Watching while black
Subtitle: centering the television of black audiences
By: edited by Beretta E. Smith-Shomade
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: New Brunswick, N.J
Language: eng
Number of pages: 267
ISBN-13: 9780813553870; 9780813553863; 9780813553887
Subjects: Television broadcasting; African American television viewers; African Americans on television
Description: "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 suggests 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 preferences of audiences and producers of Black-targeted programming."-- Publisher's description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: I see black people / Beretta E. Smith-Shomade; title: Producing blackness. The importance of Roots / Eric Pierson; title: Two different worlds: television as a producer's medium / Robin R. Means Coleman and Andre M. Cavalcante; title: A black cast doesn't make a black show: City of angels and the plausible deniability of colorblindness / Kristen J. Warner; title: Blacks in the future: braving the frontier of the web series / Christine Acham; title: Blackness on demand. "Regular television put to shame by negro production": picturing a black world on Black journal / Devorah Heitner; title: "Hey, hey hey!": Bill Cosby's Fat Albert as psychodynamic postmodern play / TreaAndrea M. Russworm; title: Gimme a break and the limits of the modern mammy / Jennifer Fuller; title: 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; title: New Jack Black. Keepin' it reality television / Racquel Gates; title: Prioritized: the hip hop (re)construction of black womanhood in Girlfriends and The game / Nghana Lewis; title: Nigger, coon, boy, homo, faggot, black man: reconsidering established interpretations of masculinity, race and sexuality through Noah's arc / Mark D. Cunningham; title: Graphic blackness/anime noir: Aaron McGruder's The boondocks & the Adult Swim / Deborah Elizabeth Whaley; title: Worldwide blackness. Resistance televised: the TV da Gente Television Network and Brazilian racial politics / Reighan Alexandra Gillam; title: South African soapies: a "rainbow nation" realized? / Nsenga K. Burton; title: Minority television trade as cultural journey: the case of New Zealand's Brotown / Timothy Havens.