Race In American Television 2 Volumes

This two-volume encyclopedia explores representations of people of color in American television. It includes overview essays on early, classic, and contemporary television and the challenges for, developments related to, and participation of minorities on and behind the screen. Covering five decades, this encyclopedia highlights how race has shaped television and how television has shaped society. Offering critical analysis of moments and themes throughout television history, Race in American Television shines a spotlight on key artists of color, prominent shows, and the debates that have defined television since the civil rights movement. This book also examines the ways in which television has been a site for both reproduction of stereotypes and resistance to them, providing a basis for discussion about racial issues in the United States. This set provides a significant resource for students and fans of television alike, not only educating but also empowering readers with the necessary tools to consume and watch the small screen and explore its impact on the evolution of racial and ethnic stereotypes in U.S. culture and beyond. Understanding the history of American television contributes to deeper knowledge and potentially helps us to better apprehend the plethora of diverse shows and programs on Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, and other platforms today.

"With a new introduction, Herman Gray's classic investigation of television and race shows how the meaning of blackness on-screen has changed over the years by examining the portrayal of blacks on series such as The Jack Benny Show and Amos 'n' Andy, continuing through The Cosby Show and In Living Color."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The Cosby Show needs little introduction to most people familiar with American popular culture. It is a show with immense and universal appeal. Even so, most debates about the significance of the program have failed to take into account one of the more important elements of its success—its viewers. Through a major study of the audiences of The Cosby Show, the authors treat two issues of great social and political importance—how television, America's most widespread cultural form, influences the way we think, and how our society in the post-Civil Rights era thinks about race, our most widespread cultural problem. This book offers a radical challenge to the conventional wisdom concerning facial stereotyping in the United States and demonstrates how apparently progressive programs like The Cosby Show, despite good intentions, actually help to construct "enlightened" forms of racism. The authors argue that, in the post-Civil Rights era, a new structure of racial beliefs, based on subtle contradictions between attitudes toward race and class, has brought in its wake this new form of racial thought that seems on the surface to exhibit a new tolerance. However, professors Jhally and Lewis find that because Americans cannot think clearly about class, they cannot, after all, think clearly about race. This groundbreaking book is rooted in an empirical analysis of the reactions to The Cosby Show of a range of ordinary Americans, both black and white. Professors Jhally and Lewis discussed with the different audiences their attitudes toward the program and more generally their understanding and perceptions of issues of race and social class. Enlightened Racism is a major intervention into the public debate about race and perceptions of race—a debate, in the 1990s, at the heart of American political and public life. This book is indispensable to understanding that debate.

Recent media events like the beating of Rodney King and the murder trial of O.J. Simpson have trained our collective eye on the televised spectacle of race. LIVING COLOR combines media studies, cultural studies, and critical race theory to investigate the representation of race on American television. LIVING COLOR makes explicit the centrality of race and ethnicity to American life. 54 photos.

La couverture indique : "Alan Nadel's new book reminds us that most of the images on early TV were decidedly Caucasian and directed at predominantly white audiences. Television did not invent whiteness for America, but it did reinforce it as the norm - particularly during the Cold War years. Nadel now shows just how instrumental it was in constructing a narrow, conservative, and very white vision of America." "During this era, prime-time TV was dominated by "adult Westerns," with heroes like The Rebel's Johnny Yuma reincarnating Southern values and Bonanza's Cartwright family reinforcing the notion of white patriarchy - programs that, Nadel shows, bristled with Cold War messages even as they spoke to the nation's mythology. America had become visually reconfigured as a vast Ponderosa, crisscrossed by concrete highways designed to carry suburban white drivers beyond the moral challenge of racism, racial poverty, and increasingly vocal civil rights demands."

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.

Recent media events like the confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas, the beating of Rodney King and its aftermath, and the murder trial of O.J. Simpson have trained our collective eye on the televised spectacle of race. Living Color combines media studies, cultural studies, and critical race theory to investigate the representation of race on American TV. Ranging across television genres, historical periods, and racial formations, Living Color--as it positions race as a key element of television's cultural influence--moves the discussion out of a black-and-white binary and illustrates how class, gender, and sexuality interact with images of race. In addition to essays on representations of "Oriental" performers and African Americans in the early years of television, this collection also examines how the celebrity of the late MTV star Pedro Zamora countered racist and homophobic discourses; reveals how news coverage on drug use shifted from the white middle-class cocaine user in the early 1980s to the black "crack mother" of the 1990s; and takes on TV coverage of the Rodney King beating and the subsequent unrest in Los Angeles. Other essays consider O.J. Simpson's murder trial, comparing television's treatment of Simpson to that of Michael Jackson, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, and Clarence Thomas and look at the racism directed at Asian Americans by the recurring "Dancing Itos" on Jay Leno's Tonight Show.