Watching While Black: Centering the Television of Black Audiences PDF
Preview Watching While Black: Centering the Television of Black Audiences
WATCHING WHILE BLACK This page intentionally left blank WATCHING WHILE BLACK Centering the Television of Black Audiences edited by beretta e. smith-shomade rutgers university press New Brunswick, New Jersey and London Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Watching while black : centering the television of black audiences / edited by Beretta E. Smith-Shomade. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8135-5387-0(hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8135-5386-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8135-5388-7(e-book) 1. African Americans on television. 2. African American television viewers. 3. Television broadcasting—Social aspects—United States. I. Smith-Shomade, Beretta E., 1965– PN1992.8.A34W38 2012 791.45(cid:2)08996073—dc23 2012005040 A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. This collection copyright © 2012by Rutgers, The State University Individual chapters copyright © 2012in the names of their authors All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permis- sion from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106 Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law. Visit our website: http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu Manufactured in the United States of America For Teshome Gabriel Thank you This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgments — ix Introduction: I See Black People beretta e. smith-shomade — 1 Part I Producing Blackness 1 The Importance of Roots eric pierson — 19 2 Two Different Worlds: Television as a Producer’s Medium robin r. means coleman and andre m. cavalcante — 33 3 A Black Cast Doesn’t Make a Black Show: City of Angelsand the Plausible Deniability of Color-blindness kristen j. warner — 49 4 Blacks in the Future: Braving the Frontier of the Web Series christine acham — 63 Part II Blackness on Demand 5 “Regular Television Put to Shame by Negro Production”: Picturing a Black World on Black Journal devorah heitner — 77 6 “HEY, HEY, HEY!” Bill Cosby’s Fat Albert as Psychodynamic Postmodern Play treaandrea m. russworm — 89 7 Gimme a Break!and the Limits of the Modern Mammy jennifer fuller — 105 vii viii contents 8 Down in the Treme... Buck Jumping and Having Fun?: The Impact of Depictions of Post-Katrina New Orleans on Viewers’ Perceptions of the City kim m. leduff — 121 Part III New Jack Black 9 Keepin’ It Reality Television racquel gates — 141 10 Prioritized: The Hip Hop (Re)Construction of Black Womanhood in Girlfriendsand The Game nghana lewis — 157 11 Nigger, Coon, Boy, Punk, Homo, Faggot, Black Man: Reconsidering Established Interpretations of Masculinity, Race, and Sexuality Through Noah’s Arc mark d. cunningham — 172 12 Graphic Blackness/Anime Noir: Aaron McGruder’s The Boondocksand the Adult Swim deborah elizabeth whaley — 187 Part IV Worldwide Blackness 13 Resistance Televised: The TV da Gente Television Network and Brazilian Racial Politics reighan alexandra gillam — 207 14 South African Soapies: A “Rainbow Nation” Realized? nsenga k. burton — 220 15 Minority Television Trade as Cultural Journey: The Case of New Zealand’s bro’Town timothy havens — 232 Notes on Contributors — 247 Index — 251 Acknowledgments The space between when you conceive a project and its fruition can sometimes be a long one. Such is the case with this anthology. I thank the two anonymous readers for their support and critical insights into the workings of the articles and the book as a whole. Your critiques have made the work much stronger. I appreciate my wonderful and patient press editors as well, Leslie Mitchner and Lisa Boyajian, who persevered even when I made their lives admittedly, a bit difficult. Thank you. I thank my Tulane Sistah Circle writing group, Katie Acosta, Rebecca Chaisson, and Nghana Lewis, for their support and encouragement, critique and response. With hectic lives and even more hectic commitments, you find time to share your wisdom and yourselves. For this, I’m very grateful. I thank Bambi Haggins and Deborah Elizabeth Whaley for their constant intellectual support and Oyinlola Longe for her hard work. I thank Timothy Rodriguez for finding stills for the book and India Cooper for her meticulous copyediting. I thank my children and husband for their constant patience with and support of me in doing “mommy’s work,” especially when I’m cranky in the morning after staying up way too late. I especially appreciate my husband’s willingness to continue membership in the honeydo club! Finally, I offer many thanks to all of the smart, engaged and wonderful contributors of this text. I appreciate each of you for not only the hard work and necessary engagement with your chapters but for allowing me to ask, and ask, and ask for more and for giving it back to me with such grace and good spirit. I thank you all for your constant encouragement and for being stalwart in your tasks. In the process of putting this book together, we lost a most generous spirit and guiding force for so many of us, Dr. Teshome Gabriel. While I will never be able to replicate his mastery of touch and the word, I dedicate this book to him to remember and constantly return to the magic that he shared and he was. ix
The list of books you might like
