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Society's Influence On African American Society

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Many social groups achieved greater acceptance in the 1990s than they had in the 1950s. First of all, African Americans became more integrated into society in the later decades as they began to appear in television shows like Family Matters, a 1990’s sitcom that revolved around the wacky situations that follow an African American family. This show takes place in Chicago and the main characters include Steve Urkel, as well as Eddie, Laura, Carl, and Harriette Winslow. Harriette and Carl are the heads of the household as she works as a secretary and he as a police officer. A show like this would never exist in the 1950s; instead there were shows like I Love Lucy which focused on a nuclear family that would deal with very miniscule dilemmas. This show takes place in New York City and the …show more content…

Family Matters broke the unspoken rules that existed in 1950s television in more ways than just having an all African American cast. They also portrayed characters to have a certain degree of insanity. For instance, in the episode “She’s Back” of Family Matters , a teenage girl named Myrtle is characterized with an irrational obsession with one of the main characters, Eddie Winslow. Myrtle stalks Eddie everywhere he goes and even tampers with the shampoo of Eddie’s girlfriend, causing all of her hair to fall out. A character like this would never be seen on I Love Lucy as no one wanted to see or hear about anything so abnormal as a mental illness. By incorporating African Americans and mental illness into the show, Family Matters shows how far America has come compared to where it had been, in terms of social acceptance, when the conservative I Love Lucy show was on the air. Although the acceptance of things that were once deemed unpleasant is one of the biggest changes from the 1950s to the 1990s, it was one of

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In Marlon Riggs’ 1992 documentary film titled Color Adjustment, Riggs, the Emmy winning producer of Ethnic Notions, continues his studies of prejudice in television. The documentary film looks at the years between 1948 and 1988 to analyze how over a 40 year period, race relations are viewed through the lens of prime time entertainment. The film examined many of television’s stereotypes and mythes and how they changed over the years. The one hour and twenty-two minute documentary is narrated by Ruby Dee, the American actress, poet, playwright, screenwriter, journalist, and civil rights activist.

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Television programs often retain an aspect of reality in order to relate to the audience and commentate on social issues. Although both The Goldbergs and The Twilight Zone address controversial issues such as gender roles, insanity, and ethnic stereotypes, genre differentiates their approach and their audiences’ receptiveness to change. Whereas The Goldbergs, an ethnic sitcom, addresses the external world using comedic relief, The Twilight Zone, a science fiction program, delves into the human mind using imagination. Despite their common efforts to direct social change, the programs are inverse images of one another, and The Twilight Zone’s genre structure allows it to resonate more with the audience. From 1949 to 1956, The Goldbergs dominated television as the first televised sitcom.

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If we focus on Andy from “The Andy Griffith Show” and Ricky from “I Love Lucy,” those two men are very different. Andy is a Caucasian man who owns his own night club business and presents himself as a very peaceful and calm person throughout the series. He is also a widowed man who is a single father to his son, Opie. I believe this was a monumental step in television history because it gave the world a different perspective about what a family image can look like. On the contrast, Ricky, the main character for “I Love Lucy,” is a Latino man who is a small town sheriff that tends to be angered easily by his wife’s antics and portrayed as more of a hothead.

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In Chapter 1 and 2 of “Creating Black Americans,” author Nell Irvin Painter addresses an imperative issue in which African history and the lives of Africans are often dismissed (2) and continue to be perceived in a negative light (1). This book gives the author the chance to revive the history of Africa, being this a sacred place to provide readers with a “history of their own.” (Painter 4) The issue that Africans were depicted in a negative light impacted various artworks and educational settings in the 19th and early 20th century. For instance, in educational settings, many students were exposed to the Eurocentric Western learning which its depiction of Africa were not only biased, but racist as well.

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Minorities in sitcoms were less portrayed in contrast to an accurate representation of the time period. Ironically, minorities in sitcoms were not always represented by minority actors and actresses. Sometimes makeup was used on a white actor so he could portray an African man. It was not until the 1950’s when African Americans were shown on television. African Americans were often portrayed as crooked people with poor English and less education.

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Television situational comedies have the ability to represent different values or concerns of their audience, these values often change every decade or so to reflect and highlight the changes that the audience is experiencing within society, at the time of production. Between the years of 1950 and 2010, the representation of gender roles and family structure has been addressed and featured in various sitcoms, such as “Father Knows Best” and “Modern Family”, through the use of narrative conventions, symbolic, audio and technical codes. These representations have transformed over time to reflect the changes in social, political, and historical contexts. The 1950’s sitcom “Father Knows Best” traditionally represents the values of gender roles and family structure in a 1950’society, with the father, held high as the breadwinner of the family and the mother as the sole homemaker.

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On September 20, 1984, the Cosby Show made airways and forever changed the general population views on gender roles and race on television. Shows in the 1980s and 1970s were still perpetuated outdated gender stereotypes and televise them, for the American audience to perceive as “normal”. The Cosby Show went against the typical gender and racial stereotypes of African Americans on television. The show reshapes the four basic elements of gender stereotypes such as personality traits, domestic behaviors, occupations, and physical appearance” (“Gender Roles and Stereotypes”). The episode “Back to school”, The school season has begun and each of the children is having a different perspective on the school they attended.

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After WWII, African-Americans refused to conform to the rules drafted in favor of the white society. The negroes of America used race music as a weapon to demonstrate non-conformity and performed music only to the African-American society. A famous race music in the 1960s was ‘Hound Dog’ performed by an African American blues singer, Big Mama Thornton. Elvis Presley, a white singer who sings like the blacks, would perform the same ‘Hound Dog’ to the white audiences because Big Mama wouldn’t perform for the white society [Rock & Roll, 1950s PDF]. Another instance that shows non-conformity of African-Americans is the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-56).

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The past decade has not seen any notable family sitcoms that has surpassed such leaps of social justice as some had in the 1950’s or 1970’s. While that may be disappointing to some, this is also a great feat for all television audiences. So many issues that were once considered, “taboos,” now, can be the premise of the sitcom altogether. Even the little things like interracial couples, married partners in the same bed, and even mentioning a pregnant woman is considered normal. Yes, the family sitcom is still no direct comparison to the modern family arrangement, but it is as close as were going to get for

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Being enslaved was not an easy job for African Americans. African Americans survived slavery through their connection with their culture. They then went on to contribute to the economic and social development of the South and America. African Americans survived the institution of slavery and Africanized the American South. They helped free themselves by sticking together as a family, resisting, as well as wanting slavery to change.

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There are many open wounds in the African-American community that have not healed what so ever. Disintegration of family structures in the African-American community has been a persistent problem for far too long. High out of wedlock birth rates, absent fathers, and the lack of a family support network for many young African-Americans have led to serious problems in America's urban areas. The persistence of serious social problems in inner-city areas has led to a tragic perpetuation of racial prejudice as well. African Americans still face a litany of problems in the 21st century today.

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Racial confrontations were present in the 1950s, sometimes escalating into full-scale anti-black riots. Most of white Americans in 1950s ignored larger patterns of racial and political repression. because at the time, the media was not responding to any of them, creating the ignorant culture of the 1950s remembered as innocent. That decade was built on illusion perpetuated by the entertainment media. Coontz states the fact that these humorous television programs did not reflect the reality, but rather what, at the time, was the should be style of life for the white family.

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Despite the creator’s of Modern Family effort to portray a progressive view of American families, the show still accentuates outdated female stereotypes and gender roles; reinforcing gender characteristics, patriarchy and hegemonic masculinity. In contrast to its title, Modern Family promotes traditional gender roles and stereotypes of women, which result in the portrayal of an inaccurate image of the female, and weakens the stance of women in today’s U.S. society. Gender stereotypes are prevalent throughout the Modern Family; the women are all portrayed as wives and mothers, promoting a continued male dominant family ideology. Claire and Gloria are throughout the show acting on our society’s “assumptions about women’s ‘appropriate’ roles” (Dow 19).

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