"I try to tell her about how they show us on the TV screen, but all she want me to do is unzip her jeans"
At my age I wasn’t able to fully take in the cultural impact that shows like The Cosby Show had when it was premiered. My generation only experienced this iconic show through TV Land and Nick at Nite re-runs. Even though it is a fictitious and currently not airing any episodes it still till this day is mentioned in college classrooms across the nation as the leading example of a presentation of a black family that was painted in a luminous light and also breaking stereotypes.
The Cosby show was one of its kind, a true trendsetter in the sense of the word. In television, "Before Cosby" much of the black family life was depicted of a poor lower class family struggling, but used jokes just to buy our attention till next week’s episode. After Cosby blacks are still portrayed in somewhat of a negative light, even though a handful of sitcoms followed the blueprint of the Cosby Show many after just showed blacks as buffoons, aggressive, criminals, and flamboyant. Even though some blacks, just like all races fit in these same categories, blacks disproportionally are promoted to mass audiences in negative fashion therefore perpetuating these images as facts to viewers.
A survey done by the Boston Globe in 1991 showed that young children and older adults disproportionally saw the Huxtable’s as a realistic expectation as to what black family life was like, even though by statistics the wealth that the Huxtable’s possessed was very rare in the black community. Attitudinal data suggest that the more television we watch the more likely we are to hold ideas that contradict each other. For example most people know just by looking at statistics that majority of black couples aren’t lawyers and doctors, but at the same time seeing a positive image of that on TV suggest that it isn’t far fetched and that it is normal to come across that in everyday life.
Before Cosby we had shows like Good Times & What’s Happenin’, they were both black family sitcom shows that were comedic strips, but showed black families in low economical classes. These shows were built just like the Cosby Show aside from the fact that The Cosby Show's family were doing better financially. Even though I wasn’t of age to witness the dynamic altering of race and class in America this was still something very monumental for Black America.
This shift in modern television not only brought sitcoms back to the forefront, but for a good few years blacks were taking out of working class roles and places as professionals on our weekly TV screens. Blacks were now in roles as top police officers, lawyers, professors, and business owners. Even though many of us won’t admit it The Cosby Show and others that followed gave us a new direction to aspire to follow. Cliff and Claire were “step-parents” to some and inspiration for those who may never have anyone with a college degree in the home to motivate them. For those of other races who may have little to no contact with black families they could look at The Cosby Show as a model for how black families act and look at it as normal, instead of thinking of black families as they are portrayed in “reality TV,” shows.
After Cosby network sitcoms had a small run and they began to fade, soon they were replaced by “reality TV.” BET, VH1, MTV (all owned by Viacom) and many others decided to join the ranks in broadcasting our reality (I use that term loosely) to the masses for their consumption. These new shows place women in roles such as gold diggers and sponsor the idea that maybe if you sleep with someone of mild importance then maybe you can be famous too, even if it’s only by association. Most of the women are dealing with infidelity, on the search for love, or recovering from a difficult break-up. Even though women of all races, not just black go through these and it wouldn’t be reality if it was excluded, but it seems as though happy women in relationships always seem to be extinct or nonexistent in the realm of reality TV. Even though these lives may be real, it begs the question on whether or not other tales can be told? We are presented with more women who have the, "She’s been with [such and such]" stigma, instead of being shown what she is doing for herself independently. I don’t see how anyone can see that these shows are a portrayal of reality, maybe it gives them an escape from difficulties in their lives that they are going through. Viewers have accepted these shows and look at them as the norm in The Black American Experience. These shows have taken the concerns that many have of fictitious Tyler Perry movies and showed that they are reality, even if they are exaggerations.
Even though critics may argue that The Cosby Show ignored institutionalized racism and ignored obstacles that many blacks face with upward mobility obtainment, or that they may reinforce the notion that blacks lack of achievement could be attributed to laziness, lack of education, and many other things that can be attributed to other oppressions that they face from outside forces. Those arguments however beg the question is it enough to be acknowledged on shows like Love & Hip-Hop, Flavor of Love, Basketball Wives, and many others or should we want respect from these stations that broadcast our “realities” to millions daily? Is thirty to sixty minutes of entertainment worth looking like buffoons and coons on modern day minstrel shows? When looking at blacks on TV think of this Jay-Z quote, "When you see me, see you."
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