Black Sitcom Portrayals

Black Sitcom Portrayals by Robin Coleman depicts the inferiority linked between the African American class and national TV sitcoms. In Coleman’s article he begins to explain how the African American is portrayed as a lower working class citizen that is dependent on a White family to survive. He cites examples from Sanford and Son and Roc to illustrate his point by claiming that those characters were assigned roles based on their race to reinforce the lack of upward mobility within their class. Coleman further articulates his point by claiming “the participants struggled to offer a genre-wide assessment of what favorable traits the comedies held…” (79) The notable positives that were explained by the actors from the TV sitcom were challenged by Coleman. From the crossed line between self- sufficiency and reinforcement of lower class, to the “rare and good” African American young male who is ridiculed for having strong values, and to the “African American male who is not only depicted as deficient in love, but also in family life.” (83) One of the thoughts that stuck out to me was the portrayal of women and the misogynistic abuse aimed towards them. In Martin one of the actors said, “they’re always puttin’ women down and talking about their butts, even when it’s a decent little comedy or something, they make fun of each other so bad, and I hate that.” ( 83) The sitcom colored these women in a light that was self destructive for the women in the Black community. It pigeonholed these women into a category where negativity fueled their world and all they had to talk about was commonplace things.