Surprise! I watched: "Keeping Up With The Kardashians" S14E18

To no one's surprise, I watched the penultimate episode of this season's "Keeping Up with the Kardashians," a reality TV series I have been watching weekly since its premiere. This episode generally addresses issues of maternal health: Khloe discusses her body's low concentrations of endogenous progesterone (P4) during the first trimester of her pregnancy (putting her at higher risk for miscarriage, or an indicator of relatively higher risk for miscarriage), demonstrates the ingestion of progesterone via vaginal suppositories, and deals with a leak to TMZ about her pregnancy; Kourtney researches oocyte cryopreservation and takes viewers through the procedure with her doctor; and Kim checks in with her surrogate and indicates concern that her decision to have a surrogate risks severing her maternal bond to her new child.

Core Post #2: Mrs. Maisel's Jewishness Elevated to Whiteness

This is sort of just a rambling piece of thought, but not unrelated to the readings...probably most closely tied to Esposito's piece on "An Analysis of Privilege and Postracial(?) Representations on a Television Sitcom" if I had to pick one? But as a longtime fan of the Gilmore Girls-centered podcast "Gilmore Guys" I was listening to their recent spin-off, "Maisel Goys." I was really interested in the latest download this week, which was a special non-episode on the representation of Judaism in the show. The guest (just a fellow fan/listener/Jewish studies girl) spoke about how her background as a Jewish woman informed her viewing of the show and how it depicted specific aspects of Jewish life in the 1950s, and it reminded me of how Esposito handled the discussion of Marc, the gay white man who Betty competes with for the prestigious internship in Ugly Betty. "We're privileged at the same time as we're prosecuted," as the "Maisel Goys" guest describes it. Of course, these are different circumstances--gayness is not an ethnic identity, and nobody in Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is forced to confront their white privilege in any capacity (a staple of Amy Sherman-Palladino's work), but I thought Maisel was an interesting sort of counterpoint to the discussion of TV shows among the three articles for this week, especially in a world where references to "New York values/sensibilities" as coded for Jewish culture abound (called ashkenormativity, I also learned--a somewhat contested term). 

Reading Phil's post reminded me of this part of the podcast in particular: 

"Jews weren't considered white people when we came to the United States, and it's one of my biggest pet peeves when other Jewish Americans who now walk through the world as a part of this privilege -because really if we changed our names and our jewelry, you might not know - forget that we were allowed to be white people when Irish Catholics, Italian Catholics were added to who was considered white to try and reinforce Jim Crow America."

I don't really have any super grand or eloquent conclusions for this, but these are just some things on my mind I guess. 

Core Post 3

First off I want to say that I loved the Herman Gray chapter. I felt that looking at why the networks started targeting African American audiences on an economical and institutional level to be very enlightening—especially thinking from a business point of view. When I think about studying race representation in the media, I usually associate that with looking at the cultural significance and historical context in which it happened. My academic background has touched a lot on what Gray talks about in terms of narrowcasting and targeting niche audiences, but I’ve read a lot more about women in that aspect than in regards to race.  Seeing how the networks went from dominating the market to them scrambling to figure out how to keep their market share once Fox entered the scene was interesting, but I wish there had been a little more quantitative data. The essay felt like a lot of regurgitating what other scholars were saying, but in the context of why African Americans were starting to get more representation in the 1980s.

I think that nowadays the way we target audiences is repeating—because everything goes in cycles—in a way that happened in the 90s with the repeal of the fin/syn rules but on a much larger scale.  Today audiences are purposely designed to be extremely niche because there is so much more content output than ever before. The goal seems to be to get audiences hooked so that they have to watch as much of that content that they can get their hands on. In my digital media class, we have people in the industry telling us that for Netflix hits don’t matter as much as long as you don’t churn out—cancel their subscription. They just have to keep viewers engaged enough so that they either forget about their subscription or they have some upcoming show that could interest enough people to keep them on the site.

Core Post #3: Why was The Real O'Neals even a Television show?

While reading the article by Esposito, there was a passage that I found intriguing with her analysis of Ugly Betty.  She states that “discursive constructions of race are always structured within particular historical, political and economic moments” (Esposito 525).  Granted her analysis is specifically Latinx representation, but I found it to be quite relevant to the specific episodes that we watched last week.  In addition, I couldn’t help while after viewing Black-ish and Fresh off the Boat the article by Lipstiz to be quite relevant.  This is because I found relevance of the characters dealing with negotiating their backgrounds in contemporary American society similar to the ethnic sitcoms that Lipsitz addresses during the 50’s and 60’s negotiating the transition of ethnic immigrant to consumerist American identity.  I view that the episodes that we watched last week were a combination of both articles, because they illustrated a specific epoch of racial discourse within American society.  Not only are Black and Asian-Americans still considered ‘other’ within the politics of racial difference rooted still in historical moments of present day, but the fact that within the narratives, they each negotiate their racial ‘otherness’ within the context of an American society is quite telling.  

I couldn’t help but think of another television series that I’ve still been confused as to why it was even created: The Real O’Neals.  The show is about an Irish catholic family where the parents are getting a divorce, the oldest son is an athlete who tells the family that he is anorexic, and the middle child, the other son, comes out to the family as gay (there are three children, the third one being a daughter).  Esposito discusses how the creation of ‘the other’ has been in comparison to whiteness.  This makes sense relating to the two episodes we viewed and what Lipstiz discusses with specific ethnic sitcoms.  However, when it comes to The Real O’Neals, I’m confused.  My confusion comes from the fact of what Diane Negra states as “Irishness is reliably, invariably, a form of whiteness” (Negra 1).  Being Irish is part of the norm.  One is not ‘other’ within the specific context of racial dynamics if Irishness is the dominant factor.  It’s not an anomaly anymore for Irish families to get divorced or to have a child come out as gay.  The show didn’t make any sense to me because, within the context of the historical moment, Irish people have nothing to negotiate.  As speaking from my own experience as someone with Irish ancestry, I’m specifically part of that whiteness dynamic.  I don’t need to negotiate anything when it comes to my ethnic background because I’m a White European American.  I couldn’t help but fin the show baffling and bizarre at the same time.  

Work Cited

Esposito, Jennifer. "What Does Race Have to Do with Ugly Betty?: An Analysis of Privilege and Postracial(?) Representations on a Television Sitcom." Television & New Media, vol. 10, no. 6, 2009, pp. 521-535.

Negra, Diane.  The Irish in Us: Irishness, Performativity, and Popular Culture.  Duke University Press, 2006.  

               

Core Post 1, Week 8 – Race and Class within Ethnicities

This is my first time posting on this blog and it was because I chose to wait to write about the topics that resonated with me deeply. This week’s readings were one of those times where every word and every concept noted struck a chord in me, as a television audience member and a potential researcher. Amongst the multitude of ideas introduced, rehashed and intensely discussed in the three readings, the one sentence that stuck was by Christine Acham. While elaborating on the merits and pitfalls of the Cosby Show, one of the conclusions she extracts is that ‘…although The Cosby Show seemingly broaches questions of race and class, the conclusions drawn in the episode indicate an unwillingness to challenge the conservative dialogue on race, suggesting that one's class status is solely a matter of individual choice rather than the result of a systemic problem’ (Acham, 2013, pp. 109).

As an audience member of both US and Indian television shows, this statement threw light on a stark similarity in the content of television programming between both industries. Even though Acham is talking specifically about the Cosby show, which aired in the late 70s and 80s, I have observed similar notions of class status in the shows I have seen today. Star Trek: Discovery features an African-American character in the lead, where even though they do not factor in her race in her character storyline, it throws subtle hints to it by changing it to being a human raised by Vulcans. She’s an anomaly, who has to work extra hard to achieve even some sense of recognition amongst those she considers her peer group, as well as her ‘family’. And on a similar front, the now defunct Indian soap drama Saat Phere (7 Rounds) focused on the trials and tribulations of a dark-skinned girl who only manages to climb the societal ladder, as well as make a mark for herself within her family spectrum, by marrying a rich, handsome, fair-skinned widower. Her happy ending kept aside, she is constantly told that her insignificance and her success is hindered because of her dark skin. It just goes to show that within local ethnic representation, the discourses of race and class are still prevalent, whether they are in hidden references or in blatant statements.

This brings me to the similarities I observed in the Esposito and Gray readings. Each of these essays has starkly different foundations for their analysis, but the number of similarities in their conclusions is astounding. Esposito’s discussion on color-blindness, postracial content, how ‘race’ matters and the stereotypes perpetuated for the Latino/a culture in television shows references to my above discussion. Additionally, the stereotypes mentioned reminded me of the Hulu show ‘East Los High’, where I remember watching all these ‘cliches’ in action. Finally, Gray’s analysis of the television market is reflective of the upheaval in today’s television industry, where the introduction of streaming platforms has caused a major change in how television networks have to keep up with a more aware audience, in terms of content, representation, and airing strategy.

Core Post, Week 8

One of the terms that stood out to me in the Esposito article is “Hollywood as ethnographer.” Contrasting the term Ugly Betty proves the cultural link between television and the viewer; the apparent interaction with brown bodies on screen, representation of immigrants, illegal or otherwise. I think this is a good lens to view a show like Fresh Off the Boat and the inherent issues that surround its exposition. While there’s now an Asian American narrative on network television, the comedic slant used in the show not only stereotypes Asian American culture but links racial difference with sloppy comedy. This connects to Esposito’s mention of comedy’s use of stereotypes via Stephen Neale and Frank Krutnik, “It is hardly surprising that comedy often perpetuates prejudice, or draws uncritically on racist and sexist stereotypes, since they provide a ready-made set of images of deviation from social and cultural norms.” As one of the few depictions of a Chinese American family on television, Fresh Off the Boat does act as a sort of ethnography for viewers; it offers a glimpse into the dynamics of first generation Americans and their subsequent assimilation into the culture. Similar to sitcoms that we’ve seen like Life with Luigi, Mama, or The Goldbergs, the show uses the characters’ ethnic backgrounds as a narrative springboard for episodic themes. Although the show is far from the approach done by The Cosby Show, the discursive construction of characters like Jessica are ultimately superficial, reinforcing stereotypical characterization in the guise of comedy.

Coupling Acham and Esposito’s arguments highlights some of the narrative tropes seen in popular network shows like Grey’s Anatomy. Season one of the show featured several ethnic, minority characters and like The Cosby Show, particularly African American professionals. However, race was rarely discussed despite the overt diverse casting that centered around a majority white cast. What’s interesting is the primetime attention that seems to be paid to shows with racial structures that adhere to “positive” images of African Americans. With “Shondaland” now consisting of three shows on Thursday nights, it’d be interesting to explore the dynamics of race that now encompasses network television.

Fifth Core Post

The readings for this week, as Megan points out, ask us to consider representation of minority communities in the US on TV as a combination of visual texts, economic policies, and marketing strategies. I enjoyed watching Black-ish and Fresh Off the Boat for this week because they demonstrate how the arguments made by Acham, Grey, and Esposito still resonate today. In this post I want to focus more on Grey’s article, as I will be responding to Acham and Esposito for my presentation this week.

Grey speaks to a moment in the 1980s where TV underwent several structural changes that made it so that networks decided to adapt its programming, focusing more on “niche” audiences in order to compete. Grey then argues that during this era “what is remarkable is not so much the network's use of such strategies as narrowcasting, but (and this point is central to my argument) the increasing centrality of black popular culture to the networks' offerings” (61). Grey also tells us how networks like NBC “made shows about black life central to its definition of "quality" programming; in so doing, the network helped to establish the-financial and aesthetic terms within which blackness was represented and circulated in commercial television (Bierbaum 1990)” (61). In this way, during the 1980s TV networks not only changed their economic strategies, but also changed the way in which blackness was viewed and consumed in the United States. The centrality of black culture and black life was more of a marketing strategy, Grey argues, rather than a legitimate concern with improving the quality of representation.

I would argue that streaming platforms today, with the proliferation of options, and new advertising structures and revenue strategies, have made a similar need for change in traditional cable networks. As the three authors help us understand how representation works on TV, I wonder how we can study the screenings for this week to see where we might find similarities with those from the 1980s, and whether or not there are similar strategies at play. Do these networks still view shows with African American or Chinese American casts the same way shows were seen in the 1980s, as “a low-risk, potentially profitable object of television”? Or has that changed? Do streaming platforms like Netflix and Hulu do this as well? When talking about representation in media, I think about Hannah’s comments as well as these questions. How do we make sure that these shows don’t reproduce the same structural issues of the past, and avoid challenging oppression both in front and behind the scenes?

Goatees — a non-core post

With the current lull of new TV, my partner and I have been catching up on Star Trek: Discovery. We just got to episode 10, "Despite Yourself." The crew finds themselves in an alternative dimension filled with... evil versions of themselves. It's a clear reference to Mirror, Mirror — the Empire's logo is similar, everyone carries daggers, and, yes, there is an evil Vulcan with a goatee. 

I found it fascinating because I was flipping out at the comparisons the whole time, thinking about continuity between the universes, about what it meant that only some of the audience will get the reference, and, combined with the readings this week, the role that economics probably played in the decision.

Core post #2

As previous posters have noted, this week’s readings each examine television’s ways of “representing” race in terms of broader industrial, cultural, and ideological contexts. Acham contextualizes The Cosby Show’s assimilationist narratives within Bill Cosby’s larger career and refusal to engage with the social realities of race, as well as within larger Reaganite policies of social program cutbacks and discourses of bootstrapping, and the show’ valorization by proponents of such policies and discourses. Gray, meanwhile, trains his lens on the broader proliferation of black-oriented sitcoms in the 1980s which The Cosby Show helped to catalyze. While underwritten to some extent by cultural shifts, Gray argues that this proliferation was fueled largely by economic incentives. In an era of increased market competition, black audiences became a key demographic for the big three networks—not just because “narrowcasting” was on the rise, but also because black households were less likely to have access to the networks’ competitors: cable and VCRs.

Finally, Esposito demonstrates how even when seeming to foreground race, a show like Ugly Betty might favor of an ideology of meritocracy and colorblindness which occludes the fact of white privilege and systemic racism. And this brings me to Fresh off the Boat.

I enjoy Fresh off the Boat. I’ve only seen a handful of episodes, but the writing is clever and the joke execution is often genuinely funny. And like Black-ish, the show deserves recognition for the ways in which it, unlike, for example, The Cosby Show, foregrounds issues of race and class, constructing a family of characters with distinct points of view through whom we get to see larger social and cultural discourses rehearsed. There are, I think, myriad reasons to take issue with Newcomb and Hirsch’s model of television as a cultural forum, but Fresh of the Boat does model a kind of forum action that, with the show’s very title and the sort of narrative content we see in an episode like “So Chineez,” might seem to refute the kinds of colorblind discourses Esposito unpacks in her analysis of Ugly Betty.

Yet, I worry that this (or other) series’ discursive problematization of race and class might also be accompanied by affirmations of meritocratic or colorblind ideological positions. Again, I’ve only seen a few episodes, so I’m not going on much. But already, “So Chineez” points to potential lines of critique. The episode opens with voiceover narration from adult Eddie making a series of assertions about the family’s success in “settling into Orlando”: Eddie has become his school’s “first black president” (this rather jarring joke plays off of the series’ broader mode of making Eddie’s appropriation of black popular culture central to his character); his dad, Louis, has “put the restaurant on the map”; and his mom, Jessica, is “assimilating like a fiend.” The A-plot goes on to coalesce around Jessica’s identity crisis in response to a white couple’s remark that they view the Huang family as “regular old Americans.” While there’s more to unpack in how this crisis plays out, the opening voiceover has already made clear the social mechanisms that might “merit” such a remark: Eddie has assimilated by becoming an expert in the dominant culture’s own modes of appropriation; Louis’s entrepreneurial success has earned the family a slice of the bourgeois pie (and, by extension, access to some of the affordances of white privilege); and Jessica’s proficiency in gabbing about Melrose Place further buys them purchase into the “colorblind” meritocracy.

As with Esposito’s discussion of implicit forms of "nepotism" in the Ugly Betty episode she analyzes, we can say that “So Chineez” represents mechanisms of white privilege—grandiosely emplaced in the narrative site of the country club, for example—but it doesn’t articulate the structural mechanisms that make this privilege inaccessible to “othered” bodies and social groups at the level of broader reality. Rather, it narrativizes assimilation as a fraught choice, but a choice nonetheless. Jessica can embrace Melrose Place, or she can forsake it and send her children to Chinese school, or, preferably, she can, by the end of the episode, strike a position of negotiation or “hybridity,” reaffirming her love of the ease of preparing mac ‘n cheese while also rewarding Eddie for his affirmation of his Chinese heritage. In an era in which “identity politics” are buzzy on various ends of the ideological spectrum, perhaps we’ll continue to get ever more sophisticated shows that attempt to navigate terrains of “difference.” My concern is that because the economic and narrative imperatives of television demand resolution, these shows will develop ever more sophisticated terms for evading issues of structural power and oppression.