Afroamerykanki wobec dyskryminacji ze względu na płeć i rasę na przykładzie bohaterek współczesnych seriali telewizyjnych
African-American women against gender and racial discrimination: Black heroines in contemporary TV series

Author(s): Aleksandra M. Różalska
Subject(s): Gender Studies, Sociology of Culture
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
Keywords: African-American women; Viola Davis; How To Get Away With Murder; black feminism; intersectionality
Summary/Abstract: Drawing from intersectionality theories and black feminist critiques of white, masculinist, and racist discourses still prevailing in American popular culture of the 21st century, this chapter looks critically at contemporary images of African-American women in the selected television series. For at least four decades critics of American popular culture have been pointing to, on the one hand, dominant stereotypes of African-American women (the co-called controlling images, to use the expression coined by Patricia Hill Collins) resulting from slavery, racial segregation, white racism and sexism as well as, on the other hand, to significant marginalization or invisibility of black women in mainstream film and television productions. In this context, this chapter will analyze several contemporary television shows that cast African-American women as leading characters (e.g., Scandal, 2012–date and How To Get Away With Murder, 2014–2018) to see if these narratives are novel in portraying black women’s experiences or, rather, they inscribe themselves in assimilationist and postracial ways of representation.

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