Watching While Black: Centering the Television of Black Audiences

Book

Watching While Black

Centering the Television of Black Audiences

Edited by: Beretta E. Smith-Shomade
With contributions by: Robin Means Coleman , Andre Cavalcante , Kristen J. Warner , Christine Acham , Devorah Heitner , TreaAndrea M. Russworm , Jennifer Fuller , Kim M. LeDuff , Racquel Gates , Nghana Lewis , Mark D. Cunningham , Deborah Elizabeth Whaley , Reighan Gillam , Nsenga Burton , Timothy Havens and Eric Pierson

Language: English

Published/Copyright: 2013

Published by

View more publications by Rutgers University Press

To Publisher Page

About this book

Television scholarship has substantially ignored programming aimed at Black audiences despite a few sweeping histories and critiques. In this volume, the first of its kind, contributors examine the televisual diversity, complexity, and cultural imperatives manifest in programming directed at a Black and marginalized audience.

Watching While Black considers its subject from an entirely new angle in an attempt to understand the lives, motivations, distinctions, kindred lines, and individuality of various Black groups and suggest what television might be like if such diversity permeated beyond specialized enclaves. It looks at the macro structures of ownership, producing, casting, and advertising that all inform production, and then delves into television programming crafted to appeal to black audiences—historic and contemporary, domestic and worldwide.

Chapters rethink such historically significant programs as Roots and Black Journal, such seemingly innocuous programs as Fat Albert and bro’Town, and such contemporary and culturally complicated programs as Noah’s Arc, Treme, and The Boondocks. The book makes a case for the centrality of these programs while always recognizing the racial dynamics that continue to shape Black representation on the small screen. Painting a decidedly introspective portrait across forty years of Black television, Watching While Black sheds much-needed light on under-examined demographics, broadens common audience considerations, and gives deference to the the preferences of audiences and producers of Black-targeted programming.

Author / Editor information

BERETTA E. SMITH-SHOMADE is an associate professor and chair of the communication department at Tulane University. She is the author of Shaded Lives: African-American Women and Television (Rutgers University Press) and Pimpin Ain’t Easy: Selling Black Entertainment Television.

Reviews

"An important contribution to the scholarship on black television representations, Watching While Black fills a gap in the literature by placing recent shows aimed at black audiences front and center."

— Darnell M. Hunt, editor of Channeling Blackness: Studies on Television and Race in America

"Reading this collection is like channel surfing and landing on the black spaces. This is what television scholarship looks like and the televisual experience feels like when the fullness of black life is made central to television."

— Herman Gray, University of California, Santa Cruz

"Beretta E. Smith-Shomade has assembled a timely, necessary contribution to and intervention within the literature on television and blackness."

— Cinema Journal

"This well-written volume should appeal not only to historians of African American experience, but also Black Studies scholars and those in contemporary Media Studies."

— Journal of African America History

Topics

Cultural Studies Cultural Theory General Cultural Theory

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction: I See Black People Beretta E. Smith-Shomade Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	1
PART I. PRODUCING BLACKNESS
1. The Importance of Roots Eric Pierson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	19
2. Two Different Worlds: Television as a Producer’s Medium Robin R. Means Coleman and Andre M. Cavalcante Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	33
3. A Black Cast Doesn’t Make a Black Show: City of Angels and the Plausible Deniability of Color-blindness Kristen J. Warner Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	49
4. Blacks in the Future: Braving the Frontier of the Web Series Christine Acham Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	63
PART II. BLACKNESS ON DEMAND
5. “Regular Television Put to Shame by Negro Production”: Picturing a Black World on Black Journal Devorah Heitner Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	77
6. “HEY, HEY, HEY!” Bill Cosby’s Fat Albert as Psychodynamic Postmodern Play Treaandrea M. Russworm Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	89
7. Gimme a Break! and the Limits of the Modern Mammy Jennifer Fuller Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	105
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 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	121
PART III. NEW JACK BLACK
9. Keepin’ It Reality Television Racquel Gates Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	141
10. Prioritized: The Hip Hop (Re)Construction of Black Womanhood in Girlfriends and The Game Nghana Lewis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	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 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	172
12. Graphic Blackness/Anime Noir: Aaron McGruder’s The Boondocks and the Adult Swim Deborah Elizabeth Whaley Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	187
PART IV. WORLDWIDE BLACKNESS
13. Resistance Televised: The TV da Gente Television Network and Brazilian Racial Politics Reighan Alexandra Gillam Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	207
14. South African Soapies: A “Rainbow Nation” Realized? Nsenga K. Burton Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	220
15. Minority Television Trade as Cultural Journey: The Case of New Zealand’s bro’Town Timothy Havens Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	232
Notes on Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	247
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	251

Publishing information

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

eBook published on:

January 10, 2013

eBook ISBN:

9780813553887

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

Main content:

280

Other:

33 photographs

https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813553887

eBook ISBN: 9780813553887

Audience(s) for this book

Professional and scholarly;

Watching While Black

Overview

About this book

Author / Editor information

Reviews

Topics

Table of contents

Bibliographic data