Black Women's Portrayals on Reality Television


Book Description

This book critically analyzes the portrayals of Black women in current reality television. Audiences are presented with a multitude of images of Black women fighting, arguing, and cursing at one another in this manufactured world of reality television. This perpetuation of negative, insidious racial and gender stereotypes influences how the U.S. views Black women. This stereotyping disrupts the process in which people are able to appreciate cultural and gender difference. Instead of celebrating the diverse symbols and meaning making that accompanies Black women's discourse and identities, reality television scripts an artificial or plastic image of Black women that reinforces extant stereotypes. This collection's contributors seek to uncover examples in reality television shows where instantiations of Black women's gendered, racial, and cultural difference is signified and made sinister.




The Evolution of Black Women in Television


Book Description

This book seeks to interrogate the representation of Black women in television. Cheers explores how the increase of Black women in media ownership and creative executive roles (producers, showrunners, directors and writers) in the last 30 years affected the fundamental cultural shift in Black women’s representation on television, which in turn parallels the political, social, economic and cultural advancements of Black women in America from 1950 to 2016. She also examines Black women as a diverse television audience, discussing how they interact and respond to the constantly evolving television representation of their image and likeness, looking specifically at how social media is used as a tool of audience engagement.




Ladies Leading


Book Description

For decades, Black women have taken on pioneering management roles in television newsrooms across the country. The women were, and still are, bold, brave and unwilling to yield to the status quo. Dr. Ava Thompson Greenwell opens the door to the ugliness of racial animus that greeted them as they climbed the ranks. In raw, soul-baring interviews Dr. Greenwell documents the toll racism and gender bias have taken on their professional and personal lives and she documents these women's strategies to overcome while demanding that their voices and lived experiences be more fairly represented in news coverage. Lyne Pitts, former NBC News Vice President, former CBS News Executive Producer Dr. Greenwell's labor of love, Ladies Leading: The Black Women Who Control Television News reveals how the tentacles of White Supremacy operate in newsroom culture. This book contributes to several fields of study. She highlights the continued struggle and triumphs of Black women leaders of journalism in newsrooms across the country. Most of us want to forever see the year 2020 in our rearview mirrors - never to be repeated. We have witnessed Black genocide, anti-Black racist micro-aggressions, overt racism, epic attacks on press freedoms, and deadly weather events - all during a global pandemic. Dr. Libby Lewis, is Professor of Media Studies, Communications, Sociology, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Pan African Studies at California State University, Los Angeles. Dr. Lewis is the Author of The Myth of Post-Racialism in Television News (c2016).




Sister Citizen


Book Description

DIVFrom a highly respected thinker on race, gender, and American politics, a new consideration of black women and how distorted stereotypes affect their political beliefs/div




Representations of Black Women in the Media


Book Description

In 1920 W.E.B. Du Bois cited the damnation of women as linked to the devaluation of motherhood. This dilemma, he argues, had a crushing blow on Black women as they were forced into slavery. Black womanhood, portrayed as hypersexual by nature, became an enduring stereotype which did not coincide with the dignity of mother and wife. This portrayal continues to reinforce negative stereotypes of Black women in the media today. This book highlights how Black women have been negatively portrayed in the media, focusing on the export nature of media and its ability to convey notions of Blackness to the public. It argues that media such as rap music videos, television dramas, reality television shows, and newscasts create and affect expectations of Black women. Exploring the role that racism, misogyny and media play in the representation of Black womanhood, it provides a foundation for challenging contemporary media’s portrayal of Black women.




Real Sister


Book Description

From The Real Housewives of Atlanta to Flavor of Love, reality shows with predominantly black casts have often been criticized for their negative representation of African American women as loud, angry, and violent. Yet even as these programs appear to be rehashing old stereotypes of black women, the critiques of them are arguably problematic in their own way, as the notion of “respectability” has historically been used to police black women’s behaviors. The first book of scholarship devoted to the issue of how black women are depicted on reality television, Real Sister offers an even-handed consideration of the genre. The book’s ten contributors—black female scholars from a variety of disciplines—provide a wide range of perspectives, while considering everything from Basketball Wives to Say Yes to the Dress. As regular viewers of reality television, these scholars are able to note ways in which the genre presents positive images of black womanhood, even as they catalog a litany of stereotypes about race, class, and gender that it tends to reinforce. Rather than simply dismissing reality television as “trash,” this collection takes the genre seriously, as an important touchstone in ongoing cultural debates about what constitutes “trashiness” and “respectability.” Written in an accessible style that will appeal to reality TV fans both inside and outside of academia, Real Sister thus seeks to inspire a more nuanced, thoughtful conversation about the genre’s representations and their effects on the black community.




Misogynoir Transformed


Book Description

Where racism and sexism meet—an understanding of anti-Black misogyny When Moya Bailey first coined the term misogynoir, she defined it as the ways anti-Black and misogynistic representation shape broader ideas about Black women, particularly in visual culture and digital spaces. She had no idea that the term would go viral, touching a cultural nerve and quickly entering into the lexicon. Misogynoir now has its own Wikipedia page and hashtag, and has been featured on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show and CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time. In Misogynoir Transformed, Bailey delves into her groundbreaking concept, highlighting Black women’s digital resistance to anti-Black misogyny on YouTube, Facebook, Tumblr, and other platforms. At a time when Black women are depicted as more ugly, deficient, hypersexual, and unhealthy than their non-Black counterparts, Bailey explores how Black women have bravely used social-media platforms to confront misogynoir in a number of courageous—and, most importantly, effective—ways. Focusing on queer and trans Black women, she shows us the importance of carving out digital spaces, where communities are built around queer Black webshows and hashtags like #GirlsLikeUs. Bailey shows how Black women actively reimagine the world by engaging in powerful forms of digital resistance at a time when anti-Black misogyny is thriving on social media. A groundbreaking work, Misogynoir Transformed highlights Black women’s remarkable efforts to disrupt mainstream narratives, subvert negative stereotypes, and reclaim their lives.




Shaded Lives


Book Description

In Shaded Lives, Beretta Smith-Shomade sets out to dissect images of the African American woman in television from the 1980s. She calls their depiction "binaristic," or split. African American women, although an essential part of television programming today, are still presented as distorted and deviant. By closely examining the television texts of African-American women in comedy, music video, television news and talk shows (Oprah Winfrey is highlighted), Smith-Shomade shows how these voices are represented, what forces may be at work in influencing these images, and what alternate ways of viewing might be available.




Representations of Black Womanhood on Television


Book Description

Being Mara Brock Akil: Representations of Black Womanhood on Television examines the body of work of Mara Brock Akil, the showrunner who produced Girlfriends, The Game, Being Mary Jane, and Love Is__. The contributions to this volume are theoretically anchored in Patricia Hill Collin’s Black Feminist Thought, with a focus on how Brock Akil’s shows intentionally address Black humanity and specifically provide context for Black women’s lived experiences and empathy for Black womanhood by featuring woman-centered characters with flaws, strength, and complexity. Shauntae Brown White and Kandace L. Harris have compiled a volume that analyzes themes that define Black womanhood and examines audience reception of and social media interaction with Brock Akil’s work.




Challenging Misrepresentations of Black Womanhood


Book Description

"Challenging Misrepresentations of Black Womanhood" investigates the typecasting of Black womanhood and the larger sociological impact on Black women’s self-perceptions. It details the historical and contemporary use of stereotypes against Black women and how these women work to challenge and dispel false perceptions. The book highlights the role of racist ideas in the reproduction and promotion of stereotypes of Black femaleness in media, literature, artificial intelligence and the perceptions of the general public. Contributors in this collection identify the racist and sexist ideologies behind the misperceptions of Black womanhood and illuminate twenty-first–century stereotypical treatment of Black women such as Michelle Obama and Serena Williams, and explore topics such as comedic expressions of Black motherhood, representations of Black women in television dramas and literature, and identity reclamation and self-determination. "Challenging Misrepresentations of Black Womanhood" establishes the criteria with which to examine the role of stereotypes in the lives of Black women and, more specifically, its impact on their social and psychological well-being.