African Americans on Television

Race-ing for Ratings

David J. Leonard, Lisa Guerrero, David J. Leonard, Lisa Guerrero

• Publisher: Praeger
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9780275995140
• eBook ISBN:
  9780275995157
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Television

A comprehensive look at the history of African Americans on television that discusses major trends in black TV and examines the broader social implications of the relationship between race and popular culture as well as race and representation.

Previous treatments of the history of African Americans in television have largely lacked theoretical analysis of the relationship between representations and social contexts. African Americans on Television: Race-ing for Ratings fills the existing void by supplying fundamental history with critical analyses of the racial politics of television, documenting the considerable effect that television has had on popular notions of black identity in America since the inception of television.

Covering a spectrum of genres—comedy, drama, talk shows, television movies, variety shows, and reality television, including shows such as Good Times, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and Chappelle's Show—this insightful work traces a cultural genealogy of African Americans in television. Its chronological analysis provides an engaging historical account of how African Americans entered the genre of television and have continued to play a central role in the development of both the medium and the industry. The book also tracks the shift in the significance of African Americans in the television market and industry, and the changing, but enduring, face of stereotypes and racism in American television culture.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Our Regularly Scheduled Program
• 1. Consciousness on Television: Black Power and Mainstream Narratives
• 2. An Interview with John Amos
• 3. Looking for Lionel: Making Whiteness and Blackness in All in the Family and The Jeffersons
• 4. What’s Your Name? Roots, Race, and Popular Memory in Post–Civil Rights America
• 5. More Serious than Money: On Our Gang, Diff ’rent Strokes, and Webster
• 6. Post-racial, Post–Civil Rights: The Cosby Show and the National Imagination
• 7. A Different Sort of Blackness: A Different World in a Post-Cosby Landscape
• 8. Just Another Family Comedy: Family Matters and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
• 9. Single Black Female: Representing the Modern Black Woman in Living Single
• 10. The Black Family in the New Millennium: The Bernie Mac Show, My Wife and Kids, and Everybody Hates Chris
• 11. Blackness and Children’s Programming: Sesame Street, A.N.T. Farm, and The LeBrons
• 12. “Black” Comedy: The Serious Business of Humor in In Living Color, Chappelle’s Show, and The Boondocks
• 13. Selling Blackness: Commercials + Hip-Hop Athletes Hocking Products
• 14. The Queen of Television: Oprah Winfrey in Relation to Self and as a Cultural Icon
• 15. Tyler Perry Takes Over TV
• 16. B(l)ack in the Kitchen: Food Network
• 17. Ratchet Responsibility: The Struggle of Representation and Black Entertainment Television
• 18. White Authorship and the Counterfeit Politics of Verisimilitude on The Wire
• 19. Representations of Representation: Urban Life and Media in Season Five of The Wire
• 20. La-La’s Fundamental Rupture: True Blood’s Lafayette and the Deconstruction of Normal
• 21. Can the Black Woman Shout? A Meditation on “Real” and Utopian Depictions of African American Women on Scripted Television
• 22. Scandal and Black Women in Television
• 23. “Get a Crew . . . And Make It Happen”: The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl and New Media’s Potential for Self-Definition
• 24. Performing “Blackness”: Barack Obama, Sport, and the Mediated Politics of Identity
• Epilogue: “New Normal” in American Television? Race, Gender, Blackness, and the New Racism
• About the Editors and Contributors
• Index