Black Women and the Changing Television Landscape

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Description

Black womens work in television has been, since the beginning, a negotiation. Black Women and the Changing Television Landscape explores the steps black women, as actors, directors, and producers, have taken to improve representations of black people on the small screen. Beginning with The Beulah Show, Anderson articulates the interrelationship between US culture and the televisual, demonstrating the conditions under which black women particularly, and black people generally, exist in popular culture.

Reviews

This vital book offers an essential and engaging account of Black Women and the Changing Television Landscape. Focusing on a wide range of TV shows, industry experiences, and moments in history, Lisa M. Anderson carefully considers Black womens ambivalent relationship with television, and their negotiation of Hollywood. * Francesca Sobande, Senior Lecturer in Digital Media Studies, Cardiff University, UK *
In Black Women and the Changing Television Landscape, Lisa Anderson presents us a detailed account of the changing landscape of television and its impact of Black women from the beginning of the medium until current times. She focuses on both the effect of these representations, but also the agency of Black actresses and creators when developing characters and stories. The book outlines a trajectory highlighting the constraints of stereotypical representations in earlier television works and the more contemporary ones, which provides a more diverse representation of the Black experience. This newer, diverse representation has the potential to liberate Black folks from the trite yet pervasive and long-standing stereotypes by presenting alternative lenses with which to look at Black experiences in the U.S. The project is well-documented and equally well-written. A must read for anyone trying to understand why representation matters. * Carmen R. Lugo-Lugo, Professor of Comparative Ethnic Studies and American Studies and Culture, Washington State University, USA *
Ambitious in scope and intimate in detail, Andersons book provides a needed perspective on seven decades of Black women who navigated and changed the landscape of American television. Black Women and the Changing Television Landscape is a roadmap for how Black women actors, directors, producers, writers, and showrunners actually changed the landscape so that others can lead the way forward. * C. A. Griffith, Associate Professor and Filmmaker, The Sidney Poitier New American Film School, Arizona State University, USA, and Co-Director of Mountains That Take Wing: Angela Davis & Yuri Kochiyama *

Author Bio

Lisa M. Anderson is an associate professor of women and gender studies in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University, USA. She is the author of Black Feminism in Contemporary Drama (2008) and Mammies No More: The Changing Image of Black Women on Stage and Screen (1998). Her research interests include Black feminist speculative fiction and black queer and trans representations.