Examining race in media, I found that the problems lie in the patterns of how each race is portrayed. With my media presentation being due this week, I decided to put a lot of my focus on the Robin Means Coleman piece "Black Sitcom Portrayals," because she analyzes a lot of the patterns of race on television. She divided the patterns she saw into a few categories: wealth and race, men and race, and women and race. Though she wrote the article in 2000, I still managed to see the patterns she found in my favorite television shows today. Gossip Girl is known for it's lack of diversity. Up until this year all of the main characters with wealth were white. There was one character of African American race but she was of much lower status and embodied, as Coleman describes, "Hollywood's preference of lighter-skinned African American's"(85). Finally this season, the show brought the Thorpes onto the show. The family consisted of a billionaire, Russel Thorpe, and his daughter Raina. In Coleman's article she engages with the opinions of others, one person being J.C. J.C. examines that "wealth can be misconstructed as whiteness, as seen in the assimilation controversy that haunted Julia and The Cosby Show. Again, then we are reminded how bound blackness and economic deprivation is on television, and in turn, in the minds of viewers"(Coleman 80). The Thorpes are the only African American family to be formally introduced to the show and they are floating in a sea of other white rich families. The show, all about the lifestyles of the unbelievably rich, centers on all white millionaires and billionaires marking it as white. The Thorpe's are entering a world where the only African American character was poor, where wealth has been "misconstructed as whiteness." Coleman uses another point by J.C. regarding patterns with race and wealth: "As a devout Christian, J.C. sees a void in television where morally sound behaviors are rarely depicted, yet the wayward and inappropriate are privileged...J.C's lament is that when such positive portrayals, such as Carlton's, do appear, they are the source of ridicule by the other Black Characters"(81). In Russel Thorpe's first episode he steals a company from one of the main characters. He pretends to be a stand up guy, promising to help our beloved Chuck Bass keep his father's legacy by saving his company, but in reality he pulls it out from under Chuck. Russel Thorpe follows the pattern of race, wealth, and being "morally" unjust. Coleman discusses a lot about race and family in her piece and once again uses J.C's discoveries in that "the African American male is not just deficient in love, but also in family life"(83). The Thorpes are a single parent household, a trend mentioned in Coleman's piece, and Russel Thorpe has yet to find any type of love. In fact, he was in love with Chuck's step mother, but she dumped him. His daughter is his pride and joy, but he goes against her morals in order to steal the company, upsetting Raina and tearing his family apart. Drama is obviously the main component of Gossip Girl, but somehow the drama surrounding the Thorpes encompasses everything Coleman finds a trend in "Black Sitcom Portrayals."
In John Thornton Caldwell's article "Televisual Politics: Negotiating Race in the L.A. Rebellion" he concludes that "the televisual apparatus was exposed for what it has been on many occasions: a stylistic architecture for managing difference, building consensus, and stylistically packaging the dangerous other"(334). The perfect examples of races aside from white that portray an "other" are the other races used in The Hangover. The movie is about four white guys going to Las Vegas, so we already know the center of the film will be placed on the white race. However, the characters we see of different races are unfortunate stereotypes depicting these races as the odd men out. Gossip Girl's racial stereotypes were much harder to see that those of The Hangover. If I had not read Coleman's article I would have never known race, wealth, and morals are always intertwined in portrayals of race on television. The Hangover, a comedy, displayed racial stereotypes much more obviously because they provided a laugh. The film involves two African American supporting characters: Mike Tyson the boxer, and the drug dealer who causes the whole mess of giving Alan Ruffelin. Mike Tyson owns a tiger in the movie and uses violence against the four main characters, when he finds out they took his tiger. The drug dealer is barely aware of what he is selling and accidentally gives the Alan Ruffelin that lands them all a night of complete blackout. There is also Mr. Chow who is extremely small, and who is able to fly out of the car and on top of Bradley Cooper showing his flexibility and martial arts skills. He is also extremely wealthy, following most of the asian cinematic stereotypes. The three characters of different races provide the men with almost all of the problems they encounter and create this wall of the other. They take on each race's stereotype positions in film, noticeably separating themselves from the white race. The movie mocks each of these characters in the film through their actions, and as ridiculous as this film is as a whole it truly emphasizes the other of race. Bamboozled displayed the major problems with putting two African Americans in black face and having them mock their own race. Although these examples are not as extreme, these characters are mocking rather their own races playing on stereotypes and creating characters very isolated from the "white" characters in the film. Gossip Girl hid Russell Thorpe in Whiteness, while The Hangover emphasized the difference and "other" qualities of the supporting characters.
Caldwell, John Thornton. "Televisual Politics." Televisuality. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1954. 302-335. Print.
Means Coleman, Robert R. "Black Sitcom Portrayals." Gender, Race, and Class in Media. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2003. 79-88. Print.
Thanks for the blog post buddy! Keep them coming...
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