Bonnie J. Dow concludes part IV titled, “Gender and Communication in Mediated Contexts” of The Sage Handbook of Gender Communication, asking, “Why do journalists measure the progress of representations of women on television through a focus on the depiction of the lives of single white heterosexual career women? What does such a focus say about the race, class, and sexuality blinders that operate across mass media, whether in journalism or series television?” These questions struck a nerve and immediately I felt obligated to show some of the many television syndications that portray Black women as day-to-day successful businesswomen, thus overshadowing this notion that only white women can carry out this role in the media.
Donald Bogle’s book Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretative History of Blacks in American Films discusses the roles often garnered by Black actors in films. These are roles that were unbecoming and only continued to perpetuate the harsh societal stereotypes of the Black culture. Bogle examines the roles of the Mammy, Jezebel, and Sapphire, typical roles portrayed by Black actresses. Over the years, these roles have continuously been featured in the media, limiting the opportunities for such actresses to play major leading roles.
Although we are still plagued by these “typical” Black characters, a new Black female character has arrived. She is the affluent, well-respected, and professional businesswoman. Yes, she still has traces of her predecessors with her sassy, sexy, no non-sense attitude, but that is what makes this character unique. In 1984, we were introduced to her as the character of Clair Huxtable played by Phylicia Rashad. On the popular sitcom The Cosby Show, Clair was the wife of Cliff Huxtable, a successful obstetrician, however Clair was just as successful in her role as a powerful and feared attorney.
Over the years this character has been widely recognized and endeared by many. For the first time, a Black woman was not just the homemaker caring for the family as the Mammy character did for her white family years ago. Clair Huxtable opened the door for more strong Black female characters in the media.
In the 1990’s, we met Khadijah James and Maxine “Max” Shaw, played by Queen Latifah and Erika Alexander on the show Living Single. Khadijah James was the editor and publisher of Flavor Magazine while Maxine was the quirky yet successful attorney. Once again society was introduced to strong Black women in great positions of power in their specific fields. From the 90’s to the 2000’s the roles of Black successful career women began to appear more.
In 2000, Girlfriends premiered, executive produced by Kelsey Grammar. This show featured four best friends juggling careers, families, and friendship. Joan Clayton was yet again the fearless and feared attorney, Toni Childs was the well off real estate agent, Maya Wilkes was the urban book author, and Lynn Searcy was the bohemian chic character having achieved five degrees with her hands in several career ventures. Never had we as media consumers ever been exposed to several Black female characters with prestigious careers. All three of the TV shows mentioned were widely acclaimed and popular lasting more than five seasons a piece and just a few of the many syndications that showcased strong Black successful female characters.
These characters help illustrate that the progression of women in the media cannot only be measured by the progress of single white heterosexual career women, but also by Black women and women in general. Although we are making strides and improvements, it may be some time before characters of the LGBTQI community are portrayed in successful roles besides the few exceptions of Modern Family and Grey’s Anatomy.
In discussing this flaw in journalists and media’s idea of the progress of representation in the media I hope that we do not continue to disregard the many advances that have been made by women in general in the media regardless of race, class, and sexuality. This post can best be summed up as Dow states, “lack of representation or negative representation in media was a form of discrimination that, if corrected, would lead to improvements in women’s lives off the screen and on the page” (p. 265). Seems to me it’s overdue that we shake things up for the betterment of women.
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