption that because a show has a Black cast it is only for Black people, but they do” (Sterngold 1998). Although Buffy and its spin-off Angel (1999–2004) had majority White casts, Latinxs and African Americans were more prominently featured in the middle and later seasons. Yet, these characters were often depicted as racially ambiguous, as White or Black. Charisma Carpenter who is Latina appeared on Buffy and Angel yet was clearly positioned as a “White” Valley girl (Hernandez 2013). Similarly, J. August Richards was presented as “Black” despite being Latinx on Angel (Hernandez 2013). Even in the late 1990s, programmers were nervous in presenting biracial stars and insisted on stars being either Black or White. The need to frame content for such a niche audience was reinforced by a strong focus on short-term profits. Shows that did not immediately perform exceptionally well were unable to build an audience to continue airing. However, profitability did sometimes aid minorities. Not beholden to advertisers, subscriber channels like HBO had an incentive to deliver content that appealed to its audience, resulting in greater diversity in story lines and in terms of performances. Veteran Latinx and Asian American stars (Rita Moreno, BD Wong) appeared on HBO’s Oz (1997–2003). HBO also gave opportunities for people of color to not only perform but also direct and produce content. Forrest Wittaker directed Strapped (1993) for HBO. Comedian Chris Rock hosted his own talk show (1997–2001). It also featured representations never seen before on either network or cable channels with Spawn (1997–1999), an animated series portraying an African American urban superhero voiced by Keith David. Despite progress, increased representation did not necessarily produce new story lines and types of characters across television. Adilifu Nama (2003) argues that the representation in the late 1990s should be seen as necessarily

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meaning a rise in racial tolerance. While network dramas had an exceptionally large number of people of color on popular, prime-time shows like ER (1994– 2009), LA Law (1986–1994), Law and Order (1990–2010), and The Practice (1997–2004), and many others. Yet as Nama (2003) stresses that within these shows, characters of color were usually subordinate to the leading white performers. Many characters of color were often portrayed in interracial relationships. African Americans appeared more than Latinxs. But Black and Latinx male stars dwarfed Asian Americans, male or female, who rarely appeared at all. While Daniel Kim appeared on Angel and Garrett Wang on Star Trek Voyager (1996–2002), stereotypes persisted within these sorts of roles. Scholars note that when Asian American women appeared on network television they were often represented as the “dragon lady” stereotype, such as Lucy Liu on Ally McBeal (1997–2002) or sexually alluring “geisha,” such as Ming Na’s character on ER. While UPN and WB often more empowering and diverse representations, stereotypes persisted. Kim played an uptight, sexless lawyer on Angel who backed down from physical confrontations and constantly humiliated by his white female rival, Lilah. Wang played a sexually hapless ensign Harry Kim on Voyager. One of the few Arabs shown on television was British-born Arabic actor Alexander Siddig playing Doctor Julian Bashir on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine for its whole run (1993–1999). Bashir portrayed a sexy (if not always successful) romantic pursuing various women on the ship. Yet despite being set in a mythic, science-fiction universe, critics question the perpetuation of long-standing stereotypes. Bashir covets White women, holding them up as ideal constructs of beauty. Wang’s Kim also idealizes Libby, a former white girlfriend. Deep Space Nine does remain the only Star Trek program to feature an African American male, Benjamin Sisko, as the captain of a Federation vessel.

CONCLUSION Television historians have concluded that while the 1990s saw increased diversity, it also saw a continuation of long-standing stereotypes and trends. People of color tended to be concentrated into sitcoms and/or skit shows. But some slight changes did occur. The growing popularity of hip-hop culture and MTV made African American rap and R & B singers more marketable. Black comedians, like Martin Lawrence and Chris Rock also had wider opportunities though not always on network television. Latinx performers were less visible than their African Americans peers, while Asian American and Native Americans were rarely seen on television and, when represented, almost wholly in stereotypical ways. The entry of direct rivals to the major networks by UPN and the WB, as well as paid channels like HBO and Showtime, allowed for a market for African American and Latinx performers to star and create their own content. But several regressive and progressive values were reinforced by a greater focus on profits. Female-centric shows, like Buffy and Moesha, became more financially attractive.



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However, more female-friendly content became extremely segregated with shows increasingly promoted either for Blacks or Whites only. Ensemble casts with white and Black performers became rarer. Cable and paid channels were slightly more daring putting minorities in leading roles and in producing experimental content. But even non-network television tended to try to appease both white and black audiences with broad stereotypes. The late 1990s were somewhat more diverse in terms of gender roles than the beginning of the decade but much more segregated and market-oriented by the end of decade. Christian Jimenez Further Reading

Braxton, Greg. 1993. “Has NBC Given Up on Black Shows?” Los Angeles Times, June 16. ­http://​­articles​.­latimes​.­com​/­1993​- ­06​-­16​/­entertainment​/­ca​-­3743​_1​_fall​-­shows. Hammer, Joshua. 1992. “Must Blacks Be Buffoons?” Newsweek, October 25. ­http://​­w ww​ .­newsweek​.­com​/­must​-­blacks​-­be​-­buffoons​-­200088. Hernandez, Lee. 2013. “5 Joss Whedon Actors You Never Knew Were Latino!” Latina, May 2. ­http://​­w ww​.­latina​.­com​/­entertainment​/­t v​/­5​-­joss​-­whedon​-­actors​-­you​-­never​ -­k new​-­were​-­latino. Lacroix, Celeste C. 2011. “High Stakes Stereotypes: The Emergence of the ‘Casino Indian.’” Trope in Television Depictions of Contemporary Native Americans. Howard Journal of Communications 22 (1): 1–23. Nama, Adilifu. 2003. “More Symbol than Substance: African American Representation in Network Television Dramas.” Race and Society 6 (1): 21–38. Nelson, Angela M. 2008. “African American Stereotypes in Prime-Time Television: An Overview, 1948–2007.” In African Americans and Popular Culture, edited by Todd Boyd, 185–216. Westport, CT: Praeger. Quinn, Eithne. 2013. “Black Talent and Conglomerate Hollywood: Will Smith, Tyler Perry, and the Continuing Significance of Race.” Popular Communication 11 (3): 196–210. Sterngold, James. 1998. “A Racial Divide Widens on Network TV.” New York Times, December 29, A1. ­http://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­1998​/­12​/­29​/­us​/­a​-­racial​-­divide​-­widens​ -­on​-­network​-­t v​.­html. Zook, Kristal Brent. 1999. Color by Fox: The FOX Network and the Revolution in Black Television. New York: Oxford University Press.

The 2000s By the beginning of the twenty-first century, communities of color had made major inroads in almost all television genres. The influence of television is great with the average American watching five hours and fifteen minutes of television per day in the 2000s (Tukachinsky, Mastro, and Yarchi 2015, 18). While the quality of representation improved slightly for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), numerical parity except for African Americans remained weak. From 1987 to 2009, Latinxs appeared in 4 to 6.5 percent of all programs, though this was well below their representation given that they were 16 percent of all Americans (19).

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In the case of African Americans, they were between “14% and 17% of the primetime population . . . and approximately 13% of the U.S. population . . . [But] Black Americans . . . [were] disproportionately featured in sitcoms and crime dramas” (Tukachinsky, Mastro, and Yarchi 2015, 19). Asian Americans comprised 5 percent of the U.S. population but only 3 percent of the prime-time population and often “in minor and nonrecurring roles” yet consistently shown in “often high-status figures” (19). Yet of all groups, “Native Americans face an unprecedented form of invisibility on television, often entirely absent from the TV landscape. . . . Native Americans (approximately 1% of the U.S. population) are found to represent between 0.0% and 0.4% of the characters in primetime television” (Tukachinsky, Mastro, and Yarchi 2015, 19). These quantitative studies are useful, but qualitative case studies are needed because although minorities rose in representation in all cases with the exception of Native Americans, they often were concentrated in certain genres.

SITCOM: NEW STEREOTYPES AND OLD Situation comedies have often been a major route to stardom for BIPOC communities. Comedies can expose the tensions of racism and even subvert prejudice. However, even within a liberal framework, sitcoms that feature homosexual characters and interracial relationships can still hold troublesome stereotypes. NBC’s Will and Grace (1998–2006) focused on the comic adventures of a gay lawyer, Will (Eric McCormick), and his female friend Grace (Debra Messing). While the main cast was White, there were some prominent characters of color, who reinforced dominant stereotypes. Will and Grace featured a Latinx character, Rosario, who was noteworthy for fitting the comic stereotype of a Latinx with a “heavy accent, laziness, secondary status, and lack of intelligence” (Mastro and Behm-Morawitz 2005, 111). On NBC’s Scrubs (2001–2010), Donald Faison portrayed an African American doctor (Dr. Christopher Turk), who served as the loyal best friend of JD (Zack Braff), the show’s star, and Judy Reyes, a Latinx actress, who played nurse Carla Espinosa. While the show itself is friendly to multiculturalism, stereotypes were used often. While Espinosa plays a major role as a minority woman, medical professional, the focus is on the White lead characters, JD and Elliott Reid (Sarah Chalke) and their love lives. Although Espinosa is a subordinate on the show, she does use humor to deflate JD and his fantasies. While the Reyes character is not portrayed as lazy, she does conform to other aspects of the Latinx stereotype, namely her heavy accent and her secondary status. Her intelligence is also downplayed. Although she is often able to see through the many schemes JD and Turk create, she is not regarded as an intellectual and is framed as having limited cognitive skills. In contrast, Elliott (a White woman) is shown to be thoroughly intellectual. But Scrubs is noteworthy for having a rare Asian character, Franklyn, played by Japanese American actor, Masayori “Masi” Oka, who appeared in a minor yet recurring role.



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Similarly, NBC’s 30 Rock (2006–2013) featured Black comedian, Tracey Morgan, a veteran of Saturday Night Live, as a regular cast member. In that show, Morgan is essentially playing an absurd version of himself, as the obnoxious Tracy Jordan. To be sure, Tracy is lovable and kind, but he has no intellectual interests and often exhibits negative qualities. Notably, 30 Rock plays on the stereotypes of all ethnicities. Moreover, the stereotyping is sometimes positive as Morgan is the resident “cool” Black character. However, this contains a double-edged sword, since such cool characters are usually confined to only certain stories. In contrast, the Tina Fey character is given mostly positive qualities, and she is put into various different scenarios. Sitcoms would also feature interracial relationships throughout the 200s. In Modern Family (2009–2020), Mexican actress Sofia Vergara plays Ed O’Neill’s voluptuous wife; there is also a gay couple who are major characters on Modern Family, but that couple is white not interracial—though they eventually adopt an Asian child. Aside from Modern Family, The Big Bang Theory (2007–2019) featured Indian British actor Kunal Nayyar playing physicist Rajesh Ramayan “Raj” Koothrappali. The minority characters on the aforementioned shows are presented as living middle-class lives but exaggeration of certain ethnic features persists. In the case of Modern Family’s Gloria Pritchett (Vergara), the character had many “familiar ethnic characteristics that stereotypically communicate national origin through the use of language, dress, or music, such as the use of Spanish, dance, or salsa music” (Molina-Guzmán 2013, 143). Vergara’s character was intellectually limited. Speaking in broken English and dressed in revealing and colorful clothing, she often conformed to the “harlot” stereotype of Latinas (Mastro and Behm-Morawitz 2005, 111). But in some ways, she also bucked the stereotype in the sense that the harlot is usually a minor character, but Vergara was arguably the show’s biggest star. She is represented as a kind mother; although she is equally portrayed as the Latina trophy wife (of an older White man) sporting heavy makeup and having little intelligence. Sitcoms that embraced stereotypes continue to find success. One of the most multicultural shows was NBC’s The Good Place (2016–2020) starring Kristen Bell. The Good Place stars Bell as the obnoxious Eleanor Shellstrop who was selfish in her human life and sent to a dystopian “good place” by demons in her afterlife. She is paired romantically with a professor of ethics (from a Nigerian background) Chidi Anagony (William Harper). She befriends a Philippine monk, Jianyu (Manny Jacinto), and a wealthy Indian philanthropist Tahani (Jameela Jamil). Despite the veneer of international multiculturalism, most of the main characters are American and speak in an American accent, with the exception of Jamil, who is British. But even here the multiculturalism is weak. Jamil’s rich Indian family who we see through flashbacks is, coincidentally, also English-speaking. They also share Jamil’s affinities for Western clothing, celebrities, and music. Although The Good Place makes nominal allusions to non-American cultures and regions; it is essentially framed within a Christian mythology where everyone speaks English and shares main reference points within American culture and Hollywood contexts.

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The multicultural cast of The Good Place reflects a level of diversity that it doesn’t always sufficiently complicate given its American-centric focus. Although Chidi’s background is Nigerian, he is portrayed as a Black American foremost; he has no trace of an accent and he doesn’t display any significant ties to Nigerian culture. He is consistently shown to be good and honest; he is also a “nerd,” who is painfully indecisive and has poor luck with women. Yet it is arguably Jianyu/Jason who is most problematic. Since Asian Americans are rare in television sitcoms (Fresh off the Boat, 2015–2020, being a noteworthy exception), this character’s inclusion is significant. However, the show plays on two common racial/ethnic stereotypes about men of color. Initially, Jianyu/Jason passes himself off as a monk, and the show teases his sexual inexperience and tendency not to talk. Jason is thus the epitome of the self-effacing, sexless, emotionless Asian man. But when his true identity as a hip-hopper from Florida is revealed through flashbacks, we see he is thoroughly stupid and also criminal-minded. Jason’s stupidity is tied to his love of hip-hop culture and criminality. It plays into White perceptions of hip-hop as mainly for young male adults, moreover, ones who are unable to speak proper English—men who are uneducated and unable to interact in socially healthy ways. To be sure, Jason’s idiocy is so extreme it is not to be taken seriously. When he falls in love with a humanoid robot (Janet), we see this as part of his lovable stupidity—but the obvious joke is that the other couples have “normal” relationships with humans while he has a robot girlfriend and feels no guilt or concern over what his relationship means. Overall, the show also conforms to the White-male savior narrative, since ultimately the characters must rely on their demonic host, Michael—an elderly White man played by Ted Danson, to truly help them attain Heaven (i.e., “the good place”) in the afterlife. The Good Place is strongly emblematic of sitcoms from the early 2000s to the present. BIPOC are welcome and interracial sexuality is assumed to be normal. But characters of color are often shown in extremes either being nerds or vapid harpies or extremely stupid and prone to criminality.

REALITY TV AND RACISM The popularity of reality television increased throughout the early twenty-first century. Shows like Survivor (2000–), The Amazing Race (2001–), The Bachelor (2002–), American Idol (2002–), The Biggest Loser (2004–), and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (2010–), as well as various cities and zip codes, dominated ratings and viewership across major networks. These shows relied heavily on a formula of surveillance, soap opera type melodrama, and competition to appeal to a wide variety of audience members. In terms of race, reality television often featured people of color as criminals in police-reality programs or as bickering housemates. On America’s Next Top Model (2003–), a show hosted and produced by Tyra Banks, a multiracial cast of prospective models vie for a major modeling contract. However, despite its appearance of diversity, for some critics, the show was marred by its attempt to “whiten” Black contestants all while downplaying issues of race



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and colorism inside and outside of the fashion industry. Racquel Gates notes that Danielle, the sixth season winner, who began with a thick southern accent was steadily trained into losing it. In addition, contestants were often forced to sport a straight hairstyle (Gates 2012, 153). The show was also notable for the absence of diversity and representation of certain communities. For example, the show offered few examples of lesbian or bisexual contestants. Bravo created several variations on The Real Housewives during the decade, turning it into a franchise brand by shifting locations. However, only one version, The Real Housewives of Atlanta (2008–) had a mainly Black cast. Analysis of the episodes from media scholar Natasha Howard found “stereotypical portrayals” of women with them shown as untrustworthy, stupid, incompetent, and gold diggers (2015, 105–106). For example, in one episode, Ne Leaks was unable to help her son with a simple math problem involving fractions (107). A similar reality show, VH1’s Flavor of Love (2006–2008) brought together twenty women who compete to go out with Flavor Flav, member of the rap group Public Enemy. The women engaged in absurd tests such as frying chicken for prizes (a dinner at Red Lobster). The show prompted widespread criticism and outrage for its perpetuation of long-standing stereotypes. However, Racquel Gates reads Flavor of Love subversively, as parodying other similar reality shows like Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire? (2000) and The Bachelor. On those shows, usually a rich white male is the prize being competed over. Flavor of Love openly mocks these conventions with Flavor Flav actually referencing the rival programs in the first episode: “I know many of you have seen that show ‘The Bachelor,’ but Flavor is the Blackchelor!” (Gates 2012, 151). Whether VH1 was deliberately stoking racism through its use of a black man with a history of drug abuse and domestic violence, through its efforts to stage competitions that reinforced historic stereotypes and demonization of Black women, or if it was simply an effort to both highlight the absurdity of reality television and the acceptance of the spectacle when involving white participants, is unclear. Controversy wasn’t limited to shows that seemingly embraced spectacle, extreme behavior, and stereotypes. The shows that foregrounded narratives that would show people of color as evidence of progress and racial diversity also prompted significant debate. For example, while people of color, including Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth and Randall Pickett, would be featured prominently on The Apprentice (2004–2017), questions about the racial politics of Donald Trump, the long-time host, persisted. For Pickett, when Trump expressed his desire that he (Pickett) share his 2005 victory with a White costar, the myth of the post-racial promised land was exposed: “[H]e asked me a question that he had never asked any contestant prior . . . [or] after me. He asked me if I wanted to share a title with the white runner-up” (Stanhope 2016).

THE FANTASY GENRE AND DIVERSITY Networks largely abandoned traditional drama narratives focused on the nuclear family. For much of the 2000s, the focus was usually on sexually

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attractive teenagers or young adults and how they interacted among their coworkers and friends. When dramas did appear, they often presented fantasy versions of professional life. It was on cable that families of color received some representation. Showtime aired Resurrection Boulevard (2000–2002) focusing on the Santiago family led by Roberto (Tony Plana) and his son, Carlos (Michael DeLorenzo), a boxer. Characters of color were also allowed to move beyond portraying solely heterosexual characters. While LGBTQ characters of color existed prior to the 2000s, their roles tended to be exceedingly peripheral and inconsequential. In this moment, LGBTQ characters of color could be found in high-level projects. For example, HBO aired Angels in America, a 2003 miniseries based on the Tony-winning play of the same name, about the AIDS crisis in America in the 1980s. While the miniseries did focus mainly on the travails of the white characters, Jeffrey Wright was prominently featured in multiple roles as a Homeless Man, Mr. Lies, and openly gay character, Norman “Belize” Ariaga. One show that was seen as supportive and empowering to the LGBTQ community was the musical comedy Glee (2009–2015). Yet, despite its progressive message, it was not without its critics, who would note the ways sexism operated within the show’s narrative. While the show gave voice to the experiences of gay male characters, little platform was provided for the experiences of lesbian characters. It was only in season three that characters Santana Lopez (Naya Rivera) and Brittany (Heather Morris) were provided a story line about their interracial relationship. Similarly, while Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997– 2003) had an earlier interracial lesbian relationship with Kennedy and Willow, between a Latinx woman and a White woman, respectively, that relationship was received poorly because of its underdevelopment and lack of depth, a theme that cut across shows as it related to women of color, particularly lesbian characters. Shows increasingly based themselves on characters who appeared either in film or comics or both. For example, Blade: The Series (2006), a television series based on the comic book character, had African American rapper/actor Kirk “Sticky Fingaz” Jones in the title role along with Nelson Lee as Shen. While Blade did not last long it broke down barriers that would lead to the development of shows such as Black Lightning (2018–) and Luke Cage (2016–2018). The racialized bias was in the depiction of the majority of explicitly racial minorities in helper roles, although there were a handful of fantasy characters who were explicitly nonwhite. Oka on NBC’s Heroes (2006–2010) played Hiro Nakamura. On the WB, African American actor Samuel Jones played Pete Ross (originally White in the Superman comic) for three seasons as a regular cast member on Smallville (2001–2004). Birds of Prey (2002–2003) focusing on female superheroes in the DC universe also featured a diverse reworking of old characters though it lasted briefly. Charisma Carpenter, a mixed Latinx actress, played Cordelia Chase, a partly demonic heroine on Angel. Forest Whitaker served as the narrator of a revived version of Twilight Zone (2002) on UPN. The new version featured a diverse set of actors including Method Man, Tangi Miller, and Eriq La Salle. But unlike past incarnations, the 2002 version also featured people of color behind the camera serving as



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writers and directors for the show: La Salle wrote and directed one episode, as did Lou Diamond Philips. Despite progress, critics lamented the types of representations afforded to characters of color; fans also questioned certain shows so-called embrace of diversity. On Angel, the character Charles Gunn (J. August Richards), a street-tough vampire fighter, moves away from his urban origins by having his brain enhanced demonically making him a super-smart lawyer of human and demonic law in the final season in 2004. The story reception was mixed. White fans of the show tended to like moving Gunn away from his ghetto/hood origins and making the character more complex. But some critics wondered if there was not a whiff of subtle racism in essentially making Gunn “whiter” by having him exchange in his trademark Sean-Jean sweaters and boots for a three-piece suit (Buchbinder 2007). Despite the increased visibility of people of color in the genre, much of this progress was found with biracial and/or transnational characters. Kristin Kreuk, for instance, a half-Chinese, half-white Canadian actress portrayed Lana Lang, which had been previously played by a white actress, on the WB’s Smallville (2001–2011), a show focused on Superman’s early life. Brazilian-born Morena Baccarin was on Stargate SG-1 (1997–2007) though not as a series regular. She would be a series regular on Joss Whedon’s Firefly, playing a consort in the future (2002). For some critics, the privileging of characters whose identity was less noticeable, and was less central to the narrative, limited the power and potential in the embrace of diversity and inclusion within science-fiction television. For example, on Fox’s Dark Angel (2000–2002) Jessica Alba starred as Max Guevara (X-5 452), a mutant-human hybrid with extraordinary fighting skills. While the show had the mark of a strong female protagonist and liberal politics, it remained averse to racial politics at a certain level. Yet, it also embraced difference in other ways. Max’s friends are people of color and her best friend is openly lesbian and Black, Original Cindy (Valerie Rae Miller)—unlike in Buffy where lesbianism was secretly coded for several seasons and was among middle-class white women. Max’s enemy—Manticore—is represented by evil Whites, male and female, trying to control Max. The show’s soundtrack was produced by the political rap production team, the Bomb Squad, which was behind several Public Enemy records—and PE mythology actually appears in several episodes. Still, Alba is an ambiguous case with the series focused on her sexy, young body often in tight black leather. This hyper-sexualization of her body is not accidental but embedded in stories. In one episode, Max explains that part of her genetic code consists of feline DNA making her strong but also lustful. This conveniently explains (in terms of the plot) why Max is sexualized, while conforming to long-standing stereotypes of Latinas as super-sexual in ways neither white nor African American women can approach. The show is uncannily similar to Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and both Max and Buffy share several features. Like Buffy, Max is overseen and helped by a male patriarch: Giles (Anthony Head), in Buffy’s case and Logan/Eyes Only (Michael Weatherley) in Max’s case. As on Buffy, Max dies in a major episode in an act of self-sacrifice. Characters of color tended to sacrifice themselves across

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the board. For example, in the concluding seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the audience finds out potential slayers are under threat from an ancient evil, the First. The potential slayers, who include Blacks, Latinxs, and Asians gather around (White) Buffy to aid in fighting the apocalypse. Ronna (Indigo), who is African American, and Chao-Ahn (Kristy Wu), who is Chinese, both serve as Buffy’s collaborators. Similar to Dark Angel, the characters brought on Buffy were usually young, sexy stars of all races from Chao-Ahn (Kristy Wu) to Kennedy (Inyari Limon), a Latinx woman. Although Limon got to speak many lines of dialogue in English, Wu simply spoke in Chinese to make crude references to the character’s lactose intolerance. Another UPN program, Star Trek Voyager (1995–2001) had a woman as a captain, Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), for the first time on a Trek series. The show also featured a highly diverse cast with Latinx actors, including Robert Beltran (Commander Chakotay) and Roxann Biggs-Dawson (B’Elanna Torres), as well as Tim Russ, an African American actor who played Tuvok, a Black Vulcan, and Garrett Wang, an Asian American actor, who played Ensign Harry Kim. Diversity was also strong behind the camera with Dawson and Russ directing several episodes of Voyager. Voyager also had an Indigenous hero in a regular role. Although Chakotay is played by a non-First Nations actor, the character “represents the only First Nations character ever portrayed on a weekly American science fiction television series” (Adare 2005, 41). While many saw Beltran’s portrayal of Chakotay as an empowering representation, others questioned the show’s decision to cast a nonindigenous actor as Chakotay. Others lamented consistent errors, including the mixing of Navajo, Mayan, and Aztec Indian rituals with little regard for accuracy. Chakotay also continued a longer history of representing Native Americans as “noble savages,” as asexual, as saints, and as nonthreatening. Hence, in fantasy, with few exceptions, white heroes or heroines remained central to the genre. Seth McFarlane’s The Orville (2017–), clearly based on Star Trek (with some Trek actors appearing), is a parody of various science-fiction tropes. The show includes MacFarlane, as Captain Mercer, and a racially diverse cast. While its narrative tended to reinforce the white male as hero trope, it also continued the tradition of multiracial science-fiction shows. Similarly, its engagement with the history of colonialism, noninterference, and religious tolerance reflected the nature of the genre, demonstrating a willingness to address racial issues. Moreover, it avoided the stereotype of Asians as exotic and foreign. Kelly Hu, an Asian American actress, appears several times as Admiral Ozawa, Mercer’s superior. Yet, despite this progress, there are no Asian Americans as part of the main cast. In some cases, progressive racial messages were embedded into key stories. One episode of Smallville had Superman proudly framing himself as an illegal immigrant. Yet, its characters of color were often presented as sidekicks whose focus was on emulating the show’s white hero. Some shows like Angel did buck this trend by presenting a genuinely multiracial and multifaceted fantasy world with the actors and characters being essentially an ensemble cast. But the most successful fantasy shows tended to have the fewest characters of color. The



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mega-successful HBO series Game of Thrones (2010–2019) is set in a mythic medieval, European context. In all, a number of roles historically imagined as White or European, from knights to lords, would be played by people of color. However, with the exception of Khal Drogo (played by Jason Momoa), none of these roles were critical to the story line or given much depth on-screen. Amid the limited diversity, Game of Thrones also played on long-standing racial stereotypes. Lucian Msamati plays Sallador Saan, a Black pirate lord, whose character fits within historic stereotypes about Black male sexuality and the desirability of White female sexuality. For example, when bargaining whether or not to join a coalition against King Joffrey, Saan insists that Queen Cersei, a beautiful White blonde, be his sexual prize. Eventually, Saan settles just for a payment of gold, but the introduction of Black male desire for White women, of Black male sexual domination, plays into old racial stereotypes. Similarly, while Xaro Xhoan Daxos (Nonso Anozie) is a wealthy Black merchant, he is defined by his insatiable sexual appetites. Further evidence of the show’s embrace of long-standing stereotypes can be seen with the show’s monstrous creatures, the Dothraki. Played by mostly Black actors, including Chuku Modu, Joseph Naufahu, and Fola Evans-Akingbola, the show plays on societal views about black savagery and violence. This theme is made explicit when Cersei, an evil ruler in Westeros refers to them as “foreigners.” While Thrones was innovative in many ways, it did conform to the long-standing practice of representing characters of color as essentially subservient helpers whose existence is connected to their ability to empower their white counterparts. To this end, the show’s central focus is on the heroism of Jon Snow (Kit Harrington) and Daenarys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke). People of color are crucial servants to these characters. Among Daenary’s army is the brave Grey Worm (Jacob Anderson), an ex-slave who joins her in trying to regain her kingdom. She is also advised by the beautiful light-skinned Black Missandei (Nathalie Emmanuel), who develops a romantic relationship with Grey Worm. Missandei is violently beheaded in one of the show’s final episodes as an act of war—establishing her as a pawn between two white women (Daenarys and Cersei), who are vying for the title of Queen . . . to sit on the Iron Throne. Responding to the criticism regarding the lack of diversity and the types of representations afforded to people of color on Game of Thrones, Martin, whose books were adapted for the creation of show, agreed that the show could have done better in this regard: “Westeros around 300 AC is nowhere near as diverse as 21st century America . . . [but] . . . I do have some “characters of color” who will have somewhat larger roles in [his novel] Winds of Winter. Admittedly, these are secondary and tertiary characters, though not without importance” (McKenzie 2017). While Martin’s defense is valid, it does have its limits. Westeros is clearly based on Western history and its Eurocentric bias is to some extent legitimate. However, there are numerous times when characters do not speak as they would in the Middle Ages and the show is not strictly bound by the facts of history. Moreover, when the show does diverge from the source material it (still) mainly favors the White characters. .

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WHITE ANTIHEROS AND ORIENTALISM Action as a genre encompasses fantasy, but it is important to distinguish them from one another for the purpose of discussing racial representations in the context of television in the new millennium. This is particularly true because evaluation shows that between fantasy and (non-fantasy) action shows, sharp divergences emerge. Whereas shows like Buffy or Game of Thrones had only a handful of BIPOC characters there was some commitment to diversity. However, the most popular cable shows focused obsessively on White males with only a few minorities receiving substantial roles. Pay channels targeted White men as their primary audience as evident in shows such as The Sopranos (1999–2007), Nip/Tuck (2003–2010), Dexter (2006–2013), Sons of Anarchy (2006–2013), Mad Men (2007–2015), The Wire (2002–2008), and Breaking Bad (2008–2013). Centering on White male characters, these shows have found popularity in stories dealing with White male antiheroes thrust into crises with the police, untrustworthy lovers, and even families unable to understand their pain. The most influential and earliest example of this White antihero trend was with the popularity of HBO’s The Sopranos about New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano and his family and allies. While men were the main protagonists, there was some space for women to exercise power. In the case of The Sopranos, the matriarch is a housewife. Moreover, the category of whiteness itself is not uncontested in the show. Although Tony is White, he asserts his primary identity as an Italian (American) separate from the category of white male Protestant (WASPs). While Tony constantly justifies his criminality as hard work, he does sometimes confess that he enjoys privileges simply for having white skin. When Tony’s son AJ self-mockingly asks what makes him special, Tony responds that: “You’re handsome, and smart, and a hard worker, and—let’s be honest—white” (Kocela 2011, 213). Tony and AJ will simply have a better life being considered whites, whether a WASP or not. When Tony’s therapist tries to force him to assume responsibility for his criminality, he lashes out blaming the Rockefellers who “needed worker bees and there we were. But . . . [w]e wanted to . . . preserve . . . honor and family and loyalty . . . [W]e weren’t educated like the Americans but we had the balls to take what we wanted!” (Wilson 2004, 88). Despite seeing himself as a victim of White capitalists, he actively participates in (and aspires to) White capitalism nonetheless, part of which requires him to lack empathy for communities of color. In the episode, “Christopher,” written partly by Michael Imperioli—who plays junior mafia man Christopher Moltisanti, Native Americans want to stage a protest on Christopher Columbus Day. Tony and the others are offended by the disrespect of Columbus. Although Christopher acknowledges that the “Indians were massacred,” others note that Native Americans have tax breaks and smoke “mushrooms” legally. While the older Italians are outright racists seeing the Native Americans as purely ethnic rivals, the younger Italians like Christopher and AJ see some justice to their protests. The episode even cleverly subverts Italian claims. When a pro-Italian man named Phil appears on The Montel Williams Show (a popular talk show at the



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time), he laments how Italians suffered coming to America, enduring their own “Middle Passage” (Kocela 2005). Williams is shocked and challenges Phil to justify his appropriation of the “Middle Passage,” a term used by African Americans to describe their experience of being brought from the continent of Africa to North America during the Mid-Atlantic Slave Trade. As an episode, “Christopher” is fairly balanced in how it presents such a difficult and controversial topic. However, in the majority of episodes, BIPOC communities are represented as vicious criminals. In another episode, African Americans are protesting at a construction site because they are being shut out of work. The initial framing is somewhat sympathetic as a Black preacher, Reverend James (Greg Alan Williams), righteously laments that “[t]he black man industrialized the North, but we’re still fighting for jobs” (Kocela 2005). The construction site owner (a White union man) turns to Tony to shut down the protest. Tony mocks the owner but agrees to help for a fee. Tony’s men then clash (violently) with the black protestors. Later in the episode, it is revealed that one black woman at the protest “may end up losing an eye.” It appears the episode will deal with the conflicts between Italians and African Americans. However, the finale of the episode provides a twist affirming white stereotypes. It turns out that Reverend James’s protest was a fraud orchestrated by Tony to get protection money from the union. James is given a cut of this money, so he was merely using the protestors for his own ends. The message is fairly obvious that grievances by African Americans, however just, can potentially be exploited for criminal purposes or to profit corrupt so-called community leaders. While White women sometimes have agency on these antihero shows, they are mainly confined to being dissatisfied housewives (Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Mad Men) or simply as sexual partners. Cox and DeCarvalho argue that Sons of Anarchy conforms to this trend by focusing solely on “how men—and white, hetero-sexist masculinity—are presented” (2016, 818). But Sons of Anarchy features some flexibility toward gender. According to Lotz, only Tara (Maggie Siff) in Sons of Anarchy “explicitly pursues a career . . . [S]uch a preponderance of female characters without highly professionalized careers is unusual for contemporary television series” (2014, 72). The show also features some liberal narratives regarding race. While almost all people of color are shown to be criminal, some differences do emerge. Whereas Black gang members are shown to be mainly lacking any code or family bonds, the Latinx gang, the Mayans, led by gangster Alvarez are shown to be tough yet familial and principled like SAMCRO—i.e., Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club Redwood Originals (Jimenez 2018). Sometimes Alvarez works with Jax and SAMCRO. Whereas other criminalized characters of color die a bloody death, Alvarez lives throughout the series. However, strong forms of racism are present with regard to Asian characters. Only a handful of Asian women are shown, and they hardly appear at all. But Asian men exist to be contrasted in extreme fashion with the white men of SAMCRO. When two Iranian pornographers run afoul of SAMCRO, the “Persians” make torture porn. When they are brutally killed by someone in SAMCRO and their deaths go unavenged, which is atypical since almost any death on the show has major consequences.

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Another strong conservative (racial/ethnic) bias in television shows of the 2000s is Orientalism. Orientalism is the ideology that cultures or races in the Far East are radically different, more exotic, and often more dangerous than Western culture (Said 1979). The Orientalism in Sons of Anarchy is consistent throughout the whole series. While detectable, Orientalism—the stereotyping of cultures and races in the East—is not the main focus. However, within the subgenre of spy thrillers, Muslims and Arabs were shown habitually as terrorists and criminals. The hit Fox series 24 (2001–2010), starring Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer, head of an elite Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU) based in Los Angeles, repeatedly portrayed Arabs as terrorists, as antagonists that Bauer had to torture and kill in order to protect innocent Americans. While some story lines focused on other enemies, such as the Russians or Colombians, much of the plot in every season focused on Middle Eastern terrorism. While some critics have highlighted the show’s depiction of Muslims as terrorists or its representation of torture, others have highlighted the more liberal elements of the show’s narrative and plot. For instance, the early seasons of 24 portray clearly Bauer’s friendship with and admiration of African American president David Palmer (Denis Haysbert). Similarly, Bauer is aided by Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard), a colleague of color at CTU. Representing CTU as racially diverse conveys a message that it—and by extension the “war on terror” cannot be racist. For critics, this message, plus the show’s embrace of a White savior story line, reveals how 24 embodies the representations of race in post-9/11 television. In a major made-for-television film, 24: Redemption, while charged with war crimes in a fictional African country, Bauer saves dozens of African boys from being forcibly recruited into a warlord’s service and exchanges his freedom in order to have the children enter the United States. The villains on 24, while provided a level of humanity, are consistently portrayed in an unattractive light making their deaths palatable. Joel Surnow, executive producer, defended the use of torture on the show, “They [torture experts] say torture doesn’t work. But I don’t believe that” (Alsultany 2012, 19). Others disagreed. In 2004, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) accused 24, in particular, of perpetuating stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims (Alsultany 2012, 18). While 24 perhaps displayed the most sophisticated representation of post-9/11 America, it was not the only show that brought the “war on terror” to television, with shows like Threat Matrix (2003), Sleeper Cell (2005), and The Wanted (2009) all offering representations about this particular moment in culture and history. While disparate in plotline and politics, each in many ways defined the War on Terror as a battle of civilizations, where white America was presented as righteous and heroic in opposition to the inhumanity of Muslims. Perhaps the best example of these trends is Showtime’s Homeland (2011–2020), based on an Israeli series, where Claire Danes plays Carrie Mathison, a Central Intelligence Agency officer with bipolar disorder. She is joined by British actor Damian Lewis, who plays Nicholas Brody, a “white Christian” U.S. Marine Corps Scout Sniper. Carrie suspects Brody is a sleeper terrorist and breaks the law by having him recorded and monitored. As the series unfolds, her suspicion turns out to be right. Brody has converted to Islam and plans to commit acts of terror.



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However, unlike 24, its representation of terrorists is more multidimensional and nuanced. The show, essentially, offers a multifaceted argument. The right-wing side is represented by Vice President Walden who believes: “They yell ‘death to America’ no matter what we do” (Serwer 2012). Brody, however, plans to assassinate Walden in response to drone attacks that killed civilians. Labeling these war crimes (at least for the producers), Brody sees continuity between his training as a Marine and becoming an Islamic terrorist. Despite some nuance, critics were unimpressed. Many saw Homeland as a show that replicates the commonplace narratives of the post-9/11 moment, depicting Muslims as some incredibly irrational “other” that must be brutally contained or destroyed. While 24, Homeland, and Sleeper Cell are racially inclusive in terms of having Whites, Latinx, and Blacks united against an Islamic enemy those outside these key races are considered highly suspect. While White (mostly male) protagonists took center stage, HBO’s focus on white bad boys, like Tony Soprano and Enoch “Nucky” Thompson (Boardwalk Empire, 2010–2014) was sometimes broken with shows featuring genuinely multiracial protagonists. The one major example of this was David Simon’s The Wire, which took a sympathetic look at the lives of many African Americans in poverty-stricken Baltimore. The Wire did share some of the usual racial tropes—including its narrative focus on an interracial buddy relationship between a White detective, Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West), and a Black detective, Bunk Moreland (Wendell Pierce); however, it would also add depth, humanity, and voice to a range of other communities, including Black teenagers in the housing projects, the homeless, and on journalists covering socioeconomic and racial stratification in the city of Baltimore. By season three, The Wire had an average of 3.9 million viewers. By season four, it had 4.4 to 5.5 million (Abrams 2018, 212). However, The Sopranos had on average 10 million viewers, and Game of Thrones had an average of 7 million. While trying to realistically yet sympathetically highlight the plight of poor Black people and drug dealers in Baltimore, The Wire is careful not to glamorize the street life. To this end, the show spends time developing characters like Bubbles (Andre Royo), a Black homeless man, highlighting the level of violence and hardship he lives under while trying to survive. He is contrasted (to some extent) with characters like Stringer Bell (Idris Elba) and Avon Barksdale, both prominent drug dealers, whose luxurious lifestyles seemingly embody the riches and excesses of the American Dream. But as Read (2009) analyzes Bubbles, who collects scrap metal and works as an informant for the police, there are some in the ghetto who reject “Stringer’s [Bell’s] worldview in which there is a fundamental dignity to the ideal of becoming a legitimate businessman. Bubbles does not subscribe to the code of the streets or to the moral ideal of capitalism” (Read 2009, 131). To be sure, Bubbles is not a hero, but the show tries to demonstrate that there are multiple models of masculinity and that there is no one correct way to survive ghetto life. But where The Wire is most vulnerable is its pro-police viewpoint. This is understandable given Simon’s (the show’s creator) background as a police officer himself. We do see massive corruption and (normalized) violence by the

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police. Yet, overwhelmingly, bad behavior is attributed to individual failing not systemic racism or capitalist greed. Some police officers even have interracial relationships. Etheridge sees Simon “assert[ing] a moral . . . argument . . . in The Wire” (2008). But while providing a moralistic representation of ghetto life is certainly laudable, it is fairly conservative as a political narrative. The Wire may be sympathetic toward racial minorities, but it cleverly dodges the dilemma of how wealth (often deliberately stolen and transferred) has structured ghetto life.

THE SHONDA RHIMES ERA While progress for people of color on screen remained slow, opportunities for writers, directors, and producers of color remained virtually nonexistent for many years. However, by the 1990s this began to change with people of color achieving some success in producing shows from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Brandy, and In Living Color. Tia Carrere, an Asian American actress created and produced Relic Hunter (1999–2002), a show where she also starred as Sydney Fox, an adventure-seeking professor. Gregory Nava, Latinx producer, after a successful career in films moved into television, creating American Family (2002–2003), a show about the Gonzalez family, starring Edward James Olmos. This was not without its challenges as CBS didn’t sufficiently fund the show leaving Nava to raise the additional funds needed to produce the first season. Lee Daniels, also a successful African American Hollywood director, produced Empire (2015–2020), a hit melodrama about the music industry, written in conjunction with former Buffy actor Danny Strong. Rapper Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson produced Power (2014–2020) employing a diverse cast of Latinos and African Americans. Jennifer Lopez returned to television producing and starring in her own show, the drama Shades of Blue (2016–2018). People of color also found opportunities within animated television. Aaron McGruder’s The Boondocks (2011–2014), airing on the Cartoon Network, was a dark, funny satire on hip-hop and race relations. John Semper, an African American producer, who worked on Spider-Man: The Animated Series, also helped develop and served as a writer for Static Shock (2003–2004) a show about a black teenage superhero named Static. But by far, the most successful television executive was Tyler Perry, an African American mogul who created a series of box-office hits in film and highly rated television programs like Tyler Perry’s House of Payn (2007–2012) and Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns (2009–2011). Reception of Perry’s success has been mixed (Quinn 2013), with some critics lamenting his perpetuation of persistent stereotypes, while others have celebrated the opportunities he has provided to people of color on- and off-screen. According to Perry, “there are more African Americans who are unemployed in Hollywood than any other group of people” (qtd. in Quinn 2013, 205). Yet, for others, Perry’s trade-off has not been worth it, citing the career of Shonda Rhimes as evidence of how Black television executives can create



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shows that both offer opportunities for artists of color while providing story lines and representations that defy stereotypes, by using depth and humanity to empower communities of color. The shows created by Shonda Rhimes include Grey’s Anatomy (2005–), Scandal (2012–2018), and How to Get Away with Murder (2014–2020), have been wildly successful on numerous fronts. Unlike Perry who deliberately targeted Black audiences, Rhimes was extremely careful in creating shows that might reach across audiences, limiting the ways that her shows engage and treat racial issues. For instance, Scandal starring Kerry Washington is centered on Washington’s Olivia Pope and the machinations of Washington politics. Pope heads her own crisis management firm and is clearly framed as a tough and agentic woman. But the show also tries to capitalize on Washington’s sex appeal as an attractive young woman; the audience learns she is having an affair with the (fictional) President Fitzgerald Grant. The show is clearly aware it is playing on racialized sexual fantasies, and Washington explicitly references the controversial relationship between Sallie Hemmings and Thomas Jefferson. The show plays on the dominant frame of White men desiring sexually attractive African American women. Still, Scandal is noteworthy in that it explores the life of middle-class African Americans. Black feminist Patricia Williams argues “popular depictions frequently suppress  .  .  . black upper-middle class [people]” (2009). Pope both breaks with and conforms to this stereotype because her wealth derives from the celebrity culture in Washington. Since Rhimes is an African American woman herself, it seems obvious Scandal gives an overall positive depiction of Black women. But care is needed. Viewers in a study by Punyanunt-Carter felt that “positive stereotypes of African Americans were not very realistic . . . [but] negative personality characteristics were realistic” (2008, 251). In other words, negative stereotypes of African Americans were considered more realistic. Pope herself might be a positive role model, but a white viewer might concentrate on her negative qualities (her deceptiveness) and overlook her positive ones (her wit and intelligence). A similar complex dynamic comes into play in the medical drama, Grey’s Anatomy, which is more “diverse” (on the surface) than, say, House (2004–2012). But Bianculli criticizes Rhimes for her “fixation on romance” (2016, 258). Yet Bianculli readily admits that Grey’s Anatomy does focus on women of color though the show is named after the main white female protagonist, Meredith Grey (258). After all, Grey’s Anatomy is about the White heroine, Grey. The characters have fantasy names—McDreamy and McSteamy. For some critics, this is emblematic of the show’s proto feminism wherein women play out their sexual fantasies. Grey’s Anatomy represents a fantasy world of hot young doctors constantly having sex and one where most racial topics will not be engaged One is that the generic basis of the show (beyond the obvious selling of sex appeal) is the romantic fairytale fantasy of a woman finding her mythic prince (Long 2011). The other is the ideology of colorblindness in promoting the show and in the show itself. For instance, Oh’s character, Christina Yang and Isaiah Washington’s Preston Burke are in an interracial relationship and the show follows their arc. Yet, tellingly, Burke has no relationship with Katherine Heigl’s

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character nor does Dempsey’s character have a romantic relationship with Yang. Thus, ironically, the show in certain ways reinforced the very racism it decries. Scholars are divided as to how Grey’s Anatomy should be treated. Warner (2015) argues that Rhimes’s commitment to hiring actors on a colorblind basis simply helps replicate racist attitudes if unintentionally. Long (2011) is somewhat more generous. Through a close reading of many pivotal episodes, she argues there is enough narrative ambiguity that the show can be reread as more critical than its fantasy-frame might let on. Yet even Long does not dispute that Grey’s Anatomy does traffic in a rather bland multiculturalism that is careful to not upset white viewers with stories that might alienate them (Fogel 2005). Rhimes’s success would be instrumental in pushing for greater diversity on television. That Kerry Washington (Scandal) and Viola Davis, who portrayed Annalise Keating, the star of the Rhimes hit, How to Get Away with Murder, headed their own shows was a breakthrough given there had been no black actresses leading any major television series since the 1970s. It was also directly empowering in other ways as Sandra Oh admits her work with Rhimes gave her the economic wealth to turn down many roles she might have been forced to take as well as wait for roles she actually wanted. Washington was also able to use her star power to help produce a 2017 HBO movie, Confirmation, about the controversial Clarence Thomas hearings with Washington playing Anita Hill.

CONCLUSION Television from 2000 to 2020 is complex in that during this time period there are notable representations that break with previous trends alongside the perpetual stereotypes and long-standing biases that are familiar on-screen. African Americans and Latinxs made greater gains as both on-air and behind-the-scenes performers and writers. Representations evolved steadily and though media decisions remained largely in the hands of white males like Joss Whedon, JJ Abrams, and others, some minority producers like Shonda Rhimes and Tyler Perry were able to distribute content previously denied exposure. The kinds of narratives allowed on-air also changed. Interracial romances appeared on Angel, Grey’s Anatomy, Star Trek Voyager, and many other programs. But getting the various dimensions of diversity beyond race remained difficult. For instance, Buffy had the publicized (and groundbreaking) portrayal of lesbians—yet this was a white couple. While greater diversity was visible on television unprecedented ways, television remained a space of whiteness. The roles of Native Americans and Asian Americans as subordinate continued in direct and indirect ways. Native Americans faced renewed racism in several cases, but they had (though admittedly weak) organizations to get their voices heard and challenge negative representations. But Asians, ironically, suffered even more due to the nationalism following 9/11 and due to an inability to respond to Orientalist assumptions that ran through many shows. Positive images of Asian life were sometimes depicted, but only in rare instances.



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For the most part, television dramas and sitcoms concentrated on the travails and problems of White protagonists. BIPOC included only supporting characters and/or sidekicks. But, overall, heroism was reserved for Whites, usually male and heterosexual. Nevertheless, BIPOC actors did disrupt these trends—especially on fantasy shows based on comic book characters. Through two decades, diversity has been a major goal for both network and cable television, although remaining silent on issues of racism. Hence, the rise in diversity in comparison to the 1990s must be viewed skeptically. With communities of color becoming an increasing important market, the embrace of diversity is driven by business and economics. Inclusion has become the norm while narratives and shows challenging stereotypes and entrenched racism remain elusive Christian Jimenez Further Reading

Abrams, Jonathan. 2018. All the Pieces Matter: The Inside Story of The Wire. New York: Crown. Adare, Sierra. 2005. “Indian” Stereotypes in TV Science Fiction: First Nations’ Voices Speak Out. Austin: University of Texas Press. Al-Arian, Laila. 2012. “TV’s Most Islamophobic Show.” Salon, December 15. ­https://​ ­w ww​.­salon​.­com​/­2012​/­12​/­15​/­tvs​_most​_islamophobic​_show​/. Alsultany, Evelyn. 2012. Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race and Representation after 9/11. New York: NYU Press. Bianculli, David. 2016. The Platinum Age of Television: From I Love Lucy to The Walking Dead. New York: Knopf. Buchbinder, David. 2007. “Passing Strange: Queering Whiteness in Joss Whedon’s Angel.” In White Matters, edited by Susan Petrilli, 229–235. Rome: Athanor. Cox, Nicole B., and Lauren J. DeCarvalho. 2016. “‘Ride Free or Die’ Trying: Hypermasculinity on FX’s Sons of Anarchy.” Journal of Popular Culture 49 (4): 818–838. Crosby, Sara. 2004. “The Cruelest Season: Female Heroes Snapped into Sacrificial Heroines.” In Tough Action Chicks, edited by Sharon Inness, 153–178. New York: Palgrave. Entertainment Weekly. 2016. “The 21 Most Annoying TV Characters Ever.” ­EW​.­com, October 14. ­https://​­ew​.­com​/­gallery​/­21​-­most​-­annoying​-­t v​-­characters​-­ever​/. Etheridge, Blake D. 2008. “Baltimore on The Wire: The Tragic Moralism of David Simon.” In It’s Not TV: Watching HBO in the Post-Television Era, edited by Marv Leverette, 152–164. London: Routledge. Fogel, Matthew. 2005. “‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Goes Colorblind.” New York Times, May 8. ­http://​­w ww​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2005​/­05​/­08​/­arts​/­television​/­08foge​.­html. Gates, Racquel. 2012. “Keepin’ It Reality Television.” In Watching While Black: Centering the Television of Black Audiences, edited by Beretta E. Smith-Shomade, 141– 156. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Hobson, Kathryn. 2015. “Sue Sylvester, Coach Beiste, Santana Lopez, and Unique Adams: Exploring Queer Representations of Femininity on Glee.” In Glee and New Directions for Social Change, edited by Brian Johnson, and Daniel Faill, 95–109. Boston: Sense Publishers. Howard, Natasha. 2015. “The New Housewife: Gender Roles and Perceptions of The Real Housewives of Atlanta.” In Fan Girls and The Media: Creating Characters, Consuming Culture, edited by Adrienne Trier-Bieniek, 101–117. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

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Jimenez, Christian. 2018. “Cynical Tolerance: Race, Gender and Fraternal Fears.” In Bonds of Brotherhood: Essays on Gender and Masculinity in Sons of Anarchy, edited by Susan Fanetti, 61–81. Jefferson, NC: MacFarland. Kocela, Christopher. 2005. “Unmade Men: The Sopranos after Whiteness.” Postmodern Culture. ­http://​­pmc​.­iath​.­virginia​.­edu ​/­issue​.­105​/­15​.­2kocela​.­html. Kocela, Christopher. 2011. “‘All Caucasians Look Alike’: Dreams of Whiteness at the End of The Sopranos.” In The Essential Sopranos Reader, edited by David Lavery, Douglas L. Howard, Paul Levinson, 208–218. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. Long, Amy. 2011. “Diagnosing Drama: Grey’s Anatomy, Blind Casting, and the Politics of Representation.” Journal of Popular Culture 44 (5): 1067–1084. Lotz, Amanda D. 2014. Cable Guys: Television and Masculinities in the 21st Century. New York: New York University Press. Mastro, Dana E., and Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz. 2005. “Latino Representation on Primetime Television: A Content Analysis.” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 82: 110–130. McKenzie, Joi-Marie. 2017. “‘There Are No Black People on ‘Game of Thrones,’ Actor John Boyega Says.” ABC News, July 20. ­https://​­abcnews​.­go​.­com​/ ­Entertainment​ /­black​-­people​-­game​-­thrones​-­actor​-­john​-­boyega​/­story​?­id​=​­48744585. Molina-Guzmán, Isabel. 2013. “Latina Ethnoracial Ambiguity in Postracial Television Narratives.” In Latinos and Narrative Media: Participation and Portrayal, edited by Frederick Luis Aldama, 143–160. New York: Palgrave. Peterson, James Braxton. 2009. “Corner-Boy Masculinity: Intersections of Inner-City Manhood.” In The Wire: Urban Decay and American Television, edited by Tiffany Potter and C. W. Marshal, 107–121. New York: Continuum. Punyanunt-Carter, Narissra. 2008. “The Perceived Realism of African American Portrayals on Television.” Howard Journal of Communications 19 (3): 241–257. Quinn, Eithne. 2013. “Black Talent and Conglomerate Hollywood: Will Smith, Tyler Perry, and the Continuing Significance of Race.” Popular Communication 11 (3): 196–210. Read, Jason. 2009. “Stringer Bell’s Lament: Violence and Legitimacy in Contemporary Capitalism.” In The Wire: Urban Decay and American Television, edited by Tiffany Potter and C. W. Marshall, 122–134. New York: Continuum. Said, Edward. 1979. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books. Serwer, Adam. 2012. “Homeland: Lots of Tick-Tick, Not Much Boom.” Mother Jones, October 1. ­https://​­www​.­motherjones​.­com​/­politics​/­2012​/­10​/­homeland​-­season​-­two​-­premiere​ -­review​/. Stanhope, Kate. 2016. “Tapes or No Tapes, The Apprentice Alums Recall Donald Trump’s Sexist and Racist Behavior.” Hollywood Reporter, October 11. ­https://​­w ww​ .­hollywoodreporter​.­com ​/­news​/­tapes​-­no​-­tapes​-­apprentice​-­alums​-­936981. Tukachinsky, Riva, Dana Mastro, and Moran Yarchi. 2015. “Documenting Portrayals of Race/Ethnicity on Primetime Television over a 20-Year Span and Their Association with National-Level Racial/Ethnic Attitudes.” Journal of Social Issues 71 (1): 17–38. Warner, Kristin. J. 2015. “The Racial Logic of Grey’s Anatomy: Shonda Rhimes and Her ‘Post-Civil Rights, Post-Feminist’ Series.” Television & New Media 16 (7): 631–647. Williams, Patricia. 2009. “Obama and the Black Elite.” The Daily Beast, August 21. ­https://​­w ww​.­thedailybeast​.­com​/­obama​-­and​-­the​-­black​-­elite.



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Wilson, Scott D. 2004. “Staying within the Family: Tony Soprano’s Ethical Obligations.” In The Sopranos and Philosophy: I Kill Therefore I Am, edited by Richard Greene, Peter Vernezze, and Vincent Pastore, 86–96. Chicago: Open Court Publisher. Young, Helen. 2016. Race and Popular Fantasy Literature: Habits of Whiteness. New York: Routledge.

227 (1985–1990) 227 (1985–1990) is a family sitcom starring Marla Gibbs as Mary Jenkins, a housewife living in Washington, DC. Although conceived of prior to the enormous success of The Cosby Show (1984–1992), 227 aired at a time when networks attempted to capitalize on the popularity of The Cosby Show and began airing other sitcoms that emphasized African American middle-class family experiences. During its first two seasons, 227 received higher ratings than other shows airing at the time with a predominately African American cast, with the exception of The Cosby Show. The name 227 was taken from the number of the apartment building where Mary lived with her husband Lester (Hal Williams), a contractor, and her teenage daughter Brenda (Regina King). Following the formula of other sitcoms, it blended together comedy with themes surrounding family, community, and sex. The series star Marla Gibbs first achieved mainstream success on The Jeffersons (1975–1985) as Florence Johnston, the quick-witted maid who relished every opportunity to insult her employer George Jefferson. Gibbs’s character was so popular that CBS attempted to give her a spin-off in the short-lived Checking In (1981). The same year The Jeffersons was cancelled, audiences were introduced to a similar Gibbs character in Mary Jenkins. Like Florence, Mary was sharp, quick-witted, with a kind of no-nonsense personality. 227 provided a vehicle for Marla Gibbs, one that she quickly capitalized on as she became a television star. The idea for the show began as a Christine Houston stage play of the same title produced at Marla Gibbs’s own Crossroad Academy and Theatre, an inner-city theater in Los Angeles. Both Gibbs and 227 co-star Hal Williams starred in the production. Gibbs helped develop the series for NBC and was also the creative consultant for the series, allowing her to contribute to story lines and other elements of the script, such as characters and dialogue. She even sang the theme song “There’s No Place Like Home.” NBC hoped that Gibbs’s popularity would garner huge ratings. The initial season of 227 reflected the show’s stage origins, as Mary spent a significant amount of time on the stoop of her building accompanied by the supporting cast members: Rose Halloway (Alaina Reed-Hall), Mary’s best friend and the landlord of the building; Pearl Shay (Helen Martin), an elderly woman who sat in her window observing the happenings in the neighborhood; and Sandra Clark (Jackée Harry), a sexy neighbor aiming for nothing more than to marry a wealthy man and Mary’s nemesis. Other supporting characters included Pearl’s grandson

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Calvin (Curtis Baldwin) and Rose’s daughter Tiffany (Kia Goodwin), who mysteriously vanished after the first season. While 227 focused on the goings-on of Mary Jenkins, Marla Gibbs’s character was not the breakout character of the show. To critics and fans alike, Sandra Clark would emerge as the show’s standout character. Jackée Harry competed against eighty other women for the role and initially worked on both 227 and the daytime soap Another World as Lily Mason, which forced her to travel back and forth between Los Angeles and New York. During the first season, displays of her sexuality and sex appeal were second only to the combative relationship between her and Mary as the two tried to outwit and insult each other. However, as the series progressed, Jackée Harry’s portrayal of Sandra Clark became more defined. Sandra had a very distinctive sashay, as her hips would swing when she walked; she used a girlish baby voice at times, especially to appeal to men, and even had a unique way of pronouncing Mary’s name “Maaaryyy.” Sandra’s sex appeal and playfulness were amplified, as she became a fan favorite. Often compared to Mae West, she wore tight dresses and had the ability to manipulate any man she set her sights on. During the second season, Jackée Harry won an Emmy for “Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series,” solidifying her as a television star and African American sex symbol. After winning the Emmy, Jackée Harry was now billed simply as Jackée and was eventually offered a 227 spin-off titled Jackée (1989), but NBC did not pick the show up after the pilot episode. After this, Jackée left 227 as a regular cast member, briefly returning to do guest appearances during the final season. By the time Jackée left the show, its ratings were already on a downward turn. In an effort to increase its appeal, the show’s writers and producers initiated significant changes during the last two seasons. Season four saw the addition of Alexandria (Countess Vaughn), a child prodigy living with the Jenkinses temporarily while her father was out of the country completing an archeological dig. The fifth season added Travis Filmore (Stoney Jackson), Dylan McMillan (Barry Sobel), and Eva Rawley (Toukie Smith) as new tenants in the building, and Paul Winfield as Julian Barlow, Mary’s new landlord and nemesis. These cast changes could not save 227 from eventual cancellation. Scheduling and cast changes, along with low ratings, eventually led to 227 being cancelled in 1990 after five seasons and 116 episodes. Despite initial criticism of the show as being too similar to The Cosby Show, 227 found a consistent audience. This is notable considering NBC did not seem convinced that the show would be successful. NBC would remove the show from its Saturday night lineup for weeks at a time to air new series, but none were able to match the ratings success of 227. Black audiences enjoyed the situational mishaps Mary and her friends got into on a weekly basis. 227, combined with her previous success on The Jeffersons, allowed Marla Gibbs the opportunity to remain on prime-time television for fifteen years, a rare accomplishment for any actor. Ashley S. Young



Further Reading

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Bogle, Donald. 2001. Primetime Blues: African Americans on Network Television. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Hill, Michael. 1985. “Marla Gibbs.” Washington Post, September 22. “Marla Gibbs Moves on up after ‘The Jeffersons.’” 1985. JET, September 30. “Sex, Sass, and Laughs Keep ‘227’ TV Show a Smash Hit.” 1987. JET, August 24.

U Ugly Betty (2006–2010) Ugly Betty (2006–2010) is the U.S. remake of the Columbian telenovela (a limited-run Latin American Spanish soap opera) Yo soy Betty, la Fea (La Betty), which translates to “I am Betty, the Ugly.” The U.S. series follows Mexican American aspiring writer Betty Suarez (America Ferrara) as she becomes an editorial assistant at a fashion magazine, Mode. Hired specifically for her unattractive and unfashionable appearance, Betty evolves over the course of the series from an ugly duckling to a successful and fashion-conscious professional. The show is primarily set in the offices of the fictional fashion magazine Mode, although the Suarez family is heavily featured throughout the show. Betty lives in Queens, New York, with her father Ignacio (Tony Plana), sister Hilda (Ana Ortiz), and nephew Justin (Mark Indelicato). Over the course of the series, the multigenerational Mexican American household faces multiple challenges as they deal with social issues, such as struggling with health, Ignacio’s immigration status, Hilda’s single motherhood, and Justin’s sexual orientation. Mode is part of Meade Publications owned by Bradford Meade (Alan Dale). Sick of his son Daniel’s (Eric Mabius) scandalous playboy life, Bradford makes Daniel the editor-in-chief at Mode and hires Betty for her unattractive appearance to guarantee Daniel will not sleep with his editorial assistant. Daniel and Betty’s relationship is strained as first, but they learn to work together and become friends. Some of the challenges they face are the actions of the vindictive Creative Director Wilhelmina Slater (Vanessa Williams), her editorial assistant Marc St. James (Michael Urie), and Mode receptionist Amanda Tanen (Becki Newton). Wilhelmina is angry that she was passed over for the editor-in-chief job; Amanda and Marc sabotage Daniel and Betty’s work in addition to bullying Betty for her lack of fashion sense and inexperience, with Wilhelmina’s tacit approval. While Betty does make friends with other staff members, Wilhelmina and her minions are formidable opponents. Betty’s positive attitude and hard work helps her to navigate both personal and professional challenges. Her unwillingness to give up eventually wins over Wilhelmina, Marc, and Amanda at Mode. She frequently is the cheerleader in her family, especially for her nephew Justin as he struggles to find himself as a high school student. Betty also has several romantic relationships during the course of the series, including a love triangle involving two men she sees frequently during her workday. Betty briefly moves out into an apartment in the city during the third season but soon returns home because her father’s health problems bring her back to the Suarez household. Professionally, Betty competes with Marc for a

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prestigious program for aspiring editors, which leads to a promotion to editor over Marc at Mode. Betty faces challenges in her new position due to Marc’s jealousy and her former boyfriend becoming her boss, which eventually lead Betty to move to London as the series ends. One primary plot difference between Ugly Betty and the original La Betty is that Betty falls in love with her boss Daniel in the U.S. remake but not in La Betty. Ugly Betty, as the U.S. adaptation of La Betty, has been shown by at least fifty TV networks in addition to airing in the United States (most adapted telenovela). When Ugly Betty was imported to South America, including Columbia, the show was criticized as a poor imitation of the original La Betty. For context, Ugly Betty was primarily a comedy show while La Betty was a drama. Another difference between the shows is the cultural differences between the genres (a category of literature or other types of media). Telenovelas are frequently equated to U.S. soap operas however, telenovelas tend to be shorter limited run shows, while U.S. soap operas and most U.S. televised series are open-ended productions that end once the show’s popularity declines or a primary cast or crew member leaves the production. Moreover, critics have celebrated Ugly Betty for both challenging entrenched stereotypes and for offering representation rarely afforded Latinxs on television. NBC was the first U.S.-based company to attempt an adaptation of La Betty in 2001. The project did not succeed until Los Angeles–based independent company Reveille productions acquired the rights to the show in 2003. Selma Hayek’s production company, Ventanarosa (rose-colored, or pink, window) joined Revielle Productions and the two production companies partnered with Sony Entertainment to successfully bring the show to U.S. television. Renamed Ugly Betty for distribution in the United States, the show originally aired on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). Over the course of the run, Ugly Betty won fifty awards including two Golden Globe Awards in 2007 for Best Television Series—Comedy or Musical, and Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series—Comedy or Musical (The Hollywood Foreign Press Association). Ugly Betty also won three Primetime Emmy Awards in 2008 for Outstanding Lead Actress, Outstanding Directing, and Outstanding Casting. Marisa C. Garcia Rodriguez Further Reading

“The Beauty of Ugly Betty.” 2010. The Guardian. December 21. ­https://​­www​.­theguardian​ .­com​/­t v​-­and​-­radio​/­t vandradioblog​/­2010​/­dec​/­21​/­ugly​-­betty​-­the​-­beauty. Bentancourt, Manuel. 2016. From China to Poland: 10 Remakes of Columbia’s ‘Yo Soy Betty, la Fea.” Remezcla. ­http://​­remezcla​.­com​/­lists​/­film​/­10​-­international​-­remakes​ -­of​-­colombias​-­yo​-­soy​-­betty​-­la​-­fea​-­ugly​-­betty​/. González, Tanya, and Eliza Rodriguez y Gibson. 2­ 015​.­Humor and Latina/o Camp in Ugly Betty: Funny Looking. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Katzew, Adriana. 2011. “Shut up! Representations of the Latino/a Body in Ugly Betty and Their Educational Implications.” Latino Studies 9 (2–3) (July): 300–320. Redacción. 2018.“‘Betty in New York’ es el remake de ‘Betty, La Fea’ en Telemundo.” La Opinión, May 10. ­https://​­laopinion​.­com​/­2018​/­05​/­10​/­betty​-­in​-­new​-­york​-­es​-­el​-­remake​ -­de​-­betty​-­la​-­fea​-­en​-­telemundo​/.



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Yo soy Betty, la Fea, International Phenomena Yo soy Betty, la Fea (La Betty) is the most famous Latin telenovela produced. At its peak popularity, the show had 3.3 million viewers, which represented 72 percent of the Columbian market share. La Betty also holds the Guinness World Record for Most Adapted Telenovela. It has been shown throughout Spanish-speaking countries and has been dubbed into at least fifteen different languages. Versions of the show, adaptions, and remakes include: • El Amor no es Como lo Pintan (2000–2001) in Spanish (Mexico) • Tudo Por Amor (2002–2003) in Portuguese (Portugal) • Jassi Koi Nahin (2003–2006) in Hindu (India) • Ugly Esti (2003) in Hebrew (Israel) • Sensiz olmuyor (2005) in Turkish (Turkey) • Verliebt in Berlin/That’s Life (2005–2007) in German (Germany) • Не родись красивой/Ne Rodis Krasivoy (2005–2006) in Russian (Russia) • Lotte (2000–2007) in Dutch (Netherlands) • La fea más bella/The Prettiest Ugly Girl (2006–2007) in Spanish (Mexico) • Holiday (2006) in Hindi (India) • Yo soy Bea (2006–2009) in Spanish (Spain) • Ugly Betty (2006–2010) in English (United States of America) • Μαρία, η Άσχημη/Maria i Ashimi (2007–2008) in Greek (Greece) • Sara (2007–2008) in Dutch (Belgium) • Don’t Give Up, Nina (2007–2008) in Croatian/Serbian (Croatia/Serbian) • Osklivka Katka (2008–2009) in Czech (Czech Republic) • I Heart Betty La Fea (2008–2009) in Filipino (Philippines) • BrzydUla (2008–2009) in Polish (Poland) • Bela, a Feia (2009–2010) in Portuguese (Brazil) • გოგონა გარეუბნიდან/Gogona Gareubnidan (2010–2012) in Russian (Georgia) (Yo soy Betty, la fea) While La Betty had a sequel in Columbia, Eco Moda (2001), only the original show has been remade. On May 10, 2018, Telemundo announced a new show “Betty in New York” as part of its 2018–2019 broadcast lineup (Redacción 2018). This will be the second adaptation of La Betty that Telemundo has produced.

Snicks. 2016. “‘Ugly Betty’ Cast Reunites, Reveals What Happened to Their Characters.” Logo, June 18. ­http://​­w ww​.­newnownext​.­com​/­ugly​-­betty​-­cast​-­reunites​-­reveals​ -­what​-­happened​-­to​-­their​-­characters​/­06​/­2016​/.

Underground (2016–2017) Airing from 2016 to 2017 on WGN America, Underground follows the “Macon 7,” a group of slaves who banded together to escape from the Macon plantation in Georgia on the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad, was a secret

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network of routes and safehouses used by enslaved Black people as they sought to escape to Free States and Canada in the 1800s. Led by the sheltered house-slave Rosalee (Jurnee Smolett-Bell) and her partner Noah (Aldis Hodge), the seven ordinary characters become extraordinary through their courage through the life or death realities of escaping slavery. The historical drama interrogates race, class, gender, sexuality, and morality. Underground’s format differs from previously televised slavery-era miniseries: Alex’s Haley’s Roots (1997) and Queen (1993), the adapted Roots (2016), and The Book of Negroes (2015). Underground’s drama series format allowed for detailed character development without the neatly packaged payoff of “freedom” to resolve the story, and the era, for audiences. The two seasons of Underground saw its main characters’ failures, successes, and tragedies escaping slavery. The soundtrack of Underground blended modern hip-hop, R & B, and period melodies to underscore the link between the slavery era and the present. Commentators have noted that the costume design was also distinctly different than previous film and television depictions of slaves. Instead of depicting slaves only in dirty and worn clothing, Underground showed them in hand-me downs from their masters. Women also wore dresses and scarves in bright colors and patterns made from scrap fabrics from curtains and accoutrements we could see in the big house. Men worked in crisp and tailored suits. Many costumes in Underground starkly contrasted against its ominous indoor settings, plantations, and forests. Critics have noted how Underground provides a gendered perspective of enslavement by centering on women and the theme of motherhood. One example is its reimagining the Jezebel trope, which hyper-sexualizes light-skinned Black women. With an exposition that examines the hierarchy of enslaved women via the intersections of race, gender and sexuality, Ernestine has children fathered by the plantation owner, Tom Macon (Reed Diamond), including Rosalee the series’ heroine. Ernestine struggles to protect her children from the harshest realities of slavery by using the breadth of her sexuality to maintain a relationship with Tom that keeps her children “safe” in the house. Ernestine is a refuge for Tom; poised and knowledgeable, stroking his ego, indulging his “plight” to yield power as his lover. When she is sold to a South Carolina plantation as retribution, she continues to use her sexuality to keep herself safe. She mentors a young enslaved woman who has caught the eye of the master in the art of seduction. However, Ernestine unravels from the weight of the revelation that she was ultimately powerless to protect herself and her children. This leads her to contemplating suicide and using hallucinogens. When Rosalee attempts to free her young brother, he screams for help because he doesn’t realize he is a slave. It is unsettling as it questions the meaning of sheltered life that was afforded to Ernestine’s children. Furthering the theme of choice and motherhood, in contrast to her mother, Rosalee’s pregnancy intensifies her drive to free herself and others from slavery. The narratives of both women show the incredible strength and sacrifice enslaved women make as mothers. Underground also reimagines the trope of the Uncle Tom through the character Cato (Alano Miller). “Uncle Tom,” derived from the character of the same name in



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the 1852 novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, represents a Black man who is so fiercely loyal to White supremacy that he is willing to sell out others to maintain his grace within its system. The “Macon 7” are initially hesitant to allow Cato to join them because they do not trust him. A house-slave, Cato’s character makes the audience wrestle with whether his plotting and conniving are acts of selfishness or self-preservation. His character arc moves him from monstrous to humanized, as it’s learned that he was separated from his love in Britain and sold into slavery. He ultimately uses the refinement and skill set from his past to help “Macon 7” and the abolitionist movement. In telling the story of resistance, Underground also weaves prominent abolitionists into its story line. Harriet Tubman (Aisha Hinds), known as “Moses” for her heroism as an Underground Railroad “conductor,” is a recurring character. An episode much celebrated is “Minty” (April 12, 2017), in which Tubman delivers an hour-long monologue that speaks to the ugliness of slavery. For some, this episode is particularly haunting because there are no other voices except for the reaction from the crowd when she mentions abolitionist John Brown, controversial for advocating violence. In “Whiteface” (April 5, 2017), where Cato organizes a coup, one of the show’s executive producers, John Legend, has a cameo as famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Wealthy White party goers are expecting a minstrel show. However, instead of seeing actors in blackface making fun of Black people, they are greeted by actors in whiteface, making fun of White people. Underground’s exposition of White characters contextualizes the development of racism and White supremacy at the intersections of race and class. August Pullman (Christopher Meloni), Underground’s antagonist, is a bounty-hunter turned to more lucrative slavecatcher. Impoverished and illiterate, he chooses oppression over morality in pursuit of the Macon 7 to support his son on his own with his wife in an asylum. The “Macon 7” is aided by Elizabeth and John Hawkes (Jessica De Gouw, Marc Blucas), White conspirators in the Underground Railroad. The lawyer and his socialite wife highlight the intersections of race, class and gender, as Underground attempts to avoid the “White Savior” trope. Elizabeth’s “sewing circle” is a cover for a group of female abolitionists, including Georgia (Jasika Nicole), a Black woman “passing” as White to capitalize on her privilege to help free slaves. When Elizabeth’s husband is killed, she becomes a more fervent abolitionist, now willing to take part in armed resistance. WGN America cancelled Underground in 2017 after its second season. In anticipation of its parent company’s acquisition by Sinclair Media, the network noted that Underground was expensive to produce without enough audience yield for advertisers. Fans and executive producers petitioned to get the series picked up by another network. Most prominently, Oprah Winfrey expressed disappointment that her network could not save the show because it was too expensive for her young network despite being a fan (Otterson 2017). Nicole Files-Thompson Further Reading

Bogle, Donald. 2016. Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films. New York: Bloomsbury.

700 Univision Jackson, Kellie Carter. 2019. Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Otterson, Joe. 2017. “‘Underground’ Canceled after Two Seasons at WGN America.” Variety, May 31. ­https://​­variety​.­com​/­2017​/­tv​/­news​/­underground​-­canceled​-­wgn​-­america​ -­1202448077​/. Square, Jonathan. 2017. “How the Underground Costume Designer Helps the Show’s Enslaved Characters Hide in Plain Sight.” Fashionista, April 21. ­https://​­fashionista​ .­com ​/­2017​/­04​/­underground​-­season​-­t wo​-­costumes.

Univision Before 1961, the U.S. Spanish-speaking population was considered so poor and so small a community that it was not considered to be a viable market for news broadcasting. The 1960 census counted 3.5 million Spanish surnamed U.S. residents. The vast majority of that group were Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans living in the United States. Spanish-speaking people along the borders of southern states listened to radio broadcasts from Mexico. By the 1970s, the U.S. Spanish-speaking communities had increased seven times faster than other ethnic groups. As a result of that growth, existing English language stations began to consider Spanish language stations as possible competitors. Univision Communications Inc., founded in 1962, is now the premier Spanish language media company in the United States. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles, with television network operations in Miami and television stations, radio stations, and sales offices in the major cities throughout the United States and Canada. They also own Galavision, a Spanish language cable network, dozens of radio stations, and several record companies held as part of Univision Music Group and the quickly expanding web-based entertainment of its Univision Online division. Univision regularly scores more than three-quarters of the available Spanish-language television viewers, including viewers of ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox programming. Univision and Telemundo, bitter rivals always battling for the Latino markets in the United States, are now, as viewers speak more English, pressuring Spanish-language outlets to add some English-speaking reporters or programming. In spite of Univision’s current standing, the group did not start out looking especially promising. In fact, the company was initially not even named Univision and was never thought to become the behemoth of the mid-2000s. Univision began in 1961 as Spanish International Communications Corp. (SICC) with the purchase of KWEX-TV in San Antonio, Texas. The buyer, Rene Anselmo, from Massachusetts, originally worked in Mexico for the president of Telesistema Mexico (later Grupo Televisa). Twenty percent of the financing for buying SICC, including all of its programming came from Telesistema. Anselmo also became the head of the Spanish International Network (SIN). This became the outlet to handle all advertising sales for the stations. Initially purchase money was restricted because of laws at the time that kept foreign countries from buying more than 20 percent of a single television station in the United States. SIN eventually became a full-fledged network with more than 350 affiliate stations. Because financing was different for

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foreign countries wishing to purchase entire broadcast systems, Telesistema owned 75 percent of the SICC/SIN merger and Anselmo owned 25 percent. It is widely agreed upon among television broadcast industry leaders that the SICC and SIN merger solidly established Spanish-language stations within the United States. By the fall of 1968, SIN added KMEX-TV in Los Angeles, WXTV in New York City, and KPAZ-TV in Phoenix to its holdings. These were all UHF stations. In addition, they picked up a non-SIN, non-UHF station in Chicago. Five Mexican stations also belonged to the network. At this juncture SICC/SIN constituted the only television stations in the U.S. broadcasting exclusively in Spanish. To keep up with broadcasting demand, SIN, in 1976, became the first network to deliver signal by satellite. SIN paid $1.5 million to connect to Western Union’s We-star satellite. SIN then increased its potential outlets and was able to pick up direct transmissions from overseas. This ease of broadcasting (although far more rudimentary than later in the twentieth century) remarkably reduced SIN’s transmission cost. While SIN was cutting costs and increasing revenues, investors saw an opportunity, turning attention to the possibility of purchasing the network. Among that group of potential investors were ABC, Inc., Arts and Entertainment Network, CBS Corp., Cisneros Group of Companies, Fox Broadcasting, Grupo Televisa, S.A., NBC Universal, Inc., Entertainment T.V., Azteca, S.A. de CV, and Telemundo Communication, Inc. In the heated battle for ownership of Spanish-language stations, accusations of underhanded double-dealings were shot across the bows of many of these groups, lawsuits were filed, dismissed, refiled, and essentially major greed was on grand display. When the dust settled, a Federal Communications Commission administrative law judge refused to renew the SICC stations’ licenses because of violations regarding percentages of stations owned by foreign countries. SICC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, then sold ten of its stations in 1987 for $300 million to Hallmark Cards, Inc. A new firm emerged to oversee the Hallmark operations, called Univision Holdings, Inc. The terms of the sale allowed SIN to provide all the programming under the title of Univision Network. The network’s fortunes began a decline after the Hallmark sale, when Televisa terminated their programming agreement with Univision. The programming loss included the popular telenovelas (soap operas). These serials were produced in Mexico. Televisa chose to shift the production of novelas to South America because of lower costs. This move did not help Televisa’s costs, as viewership declined with the production shift. In addition, the sale to Hallmark left Univision with a very large debt load to cover. On February 1, 1990, Univision Holdings disclosed that it had failed to make an interest payment of $10 million, citing insufficient cash flow for the missed payment. At the time, Univision owed over $315 million to a group of banks led by Continental Bank of Chicago. Inevitably, Univision filed a motion in U.S. Bankruptcy Court to seek Chapter 11 credit protection and financial reorganization. On April 8, 1992, Univision was sold by Hallmark to a group of investors, including brothers Ricardo and Gustavo Cisneros, then co-owners of Venezuelan broadcasting company Venevision. The sale price was $550 million.

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The sale raised concerns by several Latino activist groups, including the National Hispanic Media Coalition, and a petition was filed with the FCC to deny the sale of Univision and its television stations, based on the argument that there would be a major reduction in Univision’s domestically produced programming in favor of low-cost imported Latin American content. The FCC finally approved the purchase, saying the petitioners’ arguments were not convincing regarding any major reduction in U.S.-produced content. Three months later, Univision canceled three U.S.produced programs, including Portada (Cover Story) and Al Mediodia (Mid-Day), and the variety series Charytin International. Seventy production staffers were let go from the Miami and Los Angeles facilities. Univision executives claimed all three of the programs were cancelled due to low ratings. Ratings for Spanish-language programming are now tracked as part of the A. C. Nielsen company. This service was acquired in a rare collaboration by both Univision and Telemundo. When all the ups and downs, sales, rebranding, and fisticuffs died down, Univision looked around and realized they were perfectly situated to jump into the digital age of broadcasting. So they went for it in a big way. Available currently is Univision NOW, and UniMas, livestream networks developed by Univision Communications, Inc. The contents include live sporting events and specials with streaming from stations in select markets. Subscribers of this service can replay up to the previous seventy-two hours of the live stream and have access to prime time on demand. Not all Univision and UniMás programming is available in every city. Univision claims they were the most downloaded UCI app in 2016, that 85 percent of the Univision Now viewers access the platform via mobile devices, and the average Univision Now viewer uses over ten hours of content per month. In the On Demand platform, there are over 1,000 hours of kids’ series, novelas, dramatic series, and comedies. Livestreams are in HD and can be accessed from any electronic device. Univision Sports is gaining recognition as the premier provider of live soccer programming. In an eyebrow-raising event in March 2018, Univision chief news anchor, Jorge Ramos, made a stop on Telemundo’s nightly newscast to promote his book, Stranger: The Challenge of a Latino Immigrant in the Trump Era. Ramos was interviewed by his long-time rival, and chief anchor at Telemundo, Jose Diaz-Balart. The interview turned into a fascinating conversation including issues involving Latino communities, activism, and journalism. Diaz-Balart later commented on the importance of the conversation, given the crisis felt among many in the Latino community under the Trump administration, given his widely heard threats against immigrants, and particularly Mexicans. He added, “This is the first time we’re doing this. We owed it to each other for the last 30 years.” Maria Elena Raymond Further Readings

Avila, Alex. 1999. “Trading Punches.” Hispanic, 08983097, January–February, Issue 1–2. Friedman, Wayne. 2006. “How Hot Is Univision?” Broadcasting and Cable, March 4. ­https://​­w ww​.­nexttv​.­com​/­news​/ ­how​-­hot​-­univision​-­79081. Kanellos, Nicholas. 1994. Handbook of Hispanic Cultures in the United States. Houston, TX: Arte Publico Press.

UPN 703 Mehta, Stephanie N. 2006. “Univision Is Ready for Its Closeup.” CNN Money, February 28. ­https://​­money​.­cnn​.­com ​/­magazines​/­fortune​/­fortune​_ archive​/­2006​/­03​/­06​/­8370616​ /­index​.­htm.

UPN (1995–2006) The United Paramount Network operated as a national television broadcaster from 1995 until 2006. The company was closely linked to the WB (Warner Bros.) Television Network. Both networks were formed in 1993; each premiered within days of each other; and their similar approach to programming and marketing were clearly informed by the success of Fox Broadcasting Company in its early years. As a mini-network, or “netlet,” UPN sought to attract advertising revenue by appealing to niche audiences. The network would become a hub for Black-produced programming that targeted African American audiences in the years after Fox abandoned this approach. Paramount Pictures had made previous attempts to launch a television channel, including the Paramount Television Service, which, after heavy investment, it abandoned in 1977. At that time, the television landscape was dominated by three broadcast networks that attracted the vast majority of viewers and advertising dollars. By the 1980s, new technologies and sources of competition emerged to chip away at this dominance. Home video and video game systems both provided alternatives to prime-time programming for millions of households. As more and more American cities were wired for cable, a new array of channels would become available to viewers. In the mid-1980s, the new Fox network began to counterprogram the major networks with series and specials that appealed to more specific demographics. Nielsen ratings indicated that the potential audience for Fox’s owned and operated stations was made up of racially and ethnically diverse city dwellers; they were less likely to have cable, but they were avid broadcast viewers (Zook 1999, 3–4). Fox, granted an exemption from the financial interest and syndication (fin/syn) rules that required the major broadcast networks to purchase most of their programming from independent production companies, built their early success by focusing on urban audiences. Paramount’s interest in television programming and distribution may have been reinvigorated by the success of Fox, but the creation of UPN was directly motivated by the expiration of the fin/syn rules. Paramount produced a substantial amount of television programming including network hits such as NBC’s Cheers (1984–1993) and syndicated stalwarts including Entertainment Tonight (1981–). The fin/syn rules required networks to contract with suppliers like Paramount for programming and ensured that the company was positioned to profit from their successes. When the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced in 1993 that the rules would no longer be enforced in 1995, Paramount (and simultaneously, Warner Bros.) announced that they would use their expertise in program production to launch a new network. UPN and WB were designed to serve as guaranteed distribution outlets for Paramount and Warner Bros.

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Paramount, which had been acquired by Viacom in 1994, partnered with Chris-Craft Industries, owner of United Television, to form UPN. Former executives from Fox, including network head Lucie Salhany, guided the initial strategy. In its first years, UPN clearly followed the model established by Fox. The network sought to build a brand by launching a new Star Trek series (Voyager, 1995–2001), which would draw viewers to the new channel and give it an identity. UPN initially provided two nights of programming each week, and added nights slowly, as Fox had. Most crucially, the network emulated Fox by focusing on more specific demographic groups than its major network competitors. UPN would not reach as many viewers as CBS, but the network attempted to appeal to advertisers who wanted to reach smaller, clearly defined audience groups. In its first years, UPN found little success with an audience target of young White males. With the exception of Voyager, the network’s initial production slate of hour-long dramas was quickly cancelled. When United Parcel Service (UPS) drivers went on strike in 1998, new network head Dean Valentine announced the slogan “UPN for UPS” to signify their focus on attracting an older audience of middle-class viewers. One year later, however, Valentine reversed course, focusing instead on young White male viewers when it launched WWE Smackdown! (1999–2006). While it proved to be somewhat successful with this audience, this strategy was short-lived. UPN would turn to African American audiences, targeting this demographic with programming and advertising, propelling the network forward with success unseen with previous strategies. Moesha (1996–2001), a Black-cast family sitcom, provided the earliest indication that African American viewers might provide a valuable niche market for UPN. Brandy Norwood was already a successful pop singer when she was hired to star as the title teenager; her celebrity may have helped to draw young viewers. The sitcom was the first to focus on an African American teenage girl. It had originally been developed for CBS, but the network couldn’t find a place for it on their schedule. Instead, it premiered on UPN in January 1996, and immediately became a standout success for the new network. Across six seasons, Moesha was often issues-oriented, blending comedy with relatable and recognizable dilemmas. It depicted the Mitchells as a middle-class family, but they were not immune to economic worries. Episodes frequently focused on the show’s teenage characters and dealt with issues including peer pressure, premarital sex, and teen pregnancy. In the short term, the success of Moesha may have inspired Lucie Salhany to program a block of Black-cast sitcoms in the fall of 1996. That year, UPN Monday nights began with In the House (NBC, 1995–1996; UPN, 1996–1998), a sitcom starring LL Cool J as a cash-strapped former football player who takes in boarders. It was followed by Malcom & Eddie (1996–2000), starring Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Eddie Griffin as roommates who co-manage a bar. Next came Sparks (1996–1998), a sitcom about a family of lawyers, featuring Robin Givens. The night concluded with Goode Behavior (1996–1997), starring Sherman Hemsley as a convict ordered to live with his son, a college professor played by Dorien Wilson, as a condition of his parole.

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While the strategy a block of Black-cast sitcoms was similar to the early years at Fox, UPN drew criticism for the perpetuation of stereotypes and the overall (lack of) quality of representations in its shows. African American activist groups, including the Hollywood chapter of the NAACP, went public with protests against racial stereotyping in network programming, and named all of the shows in UPN’s Monday night lineup. Protesters also expressed ire at Homeboys in Outer Space (1996–1997), one of the network’s most high-profile failures. The series starred Flex Alexander and Darryl M. Bell as astronauts in the twenty-third century. Homeboys aired for a full season, even though it was one of the lowest rated programs in all of prime-time television. Some viewers may have initially tuned in to see how a sitcom could blend hip-hop and science fiction, but the show’s low budget aesthetic and clunky dialogue failed to win it many devoted fans. It attracted derision prior to its premiere, based on its title alone, and UPN was criticized for its cynical approach to targeting African American viewers with lowest common denominator programming. Homeboys raised eyebrows, but The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer (1998) prompted an actual boycott campaign. This sitcom, set in the Lincoln White House, was intended to satirize the Clinton White House of the late 1990s. Desmond Pfeiffer (the “p” is not silent), was a Black British nobleman serving as Lincoln’s confidante and personal servant. The NAACP and other protest groups took issue with the show’s desire to present the Civil War era in a comic context. UPN responded to pressure groups (and the series’ very low ratings) by canceling it after only four episodes. Following this spectacular failure, UPN pursued a more conservative route to targeting African American audience groups. The network began picking up Black-cast sitcoms that were cancelled by other networks, including The Hughleys (ABC, 1998–2000; UPN, 2000–2002) and Between Brothers (Fox, 1997–1998; UPN, 1999). Moesha continued to have far-reaching impacts on the development of UPN over its entire run. The series was successful enough to launch The Parkers (1999–2004), a spin-off focused on Moesha’s best friend Kim (Countess Vaughn) and her mother (Mo’Nique). The slapstick style of The Parkers made it distinct from Moesha and also incredibly popular. At the end of its first season, the LA Times reported that The Parkers was the most popular sitcom on UPN, and the most watched program by African American viewers (Braxton 2000). Both Moesha and The Parkers were cocreated by a team of African American writer/producers: Ralph Farquhar, Sara Finney-Johnson, and Vida Spears. All three had years of experience as writers on network sitcoms prior to the debut of Moesha, and Farquhar created the acclaimed but short-lived South Central (Fox, 1994). Moesha and The Parkers upended industry norms by employing almost all-Black writing staffs. Mara Brock Akil became a producer on Moesha after four years as a staff writer. When UPN sought new sitcoms to capitalize on the popularity of The Parkers, Brock Akil pitched Girlfriends (UPN, 2000–2006; CW, 2006–2008). A sitcom in the vein of Fox’s Living Single (1993–1998), Girlfriends focused on a group of four female friends in Los Angeles. It became the

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most popular sitcom on UPN, launching the acting career of Tracee Ellis Ross, who also directed an episode late in the series’ run. In the early 2000s, UPN’s Monday lineup used The Parkers and Girlfriends as anchors to launch new sitcoms including One on One (2001–2006), created by Eunetta T. Boone, and Half & Half (2002–2006), produced by Yvette Lee Bowser. Meg DeLoatch was a supervising producer on One on One before creating Eve (2003–2006), which also joined the Monday night schedule. It starred the rapper Eve as a fashion designer with relationship problems; the series attempted to combine the appeal of Moesha (and its popstar lead, Brandy) with that of Girlfriends. During a time when fewer Black writers were employed at the major broadcast networks, UPN’s Black-produced sitcoms provided a space to develop talent. Major broadcasters largely abandoned Black-cast programming by the late 1990s, and both UPN and the WB sought to fill a void by appealing to underserved audience groups. UPN’s Monday night sitcoms did not fare well in the overall Nielsen ratings, but they were among the most popular programs on television with young Latina and African American women. Dawn Ostroff would become the president of UPN in 2002, introducing a new era at the network. She focused on female viewers and programming with the potential to appeal across multiple audience groups. Under her leadership, UPN experimented with celebrity-driven sitcoms, dramas, and reality shows. Will and Jada Pinkett Smith produced a sitcom, All of Us (2003–2006; CW, 2006–2007), loosely based on their family life. Chris Rock and Ali LeRoi cocreated Everybody Hates Chris (UPN, 2005–2006; CW, 2006–2009), inspired by the famous comedian’s teenage years. John Ridley was not yet a major name when he created the hip-hop industry drama Platinum (2003), but his cocreator Sofia Coppola and the show’s executive producer Frances Ford Coppola were Hollywood royalty. Taye Diggs starred in the well-received legal drama Kevin Hill (2003–2004), and Jennifer Lopez produced the short-lived prime-time soap opera, South Beach (2006). Not all of the celebrity-driven programming was successful, but the strategy produced one of UPN’s biggest hits: the Tyra Banks-led reality competition America’s Next Top Model (UPN, 2003–2006; CW, 2006–2015). By early 2006, it was clear that UPN and WB were increasingly targeting similar young female audience groups. Both networks had followed the model established by Fox, but neither had attained the reach or the ratings of their predecessor. Their parent companies reached an agreement to shut down in order to reform as a joint venture, the CW (named for CBS Corporation and Warner Bros.), airing the most successful programs from each former outlet. The plan was met with initial outrage, as a number of Black-produced, Black-cast programs airing on UPN would be cancelled. An entire block of UPN sitcoms disappeared from the schedule immediately, and the remaining programming struggled on the new network. In more than eleven years on the air, UPN became a notable incubator for Black creative talent. The way that broadcast networks approach diversity and audience targeting has shifted significantly since UPN went off the air, but no similar training ground exists in the current industry. Caryn Murphy

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Further Reading

Braxton, Greg. 2000. “Outlandish? Yes, and a Hit.” Los Angeles Times, April 28. ­http://​ ­articles​.­latimes​.­com​/­2000​/­apr​/­28​/­entertainment​/­ca​-­24177. Daniels, Susanne, and Cynthia Littleton. 2007. Season Finale: The Unexpected Rise and Fall of the WB and UPN. New York: Harper. Eaton, B. Carol. 1997. “Prime-Time Stereotyping on the New Television Networks.” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 74 (4): 859–872. Sterngold, James. 1998. “A Racial Divide Widens on Network TV.” New York Times, December 29. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­1998​/­12​/­29​/­us​/­a​-­racial​-­divide​-­widens​-­on​ -­network​-­t v​.­html. Zook, Kristal Brent. 1999. Color by Fox: The Fox Network and the Revolution in Black Television. New York: Oxford University Press.

V Vergara, Sofia(1972–) Born in Barranquilla, Colombia, on July 10, 1972, a photographer discovered Sofia Vergara at the age of seventeen while she was enjoying a day at the beach with her family. Soon thereafter, she was hired to do a Latin American Pepsi commercial. She went on to become a model and later host a show in Colombia similar to Fear Factor called, A Que No Te Atreves. In the late 1990s, Vergara moved to Miami, Florida, where she worked for Univision, a Spanish-language television station. There, she cohosted a show with Fernando Fiore where they traveled throughout the world, reporting on their adventures. She then moved to New York, appearing in the Broadway musical, Chicago. After landing several guest television roles—on My Wife and Kids (2001–2005) in 2002; Eve (2003–2006) in 2004; Rodney (2004–2006, 2008) in 2004; and Entourage (2004–2011) in 2007—she secured several roles on short-lived shows airing on both English-language and Spanish-language networks. She also played Lola Hernandez in the ABC comedy Hot Properties (2005). Vergara played a recent divorcee working at a Manhattan real estate firm, whose attention-grabbing looks and pursuit of men is central to the show’s narrative. Two years later, Vergara landed roles in Amas de casa Desesperadas (2008), a Univision telenovela show based on Desperate Housewives (2004–2012), in Dirty Sexy Money (2007– 2009), and in The Knights of Prosperity (2007), where she played Esperanza Villalobos. In The Knights of Prosperity, Vergara plays a waitress who joins a group of misfits trying to rob Mick Jagger’s apartment. Critics note that as with so many of her roles, she uses her body as part of the show’s story line and with her comedic intervention. Here, she distracts the building employees with sex appeal as the men break into the apartment. Once inside the apartment, she is responsible for finding the jewelry to steal. In 2008, she appeared in Fuego en la Sangre, a Mexican telenovela remake of a Columbia show that appeared on the Canal de las Estrellas network. She would land her big break in 2009 with Modern Family (2009–2019). Playing Gloria Delgado-Pritchett, the show focuses on her relationship to her older husband Jay (Ed O’Neil) and their son Manny (Rico Rodriguez). Imagining the modern family as interracial, among other things, the show explores the challenges and beauty in cultural exchange and diversity, all while including discussions of race and racism. According to Isabel Molina-Guzman, author of Latinas and Latinos on Television (2018), Vergara’s portrayal of Gloria on Modern Family represents a milestone not only because of the paucity of Latina characters on

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television but also in the depth and humanity offered to commonplace stereotypes. “Until very recently she was the only Latina character on television in such a prominent role on a successful show. She’s playing a stereotypical character, but Gloria has also been allowed to be more nuanced in ways that are unexpected and really interesting,” noted Molina-Guzman, professor of Media, Cinema and Latina/Latino Studies at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “Her sexual politics on the show are much more progressive than the more conservative stereotype. For example, Latina women and mothers in particular are often portrayed as more Catholic and more socially rigid, whereas Gloria seems more socially conscious than a lot of the characters” (qtd. in Metz 2018). Yet, to Molina-Guzman and others, her role also embodies and perpetuates long-standing stereotypes as well. “We can’t forget her only way to access that visibility is through this decades-old stereotype that is super-familiar to most U.S. audiences. And that’s a problem. The scope of representation is so narrow that for Sofia Vergara and this character, her path has to be through this spitfire Latina trope, which means: usually has an accent; usually very temperamental; tends to look a particular way and have a particular body type” (qtd. in Metz 2018). Her success and visibility, alongside the lack of representation for Latinx communities on television, has prompted criticism about her perpetuation of stereotypes about Latina as sexy, as foreign, as hard to understand because of a thick accent, and as being nothing more than an object of male desire. “The habit of using her already hypersexualized figure for laughs is troubling, as well. Vergara, and all Latinas, are more than their bodies or possible sex appeal but her actions on-screen do little to dispel the stereotype,” wrote Carolina Moreno (2017) in “Why Sofia Vergara Relying on Latina Stereotypes for Laughs Is So Damaging.” Vergara has challenged critics, asking “What’s wrong with being a stereotype?” (qtd. in Dwyer 2017). Arguing that her roles are inspired by her own experiences, and that her work seeks to celebrate difference within the Latinx community, Vergara has called for more opportunities and greater diversity in terms of representation. “Gloria is inspired by my mom and my aunt. They are Latin women who grew up in Colombia, like me. They love color, prints and shoes. . . . Once we have more Latinos writing, that’s when things may really start to change” (qtd. in Dwyer 2017). With a career that spans across genre, that has taken her into both English- and Spanish- language networks, and that has broken down barriers for Latinx representation, Sofia Vergara has faced ample criticism and debate. Embodying the burdens faced by actors of color, and the debates around visibility, stereotype, inclusion, and humanity, her career highlights the stakes and the ways that Latina actresses continue to wrestle with both history and the persist gendered color lines on television. Evelia Sanchez and David J. Leonard Further Reading

Dwyer, Kate. 2017. “Sofia Vergara: ‘What’s Wrong with Being a Stereotype?’” Time, January 26. ­http://​­time​.­com​/­4650846​/­sofia​-­vergara​-­stereotype​-­modern​-­family​/.



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McNutt, Myles. 2010. “The Construction of Race in Modern Family’s Second Season.” Cultural Leanings, November 10. ­https://​­cultural​-­learnings​.­com​/­2010​/­11​/­10​ /­the​-­construction​-­of​-­race​-­in​-­modern​-­familys​-­second​-­season ​/. Metz, Nina. 2018. “From ‘Modern Family’ to ‘Superstore’ to ‘Charmed,’ a Look at Latinas on TV.” Chicago Tribune, October 25. ­https://​­www​.­chicagotribune​.­com​/­entertainment​ /­tv​/­ct​-­ent​-­latinas​-­latinos​-­portrayals​-­tv​-­1026​-­story​.­html. Molina-Guzman, Isabel. 2010. Dangerous Curves: Latina Bodies in the Media. New York: New York University Press. Molina-Guzman, Isabel. 2018. Latinas and Latinos on TV: Colorblind Comedy in the Post-racial Network Era. 2nd ed. Tucson: University of Arizona ­Press​.­Moreno, Carolina. 2017. “Why Sofia Vergara Relying on Latina Stereotypes for Laughs Is So Damaging.” The Huffington Post, January 9. ­https://​­www​.­huffpost​.­com​/­entry​ /­why​-­sofia​-­vergara​-­relying​- ­on​-­latina​-­stereotypes​-­for​-­laughs​-­is​-­so​- ­d amaging​_ n​ _5873c015e4b043ad97e4c107.

W Waithe, Lena(1984–) Before reaching the age of thirty-five, Lena Waithe had emerged as one of television’s foremost writers, producers, and actresses, with credits including Master of None (2015–), The Chi (2018–), and Dear White People (2014). Giving voice to otherwise marginalized experiences, Waithe has been at the forefront of demanding increased and more complex representations of communities of color, Black women, and LGBTQ communities. Born May 17, 1984, in Chicago, Waithe moved from the South Side to Evanston, a Chicago suburb, along with her mom and sister when she was twelve. She went on to earn her bachelor’s degree in Cinema and Television Arts in 2006 from Columbia College Chicago. Waithe broke into the industry as a production assistant first for Gina Prince-Bythewood on The Secret Life of Bees (2008), and then for Ava DuVernay on I Will Follow (2010). She quickly moved to the writing room, landing jobs to write for How to Rock (2012) in 2012, Hello Cupid (2013–) in 2013, and Bones (2005–2017) in 2014 and 2015. She also served as producer for Dear White People (2014), Justin Simien’s film on racism on college campuses that later became a Netflix series (she appeared in several episodes as well). In 2018, she created and coproduced, along with Common, Showtime’s The Chi. Also serving as one of the show’s writers, The Chi “is a coming-of-age story centering on a group of residents who become linked by coincidence but bonded by the need for connection and redemption on the city’s South Side” (Otterson 2018). Despite ample success as a writer, producer, and creator of several important shows, Waithe is best known for her work as both actress and writer on Master of None. In the show, which chronicles the personal and professional adventures of Dev Shah, a South Asian actor played by Aziz Ansari, Waithe plays Denise. Playing Shah’s friend, Waithe has shaped the character and the story lines about Denise. “I don’t think they ever intended her to be African-American. They definitely didn’t intend for her to be gay,” Waithe noted in Entertainment Weekly. “But when Aziz met me, he was like, ‘I like what I’m seeing and I want to make the character a little more like you.’ They were really cool and went back and rewrote the character to reflect more of my personality, which was amazing” (qtd. in Falcone 2015). For Master of None, she won an Emmy for comedic writing, becoming the first African American woman to take home this award. Recognized for her work on “Thanksgiving,” an episode “based on her own coming-out process that took place over the course of a decade of Thanksgiving dinners” (Haithcoat 2018), this

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work was historic in multiple ways. Her acceptance speech went viral as she celebrated diversity and inclusion: “Thank you for embracing a little Indian boy from South Carolina and a little queer black girl from the South Side of Chicago” (qtd. in Haithcoat 2018). As an actress, producer, and writer, Waithe sees herself as a storyteller, as someone who can give voice to the experiences of queer Black women. In telling stories, and in offering representations rarely seen in Hollywood and on television, Waithe sees immense power from today’s Black artists. “I am tired of white folks telling my stories. . . . Can’t no one tell a black story, particularly a queer story, the way I can, because I see the God in us. James Baldwin saw the God in us. Zora saw the God in us. When I’m looking for myself, I find myself in the pages of Baldwin” (qtd. in Woodson 2018). While breaking down barriers on screen, Waithe is committed to transforming Hollywood and the television industry, opening up doors for those artists who have historically been marginalized, silenced, and excluded in the industry. She serves as co-chair of the Committee of Black Writers within the Writers Guild. She is also very involved with Franklin Leonard’s the Black List, an organization that allows writers to receive feedback from professionals within the industry. She is devoted to using her star power, which grew after receiving her Emmy. “I have a ton of mentees,” Waithe noted in Vanity Fair. “They’re all people of color. Some of them are poor. And I’m just trying to help them learn how to be great writers; and for those that have become really good writers, I help them get representation; and those that have representation, I want to help get them jobs. That to me is a form of activism. I was doing this before Time’s Up was created. I am doing it now. Activism is me paying for a writer to go to a television-writing class” (qtd. in Woodson 2018). In less than ten years in the entertainment industry, Waithe not only made a significant impact as an actress, writer, producer, and show creator, but in creating representations that challenged existing stereotypes all while giving voice to otherwise marginalized experiences. She has committed herself to transforming the landscape of television, opening up doors for other artists. According to Waithe, “My mission is to make sure I’m not the last. It’s about making sure that other women of color not only have a seat at the table, but that they’re the best in the writer’s room. It’s not enough to have a seat at the table. You want to be so good that you sit at the head of it” (qtd. in Pham 2017). Following in the footsteps of countless other artists of color, Waithe sees her role as one of transforming the types of images and story lines available all while changing the culture and leadership of America’s television and film industries. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Falcone, Dana Rose. 2015. “The Cast of ‘Master of None’ Reveal How They’re Just like Their Characters.” Entertainment Weekly, November 10. ­http://​­w ww​.­ew​.­com​ /­article​/­2015​/­11​/­10​/­master​-­of​-­none​-­cast​-­character​-­similarities​/. Haithcoat, Rebecca. 2018. “Master of None’s Lena Waithe: ‘If You Come from a Poor Background, TV Becomes What You Dream About.’” The Guardian, January 5.



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­https://​­w ww​.­t heguardian​.­c om​/­t v​-­a nd​-­r adio​/­2018​/­jan​/­05​/­m aster​-­of​-­nones​-­lena​ -­waithe​-­i f​ -­you​ -­c ome​-­f rom​ -­a​ -­p oor​-­b ackground​ -­t v​ -­b ecomes​-­what​ -­you​ -­d ream​ -­about. Kilday, Gregg. 2018. “Produced By: Writer-Actress Lena Waithe Advises ‘Make Sure You Are Surrounded by Greatness.’” The Hollywood Reporter, June 9. ­https://​ ­w ww​.­h ollywoodreporter​.­c om ​ /­n ews​ /­p roduced​ -­by​ -­w riter​-­a ctress​ -­lena​ -­waithe​ -­advises​-­make​-­you​-­are​-­surrounded​-­by​-­greatness​-­1118724. Otterson, Joe. 2018. “‘The Chi’ Renewed for Season 2 at Showtime, Sets New Showrunner.” Variety, January 30. ­https://​­variety​.­com​/­2018​/­tv​/­news​/­the​-­chi​-­renewed​-­season​ -­2​-­showtime​-­1202681682​/. Pham, Jason. 2017. “Why Lena Waithe Almost Didn’t Write Her Emmy-Winning ‘Master of None’ Episode.” Variety, October 25. ­https://​­variety​.­com​/­2017​/­scene​/­v page​ /­lena​-­waithe​-­master​-­of​-­none​-­thanksgiving​-­episode​-­1202598501​/. Woodson, Jacqueline. 2018. “The Cover Story: Lena Waithe Is Changing the Game.” Vanity Fair, March 22. ­https://​­www​.­vanityfair​.­com​/­hollywood​/­2018​/­03​/­lena​-­waithe​-­cover​ -­story.

Waters, Ethel(1896–1977) Born in Chester, Pennsylvania, on October 31, 1896, Waters became one of the nation’s foremost entertainers. Over sixty years, she became a star in music, in Hollywood, and in television. Her childhood, especially her early life, was defined by hardship and struggle. Her mother—Louise Anderson—was raped by John Waters, a family friend. In her autobiography, His Eye on the Sparrow: An Autobiography, she described her childhood as one of sadness: “I never was a child. I never was cuddled, or liked, or understood by my family” (qtd. in White 2019). In search of economic opportuni­ ties in the midst of extreme poverty, Waters and her grandmother, who raised her, moved around in search of jobs. At the age of thirteen, she was married, only to divorce her abusive husband soon thereafter. After working at a Philadelphia hotel as a maid and several other jobs, she was discovered while performing at a nightclub. She soon began performing on the Black vaudeville circuit and on stage, ultimately making her mark as a recording artist. She had dozens of hit records, including “Sweet Georgia Brown” (1925), “I Got Rhythm” (1929), and “Stormy Weather” (1933). In 1939, Waters first appear on television in NBC’s The Ethel Waters Show (June 14, 1939). While a single episode, she became the first Black artist to host her own show. Some speculate that this show marked the first time a Black person appeared on television. The Ethel Waters Show included a reading from Mamba’s Daughters, a Broadway play about the Gullah people of South Carolina. A review from Variety captured the show’s range and critical success: “Results offered sharp contrasts—all the way from deeply stirring drama to feeble slapstick comedy and not-too-effective scientific lecture. When it was good it was quite good but when it was bad it was capital B” (qtd. in Bogle 2002, 9). As a pioneer, The Ethel Waters Show paved the way for other variety shows, many of which became important platforms for Black singers and dancers, including Pearl Bailey, Cab

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Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, and Eartha Kitt. For others, including Nat King Cole and Hazel Scott, the variety show became an opportunity for Black artists to star as hosts, serving as one of the few venues for Black performers to have their own television shows. Establishing herself as a musician, with numerous records, and a leading actress in Hollywood throughout the 1940s, with memorable performances in Cairo (1942), Tales of Manhattan (1942), and Cabin in the Sky (1943), Waters became a star with Pinky (1949). Waters played Dicey Johnson, a Black woman whose granddaughter had been passing as White in the North. She, along with her two costars (Jeanne Crain as Pinky and Ethel Barrymore as Miss Em), all earned Academy Award nominations. Leveraging her critical success, Waters returned to television, starring in widely popular radio serial Beulah. A trailblazer, Waters became the first African American women to star on television in Beulah (1950–1953). Like Amos ‘n’ Andy (1951–1953), The Jack Benny Show (1950–1965), and countless other television shows, Beulah both migrated from radio to TV and found its origins in vaudeville and the minstrel show. Beulah chronicles the comedic adventures of the title character, a Black maid, and her friend, Oriele (Butterfly McQueen), also a Black maid who worked for a family next door. As with representations of Black women as maids and servants, Beulah not only focused on the maids’ love and devotion for their White families but also their amazingly uncanny ability to solve problems. Aniko Bodroghkozy, in The Encyclopedia of Television, describes the narrative as one of gross stereotypes and historic racial tropes: “Beulah coming to the rescue of her employers, by providing a great spread of Southern cuisine to impress Mr. Henderson’s business client; teaching the awkward Donnie how to dance jive and impress the girls; or saving the Henderson’s stale marriage. Beulah’s other major obsession was trying to get Bill to agree to marry her” (2004, 254–255). The recycling of long-standing stereotypes of Black women as mammies, as happy servants, their representation as loyal as a result of stupidity and obsession with whiteness, and the narratives that reinforced White supremacist ideologies prompted backlash against both the show and its stars, most notably Ethel Waters. Critics condemned the show for its furtherance of racism. In 1951, the NAACP convention condemned Beulah and similar types representations for its harm to Black America. Racism on television “tends to strengthen the conclusion among uninformed or prejudiced peoples that Negroes and other minorities are inferior, lazy, dumb and dishonest” (qtd. in Bodroghkozy 2004, 255). After one and a half seasons, Waters left the show in protest of its dehumanizing and stereotypical representations of African American women. She was not alone. Bud Harris, who played the role Bill Jackson, Beulah’s boyfriend, also quit the show in protest after less than one season. After leaving the show, Waters found fewer and few opportunities on the small screen or in Hollywood. She appeared on several different shows from 1952 to 1955 in guest roles: The Jackie Gleason Show (1952–1959), Encounter (1952– 1961), Your Play Time (1953, 1955), Climax! (1954–1958), General Electric Theater (1953–1962), and Playwrights ’56 (1955–1956).



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In 1961, she appeared in Route 66 (1960–1964), a CBS show that followed two unemployed recent college graduates traveling across America in a Corvette convertible. In “Good Night, Sweet Blues,” Waters plays Jennie Henderson, a blues singer, who gets into a car wreck with Tod Stiles (Martin Milner) and Buz Murdock (George Maharis), the show’s main characters. After learning that she is dying and wishes only to reconnect with her jazz band for one last performance, Tod and Buz set out to help her. For her performance, Waters received an Emmy nomination, the first for an African American woman. Her critical acclaim did not lead to ample opportunities. Over the next decade, she worked little, making guest appearances on The Great Adventure (1963–1964) in 1963, Vacation Playhouse (1963–1967) in 1967, in Daniel Boone (1964–1970) in 1970, and in Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law (1971–1974) in 1972. Over sixty years, Ethel Waters became a star throughout the entertainment industry: as a singer, on film, and in television. Breaking down barriers, while limited by the persistent color lines of Hollywood and on television, Waters left a lasting legacy throughout American popular culture. She died September 1, 1977, at the age of eighty. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Bodroghkozy, Aniko. 2004 “Beulah.” In Encyclopedia of Television, edited by Horace Newcomb, 254–256. New York: Routledge. Bogle, Donald. 2002. Primetime Blues: African Americans on Network Television. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kolbert, Elizabeth. 1993. “From ‘Beulah’ to ‘Oprah.’” New York Times. January 15. ­w ww​ .­nytimes​.­com​/­1993​/­01​/­15​/­arts​/­f rom​-­beulah​-­to​-­oprah​.­html. MacDonald, J. Fred. 1990. Blacks and White TV: Afro-Americans in Television since 1948. Chicago, IL: Nelson-Hall Publishers. Waters, Ethel, and Charles Samuels. 1992. His Eye Is on the Sparrow: An Autobiography. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press. White, Erin. 2019. “Queer, Black and Blue: Ethel Waters, the Original Trailblazer” Afropunk, March 15. ­https://​­afropunk​.­com​/­2019​/­03​/­queer​-­black​-­blue​-­ethel​-­waters​/.

Wayans Brothers, The The Wayans Brothers is a collective term used to describe the four family members who are known for their film and television work, ranging from acting and producing to directing and writing. The brothers include Keenan Ivory Wayans (June 8, 1958), Damon Wayans, Sr. (September 4, 1960), Shawn Wayans (January 19, 1971), and Marlon Wayans (July 23, 1972). The Wayans brothers are not the only members of the Wayans family working in the industry, including Kim Wayans (October 16, 1961), who appeared in A Different World (1987–1993), In Living Color (1990–1994), and several other shows, as well as their children, nieces, and nephews. However, it is these four who are seen as the most famous members of the Wayans family. Notable works of the Wayans brothers include the television shows In Living Color and My Wife and

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Kids (2001–2005), as well as a large number of films, such as I’m Gonna Git You Sucka (1988), Scary Movie (2000), and White Chicks (2004). The Wayans brothers were born in the Manhattan borough of New York City to Howell Stouten Wayans, a supermarket manager, and Elvira Alethia Wayans, a social worker. The first member of the family to breakthrough was Damon Wayans, who performed on Saturday Night Live from 1985 until 1986 when he fired for portraying one of his characters differently from the script. At the same, his brothers had been working on a number of smaller media projects. After Keenan Ivory found success working in films such as Hollywood Shuffle (1987) and as a producer on Eddie Murphy Raw (1987), he was approached to create a show for the Fox network, which was attempting to shake up the television world with programming that focused on African American stories and audiences. Keenan Ivory decided to structure In Living Color as a variety show, with the majority of cast members being people of color. Several members of his family, including Damon, Shawn, Marlon, and Kim joined the show, which became a hit and a national sensation. It received multiple nominations from a variety of awards shows, including a number of Emmy’s, one of the highest honors for a television show to receive. Among the brothers, Damon was the most decorated, receiving four Emmy nominations for his acting and directing in the series. Despite commercial critical success, the brothers sought other opportunities. By the fifth season of In Living Color, none of them were working on the show, citing their desire to move on to other projects as well as creative differences with the network. In the years following their In Living Color run, the Wayans brothers continued to develop their own projects, all while maintain close working relationships with each other. Keenan Ivory focused mostly on producing, although he did have a short-lived time as a TV talk show host by the same name. Marlon and Shawn worked together on a number of film and television projects, including creating and starting in The Wayans Bros., which ran on the CW network from 1995 until 1999. Of the four brothers, Damon has had the most success in the years following In Living Color. He worked on several different television shows, the most well-known being My Wife and Kids. Damon was nominated for a variety of awards for the show, including a BET Comedy Award, an NAACP Image Award, a People’s Choice Award, and Satellite Award for other work. In more recent years, he has continued to work sporadically in television and film, with his most recent work as a main role in the 2016 television adaptation of Lethal Weapon (2016–2019). Throughout their careers, the Wayans brothers have used their work to foster discussions of race and racism within contemporary America. As scholar Lisa Guerrero (2013, 229) argued, most situational comedies before the 1990s, with a few notable exceptions, paid little attention to racial differences, instead incorporating nonwhite actors in a move that equaled little more than tokenistic representation. The work of the Wayans brothers, both during the run of In Living Color and afterward, attempted to change this phenomenon. On In



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Living Color, the show’s mostly people of color cast led to prominence in capturing viewers of color. According to Leah P. Hunter and Jennifer M. Proffitt (2016, 30), television networks, such as Fox, increasingly realized that narrowcasting, or the push to gather a large proportion of a small audience, was an effective method in generating popular appeal. The Wayans brothers demonstrate the potential and possibilities of narrowcasting across the television landscape. After the Wayans left In Living Color, they utilized the new push for narrowcasting in creating their own shows. As Kristal Brent Zook (1999) found, In Living Color led to a growth in Black-led shows. In the years following, the Wayans brothers each had some part in the creation of a new television program, whether Waynehead (1996–1997), My Wife and Kids, or The Wayans Bros. In these shows, the Wayans incorporated their experiences of growing up Black in urban America. Over multiple decades, the Wayans brothers have altered the landscape of television. Demonstrating the potential in Black-led, Black-themed, and Black-audience-oriented shows, and in the popularity of variety shows and hip-hop, they paved the road for countless artists in front and behind the camera. Likewise, their willingness to confront racial issues proved that television shows, even those dominated by Black casts, could enter into these important conversations without alienating (White) audiences. Daniel D. Cooley Further Reading

Guerrero, Lisa A. 2013. “‘Black Comedy’: The Serious Business of Humor in In Living Color, Chappelle’s Show, and The Boondocks.” In African Americans on Television: Race-ing for Ratings, edited by David J. Leonard and Lisa A. Guerrero, 229–250. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. Hunter, Leah P., and Jennifer M. Proffitt. 2016. “Courting Minority Commodity Audiences: Bounce TV in the Age of Media Conglomeration.” In Race and Contention in Twenty-First Century Media, edited by Jason Smith and Bhoomi K. Thakore, 26–40. New York: Routledge. Smith-Shomade, Beretta E. 2008. “Surviving In Living Color with Some White Chicks: Whiteness in the Wayans’ (Black) Minds.” In The Persistence of Whiteness: Race and Contemporary Hollywood Cinema, edited by Daniel Bernardi, 344–359. New York: Routledge. Zook, Kristal Brent. 1999. Color by Fox: The Fox Network and the Revolution in Black Television. New York: Oxford University Press.

Webster (1983–1987) Webster debuted on ABC in 1983 in what was called “a shameless imitation” of the popular NBC TV sitcom Diff’rent Strokes (1978–1986) as it exploited the same trope of an orphaned Black child adopted into an affluent White home. Created by Stu Silver, Webster was set in Chicago and centered on the story of Webster Long (Emmanuel Lewis), who was reluctantly taken in by newlyweds George (Alex Karras) and Katherine Calder-Young Papadapolous (Susan Clark) after

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Webster’s father (Travis, played by Harrison Page, is also George’s professional football teammate) and mother were both killed in a car accident. The general structure of each episode included an opening solo skit with Webster, a central story with a simple, easy moral, and a closing punch line, usually (but not always) made by Webster. Emmanuel Lewis’s stature and cuteness drew in audiences and was primarily responsible for the show’s high ratings and six-season run. Irrespective of its popularity, critics have challenged the show for its representation of race in a post–civil rights era. In their estimation, the show represents the problems with White liberalism given its emphasis on colorblindness and multiculturalism as well as its superficial embrace of ethnic identity. According to Mary M. Dalton and Laura R. Linder (2016), “If one were to look for truths about Blackness in this era of television programming, the message here is that Blacks operate in odd, segregated worlds, worlds that might benefit from a normalizing dose of Whiteness, and non-Blacks have no need for the Black world except to visit momentarily to rescue Black youth” (284–285). Worse yet, the show’s successes were due, in part, to the ways in which it promoted a White savior narrative. Many White viewers were able to identify with the show’s positioning of the affluent White household as the moral center of—the rescuers of—American life in the 1980s, a time characterized by the racialized War on Drugs and significant cuts to welfare and other social programs that targeted and criminalized communities of color. Webster offered easy moral lessons, reducing complex issues of race, class, and gender germane to the Reagan era to simple axioms rooted in colorblind White liberal politics, second-wave feminism, and even American psychology. In its first season, Webster integrated a defense of colorblindness within story lines. In episode four, “Katherine’s Swan Song,” Webster explains that he calls Katherine “ma’am because to me, it kinda sounds like mom.” The episode concludes with a frozen image of Webster and Katherine shaking hands while the credits roll, as if they are making a deal rather than establishing a parent–child relationship. Despite the history of the term “ma’am” and its historic use as a symbol of racial dominance in the United States specific to the antebellum plantation, the show only comments on this odd moniker in order to endorse its use, rather than offer a critique. Exacerbating this tension is the fact that many of the show’s moral axioms are delivered through Katherine. In a special episode from season five, “Basketball Blues,” Katherine finds out that a friend of the family is addicted to cocaine and lectures Webster and his friends about how “people who use drugs are junkies no matter what. That’s that.” From ombudsman to therapist, Katherine’s career choices offered a way into discussions of social ills and imbued her with the authority to make such claims, no matter how ill-informed or outrageous. Moments like these illustrate how the show reduced major social issues regarding race, gender, and class to easily digested aphorisms. The whitewashing of history and of the role of race in structuring U.S. society and social relationships is a central conceit of the series. For example, even though the show is set in Chicago, a case study of segregation in U.S. cities, there is never any mention of the historic



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1983 election of Chicago’s first Black mayor, Harold Lee Washington, which coincided with the year the show debuted. In episode eight, “Travis,” Katherine’s “oldest and dearest friend,” Ellen Franklin (Freddye Chapman)—a Black woman with a PhD in sociology “specializing in the placement of minority children” who has also written the book Trauma and Culture Shock of the Adolescent Victims of the Liberal White Left—tells Katherine “If you really want to know, I don’t think a white couple should be raising a black child.” Her remarks offer the occasion for Webster to learn about why George was asked to be his godfather all while rationalizing colorblindness and dismissing race and ethnicity as central categories of identity formation in the United States. Similarly, season one ends with “Webster Long: Part 1,” the first in a three-part series that provides the cliffhanger that is resolved in season two when Webster’s uncle, Philip Long (Ben Vereen)—a dancer, who is racially stereotyped as too unstable and emotionally immature to raise a child—takes Katherine and George to court in a custody battle that he ultimately loses, despite the Papadapoulos’s anxieties that they will lose the case in front of a Black judge. Such ethnic stereotyping is not only reserved for the African Americans on screen, as George’s Greek heritage is equally reduced to ethnic caricatures. His Greek identity is reduced to food choices. His father—called Papa (Papou must have been too “ethnic”)—represents long-standing stereotypes. He is portrayed as an illiterate, first-generation immigrant who calls Webster “my little baklava.” He has a generic backstory of immigration centered on pursuing the American Dream. Katherine, whose upbringing as an only child in the elite, rich, White Calder-Young family defines her love of art, disinterest in domesticity, and professional ambitions, and George, a second-generation Greek American brought up in a working-class household with five other children, represent a relationship across different class levels that is bridged, in part, through George’s upward mobility and his celebrity as a famed football player turned TV-sports anchor. Their marriage represents White middle-class liberal and multicultural values by including marginalized ethnic groups in ways that are typically superficial but that do not demand material redistribution or significant structural change. Despite Webster’s response to social anxieties of the time, most of the social messages delivered in the sitcom embody colorblind racism, even as the show itself was premised on racial difference. The show’s inability to adequately address the Black experience in the United States and its promotion of colorblindness were common in the sitcom genre at the time. Sarah Papazoglakis Further Reading

Dalton, Mary M., and Laura R. Linder. 2016. “The Hidden Truths in Contemporary Black Sitcoms.” In The Sitcom Reader: America Re-viewed, Still Skewed, 279–294. Albany: State University of New York. Hunter-Lattany, Kristin. 1994. “Why Buckwheat Was Shot.” “Ethnic Images in Popular Genres and Media,” special issue, MELUS 11 (3): 79–85. O’Connor, John J. 1983. “A Casting Coup Pays Off.” New York Times, September 23, 31.

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Welcome Back, Kotter (1975–1979) The successes of the Civil Rights, Women’s, and ethnic empowerment movements ushered in a time of significant educational reform in the United States. From school desegregation and busing programs to the cultural wars of the 1970s and 1980s, the nation’s education system was at the forefront of the struggle for social change during that time. Its importance could be seen in television shows like Welcome Back, Kotter. Based on the stand-up comedy of Gabe Kaplan (Mr. Kotter), Welcome Back, Kotter centers on a group of students who has been left behind by both the school and society as a whole. Dismissed as “punks” and “thugs,” as misfits without a future, Mr. Kotter sees potential and hope in these castoffs. The show chronicles the lives of the Sweathogs, a group consisting of four young men from diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds who are struggling to pass tenth grade: Vinnie Barbarino (John Travolta), who is Italian American; Juan Luis Pedro Felipo de Huevos Epstein (Robert Hegyes), who is a Puerto Rican Jew; Freddie “Boom” Washington (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs), who is African American, and Arnold Horshack (Ron Palillo), who is White. The show nearly always began at the home of Gabe Kotter, where he would be seen telling his wife Julie (Marcia Strassman) a joke that typically began as follows: “Have I ever told you about my Uncle Louis?” The main arc of the show’s narrative usually involved Mr. Kotter in the classroom teaching life lessons and making learning relevant to the lives of the students who had to be convinced of the importance of a high school education. Over its four years, Welcome Back, Kotter was more defined by its comedic devices and embrace of racial and ethnic stereotypes. Like Mr. Kotter’s predictable opening joke, each character had his own tagline: “Hi There” (Boom Boom), “Oooh, oooh” (Horshack), “I got a note” (Epstein), and “I’m so confused” (Barbarino). Each character also embodied long-standing stereotypes. The show relied on ubiquitous images of urban classrooms as “dysfunctional” and as suffering because of unmotivated students that could only be saved by a heroic teacher. For example, Mr. Kotter was often represented as a typical White savior role in the classroom, moderating the Sweathogs’ often-delinquent behavior. Letting society off the hook, all while recycling narratives about the moral, cultural, and familial failures of communities of color and the poor, Welcome Back, Kotter imagines a world where teachers are responsible for education and so much more. Acting almost as a surrogate father, his home—a one-room studio apartment—even became a place of refuge from trouble for the Sweathogs. Yet, the show tried to explain their relationship beyond his whiteness. As a former Sweathog at Buchanan High School a decade before, who shared a similar class background, something the show comments on frequently, their relationship was based in their common experiences. The closeness in their relationship was evident in their conversations, in the lessons they learned from each other, and in the mutual respect. In one episode, the Sweathogs circulated a petition demanding that Mr. Kotter be promoted in “Vice-Principal” (season three, episode twelve).



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While the show attempted to portray the young male students as complex individuals battling a range of struggles in order to meet their full potential, White women served as mere backdrops to narratives of male bonding; worse yet, women of color rarely appeared on the show at all. Julie, Mr. Kotter’s wife, simply provided the occasion for Kotter’s jokes at the beginning and end of each episode. However, she did take on a slightly more meaningful role in season four when she began working as the secretary at Buchanan High School thereby becoming Mr. Kotter’s surrogate as Gabe Kaplan stepped back from the show and was featured in fewer episodes. Season three also introduced “The Return of Hotsy Totsy,” the female Sweathog who dropped out of school and disappeared for several seasons after becoming a teen mom. Despite the addition of these female voices, the show centered on the struggles of young men united across racial and ethnic difference by their class positions and shared experiences of marginalization in the public school system. Welcome Back, Kotter used comedy to engage social issues of the day and always had a moral lesson, such as the dangers of drug use, the importance of public education, or the risks of teen pregnancy. The under-resourced classroom served as the primary backdrop for the show and even moved into the foreground of several episodes. In “The Telethon” (season one, episode twenty), Mr. Woodman (John Sylvester White), the principal of Buchanan High, responded to cuts to the school’s budget by deciding to eliminate the remedial class. Mr. Kotter and the Sweathogs host a telethon to save their class and raise the money successfully by getting “teachers with ‘normal’ students to send in $22 so that you don’t have to have these students in your class.” This episode highlights the precarity of integrated public school classrooms, a place where blank test papers and broken pull-down maps are commonplace. Whereas White and middle-class students are afforded opportunities and investment, the students in Mr. Kotter’s multiracial classroom receive neither, told over and over again that their futures don’t matter. The unmistakable racialization of the under-resourced classroom is also evident in other episodes, such as the “One Flu over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (season one, episode nineteen) in which all of the non-remedial students, who are forced to join Kotter’s class because a flu epidemic has left them without a teacher, are all White and shown to be more book-smart than the Sweathogs, while the Sweathogs demonstrate an alternative form of knowledge in the “Kotter bowl.” Welcome Back, Kotter was not without controversy. Its focus on multiculturalism and its embrace of the educational reform platform of civil rights organizations clashed with those seeking to thwart school desegregation efforts during the 1970s. In fact, “the show was banned in Boston, which was then in the grip of the busing struggle. The National Education Association . . . was in no mood to see urban teachers made a laughing-stock and petitioned the network to let them place an ‘adviser’ on the show, ‘in order to protect the image of schoolteachers’” (Ozersky 2003, 117). Although limited by common TV tropes of race and gender, Welcome Back, Kotter portrayed a blue-collar male America in the education system rather than in the family or the workplace. The show provided an important, alternative—if not radical—commentary on the integrated classroom of the 1970s and

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characterized common failures of the nation’s education system as structural rather than behavioral. Sarah Papazoglakis Further Reading

Gregory, Marshall W. 2007. “Real Teaching and Real Learning vs Narrative Myths about Education.” Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 6 (1): 7–27. Ozersky, Josh. 2003. Archie Bunker's America: TV in an Era of Change, 1968–1978. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Swetnam, Leslie A. 1992. “Media Distortion of the Teacher Image.” The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas 66 (1): 30–32.

Westerns The Western genre is such a huge part of American television that the focus must be, of necessity, selective. There is arguably no genre that, as Agresta (2013) puts it, uniquely visualizes U.S. “national culture and American iconography” while simultaneously exploring “thorny issues of American history and character.” However, while this insight is correct, it ignores how critically (and systematically) Westerns favor Whites as either innocents or reluctant colonizers. Scholars have noted that with few exceptions, Westerns are about how Whites came to dominate the American landscape with other groups responding to this fact. Historians have concluded, especially regarding two highly racialized issues—the enslavement of African Americans and the conquest of Indigenous lands—there is a strong tendency to present highly moralized (and often fictive) portraits where both groups continually forgive Whites and seek integration within society. That said, there is some progress in how gender is portrayed with women, including African American and Latina (but, rarely, Native American) women granted more and more agency. Asian Americans, however, receive little to no attention and exist mainly as background players in Westerns. While there have been some changes from the 1950s to the present, these racial themes remain remarkably durable. DEFINING THE WESTERN According to Peter Homans, the Western may be defined as a “myth in which evil appears as a series of temptations to be resisted by the hero—most of which he succeeds in avoiding through inner control. When faced with the embodiment of these temptations . . . and he destroys the threat. But . . . the responsibility for this act falls upon the adversary” for forcing his or her destruction (qtd. in Cawelti 1999, 11). The hero is then given the task of restoring order by a disruptive force. Some of the very first American films were Westerns, which meant that by the time Westerns migrated to television many of the key archetypes—the town drunk, the prostitute with a heart of gold, the flawed (White) hero—had become virtual clichés and were, until the 1970s, simply recycled in various permutations.

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Yet contrary to popular myth, the first Westerns were not wholly White with Black cowboys such as W. C. Handy and Taylor Gordon starring in several well-received films. However, when Westerns were able to be turned into televised stories, the initial diversity of the genre was lost. Hopalong Cassidy (1949–1954), the very first Western, set the tone for much of what would come later with the focus on a mythic, White American hero battling Native Americans, bandits, and others. Even with the 1950s just beginning, the Westerns would dominate television with dozens upon dozens of programs airing simultaneously on prime time. Yet despite crucial variations in plot, Westerns converged in portraying racial minorities mainly in subordinate positions. In The Lone Ranger (1949–1957), the masked hero (Clayton Moore), a self-styled vigilante, is aided by Tonto (Jay Silverheels), a Native American, his loyal sidekick. The Lone Ranger did offer some space (albeit small) to depict Native Americans as potentially heroic though only the “monosyllabic stoic-Indian type” (Fitzgerald 2013, 92). Moreover, Tonto himself was not whitewashed with Tonto being played by Silverheels, a mixed-blood Mohawk born on the Six Nations Reservation in Brantford, Canada, for the entirety of the series. Still even within his very name, Tonto (which in Spanish means “dumb”), has an ambiguous role. For the most part, Moore is the lead and Tonto merely helps. But Tonto has a well-defined racial role preaching tolerance and integration as messages toward White audiences. Tonto invites the Ranger to help even against his own people because “me want law here too—for all” (Fitzgerald 2013, 92). 98). In fact, Native Americans had their own self-enforcing regulations before White colonialists arrived. Still, it would be an error to see Tonto as merely an appendage to the Ranger; in several episodes, we do see Tonto’s “demonstrated acts of bravery” as in “The Courage of Tonto” when Tonto nurses a “badly wounded ranger from near death back to health” (Roman 2005, 27). Yet even here bravery is framed as benefiting Whites; Tonto diligently wants to help Whites and does not care about his own interests. Similarly, though Asians are only sporadically visible in 1950s Westerns, like Native Americans, their role is to show the enlightened attitudes of most Whites. In one episode of Annie Oakley (1953–1956), “Annie and the Chinese Curse,” a Chinese man, Li Wong (Keye Luke) is accosted by a pair of brothers, Nick (Craig Woods) and Clint Scanlon (William Tanney). Annie intervenes to help Wong. After the brothers are defeated, Annie is putting his kid brother Tagg (Jimmy Hawkins) to sleep when he asks why people hate Wong so much. Annie responds that “Well, there’s some people, Tagg, that have silly fears about other people that don’t live exactly as they do” (Hamamoto 1997, 57). The message is explicit. Racism, much less racist genocide, was practiced only by some White people. The vast majority are it is implied tolerant and caring. Racial minorities while routinely mistreated were the victims of only a handful of bad Whites not a system working against them. While the overall message of the Westerns was inclusive, themes of racial subordination were sometimes directly promoted. In Have Gun, Will Travel (1957– 1963), the main White hero Paladin has an Asian houseboy called Hey Boy (Kam Tong)—and he is later replaced by

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Hey Girl (Lisa Lu)—who relays his messages. The inferior position of nonwhites is implied in the dialogue of several episodes. In one episode, Paladin encounters a woman introducing herself as “Tuolumme O’Toole.” On the one hand, the O’Toole character has progressive elements because she is biracial saying that her “mother was Cherokee and [her] father an Irish railroad worker” (Mock 2012, 100). However, O’Toole is racist in a conversation with Paladin as she tries to seduce him by warning him to stay because “the country’s full of bandits, and wild Indians, and grizzly bears” (Mock 2012, 100). The dialogue is meant as a joke to goad Paladin; however, the actual words are not meant to be funny. They reflect the mythic assumptions of the 1950s. The Native Americans are equated to “bandits” and/or animals. While occasional, noble people of color like Tonto are visualized, the default assumption is that people of color are inhuman and animal-like. The genre reached its peak in 1959 with twenty-six series on prime time and four of the top ten most popular series were Westerns (Bianculli 2016, 413). Over the decades, some slight changes were evident as Westerns devoted more time to racism directly. The issue of race turned up repeatedly in the longest-running Western, Gunsmoke (1955–1975), which framed the issue in liberal terms with the main hero, the stoic Matt Dillon, condemning racism. In a rare episode touching on slavery, “The Good Samaritans,” Brock Peters (Cato) and Rex Ingram (Juba Freeman) play former enslaved people who debate whether or not to help a wounded Matt. The “good slave,” Freeman, preaches forgiveness, arguing all men should be helped. The “bad slave,” Cato, remains bitter over slavery and tries to use Matt for his own gain. Unsurprisingly, Cato’s scheme backfires and Dillon and Freeman save him. The allegory is obvious that the genuinely freeman does not seek vengeance nor is tied down by the past but looks to the future. Another Gunsmoke episode offers a similarly liberal message of anti-Asian racism. An Asian man, Chen Lan Wong (Keye Luke), enters the town and is assaulted by Howard (Devlin McCarthy) and Rabb (Robert Gist). Marshal Matt Dillon (James Arness) attempts to help Chen. But he stops short of supporting revenge. When Dillon helps defeat the two, Chen is ready to kill them saying: “Marshal, I will not lose my honor as a Chinese.” Dillon warns that revenge has no place in a modern civilized American town. “Your ‘honor as a Chinese’? Chen, you said you wanted to bring your wife here, to make your home in this country. Well, if you do that, you’ve got to live as an American, not as a Chinese” (Hamamoto 1997, 52). The actual historic record is reversed. The barbaric Chinese are bringing violence into America. The White man is seeking to get rid of violence. While White racism is repudiated, it is equated with Chinese ethnic pride. Neither has a place in the mythic West of the 1960s. Another long-running series, Bonanza (1959–1973) portrayed a Chinese character Hop Sing, a domestic servant loyal to the Cartwright family, who is regularly shown to be the victim of racism. Scholars have argued that like Tonto, Sing symbolizes the essential goodness of Whites. Nevertheless, the character is more

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critical of White colonialism. Hop Sing’s uncle, Lee Chang (Philip Ahn) thinks it is a “privilege” that they are witnessing “a new civilization born before our own eyes.” But Sing counters that on “the streets of Virginia City when I question the use of the word civilization” (Hamamoto 1997, 35, emphasis in original). As Hamamoto argues, Chang stands for “the voice of liberal accommodationism” counseling Sing to not be defined by racism, which is framed as merely episodic (1997, 35). While mainly relegated to background roles, people of color did occasionally exercise some agency during the 1960s. The High Chaparral (1967–1971) contains several episodes featuring the Buffalo Soldiers. The series also had Frank Silvera, a mixed-race African American playing a Mexican squire, Don Sebastian Montoya, in a recurring role. Law of the Plainsman (1959–1960) on NBC featured an Apache U.S. Marshal. But the series lasted only a few episodes. On The Outcasts (1968), a Black-and-White duo with the African American (Otis Young) as a cowboy team up in adventures. Several episodes did air. But the show failed to find a popular audience. Young was the first Black costar on a Western. Other notable Black cowboys included Woodrow Wilson Woolwine “Woody” Strode, who was used by John Ford in several Westerns. Strode appeared briefly in the Daniel Boone (1964) series (McVeigh 2007, 158). Herb Jeffries, an early African American cowboy, also appeared in small roles on the 1960s TV Western The Virginian. Since African Americans and Native Americans had been almost entirely excluded before the 1960s in the Western, their inclusion is important. However, commentators have concluded that diversity was also done in ways to promote political conservatism. Even with the 1960s almost over, the de facto focus was on the Western White male hero who occasionally aided racial minorities. Blacks, Latinos, and Asians are framed as victims, but the burden is on them to rise above the racism of the period seen as merely temporary.

WESTERN REVISIONISM It was the impact of the Vietnam War, most critically, that began to demythologize parts of the genre as a viable mass myth. While virtually few shows in fictional television directly addressed Vietnam, its aftereffects were unmistakable. Cold War interventionism had become tainted by association with “coups, assassinations, and . . . dubious wars” and thus “the figure of the cowboy grew . . . more complicated” (Agresta 2013). While the hero remained White and male for the most part, racial minorities were given greater representation though in ironic ways. One of the best examples of this was the Kung Fu (1972–1975) series, starring David Carradine, a White male actor who would play the lead character, Kwai Chang Caine. Rather than being evil or oppositional, Asian culture was redefined as friendly and spiritually generous. Caine, a stoic Asian man, wanders the Western landscape. While the majority of Kung Fu had highly generic, formulaic stories of Cain encountering and triumphing over racists, bandits, and others. On the pilot

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episode, Caine confronts a White man abusing an elderly Chinese man named Han Fei (Benson Fong). Race is invoked directly with Raif (Albert Salmi), the villain, saying “I don’t like any slanteyes in a white man’s saloon.” Caine defeats the racists in many episodes but does so in ways aimed to minimize the evils of racism. In one episode, “The Spirit Helper,” Caine comes across a young Native American Nashebo (Don Johnson). Nashebo’s father is killed and his mother, Crucita, kidnapped by a band of outlaws. Caine and Nashebo rescue the mother. But Nashebo seeks vengeance. Caine persuades him to give up on his ideas of revenge arguing “Is it not better to embrace the living than avenge the dead?” Nashebo agrees and Caine says: “Now, you have become a man.” In another episode (“The Well”), Caine finds an ex-slave Caleb in the town of Crossroads. Caleb hides a well on his land even as the town filled by Whites faces a drought. Like Nashebo, Caine convinces Caleb to give up on his hatred of Whites. The didactic intent of these episodes is obvious, Caleb like America faces a “crossroads” in the 1970s and should elect to forgive one another in peace rather than to hold onto animosities, old and new. Even genocide and slavery are not enough to warrant racial minorities in hating Whites. Like Cain, they should seek spiritual enlightenment and not exact a bloody vengeance even if they have cause for their revenge. Scholars have concluded that the Johnson episode demonstrates the strong continuity in the forgiveness-plot being used. Kung Fu was explicit in trying to reframe post–civil-rights America as tainted by racism but attempting to be better. As Carradine himself remarked, he was skeptical the show would ever “get on TV. I mean, a Chinese Western, about a half-Chinese, half-American Buddhist monk who wanders the Gold Rush country but doesn’t care about gold and defends the oppressed but won't carry a gun” (qtd. in Burke 1973, Carradine’s emphasis). While Asian women were portrayed as objects of sexual desire before, Kung Fu did allow Asian women to be love interests with some agency. The elderly monks, though, seem to have no sexual attractiveness in the same way that Caine does. Asians, therefore, do play a much larger role than they had previously but elements of the stereotype of the Asian as the sexless, noble stoic remain. Caine while the lead hero is remarkably similar to Tonto in representing a person of color only interested in peace and unwilling to emote any hatred despite the routine racism the episodes depict. The new Western often had African Americans, Latinxs, and White women in more prominent roles than previously but did not change all the myths that the genre contained. Called the revisionist Western, according to Donald Hoffman, these new shows moved away from the prior myth of good Whites facing evil Blacks and savage Natives, the revisionist Western often has the hero himself commit evil and sometimes lacks “inner control” (1997). The relationship between the hero and even an evil “adversary” is made more ambiguous. While this might seem to be salutary in allowing minorities to play a more active role the argument has some drawbacks. If Native Americans were no longer to be depicted as purely evil or demonic, they were also no longer seen as simply noble. In essence, the new paradigm stressed how all peoples were guilty of crimes

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hence Whites, though responsible for most of them, could still be innocent and nonwhites potentially as evil or more than Whites. Even when heroes of color were portrayed, they were not as heroic as before. Historians have noted that another tactic within the revisionist West was to depoliticize certain hot-button issues like the Civil War. As Gallagher (2008) has argued, contrary to popular myth, the North is often portrayed negatively in television shows and films about the Civil War. This does not necessarily mean that African Americans, Native Americans, and others are treated much better. The most popular position these series and shows take is to see the Civil War as a tragedy where brother fought brother. While slavery and imperialism are sometimes brought up, the focus is usually on the pain and trauma, the men in war, usually young Whites, faced. Perhaps no man is more responsible for this reframing on television than Ted Turner on television. According to Ted Mahar, Turner was “a big fan of John Ford’s films, especially his Westerns, and of John Wayne” (qtd. in Pierson 2005, 296). In dozens of made-for-television films and television shows, Turner tried to resurrect the Western as more racially diverse but still representing a conservative mythology (Dempsey 2002). In the Turner-made Lonesome Dove (1989), starring Robert Duvall as McCrae and Tommy Lee Jones as Call, included African American veteran actor Danny Glover and female actress Diane Lane. Lonesome Dove was one of the last great Westerns to draw a mass audience. TNT Productions also produced several films about Native Americans including Geronimo (1993), The Broken Chain (1993), Crazy Horse (1996), and Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee (1994). The revival of the Western by Turner coincided with the anniversary of Columbus’s voyage and landing in 1992, which occasioned strong anti-Columbus protests by various Native Americans. It is unclear to what extent producers responded to this rise of activism. Since many Turner productions were planned before the protests, this suggests some change in norms in seeing, at least, selectively, Native Americans as heroes that could be mythologized as well as Whites.

YOUTH IN THE WEST The CW (formerly WB) network also tried to enter the Western genre with a made-for-television film, Lone Ranger (2003). In this remade version, the Lone Ranger is a twenty-year-old Boston law student (Chad Michael Murray) who assumes the Ranger identity after his brother is killed. Tonto is also turned into a much younger, sexier version played by Native American actor, Nathaniel Arcand. Initially, Tonto, distrusts Hartman but through the advice of his elderly Native American father/leader Kulakinah (Wes Studi) he helps avenge Hartman’s brother’s death. While the updated version is essentially an attempt to marketize on Murray’s sex appeal and stardom—from One Tree Hill (2003–2012) —it does signal a continuation of incorporating multicultural themes. Hartman undergoes a spirit quest. He also has sexual desires for Tonto’s young, beautiful sister. To be sure, Tonto’s

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role is as a helper, but he is framed as a sex symbol icon, which never occurred before. Lone Ranger also signaled continuing desires by White producers to try to keep the Western alive. The movie was meant as a lead-in to a series, but middling ratings stopped the series from actually being produced. The 2005 TNT miniseries Into the West (2005), partly produced by Steven Spielberg, also tried to reignite interest in the Western. Encompassing two major families, one White and one Native America, the miniseries featured stars such as Keri Russell (Naomi), Firefly’s Alan Tudyck (Nathan), Jay Tavare (Prairie Fire), and Native American veteran Studi (Black Kettle). While Native Americans are more prominently featured, the issue of conquest and genocide is never discussed. As Stanley writes, the miniseries tries to argue that both Whites and Native Americans faced “nature” as “the most fearsome enemy” in the narrative (2005). Into the West is also not entirely ahistorical touching on atrocities like Wounded Knee. While some have argued that the miniseries avoids “cowboy-and-Indian clichés,” others have noted how the ideological message remains that Manifest Destiny was more complex than its critics acknowledged, and the ultimate conquest of the Native Americans was necessary for the United States to expand itself. Despite then presenting Native Americans in a much more humane way than in previous decades, the issue of the Native American holocaust remains unrecorded in fictional television. In sharp contrast, Joss Whedon’s Firefly (2002) set in 2517 and airing on Fox was even more nostalgic. Explicitly based on Michael Shaara’s Civil War book The Killer Angels (1975), the sci-fi Western imagines a future where the United States and China merge into an intergalactic Alliance (Leonard 2010, 175). The main crew of Serenity, a spaceship where most of the action takes place, is multiracial led by a White antihero, Mal, but also features the gun-toting African American (Zoe played by Gina Torres) and an African American preacher named Book (Ron Glass). Firefly makes extensive use of Chinese symbols and customs. But unlike Deadwood there are stunningly no Asians in either major or even minor roles relegated to the background. The only episode featuring an Asian woman in a speaking role has her play a prostitute. Since Firefly only aired thirteen episodes it might be unfair to judge its racial politics. Critics have wondered if the show been renewed how Whedon might have made the cast more diverse and less Orientalist, moving away from the Lost-Cause mythos that informs the show. But certain racialized themes persisted with the Reavers, a crazed band of intergalactic pirates, who though played by Whites represent the Native American savage. The show while garnering a cult following never had Deadwood’s popularity. External problems also hampered the show with Fox airing episodes out of order with little promotion. But Whedon’s fascination with the West is evident in his other shows. On the horror series Angel (1999–2004), a demon called Boone (perhaps an allusion to Daniel) comes to confront Angel, the titular antihero, battling the demonic law firm Wolfram and Hart. The story converges at the Wolfram and Hart “Highway Robbery Ball” where an actor who plays a cowboy (called Cowboy in the script) teases a saloon girl, Jenkins, to amuse the audience. Angel and Boone fight at

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the ball. But the fight is merely a ruse to obtain the charity money Wolfram and Hart planned to steal; Boone offers the charity money to Angel in exchange for a one-on-one fight. Angel wins and gives the money to the charity it was intended for. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003) also played with Western themes in a Thanksgiving episode where Buffy confronts vengeful Native American spirits led by Huss (“Pangs”). The Western framing is unmistakable with Buffy wearing a (black) cowboy hat in the episode’s beginning. Although the White characters do debate the issue of colonialism; the topic is played mainly for laughter. By the episode’s end, Huss is vanquished. Until the final, seventh season, no Native Americans appear except in this episode. Fascination with Native Americans as demons also appeared on CW’s Supernatural (2005–). Focusing on the Winchester brothers, Samuel and Dean wander America fighting demons and assorted mystic figures. Show creator Eric Kripke said the series is akin to “putting a cowboy in the middle of The Lord of the Rings . . . something [which] I’ve always . . . wanted to do” (Valenzano and Engstrom 2014, 558). In one episode, Native Americans are invoked explicitly, when the brothers confront the spirit of Wendigo. This trope of the Native American evil spirit was especially popular in the 2000s. Even Smallville (2001–2011), a show much more explicitly infused with liberal politics, dabbled in this trope. In “Skinwalker” (2002), a young Superman (Tom Welling) confronts the Native American evil spirit, Sageeth, who possess Native American Joseph Willowbrook (Gordon Tootoosis). While the episode’s thrust unlike “Pangs” is progressive, the racial politics are ambiguous. The Native spirits Naman and Sageeth (which are real myths) are implied to be created by kryptonite. Hence, Native American myths are really White myths in origin.

MIXING UP THE WEST For much of the 2000s to the present, with some notable exceptions, the Western has survived by being melded and mixed with other genres. But one key exception was and is HBO’s Deadwood (2003–2006). Created by David Milch, Deadwood centers around the antiheroic pair Al Swearengen (Ian McShane) and Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant) as they cope with outlaws, hookers, and gamblers during the Gold Rush era. The series was notable with how exactingly it tried to recreate the West more faithfully and accurately than a film like Into the Wild (2007). Milch regularly used real-life historical figures. Sets were carefully constructed to be authentic to the time period. Although Deadwood focuses mainly on Whites, it does also present a more multiracial version of the West. Most notably Asians are prominently featured. However, while they are no longer portrayed as subordinate, scholars have noted that Asians are used to symbolize madness and disorder. When one White man, Leon, feels he has been disrespected, he rhetorically asks: “Are we that far west that we’ve wound up in fuckin’ China? Where a White man kowtows to a celestial like that arrogant cocksucker Wu!” Tellingly, Wu responds in a racist manner

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countering that “You may be a big shot in this alley, but you are less than a n—— er to me!” (Wright and Zhou 2006, 162). History reveals that it would erroneous to imagine there was no interracial strife among Blacks and Chinese immigrants or Latinos and Native Americans. Deadwood assumes a history of shared animosity by all races. Critics have questioned how the series carefully skips episodes where people of color banded together in solidarity. While the series was cancelled, Martin argues it was not due to lack of popularity or for its White-masculine perspective. HBO, in contrast to most of its shows, shared partnership with the show with Paramount. In addition, Milch though offered another small, fourth season to wrap up the series refused. There is strong evidence the series might return suggesting its framing of racism as a shared viewpoint by Whites and nonwhites is well within the mainstream of Hollywood. Buffy, Smallville, and even Angel were aimed at young audiences and their overall orientation is multicultural. In contrast, a raft of shows made use of “neo-Western” themes and images (cowboy hats, prostitutes, saloons, etc.) with more frankly racist messages. FX’s Justified (2010–2015) has lead character U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (Deadwood’s Olyphant), a character based on an Elmore Leonard short story, battling criminals. Olyphant wears a cowboy hat and has a gun perennially on his side as he fights drug dealers, neo-Nazis, and assorted wrongdoers. The racial dynamics of Justified are difficult. The main characters are a handsome White man and his beautiful White female lover with blonde hair—a standard, stereotypical representation. Yet the show also featured an African American female character, Deputy U.S. Marshal Rachel Brooks (Erica Tazel) prominently for its whole duration and eventually becomes Givens’s boss. Criminals are routinely framed as Black and Latino but Givens is also harsh against racists and Nazis, beating and killing them with equal vengefulness. Less ambiguous is Kurt Stutter’s Sons of Anarchy (SOA) (2008–2014), which chronicles a mythic biker gang in fictional California town Charming led by Jax Teller. Western themes of honor and vengeance are touched on against backdrops of open skies and mountains. But like Justified, SOA is not exclusively a White world with a Puerto Rican member of Sons of Anarchy, California Redwood Original (SAMCRO), Juice (Theo Rossi), who is on the show for its whole duration. Similar to Justified, the racial dynamics of SOA are less clear. In a controversial story line, Juice becomes aware that he is biracial. Because Blacks are excluded from SAMCRO, federal agents who learn about his true racial identity use it to coerce him to work against the club. Eventually his betrayal is found out, and he is murdered for his betrayal in a bloody scene of reprisal. Moreover, unlike Justified where Latin and Black criminals are both framed as evil, the show frames the Latino gang, the Mayans, more sympathetically than Black gangbangers as tougher and more honor bound. Commentators have highlighted that Asians are also framed consistently as sexually perverse and criminal immigrants. But Stutter is also careful not to valorize the antiheroes of SAMCRO. In the finale, Jax commits suicide in the end but his heroism and toughness are never questioned.

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Some commentators and critics have concluded that the neo-Western is thus, paradoxically, more racist than even the 1950s Westerns. The neo-Westerns of the 2000s to the present show minorities as usually devious and untrustworthy. On Breaking Bad (2008–2013), Bryan Cranston’s Walter White, a cancer-ridden teacher, enters the drug trade. Like SOA and Justified, the criminal underground is filled with African Americans and Latinos. A strong racial hierarchy is present. While Walter White is charismatic, rational, and sympathetic, the show’s criminals are not only people of color but also are usually one-dimensional. Even characters of color, that are intellectually close to White, such as Giancarlo Esposito’s Gus Fring, are essentially caricatures. In other cases, Latino characters such as Tuco, Crazy 8, and the Twins exist to be criminals and then die without being mourned. As Prioleau notes: “Like in many of the old westerns the show can trace its lineage to, brown people on Breaking Bad are mostly there to be outsmarted, manipulated, and ultimately killed” (2013). Even though the racist imagery may be reactionary like other neo-Westerns, the morally ambiguous context makes it unclear if White is meant to a hero. As show-creator Vince Gilligan has explicitly communicated that audiences should not necessarily like or agree with White because “Walter White is . . . one of the world’s greatest liars . . . he is lying to himself” (Lotz 2014, 211). Yet Breaking Bad does follow the tradition of the White male antihero, although evil in many ways is still less evil than the nonwhite savages he contends with in a world without moral absolutes.

CONCLUSION A final example of the Western’s continued evolution is HBO’s Westworld (2016–) though firmly a science-fiction series uses Western tropes explicitly. Like Firefly, the racial politics of Westworld are ambiguous. Based on the film of the same name, the image of the West is multicultural with Black, Latinx, and Native American hosts (androids) visible in a dystopian future where humans enter a fictional Western environment to play out their fantasies. Thandie Newton, a Black Australian actress, plays an android prostitute. Android Hector Escaton, played by Brazilian actor Rodrigo Santoro, is a criminal outlaw. Unlike past series, Westworld lacks one central White hero. Nevertheless, the show does lean toward portraying and crediting White Park Director Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins) for inspiring the androids to rebel against their masters. But Westworld does follow the neo-Western formula of appealing across multiple communities. While the show prominently features people of color, it also has a small army of Confederate soldiers among its characters. The Western in its canonical form is virtually dead. While a series here and there may attempt to resurrect Western themes and images, the Western is mostly confined to being alluded to in a series not necessarily within the Western genre itself like Westworld. “The ‘Gunfight at the O.K. Corral’ now takes place in outer

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space,” Bill Carroll, VP and director of programming for Katz TV noted (qtd. in Dempsey 2002). While the insight is true, it overstates the case. The popularity of Deadwood and success of Breaking Bad suggest Western themes of honor and masculine violence are still popular. The racialization of these themes is also popular with the White antihero constantly facing obstacles by Latinx drug dealers, crazed Asians, and habitually criminal Blacks. In essence, the Western has evolved through a massive rise and soft rise in interest. The early Westerns were explicit in their racism excluding interracial relationships and presenting racial minorities mainly as subordinates. By the 1960s and 1970s, this paradigm began to be challenged. Native American activism and anti-Vietnam protests permanently destroyed the classic mythos. However, the new Westerns, while more racially diverse, maintained a conservative message about race. While colonialism and slavery were not framed as positive goods but evil, the evil was rendered more ambiguous and complex. Racism was shown to occur in all races. The more recent Westerns from the 1980s to the present are more chaotic and, ironically, more racist. What accounts for such explicit racism? Several factors are occurring simultaneously. One is that shows are aimed at narrower audiences. This is not to say SOA or Breaking Bad explicitly marketed themselves to racist Whites as much as racism, like sex and violence, was offered as titillating content attracting Whites with reactionary views. Another trend has been a backlash against liberalism, feminism, and political correctness. White nationalist and masculine violence are presented more explicitly than before; Latinx and African American criminality are used to justify White male violence by the Western hero or antihero as a necessity. But the third and perhaps most critical trend has been the increased competition by the internet, streaming services, and other forums that have made producers willing to dabble in controversial programming that was formerly unthinkable. Nevertheless, the Western is in a state of difficulty. Native American activism was insufficient to stop Netflix from continuing an Adam Sandler Western comedy, Ridiculous Six (2015), where Native Americans complained about racism on the set. But activism has had some effect in limiting what can be shown. After protests, HBO cancelled plans to develop Confederate, a show about what the United States would look like had the South won the Civil War. It remains to be seen whether the Western genre will simply die or return to its roots even further justifying slavery and the Native American holocaust as necessary for American civilization to thrive. In all likelihood, with a dying audience and lack of profitability, the Western will likely simply cease, but it has faced dire straits before and been reinvented in newer, sometimes highly reactionary, ways. Christian Jimenez Further Reading

Agresta, Michael. 2013. “How the Western Was Lost (and Why It Matters).” Atlantic, July 24. ­https://​­w ww​.­theatlantic​.­com​/­entertainment​/­archive​/­2013​/­07​/ ­how​-­the​-­western​ -­was​-­lost​-­and​-­why​-­it​-­matters​/­278057​/.

Westerns 735 Ausiello, Michael. 2018. “Game of Thrones EPs’ Big Star Wars Deal: What Does It Mean for HBO’s Controversial Confederate?” TV Line, February 6. ­http://​­tvline​.­com​ /­2018​/­02​/­06​/­confederate​-­cancelled​-­hbo​-­game​-­of​-­thrones​-­david​-­benioff​-­d​-­b​-­weiss​/. Barrett, Jenny. 2016. “A Cop in a Cowboy Hat: Timothy Olyphant, a Postmodern Eastwood in Justified.” In Critical Perspectives on the Western: From A Fistful of Dollars to Django Unchained, edited by Lee Broughton, 89–102. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Bianculli, David. 2016. The Platinum Age of Television: From I Love Lucy to The Walking Dead, How TV Became Terrific. New York: Anchor. Brode, Douglas. 2010. Shooting Stars of the Small Screen: Encyclopedia of TV Western Actors. Austin: University of Texas Press. Burke, Tom. 1973. “David Carradine, King of ‘Kung Fu.’” New York Times, April 29, 141. Cawelti, John G. 1999. The Six-Gun Mystique Sequel. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling State Green University Popular Press. Dempsey, John. 2002. “TNT Rides Herd on Westerns,” Variety, December 22. ­http://​ ­variety​.­com​/­2002​/­t v​/­news​/­t nt​-­rides​-­herd​-­on​-­westerns​-­1117877762. Fitzgerald, Michael Ray. 2013. “The White Savior and His Junior Partner: The Lone Ranger and Tonto on Cold War Television (1949–1957).” Journal of Popular Culture 46 (1) (February): 79–108. Gallagher, Gary. 2008. Causes Won, Lost, and Forgotten: How Hollywood and Popular Art Shape What We Know about the Civil War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Hamamoto, Darrell Y. 1997. Monitored Peril: Asian Americans and the Politics of TV Representation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Hoffman, Donald. 1997. “Whose Home on the Range? Finding Room for Native Americans, African Americans, and Latino Americans in the Revisionist Western.” MELUS 22 (2) (Summer): 45–59. Iwamura, Jane Naomi. 2011. Virtual Orientalism: Asian Religions and American Popular Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jimenez, Christian. 2018. “Cynical Tolerance: Gender, Race and Fraternal Fears.” In Bonds of Brotherhood: Essays on Gender and Masculinity in Sons of Anarchy, edited by S. Fanetti, 61–81. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Keets, Heather. 1993. “Herb Jeffries: The First Black Western Star.” Entertainment Weekly, October. ­http://​­ew​.­com​/­article​/­1993​/­10​/­22​/ ­herb​-­jeffries​-­first​-­black​-­western​ -­star. Leonard, Kendra. 2010. “‘The Future Is the Past’: Music and History in Firefly.” In Space and Time: Essays on Visions of History in Science Fiction and Fantasy Television, edited by D. C. Wright and A. Austin, 174–188. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Lotz, Amanda D. 2014. Cable Guys: Television and Masculinities in the 21st Century. New York: New York University Press. Martin, Brett. 2013. Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution from The Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men and Breaking Bad. New York: Penguin. McLellan, Dennis. 2001. “Otis Young, the First African American Actor to Co-Star in a TV Western Series.” Los Angeles Times, October 20. ­http://​­articles​.­latimes​.­com​ /­2001​/­oct​/­20​/­local​/­me​-­59429. McVeigh, Stephen. 2007. The American Western. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Mock, Erin Lee. 2012. “Paladin Plays the Field: 1950s Television, Masculinity, and the New Episodic Sexualization of the Private Sphere.” In Love in Western Film and

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Television— Lonely Hearts and Happy Trails, edited by S. Matheson, 91–109. New York: Palgrave. Parunov, Pavao. 2017. “Anti-Hero Masculinity in Television Narratives: Breaking Bad’s Walter White.” In Theorising the Popular, edited by M. Brennan, 104–121. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholarly Publishing. Pierson, David. 2005. “Turner Network Television’s Made-for-TV Western Films: Engaging Audiences through Genre and Themes.” In Hollywood’s West: The American Frontier in Film, Television, and History, edited by P. C. Rollins and J. E. O’Connor, 281–299. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. Prioleau, Chris. 2013. “Walter White and Bleeding Brown: On Breaking Bad’s Race Problem.” Apogee Journal, October 3. ­http://​­apogeejournal​.­org​/­2013​/­10​/­03​ /­walter​-­white​-­bleeding​-­brown​-­on​-­breaking​-­bads​-­race​-­problem ​/. Roman, James. 2005. From Daytime to Primetime: The History of American Television Programs. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. Stanley, Alessandra. 2005. “An Old West Saga, Told from Both Sides.” New York Times, June 10. ­https://​­w ww​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2005​/­06​/­10​/­arts​/­television​/­an​-­old​-­west​-­saga​ -­told​-­f rom​-­both​-­sides​.­html. Stedman, Alex. 2015. “Adam Sandler: ‘Ridiculous Six’ Racism Controversy Was ‘Just a Misunderstanding.’” Variety, July 19. ­http://​­variety​.­com​/­2015​/­film​/­news​/­adam​ -­sandler​-­ridiculous​-­six​-­addresses​-­racism​-­controversy​-­1201543653​/. Terrace, Vincent. 2012. Encyclopedia of Television Shows, 1925 through 2007. 2nd ed. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Valenzano, Joseph M., III, and Erika Engstrom. 2014. “Cowboys, Angels, and Demons: American Exceptionalism and the Frontier Myth in the CW’s Supernatural.” Communication Quarterly 62 (5) (October): 552–568. Wright, Leigh Adams. 2004. “Asian Objects in Space.” In Finding Serenity: Anti-heroes, Lost Shepherds and Space Hookers in Joss Whedon’s Firefly, edited by J. Espenson, 29–36. Dallas, TX: BenBella Books. Wright, Paul, and Hailin Zhou. 2006. “Divining the ‘Celestials’: The Chinese Subculture of Deadwood.” In Reading Deadwood: A Western to Swear By, edited by D. Lavery, 157–168. London: I. B. Tauris.

West Wing, The (1999–2006) Following the day-to-day activities, challenges, and internal workings of a West Wing staff under the fictitious Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen) administration, The West Wing received critical praise from its inception, captivating and inspiring fans during its seven-year run. According to writer James Dyer (n.d.), “With writing, acting and production of a quality then only found in cinemas, The West Wing did for network television what the Sopranos simultaneously did for cable, elevating the medium to a different level and paving the way for a new golden era of home entertainment.” While pulling back the curtain on the executive branch of the federal government, its success had as much to do with its willingness to participate in the ongoing political, social, cultural, and racial debates of that time. In a moment where ensemble casts were racially diverse yet story lines were generic in their avoidance of discussions of racism, identity, or anything where the racial difference of characters mattered, The West Wing took a very different



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approach. Reflecting the lack of diversity of America’s political structure, and various administrations, as well as television, the Bartlet administration was virtually all-White: Stockard Channing as First Lady, Abbey Bartlet; Allison Janney as the press secretary, C. J. Cregg; John Spencer as chief of staff, Leo McGarry; Bradley Whitford as deputy chief of staff, Joshua Lyman; Janel Moloney as Lyman’s assistant, Donna Moss; Richard Schiff as communication director, Toby Ziegler; and Rob Lowe as deputy director of communication. Additionally, Tim Matheson played vice president, John Hoynes; Lily Tomlin played President Bartlett’s assistant Deborah Fiderer; Oliver Platt played White House counsel, Oliver Babish; Marlee Matlin played pollster, Joey Lucas; Timothy Busfield played White House reporter, Danny Concannon; and Emily Proctor played associate White House counsel, Ainsley Hayes. In later seasons, the administration stayed virtually white with Joshua Malina playing deputy director of communication, Will Bailey; Gary Cole playing vice president, Bob Russell; and Mary McCormack playing deputy national security advisor, Kate Harper. Following criticism from the NAACP and others about the lack of diversity on The West Wing and other shows, a few characters of color were added to the show. “I genuinely appreciate the tap on the shoulder from NAACP,” noted the show’s creator and writer, Aaron Sorkin. “They’re quite right in being upset” (Rollins 2003, 30–31). Charlie Young (Dulé Hill) served as President Bartlet’s “body man,” the term use to describe the personal assistant to the president. He also dated the president’s youngest daughter, Zoe (Elizabeth Moss). The show’s national security advisor, Nancy McNally (Anna Devere Smith), and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Percy Fitzwallace (John Amos), were both African American. Yet, during its entire run, despite criticism, there was only a handful of characters of color. With the exception of Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits), a Latinx congressman, whose presidential campaign anchored season seven, the cast never achieved significant levels of racial diversity. Unlike so much of television that embraced colorblind casting, which saw diversity as great but inconsequential to the story lines and representations, The West Wing, despite its lack of diversity in its cast, made race and racism part of its story line throughout its seven seasons. While not central and commonplace, The West Wing did take up issues of race and racism throughout its seven-year run. In “The Supremes” (March 24, 2004), Charlie debates Justice Christopher Mulready (William Fichtner), who the administration is considering for the Supreme Court, about affirmative action. Arguing that affirmative action is addressing the “legacy of racial oppression” and “leveling the playing field after 300 years,” Charlie not only explains the reasons behind affirmative action but makes clear how race and racism continues to shape the lives of people of color. Charlie anchored many of the conversations about race. In “Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics” (May 10, 2010), Charlie comes face-to-face with Ken Kochran, who is summoned to the White House to be fired as ambassador to Bulgaria. Prior to working at the White House, Charlie was a waiter at an all-White Country Club where Cochran was a member. Over several episodes, The West Wing documented the activities of a White supremacist organization angered by the first daughter

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dating an African American male. This culminates with a shooting of the president and Josh Layman in “What Kind of Day Has It Been” (May 17, 2000). The show addressed a myriad of issues related to race, nationality, identity, and religion. In “Shibboleth,” The West Wing (November 22, 2000) took up the issue of Chinese Christians seeking asylum in the United States. With “The Indians in the Lobby” (November 21, 2001), two Indigenous activists stage a protest on the day before Thanksgiving inside the White House lobby over a history of broken treaties and discrimination. In “Six Meetings before Lunch” (April 5, 2000), Josh discusses reparations with Jeff Breckenridge (Carl Lumbly), their nominee for assistant attorney general for civil rights. His support for reparations for slavery causes concern within the White House. When confronted, Breckenridge explains his reasoning as follows: Jeff: If asked, I’ll tell the Committee that my father’s fathers were kidnapped outside a village called Wimbabwa, brought to New Guinea, sold to a slave trader from Boston and bought by a plantation owner in Wadsworth, South Carolina, where they worked . . . for no wages. Josh: And you’re looking for back pay? Jeff: Yes. Josh: Just out of curiosity . . . did you have a figure in mind? Jeff: Dr. Harold Washington, who’s chief economist at the Manchester Institute, calculated the number of slaves held, multiplied it by the number of hours worked, multiplied that by the market value of manual labor and came up with a very conservative figure. Josh: What is it? Jeff: 1.7 trillion dollars.

Engaging long-standing debates about racial reconciliation, giving voice to history, and otherwise incorporating race into the show’s story lines, The West Wing consistently used its plotlines and representations to expand public discourse about race and racism. Not surprisingly, after 9/11, it took up a new set of issues “Isaac and Ishmael” (October 3, 2001), which aired just weeks after 9/11, brings the issues of the war on terror into focus. The episode takes two storylines: (1) Josh, Donna, and several other staffers talk to a group of high school students stuck in the White House following a security lockdown. Their conversation focuses on their fears after 9/11, what constitutes terrorism, and other aspect of geopolitics. Yet, their lessons to the kids and the audience about the War on Terror proved to a backdrop for the other story line that has Leo interrogating Rakim Ali (Ajay Naidu), a White House Staffer, about his attendance of a rally protesting U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, his faith, politics, and background. While some critics lamented the show’s overly preachy and heavy-handed approach, others praised the show for shining a spotlight on the effects of the War on Terror on Muslim Americans. Spotlighting the dangers, consequences, and problems of racial profiling, and the rising tide of Islamophobia, The West Wing directly addresses issues of racism and anti-Muslim bigotry in the shadows of 9/11. In one scene, Leo questions Ali about a bomb threat at his high school:



West Wing, The 739 Ali: It’s not uncommon for Arab Americans to be the first suspected when that sort of thing happens. Leo: I can’t imagine why. Ali: Look . . . Leo: No, I’m trying to figure out why anytime there’s any terrorist activity, people always assume its Arabs. I’m racking my brain. Ali: I don’t know the answer to that, Mr. McGarry, but I can tell you it’s horrible. Leo: Well, that’s the price you pay. Ali: Excuse me? The price for what?

Later, after Ali is cleared of any wrongdoing, Leo visits him at his desk to both apologize and further reflect on racial profiling: Leo: That’s the price you pay . . . for having the same physical features as criminals. That’s what I was gonna say. Ali: No kidding.

Not the only episode that dealt with the War on Terror and anti-Muslim racism, The West Wing regularly embraced the role of using the show “as a parable-designed to provoke an audience toward introspective thought rather than easy answers” (Jones and Dionisopoulos 2004). It also was not the only episode addressing racial profiling. In “Debate Camp” (October 16, 2002), the administration chooses not to move forward with Cornell Rooker’s nomination for attorney general because of an issue with racial profiling. In “Celestial Navigation” (February 16, 2000), Roberto Mendoza (Edward James Olmos), the recently appointed Supreme Court Justice, is arrested for “driving while Brown.” Accused of driving under the influence, an impossibility because of a health condition, Mendoza speaks on the cost and consequences of his arrest, giving voice to this societal problem. Critically acclaimed, with twenty-six Emmy’s and numerous other awards, and a cultlike following that continued long after the show’s conclusion, The West Wing transformed the television landscape. Inspired by the Clinton administration, aired during the Bush administration, and foreshadowing the Obama administration, The West Wing was a show invested in bringing politics to the television screen. This guided its commitment to realism and also its investment in tackling issues of racism, sexism, homophobia, environmental justice, and so much more. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Dyer, James. n.d. “The Definitive History of The West Wing.” Empire Online. ­https://​ ­w ww​.­empireonline​.­com​/­west​-­wing​/­default​.­html. Holland, Jack. 2011. “‘When You Think of the Taliban, Think of the Nazis’: Teaching Americans ‘9/11’ in NBC’s The West Wing.” Millennium 40 (1): 85–106. Jones, Robert, and George Dionisopoulos. 2004. “Scripting a Tragedy: The ‘Isaac and Ishmael’ Episode of The West Wing as Parable.” Popular Communication 2 (1): 21–40. Pincus-Roth, Zachary. 2018. “‘It’s the President We All Want’: The Melancholy World of Liberals Watching ‘The West Wing’ in 2018.” Washington Post, July 20. h­ ttps://​

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­w ww​.­w ashingtonpost​.­c om ​/­e ntertainment​/­t v​/­i n​-­t he​-­t rump​-­e ra​-­s ome​-­f ind​ -­escapism​-­i n​-­t he​-­west​-­wing​-­its​-­t he​-­president​-­we​-­all​-­want​/­2018​/­07​/­19​/­05c40fd4​ -­89bb​-­11e8​-­85ae​-­511bc1146b0b​_story​.­html​?­utm​_term​=​.­19a7b70dffb1. Rollins, Peter. 2003. The West Wing: The American Presidency as Television Drama. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Tate, Gabriel. 2017. “When Good TV Goes Bad: How The West Wing Went South.” The Guardian, July 3. ­https://​­w ww​.­theguardian​.­com​/­t v​-­and​-­radio​/­2017​/­jul​/­03​/­when​ -­good​-­t v​-­goes​-­bad​-­west​-­wing.

What’s Happening!!(1976–1979) / What’s Happening Now!! (1985–1986) What’s Happening!! (1976–1979) chronicles the experiences of Roger “Raj” Thomas (Ernest Thomas), Dwayne Nelson (Haywood Nelson), and Freddy “Rerun” Stubbs (Fred Berry), a trio of Black teenagers living in Watts, California. The series was one of many 1970s sitcoms featuring a predominantly Black cast of lovable characters dealing with a range of issues, including poverty, crime, and discrimination. As such, the series, and its successor What’s Happening Now!! (1985–1986), had much in common with Sanford and Son (1972–1977), Good Times (1974–1980), and The Jeffersons (1975–1985). However, being based on the 1975 film Cooley High, the series differed from the above-mentioned sitcoms in its focus on a group of teenage friends rather than on a nuclear family unit. The sitcom was a Bud Yorkin production, like the earlier Sanford and Son. As with other Yorkin series, What’s Happening!! did not shy away from depicting gritty urban circumstances, but it did so through the relatively safe lens provided by a cast of friendly, “nonthreatening” characters whose challenge from week to week was to avoid falling prey to the challenges that ensnared less fortunate members of their community. While the series did regularly feature Raj’s home life, with its frequent depictions of Dee (Danielle Spencer), Raj’s younger, devious sister, and Mabel (Mabel King), the matriarch of the small family, home and parental guidance were also routinely found at Rob’s Place, the restaurant frequented by the trio and staffed by Shirley (Shirley Hemphill), the secondary mother figure to the boys. In another departure from the content associated with other Yorkin series, What’s Happening!! only rarely engaged in racial issues. Few episodes offered a criticism of White institutions or highlighted the racism of White people. While most episodes of the series revolved around conflicts stemming from the conditions of economic and social instability facing Watts in the 1970s, only a handful of story lines dealt explicitly with problems between Black and nonBlack characters. In episode five of season two, “Nothing Personal,” Shirley confronts the issue of workplace discrimination but not in the traditional sense. It becomes clear that Shirley was chosen for a job because she is a Black woman, the implication being that a White person who would have been a better fit was overlooked in order to extend the offer to Shirley. Similar plotlines appeared in earlier episodes of All in the Family (1971–1979). In both examples, race-based employment



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discrimination, in the form of affirmative action, was depicted as a problem primarily for White workers. While a challenge for Black workers, the show’s story line would reinforce the idea that affirmative action would hurt Black workers because of doubts about their abilities. This episode—and similar episodes in other series—focused on the potential consequences resulting from combatting workplace discrimination, giving little space for discussion of root cases. The introductory episode of season two similarly deploys a familiar trope, although it turns it on its head. In “Rerun Gets Married,” Rerun wants to offer citizenship benefits to a non-native resident Maria (Irene Cara), so he plans to marry her. Of course, the plan is ultimately foiled, but the episode serves nonetheless as a subversion of the familiar version of this story; in this case, it is a Black man offering his status within American society as a benefit to a person in need. The second series in the franchise, What’s Happening Now!! (1985–1988) was even less overt in its engagement with social problems, particularly those associated with racial discrimination. In the second series, fully adult versions of Raj, Dwayne, Rerun, and Dee (played by the same actors) are joined by Nadine (Anne-Marie Johnson), Raj’s new wife. Gone, however, are many of the socioeconomic woes facing the main characters in the original series. Raj is a successful writer after having been an ideal student struggling to find opportunities. Nadine is a social worker, rounding out their two-income family, and marking a distinction between Raj’s updated circumstances and the struggling single-parent family in which he grew up, a condition nearly endemic to Black-led sitcoms from their earliest incarnation in Julia (1967). Dee is a college student who makes occasional trips back home to visit the house, now owned by Raj and Nadine, that their mother Mabel, now deceased, worked so hard to maintain. Dwayne works in the burgeoning computer technology field, and Rerun finds success in deploying his unparalleled charm by working as a used-car salesman. Gone are the concerns about finding opportunities in life, the conflicts that drove the plot of so many episodes of the first series. The second series, as a mid-1980s production, instead shares more in common with The Cosby Show (1984–1992) and its nonthreatening respectability than with earlier Bud Yorkin fare, with one exception. When Raj and Nadine become parents to Carolyn (Reina King), thereby incorporating a requisite “cute kid” into the cast, they do so by serving as foster parents to an underprivileged child. As What’s Happening!! evolved into What’s Happening Now!!, the franchise morphed into standard domestic sitcom fare, occasionally addressing a contemporary social issue through the use of a “very special episode,” for instance, when Maurice (Martin Lawrence) attempts to impress a young woman by embellishing his background and learns an important lesson about deception. The series, thus, shares much in common with Diff’rent Strokes (1978–1986), another series that, in its early years, frequently dealt with problems of race-based socioeconomic inequality, but developed over its run into a somewhat depoliticized comedy focused on the hijinks of a group of friendly faces, some (or most) of whom just happened to be Black. In this way, the series resonates with many other sitcoms from the 1980s where Blackness is performed through a small set of cultural productions associated with that group but is largely removed from its political and

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economic racial reality. But it also differs from a series like A Different World (1987–1993), which, over the course of its run, became increasingly engaged in race-based cultural and political critique. Aaron Gurlly Further Reading

Baptiste, David A., Jr. 1986. “The Image of the Black Family Portrayed by Television: A Critical Comment.” Marriage & Family Review 10 (1): 41–65. Cummings, Melbourne S. 1998.” The Changing Image of the Black Family on Television.” Journal of Popular Culture 22 (2), 75-85. Weheliye. Alexander, G. 2013. “Post-Integration Blues: Black Geeks and Afro-Diasporic Humanism.” In Contemporary African American Literature: The Living Canon, edited by Lovalerie King and Shirley Moody-Turner, 213–234. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Whiteness Whiteness in American television has uniquely enduring impacts on the social and cultural life. The narrative format of television programming makes it a powerful medium that unconsciously shapes meaning making. When these narratives are created on a foundation of whiteness, they both reinforce whiteness and shape racial realities. Television provides ever more creative, flexible, and nimble tropes that support the invisibility of whiteness, while making “otherness” hyper-visible. A social construct is an abstract idea or concept created within a culture that finds acceptance in a society. Although “race” has been tangibly defined through phenotypical visible markers, the meanings associated with race are socially constructed. Understandings of race come through the process of human socialization. In addition to institutions, governing and legal systems, religion, family and community acting as socializing agents, media heavily influences the socialization process. Within the United States, whiteness is constructed as the norm. As the norm, whiteness is a means to distinguish difference and signify “otherness” of people who are not deemed to be White. In the United States “whiteness” functions as the cornerstone of understandings of race, originating from the first arrivals of European migrants in the seventeenth century. Enslaved Africans being brought to the United States signifies the beginning of the social construction race in American culture. James Baldwin argued that “America had, really, ‘no white community’— only a motley alliance of European immigrants and their descendants, who made a ‘moral choice’ to join a synthetic racial elite” (qtd. in Sanneh 2010). In the centuries since 1619, whiteness—a socially constructed and continually shifting paradigm—has been enshrined as the benchmark of true “Americanness.” The supremacy of “whiteness” has created a hierarchy, systematically reinforced politically and socially. U.S. television represents an important site for communicating White supremacy, and therefore, whiteness. Whiteness is placed in a precarious situation when made visible as a racial category. “It is a delicate race, always on the verge of being overrun or adulterated,

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dethroned or debunked. The supposed perfection of whiteness makes it vulnerable: every flaw and quirk, every tangled bloodline and degraded specimen, is seen as a potential threat” (Sanneh 2010). Thus, a defining characteristic of whiteness is that it exists on a continuum between standard-bearing elites and “authentic” lower classes, creating a tension between economic groups that can all claim the privilege of whiteness within an American context, as to which group more closely defines and maintains, standards of whiteness. Due to its perfection and existence in a world of perpetual threat, whiteness’s third characteristic is that it is always in need of protection. When whiteness is invisible, it is protected. By making “otherness” visible, it allows for difference to be articulated without the necessity for White supremacy to be examined. Whiteness can therefore be considered to be an unstated premise. “Throughout history . . . white supremacy lurked in seemingly race-neutral language, unmentioned and therefore incontestable” (Sanneh 2010). Hsu (2016) uses Robert P. Jones’s view of whiteness as a “shared aesthetic, a historical framework, and a moral vocabulary . . . constituting a visible mainstream, a set of aspirations.” Whiteness has become the standard for physiological, social, historical, and economic perfection. Whiteness is not improved through mixture and addition—but in its proximity to purity of White as the socially constructed norm, yet invisible, racial category. Thus, whiteness ultimately becomes “a placeholder, a space evacuated of meaning” (Hsu 2016), an invisible tool of social measurement. This perfection attracts perpetual threats by those who seek access to whiteness. The invisibility of whiteness functions to protect whiteness as the standard. The invisibility of whiteness in a number of television shows helped to maintain it as the status quo. Shows like Leave It to Beaver (1957–1963) and The Brady Bunch (1969–1974) elevated the ideals of White perfection through the model of the middle-class, nuclear family. While Roseanne presented narratives that were racially progressive on a surface level, but ultimately reproduced invisibility of whiteness. Shows like The Simpsons (1989–) rendered whiteness invisible by shaping otherness as “abnormal” and “different” in stereotypical ways. While Friends (1994–2004) and Sex and the City (1998–2004) reduced the presence of communities of color to miniscule proportions, both on- and off-screen, furthering narratives around perfection, protection, the existence of perpetual threats against whiteness, and whiteness as default and ever present.

ELEVATING WHITENESS AS PERFECTION THROUGH FAMILY SITCOMS Leave It to Beaver Leave It to Beaver premiered on CBS and spent its second through final seasons on ABC. A lighthearted comedy about a White, suburban family, it elevated wholesomeness through childhood merrymaking as traditional Americana. Episodes centered on the daily life and shenanigans of Theodore Cleaver (Jerry Mathers), known by his nickname, “The Beaver.” Beaver is the younger of two sons; his brother Wally (Tony Dow) and parents June (Barbara Billingsley) and

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Ward Cleaver (Hugh Beaumont), make up the rest of the primary cast. Beaver looks up to his older brother, and his parents are patient, loving, and address youthful antics and troublemaking with understanding life lessons. The Cleavers’ entire world is that of a White, middle-class, and suburban heteronormative family. Beaver has friends, and the trouble he causes in each episode is easily resolved by the end of runtime. Mrs. Cleaver demonstrates maternal domesticity, maintaining the family’s stress-free life untouched by the world beyond their town. While not very popular during its initial run, Leave It to Beaver’s syndication cemented firmly cemented its iconic status in popular culture. A beacon of romanticized nostalgia for a perfect (White) America, it is such an effective cultural reference that political commentators and surrogates often draw on it to enhance the message of President Donald Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again.” Leave It to Beaver as a reference is shorthand for invisible whiteness because of the imagery it invokes in audiences. The show reinforced patriarchal stereotypes of the “perfect mother,” one who stayed at home and presented a physically presentable image at any given time (hair styled, make up on, clothes in place); grounded aspirations for American families in respectable and class-based terms. It presented whiteness as stress-free, casually male-dominated, and unbothered by the cavalier lack of color among its characters. The Brady Bunch The Brady Bunch, in many ways, updated the cultural model of the family sitcom enshrined in American entertainment by Leave It to Beaver for the world of color television. The Brady’s were a White family, presumably of Anglo-Saxon descent (based on the family surname), with a heterosexual parental couple and middle-class enough to afford domestic help in the form of their housekeeper, Alice (Ann B. Davis). The family is a blended and gender-balanced family, made up of a widow and widower, each initially single parents of three children who present as the gender as their parents. Each group of children include an older teenager, a child in early adolescence, and a young child. Mike (Robert Reed) and Carol Brady (Florence Henderson) were the parents, Greg (Barry Williams), Peter (Christopher Knight), and Bobby (Mike Lookinland) are the Brady boys while Marcia (Maureen McCormick), Jan (Eve Plumb), and Cindy (Susan Olsen) the Brady girls. The Brady Bunch continued the project of presenting one of the ultimate aspirations of whiteness—and thus Americanness—as the ability to maintain a stable, middle-class household and nuclear family. Carol Brady, the mother and stepmother to the family’s six children, was, like June Cleaver, a stay-at-home mother with a constant smile whose primary concern was caring for her (step-)children’s needs. Like Leave It to Beaver, The Brady Bunch was not initially popular during its five-season run, but enjoyed syndication well into the 1990s. It would also find its popularity because of the ways that it evoked nostalgia inAmericana. Ironically, in presenting a blended family, it was progressive for its time. Despite this, it continued to signify whiteness through a White, suburban, middle-class world. It

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reaffirmed the role of White womanhood as tied to a nuclear family, portraying both adult women characters in domestic roles: Carol Brady as the perfect wife and mother—always presentable, smiling, and ever-supportive of her husband’s professional pursuits, and Alice Nelson, as a housekeeper; both characters’ world revolved around the children.

EXPANDING THE PROTECTION OF WHITENESS THROUGH TOKEN CHARACTERS Roseanne (1988–1997, 2018) Roseanne continued the reign of comedic family sitcoms in the 1980s and 1990s, as an immensely popular show that ran for nine seasons on ABC. Roseanne Connor (Roseanne Barr), the show’s namesake, was the matriarch of the Connor family, made up of Dan (John Goodman), her husband, Darlene (Sara Gilbert) and Becky (Lecy Goranson), her daughters, and son, DJ (Michael Fishman). The show follows the life of the family as the parents navigate careers as working-class folk, while raising their children in an America that still turns up its nose on families like theirs. The Connors do not exist in an entirely White world, as they are friends with a Black couple, Chuck (James Pickens Jr.) and Ann Marie Mitchell (Adilah Barnes). Chuck is Dan’s high school football teammate and friend, while Ann Marie has belatedly become Roseanne’s friend through her marriage to Chuck. This belies the fact that they went to high school together, a fact which Roseanne cannot recall, though Ann Marie can. However, despite its trappings of inclusivity, Roseanne continues the project of reinforcing, even strengthening whiteness, through family sitcoms by centering on a White nuclear family, with a heteronormative couple at the helm. The show reflects the intersections of race and class, heralded for its centering of working-class White people, an “out group” in American television until that point. Following the civil war, whiteness was shaped by the need for poor Whites to be entitled to the privileges of whiteness. The end of the Reconstruction era in the late nineteenth century served as a catalyst for a new era of systematic and socially sanctioned racism, including the beginning of the White supremist group, the Ku Klux Klan, because White citizens felt threatened by the new economic and political gains made by newly freed Black people. One way that whiteness is rendered invisible in Roseanne is in its focus on being “White trash,” an outgroup in American society. It conflates working-class struggles with being removed from the privileges of whiteness, which is often used as a rebuttal to the concept of White privilege. Like The Brady Bunch, it crystallizes the use of surface engagements with liberal social dynamics to position the show as progressive and disguise the show’s retrograde social patterns (Scarlett 2018). The show makes use of the working-class status of the Connors (Roseanne’s family) and their friendships with characters of color (such as the Mitchells, Sarah, Marla, or Iris, Roseanne’s colleagues) to render them immune from racism, classism, and patriarchy, and present the show as countering traditional whiteness. However, the presence of Black characters in the

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series episodes are minimal and represent plot devices to affirm the Connor’s progressiveness and acceptability in wider society (Scott 2018). The Mitchells are not developed as characters beyond the fact that their presence allows the Connors to appear accepting of Black people, and Dan to present as defying the social realities of befriending a Black boy during the racism of the 1960s—what were presumably their high school years. An incident with Roseanne and Dan’s son DJ, who refuses to kiss his Black classmate in season seven, episode nine, White Men Can’t Kiss (1994), ends with the Connors relying on the Mitchells for absolution from any racism they may have inadvertently passed on to their son. Despite the show’s flattened engagement with diverse characters, ABC granted Roseanne a reboot in 2018, which was dogged by audiences’ new ability to recognize the racism that went unacknowledged in the original series. In season ten, episode three, Dan falls asleep in front of the television, and when he wakes up, he recounts all the programming they miss as “all the shows about black and Asian families” to which Roseanne responds: “they’re just like us. There, now you’re all caught up.” Roseanne notes that they slept from Wheel (of Fortune) to Kimmel (or Jimmy Kimmel Live). By collapsing shows, such as Black-ish (2014–) and Fresh off the Boat (2015–2020), into a single indistinguishable block sandwiched between White programming, it highlights White-centered entertainment as the pinnacle of television programming. In season ten, episode seven, Roseanne spies on her Muslim neighbors invoking White fear while worrying that they may “blow up” the neighborhood and jokes that their homeland is likely “Talibanjistan.” The reboot would eventually be cancelled due to Roseanne’s own real-life tweet comparing Valerie Jarrett, a Black woman and high-level official in the Obama administration, to an ape and insinuating that she is connected to radical Muslim terrorists. This incident was just one example of Roseanne Barr comparing Black women to apes nor were these the only examples of what are widely considered racist tweets from the show’s star. Some of which were posted years before the reboot began (Devega 2018).

REINFORCING WHITENESS THROUGH A RETURN TO MINSTRELSY The Simpsons (Fox, 1989–) The Simpsons premiered on Fox in 1989 and is the longest running scripted series in U.S. television history. The Simpsons’ nuclear family is made up of parents Homer and Marge, siblings Bart, Lisa, and baby Maggie, Grandpa, and Marge’s twin sisters. The family live in the fictional working-class town of Springfield, surrounded by a constellation of their friends, neighbors, and colleagues, whose lives and quirks provide fodder for the plot and the show’s often raunchy humor. The Simpsons are a White family and Homer and Marge are a heterosexual couple. Although they are cartoon characters, and have yellow skin, the Simpsons and most of the characters on the show are coded as White, through social constructions of whiteness. Recurring Black, Latinx, and Asian characters serve to reinforce the yellow characters’ whiteness. These characters’ complexions are

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reflective of their race. Homer maintains a job, despite the fact that he is uncommonly foolish, and Marge, who is very practical, insightful, and patient, is a stayat-home mother. The parents’ intellectual traits are passed down to their children according to gender as well—Bart reflects Homer’s struggles with intelligence, while Lisa is uncommonly gifted intellectually, emotionally, and musically. Maggie, who, like her elder siblings does not age, cannot speak because she is still an infant. However, Maggie displays a perceptivity and understanding beyond her years. Both Lisa and Maggie clearly understand that despite the intellectual difference between their parents, and even between Bart and Lisa, the intelligence, practicality, and wit of the women in the family goes largely unnoticed by their male family members and others who populate their world. In fact, it is a key theme and ongoing joke of the series. The Simpsons typifies the historical legacy of race in American television. Visual representations of stereotypical tropes serve to make “otherness” visible and whiteness invisible. The shows’ treatment of racial and ethnic minorities undercuts the show’s seemingly diverse cast, reflective of how mainstream U.S. culture deals with race: through visual representation grounded in stereotypes presented as a lighthearted national pastime. The show received high-profile criticism about one of its most prominently problematic character choices—Apu Nahasapeemapetilon—from comedian Hari Kondabolu with his film The Problem with Apu (2017). Introduced in season two, episode eight, Apu is the owner of the town’s convenience store, Kwik E Mart. Hsu (2016) describes the treatment of his accent as “theatrically thick, as though someone is luxuriating in all those exotic curled ‘R’s and the nasally twang.” “The Two Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilons” features Apu’s wedding via an arranged marriage. When his wife gives birth to their child in a later season, the attending doctor pulls seven additional identical brown newborns unexpectedly out of his lab coat. The Simpsons showrunners responded dismissively to the critical short film, which highlighted the show’s race problem. Following the film and its subsequent write-ups, in “No Good Read Goes Unpunished,” the writers’ leveraged Lisa, the quintessential White liberal, to reassert that whiteness was not a problem, political correctness and overly sensitive people of color were the problem. Lisa’s character typically displays perceptiveness about social justice issues, offering an emotionally sensitive solution to characters in the show. However, in this episode, Lisa was used to remind the audience of one of Apu’s catchphrases: “Don’t have a cow.” (Yohana 2018). Apu, voiced by Hank Azaria, a White actor, also sings and dances at random, which is an archetype reminiscent of Blackface minstrelsy. Minstrelsy is firmly cemented in American popular culture. It is the practice of White entertainers impersonating (typically) Black people by physically transforming their appearance and acting out stereotyped characteristics of blackness. Blackface minstrelsy was extremely popular from the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth centuries and was used to create the crude stereotypes of Black people, including hypersexuality, predatory behavior, a natural proclivity to singing, dancing, and athleticism, and intellectual inferiority, which continue to persist. It reinforced racial binaries of Black and White, and White supremacy. By extension, other racial and ethnic

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minorities are pushed into stereotypes that distinguish their otherness in these same ways that are familiar to audiences. The Simpsons maintains stereotypical characters of color voiced by White actors throughout the series; Dr. Hibbert, the stereotypical respectable negro, made in the image of The Cosby Show’s Cliff Huxtable (1984–1992), when the shows were programmed in the same time slot on different networks; Bumblebee Man, a Latinx man who plays cartoon superhero who fights crime dressed in a bumblebee costume; Cookie Kwan, an overly aggressive real estate agent of Asian descent and with a broadly caricatured Chinese accent and broken English. The show continues to influence culture, airing during prime time and making way for a genre of American satire adult cartoons such as South Park (1997–), Family Guy (1999–), and Bob’s Burgers (2011–). For many, it encapsulates transgressive humor and American satire. The Simpsons illustrates how explicitly racist forms of entertainment are transformed into widely acceptable and even idealized entertainment that uphold whiteness. In January 2020, it was announced that Hank Azaria would no longer voice Apu. Six months later, following the killing of George Floyd, the show’s producer announced that White actors would no longer voice characters of color.

ELEVATING WHITENESS BY HIDING THE ERASURE OF OTHERS Friends (NBC, 1994–2004) Friends, an ensemble comedy about a group of New York City friends searching for love and meaning aired during prime time on NBC. A show so popular that it defined a decade, its main characters were Rachel Green (Jennifer Aniston), a barista who becomes a fashion executive; Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kuddrow), a masseuse and musician; Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry), a data analyst turned IT executive; struggling actor Joey Tribbiani (Matt LeBlanc); and siblings Monica (Courtney Cox) and Ross Geller (David Schwimmer)—a chef and a paleontologist, respectively. The friends existed in a White, heterosexual, middle-class world, despite its setting in the most culturally diverse city in the United States. Characters of color or of diverse sexualities were either portrayed as caricatures, singled out for disdain, or only developed through one of the six White protagonists. The construction of whiteness is also gendered and binary—with men, heterosexuality, and cis-gendered bodies (when one’s gender identity corresponds with one’s physical genitalia, as opposed to being transgender or gender nonconforming, for example) occupying the highest positions in the whiteness ideal. Three characters of color (two of them recurring), furthered the character development of Ross as his love interests. The two recurring characters, Julie (Lauren Tom), who is Asian, and Charlie (Aisha Tyler), who is Black, functioned to uphold whiteness in the show, and were presented not as full characters, but props to develop competition in the plots that centered love as a right of whiteness. Julie, Ross’s paleontologist colleague and girlfriend during season two was subjected to

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specific disdain by Rachel. Julie was the target of Rachel’s envy because of her own feelings for Ross but also the wrath of the show’s live studio audience. Pitting two women against each other, especially a White versus a nonwhite woman, sets up a White man as an aspirational prize worth bringing down another woman. Charlie, another of Ross’s colleagues becomes a love interest for both him and Joey in seasons nine and ten. Charlie is a highly trained academic, and a Black woman existing in a White male-dominated world. However, like Julie, Dr. Charlie Wheeler is not developed beyond being a love interest and a point of conflict between two White protagonists. Ultimately, she serves only as a prize to be won by two White men who feel entitled to her. The popularity of Friends is so ubiquitous in American popular culture that its fashion, hairstyles, and themes continue to be a reference for the zeitgeist of the 1990s. Representing the whiteness of American nostalgia, its prominence is an exercise of the invisibility of whiteness. By erasing the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality, it upheld the unspoken privileges of a White world. Insulated in a White New York City, the characters did not come into confrontation with the realities of race, class, and culture in the real-world New York City. Sex and the City (HBO, 1998–2004) Sex and the City is a romantic comedy series that aired on the premium cable network HBO about a group of four female friends in their thirties, searching for love through the many trials of their sexual, social, and professional lives. Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) was the show’s central character and narrator. A fashionista and journalist, she writes columns based on the sex lives of her friends; Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon), a sarcastic, successful attorney with a measured approach to her womanhood and sex life; Charlotte York (Kristin Davis), an affluent, conservative, gallerist whose love life reflects her intent pursuit of the perfect (heterosexual) marriage; and Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall), a public relations executive who enjoys an active and nonmonogamous sex life. The plot unfolds primarily in high society of New York City’s Upper East Side, where the women’s lives of luxury allow them to focus almost exclusively on their pursuit of love and sex. The show was considered progressive for its time in its upfront handling of female sexuality and the prominence it gave to female friendships. However, critics have noted that Sex and the City’s progressive attributes are otherwise limited. Characters are constructed through a myriad of stereotypes—of women, gay, and Black people, among others, and all within the context of whiteness as the default cultural paradigm. Although the show centers on four women, its narratives around whiteness perpetuate gender stereotypes. For example, the show doesn’t pass the “Bechdel test,” which “tests” for the presence of at least two named women characters on-screen at any given time who speak to each other about something other than a man (Katz 2014). The characters are often driven by male attention, while marriage (to a man) is clearly the embedded and anticipated denouement for each character, and thus, of the series. The protagonists, all White, date characters of color who are built on,

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and not developed past, sexual stereotypes about their race. David (2018) found that when the show premiered, only 35 percent of New York City’s 7.6 million citizens were White. Yet, the four main characters only go on dates with three people of color, out of a total of 108 dating partners in six seasons. Moreover, only two characters of color have recurring speaking roles across the entirety of the series. Each of these three characters inhabit different faces of long-existing stereotypes or narrative devices. In season three, episode five, Samantha is dating Chivon Williams (Asio Highsmith), a record company executive whose genitalia Samantha is fixated on, and whose sister is portrayed as an angry Black woman intent on breaking up their fling. In season four, episodes three to five, Samantha dates artist, Maria Diego Reyes (Sônia Braga), a stereotypically passionate and quick-tempered Latina. In season six, episodes nine to thirteen, Miranda is seeing Dr. Robert Leeds (Blair Underwood), who is respectable and almost perfect. He is handsome, intelligent, caring, and successful but is never portrayed beyond this two-dimensional stereotype. Dr. Leeds serves only as a device to support Miranda’s character development, as she decides to dump Dr. Leeds and learn to follow her heart (David 2018). Sex and the City remains the standard of progressive, sexual content for television, as well as a hallmark of the long-form, dramatic series model. For many, Sex and the City typifies millennial drama, and the entrée of U.S. television programming into the type of long-form treatment that allowed for engagement with racy and unexpected issues. The show was so popular that two films were made, Sex and the City (2008) and Sex and the City 2 (2010), as well as a short-lived network television series The Carrie Diaries (CW, 2013–2014). Marked in the American popular imagination, the show continues the legacy of making whiteness invisible. Through its employment of stereotypes for comic relief, and a narrative driven by White women’s pursuit of or juxtaposition in opposition to the nuclear family ideal so typified by Leave It to Beaver and The Brady Bunch, Sex and the City maintains the socially constructed characteristics of whiteness as the status quo.

CONCLUSION Leave it to Beaver, The Brady Bunch, The Simpsons, Roseanne, Friends, and Sex and the City have had uncommon impact on American television, popular culture, and, by extension, contemporary culture more broadly. Returning to Hsu’s (2016) observation that whiteness represents a space “evacuated of meaning,” we can see how the omnipresence of whiteness becomes an unspoken narrative furthered by the syndication and spin-offs of these shows. These shows’ signification of whiteness operates through their use in political, cultural, and social spheres of influence as reference points. When American television makes whiteness ever present and invisible, its collective impact is that it supports the elevation of whiteness as the standard, or normative mode, and race is socially constructed through difference and proximity to whiteness. Nicole Files-Thompson and Jacqui Brown

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Further Reading

“Animation So White: 11 Times TV Characters of Color Were Voiced by White Actors.” 2018. Indiewire, January 24. ­https://​­w ww​.­indiewire​.­com​/­gallery​/­animation​ -­whitewashing​-­simpsons​-­family​-­g uy​-­rick​-­morty​/­01​_voiceover​/. David, Sarah. 2018. “Every Single Person of Color They Dated in ‘Sex and the City.’” Vice, June 6. ­https://​­w ww​.­vice​.­com​/­en​_us​/­article​/­wjbp34​/­sex​-­and​-­the​-­city​-­people​ -­of​-­color​-­date. Demby, Gene. 2016. “From Blackface to Blackfishing.” NPR, February 13. ­https://​­www​ .­npr​.­org​/­templates​/­t ranscript​/­t ranscript​.­php​?­storyId​=​­694149912. Devega, Chauncey. 2018. “Roseanne and America’s White Victim Complex: Why Canceling her Show Isn’t Enough.” Salon, May 31. ­https://​­www​.­salon​.­com​/­2018​/­05​/­31​/­roseanne​ -­and​-­americas​-­white​-­victim​-­complex​-­why​-­canceling​-­her​-­show​-­isnt​-­enough​/. Doyle, John. 2018. “Is Nostalgia for Friends All about White Privilege?” The Globe and Mail, May 12. ­https://​­w ww​.­theglobeandmail​.­com​/­arts​/­television​/­is​-­nostalgia​-­for​ -­f riends​-­all​-­about​-­white​-­privilege​/­article21149416​/. Hsu, Hua. 2016. “White Plight?” The New Yorker, July 18. ­https://​­w ww​.­newyorker​.­com​ /­magazine​/­2016​/­07​/­25​/­the​-­new​-­meaning​-­of​-­whiteness. Hunter, Gené B. 2018. “Aisha Tyler Looks Back at the ‘Colorblind Casting’ That Got Her on Friends.” InStyle, September 1. ­https://​­w ww​.­instyle​.­com​/­aisha​-­t yler​-­f riends​ -­colorblind​-­casting. Katz, Emily Tess. 2014. “Alison Bechdel: ‘Sex and the City’ Wouldn’t Pass the Bechdel Test, But I’m Still Its ‘Number One Fan.’” Huffington Post, October 3. ­https://​ ­w ww​.­huffingtonpost​.­ca​/­2014​/­10​/­03​/­alison​-­bechdel​-­sex​-­and​-­th​_n​_5928490​.­html. Kendi, Ibrahim X. 2019. “The Hopefulness and Hopelessness of 1619.” The Atlantic, August 20. ­https://​­www​.­theatlantic​.­com​/­ideas​/­archive​/­2019​/­08​/­historical​-­significance​-­1619​ /­596365​/. King, Susan. 2010. “From the Archives: Years Later, ‘Leave It to Beaver’ Remains a Beloved Family Sitcom.” Los Angeles Times, June 30. ­https://​­w ww​.­latimes​.­com​ /­entertainment​/­t v​/­la​-­et​-­st​-­leave​-­it​-­to​-­beaver​-­20100630​-­snap​-­story​.­html. Miller, Kelsey. 2019. “Friends Is 25 Years Old. It’s Still Extremely Popular—And Polarizing.” Vox, September 20. ­https://​­www​.­vox​.­com​/­culture​/­2019​/­9​/­20​/­20875107​ /­f riends​-­25th​-­anniversary​-­polarizing​-­legacy​-­homophobia. Sanders, Sam. 2016. “Trump Champions the ‘Silent Majority,’ But What Does That Mean in 2016?” NPR, January 22. ­https://​­w ww​.­npr​.­org​/­2016​/­01​/­22​/­463884201​/­t rump​ -­champions​-­the​-­silent​-­majority​-­but​-­what​-­does​-­that​-­mean​-­in​-­2016. Sanneh, Kelefa. 2010. “Beyond the Pale.” The New Yorker, April 12. ­https://​­w ww​ .­newyorker​.­com ​/­magazine​/­2010​/­04​/­12​/ ­beyond​-­the​-­pale​- ­4. Scarlett, Kieran. 2018. “Let’s Not Romanticize ‘Roseanne’ 1.0 and Its Racism Lite.” ­Rewire​.­News, May 31. ­https://​­rewire​.­news​/­article​/­2018​/­05​/­31​/­roseanne​-­racism​-­lite​/. Scott, Eugene. 2018. “Roseanne Barr’s Racist Twitter Remark Undercuts the Americans She Tried to Lift Up on Her Show.” Washington Post, May 29. ­https://​­w ww​ .­washingtonpost​.­com​/­news​/­t he​-­fi x​/­w p​/­2018​/­05​/­29​/­roseanne​-­barrs​-­racist​-­t witter​ -­remark​-­undercuts​-­the​-­americans​-­she​-­t ried​-­to​-­lift​-­up​-­on​-­her​-­show​/. Staples, Brent. 2016 “Voters Who Long for ‘Leave It to Beaver.’” New York Times, November 8. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­interactive​/­projects​/­cp​/­opinion​/­election​-­night​-­2016​ /­where​-­nostalgia​-­fits​-­in. Ulaby, Neda. 2019. “After 5 Decades, TV’s ‘Brady Bunch’ Leaves Its Mark on Pop Culture.” NPR, September 26. ­https://​­w ww​.­npr​.­org​/­2019​/­09​/­26​/­764548471​/­after​-­5​ -­decades​-­t vs​-­brady​-­bunch​-­leaves​-­its​-­mark​-­on​-­pop​-­culture.

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VanDerWerff, Emily Todd. 2018. “The Simpsons Is Stuck in an Eternal 1990. Its Apu Controversy Reflects That.” Vox, April 15. ­https://​­w ww​.­vox​.­com​/­culture​/­2018​/­4​/­15​ /­17236336​/­simpsons​-­apu​-­controversy​-­no​-­good​-­read​-­goes​-­unpunished​-­recap. Yohana, Desta. 2018. “The Simpsons Still Doesn’t Understand the Problem with Apu.” Vanity Fair, April 9. ­https://​­w ww​.­vanityfair​.­com​/ ­hollywood​/­2018​/­04​/­the​-­simpsons​ -­problem​-­with​-­apu​-­response.

White Shadow, The (1978–1981) Airing from 1978 to 1981 on CBS, The White Shadow tells the story of a retired White NBA player (Ken Reeves played Ken Howard) who becomes the basketball coach at a predominantly Black high school. Unlike later racial ensemble shows like L.A. Law (1986–1994), ER (1994–2009), and Grey’s Anatomy (2005–), which through their embrace of colorblind narratives, middle-class identities, and their focus on the American Dream avoid race, racism, and racial conflict, The White Shadow centered on racial difference in multiple ways. At one level, in chronicling the daily lives and basketball journey of a primarily Black high school team coached by a White man in South Central Los Angeles, race was front and center with its focus on Black lives, its emphasis on Coach Reeves as a “racial outsider,” and its centering of a stereotypical Black community. With the exception of Coach Reeves, and a few players—Mario ‘Salami’ Pettrino (Timothy Van Patten), Ricky Gomez (Ira Angustain), Abner Goldstein (Ken Michelman), Nick “New York” Vitaglia (John Mengatti), and Paddy Falahey (John Laughlin)—all of the characters were Black. The principal (Ed Bernard as Jim Willis) and vice principal (Joan Pringle as Sybil Buchanan) were both Black. The bulk of the players—Morris Thorpe (Kevin Hooks), Warren Coolidge (Byron Stewart), James Hayward (Thomas Carter), Milton Reese (Nathan Cook), Curtis Jackson (Erik Kilpatrick), Wolfe Perry (Teddy Rutherford), and Wardell Stone (Larry Flash Jenkins)—were Black. The centrality of blackness, which is also imagined through urbanness, poverty, violence, and flashiness, is further emphasized through its depiction of whiteness as that of a “minority” outsider. Throughout the show, both Coach Reeves and Goldstein are depicted as others, as not fully accepted, and as unable to fit-in with this primarily Black environment. Taking place in South Central Los Angeles, The White Shadow also embrace commonplace antiBlack stereotypes. The show imagines this primarily Black school, neighborhood, and community with the commonplace characteristics of dysfunction, poverty, crime, and single-parented homes (not to mention singing numbers in the shower). “That’s fictional Carver High School to you, set in South Central Los Angeles, a tough area where members of the high school basketball team at the center of the show were going to experience their own tough times coming of age,” writes Tim Goodman (2016). “They had absent dads and lacked goals, sometimes hope and definitely a coach who could mold them into a good team. Coach Reeves, or really just ‘Coach,’ arrived to fill a lot of roles.” The White Shadow followed in the footsteps of countless 1970s shows that imagined inner-city communities as places of crime, trauma, poverty, and economic struggle. From Julia (1968–1971) to Sanford and Son (1972–1977), from



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Good Times (1974–1979) to What’s Happening!! (1976–1979), the representations of the Black community were confined to urban America. At the same time, The White Shadow, as a television drama and as a show that moved beyond the common representation of African Americans as criminals, drug dealers, and prostitutes within 1970s television, afforded a level of depth and humanity otherwise unavailable at this moment. At another level, in creating a show that is ostensibly about a White man coaching a primarily Black high school basketball team, The White Shadow put race front and center. Throughout the series, misunderstandings, miscommunication, and distance is imagined as the result of the racial difference of coach and players (and even between the players). That is, their racial experiences (also defined culturally) were a source of tension and difficulty, which through conversation and collective investment in the goal of winning basketball games led to understanding and racial progress. Fitting with a larger civil rights goal that saw integration as essential toward mutual understanding and racial reconciliation, The White Shadow imagines success as resulting from interracial relationships. Yet, the show replicates long-standing narratives of White saviors. Coach Reeves not only saves the team, bringing a winning culture and success, but the player themselves from the struggles of living without fathers and the temptations of crime or gangs, from bad choices and other dangers. The show’s pilot makes clear his role as a savior. As the team celebrates its victory, Coach Reeves cautions against their arrogance and their joy. He makes clear that he will be watching their every move, to which Thorpe notes, “Like a white shadow.” He’s not only a father figure but someone who saves these poor Black kids from pain and suffering. The show’s reliance on this formula spawned ample criticism. “The trope of the White Savior is far too common in stories about education. The movies ‘Up the Down Staircase,’ ‘Dangerous Minds,’ and ‘Freedom Writers,’ all based on memoirs, rely on it. So do TV shows like ‘The White Shadow’ and ‘Welcome Back, Kotter,’” writes Paul Hartzer (2017). The White Savior model in education is based on two flawed notions: (1) There’s something inherently wrong with urban/POC culture and (2) white people are well suited to fixing those problems. It is generally well-intentioned, but at its extreme, it supports White Supremacy: Rather than challenging whether Western European culture ought to be the model of success, it tacitly accepts that this is the case. (Hartzer 2017)

In many ways, The White Shadow also brings to life America’s Huck Finn Fixation. According to Thomas Bogle (2016), America’s Huck Finn Fixation is defined by narratives where “the white hero grows in stature from his association with the dusty black” (140). Coach Reeves finds purpose and meaning in his life following an injury that derailed his professional career. Just as he gives his Black players hope and a future, these same players, through their perseverance and ability to overcome dire circumstances, teach him a lot. They both grow through their relationships. While critics challenged the show’s replication of stereotypes and its adherence to White savior narratives, it also brought to life important racial issues uncommon within television.

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In “Airball,” we see one of the prominent themes of The White Shadow: cultural and class conflict. Traveling to San Jose for a basketball tournament, which they never make it to because of plane troubles, the primarily Black and Latinx players are forced to deal with situations that they are neither equipped nor prepared to deal with: airports, flying (none of them had ever flown), and merely traveling. Imagining race through class differences, this episode and several others present conflict as the result of ignorance and a lack of experience from the “impoverished” players of color. In season two, the show tackles racism in an episode entitled “Albert Hodges.” However, rather than addressing racism, it focuses on how a Black student, Albert, returns to Carver after serving time in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Instead of starting over, he brings with him a level of bitterness and racial resentment into the school and onto the team. He accuses Coach Reeves of racism after he calls a group of Black players “animals,” after he refers to “abnormal genes” during a discussion with a Black student, and after he names Salami as the team’s captain. He also laments the “white man’s American Dream” and the racism of the criminal justice system. Despite the good intentions of Coach Reeves, who embraces Albert and works to get him admitted into college, he’s remains distrustful, exhibiting prejudice against him and his White teammates. It is easy to see a clear message from this episode: the problem isn’t racism and most certainly not institutional racism, but individual prejudice and seeing racism where it doesn’t exist. Injustice isn’t a consequence of racism but of the anger and racial mistrust that comes with such a worldview. And through understanding and conversation, progress can be made. “Links,” also from season two, turns the focus onto White prejudice. When Coach Reeves attempts to bring Coolidge, Thorpe, and Salami to play a round of golf at an LA Country Club, he is told “there’s an unwritten policy against blacks playing at Westgate.” While the Country Club has a Black valet, Black waiters, and is comfortable with black caddies, the presence of two Black men playing causes ire. While initially refused, the White man preventing their playing is overcome by fear. Although seen as “outcasts” who don’t fit in, Coolidge excuses his first shot perfectly: Reeves: “How you hit the ball that far?” Coolidge: “It’s easy . . . its white.”

Their golf outing ends with their being refused service at the course’s restaurant and Coach Reeves challenging the bigotry and class snobbery of its members. With reference to professional golfers Charlie Sifford and Lee Elder, and the history of racial exclusion in golf, The White Shadow uses this episode to highlight the history of segregation and antiblack racism within American sports. While airing only three seasons and garnering limited ratings, the significance of The White Shadow is multifaceted. Its importance is seen in its replication and challenge of long-standing representations of both African Americans and Black –White relations. Moreover, as an interracial drama ensemble and one that focused on African American characters and story lines, The White Shadow highlighted the cultural power and market potential of similar shows. It was similar for



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sports shows, propelling cultural intrigue in sports narratives in important ways. More than its legacy on television and within the history of Black representations, the significance of The White Shadow can be seen in the number of actors (Van Patten, Hooks, and Carter) who went on to be significant directors in television and within Hollywood. David J. Leonard Further Reading

Bogle, Donald. 2016. Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films. New York: Bloomsbury. Goodman, Tim. 2016. “R.I.P., Coach: Tim Goodman on Ken Howard and ‘The White Shadow.’” The Hollywood Reporter, March 23. ­https://​­w ww​.­hollywoodreporter​ .­com ​/ ­bastard​-­machine​/­rip​-­coach​-­ken​-­howard​-­white​-­877921. Hartzer, Paul. 2017. “Growing beyond the White Savior.” The Good Man Project, November 2. ­https://​­goodmenproject​.­com ​/­featured​-­content​/­growing​-­beyond​-­white​-­savior​ -­lbkr​/. Simmons, Bill. n.d. “Genius in the ‘Shadow.’” ESPN. ­http://​­www​.­espn​.­com​/­espn​/­page2​ /­story​?­page​=​­simmons​/­021004.

Winfrey, Oprah(1954–) As a talk-show host, producer, and television personality, Oprah Winfrey has had a significant impact on American television and the broader culture during her career. Her work has focused on understanding of her role as a Black woman in society impacted by great racial progress and mobility. Oprah Gail Winfrey was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi, in 1954—the year of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled American state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools were unconstitutional. She struggled against incredible odds, poverty, and discrimination as a result of her race, class, and gender. In 1970, she was awarded a scholarship to attend Tennessee State University, a historically Black university. While there, she was crowned Miss Black Tennessee, and in 1976 she graduated with a degree in Speech and Performing Arts. That year also marked the next chapter in her life: she became the first Black TV news anchor reporter with CBS affiliate, WTVF-TV in Nashville. Shortly thereafter, Oprah moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where she served as news anchor, eventually becoming the host of People Are Talking, a morning talk show. In 1983, she relocated to Chicago, where she would host A.M. Chicago (1974– 1986) for ABC affiliate, WLS-TV. The success of A.M. Chicago propelled her career in profound ways, leading to the creation of The Oprah Winfrey Show (1986–2011). In 1986, The Oprah Winfrey Show was extended to a one hour and broadcast nationally. On the brink of becoming a household name, Oprah began her own television production company, Harpo (Oprah spelled backwards) Productions. The Oprah Winfrey Show was watched by over 20 million viewers and broadcast to more than 100 different countries. Her show highlighted the lives of ordinary people, presidents, entertainers, and a plethora of cultural icons.

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Winfrey’s talk show ran for twenty-five seasons; with over 4,560 shows, her ratings surpassed the likes of Phil Donahue and Sally Jesse Raphael. Oprah engaged in the hard conversations about all aspects of life day after day—to remain the critical point of access of American talk-show television. Oprah mentored many television personalities and used her show as a launch pad for their careers. From psychologist Dr. Phil, medical practitioner Dr. Oz, financial specialist Suze Orman, and even her best friend, Gail King. In 1999, Oprah brokered a media business deal by purchasing a portion of Oxygen Media. Her experiences extend in different directions, including several producing credits with films such as Women of Brewster Place (1989), Beloved (1998) and the Great Debaters (2007). As a result of Oprah’s influence, the Oxygen network is considered one of the fastest-growing cable entertainment networks among total viewers in prime time. This success eventually led her to development of The Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). OWN was launched on January 1, 2011, to nearly 1.1 million viewers with a blend of daytime and prime-time shows. The cornerstone of the network—Season 25: Oprah behind the Scenes—provided viewers with a behind-the-scenes look at the Oprah Winfrey Show. Season 25 provided viewers with the opportunity to learn about the inner workings, hear from Oprah, the show’s executive producers, booking agents, and others who worked to make the show happen. Despite the increased platform, Oprah’s viewership declined precipitously. After just one month, viewers had dropped to a mere 287,000 viewers. In fact, interest among women over twenty-five, the network’s core demographic, fell by 20 percent each week since the debut. Oprah didn’t just face waning support from women but also declining support from African American women. The network went through serious challenges. In an effort to revitalize the network, she partnered with the likes of Tyler Perry and Ava DuVernay to develop a new kind of content for television. OWN is the home to show’s like Tyler Perry’s The Haves and the Have Nots (2013–), Queen Sugar (2016–), and Greenleaf (2016–). These shows highlight African Americans, more specifically, African American women, in ways uncommon on television. Critics celebrated these shows and the network for providing viewers with narratives, story lines, and voices within the Black community otherwise erased from American popular culture Oprah Winfrey has been called the “Queen of All Media.” CNN and Time Magazine named her one of the most influential women in the world. The power of Winfrey’s opinions and her influence on public opinion has been deemed the “Oprah Effect.” In 1997, she used her influence to create the Angel Network to continue her philanthropic work. Participants came together through the Angel Network to support various initiatives around the globe. During a visit with the late Nelson Mandela in December 2000, Oprah Winfrey pledged to build a world-class school for girls in South Africa. In January 2007, the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls officially opened its doors to girls in seventh and eighth grades. The school now serves approximately 290 girls from grades eight to twelve. Oprah’s influence has also dramatically impacted the literary world as evident by the creation of her Book Club. And as the tabloids once made Oprah their



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poster girl for weight loss and diet trends, Oprah is quoted now for quiet parables regarding “Living your best life yet.” Oprah has used her influence to successfully curate a lifestyle brand through advice and self-help information in her magazine, O: The Oprah Magazine, which launched in 2000. For nearly twenty years, many have criticized Oprah for only featuring herself on the cover—month after month. Talk-show host/comedian Ellen DeGeneres even began a “Yes I Can” campaign to appear on the magazine cover; one of many tactics included her hilariously superimposed body riding in the second seat of Oprah’s bicycle under the headline, “A Cover Built for Two!” However, in April 2009, for the first time in the magazine’s history, O: The Oprah Magazine did open the door for another “O”: First Lady of the United States of America, Michelle Obama. Michelle Obama also inextricably linked to Chicago, philanthropic activism, Ivy League intellect, and of course, former president Barack Obama. In the August 2005 issue of O, Oprah wrote, “I’ve always had fierce respect and reverence for those whose names made history and for the millions whose names did not. People who were so resourceful, resilient, and remarkable in their will to keep moving forward. These are the roots from which I’ve grown” (qtd. in Samuels 2011). These women—twenty-five “bridges” (i.e., elders) and forty-five “young’uns” were invited to her California home in 2005 for a “Legends Ball.” She stated that it was “heaven in my living room . . . the fulfillment of a dream for me: To honor where I’ve come from, to celebrate how I got here, and to claim where I’m going” (Samuels 2011). A total of fifty-four Legends attended—all Black women from every walk of life: Tina Turner, Elizabeth Catlett, Leontyne Price, Coretta Scott King, Mary J. Blige, Phylicia Rashad, Dr. Dorothy Height, and Iman were among the congregation, as well as Michelle Obama. Oprah’s selection of these women speaks volumes regarding whom she allowed in her home. These women have been in the forefront for generations as they have appeared on Broadway, in the White House, international runways, Hollywood, and on her various sets. These legends were reflections of how Oprah saw herself and ultimately what she deemed acceptable representations of Black women reflected to the world. Over multiple decades, Oprah Winfrey has shaped television culture in significant ways. As a talk-show host, she opened up critical conversations about race, gender, and social issues, all while breaking down barriers for underrepresented communities on television. As a producer and television executive, she has continued to work toward inclusion, opening up spaces and supporting programming that highlight experiences, voices, and narratives historically erased from mainstream popular culture. Kristal Moore Clemons Further Reading

Butts, Caprice. 2018. “Oprah Winfrey and Shonda Rhimes: Changing the Faces and Stories on Contemporary American Television.” Master’s Thesis, Northern Illinois University, Dekalb. Rhodes, B., and Kristal Moore Clemons. 2013. “The Queen of Television: Oprah in Relation to Self and as a Cultural Icon.” In African Americans on Television: Race-ing

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for Ratings, edited by David Leonard and Lisa A. Guerrero, 263–281. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger Publishers. Samuels, Allison. 2011. “Is Oprah’s Network Too White?” Newsweek, February 7, 9.

Wire, The (2002–2008) The Wire aired for five seasons on HBO from 2002 to 2008. The show focuses on the actions and interactions between rival African American heroin dealers, politicians, reporters, teachers, shipyard workers, and local police in Baltimore. Combining a cop drama with social criticism, The Wire explores broad themes of urban decay, poverty, and official ineptitude in a range of institutions: port authorities and dockworkers, public schools, foster care, local government, news media, and law enforcement. During the broadcast, The Wire never attracted a large fan base but earned critical acclaim for its verisimilitude and complexity. As one critic wrote: “The Wire has been one of the best series ever produced for American television, one in which the commitment to honesty and authenticity has never wavered. Despite that quality, its subject matter—nothing less than the failure of the world’s most powerful nation to solve the fundamental problems of its urban centers—was never likely to pull in a mass, casual audience” (Bianco 2008). The novelistic detail and realism of the show is largely credited to series cocreator, producer, and chief writer David Simon. Before he created The Wire, Simon served as a Baltimore Sun reporter, where he wrote approximately 300 articles on the city’s crime problems. In 1991, Simon published Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, which focused on the Baltimore homicide department. In 1997, Simon and Edward Burns (former Baltimore cop and teacher, cocreator of The Wire) published The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood. Both books, which were celebrated for their journalistic quality, were adapted into television shows—Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–1999) and The Corner (2000). These projects would not only provide background research for The Wire but also facilitate Simon and Burn’s movement into television. Each season of The Wire would highlight a different facet of Baltimore. Season one concentrates on a powerful, heroine-selling, crime syndicate led by Avon Barksdale (Wood Harris). In an effort to stop Barksdale, his second-in-command Stringer Bell (Idris Elba), and the rest of the crew, the police department creates a major crimes unit. The work of this unit centers around the rebellious detective Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West), who has a personal mission to stop the Barksdale crew and the urban lawlessness they symbolize. From the first season to the last, moral ambiguity is a constant theme because practically all the main characters defy simplistic characterizations of good or evil, professional or incompetent, noble or ignoble. At times, the drug organization is shown to be more organized and efficient than the police department. For instance, when Avon’s nephew D’Angelo Barksdale (Larry Gilliard Jr.) makes a bad decision that hurts the crime business (needlessly killing an adversary), he is



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reprimanded and demoted. In contrast, the police department often overlooks and excuses serious misconduct (see season one, episodes one to four). Both cops and those engaged in criminal activity are both shown to have virtues and vices. While the Barksdale gang insists on tight discipline and sobriety while selling drugs, McNulty and his partner detective Bunk Moreland (Wendell Pierce) drink excessively, cheat on their wives, and at times come to work still intoxicated from the night before. Moreover, another character named Omar Little (Michael K. Williams) robs Barksdale’s crew and other drug dealers at gunpoint but expressly refrains from cursing, harming “civilians” (those not engaged in criminal activity), and gives money to his impoverished neighbors. As such, scholars have celebrated the show for its complexity. Instead of creating of heroes battling villains, The Wire presents multidimensional characters. Critics have celebrated The Wire for its predominately Black cast and the diversity and depth of the characters. Not only are the innumerable drug dealers, drug addicts, and inner-city residents predominately African American, but many of the police and city officials are also Black. They include Bunk Moreland, Lieutenant Cedric Daniels (Lance Reddick), head of the major crimes unit, Deputy Commissioner for Operations Ervin Burrell (Frankie Faison), and Mayor Clarence Ross (Glynn Turman). “As the second longest running television program to have a predominately African American cast,” the show would make history in terms of the diversity it brought to television and its successes (Thakore 2013, 349). Season two is partially an exception to this mostly Black cast, as the story shifts to focus on Frank Sobatka (Chris Bauer), his Polish American family of stevedores, and his union local. The Barksdale crew continues to be present in season two but fades into the background as the story line focuses on the global shipping industry’s complicity in the inner-city drug trade and other crimes. The season also explores the hardships of the working-class and challenges of automation, declining unions, and reduced earnings. Season three refocuses on the inner-city drug trade but simultaneously explores power struggles within city government involving police leadership, the mayor, and city council. In addition, season three also offers the most extended interrogation of America’s War on Drugs, which criminalizes and prosecutes illicit drug activity. An upper-level police commander, Major Howard “Bunny” Colvin (Robert Wisdom), creates “free zones” where the sale of drugs and their usage are permitted. When discovered, these amnesty zones are destroyed and Colvin is forced into an undignified retirement, but this idea has clear benefits—reduced violence between rival crews, increased access to clean needles and health services for addicts, etc. This is another example of the show’s ambiguity, as Colvin’s unorthodox methods both violate conventional wisdom and provide the most tangible reforms shown in the series. Four Black, eighth-grade boys are at the center of season four. Through them the audience sees the failures of the public school system and other social services. By the end of the season, three of the four are tragically entangled in drugs and crime despite their kindness, intelligence, and potential for achievement. Season five introduces the newsroom of the Baltimore Sun as another site of

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culpability in the city’s unraveling and brings the various subplots to their conclusions. However, in line with the show’s general ambiguity, critics noted the ending was less than satisfying. One wrote: “Technology and good intentions couldn’t win out in Sunday’s finale of ‘The Wire.’ The best and most dyspeptic police drama on television could never conclude with a triumph of good over evil. Victories were few, and Pyrrhic” (Stanley 2008). Along with the show’s mostly Black cast, another significant characteristic is the prominence of gay and lesbian characters. One such character is Omar Little, who makes his living robbing drug dealers. There are also two prominent lesbian characters, detective Shakima “Kima” Greggs (Sonja Sohn,) and Felicia “Snoop” Pearson (played by an actress of the same name). Beyond their mere presence, these characters also provide “a distinctly uncommon vision of black queer life” (Johnson 2013, 333). This is particularly true with Omar, whose open affection with men is combined with an undisputed tough-guy persona. Neither Omar, nor Snoop and Kima hold their sexuality in secret—rather it is openly acknowledged and accepted in their respective social worlds. Scholars have concluded that to represent Black, openly gay, complex characters in this manner was a significant innovation in television. Scholars have celebrated two additional aspects of the show: (1) its exploration of surveillance technology and (2) its popularity within academia. The use of technology by the major crimes unit begins with wiretaps in season one and expands throughout the series. The use of electronic surveillance is a continual feature of the show, often entailing a strategic contest where those engaged in criminal activity shift methods to avoid surveillance and the police search for countermeasures. Unlike the show’s explicit criticism of drug policy, etc., The Wire does not take a clear position on the use of invasive technology. Instead, this technology is presented as merely a plot device or a confirmation of the show’s realism—i.e., police conceivably use these tools for investigations. Yet, given that the show’s title and opening montage both reference phone surveillance, some have questioned whether the show is subtly critiquing the use and dangers of these investigative methods given the show’s broader critiques of police. Within academic circles, The Wire has received wide praise and was the subject of several scholarly articles, conferences, and anthologies (Johnson 2013, 326). Prominent scholars like sociologist William Julius Wilson have praised the show, and several universities like Harvard, Berkeley, Duke, and Syracuse have created courses on The Wire. However, The Wire has its critics, including Ishmael Reed, a Berkeley professor emeritus of English. Reed and others object to The Wire’s focus on crime committed by African Americans and ghetto neighborhoods. “One of the many problems with ‘The Wire’ is that creator David Simon relies on clichés to depict Blacks. It’s like doing a series about Jews and presenting only inside traders” (Reed 2010). Given the ubiquity of Black violence and criminality in the show, critics like Reed question whether this show may reinforce negative perceptions of African Americans. Yet, for others, The Wire not only entertains but educates about the War on Drugs, social ills in a modern American city, and the many forces that effect everyday life. Marc Arsell Robinson

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Further Reading

Bennett, Drake. 2010. “This Will Be on the Midterm. You Feel Me? Why So Many Colleges are Teaching the Wire.” Slate, March 24. ­http://​­w ww​.­slate​.­com​/­articles​/­arts​ /­culturebox​/­2010​/­03​/­this​_will​_be​_on​_the​_midterm​_ you​_feel​_me​.­html. Bianco, Robert. 2008. “Too Few Were Plugged In, but HBO’s ‘The Wire’ Was Electric.” USA Today, March 5. ­http://​­usatoday30​.­usatoday​.­com​/­life​/­television​/­news​ /­2008​- ­03​- ­05​-­the​-­wire​_N​.­htm. Chaddha, Anmol, and William Julius Wilson. 2011. “‘Way Down in the Hole’: Systemic Urban Inequality and The Wire.” Critical Inquiry 38 (1): 164–188. Jagoda, Patrick. 2011. “Wired.” Critical Inquiry 38 (1): 189–199. Johnson, Michael, Jr. 2013. “White Authorship and the Counterfeit Politics of Verisimilitude on The Wire.” In African Americans on Television: Race-ing for Ratings, edited by David J. Leonard and Lisa A. Guerrero. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. Reed, Ishmael. 2010. “Should Harvard Teach ‘The Wire’? No, It Relies on Clichés about Blacks and Drugs.” Boston Globe, September 30. ­http://​­archive​.­boston​.­com​ / ­bostonglobe​/­editorial​_opinion ​/­oped ​/­articles​/­2010​/­09​/­30​/­no​_it​_ relies​_on​_clichs​ _about​_blacks​_and​_drugs​/. Stanley, Alessandra. 2008. “So Many Characters, Yet So Little Resolution.” New York Times, March 10. ­http://​­mobile​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2008​/­03​/­10​/­arts​/­television​/­10stan​ .­html. Thakore, Bhoomi, K. 2013. “Representations of Representation: Urban Life and Media in Season Five of The Wire.” In African Americans on Television: Race-ing for Ratings, edited by David J. Leonard and Lisa A. Guerrero. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. Williams, Linda. 2011. “Ethnographic Imaginary: The Genesis of The Wire.” Critical Inquiry 38 (1): 208–226. ­http://​­w ww​.­jstor​.­org​/­stable​/­10​.­1086​/­661650.

Wrestling Wrestling has been a mainstay of TV programming since the widespread rise of the medium in the 1950s, establishing itself as one of the earliest forms of sports-related programming to achieve significant televised coverage. Not a legitimate sport insofar as its matches are choreographed with outcomes predetermined by bookers and promoters in an effort to deliver maximum entertainment to spectators, professional wrestling is frequently described as “sports entertainment.” As a “sports entertainment” medium, wrestling has emphasized conflict and spectacle, making wrestling fertile ground for the incorporation and exploitation of racial or ethnic stereotypes, conflicts, and imagery into its programming. THE EARLY TELEVISION YEARS: 1950S–1970S The roots of modern professional wrestling in the United States date back to the 1880s and 1890s, when troupes of wrestlers traveled the nation and performed at circuses, carnivals, and fairs. Like other major American sports of the era, Black participants faced exclusion. The first African American wrestler to garner significant media exposure and subsequent fan appeal was Houston Harris, better

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known by his stage name Bobo Brazil. A significant star in the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s, Brazil’s rise to fame corresponded with wrestling’s increased popularity on television. Sometimes referred to as “the Jackie Robinson of wrestling,” Bobo Brazil’s unique combination of grappling skills and charisma quickly established him as a fan favorite among White spectators even as racial segregation remained legal in several states. An imposing figure at 6′6″ and 275 pounds, Brazil’s signature move consisted of a powerful head butt, dubbed the “coco butt,” that schoolboys who saw him wrestle on TV often performed on one another in their own backyard wrestling bouts. Brazil’s sociohistorical significance to wrestling cannot be overstated, as he emerged as an African American face (wrestling lingo for “hero” or “good guy”) in an overwhelmingly White entertainment genre. As he traveled the country on the wrestling circuit, Brazil would routinely break down barriers, becoming the first Black wrestler to perform in scores of arenas. His social influence was particularly profound in the South, given the racial struggles and tremendous popularity of professional wrestling in the region. Throughout his pioneering four-decade career, Brazil captured numerous wrestling championships, including the Worldwide Wrestling Federation’s (WWWF, the forerunner to the World Wrestling Federation) United States Heavyweight Championship on seven occasions and the National Wrestling Alliance’s (NWA) United States Heavyweight Championship on eleven occasions. Other grappling stars emerged as iconic ethnic heroes in their own right. One of the most notable was Bruno Sammartino, an Italian immigrant who settled in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during his teenage years. Sammartino wrestled under his real name, rejecting gimmicks commonplace on television. Instead he portrayed himself in authentic terms, as a blue-collar immigrant pursuing the American Dream. His virtuous persona, its narrative appeal on television, his tremendous wrestling success, and his ethnic heritage turned Sammartino into a hero to Pittsburgh residents, Italian Americans throughout the northeastern United States, and fans of all backgrounds nationwide. Sammartino would hold the WWWF heavyweight championship for nearly twelve combined years during two separate title reigns, and as his in-ring career wound down, he served as a color commentator for Vincent K. McMahon’s World Wrestling Federation (WWF) throughout the 1980s. Numerous others who represented various ethnic and cultural identities wrestled from the 1950s to 1970s. Unlike Sammartino, their identities tended to be exaggerated gimmicks produced purely to advance story lines and generate reactions from fans. For example, Texas native Jack Adkisson performed as Fritz von Erich from the 1950s until the 1970s. Von Erich was a controversial German heel (wrestling slang for “villain” or “bad guy”) who allegedly came from Berlin and held Nazi sympathies. Edward Spulnik, who had been born in Canada to Polish immigrant parents, adopted the ring name “Killer Kowalski.” His character was that of a brutal Polish national who manhandled opponents. Killer Kowalski’s career spanned from the 1940s until the 1970s, and he feuded with Sammartino in some of his best-known matches on television. A few Japanese performers attained notoriety during the

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early decades of televised wrestling in the United States. Hiro Matsuda, a native of Yokohama, Japan, achieved prominence in Florida’s professional wrestling circuit during the late 1960s and 1970s, while Harry Fujiwara, known to fans as Mr. Fuji, portrayed a sinister Japanese villain during his wrestling career with the WWWF in the 1970s. Matsuda attained further acclaim for training a young Hulk Hogan in the late 1970s, while Mr. Fuji later served as a heel manager of numerous grapplers in the WWF after he stopped wrestling.

THE 1980S–PRESENT Aided tremendously by new telecommunications technology and electronics devices that increased wrestling’s viewership, professional wrestling soared to new heights in the 1980s. Cable television expanded greatly throughout the late 1970s and the early 1980s, with the emergence of stations such as ESPN, MTV, TBS, and the USA Network, among others. Savvy wrestling promoters saw these cable outlets as significant opportunities to increase the amount of televised coverage devoted to their product. The Minneapolis-based American Wrestling Association (AWA) signed a contract with ESPN, while media mogul Ted Turner’s Atlanta-based Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) showcased Jim Crockett Promotions and, later, World Championship Wrestling (WCW) programming. However, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), under the leadership of Vincent K. McMahon, cashed in on the exposure and popularity resulting from wrestling’s expansion onto cable. Throughout the 1980s, the WWF broadcast more programs on network and cable television than its competitors, airing shows such as Superstars of Wrestling (1986–1999), Wrestling Challenge (1986–1995), Monday night’s Prime Time Wrestling (1985–1993), and Saturday Night’s Main Event (1985–1992). The advent of VHS cassette players led wrestling companies to produce a series of home videos of major wrestling events, along with videos devoted to specific wrestlers. Furthermore, the development of closed-circuit television and pay-per-view provided additional revenue for wrestling companies by allowing them to charge fans a fee to watch marque events live. The WWF attained such financial success throughout the 1980s that it forced several rival promotions to either sell their assets to McMahon or go out of business. The surge in television and internet exposure propelled wrestling during the 1980s and 1990s. Combined with the increased racial and ethnic diversity in the United States, wrestling continued to dominated sports television. Its embrace of racial and ethnic stereotypes, its multicultural plotlines, and a diversity of characters proved effective over this period. The first Wrestlemania, held on March 31, 1985, at Madison Square Garden, featured an interracial tag team, as WWF World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan teamed with Mr. T, star of the popular TV program The A-Team (1983–1987), to take on Rowdy Roddy Piper and “Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff in the main event. Mr. T’s stint with the WWF lasted through 1985 and into 1986, when he fought Piper in a special boxing match at Wrestlemania 2. During his relatively short tenure with the WWF, Mr. T stood as

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the company’s most prominent African American performer, outshining other Black WWF wrestlers such as the Junkyard Dog, S. D. Jones, and Tony Atlas — each of whom had vastly more wrestling skills and experience. By the late 1980s and into 1990s, televised wrestling increasingly relied on racial themes and stereotypes. Appealing to White fans, racial narratives became more explicit, provocative, and controversial. Former wrestler-turned-anti-hero commentator Jesse “The Body” Ventura drew mild criticism for his on-air insults toward the African American and Latino face wrestlers, Koko B. Ware and Tito Santana, respectively. Ventura frequently referred to Ware as “Buckwheat,” in reference to a Black Our Gang (1938–1942) character, while mockingly referring to the Mexican American Santana as “chico” (Spanish for “boy”). During Wrestlemania III in 1987, Ventura described Santana as having a “hot Latin temper.” Piper, whose gimmick consisted of portraying a feisty Scotsman with a hot temper, drew much sharper criticism from some fans and the mass media for his questionable actions in the buildups to matches with African American opponents such as Mr. T and Bad News Brown, in which Piper appeared in blackface and spoke in stereotypical Ebonics. In a televised March 1986 broadcast, Piper criticized Mr. T for wearing dozens of gold chains as a Black man, while noting that the United States had recently established Martin Luther King Day as a national holiday—thus equating Mr. T’s jewelry with the shackles of slavery. McMahon also faced criticism in the late 1980s after One Man Gang, a behemoth White wrestler, underwent an Afrocentric psychological metamorphosis to become “Akeem, the African Dream.” Akeem spoke in Ebonics, wore a gold dashiki and kente hat, and jive danced during his interviews and ring entrances. By the mid- to late 1990s, WCW emerged as a serious rival to the WWF’s dominance of wrestling’s television ratings. WCW’s rise is attributed to its signing of several former WWF stars, including Hogan, and turning them villain and its establishment of an additional cruiserweight division that featured smaller wrestlers. Many of WCW’s cruiserweights were either Mexican or Mexican American grapplers who exhibited the lucha libre style of wrestling, which consists of fast-paced matches and acrobatic aerial maneuvers rather than power moves. Although certain Latino wrestlers had previously attained success in mainstream professional wrestling, the WCW granted Latino grapplers—including Eddie Guerrero, Chavo Guerrero Jr., Rey Mysterio Jr., Psicosis, and Juventud Guerrera—an unprecedented degree of exposure to a nationwide wrestling audience. Mysterio donned a luchador mask as part of his character, which paid homage to previous Mexican wrestling legends Mil Máscaras and El Santo. One of Eddie Guerrero’s angles during the fall of 1998 portrayed him forming the Latino World Order, a confederation of Latino grapplers to confront anti-Mexican/Latino discrimination that he claimed was pervasive within WCW. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson emerged as one of the best-known and most popular wrestlers in the world during the late 1990s. A key figure of the WWF’s famed Attitude Era, Johnson is of mixed African American and Samoan ancestry. His father, Rocky Johnson, and maternal grandfather, “High Chief” Peter Maivia, were both prominent wrestlers during the 1960s and 1970s. After a short-lived

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The Rock, Rikishi, and Anti-Oceanian Racism The October 9, 2000, episode of Monday Night Raw featured an important narrative, which addressed institutional racism in professional wrestling. At the conclusion of the episode, Rikishi, a 400-pound Samoan wrestler, admitted to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson that he had run over Stone Cold Steve Austin with Johnson’s car earlier that year in order to incapacitate Austin and ensure that Johnson be given a fair shot to pursue the WWF heavyweight championship. Having endured a glass ceiling, which restricted Pacific Islanders from ascending within the wrestling ranks for decades, Rikishi explained his action as a strike against institutional racism. That is while the WWF had allowed “the island boys” to compete, their progress had been consistently blocked by management in favor of granting title reigns to “Great White Hope” champions such as Sammartino, Hogan, and Austin. Rikishi cited the examples of Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka (of Fijian descent), Afa and Sika (known as the “Wild Samoans”), the Tonga Kid, and Johnson’s grandfather, Peter Maivia (also Samoan) as talented Pacific Islanders who had unfairly been denied title shots during their careers. Although part of the episode’s story line, Rikishi’s believable monologue highlighted the lack of main event spotlight devoted to Polynesian wrestlers before the Rock’s success in the late 1990s. It also gave voice to the issues of racism and discrimination inside and outside of wrestling.

period playing a militant Black villain at the beginning of his career, Johnson achieved superstardom as “The Rock,” whose impressive wrestling skills were only matched by his rhetorical genius and his phenomenal microphone skills. His popularity reflected his ability to cleverly and humorously insult his opponents before and during matches, offering a character that resembled Muhammad Ali. Despite Johnson’s racial background, he did not typically incorporate overt racial or ethnic themes into his persona. After finding greater financial success in Hollywood, Johnson wrestled only sporadically for the WWE from 2003 onward. The intense competition between WCW’s Monday Nitro (1995–2001) and the WWF’s Monday Night Raw (1993–) for TV ratings supremacy, dubbed “the Monday Night Wars,” culminated in March 2001 when McMahon purchased WCW, merging its roster with that of his own company. After joining the WWE, both Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio Jr. catapulted to major stardom, and their Mexican American heritage factored prominently into their angles. In 2000, Guerrero adopted the “Latino Heat” character, which was based on the Latin lover stereotype. His character pursued an on-air relationship with female White wrestler Chyna, whom he affectionately referred to as “Mamacita.” Guerrero’s on-air persona had him cruising in lowriders while speaking with a heavy use of caló (Mexican American slang). After Guerrero’s untimely death in 2005, Mysterio emerged as the WWE’s premier Latino star. However, Mysterio’s rise occurred in the midst of increasingly heated political debates about immigration policy. Mysterio’s narrative place would increase dramatically in 2006 as he feuded with White Texan wrestler Justin Bradshaw Layfield (JBL), who would give voice to stricter immigration enforcement and anti-Mexican nativism. Mysterio and Layfield wasn’t simply a wrestling feud but a staging ground for debates about immigration.

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The Muhammad Hassan Controversy The Muhammad Hassan Controversy generated significant protest and debate about racial stereotypes and its engagement with post-9/11 geopolitics. Muhammad Hassan, an Arab villain gimmick, continually expressed frustration with fans over the anti-Arab discrimination he confronted in American society. Hassan wore a Saudi-style turban and was accompanied to the ring by Khosrow Daivari, his Farsi-speaking manager. During an episode of WWE Smackdown! that aired on July 7, 2005, Hassan performed an Islamic-style prayer ringside that summoned five men dressed in khakis and black ski masks (akin to the attire worn on al-Qaeda terrorists in hostage videos). The men emerged from backstage and proceeded to savagely beat and strangle the Undertaker, a patriotic White American wrestler. The men then carried an unconscious Daivari, whom the Undertaker had defeated earlier, overhead in martyr-like fashion. This segment aired on the same day that Islamic terrorists carried out a series of bombings in London that killed fifty-two civilians and injured more than seven hundred. UPN, the network on which Smackdown! aired, found the gimmick disturbing and demanded that WWE permanently cease the Hassan/ terrorism angle.

Booker T, a prominent African American wrestler who had captured the WCW World Heavyweight Championship on four occasions, also joined the WWF in 2001 as part of the merger and became a popular star among fans. Guerrero and Booker T were inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2006 and 2013, respectively. Despite claims of political correctness within television culture, and steady protest, the World Wrestling Entertainment (formerly the WWF) and its major competitor, Total Nonstop Action (TNA) Wrestling continued to be relevant on television during the early twenty-first century. Part of its popularity, in fact, came from its embrace of racial stereotypes, its deployment of simplistic racial narratives of good and evil, and for its staging of racism. Wrestling built its brand around prejudicial constructions of racial otherness that both perpetuated generalizations of people of color and normalized White heroes. From its representation of Blacks as criminals and Latinx as (illegal) immigrants to its depiction of Asians as foreigners and Arabs as terrorists, wrestling remained a prominent space for the production of racial meaning. At the same time, wrestling would continue to feature several African American, Latinx, Asian, and Pacific Islander men and women on their rosters. Reflecting the changing racial and ethnic demographics, the diversity within professional wrestling will likely continue as part of an effort to maintain its popularity among fans. The question will remain as to whether this diversity will be sources of empowerment or the perpetuation of dehumanizing racial stereotypes. This has defined the history of wrestling on television and will continue into the future. Justin D. García

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Further Reading

Apter, Bill. 2015. Is Wrestling Fixed? I Didn’t Know It Was Broken: From Photo Shoots and Sensational Stories to the WWE Network, My Incredible Pro Wrestling Journey and Beyond. Toronto: ECW Press. Beekman, Scott. 2006. Ringside: A History of Professional Wrestling in America. Westport, CT: Praeger. Hornbaker, Tom. 2015. Capitol Revolution: The Rise of the McMahon Wrestling Empire. Toronto: ECW Press. Levi, Heather. 2008. The World of Lucha Libre: Secrets, Revelations, and Mexican National Identity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Mazer, Sharon. 1998. Professional Wrestling: Sport and Spectacle. Oxford: University Press of Mississippi. Sammond, Nicholas. 2005. Steel Chair to the Head: The Pleasure and Pain of Professional Wrestling. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Y Yellowface Yellowface “exaggerates racial features that have been designated ‘Oriental’ such as ‘slanted’ eyes, overbite, and mustard yellow skin” (Davé 2013, 13). Yellowface can be defined as White performers playing or enacting Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters. However, it can also mean Whites and other non-Asians portraying Indians, Pakistanis, and other Asian ethnic groups. As Said (1979) has argued, Orientalism is the ideology (often based on misperception) idealizing or denigrating Asian races and cultures based on Eurocentric reports and memoirs. Yellowface is predominantly a White mythic construction of a fictional Asian identity. Normally, yellowface performances are performances of Orientalist stereotypes. EARLY YELLOWFACE In the history of American television, stereotypes of Asian Americans have been found in two major characters: Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu. While other major stereotypical icons may exist such as the image of the kung-fu-fighting male as embodied by Bruce Lee, many yellowface performances are variations of Chan and Manchu. Chan is a tradition-bound, humble, stoic, and happy Asian man solving crimes. But Manchu represents a dictatorial, crazed, and diabolic Asian man. Asian women have lacked as popular or as polarized images as Chan or Manchu but, typically, the Asian woman is portrayed as a servile, sexually available, and passive exotic woman on television. Sax Rohmer, the creator of Fu Manchu wrote the first Manchu novel in 1913. Initially, Manchu like Chan, was more popular in film than television. However, by 1956, Manchu was adapted for television in The Adventures of Dr. Fu Manchu with Glen Gordon playing Manchu as “the Devil Doctor.” In the same decade, Chan was adapted in the British American crime drama series, The New Adventures of Charlie Chan (1957–1958). Whereas Manchu is an dehumanizing stereotype, Chan, created by Earl Derr Biggers in a series of novels, is framed as heroic. Moreover, whereas Manchu had an entirely White cast, Chan did feature Asian actor James Hong as Barry Chan, the “Number One Son.” While neither Manchu nor Chan lasted long in terms of popularity, their iconic status continued to resonate. In the animated series, The Adventures of Jonny Quest (1964–1965), Danny Bravo (Daniel Zaldivar) voices a dark-skinned Indian boy, Hadji, wearing a dastar (Sikh turban), Quest’s foster brother, aiding him on his many adventures. Despite the stereotypical behavior of Hadji, Quest signals a rare instance

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of an Asian hero in an animated cartoon. But, predominantly, yellowface performers portrayed villains. White actor Bernard Cowan portrayed the crazed Chinese super-villain, the Mandarin, in the animated series Marvel Super Heroes (1966). Similarly, on Star Trek (1966–1968), Latino actor Ricardo Montalbán, in a guest appearance as Khan Noonien Singh, plays a Northern Sikh, who is highly intelligent, physically able, and charismatic leader. Khan who is a product of eugenic breeding controlled a large portion of Earth in the 1990s and was forced to leave with dozens of similar supermen and superwomen. While Montalbán puts on no makeup and his eyes are not altered, Khan is an obvious representation of Genghis Khan. In its representation, it is clear that Khan embodies certain Orientalist tropes being obsessed with conquest as well as treating women brusquely. Khan’s motives are left vague only saying he offered “order” to justify his dictatorial tendencies.

POST-SIXTIES YELLOWFACE Yellowface, after the 1960s, becomes broader with Whites and nonwhite groups such as African Americans and Latinxs able to perform yellowface. Nevertheless, White portrayals of Asian men and women remain fairly predominant in both the 1960s and 1970s. One of the most popular and controversial portrayals in the 1970s was David Carradine playing Caine, a stoic Asian wanderer traveling the American West in the nineteenth century in the Kung Fu (1972–1975) series. Caine dispenses (spiritual) messages of Asiatic wisdom throughout his travels and refuses to engage in physical confrontation unless necessary. As in former incarnations, Caine usually helps Whites, but in some cases, he aids African Americans and Native Americans as well. Still, the use of Orientalist stereotypes is strong with Caine reduced to a pious monk-like hero with no sexual desires or complex psychology motivating him. The late Japanese-American actor Iwamatsu Mako recalls that producers deliberately wanted a White-looking star: “I remember one of the vice presidents—in charge of production, I suppose—who said, ‘If we put a yellow man up on the tube, the audience will turn the switch off in less than five minutes’” (Ito 2014). While Kung Fu has a core theme of liberal tolerance and anti-racism this message is embedded within a racist yellowface stereotype. Chan also returned in a made-for-television film, The Return of Charlie Chan (1973) with Ross Martin as Chan though the film was not televised until 1979. Chan was also turned into a Hanna-Barbera cartoon, The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan (1972), with Chinese actor Keye Luke being the voice of Chan. This remains the only example of Chan as an animated character voiced by an Asian on television. But yellowface elements remained with White actress Jodie Foster portraying Anne Chan. YELLOWFACE AND NINJA REVIVAL: SEVENTIES TO NINETIES Heroic representations of Asians coincided with revival of the Manchu image. In the animated series, The New Adventures of Flash Gordon (1979), Ming the

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Merciless (Alan Oppenheimer), a diabolic ruler of Mongo, is Gordon’s enemy. By the 1970s and 1980s, several changes in how yellowface was performed occurred. The rise in popularity of marital arts created numerous representations of Asians as skilled fighters. On Saturday Night Live (1975–), John Belushi played Samurai Futaba wearing his hair in a bun and having a long sword at his side. Belushi as Futaba occasionally spoke normal speech but, invariably, the skit would end with Futaba flying into a rage flinging his sword indiscriminately. On the popular animated series the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) (1987–1996), the Turtles worst enemy Uroku Saki, the Shredder, was voiced by James Avery, an African American male (seasons one to seven), and, then, a White male William Martin (seasons eight to ten). Critics note that the Avery performance is difficult to judge. On the one hand, the Shredder is portrayed as a handsome, normal-skinned protagonist. On the other hand, the basic core of yellowface—having non-Asians pretend to be Asian—remains a televisual reality. For others, producers of the TMNT might have legitimately wanted Avery for his distinct, deep voice. As with Belushi, the actor might be intending a respectful homage, but it often unintentionally reinforces racist stereotypes. Yellowface, in the 1980s and 1990s, often presents the Asian as a hard-working but alien presence. The Asian male has little or no complexity or sexual potency. The Asian female is usually servile and is presented as a prostitute or sex object for White male desire. In “Five Fingers of Ben,” Ben (Jeremy Miller) on Growing Pains (1985–1992), the young son in the Seaver family, a White suburban family, encounters a school bully. In response, Ben turns to kung fu. Ben is humiliated when even after some training Maggie (Joanna Kerns), his mother, manages to land a punch. Yellowface is expressed via several fantasy sequences including one where the Seaver family dressed in red karate outfits spouting exaggerated speech as they do kicks and punches around Ben. While the sequences do mock the conventions of kung fu films such as poor voice acting there are explicit political messages embedded. In the training sequences with his Asian master, Ben works out to Rocky-style music with large American flags nearby. In a similar vein, a television commercial for Timex watches in 1992 featured “two overweight white actors in yellowface playing sumo wrestlers. They both have the purportedly indestructible timepieces taped to their ample bellies as they clash” (Hamamoto 1997, 261). The sumo wrestlers say no dialogue but merely grunt before colliding. One wrestler falls and other remains. The Timex watch is taken off his belly and shown to be still working. On the one hand, such imagery in the 1990s testifies to growing anxieties of Asian nations like China and Japan becoming more powerful. On the other hand, these constructs reinforce broad stereotypes Whites have of Asian culture as composed of fighters or monks or would be world-dominating dictators. While intermediate representations did occur, they reinforced earlier examples of yellow face. In the 1994 season of SNL, Canadian comedian Mike Meyers played Judge Lance Ito who presided over the controversial O. J. Simpson case. Nothing new, Meyers repeatedly played Asians on SNL. An earlier skit with Chris Farley has Meyers portraying an over-excited Japanese game show host. By and

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large, then, Americans conceived of Asians as comedic objects and/or reverential teachers of marital arts fighting. On The Simpsons (1989–), Hank Azaria, a White actor voiced the affable Apu, a store merchant. As one producer recalls, the idea of Apu began “as a simple convenience clerk” (Davé 2013, 50). But as “writer Mike Reiss [revealed], . . . Azaria couldn’t help but give Apu an Indian accent” (Davé 2013, 50). Apu would pepper his speech with “my friend” and “very good” demonstrating a limited English vocabulary. As with Ito, the Apu character demonstrates minor progress with Asian men portraying professionals and having skills not associated with fighting. While Azaria in January 2020 said that he would no longer voice Apu (and the show announced in summer 2020 that it would no longer use White actors for characters of color), yellowface remains a major staple of U.S. comedy. When Kung Fu was remade in the 1990s, David Carradine once more played Caine, the wandering Asian monk in Kung Fu: The Legend Continues (1993– 1997). However, the setting was changed and updated. Instead of the mythic Old West, Caine now travels modern, urban settings and aids his White son, a police detective. But Carradine still performs yellowface and Caine remains essentially an inert, benevolent, wise hero using his marital arts skills to help others. By the end of the 1990s, then, the major forms of yellowface performance continued to rely on (with some exceptions) on the Chan-Manchu binary of Asians being either stoic heroes or mutant enemies.

THE RISE IN ANIMATED YELLOWFACE FOR CHILDREN Whereas animated representations of Asians in the 1970s occasionally allowed them to be heroes, animated cartoons with yellowface performances in the 1990s tended to be more simplistic depicting Asians as inhuman villains. In the animated cartoon series, James Bond Jr. (1991–1992), Dr. No (Julian Holloway) is a green-skinned, long-haired mutant. Similarly, the Mandarin utilized in, Iron Man (1994–1996) is also green-skinned and has long fingernails. But Iron Man differs slightly from Bond. Whereas Bond had a White voice actor only, Ed Gilbert voiced Mandarin only in the first season. Robert Ito, an Asian actor, did voice the Mandarin in season two. However, in both cases, the depiction of Asians builds on the long history of constructing the villains as inhuman and having neither peach nor White as a skin color. This was a major shift backwards from TMNT with the Shredder explicitly portrayed as human if highly skilled in the show’s story. While there was the major exception of Jackie Chan with his own series, there was no attempt by American producers or actors to portray Asian Americans in a complex way in the 1990s. YELLOWFACE: THE PRESENT DAY With the end of the 1990s, yellowface performances evolved into more consciously ironic and postmodern forms. Whereas traditional yellowface was often explicit and usually had a racist intent attached, postmodern yellowface featured a

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mix of hatred and admiration for Asian cultures. Perhaps no series symbolized this better than Joss Whedon’s short-lived science-fiction series Firefly (2002). Set in the far future, an intergalactic Alliance, created through a merger of the United States and China, hounds a rag-tag group of misfits traveling through space in Serenity, a modest space vessel. Whereas shows usually devoted one or several episodes to yellowface, Firefly uses Chinese culture extensively. In this alternate future, Chinese is the official idiom. The crew of Serenity speak Chinese often. Kaylee (Jewel Staite), a young White woman, for instance, uses the Chinese word swai (cute, handsome) to describe someone she desires (“Safe”). Chinese symbols are found all throughout Serenity. The many allies and foes Serenity encounters wear robes and live in Asian-style houses. The cast itself is multiracial with a Black Latina woman and an African American male. But there are no Asians in the main cast. In only one episode does an Asian character have substantial dialogue and she is a prostitute. Yellowface therefore occurs often implicitly with the many cast members appropriating Asian culture with little regard for history or context. For example, a Morena Baccarin, a Brazilian actress, is cast as Inara Serra, a “Companion,” a fusion of a prostitute and geisha. Inara wears “Oriental” clothing and often has her hair in a bun imitating past yellowface performances. But another casting choice is more explicit. On the Serenity, River Tam (Summer Glau), a victim of Alliance tampering with her mind, and her doctor brother Simon Tam (Sean Maher) are played by Whites (Romano 2013). River Tam (譚江) is an authentic Chinese name and Whedon hired an official translator, Jenny Lynn, to make sure the many uses of Chinese culture made sense though the repeated use of Mandarin by all the cast is frequently incompetent and not one cast member has a good grasp of the tonal system (Sullivan 2004). Unsurprisingly, it is slowly revealed that River, due to government machinations, can perform amazing martial arts fighting and firing weaponry. But Firefly, at least, intended to be a sincere homage to Asian culture and makes some attempt to take Chinese language seriously and avoid Whites and Blacks simply screaming pseudo-Asian speech, more recent cases of yellowface are closer to past racist caricatures though like Firefly they have a multicultural twist. In a 2012 “Tech Talk” skit on SNL, three Americans, a White male American, a White female American, and one Black American male confront three “peasant” Chinese workers about problems with their iPhone. The Chinese workers are played by Fred Armisen, Nasim Pedrad, and Cecily Strong with all of them wearing look-alike white and black uniforms. Although all the actors are given names, only the Americans have a past and professional title. On the other hand, the Chinese character is given nothing more than a name. As before, the Asians speak in a stereotypical manner. Armisen in a mock-Chinese accent says: “You want Starbuck, it [the iPhone] take you to Dunkin Donut—that must be so hard for you.” While the intent of the skit is to shame American laziness. the Orientalist element in this yellowface performance remains with Armisen who is portraying a (stereotypical) Chinese man who simply works diligently at his job. There is an added Orientalist issue in that the “tech” problems are the result of American designs making the use of Asians irrelevant to the (supposed) justification of the skit.

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In 2014, the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) (2005–2014) showed three White actors in yellowface. In “Slapsgiving 3,” the episode begins with Marshall (Jason Siegel) slapping notorious womanizer Barney (Neil Patrick Harris). The episode then goes backward to explain Marshall’s fictional training to learn the Slap of a Million Exploding Suns by, successively, three Chinese masters: Red Bird who is Robin (Cobie Smulders), White Flower who is Lily (Alyson Hannigan), and the Calligrapher who is Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor), sporting a Manchu-like black mustache. As with Growing Pains, Asianness is constructed as kung fu, spiritual warrior decked out in robes and kimonos. HIMYM is a near-perfect case of a White cast reviving yellowface. But, in some instances, yellowface is performed multiracially. In the Netflix sitcom, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2015–2019), cocreated by Tina Fey, the title character, Kimmy, has survived a doomsday cult and moves to New York and is a roommate with a gay Black actor named Titus Andromedon (Titus Burgess). Since Kimmy has been locked up for years, she is naïve about modern-day social conventions. In season one, Kimmy draws the romantic attention of two men, one British and White and pampered and Dong (Ki Hong Lee), a Vietnamese immigrant. Dong speaks poor English and works at a restaurant. Yet, he is very good with math and can perform marital arts. Beyond the stereotypes that include endless sexual remarks that further tropes about Asian male asexuality, the show deployed yellowface in season 2. Believing he is was the geisha Murasaki in a past life, Titus decides to put on a one-man play where he wears white make-up and a robe, has a hair bun, and sings in Japanese. In the show, he is confronted by several Asian-internet critics, who become outraged, comparing him to Hitler.

CONCLUSION: TOLERATING YELLOWFACE Two trends in examining yellowface stand out. One is that yellowface in its most extreme and racist form is rarer than it used to be. Yellowface, in contrast, in cinema during the last several decades has arguably gotten worse with prominent White actresses like Emma Stone and Scarlet Johansson passing themselves off as partly or wholly Asian in major feature films. Secondly, however, stigma of yellowface has also steadily declined as well. As Teng (2016) notes, Asian Americans are torn between eras. Formerly, a “common joke used to be that the actor was not Asian, but a white person performing an Asian stereotype” (Teng 2016). The more current racist humor is “more insidious and thus tougher to combat” because Whites, Blacks, and Latinos are mocking Asian success (Teng 2016). In the case of Kimmy, yellowface is used to mock but also pay respect to the long tradition of Japanese art. However, the problem is that Asian culture is interpreted mainly by non-Asians with Asian Americans lacking a voice onto themselves. Although yellowface is neither the strongest nor most common way to use racist humor against Asians nevertheless the practice remains remarkably persistent. To be sure, as a construct, yellowface used to be mainly focused on subordinating Asians through White-male representations. Current forms of yellowface are more flexible and can be performed by Whites, African Americans, and Latinxs.



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It is also more ideologically murky as Fey and Whedon are self-declared liberals and feminists but tolerate yellowface. This more multicultural form of yellowface is not always racist but it does, at bottom, perpetuate horrid Orientalist tropes that have remained in currency for over a century. In conclusion, yellowface performances have declined markedly from their peak but remain a persistent and popular method exploited by Whites and nonwhites to depict Asian cultures in an Orientalist fashion. Christian Jimenez Further Readings

Davé, Shilpa S. 2013. Indian Accents: Brown Voice and Racial Performance in American Television and Film. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Hamamoto, Darrell Y. 1997. Monitored Peril: Asian Americans and the Politics of TV Representation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Hess, Amanda. 2016. “Asian-American Actors Are Fighting for Visibility. They Will Not Be Ignored.” New York Times, May 25. ­https://​­w ww​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2016​/­05​/­29​ /­m ovies​ /­a sian​ -­a merican​ -­a ctors​ -­a re​ -­f ighting​ -­for​ -­v isibility​ -­t hey​ -­w ill​ -­n ot​ -­b e​ -­ignored​.­html. I., Michelle. 2010. “Yellowface: A Story in Pictures.” Racebending, December 9. Ito, Robert B. 2014. “‘A Certain Slant’: A Brief History of Hollywood Yellowface.” Bright Lights, May 2. ­http://​­brightlightsfilm​.­com​/­certain​-­slant​-­brief​-­history​-­hollywood​ -­yellowface​/#.­W kn36iMrJo4​. Le, Michael. 2012. “Frustrations of an Asian American Whedonite.” Racebending, July 17. ­http://​­w ww​.­racebending​.­com​/­v4​/­featured​/­f rustrations​-­asian​-. Loader, Alison. 2011. “Representation, the Model Minority & Whiteness on King of the Hill.” Journal for Animation History and Theory. ­https://​­journal​.­animationstudies​ .­org​/­alison​-­loader​-­were​-­asian​-­more​-­expected​-­of​-­us​/. Romano, Aja. 2013. “17 Reasons Geeks Worship Joss Whedon (and 3 Reasons Not To).” Daily Dot, March 3. ­https://​­www​.­dailydot​.­com​/­culture​/­joss​-­whedon​-­whedonverse​-­20​ -­steps​/. Said, Edward. 1979. Orientalism. New York: Vintage. Sullivan, Kevin M. 2004. “Chinese Words in the ‘Verse.’” In Finding Serenity: Anti-Heroes, Lost Shepherds and Space Hookers in Joss Whedon’s Firefly, edited by Jane Espenson with Glenn Yeffeth. Dallas, TX: BenBella Books. Teng, Elaine. 2016. “Why Is It Still Okay to Make Fun of Asians?” New Republic, March 16. ­https://​­newrepublic​.­com​/­article​/­131631​/­still​-­okay​-­make​-­f un​-­asians. Wright, Leigh Adams. 2004. “Asian Objects in Space.” In Finding Serenity: Anti-heroes, Lost Shepherds and Space Hookers in Joss Whedon’s Firefly, edited by Jane Espenson with Glenn Yeffeth, 29–36. Dallas, TX: BenBella Books. Zuckerman, Esther. 2016. “Is Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Racist?” ­https://​­www​ .­refinery29​.­com​/­en​-­us​/­2016​/­04​/­108601​/­is​-­unbreakable​-­kimmy​-­schmidt​-­racist.

Yo! MTV Raps (1988–1995) A pioneering hip-hop program that played a fundamental role in expanding rap music’s popularity from urban, primarily Black and Latinx communities, to White America, Yo! MTV Raps enjoyed a successful run on MTV. During its early years,

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MTV was known for its promotion of rock ‘n’ roll and heavy metal, and other music associated with whiteness, leading some to charge MTV with ignoring the Black community and the musical sounds emanating from its communities. While Yo! MTV Raps would introduce White youth, particularly those living in suburban and rural communities, to rap and hip-hop culture, it also became an important space to make visible Black artists in the previously White-dominated MTV landscape. While facing resistance to those who saw rap as destructive, immoral, and a threat to decency, YO! MTV Raps did more than introduce the audience to popular artists and music videos; it provided a platform for countless rappers who pushed conversations about race, politics, identity, and so much more. It provided a staging ground for hip-hop, as a movement, identity, and experience. In doing so, the influential program also proved vital in establishing hip-hop culture as a popular form of youth culture in Europe, Latin America, and Asia as MTV expanded its global reach into new international markets throughout the late 1980s and 1990s. At its height, Yo! MTV Raps aired six days a week on the network and was hosted by Fab 5 Freddy (on Saturdays) and the duo Ed Lover and Doctor Dré (on weekdays). Ironically, the show’s ultimate cancellation in 1995 stemmed from its phenomenal success in transforming rap music from a niche genre into an immensely popular, mainstream global art form. During the final years of Yo! MTV Raps’ run, more rap music videos aired on MTV outside of the show during the course of the day than were featured on the program, demonstrating that rap no longer required a special focus program in order to achieve television air time. Hip-hop originated in the South Bronx section of New York City during the mid- to late 1970s as a form of cultural collaboration between African American, Puerto Rican, and Caribbean/West Indian youth. Hip-hop culture consists of four major elements—breaking or b-boying or b-girling (the dance element), graffiti (the visual artistic element), deejaying/emceeing, and rapping (the musical elements). During its early years, breaking attained more mainstream media coverage through news footage and film and television depictions than did the other three elements of hip-hop. By the mid-1980s, hip-hop culture had spread to urban communities nationwide. However, by the late 1980s, rap had emerged as the best-known and most highly featured element of hip-hop in mainstream American society. MTV debuted in 1981 as a cable television network dedicated to airing music videos daily on a continual basis, with occasional commentary from on-air personalities, known as veejays, and interviews with various music acts. MTV’s novel format revolutionized the music video and transformed it from merely footage of a singer or band performing a song at a concert to a highly choreographed work of art, similar to a short film, as performers and record producers began to view videos as instrumental to promoting their product. Nevertheless, within a few years, MTV drew sharp criticism for its reluctance to feature African American performers aside from international megastars Michael Jackson and Prince. In a 1983 interview with MTV veejay Mark Goodman, for example, British rocker David Bowie extensively criticized the network for its failure to showcase talented



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Black artists, to which a nervous Goodman cautiously responds that MTV needs to offer a product that appeals to as wide an audience as possible and that airing music performed by Black musicians may risk alienating White viewers. Six years after its debut, MTV established a sixty-minute block of time devoted to primarily Black performers with Yo! MTV Raps. Created by Ted Demme and Peter Dougherty, the pilot episode aired in the summer of 1988. It was hosted by the legendary rap trio Run-D.M.C., featuring an interview with the young rap duo DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. Erik B. & Rakim’s “Follow the Leader” was the first video aired by Yo! MTV Raps, and the pilot episode enjoyed tremendous success—ranking as one of the highest-rated programs in MTV’s seven-year history at that point. Realizing that a significant market for rap music existed, MTV began airing sixty–minute episodes of Yo! MTV Raps weekly on Saturday evenings. In March 1989, MTV expanded the show to six days a week, with episodes also airing on weekday afternoons. Ed Lover and Doctor Dré hosted the show’s weekday editions, and, interestingly, the two had successfully auditioned for the hosting role with the network; MTV originally intended Yo! MTV Raps to feature only one host through the week, but Lover and Doctor Dré agreed to divide the salary in half in order to cohost the show. Lover revealed in a 2016 interview with Oprah Winfrey that he and Doctor Dré agreed to split the salary because they were hip-hop fans first and foremost, which overruled any financial concerns. By the early 1990s, Yo! MTV Raps had emerged as one of the network’s best-known and most-watched programs. Its format allocated unprecedented airtime to urban youth music and culture, and the show earned praise for its sleek and stylish approach toward showcasing rap videos and artists through airing videos, conducting in-studio and street interviews with rappers, hosting live studio performances on the Friday episodes, and through Lover’s and Doctor Dré’s refreshing comedic style. Following in MTV’s footsteps, BET sought to capitalize on the marketplace, launching its own music program, Rap City (1989–). Also, in 1989, Jive Records released Yo! MTV Raps: The CD, which featured a compilation of singles performed by some of most high-profile artists featured on the program, including Kid ‘n Play, Salt-N-Pepa, Ice-T, Kool Moe Dee, De La Soul, and Rob Base, among others. Yo! MTV Raps began to experience declining ratings by early 1993, as rap began to attain mainstream status on contemporary Top 40 radio stations and MTV began to feature rap videos extensively as part of its regular programming. By the mid-1990s, MTV limited the show to just one airing a week on Saturday evening, which ran as a two-hour episode. The show’s final episode aired on August 17, 1995, and featured an in-studio freestyle rap session with several of the most high-profile rappers of the time. The program’s legacy lives on, however, as playing a key role in MTV’s evolution from a network that initially focused almost exclusively on White performers to a multicultural-themed network whose programming today features content aimed at racially diverse viewers. Justin D. García

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Further Reading

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Allah, Sha Be. 2014. “Today in Hip Hop History: Yo! MTV Raps Debuts 26 Years Ago Today.” The Source, August 6. ­http://​­thesource​.­com​/­2014​/­08​/­06​/­today​-­in​-­hip​-­hop​ -­history​-­yo​-­mtv​-­raps​-­debuts​-­26 ​-­years​-­ago​-­today​/. Chang, Jeff. 2005. Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Kreps, Daniel. 2015. “Peter Dougherty, ‘Yo! MTV Raps’ Co-Creator, Dead at 59.” Rolling Stone, October 28. ­http://​­w ww​.­rollingstone​.­com​/­music​/­news​/­peter​-­dougherty​-­yo​ -­mtv​-­raps​-­co​-­creator​-­dead​-­at​-­59​-­20151028. Tannenbaum, Rob, and Craig Marks. 2012. I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution. New York: Plume.

About the Editors and Contributors

THE EDITORS DAVID J. LEONARD is a professor in the School of Languages, Cultures, and Race at Washington State University, Pullman. He is the author of several books, including Playing While White: Privilege and Power on and off the Field (2017) and After Artest: The NBA and the Assault on Blackness (2012). He is coeditor of Woke Gaming: Digital Challenges to Oppression and Social Injustice (with ­Kishonna Gray) and several other books. STEPHANIE TROUTMAN ROBBINS is an associate professor of Emerging ­Literacies in the Rhetoric, Composition and Teaching of English program in the English Department at the University of Arizona. She is coauthor of Culture, Community, and Educational Success: Reimagining the Invisible Knapsack (2018). Her research has been published in the Journal of Girlhood Studies (GHS), the Journal of Race Ethnicity & Education (REE), Meridians: Feminism, Race and Transnationalism, and the Journal of Literacy & Social Responsibility. THE CONTRIBUTORS BASHEERA AGYEMAN is a Ghanaian-American Muslim born in Seattle, Washington. She graduated from Washington State University with a bachelor’s in comparative ethnic studies and a second degree in French for professions. In December 2017, Basheera was named WSU’s first Campus Civic Poet, a collaboration between the English Department and the MLK Program of the university, for her talent of spoken word and engagement in activism. In 2018, she joined the Teach for America Program as a corps member working for educational equity in a rural district in Southern Louisiana. She is currently a graduate student at Louisiana State University pursuing a master’s in education and specializing in curriculum and instruction. She also hopes to continue civically engaging in movements against social injustice.

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About the Editors and Contributors

GORDON ALLEY-YOUNG, PhD, is the chairperson of Communications & Performing Arts at Kingsborough Community College-City University of New York, where he is a professor of speech communication. His research explores intercultural communication, popular culture, and critical sociocultural perspectives on teaching/learning, identity, ethnicity/race, gender, class, and sexuality. His research appears in several peer-reviewed journal articles such as “Articulating Identity: Refining Postcolonial and Whiteness Perspectives on Race within Communication Studies” (Review of Communication 8 (3), 2008). He has chapters in several edited books including, “The Ties That (Un)Bind: Whiteness and the Racialization of Jewish Bodies in the Film School Ties” in Dr. Janice D. Hamlet’s book, Films as Rhetorical Texts: Cultivating Discussions about Race, Racism, and Race Relations (2020). Selected pieces of Dr. Alley-Young’s research have been translated into Spanish and Turkish. KELLI PYRON-ALVAREZ is an assistant teaching professor at the University of Oklahoma for the First Year Composition program. Her scholarly work interrogates representations of race and identity in literature, film, and television. She also works with the nonprofit organization Foundation for Liberating Minds. GRACE BAZILE is an independent scholar and librarian at Peninsula Public Library. MARY K. BLOODSWORTH-LUGO, PhD, is a professor of comparative ethnic studies at Washington State University, Pullman. She has published extensively on 9/11 cultural production and the post-9/11 United States, including 9/11 films and popular culture. She publishes on topics of race, gender, sexuality, and citizenship within a U.S. context. LATOYA BRACKETT holds a Doctorate in African American and African studies from Michigan State University. Brackett earned her bachelor’s from Cornell University in Africana studies, and her master’s in counseling from Michigan State. Brackett joined the University of Puget Sound as a visiting assistant professor of African American studies and the Race & Pedagogy Institute in 2017. Her research focus has continually developed within popular culture and is dedicated to the analysis of African American representation. Currently, she is editing a volume dedicated to discussing representations on television shows of African Americans in roles as professionals. AMANDA N. BRAND is an instructor at Northern Arizona University and a PhD candidate at University of Nebraska. LINDA BRILEY-WEBB is an independent scholar who has contributed to Women in American History: A Social, Political and Cultural Encyclopedia and Document Collection, and Technical Innovation in American History: An Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. JACQUI BROWN is an Atlanta-based strategic development consultant and writer who dedicates her time and talents—storytelling, an eye for detail, an earnest heart, and a belief in sense and balance—to creating the physical, figurative, and fugitive spaces black communities, women, and queer people deserve. She



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specializes in strategic development for social impact organizations and leaders, in addition to planning and curating diasporic cultural programming for the Luminal Theater, a Brooklyn-based traveling community cinema and Diaspora Cultural Curators, an Atlanta-based community film organization that links the Diaspora through food and cultural programming. LETISHA ENGRACIA CARDOSO BROWN is an assistant professor of sociology at Virginia Tech. Her research examines the intersections of race, class, and gender with respect to media representations of black female athletes, as well as the examination of social relationships and food. Her work can be found in outlets such as The Shadow League, the South African Review of Sociology, and The Palgrave Handbook of Feminism and Sport, Leisure and Physical Education. KRISTIN C. BRUNNEMER, PhD, is a professor and department chair of English, humanities and film at Pierce College, in Lakewood, Washington. She is the coauthor of Term Paper Resource Guide to Latino History, and several other articles on literature, film, and television. Her most recent publication is “Argentina’s Dirty War on Film: The Absent Presence of The Disappeared” in The History of Genocide in Cinema: Atrocities on Screen. MALIKA T. BUTLER is a doctoral candidate at Iowa State University in the School of Education. Her work is interdisciplinary and explores the sociopolitical culture of black educational spaces, more specifically Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), and the ways this culture fosters values of social justice, liberation, and freedom. Her work can be found in International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education (2017) and NASPA Journal about Women in Higher Education (2017). CHERISE CHARLESWELL is a transnational feminist and reluctant “academic” who is also a self- and internationally published author, writer, poet, and political commentator serving as the chair of women’s issues for the Hampton Institute, and a public health practitioner. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including: For Harriet, Truth Out, Blue Stocking Magazine, Role Reboot, and various academic and professional journals. She is the coeditor of Walking in the Feminine: A Stepping into Our Shoes Anthology. YUNG-HWA ANNA CHOW earned her master’s in education at Washington State University and her BA in ethnic studies from UC Berkeley. She is the director of advising for the College of Arts and Sciences and Washington State University. Her work focuses on academic advising, diversity in higher education, and race and popular culture. TIFFANY A. CHRISTIAN, PhD, received her doctorate in American studies from Washington State University. She also holds an MFA in creative writing from Chapman University and an MA in folklore from the University of Oregon. She has published research that interrogates the roles of gender and race in contemporary entertainment media. She is a full-time professor in the English department at Skagit Valley College in Mount Vernon, Washington.

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About the Editors and Contributors

KRISTAL MOORE CLEMONS, PhD, is a Chicago native. Her research focuses on the activism of black women in various spaces ranging from Chicago tenement housing projects to the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project. She has worked with the Children’s Defense Fund to develop CDF Freedom Schools around the country. Dr. Clemons is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership at Virginia State University. DANIEL D. COOLEY earned his MA in history from the University of North Dakota, where he specialized in twentieth-century U.S. history. He is working on his doctorate, again at the University of North Dakota, and his dissertation is focused on understanding the how the Black Power Movement unfolded on the colleges and universities of the northern Great Plains. JUANITA MARIE CRIDER is a program advisor for the Purdue University Black Cultural Center. She is also a doctoral student in American studies at Purdue University. JIM DAEMS, PhD (University of Wales, Bangor), specializes in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English literature and contemporary popular culture. He has published articles and books on topics ranging from Edmund Spenser to RuPaul. His most recent publications are a coedited collection of essays entitled Games and War in Early Modern English Literature: From Shakespeare to Swift (2019) and an edited collection on British crime drama (forthcoming). CARMEN DEXL is an assistant professor of American studies at the University of Regensburg in Germany. She earned her doctorate with a dissertation on “The Anti-Lynching Narrative” at FAU Erlangen-Nuernberg. She has published on African American literature and culture, television, and dance and is currently working on her second book project about negotiations of aging in (post-)modern dance. DARA DOWNEY is a visiting lecturer in the School of English, Trinity College Dublin, and the Trinity Access Programme. She is editor of The Irish Gothic Journal (online). She is author of American Women’s Ghost Stories in the Gilded Age (2014), and coeditor of Landscapes of Liminality: Between Space and Place (with Ian Kinane and Elizabeth Parker, 2016). She is currently working on a literary biography of Shirley Jackson, as well as a longer-term project on servant figures in American gothic. MICHAEL J. DURFEE is currently an assistant professor of history at Niagara University and director of Africana/black studies. Durfee also serves as associate editor of Afro-Americans in New York Life and History. His work focuses on the emergence of crack cocaine and the subsequent rise of mass incarceration. NICOLE FILES-THOMPSON, PhD, is an associate professor of communication at Lincoln University, Pennsylvania. She has published and presented extensively on intercultural communication in mediated contexts. Her work focuses on marginalized groups and can be found in journals such as Critical Studies in Media Communication, Women & Language, and Communication, Culture, & Critique.



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CHRISTINE FIORE is an independent scholar and head of child care at Choice in Learning Montessori School in California. KATIE FREDRICKS earned her MA in sociology at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where she focused on issues of racial inequality. She is currently working toward her doctorate in the department of childhood studies at Rutgers University, specializing in children and television and other digital media. JUSTIN D. GARCÍA is an associate professor of anthropology at Millersville University of Pennsylvania. He also frequently teaches courses in African American studies and Latina/o studies. García earned his PhD in anthropology from Temple University in 2011, with a focus in urban anthropology. His teaching and research interests include social constructs of race and ethnicity, U.S. immigration, U.S. popular culture, population genetics, and the social ramifications of DNA ancestry testing. Some of García’s publications include “Hispanic/Latino Identity as Racial Misnomer” in Race in America: How a Pseudoscientific Concept Shaped Human Interaction (Praeger, 2017) and “Latin Lords of the Ring: Politics, Nativism, and Mexican/Chicano Identity through Professional Wrestling,” in Identity in Professional Wrestling: Essays on Nationality, Race, and Gender (2018). He is also a member of Millersville University’s Latina/o Studies Curriculum Committee. MARISA C. GARCIA RODRIGUEZ, PhD, is a senior lecturer and graduate faculty member in the School of Communication at Northern Arizona University. Her scholarship focuses on identity formation, negotiation, and representation. Her current coauthored research explores the perception and communication of mental well-being among young adults. AMIR ASIM GILMORE, PhD is a visiting assistant professor in Cultural Studies and Social Thought in Education at Washington State University. Amir’s broad research interests are black aesthetics, black masculinities, Afrofuturism, AfroPessimism, and the political economy of schooling. Amir’s current research examines how the curricula of antiblackness confront and impede the lives of black boys inside and outside of schooling. Follow him on Twitter at @amir_asim. JEAN A. GIOVANETTI is a journalist, independent scholar, and author of “One Asian Eye: Growing Up Eurasian in America” (November 2004). She is a lecturer in the journalism department at the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh. AARON GURLLY is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Salisbury University. NICHOLAS D. HARTLEP holds the Robert Charles Billings Chair in Education at Berea College, where he chairs the Department of Education Studies. Dr. Hartlep has published twenty-two books, the most recent being (2019) What Makes a Star Teacher? Seven Dispositions that Encourage Student Learning. His book The Neoliberal Agenda and the Student Debt Crisis in U.S. Higher Education, with Lucille L. T. Eckrich and Brandon O. Hensley (2017) was named an outstanding book by the Society of Professors of Education. He is currently writing What Can

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About the Editors and Contributors

Be Learned from Work Colleges? An Education That Works. Follow his work on Twitter at @nhartlep or at his website, ­www​.­nicholashartlep​.­com. ERIC A. HOUSE, PhD, is an assistant professor of critical composition and writing studies in the English Department at New Mexico State University. He researches and teaches on the influences and intersections of race, identity, and culture within definitions and applications of rhetoric and writing. CHARISSE S. IGLESIAS is a community-engaged scholar-teacher. She is a PhD student in rhetoric, composition, and the teaching of English at the University of Arizona. Her personal growth focuses are in critical service learning, community-based learning, comics studies, prison pedagogy, and the rhetorics of volunteerism. TALIB JABBAR is a PhD candidate in literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His research focuses on the cultural politics of U.S. empire—from the beginning of the twentieth century, through the Cold War, and under the War on Terror. His work incorporates both English and Urdu language texts and draws upon critical race theory, literary theory, and queer studies. CHRISTIAN JIMENEZ holds both a bachelor’s in history and master’s in political science from Rutgers. He has taught courses on modern China, globalization, and comparative politics at Rutgers and Rider University and presented professional conference papers at New York University, State University of New York, and Rutgers on extremism, myth, literature, race, gender, and film. PATRICK JOHNSON is a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley in the social and cultural studies program in the Graduate School of Education. His research interests include critical media literacy, television, remix theory, and black cultural politics. Patrick’s research situates past black television as a pedagogical resource that shapes black collective memory and from which black young adults learn about race and gender. SHILPASHRI KARBHARI is an academic with a background in sociology. She is committed to writing on issues of inequality, gender violence, marginalized groups, diversity, and racial and ethnic communities situated in the United States and globally. Currently, she is in India working and doing independent research in the following areas: domestic violence and male prisoners in Mumbai’s jails. KAVITHA KOSHY has a PhD in sociology from Texas Woman’s University. Her research explores the racialization of Asian Indian immigrants in the United States. Her areas of interest include transnational feminisms, U.S. women of color feminist theories, critical race theories, globalization, and immigration. Kavitha has a background of feminist and grassroot organizing in India. Currently, she is a lecturer in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies and sociology at California State University, Long Beach. BRANDY MONK-PAYTON is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Media Studies and affiliated faculty in the American studies



About the Editors and Contributors 785

program at Fordham University. Her research focuses on the theory and history of African American media representation and cultural production across television, film, and digital media. Her work has been published in edited collections such as Unwatchable and From Madea to Media Mogul: Theorizing Tyler Perry as well as the journals Film Quarterly, Feminist Media Histories, and Communication, Culture and Critique. CARYN MURPHY is a professor of radio-TV-film at the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh. Her research on television has appeared in the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Media History, the Journal of Popular Culture, and several edited collections. NICHOLAS OZMENT has a BA in English and an MA in English language and literature from Winona State University, where he taught for nine years. He is currently a professional tour guide and historical scholar in southeast Minnesota. SARAH PAPAZOGLAKIS, PhD, earned her doctorate in literature with a designated emphasis in critical race and ethnic studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz in 2018. Her dissertation, “Doing Good, Behaving Badly: Fictions of American Philanthropy,” produces a literary counterhistory of American philanthropy that serves as an archive of U.S. empire. Her work has been published in American Studies Journal, New Global Studies, and St. John’s University Humanities Review. ELIZABETH PITTMAN earned a PhD in African American literature from George Washington University. Her research focuses on the Black Arts movement, with a particular focus on Amiri Baraka, and in contemporary black fiction and cultural studies. TIMOTHY R. RIGGIO QUEVILLON is a PhD candidate at the University of Houston focusing on the intersection between anti-colonialism and civil rights activism. His current research addresses the role of racial and colonial identity on Jewish political activism in the 1960s. MARIA ELENA RAYMOND is an independent scholar, coeditor of Women in Politics (1996), former chair of the Kanner Prize for Western Association of Women Historians (WAWH), writer for St. James Press “Feminist Writers,” and trustee for the National Emmy Board. MITCHELL A. J. ROBERTSON is a DPhil candidate in history at the University of Oxford. His dissertation focuses on federal anti-poverty policies during the Nixon administration. His first publication appeared in the Australasian Journal of American Studies and was awarded the James Holt Prize. MARC ARSELL ROBINSON, PhD, is an assistant professor of history at California State University, San Bernardino. His research focuses on the civil rights movement in the Pacific Northwest. He earned a BA in history at the University of Washington, and a PhD in American studies from Washington State University. He has published work in venues such as ­Blackpast​.­org, the Western Journal of Black Studies, Pacific Northwest Quarterly, Reference Services Review, and the

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Journal of Black Studies. He has taught courses on U.S. and African American history, race and social inequality, intersectionality, and popular culture. EVELIA SANCHEZ earned a master’s degree in business administration from Santa Clara University and undergraduate degrees in psychology and Spanish from San Jose State University. She enjoys learning all things Latinx. COURTNEY SARGENT teaches in the discipline of sociology. Her research focus is on the marginalization of Afro-Brazilians and how they use spiritual practices to combat violence and discrimination. She graduated from Syracuse University with a multidisciplinary degree in Pan African studies. She enjoys studying gender and writing with a feminist lens. THOMAS XAVIER SARMIENTO, PhD, is an assistant professor of English at Kansas State University. He specializes in diasporic Filipinx American literature and culture, cultural representations of the Midwest, and queer theory. His research appears in the journals MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States and Women, Gender, and Families of Color and in the edited collections Asian American Feminisms and Women of Color Politics (2018), Curricular Innovations: LGBTQ Literatures and the New English Studies (2019), and The Oxford Encyclopedia of Asian American Literature and Culture (2020). ADRIEN SEBRO is an assistant professor in the Department of Radio-Film at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his PhD in Cinema and Media Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles. His scholarship specializes in critical media studies at the intersections of television, film, comedy, gender, and African Diaspora studies. He is currently writing his first book manuscript, To Scratch and Survive: Hustle Economics, Gender Politics, and Creative Dissent at Tandem Productions, which explores a production history and the representation of racial identity formation in the all-black cast sitcoms of Tandem Productions: Sanford and Son (1972–1977), Good Times (1974–1979), and The Jeffersons (1975–1985). TODD SIMPSON, MA/MLIS, is an academic librarian at York College, City University of New York (CUNY). Todd’s background is in the humanities and enjoys writing about adaptation of classical texts into popular cultural forms. SIOBHAN E. SMITH-JONES, PhD (University of Missouri), is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Louisville. Her current research interests include explorations of African American women as interpretive communities. She teaches courses in mass media, race, culture, fandom, and media literacy. AMI SOMMARIVA, PhD, earned her doctorate in cultural studies with a designated emphasis in feminist theory and research at the University of California, Davis, in 2016. Her dissertation, “Television for a Better America: Public Feeling, Race, and Privatization from Sesame Street to Roots,” examines the production and reception histories of 1970s television programs that aimed to tackle the



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problem of racial inequality. Her writing has appeared in Boom: A Journal of California. LUCIA SORIANO received her PhD in American studies at Washington State University. Her research interests include gender and embodiment, social media and labor, digital feminisms, and woman of color feminisms. KARRIEANN SOTO VEGA is an assistant professor of rhetoric, writing, and digital studies at the University of Kentucky. Her scholarship focuses on feminism and Latinx cultural rhetoric, specifically that of Puerto Ricans living across diasporas as well as historical and contemporary activism and coalitional politics. Some of her work has been published in Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies and feral feminisms, among others. CHARLES FRUEHLING SPRINGWOOD, professor of anthropology at Illinois Wesleyan University, specializes in Native North America, Japan, and whiteness, with particular emphasis on colonialism, race, racial “play,” violence, and visual culture. Key publications include Team Spirits: The Native American Mascots Controversy, Open Fire: Understanding Global Gun Cultures, and Beyond the Cheers: Race as Spectacle in College Sport. MARY STOECKLEIN earned her PhD at the University of Arizona in American Indian Studies, where she focused on Native American literature. She is the author of Native American Mystery Writing: Indigenous Investigations (2019) and is currently an adjunct faculty member at Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona. MYRON T. STRONG graduated with his PhD in sociology from the University of North Texas. He has a BA in English and minor in chemistry and an MEd in secondary education from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He is currently an assistant professor of sociology at the Community College of Baltimore County in Baltimore, Maryland. His current research is Afrofuturism and explores race, gender, and other social factors in modern comics. His two most recent articles are in Sociological Forum, “The Emperor Has New Clothes: How Outsider Sociology Can Shift the Discipline,” which won the ESS Barbara R. Walters Community College Faculty Award in 2019, and in Context, “Afrofuturism and Black Panther” which uses an Afrofuturism perspective to analysis the movie Black Panther. He is also the coauthor of Sociology in Stories: A Creative Introduction to a Fascinating Perspective: A Customized Version. KATHARINA THALMANN is an assistant professor at the University of Tübingen in Germany. She has earned her MA in British and North American cultural studies at the University of Freiburg, Germany. She is working on her PhD dissertation, focusing on epistemology and conspiracy theories of the Cold War era. JULIANA MARIA TRAMMEL, PhD, is an associate professor of journalism and mass communications at Savannah State University. She has published extensively on the intersection of race and communication in the United States and Latin America, specifically Brazil.

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About the Editors and Contributors

ALICIA VERMEER holds a master’s degree in religious studies from the University of Iowa. Her broad focus is on contemporary religion in America and religion in media. She also published the chapter, “Creating God in Joan of Arcadia: A View into the Religiosity of Youth and Young Adults in America,” in the book God and Popular Culture: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Entertainment Industry’s Most Influential Figure. DANIELLE E. WILLIAMS, PhD (Georgia State University), is currently an associate professor of film and chair of faculty for Cinema & Media Arts Production at Georgia Gwinnett College in Lawrenceville, Georgia. She holds a bachelor’s degree in mass communication and a master’s degree in communication from Auburn University. Dr. Williams’s research specializations are African American media studies, television studies, and media industries studies. DIANAH E. WYNTER is a full professor at California State University Northridge, where she teaches media theory and criticism, film aesthetics, and directing. Her collected volume, Referentiality and the Films of Woody Allen was published in 2016. “Combat, Couture and Caribbeana in Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther” appears in Africology: The Journal of Pan African Studies 11 (9), and “Identifying Stereotypes: Stories Nickelodeon and Nielsen Tell Black Children and How to ‘Appreciate’ Them” appears in Communicating Prejudice: An Appreciative Inquiry Approach. She recently curated John Singleton & the Auteurs That Inspired Him, an exhibit of the celebrated filmmaker’s private vintage film poster collection for the Gallery of Film Poster Art, and the Cinematheque film series LatinAuteur: Cinema from Spain to Latin America. Wynter received an Emmy nomination for directing the ABC Television movie Daddy’s Girl. Other creative work includes feature films, HappySad and Intimate Betrayal for BET/Starz and various episodic series. ASHLEY S. YOUNG is a doctoral candidate at the University of Southern California in the School of Cinematic Arts, Cinema and Media Studies program. Ashley’s primary research explores how African American actresses on television use their celebrity and public visibility to participate in their own representation on-screen. Her other research interests include television studies, African American media studies, black feminist thought, black cultural criticism, cultural studies, and star studies.

Index

Note: Page numbers in bold indicate the location of main entries. Page numbers followed by t indicate tables. African Americans and television, 1–11 assimilationist television, 4 Coon stereotype, 2–3, 10 Criminal/Black Brute stereotype, 2, 10 Jezebel stereotype, 2, 10 Mammy stereotype, 1, 3, 8, 10 multicultural television, 6–7 pluralist television, 4–6 portrayals of African Americans on television, 7–10 post–Civil Rights Movement television, 3–7 Sambo stereotype, 3 Sapphire (Matriarch) stereotype, 1, 10 stereotypes and, 1–7 Uncle Tom stereotype, 1, 3, 8, 10 Welfare Mother/Queen stereotype, 1–2, 8 Alice, 36–37 All-American Girl, 11–13 cancellation of, 11, 13 characters and themes, 12, 16 Cho, Margaret, and, 11–13, 119–120, 232, 267, 670 legacy of, 13 premier of, 11 reception and critique, 11–13, 119 stereotypes and, 119 yellowface and, 13 Allen, Debbie, 14–16 as actress, 14, 15 A Different World (producer and director), 14–15, 173, 663 early career, 14 early years and education, 14 in Fame, 14, 211

legacy of, 14, 15 as producer and director, 14–15, 540 Tony award for Sweet Charity, 14 All in the Family, 16–19 Archie Bunker (played by Carroll O’Connor), 16–19, 68, 265, 315, 334, 335, 375, 643–644, 645 awards, 17–18 Blackface and, 68 characters and themes, 18, 68, 349, 351, 643–644, 740–741 Good Times and, 16 as groundbreaking sitcom, 265 The Jeffersons and, 334, 336, 337, 651 Lear, Norman, and, 251, 643–644 In Living Color’s parody of, 315 Maude and, 16 1970s television and, 643–644, 649 reception and ratings, 16–18 “Sammy’s Visit” (episode), 18 Sanford and Son and, 569, 570 spin-offs, 16 Tandem Productions and, 643 Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, The, 19–21, 43t, 770 characters and themes, 20 cross-marketing and, 20 legacy of, 19, 21 model minority stereotype and, 20–21 American Crime, 21–23 characters and themes, 21–23 Ridley, John, and, 21 season four, 23 season one, 22 season three, 23 season two, 22–23

790 Index American Gypsies, 23–26 bottom-slapping and, 26 characters and themes, 24 National Geographic and, 23–25 reception and critique, 23–26 America’s Next Top Model, 53–54, 55, 676–677, 706 Amos ‘n’ Andy, 26–28 Blackface and, 27, 29, 67–68 boycotts of, 325 characters and themes, 27 Coon stereotype in, 3, 27, 28 history and creation, 27 Kenan & Kel compared to, 366 Martin compared to, 427 minstrelsy and, 449–450 move to television, 26 NAACP resolution and lawsuit against, 27–28, 67–68, 450 The PJs compared to, 461 radio program, 26–27, 449–450, 554, 716 reception and critique, 26, 27–28 Sapphire (Matriarch) stereotype in, 1, 28 Uncle Tom stereotype and archetype in, 27, 28 Anderson, Eddie, 28–30 early career, 29 early years and parents, 29–30 in The Jack Benny Show, 29 later career, 30 legacy of, 29–30 Ansari, Aziz, 30–32, 40, 618, 622 controversy, 31 early years and family, 30 host of Saturday Night Live, 624 in Master of None, 31, 430–431, 621, 623, 713 in Parks and Recreation, 31, 618 themes and interests, 30–31 A.N.T. Farm, 32–34 characters and themes, 32 legacy of, 33–34 reception and critique, 32–33 Arabs, Muslims, and Middle Easterners and television, 34–41 Alice and, 36–37 Aliens in America and, 39 All-American Muslim and, 39 Community and, 39 counter-narratives, 38–39 invisibility and, 35, 36 Islamophobia and, 38, 501, 624, 738

Little Mosque on the Prairie and, 39 Make Room for Daddy and, 35 M*A*S*H and, 35–36 post-9/11 era, 37–38 Quantico and, 40 stereotypes and, 35–37, 39, 40 “The Bel-Airabs” (Saturday Night Live) and, 36 Tonight Show and, 36 24 and, 37, 40 The West Wing and, 37–38 Whoopi and, 38 Arnaz, Desi, 41–43 Cuban revolution and, 41 Desi Arnaz Productions, 42 early career, 41 early years and immigration to United States, 41, 311 Good Neighbor stereotype and, 374–375 in I Love Lucy, 41–42, 68, 311–312, 374–375, 376, 589 legacy of, 42 marriage to Lucille Ball, 41, 311 Asian Americans and television, 43–48 impersonation of South Asians, 45–46 model minorities stereotype, 46–47 1980s television and, 44t 1950s television and, 43t 1990s television and, 44t 1970s television and, 43t 1960s television and, 43t 2000s television and, 44t 2010s television and, 44t Yellow Face and, 43, 45–46 Yellow Voice and, 45–46 Assimilation Ansari, Aziz, and, 30, 31 assimilationist television, 4 challenging stereotypes of, 242 The Cosby Show and, 539, 658 Cristela and, 377 defined, 4 Designing Women and, 4 I Spy and, 4 Jews and, 339, 340, 341, 344, 346–348, 356 Liu, Lucy, and, 404 Mind of Mencia and, 436–437 The Mindy Project and, 438–439 Mission: Impossible and, 4 1980s television and, 652, 658, 662, 663 Que Pasa USA? and, 375 Roots, 4

Index 791 South Asians and, 623 Voyager and, 632 Atlanta, 48–51 awards, 48 characters and themes, 48–49 Glover, Donald, and, 48, 50, 51, 292 “Juneteenth” episode, 50 premier, 48 reception, 50–51 Banks, Tyra, 53–55 America’s Next Top Model and, 53–54, 55, 676–677, 706 Bankable Productions, 55 in Black-ish, 56 controversy, 54 early years and career, 53 The Tyra Banks Show, 54 Barney Miller, 55–59 characters and themes, 55–57 reception and ratings, 57 stereotypes and, 56, 57 Benson, 59–60 cancellation of, 59 premier, 58 reception and critique, 58, 59 Soap and, 58–59 Beulah, 60–61 Beavers, Louise, in, 60, 89 characters and themes, 60 Gimme a Break! compared to, 244 Mammy stereotype and, 60, 450, 716 McDaniel, Hattie, in, 60, 89, 244, 335–336, 450 NAACP condemnation of, 27–28, 450, 716 radio program, 60 reception and legacy, 60–61 Waters, Ethel, in, 60, 89, 716 Big Bang Theory, The, 61–63 assimilation and, 348 characters and themes, 61–62 premier, 61 reception and critique, 62–63 South Asians and, 618, 620–623 2000s television and, 675 Black Entertainment Television (BET), 63–66 Black television audiences, 63–64 history of, 64 Johnson, Robert Louis, and, 63–65 launch of, 63

legacy of, 64–66 success and critique, 65–66 Blackface, 66–71 All in the Family and, 68 Amos ‘n’ Andy and, 67–68 aural Blackface and, 95 The Birth of a Nation and, 67 cartoons and, 67, 91–93, 94, 95, 502 Chappelle’s Show and, 99, 451 Community and, 71 Dear White People and, 170 Diff’rent Strokes and, 69, 451 Gimme a Break! and, 69, 450 history of, 67–68, 446–449 I Love Lucy and, 68 It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and, 70 The Jazz Singer and, 67 legacy of, 70 Mad Men and, 70, 418–419 Mammy stereotype and, 450 The Sarah Silverman Program and, 70 Saturday Night Live and, 69, 70 Seinfeld and, 69 in television, 446–449 30 Rock and, 71 Tracey Takes On and, 69 Whiteness and, 747 wrestling and, 69–70, 764 Black-ish, 71–74, 559 Banks, Tyra, in, 55 Barris, Kenya, and, 72 characters and themes, 71–74 “Crime and Punishment” episode, 73–74 Longoria, Eva, and, 409 multicultural television and, 7 premier, 71 reception and awards, 74 resistance to sexism and, 599 Roc and, 561 title of, 72 Whiteness and, 746 Black Mirror, 74–77, 574 “Black Museum” episode, 75 “Fifteen Million Merits” episode, 75 interracial lesbian romance in, 75 “The National Anthem” (pilot), 75 “Nosedive” episode, 76 premier, 75 reception and criticism, 74–76 themes and structure, 74–77 “USS Callister” episode, 76

792 Index Black Twitter, 77–83 history of, 78 Martin, Trayvon, and, 80–81 representation and, 81–82 signifyin’ and, 79 television and, 79–80 Bratt, Benjamin, 83–85 early career, 84 early years and education, 83–84 film roles, 84 Latinx community and, 383 in Law & Order, 84, 383, 396 in Modern Family, 84, 383 in Star, 84–85, 383 Burton, LeVar, 86–88 awards, 87, 169 early years and education, 86 in Reading Rainbow, 86–87, 169 in Roots, 86, 87, 265, 441, 564, 604 in Star Trek: The Next Generation, 86, 87, 580, 630 Bush, George W., 285, 602, 739 Carroll, Diahann, 89–90 awards, 89 in Dynasty, 89–90, 617 early years and career, 89 in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, 90, 310 in Julia, 89–90, 129–130, 135, 140, 146, 165, 218, 359, 360–361, 616–617 legacy of, 90 Cartoons, 90–96 appropriation and, 91, 92–93, 95 aural Blackface and, 95 Blackface and, 67, 91–93, 94, 95, 502 “censored eleven,” 94–95 history of, 91 minstrelsy and, 91, 92, 93 music and, 91, 92 Native American stereotypes and, 94 Sambo stereotype and, 93 stereotypes and, 91–92, 93–94, 95 Uncle Tom stereotype and, 92–93 uncle Tom stereotype and archetype in, 92, 95, 449 voice actors and, 92 war propaganda and, 93–94 See also individual cartoons Chappelle, Dave, 96–99, 367, 380, 451–452

Chappelle’s Show, 96–100 Chappelle leaves the show, 98–99, 380 characters and themes, 97 history and origins, 96–97 Mind of Mencia and, 435–436 premier, 96 race and parody, 97–98 “Stereotype Pixies” sketch, 99, 451–452 Chi, The, 100–102 characters and themes, 100–101 creators, 100 music in, 101–102 reception and viewership, 102 Chico and the Man, 102–105 premier, 102–103 Prinze, Freddie, Sr., in, 102–104, 375, 410 reception and critique, 103–104 theme song, 103 Children’s television, 105–115 Asian representation in, 109 Black representation in, 109 children’s development and, 105–106 comprehensive racial learning and, 107 Dragon Tales, 115, 117 Latinx representation in, 109 multiculturalism and, 111–112, 113, 115, 116, 118, 502–504 Native American representation in, 109–110 racially ambiguous characters in, 110 racial representation in, 107–112 Sesame Street, 112–113 social identity theory and, 113–114 stereotypes and, 107–112, 114 symbolic annihilation and, 108, 110 television’s influence on, 106–107 television’s representations and racial learning, 113–114 White representation in, 108–109 Children’s Television Workshop, 115–118 Cooney, Joan Ganz, and, 112, 115, 585 The Electric Company, 116, 156, 168, 183, 388–389 Ghostwriter, 117 history and creation, 115 The New Electric Company, 118 Panwapa, 117, 118 programming model, 115–116 purpose, 115 Square One Television, 117 streaming service, 117–118

Index 793 3-2-1 Contact, 115, 116–117 See also Sesame Street Cho, Margaret, 118–121 All-American Girl and, 11–13, 119–120, 232, 267, 670 awards, 120 early years, 118–119 education, 119 identity formation, 118–119, 121 published books, 120 Civil Rights Movement on American television, the, 121–131 “civil rights subject” and, 123 defining the Civil Rights Movement, 122–131 depictions of participants, 122–123 entertainment shows, 128–131 framing public opinion and news reporting, 123–126 King, Martin Luther, Jr., and, 123, 124, 126–127, 128–129 March on Washington (1963), 126–128 Open Mind and, 127 See also Eyes on the Prize; “Harvest of Shame” Civil rights pressure groups, 131–137 Of Black America and, 134 Black character in continuing roles, 135–136 Black character in new leading roles, 135 Black Journal and, 135, 264 Johnson, Lyndon, administration, 132, 134–135 Kerner Report and, 132, 134–135 Land of the Giants and, 135 Mission: Impossible and, 135 National Educational Television (NET) and, 132–135 new Black characters in returning series, 136 The Outcasts and, 135 Peyton Place and, 136 Time for Americans and, 134 tokenism and, 136–137 What’s Happening to America? and, 134 Clinton, Bill, 234, 272, 475, 705, 739 Coleman, Gary, 137–139 death of, 139 in Diff’rent Strokes, 138, 177–180, 451, 648, 653–654

early career, 138, 177–178 early years, 137, 177, 179 illness, 137, 178 life and career after Diff’rent Strokes, 138–139, 180 Colorblind casting, 141–143, 260, 737 Colorblind racism and television, 139–144 The Cosby Show and, 141 definition and concept of colorblind racism, 139–140 NAACP and, 141 Reagan administration and, 140 Rhimes, Shonda, and, 142–143 Colorism and television, 144–151 Black-oriented programs and, 147–148 Black women and, 146–147 The Cosby Show and, 147 definition of colorism, 144 gender and, 145–147 legacy of colorism, 146 In Living Color and, 147–148 Martin and, 147 Proud Family and, 148 scripted colorism, 144–145, 147, 149 skin darkness and, 148–149 White supremacy and, 144, 145 Comprehensive racial learning, 107 Cooking shows, 151–153 Child, Julia, and, 151–152 climate change and, 152–153 Down Home with the Neelys, 152 food competition shows, 152–153 “Rachael–Martha Continuum,” 151 Ray, Rachael, and, 151–152 social issues and, 152–153 Stewart, Martha, and, 151–152 travel food shows, 152 Cooney, Joan Ganz, 112, 115, 584–585 Coon stereotype, 2–3, 10, 27, 28, 254, 255, 334, 335, 448 in Amos ‘n’ Andy, 3, 27, 28 in Diff’rent Strokes, 69 in Good Times, 254, 255 in The Jack Benny Show, 3 in The Jeffersons, 335 minstrelsy and, 447, 448 Cops, 153–156 documentary style, 154 legacy of, 155 reality television and, 154–155 reception and critique, 153–154

794 Index Cosby, Bill, 156–158 awards, 156 civil lawsuit against, 157 conviction and sentencing of, 157 early career, 156 early years and education, 156 in The Electric Company, 156 in I Spy, 156 legacy of, 157 published books, 157 See also Cosby Show, The Cosby Show, The, 158–161 assimilation and, 539, 658 audience reception studies of, 5 characters and themes, 158 “Cliff in Love” episode, 160 colorblind racism and, 141 colorism and, 147 Diff’rent Strokes and, 157 model minorities stereotype and, 157, 661 1980s television and, 660–663 pluralistic television and, 5 reception and critique, 159–160 “Together Again and Again” episode, 160 “Vanessa’s Rich” episode, 160 Cox, Laverne, 161–163 early career, 161–162 early years, 161 legacy of, 7, 161, 162 in Orange Is the New Black, 162, 517 in TRANSform Me, 161–162 Criminal Minds, 6, 527–528, 532–533, 597, 616 Cristela, 163–164 cancellation of, 164 characters and themes, 163–164 legacy of, 163 reception, 164 Davis, Viola, 165–167 colorism and, 166–167 early years, 165 in How to Get Away with Murder, 165–166, 306–308 legacy of, 166–167 television roles, 165 Daytime Emmys, 167–170 balloting, 169–170 divisions and categories, 167–168 Lucci, Susan, and, 169 notable awardees, 168–169 organization and oversight, 168

Dear White People, 170–173 characters and themes, 170–171 reception and critique, 171–172 Different World, A, 173–177 Allen, Debbie, and, 14–15, 173, 663 characters and themes, 173–176 The Cosby Show and, 173, 174, 175 multicultural television and, 6–7 Diff’rent Strokes, 177–180 blackface and, 69, 451 characters and themes, 177–180 Coleman, Gary, in, 138–139, 177–180, 139, 180, 451, 648, 653–654 coon stereotype and, 69 The Cosby Show and, 157 curse of, 179 legacy of, 138–139, 179, 180 1980s television and, 653–654 1970s television and, 648 Webster and, 180, 653 Doc McStuffins, 180–182 characters and themes, 180–181 legacy of, 181–182 premier, 180 reception, 181 Dora the Explorer, 182–185 awards, 184 characters and themes, 182–183 legacy of, 184 reception and critique, 183–184 Dragon Tales, 115, 117 Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, 185–187 characters and themes, 185–187 ratings, 187 reception and critique, 185–186 Duck Dynasty, 187–190 ratings and viewership, 187–188 reception and critique, 188–189 redneck stereotype and, 188–189 DuVernay, Ava, 190–192 awards, 190 legacy of, 192 Queen Sugar and, 192, 535, 536 in Selma, 190, 191–192 Electric Company, The, 116, 156, 168, 183, 388–389 Emmy Awards, 193–196 Board of Trustees, 193 history and founding, 193 Louie, David, and, 194 programs and scholarships, 193–194

Index 795 representation and, 194–195 See also Daytime Emmys Empire, 196–199 characters and themes, 196–197 history and creation, 196 legacy of, 199 multiculturalism and, 7 ratings, 199 reception and critique, 197–198 Equal Justice, 200–202 Carter, Thomas, and, 200 characters and themes, 200–201 legacy of, 201 premier, 200 ER, 202–205 characters and themes, 202–203 history and creation, 202 Jing-Mei Chen (character), 203 Peter Benton (character), 203 pluralistic television and, 6 “Tribes” episode, 204 “24 Hours” episode, 203–204 Everybody Hates Chris, 205–207 awards, 207 characters and themes, 205–207 pluralistic television and, 6 reception and critique, 205 Eyes on the Prize, 130–131, 207–209 awards, 209 Eyes on the Prize II, 208 history and creation, 207–208 reception and critique, 208–209 Fame, 211–212 Allen, Debbie, in, 14, 211 characters and themes, 211–212 plot structure, 211 Family Matters, 213–215 characters and themes, 213–214 “Fight the Good Fight” episode, 214–215 “Good Cop, Bad Cop” episode, 214 reception and critique, 215 Steve Urkel (character), 213 Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, 91, 156–157, 215–217 characters and themes, 215–216 legacy of, 216–217 reception and critique, 216 Flip Wilson Show, The, 217–220 history and creation, 217–218 reception and critique, 219 structure and themes, 217–218

Food Network, 220–224 Deen, Paula, and, 223–224 race and, 223–224 racial diversity and, 221–222 FOX, 224–228 early years and programs, 224–225 legacy of, 227 In Living Color, 225–226 notable programming, 227 Roc, 225, 227 The Sinbad Show, 226–227 South Central, 227 Foxx, Redd, 228–229 early career, 228–229 early years, 228 Redd Foxx Comedy Hour and, 229 in Sanford and Son, 228–229 Frank’s Place, 230–232 characters and themes, 230–231 reception and critique, 231 Fresh off the Boat, 232–236 characters and themes, 232–234 legacy of, 235 reception and critique, 235 Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The, 236–239 characters and themes, 236–238 legacy of, 239 1990s television and, 668–770 pluralistic television and, 4–5 Smith, Will, in, 236, 238–239 George Lopez Show, The, 241–243 awards, 243 cancellation of, 242–243 characters and themes, 241–242 legacy of, 243 Gimme a Break!, 243–245 Beulah compared to, 244 blackface and, 69, 450 Carter, Nell, in, 1 characters and themes, 243–244 Mammy stereotype in, 1 1980s television and, 656 reception and critique, 244–245 Girlfriends, 245–247 characters and themes, 245–246 pluralistic television and, 6 reception and critique, 246–247 Writer’s Guild of America strike and, 247

796 Index Glee, 247–249 awards, 247 characters and themes, 247–248 reception and critique, 248–249 Gomez, Selena, 249–251 early career, 250 early years, 249–250 in Hannah Montana, 250 legacy of, 251 in Wizards of Waverly Place, 250 Good Times, 251–256 All in the Family and, 16 characters and themes, 251–253 coon stereotype in, 254, 255 Florida Evans (played by Esther Rolle), 146–147, 251–255, 539, 644, 646 legacy of, 255–256 Mammy stereotype in, 1 1970s television and, 645–646 notable cast members and cast changes, 253–255 premier, 251 Greene, Graham, 256–258 awards, 257 early years and early career, 256–257 notable film and television roles, 257 Green Hornet, The, 258–259 characters and themes, 258–259 popularity of, 259 Grey’s Anatomy, 260–262 characters and themes, 260 legacy of, 260 multicultural television and, 7 reception and critique, 260–261 Groundbreaking TV shows, 262–267 Black productions, 263–265 family sitcoms and family dramas, 265–266 integrated communities and interracial kisses, 262–263 race and TV in the twenty-first century, 266–267 Gumbel, Bryant, 268–270 early years and early career, 268 legacy of, 269 Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, 268–269 The Today Show and, 269 Hall, Arsenio, 271–273 The Arsenio Hall Show, 271–272 in Coming to America, 271

early years and early career, 271 legacy of, 272 “Harvest of Shame,” 125, 126, 273–275 history and creation, 273 legacy of, 275 reception and critique, 274–275 themes and interviews, 273–274 Harvey, Steve, 275–277 awards, 277 early years and early career, 276 host of Miss Universe pageant, 276–277 Steve, 276 The Steve Harvey Show, 276 Haves and the Have Nots, The, 277–279 characters and themes, 277–278 ratings and viewership, 277, 278–279 Hawaii Five-O (1968–1980) and Hawaii Five-0 (2010–2020), 279–282 characters and themes, 280 legacy of, 282 original show, 279–281 reboot, 281–282 HBO, 282–288 legacy of, 287 1990s, 283–285 2000s, 285–287 Hip-hop, 288–293 history of, 288–289 Making the Band 2 and, 291 New York Undercover and, 290 Platinum and, 291 Rap City: The Basement, 290 reality television and, 291–292 See also Yo! MTV Raps Holocaust on American television, 293–297 Anne Frank: The Whole Story, 295 fiction, 296–297 Holocaust (miniseries), 293 miniseries, 293–296 Playhouse 90, 294, 295 Playing for Time, 294 Studio One, 295–296 The Winds of War (miniseries), 293–294 Horror shows on television, 297–304 Angel, 299–300 anthology shows, 298 Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 299 From Dusk Till Dawn, 303 history of, 297–298 legacy of anthology shows, 298 Sleepy Hollow, 303

Index 797 Southern Gothic, 301 Supernatural, 300 Teen Wolf, 301 Tituba in, 302 True Blood, 302–303 Twin Peaks, 298–299 The Vampire Diaries, 301 The Walking Dead, 300–301 The X-Files, 298–299 House M.D., 304–306 characters and themes, 304–306 reception and critique, 306 How to Get Away with Murder, 306–308 characters and themes, 306–308 Davis, Viola, in, 165–166, 306–308 multicultural television and, 7 premier, 306 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, 309–311 characters and themes, 309–310 reception and critique, 309–310 I Love Lucy, 311–313 Arnaz, Desi, in, 41–42, 68, 311–312, 374–375, 376, 589 Ball, Lucille, in, 311–312 characters and themes, 311–312 legacy of, 312 In Living Color, 313–317 colorism and, 147–148 FOX and, 225–226 Lopez, Jennifer, in, 411–412 multiculturalism and, 6 musical and dance performances, 314 name of, 313 1990s television, 668, 669 parodies, 314–315, 316 Wayans Brothers and, 313–316, 717–719 Insecure, 317–320 characters and themes, 317–319 history and creation, 317 premier, 317 Rae, Issa, and, 317, 319 reception and critique, 319–320 In the Heat of the Night, 320–322 characters and themes, 320–322 legacy of, 322 Virgil Tibbs (character), 321 I Spy, 322–324 awards, 322–323 characters and themes, 323 reception and critique, 323–324

Italians, Italian Americans, and television, 324–330 fifties and sixties, 325 race and commercial success on Italian television, 328–329 roots of racial representations, 325 seventies and eighties, 325–326 towards a new millennium, 326–328 Jane the Virgin, 331–333 characters and themes, 331–332 reception and critique, 331–332 Rodriguez, Gina, and, 332 Jeffersons, The, 333–339 characters and themes, 334–336 history and creation, 334 1970s television and, 646–647 reception and critique, 336–338 theme song, 334–335 Jews and television, 339–357 anti-Semitism, 348–352 assimilation and, 339, 340, 341, 344, 346–348, 356 Holocaust, 352–354 immigrant experience, 344–348 Israel, 354–356 religiosity, 339–344 Jezebel stereotype and trope, 2, 10, 147, 448–449, 454, 698 Johnson, Lyndon, 132, 275, 486 Jones, James Earl, 357–359 awards, 357, 358 early years, 357 education, 357 in Gabriel’s Fire, 358 legacy of, 358 in Under One Roof, 358 Julia, 359–361 awards, 361 Carroll, Diahan, in, 89–90, 129–130, 135, 140, 146, 165, 218, 359, 360–361, 616–617 characters and themes, 359–360 reception and critique, 360 Keeping Up with the Kardashians, 363–365 cultural importance of, 363–364 history and creation, 363 legacy of, 365 reception and critique, 363 spinoffs, 365

798 Index Kenan & Kel, 366–367 awards, 367 characters and themes, 366–367 legacy of, 367 Key & Peele, 367–369 characters and themes, 368–369 history and creation, 367–368 legacy of, 369 studio audience aspect, 368 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 82, 97, 123, 124, 126–127, 128–129, 208, 264, 487, 578 Kung Fu, 370–371 characters and themes, 370 history and origins, 370–371 legacy of, 371 yellowface and, 370 Latinx communities and television, 373–394 children’s and teen television, 388–389 drama, 380–385 online offerings, new directions, and future of Latinx television, 391–392 science fiction, 385–386 situation comedies, 374–379 Spanish-language and bilingual networks, 389–390 telenovelas, 386–388 variety shows, sketch comedy, and talk shows, 379–380 Law & Order, 394–399 characters and themes, 395–399 Exiled: A Law & Order Movie, 394 history and creation, 395 Law & Order: Criminal Intent, 394, 397 Law & Order: LA, 394 Law & Order: SVU, 6, 161, 165, 394, 395, 396, 397, 398, 399 Law & Order: Trial by Jury, 394 Law & Order: True Crime, 394 pluralistic television and, 6 reception and critique, 399 Lee, Bruce, 399–401 early career, 400 early years, 400 in The Green Hornet, 258–259, 400–401 legacy of, 399, 401 Legacy, 383, 611 Leguizamo, John, 401–403 awards, 402 early years, 401–402

education and early career, 402 in ER, 403 Liu, Lucy, 403–405 activism of, 404–405 in Ally McBeal, 404 early years, 403 education and early career, 403–404 Living Single, 405–407 cancellation of, 407 characters and themes, 405–406 reception and critique, 406–407 Longoria, Eva, 407–409 in Desperate Housewives, 407–408 in Devious Maids, 408–409 directing and producing career, 409 early career, 407 early years and education, 407 Lopez, George, 409–411 early career, 410 early years, 409–410 The George Lopez Show, 241–243, 410–411 legacy of, 411 Lopez, Jennifer, 411–413 American Idol and, 411, 412 early career, 412 early years, 412 in In Living Color, 411–412 Luke Cage, 413–416 African American cultural references, 414–415 cultural impact of, 415 reception and critique, 415 themes, 413–414 Mad Men, 417–420 characters and themes, 417–418 reception and critique, 418–419 Weiner, Matthew, and, 417 Magnum, P.I., 420–423 characters and themes, 420–421 legacy of, 420 reception and critique, 420–422 Mammy stereotype, 1, 3, 8, 10, 28, 60, 146–147, 175, 244, 448, 450, 454, 653 Marin, Cheech, 423–425 Cheech & Chong, 423–424 early career, 423–424 early years and education, 423 legacy of, 424–425 television roles, 424

Index 799 Martin, 425–427 characters and themes, 425–426 hip-hop aesthetic and, 426 in popular culture and fashion, 427 reception and critique, 426–427 M*A*S*H, 427–430 Asian characters in, 428–429 characters and themes, 428–429 love and, 429 premiere, 427–428 reception and critique, 427–428 success of, 427–428 “The Chosen People” episode, 429 Master of None, 430–433 Ansari, Aziz, in, 31, 430–431, 621, 623, 713 characters and themes, 430–432 “First Date” episode, 432 “Parents” episode, 431–432 “Thanksgiving” episode, 432 Waithe, Lena, in, 430, 713 Miami Vice, 433–435 characters and themes, 433–434 legacy of, 435 Reagan administration and, 433 reception and critique, 434–435 Mind of Mencia, 435–437 assimilation and, 436–437 Chappelle’s Show and, 435–436 characters and themes, 436–437 reception and critique, 435–436 Mindy Project, The, 437–440 assimilation and, 438–439 characters and themes, 437–439 model minorities stereotype and, 437–438 premier, 437 reception and critique, 438–440 Miniseries, 440–445 American West, 443–444 Backstairs at the White House, 441 Centennial, 443 The Corner, 442 encountering Asia, 444–445 Generation Kill, 444 illuminating Blackness, 440–443 Lonesome Dove, 443 The Pacific, 444–445 The People vs. O. J. Simpson, 442–443 Roots, 440–441, 442 Roots: The Next Generations, 441 Shaka Zulu, 441–442

Shōgun, 445 Into the West, 444 Minstrelsy, 446–453 Blackface minstrelsy in television, 449–451 Chappelle’s Show and, 451–452 legacy of, 452 origins and history, 446–447 role and structure of minstrel shows, 447–448 stereotypical caricatures, 448–449 See also Blackface Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, 453–455 characters and themes, 453–454 hip-hop and, 455 legacy of, 455 reception, 455 Mission Impossible, 4, 42, 134, 135, 323, 359, 601, 635 Model minorities stereotype Asian Americans and, 20–21, 43, 46–47, 109, 437–438, 622–623 The Cosby Show and, 157, 661 The Mindy Project and, 437–438 sidekicks and, 467 Mod Squad, 456–457 characters and themes, 456–457 reception and critique, 457 Morita, Noriyuki “Pat,” 457–460 early years, 457–458 in Happy Days, 458 internment of Japanese Americans and, 457–458 in The Karate Kid, 457, 459 in M*A*S*H, 458 in Mr. T and Tina, 458 in The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo, 459 in Ohara, 458–459 Multiculturalism children’s television, 111–112, 113, 115, 116, 118, 183, 502–504, 588 A Different World and, 6–7 Duck Dynasty as response to, 189–190 Empire and, 7 Firefly and, 773 Frank’s Place and, 6 Glee and, 247 The Good Place and, 675–676 Grey’s Anatomy and, 7, 688 How To Get Away with Murder and, 7 Kenan & Kel and, 367

800 Index Multiculturalism (Continued ) Latinx communities and, 374, 389 Lee, Bruce, and, 400 In Living Color and, 6 Lone Ranger (2003) and, 729–730 Miami Vice and, 433 multicultural television, 6–7 Ni Hao, Kai Lan and, 502–504 1980s television and, 649 Orange Is the New Black and, 7, 531 Rhimes, Shonda, and, 7 Roc and, 6 Scandal and, 7 Scrubs and, 674 Sesame Street and, 588 Star Trek and, 628, 630, 632 2000s television and, 674, 675–676, 688 Webster and, 720, 721 Welcome Back, Kotter and, 723 Into the West and, 444 Westerns and, 729–730, 732, 733 Winfrey, Oprah, and, 7 wrestling and, 763 yellowface and, 773, 775 Yo! MTV Raps and, 773, 775 Murphy, Eddie, 460–462 in Beverly Hills Cop, 460 early years, 460 legacy of, 462 in The PJs, 461 The Royal Family and, 461 on Saturday Night Live, 460–461 Native Americans and television, 463–481 actors, 477–478 audience, 468–469 challenges, 466–468 inclusion of Native Americans in television, 470–474 invisibility and representation, 464–466 local news, 478–480 real-world influences, 469–470 shows, 474–477 Native American Television (NATV), 481–485 educational and training programs, 482–483, 484 history and founding, 481–482 notable board members, 483 original mission, 482

News media, 485–493 diversity in, 489–490 impact of news structural changes on nightly coverage, 490–492 television and shaping perception of race and crime, 488–489 New Television, 493–499 cable television as New Television, 493–494 current and future state of streaming, 497–498 move to Worldwide Web from cable, 495–497 Worldwide Web and, 494–495 Night Of, The, 499–502 Ahmed, Riz, in, 499 characters and themes, 499–501 reception and critique, 501–502 Ni Hao, Kai Lan, 502–504 multiculturalism and, 502–504 reception and critique, 503–504 Northern Exposure, 504–507 characters and themes, 504–506 filming in Alaska, 505 reception and critique, 506–507 NYPD Blue, 6, 165, 358, 382, 404, 528, 611, 612 Obama, Barack, election of, 509–512 campaign strategies, 510–511 Democratic National Convention address (2004), 509–510 elected to U.S. Senate, 510 election-night rally and victory speech, 511 presidential election of 2008, 510–511 One Day at a Time (2017–), 512–515 characters and themes, 513–514 Cuban American migration and, 514 reception and critique, 512–513 Open Mind (Metromedia television show), 127 Orange Is the New Black, 515–518 characters and themes, 515–516 Cox, Laverne, in, 162, 517 legacy of, 517 multiculturalism and, 7, 531 multicultural television and, 7 reception and critique, 516–517 white supremacy depicted in, 188, 531

Index 801 Orientalism cartoons and, 94 definition of, 619 Firefly and, 730 Homeland and, 685 Make Room for Daddy and, 35 neo-Orientalism, 404 in police, detective, and crime dramas, 531 post-9/11 television and, 684–685 Quantico and, 619 Saturday Night Live and, 773 Sleeper Cell and, 684, 685 Sons of Anarchy and, 684 South Asians and television, 619, 620 Star Trek and, 630, 631, 635, 770 Threat Matrix and, 684 24 and, 684–685 2000s television and, 684–685, 689 The Wanted and, 684 yellowface and, 769–770, 773, 775 Oz, 518–520 characters and themes, 518–519 legacy of, 520 reception and critique, 518–520 Perry, Tyler, 521–523 early years, 521 The Haves and the Have Nots, 522–523 in House of Payne, 522 If Loving You Is Wrong and, 522–523 Oprah Winfrey Network and, 522 playwright and filmmaking career, 521 television career, 521–522 Tyler Perry Studios, 523 Pluralism, integrationist liberal, 568 Pluralistic television, 4–6 The Cosby Show, 5 The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and, 4–5 Webster and, 4 Police, detective, and crime dramas, 523–534 Brooklyn Nine-Nine, 525 consequences of police, detective, and crime dramas, 532–533 crime television, 530–531 diversity and representation of race and ethnicity, 524 fictional police and detective television, 527–530 programs, 525–531 reality television, 526–527

Quantico, 40, 618, 619–620 Queen Sugar, 535–537 characters and themes, 535–536 DuVernay, Ava, and, 192, 535, 536 legacy of, 536 premier, 535–536 Racial comity, 5 Rashad, Phylicia, 539–541 awards, 540 in The Cosby Show, 539–540 early years, 539 in Empire, 540 legacy of, 540 Reagan, Nancy, 178, 433 Reagan, Ronald, 649 Reagan, Ronald, administration, 2, 140, 421, 433, 539, 630, 720 Reaganstruction, 649, 655, 661, 662 Reality television, 541–552 ethnic stereotypes, 547 origins, 542 race and courtroom drama, 548–549 racial stereotypes, 543–547 Whiteness and television, 543 White trash, 547–548 Redface, 552–556 in film and television, 553–556 origins and definitions, 552–553 Rhimes, Shonda, 556–559 awards, 558 blindcasting and, 142–143, 557 critiques of, 557–558 early careers, 557 early years and education, 556 multiculturalism and, 7 Scandal and, 571, 573 2000s television and, 686–688 Roc, 559–561 Black-ish and, 561 characters and themes, 559–561 legacy of, 561 multiculturalism and, 6 1990s television and, 670 Rock, Chris, 561–563 The Chris Rock Show, 562 early career, 562 early years and education, 561–562 Everybody Hates Chris, 205–207, 563 influences on, 563 on Saturday Night Live, 562

802 Index Roots, 564–567 history of miniseries and, 440–441, 442 legacy of, 564–566 Queen, 566 Roots: The Gift, 566 Roots: The Next Generations, 14, 90, 358, 441, 566 RuPaul, 567–568 early career, 568 early years, 567 legacy of, 568 RuPaul’s Drag Race, 567–568 stages of drag, 567–568 Sambo stereotype and archetype, 3, 91, 93, 216, 426, 449 Sanford and Son, 569–571 All in the Family and, 569–570 characters and themes, 569–571 Sapphire (Matriarch) stereotype in, 1 Steptoe and Son and, 569, 645 Sapphire (Matriarch) stereotype, 1, 10, 27, 28, 286, 426, 448–449, 454, 539, 549 Scandal, 571–574 characters and themes, 573–575 legacy of, 573 reception and awards, 573 Rhimes, Shonda, and, 571, 573 Science-fiction shows on television, 574–584 contemporary programs, 581–584 defining science fiction, 574–575 Star Trek, 578–581 The Twilight Zone, 576–577 Seinfeld, 6, 69, 343–344, 346, 379, 420, 608 Sesame Street, 584–588 Children’s Television Workshop and, 115, 116, 118 Cooney, Joan Ganz, and, 112, 115, 584–585 history and creation, 584–585 history of children’s television and, 112–113 reception and critique, 585–588 Sexism and television, 588–600 broadcast journalism, 594—595 family and gender role socialization, 590 gender stereotypes and sexism, 590–591 resistance to sexism in television, 598–600

sitcoms, 595–598 television advertisements, 591–594 Sheen, Martin, 600–603 activism of, 602 awards, 602 early years and early career, 601 legacy of, 602 in The West Wing, 600, 601–602, 736 Simpson, O. J., 603–606 acting career, 604 conviction for armed robbery, 605 early years, 603 football career, 603 trial of, 603, 604–605 Sitcom, 606–610 Civil Rights era, 607 definition of, 606 early history, 606–607 network era of, 607–608 1990s and, 608 streaming and digital services, 609 Tandem Productions and, 607–608 Smits, Jimmy, 610–612 awards, 612 early years and education, 610 in L. A. Law, 610–611 legacy of, 611–612 in NYPD Blue, 611 in The West Wing, 382, 611, 612, 737 Soap operas, 612–618 All My Children, 615 early milestones, 613–615 prime-time shows, 616–617 serial melodrama, 613 The Young and the Restless, 615–616 Social identity theory, 113–114 South Asians and television, 618–625 exoticism and love-interest, 619–620 Orientalism, 619 representation, 622–624 risk-taking, 622 transcending race, 620–622 tropes, 619–622 South Central, 625–627 cancellation of, 627 characters and themes, 626–627 history and creation, 625–626 legacy of, 627 Star Trek, 627–633 The Animated Series, 580, 627 Deep Space Nine, 385, 580, 627, 632–633, 672

Index 803 Enterprise, 385, 627, 632 first televised interracial kiss, 579, 629 history of science fiction television and, 578–581 legacy of, 633 The Next Generation, 86–87, 580, 627, 630–632 The Original Series, 574, 577, 578–581, 627–632 Roddenberry, Gene, and, 578–579, 628, 635 Voyager, 580–581, 627, 632 Symbolic annihilation, 108, 110, 470 Takei, George, 635–637 activism of, 636 early career, 635 early years, 635, 636 internment of Japanese Americans and, 635, 636 legacy of, 636 in Star Trek, 635–636 Telemundo, 637–640 history and founding, 637 NBC Universo, 637–638 response to demographic shifts, 638–639 response to digitalization and globalization, 638 social media and, 638 Telemundo Africa, 638 The 1970s, 640–649 Diff’rent Strokes, 648 Good Times, 645–646 The Jeffersons, 646–647 Sanford and Son, 644–645 Tandem Productions, 641–647 The 1980s, 649–667 assimilation, 652, 658, 662, 663 The Cosby Show, 660–663 A Different World, 663–664 Diff’rent Strokes, 653–654 Frank’s Place, 664–666 Gimme a Break!, 656 The Jeffersons, 651–652 television news, 657–660 Webster, 654–656 The 1990s, 668–673 All-American Girl, 670 Angel, 671 Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 671, 672

The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, 668–770 House of Buggin’, 670 In Living Color, 668, 669 Martin, 669–670 Moesha, 671, 672 representation, 671 Roc, 670 Spawn, 671 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, 672 stereotypes, 670, 672–673 Strapped, 671 WB, 670–671 The 2000s, 673–691 fantasy genre and diversity, 677–681 reality TV and racism, 676–677 Shonda Rhimes era, 686–688 sitcom and stereotypes, 674–676 White antiheroes and Orientalism, 682–686 3-2-1 Contact, 115, 116–117 Trump, Donald, 72, 76, 548, 677, 702, 744 227, 691–693 cancellation of, 692 characters and themes, 691–692 name of, 691 reception and ratings, 692 Ugly Betty, 695–697 characters and themes, 695–696 reception and awards, 696 Yo soy Betty, la Fea (La Betty) and, 695–696, 697 Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Stowe), 92, 448 Uncle Tom stereotype and archetype in Amos ‘n’ Andy, 27, 28 in cartoons, 92, 95, 449 in Underground, 698–699 Underground, 697–700 cancellation of, 699 characters and themes, 697–699 soundtrack, 698 Uncle Tom stereotype and archetype in, 698–699 Underground Railroad, 174–175 Univision, 700–703 financial difficulties, 701–702 livestream networks, 702 Ramos, Jorge, and, 702 sale to Hallmark, 701

804 Index UPN, 703–707 America’s Next Top Model and, 53–54, 55, 676–677, 706 critique and controversy, 705 early years, 704 Everybody Hates Chris and, 706 Girlfriends and, 706 Half & Half and, 706 history and founding, 703 Homeboys and, 705 Moesha and, 626, 669, 671, 672, 704, 705–706 The Parkers and, 705–706 The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer and, 705 Star Trek: Voyager and, 580–581, 627, 632, 633, 672, 680, 688, 704 Vergara, Sofia, 709–711 awards, 378 colorism and, 146, 148 controversy, 710 early years and early career, 709 Latinx community and, 374, 377–378, 383 legacy of, 710 in Modern Family, 84, 374, 377–378, 383, 596, 675, 709–710 Waithe, Lena, 713–715 awards, 713–714 The Chi and, 100–102, 713 early years and education, 713 in Master of None, 430, 713 Waters, Ethel, 715–717 in Beulah, 60, 89, 716 early years and early career, 715 The Ethel Waters Show, 715 film career, 716 legacy of, 716–717 in Route 66, 716 Wayans Brothers, The, 717–719 FOX and, 225–226 Keenan, Damon, 226, 313, 314, 315, 316, 411, 412, 555, 717–718 legacy of, 719 Wayans, Keenan Ivory, 225, 226, 314, 411, 412, 562, 717–718 The Wayans Brothers, 225–226, 316, 670, 718, 719 See also In Living Color

Webster, 719–721 characters and themes, 719–720 Diff’rent Strokes and, 180, 653 “Katherine’s Swan Song” episode, 720 Lewis, Emmanuel, in, 653, 654, 719–720 1980s television and, 654–656 pluralistic television and, 4 reception and critique, 720–721 stereotyping and, 721 “Webster Long: Part 1” episode, 721 Welcome Back, Kotter, 722–724 characters and themes, 722–723 legacy of, 723–724 Welfare Mother/Queen stereotype and trope, 1–2, 8, 448–449, 549, 651, 659–660 Westerns, 724–736 history and definitions, 724–727 mixed genres, 731–733 revisionism, 727–729 youth in the West, 729–731 West Wing, The, 736–740 characters and themes, 736–739 “Isaac and Ishmael” episode, 738–739 Latinx community and, 382 “Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics” episode, 737–738 post-9/11 television and, 37–38, 738–739 reception and critique, 737 Sheen, Martin, in, 600, 601–602, 736 Smits, Jimmy, in, 382, 611, 612, 737 “The Supremes” episode, 737 What’s Happening!! / What’s Happening Now!!, 425, 740–742 characters and themes, 740–741 Mammy stereotype in, 1 What’s Happening!!, 740–741 What’s Happening Now!!, 741–742 Whiteness, 742–752 The Brady Bunch, 744–745 elevating Whiteness as perfection through family sitcoms, 743–745 elevating Whiteness by hiding the erasure of others, 748–750 Friends, 748–749 Leave It to Beaver, 743–744 reinforcing Whiteness through return to minstrelsy, 746–748 Sex and the City, 749–750 The Simpsons, 746–748

Index 805 White Shadow, The, 752–755 “Airball” episode, 754 “Albert Hodges” episode, 754 characters and themes, 752 legacy of, 754–755 White savior trope and, 753 White supremacy Charleston church shooting (2015) and, 50 colorism, 144, 145 depicted in Chappelle’s Show, 97 depicted in Law & Order, 352 depicted in Orange Is the New Black, 188, 531 depicted in Oz, 518, 519 depicted in Sam Benedict, 350 depicted in The Defenders, 350 depicted in Underground, 699 Mammy stereotype and, 716 murder of Emmett Till and, 122 news media coverage of, 122 reality television and, 542, 543 as theme in Eyes on the Prize, 208 as theme in Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Stowe), 699 as theme in The West Wing, 737–738 Whiteness and, 742–743, 745, 747 White savior in education and, 753 Winfrey, Oprah, 755–758 Book Club, 756–757 early career, 755 early years and education, 755 The Oprah Winfrey Show, 140, 521, 755–756 O: The Oprah Magazine, 757 Oxygen Media, 756 Wire, The, 758–761 as groundbreaking television series, 266 HBO and, 284–285, 287, 494 miniseries and, 442 reception and critique, 685–686, 759, 760 season five, 759–760 season four, 759 season one, 759, 760 season three, 759

season two, 759 Simon, David, and, 266, 685, 758, 760 themes, 758–759 2000s television and, 685 White men as primary audience for, 682 Wrestling, 761–767 anti-Oceanian racism and, 765 Blackface and, 69–70 early television years (1950s–1970s), 761–763 ethnic and culture identities and, 761–763 Hassan, Muhammad, controversy of, 766 multiculturalism and, 763 1980s–present, 763–766 stereotypes and, 763–764, 765, 766 telecommunications technology and, 763 Yellowface, 769–775 The Adventures of Dr. Fu Manchu and, 769 The Adventures of Jonny Quest and, 769–770 All-American Girl and, 13 Asian Americans and television, 43, 45–46 early history, 769–770 Kung Fu and, 370 ninja revival and yellowface (seventies to nineties), 770–772 Orientalism and, 769–770, 773, 775 post-sixties yellowface, 770 present day, 772–774 rise in animated yellowface for children, 772 tolerating yellowface, 774–775 Yellow Voice, 45–46 Yo! MTV Raps, 775–778 final episode, 777 history and origins, 776–777 hosts, 289, 776, 777 legacy of, 289, 777 reception, 289, 775–776