Saturday, August 6, 2016

Good Times for Portrayals of Africans in Television


from imdb.com
Watching "Good Times", the popular 70's sitcom centered around the lives of an African family living a hard, but loving life in the housing projects of Chicago.  Realistic and grounded in so much of its writing and performance, this important program regularly framed tough and not before seen televisual serial engagements of racism, sexism, gun violence, education, colonial politics, poverty, economics and African liberation. There has not been a show like or as good as "Good Times" since its run from 1974 to 1979.

from imdb.com
One of the key contradictions in the narrative of "Good Times" was the presence and character of Jimmie Walker's character of J.J. Evans, the eldest son of the Florida and James Evans, played respectively by Esther Rolle and John Amos.  J.J. was ostensibly and persistently a problematic clownish Sambo character, complete with broad toothy smiles, overacted lines and a physicality that lent himself more to cartoons than the sophisticated "real life" drama going on around him. Some of the behind the scenes and contractual issues of the show were reported to have some from cast disagreement with the characterization of J.J. through so many of his "dy-no-mite" episodes.  It is remarkable and worthy of a closer look that a show like "Good Times", as progressive and forward-thinking as it was, still found a need to frame Africanity, in part, in this demeaning and clownish way.

The deeper look into "Good Times" helps us reveal the positive and progressive ways televisual narratives can represent the actual dynamics of human life in an interest of helping us actually see our way to more compassionate and liberated futures.  The problematic presence that J.J.'s character represented helps us to see that we must never let our media literacy guard down even in a largely positive and helpful narrative context.  Looking at those contradictions in that context help us to locate and critique troubling and negative portrayals in other narratives and also in the larger society itself.  Looking at these contradictions is part of the core work of cultural media studies that allows us to be better, more deeply literate  around televisual and cinematic texts.

Saturday, January 16, 2016