Examining Racial Stereotypes in FX's Atlanta: A Critical Analysis
School
University of Kentucky**We aren't endorsed by this school
Course
ISC 111
Subject
Management
Date
Dec 10, 2024
Pages
7
Uploaded by haphowell123
Application Paper Hap Howell Isc 311 3/16/2023
I argue that the show Atlanta is arguably inappropriate because of the numerous accounts of racial profiling and stereotypes. Throughout the show there are many fake television commercials that portray racist stereotypes towards African American people. While the three main characters and the producer of the tv series are black, there are lots of unethical scenes that are both demeaning and portray negative stereotypes towards people of color and other minority groups. This television series Atlanta first premiered on September 6, 2016, on the network FX. This series follows the life of a college dropout (Ernest) and a rapper (Paper Boi) as they navigate the Hip Hop music scene in Atlanta, Georgia. The characters in the show are all predominantly black and most of the show takes place on the eastern side of Atlanta which consists of mostly low-income neighborhoods. There are many conflicting themes brought up in this show because there is the negative side such as drugs, teen pregnancy, and crime, but there are lots of positive themes as well. These include keeping families together, making a positive career, and much more. I have chosen to focus on the racist stereotypes shown throughout the show presented mostly in the fake television advertisements as well as the character “Paper Boi” joining a fashion brand’s diversity team.To preface these commercials, I need to include that this show is partially comedic, and some jokes are made not out of spite, but rather to make the audience laugh.
The fake commercials I am focusing on are after a television show called Montague, which is a talk show between the host, a white activist (Debaroh Holt), and Paper Boi during the seventh episode of season 1. The interaction during the talk show interview is extremely unethical because it brings up many stereotypes of black men in America. The best example of this is when Montague asks Paper Boi “isn’t a lack of a father the reason you hate trans people?” This question is an example of destructive unethical communication because it uses language meant to be offensive and creates an uneasy relationship between the character and audience. The host goes on to ask more questions to try and discredit Paper Boi. Once the talk show Montague cuts to commercial break, the racist commercial starts. This commercial is a take on the Trix cereal commercial with the slogan “trixare for kids.” During the commercial the animated children find cereal in a cave and start to eat it. A wolf (animated to seem African American) rushes towards the kids to get the cereal and is talked by a large white police officer. The police officer arrests the wolf in an unreasonable manor and proceeds to handcuff and arrest him. This commercial is unethical because it uses manipulative/exploitative unethical communication tactics. The television commercials in this show remind me of the five-minute talks in class. This is because it is a commercial made for consumers, but there is an unethical dilemma that must be fixed for the general public to not be offended. In this case the ethical dilemma was that the commercial made fun of African American people’s struggles with police brutality and negative stereotypes surrounding that community.
The show Atlanta has always been a controversial show since it was released in 2016. The premise of this show was supposed to be funny, but also to break down race barriers between the white and black communities in America. For some this was a great execution by the creator, Donald Glover, but for some of the audience it was a complete unethical nightmare. The audience did not create an uproar over the slightly offensive language or the subtle racist jokes, but more over the direct racist scenes. As we talk about, the television commercials and the fake talk show were unethical, but also the entire show. There were many celebrity appearances throughout the four seasons of Atlanta, but the two most memorable were “Justin Bieber” and Liam Neeson. I put Justin Bieber in quotation marks because it was not actually the famous pop star, rather an interracial actor playing his role. On the surface this does not seem unethical, but after further research you can see this was intentional, because Donald Glover got lots of famous artists, including Migos, Michael Vick, and many more to make appearances on the show. I do agree with the message in this show about breaking down racial barriers and uniting races, but I have some solutions to help cut out the unethical issues presented in this series. To start with I believe that the fake commercials after the talk show are not just inappropriate but are not able to be fixed. My solution to this issue would be to completely take out all the commercials with racist stereotypes and either replace them with a normal advertisement or skip that section of the show in general.
The next ethical dilemma I would like to address are the issues with the celebrity appearances. This is not ethically sound because the scenes featured in the show are completely unwarranted. With the “Justin Bieber” scene at the celebrity basketball tournament he is being portrayed as an African American character, which raised some speculation from viewers and made waves across social media following that episode. For this episode to be ethical the producers should have either gotten the real Justin Bieber or substituted another famous person and acted as themself. The situation with Liam Neeson was that the character Paper Boi was at a night club and sees Neeson and a dialog entails. They talk for a moment and Neeson describes a racist thing he had done in the past and apologizes for it. Although this seems like a genuine apology, the scene ends with him telling Paper Boi that he does not like African Americans and “I also learned the best and worst part about being white is you don’t have to learn anything if you don’t want to.” This scene started off on a positive note with the white actor publicly apologizing for his racist comments, but the show could have solved the issue at the end by not including the hatred comments and demonizing him with the comment about being white and having no repercussions for his actions. In conclusion, I know this television series' intent was to eliminate the racial barrier between white and black communities, but the execution of that message was unethical for a mainstream audience. Donald Glover is an exceptionally talented producer with many great ideas, but the fake television commercials and the inaccurate portrayals of
the white celebrities were not appropriate and were textbook forms of destructive unethical communication. All together this is an incredibly positive series, but my solutions should be taken into account in order to eliminate the unethical problems and ensure that the audience would not be offended.
References 1.Edwards, C. (2022, August 4). Donald Glover rejects criticism that 'Atlanta' "isn't for black people": "I feel this is such a black show". NME. Retrieved March 16, 2023, from https://www.nme.com/news/tv/donald-glover-rejects-criticism-atlanta-isnt-for-black-people-3282603 2.Acheampong, N. (2022, March 26). 'Atlanta' confronts the spectacle of white ignorance. The Atlantic. Retrieved March 16, 2023, from https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2022/03/atlanta-season-3-review/629394/ 3.Sharf, Z. (2022, May 6). Liam Neeson joined 'Atlanta' to poke fun at his 2019 racism controversy and say he's sorry. Variety. Retrieved March 16, 2023, from https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/liam-neeson-atlanta-racism-backlash-1235260511/ 4.Butler, B. (2021, December 3). 'Atlanta' tackled stereotypes with fake commercials and a parody news show. The Washington Post. Retrieved March 31, 2023, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/10/12/atlanta-airs-fake-commercials-and-a-parody-news-show-in-its-most-surreal-episode-yet/