Bad Feminist: Book Discussion Series

"A comprehensive look at the history of African Americans on television that discusses major trends in black TV and examines the broader social implications of the relationship between race and popular culture as well as race and representation."

"In a year that has seen African-American actors receive more top honors than ever, Blackface revisits the efforts of black filmmakers and the portrayal of African-Americans in cinema. As a film critic for the Village Voice, Nelson George has analyzed films and reported on the careers of black directors and actors; as the screenplay writer for Strictly Business and the co-author and executive producer for CB4, George experienced Hollywood from the inside, meeting with studio execs and creating movies that didn't turn out as he hoped. George shares a candid and personal perspective on 30 years of African-American cinema in Blackface--both the films he saw and the films he made. Blackface includes essays on 2002's honorary Academy Award winner Sidney Poitier, the Black Filmmaker Foundation, Spike Lee, and George's CB4 partner Chris Rock. George also discusses the impact of African-American independent films since the 60s, the blaxploitation craze, and the influence of white money on black artists. New to this edition are pieces on the Hughes brothers, Richard Pryor, and African-American cinema at the beginning of the 21st century, as well as George's own encounters with Hollywood."

"Black Male Frames charts the development and shifting popularity of two stereotypes of black masculinity in popular American film: "the shaman" or "the scoundrel." Starting with colonial times, Williams identifies the origins of these roles in an America where black men were forced either to defy or to defer to their white masters. These figures recur in the stories America tells about its black men, from the fictional Jim Crow and Zip Coon to historical figures such as Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois. Williams argues that these two extremes persist today in modern Hollywood, where actors such as Sam Lucas, Paul Robeson, Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, and Morgan Freeman, among others, must cope with and work around such limited options. Williams situates these actors' performances of one or the other stereotype within each man's personal history and within the country's historical moment, ultimately to argue that these men are rewarded for their portrayal of the stereotypes most needed to put America's ongoing racial anxieties at ease. Reinvigorating the discussion that began with Donald Bogle's seminal work, Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks, Black Male Frames illuminates the ways in which individuals and the media respond to the changing racial politics in America."

"The second edition of this powerful analysis of African-Americans in the television insudtry since 1948 is completely updated. The increased visibility of blacks in television, the success of the Cosby Show and other sitcoms featuring black actors, and the impact of cable TV on programming are described in detail. Professor MacDonald traces the stereotyping, tokenism, and unfair treatment of blacks from the early days of the indsutry, but expresses his hope and belief that a new video order is materializing that will finally fulfill the bright promise of television."

This book examines how the media--including advertising, motion pictures, cartoons, and popular fiction--has used racist images and stereotypes as marketing tools that malign and debase African Americans, Latinos, American Indians, and Asian Americans in the United States. * Addresses the current and important subject of how the powerful and pervasive messages in the media communicate and reinforce common racial stereotypes about people of color to vast audiences--especially children * Examines popular depictions of people of color going back to the 1880s and details how those depictions have changed * Explores "fun" subject matter that student readers find interesting--pop culture and how it shapes our daily experiences--with an analytical, critical edge

"In Revolution Televised, Christine Acham offers a complex reading of African American television history, finding within programs like Sanford and Son and Good Times opposition to dominant white constructions of African American identity. Revolution Televised deftly illustrates how black television artists operated within the constraints of the television industry to resist and ultimately shape the mass mediaOCOs portrayal of African American life."

"...The definitive history of African-American accomplishment in film--both before and behind the camera--from the earliest movies through World War II."

"... reveals the way that media frames in entertainment content persuade audiences to see themselves and others through a prescriptive lens that favors whiteness. These media representations threaten democracy as conglomeration and convergence concentrate the media's global influence in the hands of a few corporations. By linking film's political economy with the movie content in the most influential films, this critical discourse study uncovers the socially-shared cognitive structures that the movie industry passes down from one generation to another. Roslyn M. Satchel encourages media literacy and proposes an entertainment media cascading network activation theory that uncovers racialized rhetoric in media content that cyclically begins in historic ideologies, influences elite discourse, embeds in media systems, produces media frames and representations, shapes public opinion, and then is recycled and perpetuated generationally."

"The Norton Critical Edition also includes: The illustrations printed in the original book. Contemporary sources (1853--62), among them newspaper accounts of Northup's kidnapping and ordeal and commentary by Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Thomas W. MacMahon, plus much more."
DVD Available, dir. by Steve McQueen: DVD 006 778, Media Collection

British Film Institute's analysis of the film, including racial politics, representations of slavery, and how the film has "... been engaged with and challenged since the mini-series Roots (1977) to 12 Years a Slave (2014)."
Original novel by Margaret Mitchell: PS3525 I972 G6 1936 ; DVD Available: DVD 000 873, Media Collection

DVD Available: DVD 005 576, Media Collection

"With a career, a boyfriend, and a loving family, Piper Kerman barely resembles the reckless young woman who delivered a suitcase of drug money ten years before. But that past has caught up with her. Convicted and sentenced to fifteen months at the infamous federal correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut, the well-heeled Smith College alumna is now inmate #11187-424 --one of the millions of people who disappear "down the rabbit hole" of the American penal system. From her first strip search to her final release, Kerman learns to navigate this strange world with its strictly enforced codes of behavior and arbitrary rules. She meets women from all walks of life, who surprise her with small tokens of generosity, hard words of wisdom, and simple acts of acceptance. Heartbreaking, hilarious, and at times enraging, Kerman's story offers a rare look into the lives of women in prison--why it is we lock so many away and what happens to them when they're there."
DVDs Available: DVD 006 877, Media Collection (Parks Library has Seasons 1-3 of this Netflix series; this call number is for Season 1.)

This book explores how digital technologies are revealing fresh information regarding the tragic history of "Rosewood, Florida, and demonstrates how racial violence in the past relates to social inequality in the present."
The film Rosewood, dir. by John Singleton in 1997, is a "... dramatization of the 1923 horrific racist lynch mob attack on an African American Florida community." Starring Jon Voight, Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle, et al. More at IMDB
DVD Available: DVD 008 032, Media Collection