Heady Stakes for 'Black-ish' on ABC - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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hovering above all that is a more subtle — and quietly clever — narrative arc, involving the gap between parents and children and how each generation has a different awareness of what it means to be black in 2014.
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I want it to succeed because the show arrives when black characters on mainstream broadcast networks who directly deal with issues like race are incredibly rare.
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so far, his approach seems to be a hit. The premiere resonated with critics and attracted a robust 11 million viewers, besides generating a lot of positive reactions and discussions on social media. In a vote of confidence, ABC has given the show a full-season order.
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it seems as if networks think that post-racial story lines are the only acceptable ways of showcasing black characters on television.
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TV is resplendent with ethnically diverse casts, from procedurals like “Law & Order: SVU” and “NCIS: Los Angeles” to hits like “Scandal” and “Elementary” to sitcoms like “New Girl” and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.” But the characters on those series don’t often deal directly with racial issues in everyday life and, by not doing so, perpetuate another kind of colorblindness, one that homogenizes characters and treats race as inconsequential, when it is anything but.
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“The PC way of handling culture has been to not talk about it,” Kenya Barris, the show’s creator, said in an interview. “But we should be talking about it.”
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What black viewers are left with instead, said Dayna Chatman, a media researcher at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California, is a dynamic that “makes whiteness the norm.”
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reality television often showcases African-Americans, but since that genre is often about over-the-top performances, she said, it isn’t “particularly representative or flattering.”
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The lack of texture and diversity on television is harder to ignore amid the rise of streaming and online series (say, Netflix’s “Orange Is the New Black” or Issa Rae’s “The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl”) as well as social media like Instagram and Vine (see King Bach’s account). They offer a welcome and much more nuanced window into black humor and culture.
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He said ABC and cable networks pursued him and the “Black-ish” pilot “very aggressively.” Contrary to popular belief, networks “are looking for something that deals with diversity,” he said. “The problem has been timing and having the right package behind it.”
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“This is the first time in American history where the most famous people in America are black,” he said, naming the Obama family and the musicians Kanye West and Beyoncé. “But there’s still a really obvious invisibility on television.”
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Mr. Barris said he was determined to do more than create a successor to “The Cosby Show,” although “Black-ish” draws from its legacy. But while the popularity of the Huxtable family centered on its warmth and relatability, it was, Mr. Barris said, “about a family that happened to be black.” He added that he wanted his show to be much more cognizant of modern racial identity, and to reflect the class and racial dynamics of being black in America.
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“We are hyperaware of how people and the media perceive us,” she said. “And who gets it and who doesn’t get it.”
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In 2005, Mr. Chappelle walked away from his lucrative show on Comedy Central after expressing discomfort that the line between his social commentary and racial satire had grown too thin.
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Today, there are a few other shows operating in the space left behind by Mr. Chappelle, including “Key & Peele” on Comedy Central and “Black Jesus” on Adult Swim. But those are cable outlets with smaller audiences, whereas “Black-ish” is on a mainstream network.