Politics of Representation in Network Television

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Politics of Representation in Network Television

• Herman Gray

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• Outlines the representations of blacks on network
  television from their early offensive roots to
  contemporary depictions.
• Discusses comedies centering around black people
  and families and that he believes that
  contemporary representations remain in dialogue
  with and only now have begun to transcend this
  formative period.

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• Magnitude of Roots.
• It helped to recover and reposition television
  constructions and representations of African
  Americans and blackness from their historic
  labors in behalf of white racism and myths of
  white superiority.
• Also moved the discourse about slavery from one
  of almost complete invisibility (never mind
  structured racial subordination, human
  degradation, and economic exploitation) to one of
  ethnicity, immigration, and human triumph.

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• Defines a cosby moment which is pivotal to
  understanding the social position and cultural
  significance of contemporary television
  representations of blackness
• Ambivalent about the show watched it a lot and
  laughed at it, but criticized it in print.

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Three discursive practices

• Assimilationist (invisibility) treat social and
  political issues of blacks in general as
  individual problems.
• Pluralist (separate but equal) situate black
  characters in domestically centered black worlds
  and circumstances that essentially parallel those
  of whites (Cosby show).
• Multiculturalist (diversity) offers a view of
  what it means to be American from the vantage
  point of African Americans.