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How Does David Moody Use Stereotypes In Tv And Race

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For as long as television has been around, racial stereotyping has plagued our screens. Most common representations of racial relations lay within sit-coms who take basic and common stereotypes and create whats known as Black situation comedies and Black humour. David Moody’s chapter The Complexity and Progression of Black Representation in Film and Television and Sasha Torres’ Television and Race both focus on Black sitcoms and their argument is that sit-coms rely upon racial stereotyping for their coloured characters and the term race as turned from a problem to another commodity for networks. Black sitcoms attempt to show a perspective of Black American life, they mainly focus on Black family structures and the struggles associates with Black family life. The stereotypes used in this situation comedies range from bad parenting, drug abuse and poverty and many used stereotypes …show more content…

Both David Moody and Sasha Torres relatively state that we live in an, “image based culture” that has from the beginning of entertainment oppressed the image of African Americans to, “lazy, irresponsible coons.”2 This representation started decades ago when theatrical performances and skits known as minstrelsy were performed by Whites in Blackface. These performances became very popular and thus, branded African Americans in a derogatory, problematic manner that are still are being used in todays television. Present day shows like Black-ish, Empire and Fresh off the Boat have been targeted by critics saying the depictions of characters promote demeaning and damaging images to the, “progression of a positive self-identity for both Asian and Black Americans.”3 These types of shows as well as other Black situation comedies have repeatedly presented African Americans in disturbing and misleading images which have become the norm in film and television. This has created a Black iconography that have resulted in White American having predetermined

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