African American Women – Bitch Flicks

The Veil of Diversity in ‘Sleepy Hollow’

The realm of sci-fi and fantasy offers many possibilities to challenge the status quo. It’s the ultimate platform to show diversity and portray a more nuanced characterization of people. Let’s hope that ‘Sleepy Hollow’ can pull of what it has planned and there will be no need to dust off the #AbbieMillsDeservesBetter hashtag.

This is a guest post by Giselle Defares.

Television as an mirror that reflects the cultural dynamic that’s present in our society. Ha. There are a few shows that get it right–see the socio-economic depiction in The Wire or the gender politics in Mr. Robot–but more often than not, television formats succumb to trite stereotypes and travel the well-trodden path of TV tropes. The recent change in the TV landscape, “The Golden Age of diversity and representation,” made it seem that there were more roles for actors of color. Yet, the numbers from the 2015 diversity report on Hollywood, Flipping the Script – from UCLA’s Ralph Bunche Center for African American Studies – are only marginally better than previous years.

Veteran showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are known for their teamwork in sci-fi – see Fringe, Cowboys & Aliens, Star Trek: Into Darkness. They took a chance on a script by Phillip Iscove, who was toiling away as an assistant at UTA, and Iscove sold his pitch based on the “man out of time” element. They teamed up with director/executive producer Len Wisemen, mostly known from his work on the Underworld franchise, to create one of the more kooky TV formats: Sleepy Hollow (2013).

The conversation has shifted in recent years when it comes to the portrayal of Black women who have graced our screens. From the groundbreaking start with the working single mother Julia Baker on Julia, to the mid-1970s with the working-class housekeeper Florida Evans in Good Times, followed by educated womanhood in the form of Clair Huxtable in the 1980s with The Cosby Show, to the Black professionals such as Maxine Shaw in Living Single, independent women Pam and Gina in Martin, to Whitley in A Different World. Funnily enough, in the 1990s most channels featured shows with a diverse cast. However, once the ratings were high enough they would replace them with mostly white-orientated shows after the network got traction – see UPN, CW, WB, FOX.

Most would say that the reign of Shonda Rimes and her Shondaland production company paved the way for Black characters such as Miranda Bailey in Grey’s Anatomy, Olivia Pope in Scandal, Annalise Keating in How to Get Away with Murder. Other networks followed suit and there’s Mary Jane Paul on Being Mary Jane, Rainbow Johnson on Black-ish, and we can’t forget about Ms. Cookie Lyon on Empire. It’s refreshing to see a variety of Black women represented on the screen. Characters who’re not molded in the archetypes that are damaging society’s perception of Black women – think Strong Black Woman, Mammy, Jezebel, Video Vixen, and so on.

Not every (main) Black character gets the treatment they deserve and debunk archetypes. Characters such as Tara Thornton in True Blood, Bonnie Bennett in The Vampire Diaries, Lacey Porter in Twisted, Iris West in The Flash, and Abbie Mills in Sleepy Hollow, are coming together as captivating women who are used to promote diversity in the show and are slowly pushed aside when the fan base is secured and TPTB still think they have to cater to a certain demographic. Well, it seems that the bait and switch tactic never went out of style.

Abbie, Ichabod and Frank — Abbie, Ichabod, and Frank

The premise of Sleepy Hollow sounds farfetched, but somehow it work(s)(ed). The show is loosely based on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving. Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison) wakes up in our century and has to stop the Headless Horseman from starting the Apocalypse. He meets Lieutenant Abbie Mills (Nicole Beharie) and together they are the “Witnesses” who will stop the Apocalypse as is written in the Book of Revelation. The duo gets help from Abbie’s sister, Jenny Mills (Lyndie Greenwood), who has in-depth knowledge on the evil forces and artifacts. The stern Captain Frank Irving (Orlando Jones), Abbie’s boss, who reluctantly starts to believe in their cause; and finally the whispery Katrina Crane (Katia Winter), Ichabod’s wife, who “tries” to help the team whilst being stuck in ‘a world between life and death’ a.k.a purgatory, which is ruled by the main antagonist Moloch.

In essence, it’s a tried formula. There’s the overarching mythos of Sleepy Hollow, sprinkled with an ‘army of evil, Lt. Abbie Mills as the reluctant character who works hard and suppresses her own demons and deals with family concerns. Of course her partner is a snarky, knowledgeable yet flawed British hero who fully believes in the mythology. Nevertheless, the chemistry between Mison and Beharie is electric and lured fans in to join the duo on their (un)believable journey. Credit also goes to the multi-racial supporting cast with John Cho as police officer John Brooks, Nicholas Gonzalez as Detective Luke Morales who’s also Abbie’s ex-boyfriend, Jill Marie Jones and Amandla Stenberg as respectively Frank Irving’s ex-wife Cynthia and daughter Macey.

Season 1 was fun, period. It was accepting of all the cheesiness and ran with it in order to create solid (cult) television. Sure, the dialogue was clunky, there were small loose ends, the pacing was off, but it didn’t matter. The diverse cast really made it work. In October 2013, executive producer Heather Kadin even joked: “[..]because we have so much diversity in our cast and we’ve had the freedom to cast our villains and victims however we want, so we can kill as many white people as we want.” It now turned out that it was too good to be true.

Sleepy Hollow became the surprise freshman hit of the season. Fox quickly renewed the show after only two episodes aired and didn’t order the back nine episodes – usual concept for network shows – and kept the show at 13 episodes. Fox later upgraded the show to a total of 18 episodes for season 2. So, the showrunners had the time – there are 10 months between the first and second season – to focus on season 2 in order to make it bigger and better. Right. From the mediocre promotion for the second season, to the casting announcement of Matt Barr as Indiana Jones’ reject Nick Hawley who essentially plays the same role as Jenny Mills, to Alessandra Stanley’s inaccurate NYT article that unjustly called Beharie a sidekick. It was merely the alarm that showed us how season 2 would play out. The bait and switch was almost a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Solving crime with the Mills’ Sisters — Solving crime with the Mills Sisters

Season 2 has aptly been named by some as “the screenwriters guide of how not to write a show.” One of the catalysts of the demise of season 2 is the fact that Kurtzman and Orci left to do other projects and instilled their faith on showrunner Mark Goffman. Sure, Goffman earned his stripes with series such as White Collar, but he couldn’t handle Sleepy Hollow.

It’s mindboggling that the Juilliard-trained Beharie, who proudly advocated for her character in an interview with Essence – and didn’t expect to portray a tough, cop character with her 5′ 1″ stature and African American background – was pushed aside in favor of “The Crane family drama.” Katrina Crane’s story arc was deplorable. She was touted as a powerful witch from the start. Instead she was only used as a plot device in the first season. They tried to flesh her character out in season 2 and failed. Ichabod Crane became a moping know-it-all (more than usual) who ignored Abbie’s advice to keep focused on their common goal. Fringe’s John Noble was wasted as Ichabod and Katrina’s son who turned out to be The Horseman of War and got his mother pregnant with an evil, demon baby – don’t ask. Not to mention that the Headless Horseman became a woobified character, “grew” a head, and turned out to be Katrina’s ex instead of a menacing villain. The Powers That Be (TPTB) molded Katrina into a damsel in distress that ate up the screen time that should have further explored the relationship between Abbie and Jenny, Abbie and Ichabod, basically everything surrounding Abbie Mills.

The other members of “Team Witness” didn’t fare better. Lyndie Greenwood was promoted to series regular, but was most of the time nowhere to be found in favor of Nick Hawley. Captain Frank Irving and his family’s storyline was cast aside, only to be shortly revived in the most ridiculous way. The show was at its best when Team Witness came together to fight evil and showed the underlying dynamic between the different characters. Add that with the casting of House of Cards actress Sakina Jaffrey as Sheriff Leena Reyes, who has an connection with Abbie’s past, but was severely underused throughout the show.

The diversity of the cast gave the wobbly storyline that extra spunk. Characters of color who seamlessly worked together and aren’t focused on anyone’s race and color – though the show doesn’t hide from commenting on race. Abbie and Jenny are normal, intelligent, layered characters with flaws who’ve showed their vulnerable side, thus debunking the archetype of “The Strong Black woman.” Most fans – and critics- were frustrated after eight episodes had aired of the second season. The diversity and representation went right out of the window with the start of season 2.

Social media further added fuel to the fire within the fandom. At the start of the first season, Orlando Jones quickly broke the fourth wall. He created his own Tumblr page and participated in fandom discussions. Jones actively created more promotion for the show than whatever the Sleepy Hollow PR department was/is trying to do.

The unrest in the fandom sparked the #AbbieMillsDeservesBetter hashtag, where fans could vent their frustrations and asks the writers and staff of Sleepy Hollow why Beharie has been pushed to the background in a show in which she’s a lead character. Sleepy Hollow writer Raven Metzner came under fire on social media when he lashed out to the “haters” of the show. The show slightly redeemed itself with the last four episodes – even with the plot where Abbie was transported back to Ichabod’s time and was seen as a slave, they tiptoed the line with the racial insensitivity, but handled it well. Now, not only was Abbie shelved in the show, apparently Beharie was initially left out on the DVD commentary for season 2.

Sci-fi and fantasy writer Genevieve Valentine at io9 made some valid points when it comes to the trajectory of the show. In a series of Tweets she explains, “The unexpected success of season 1 relied heavily on tweaking tropes – not least of which was the trope of the white mythical heroes. [..] This show cannot be trusted with its own story, and that’s a sad place of no-faith to be coming from with the cast and potential it has.” So, the bait and switch from season 2 didn’t work out as planned. Fans and critics alike have voiced their opinions, but will the necessary changes be made?

The criticism didn’t go unnoticed. During the TCA press tour in January, Fox TV chairman and CEO Dana Walden mentioned that the show will be less serialized and have a slightly lighter tone in the future. Well, one of the first changes is a cross-over with the crime procedural show Bones (!). Soon after came the news that Orlando Jones involuntarily left the show. This is a blow for the promotion of Sleepy Hollow. Neither Mison nor Beharie are very active on social media whether it’s promoting the show or engaging with fans; however, Greenwood picked up the baton from Jones.

Furthermore, on August 2, the new showrunner Clifton Campbell (The Glades), told TV Guide that the Headless Horsemen won’t return this season. He said, “But we have a new framework and a new set of rules for the mythology.” Yeah, look how that previously turned out.

The storyline will jump one year ahead. This will give Ichabod the time to grieve over his wife and son, and maybe get a job to start paying the bills. Abbie will be more focused on her job now as an FBI agent. Still, the casting for season 3 went off with a rough start with the announcement of Nikki Reed (Twilight) as series regular Betsy Ross (the legendary seamstress apparently had a thing with Ichabod back in the day), and she will bring a “smart and sexy edge” to the show. Wayward Pines’ Shannyn Sossamon will play the mysterious woman Pandora who asks Ichabod and Abbie for help. It almost seems that TPTB didn’t get the memo. Fans and critics alike asked for more focus on Ichabod and Abbie and Team Witness. Luckily some recent additions seem promising. Lance Gross (Crisis) makes his debut as Abbie’s boss and we’ll see the return of fan-favorite Zach Appelman as Joe Corbin.

So, why stick with Sleepy Hollow? First off, Nicole Beharie is captivating as Lt. Abbie Mills and we need to see more diverse Black leading women on tv. After all, that’s true representation. Secondly, the nuanced relationship and charm between Tom Mison and Nicole Beharie. It’s a natural chemistry that seems so effortless. It would be a waste not to enjoy it while you can. Thirdly, the bait and switch tactic was disastrous for the show; TPTB are still trying to recover from that, it’s only onwards and upwards from here.

The realm of sci-fi and fantasy offers many possibilities to challenge the status quo. It’s the ultimate platform to show diversity and portray a more nuanced characterization of people. Let’s hope that Sleepy Hollow can pull of what it has planned and there will be no need to dust off the #AbbieMillsDeservesBetter hashtag.

Giselle Defares comments on film, fashion (law) and American pop culture. See her blog here.

New Comedy Web-Series ‘Black Feminist Blogger’

When you only share narratives from a small percentage of the population, chances are the stories might start to overlap. Only allowing a certain group of people access to representation is merely a way of securing total domination, and normalizing white supremacy. This trend is especially common in the comedy space.

This is a guest post by Aph Ko.

I am the actress, writer, and producer for the new independent web-series called Black Feminist Blogger. The show centers on the protagonist Latoya as she attempts to navigate the competitive terrain of the online feminist blogging marketplace.

She is a full-time blogger for the online feminist magazine Sapphire Mouth Magazine, which is run by a white woman named Marie. The show comically highlights some current issues within blogging culture such as the exploitation of writers, the overwhelming amount of under-paid writing positions, as well as the overt privileging of white women’s voices over minoritized women.

As the show unfolds, we see all aspects of Latoya’s life impacted by the massive amount of time she spends online catering to Marie’s requests for more sanitized, mainstream, “page-clicky,” commercial material. From not receiving regular paychecks, to having relationships fall apart, Latoya’s world spins upside down as she attempts to find a way to balance her love for feminism and writing, with the exploitative market inherent in many blogging spaces.

The struggles that Latoya faces are not all that different from many other bloggers online. Blogging is still largely seen as a hobby rather than a business, therefore, exploitation runs wild. Additionally, because so much of the labor is invisible to the mainstream, there are rarely any entertainment products that cater to bloggers. The blogosphere functions much like any other workspace, except much of the communication is done online. There are so many funny narratives lurking “behind the scenes” of blogging and I decided that I would start with some of my own stories.

I think it’s important that young women of color pick up cameras and film their own narratives, regardless if you don’t have a budget or camera experience. Hollywood shouldn’t have a monopoly on creativity and expression. I’m so tired of going to movie theaters or turning on Netflix and seeing that white people (predominantly men) dominate all stories. It’s not right, and frankly, it’s boring as hell.

A lot of comedy today is politically, critically, and intellectually bankrupt.

Even when the media product is supposedly “progressive,” it still centers whiteness. Think about the Colbert Report or The Daily Show, where they say some of the most progressive commentary on television, yet they are the first to carry the torch of whiteness and continue on the tradition of white men dominating media. In fact, when I watch these shows, sometimes I feel like they’re explicitly talking to white people, so I laugh, but again, I laugh from the margins.

The privileging of whiteness is the underlying foundation for mainstream comedy today.

Rocio Isabel Prado from Black Girl Dangerous states:

“Mainstream comedians like Louis C.K. are well known for acknowledging their white privilege, but they continue to use racism in their routines. Because people of color are not the intended audience, we are the targets for jokes.

White comedians’ refusal to acknowledge audiences of color has been painfully consistent. I’m tired of waiting for the Mexican joke to be over so that I can go back to listening to the rest of the show. Instead of hoping for white comedians to validate my experience, I have since begun to actively seek out comedians of color.”

It’s time we disrupt this trend and take over. If you really think #blacklivesmatter, then you should support the hell out of Black independent artists. Waiting for white people to “get it” doesn’t have to be the activism. Actively seeking out Black comedians, artists, musicians, intellectual thinkers, and filmmakers is the activism.

Being able to relax, being able to be entertained (without the drudgery of a thousand side-thoughts about how white-centric or sexist a program is), and being represented is revolutionary.

We must continue to cultivate, foster, and support Black independent media.

As I said on For Harriet:

“Imagination is a powerful tool that white supremacy keeps trying to hijack. When imagination becomes institutionalized, corporatized, or white-washed, it can become a tool of violence that can shape reality. Black independent media is a revolutionary reclamation of imagination.”

Check out the facebook page for Black Feminist Blogger and subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Here’s ep. 1, 2, and 3. New episodes are out every Monday.

Aph Ko is a contributing writer for Everyday Feminism and For Harriet. She loves merging digital media with social justice. She is also the creator of Tales from the Kraka Tower, a web-series that satirizes diversity in academia.

The Fantasy of Mammy, the Truth of Patsey

However, I want to challenge that particular narrative: that nothing has changed. If we juxtapose McDaniel’s Mammy alongside Nyong’o’s Patsey, we might realize that, apart from being slaves, their characters are nothing alike. Indeed, from a historical and cinematic context, something significant has changed. Mammy is the mask that pro-slavery apologists used to erase the existence of the Patseys in slavery. It is remarkable that it took 75 years to remove that mask from depictions of cinematic slavery.

This guest post by Janell Hobson previously appeared at the Ms. Blog and is cross-posted with permission.

It was not lost on some that, 75 years after Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, the beautiful, poised, and talented Lupita Nyong’o would become the sixth black woman to win that same Oscar—and for playing the same type of role, a slave.

If we count Halle Berry’s Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role, that brings the full count of African American women Oscar winners to seven. And when we look at the types of portrayals that won these awards—McDaniel as “Mammy,” Whoopi Goldberg as a con-artist spiritual adviser, Halle Berry as an oversexed and imbalanced grieving widow and mother, Jennifer Hudson as a sassy yet rejected lover singing with much attitude, Monique as a deranged abusive welfare mother, Octavia Spencer as a sassy yet abused maid, and now Lupita Nyong’o as a raped, whipped and victimized slave—it’s very easy to imagine that our subservience as black women (or even our hysteria as women in general; just look at the roles that white actresses often win for) is what is recognizable and later celebrated. In short, such recognition might convince us that nothing has changed.

However, I want to challenge that particular narrative: that nothing has changed. If we juxtapose McDaniel’s Mammy alongside Nyong’o’s Patsey, we might realize that, apart from being slaves, their characters are nothing alike. Indeed, from a historical and cinematic context, something significant has changed. Mammy is the mask that pro-slavery apologists used to erase the existence of the Patseys in slavery. It is remarkable that it took 75 years to remove that mask from depictions of cinematic slavery.

There are other changes that we cannot overlook: The fact that McDaniel was forced to sit in the back row the night of the Oscars ceremony, segregated from the rest of her white cast members in the movie Gone with the Wind, contrasts with Nyong’o sitting up front with all the other A-list stars. There is also the fact that McDaniel and other black actors in the Negro Actors Guild fought to remove the n-word from the script of Gone with the Wind, as well as other offensive scenes of racial degradation (shoe-shining her master’s shoes on her knees, or having Butterfly McQueen’s Prissy eating watermelon or being slapped onscreen by Vivien Leigh’s Scarlett O’Hara). I sometimes wonder: Had the Negro Actors Guild not intervened and those elements remained in the film, would we be able to celebrate this classic without embarrassment? Thanks to the efforts of McDaniel, she infused a long-standing stereotype of Mammy with some complicated humor, and she also helped make Gone with the Wind respectable for later generations.

Vivien Leigh and Hattie McDaniel in Gone with the Wind — Vivien Leigh and Hattie McDaniel in *Gone with the Wind*

But this is 2014, and we no longer play to respectability politics. The Civil Rights generation exposed the harsh realities of slavery’s history, with its legacy of racism and white supremacy, through our own felt experiences; the hip-hop generation embraced and poked holes in the n-word with a vengeance; and the millennial generation rightly condemns the nostalgic lies that movies like Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind have fostered about slavery. Those lies are hard to erase, since the big, expansive movie screen, with its elaborate montage in Birth and dreamy technicolor in Wind, solidified these myths. Against these grand narratives, the marginal and enslaved black woman’s story is often silenced.

It took a no-holds-barred black filmmaker like Steve McQueen to not only face the harshness of slavery—as told in Solomon Northup’s 1853 narrative, 12 Years a Slave—but to paint its cruelty in sharp colors, to sparingly use sound to build up dread or emotional release and especially to cast a dark-skinned actress such as Nyong’o who could interject sexuality and emotional depth to a character who might otherwise have been reduced to symbolic black woman victimhood. Instead, she emerged as the emotional center in one of the few slave movies that fully humanizes the slave story.

Lupita Nyong'o in 12 Years a Slave — Lupita Nyong’o in *12 Years a Slave*

Which is why the journey from Mammy to Patsey is a historic big deal. The image of Mammy was deliberately designed by pro-slavery advocates to deny the existence of slave rapes. Her dark skin (now celebrated thanks to Nyong’o’s natural beauty) was loudly negated as an aesthetic ideal. Her big and shapeless body created in the white imagination an image of safety, in which racial mixing did not occur except in the realm of loyal servitude and fierce protectionism. Moreover, her unfeminine, aggressive style made it difficult to view her as victimized by the slave system (imagine how Mammy would look in a scene with Michael Fassbender’s terrifying Edwin Epps).

Mammy was literally the visual opposition to Scarlett O’Hara, someone confined to slavery and sidekick status to the white heroine. Contrast such a pairing with Patsey and Mistress Epps (portrayed icily by Sarah Paulson), two women confined to the same man while one is given the privilege of her class position as wife and the power of whiteness to subjugate Patsey to cruelty and violence—an added insult to the injury of sexual violence that Patsey must endure from her master.

12 Years a Slave removes the masks from Gone with the Wind, and we recognize this through the very different depictions of Mammy and Patsey. As we bask in the afterglow of Lupita Nyong’o’s win—the climax to a whirlwind awards season in which we witnessed Nyongo’s transformation “up from slavery” to red-carpet fashion icon and role model for darker-skinned women everywhere—her Oscar acceptance speech said it best:

“It does not escape me for one moment that so much joy in my life is thanks to so much pain in someone else’s, and so I salute the spirit of Patsey.”

How can we, like Nyong’o, salute the spirit of Patsey? It only took 75 years for us to even catch a glimpse into the truth of her life. I would call that cinematic progress, and it’s merely the tip of the iceberg of painful history that technicolor tried to distort and which we can now watch with a bit more realism.

Janell Hobson is an associate professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University at Albany, State University of New York. She is the author of Body as Evidence: Mediating Race, Globalizing Gender (SUNY Press, 2012) and Venus in the Dark: Blackness and Beauty in Popular Culture (Routledge, 2005), and a frequent contributor to Ms.

American Mythology in ‘Sleepy Hollow’

I think this show demonstrates some of the very best and the very worst of quintessential Americanism: the idea of the melting-pot and a generous cultural and mythological syncretism or ecumenism, and a fine implementation of the ideals of opportunity, liberty, and justice for all; but also a pro-American revisionism that uncritically elevates the ideals of the US above all and completely ignores the genocide at the foundation of this nation. ‘Sleepy Hollow’ mythologizes the past in a way that speaks volumes about the present.

On moving back to the US as an adult, I was struck by the similarities between literalist Christian readings of the Bible and a certain attitude toward the United States Constitution. In much of the public discourse, both Bible and Constitution are the highest forms of authority on earth, revealed to humans from on high through prophet-men (let’s be real, they’re almost all men) who are the temporal agents of an eternal plan and must be revered. In certain circles, “the Bible/Constitution says it” seems to be the final word in any dispute.

My problem with this attitude arises from my understanding of textuality, wherein texts don’t have mouths, there is no reading without context, and the very concept of textual authority is an invention of a historically specific time and place. But this easy transference of (un)critical hermeneutic between religious and political spheres is a quintessentially USian phenomenon, and gloriously campy fantasy show Sleepy Hollow is a fascinating engagement of specifically American religious and political mythology for the 21^st century.

It's as American as a headless soldier eating a donut! — It’s as American as a headless soldier eating a donut!

The supernatural elements of the show draw on the kind of pop Christianity that permeates US culture, even – especially? – among those who are not directly familiar with biblical texts. The characters make easy malapropisms, calling the final book of the New Testament “Revelations” and threatening to “call in the damn Calvary.” The Headless Horseman of Washington Irving’s original story has been recast as one of the horsemen of the apocalypse, following the whole Left Behind, End Times, Scofield Bible prophecy interpretation of Revelation that pervades the culture (and Supernatural, another particularly American show). There is a supernatural syncretism here, though, more melting-pot than other fantasy shows in its cheery everything-and-the-kitchen-sink fusion of pop occultism and pop religion, involving demons and witches and the Sandman and prophecies and sin-eaters and necromancy and golems (and not forgetting the whole time-travel thing, which makes for some of the silliest moments on a very silly show).

sleepy-hollow-skinny-jeans — Did you think I wasn’t going to mention the skinny jeans?

More important than the pop religion, though, is the pop Americanism saturating the show. Transporting a figure from the period of the Revolutionary War to the present day allows the writers to liberally sprinkle in people and events from the mythology of the founding of the United States. Ichabod Crane has convenient personal experience with all the big events and important names listed in the history books, from the drafting of the Constitution to Paul Revere. Franklin and Jefferson and Washington, oh my. Some humor is derived from the juxtaposition of the pop-history version of events with Crane’s personal memories thereof, which is a nice little comment on the popular mythologization of history.

However, the show steers clear of challenging American myth-making too strongly. Crane is a defector from the British to the true and noble cause of FREEDOM – a British dude with a British accent is now the quintessential American, the only one around with personal experience of the country’s founding. It’s a neat piece of reverse colonialism, I guess, to which I as a Brit can only shrug and say, “Fair do’s.” But the show has yet to say anything about, you know, the original colonialism. For all its mythological syncretism and its welcome cast of African-American, Asian-American, and Latin@ characters, Sleepy Hollow is conspicuously devoid of Native Americans. I’m not asking the show to tick off a bingo card of lip-service diversity – that would possibly be even worse – but it seems disingenuous at best and actively revisionist at worst to celebrate the founding of the United States while perpetuating the cultural erasure of the people on whose literal erasure this country began.

Of course, a silly fantasy TV show can only bear the weight of so much challenge to our culture’s foundational mythology, and the writers are probably wise to steer clear of getting too deeply into the values dissonance between the 18^th and 21^st centuries, even if it requires a little extra suspension of disbelief. Ichabod is conveniently untouched by the prejudices of his (and our) time regarding women and people of color. It’s an important part of American mythology-building that anybody can be or do anything and systemic barriers aren’t in their way. This is, of course, not true of reality, but I’m glad the writers made the choice to build a world with less systemic injustice than ours. It would take a very skilled writing team indeed to engage real-world systemic injustice meaningfully within the framework of a show that literally includes dialogue like, “The Headless Horseman is mowing people down to bring about the end of days. For further questions please call Ichabod Crane, the man who beheaded him in 1781.” Choosing to steer clear of getting too weighty left the writers two main options: fill the show with white people so you don’t have to talk about race, or implicitly create a world largely free of microaggressions. Given that the vast majority of popular culture picks the former, it’s refreshing to see the latter. Abbie Mills is awesome on so many levels, and so are the many other people of color among the cast of characters.

And it would be unfair to claim that the show completely ignores race. For example, there’s a great little scene in episode 7 where Ichabod is lauding Thomas Jefferson in front of Abbie and Frank Irving. When they challenge him on Jefferson’s slave ownership, he gets hyper-defensive and bangs on about how much Jefferson TOTALLY WORKED FOR ABOLITION YOU GUYS.

Abbie: “Maybe Sally Hemings inspired him.”

Crane: “Who is Miss Hemings?”

When they explain Jefferson’s relationship with Hemings, Crane gets all pissy about how Jefferson would NEVAR do that, and he only accepts that he might be wrong about Jefferson when Abbie shows him that Jefferson stole a snappy witticism of his. It’s a nicely barbed commentary on white privilege, and how often white people – even white people who are implausibly free of overt racism – find personal injury to themselves more offensive than, say, slave-ownership.

In the end I think this show demonstrates some of the very best and the very worst of quintessential Americanism: the idea of the melting-pot and a generous cultural and mythological syncretism or ecumenism, and a fine implementation of the ideals of opportunity, liberty, and justice for all; but also a pro-American revisionism that uncritically elevates the ideals of the US above all and completely ignores the genocide at the foundation of this nation. Sleepy Hollow mythologizes the past in a way that speaks volumes about the present – and, of course, it is very, very silly.

_____________________________

Max Thornton blogs at Gay Christian Geek, tumbles as trans substantial, and is slowly learning to twitter at @RainicornMax. He’s excited for tonight’s two-hour Sleepy Hollow season finale.

Black Girls Rock The World

BET’s Black Girls Rock! Awards ceremony last week was a magnificent and much-needed celebration of the social and cultural achievements of Black women: in politics and sport, music and local activism. It’s absolutely disgusting that such an important and wonderful event was marred by white racism.

BET’s Black Girls Rock! Awards ceremony last week was a magnificent and much-needed celebration of the social and cultural achievements of Black women: in politics and sport, music and local activism. The ceremony is a 90-minute showcase of monumental talent, guts, and determination among women of color, and it’s absolutely disgusting that such an important and wonderful event was marred by white racism.

As a white person watching this event, what struck me most was this: These women were not addressing me. Although I’m trans and queer, I otherwise fall into the coveted “white males aged 18-35” demographic, and all mainstream media content is aimed squarely at me. Our society demonstrably:

And then turns around, smiling sweetly, and claims to be “post-racial.” In this environment, only the most assimilationist and unthreatening of Black voices are given a platform. Will Smith stars in bootrstrappy neocon fairytales. Crash passes for nuanced discourse around race in Hollywood. Kanye West is ridiculed for publicly speaking truths about racism in the US.

There’s an ugly mass silencing of Black voices in white America. That’s what makes Black Girls Rock! so necessary and so compelling.

I’m a white guy, surrounded by white privilege the way I’m surrounded by air, so I didn’t start watching the show for its political content, but out of sheer narcissism: I was at the taping of the opening performance by my beloved Janelle Monáe, and I just wanted to see my own face on TV (you get a split-second glimpse of me at the end of Monáe’s song). I kept watching because it is so unusual for me to witness people of color talking in this way – to, from, and for their community. The women onstage were talking about the intersectional web of systemic and individual oppressions faced by Black women in America, and they were doing this in the context of an awards show. As an avid Academy hate-watcher, I’m accustomed to treating awards shows as the smarmy, self-congratulatory industry circle-jerks that most of them are. This, though! This was a genuinely uplifting celebration of legitimately inspiring work by truly awesome individuals.

Here was the incredible Marian Wright Edelman, Mississippi’s first African-American woman lawyer and a tireless activist for underserved children even well into her seventies.

Here was anti-violence activist Ameena Matthews, speaking so powerfully about being a Black Muslim woman that she gave me chills.

Here was TV writer Mara Brock Akil, declaring, “Black women, even if nobody else sees you, I SEE YOU.”

Here was Misty Copeland, a Black woman dancing classical ballet with otherworldly beauty.

Here were three astonishing young women who have made astounding contributions to local activism in their communities, including one little girl who created her own (female, Black) superhero to combat pollution.

As Awesomely Luvvie put it, “Every moment felt like a highlight.” Amber Riley, Queen Latifah, Venus Williams, and Jennifer Hudson were among the stars present, and pretty nearly everything about the show was wonderful. Talented, tireless African-American women were lifting one another up instead of being forced to cater to white supremacy, and it was beautiful.

So, of course, white people had to throw a hissy fit.

This is the ugly reality of racism’s MO in US society. Staggering forces operate socially, economically, politically, and culturally to maintain white supremacy in every arena, and if everpeople of color do something that is not directly and primarily aimed at perpetuating this, white people start accusing them of racism. It would be funny if it wasn’t borderline-genocidal.

Fellow white people, I am begging you: don’t make this about you. Go watch the Black Girls Rock! show. Give BET your eyeballs, your time, and your attention. When I sat down to watch the show, I was only in it for myself, but I got a humbling and eye-opening exposure to some phenomenal women who are powerful forces for good in our society. May Black girls continue to rock the boat, the house, and the world.

Max Thornton blogs at Gay Christian Geek, tumbles as trans substantial, and is slowly learning to twitter at @RainicornMax. Laverne Cox is his queen.

Revisiting ‘Down In The Delta,’ Maya Angelou’s Only Feature Film

Down in the Delta film poster.

Written by Janyce Denise Glasper

I love, LOVE Maya Angelou.

She is one of my favorite inspirational women of all time, and I could praise her remarkable contributions to writing and activism forever.

When I discovered that she directed only one feature film, a film I had actually seen long ago, I decided to give it another watch and looked online. Thank you, Netflix!

Down in The Delta, with a screenplay by Myron Goble, begins with Loretta Sinclair, an undereducated African American woman strung out on drugs and alcohol, raising two children in a three-generational household, and struggling to find a job in rough Chicago. Upset that she cannot answer a single mathematical equation or find a job sweeping or mopping floors at a corner store, she dives deeper into the free, alluring drug world and her mother has to save her yet again.

In films and television, the poor single mother angle never stops, and adding lack of book smarts becomes a horse beaten to death. I personally didn’t think Angelou would angle into this pigeonholed concept of minority women, but eventually Alfre Woodard turned into a “Phenomenal Woman”–just not in the most congratulatory manner.

Rosa Lyn (Mary Alice) has a big idea that will keep her daughter on the righteous track.

Rosa Lyn, Loretta’s savior of a mother, pawns off a sterling silver candelabra heirloom (which is nicknamed “Nathan”). Loretta looks at it both shocked and hungry–that notorious expression of a drug fiend knowing prize could score ample amounts of desired inebriation. Alas, Rosa Lyn only intends that Nathan be sacrificed in order to pay for bus tickets so that Loretta and her kids have a brighter future down south.

However, Rosa Lyn wants Loretta to earn the money necessary to get Nathan back in the family.

Rosa Lyn (Mary Alice) pawns off Nathan the candelabra for bus tickets to Tracy (Kulania Hessan), Nathan (Mpho Koaho), and Loretta (Alfre Woodard).

Away from tempting drugs and hardship, Earl asks Loretta to work for him at his restaurant, Just Chicken, and teaches her how to make his famous chicken sausages. She has a hard time getting it right, but eventually she does and moves onto playing a bigger role into the restaurant field. This leads to the most disappointing part of the film. She discovers purpose not just in the Delta itself, but inside of a greasy chicken sausage joint. The situation isn’t particularly humorous or exciting. In fact, speaking from a vegan standpoint, I find it pretty distasteful, especially as a climactic point. When the small town bands together to stop the closing of the chicken plant, it becomes a cheesy outstretched manifesto of people proudly boasting about their beloved meat, disregarding slaughterhouses where the most incredibly unimaginable suffering takes place–a sacrificial unwanted suffering so eerily similar to that of Jesse. Chickens are forced into small cages, plucked and boiled alive, and all kinds of other horrors before being murdered, but Angelou praises the long hindered stereotype about African Americans’ adoration of chicken. It is heard so clearly that ears start to bleed from preaching. One wonders if that passion would remain devoutly strong if fruits and vegetable crops were similarly threatened.

I’m not trying to bash the love of chicken, but the chicken and African American relationship is so difficult to handle that it in itself becomes ludicrously overdone. The closeness to joining hands and singing spirituals left behind a sour taste.

However, the story behind Nathan the candelabra serves as a better narrative and has Angelou’s signature poignancy all over the polished sentimentality. Jesse, a family ancestor, stole the valuable sterling silver antique from his former owners, an act of revenge instilled inside since age six when watching his father get sold off auction block style, as though he were nothing more than a common object, not a human being with mind and beating heart. Candelabra, named Nathan after a father Jesse never found, has been passed down to the male line, but Eddie gives it to Loretta, marking a new sense of tradition, a new entrusted foundation.

Years ago, no one would have ever considered her worthy.

Loretta (Alfre Woodard) and Earl (the late Al Freeman Jr.) have much in common.

Down In The Delta brushes on Alzheimer’s Disease and autism and beautifully weaves how family copes with the two perilous circumstances. In one of Esther Rolle’s final roles, she plays Annie, Earl’s wife. It is wonderful how much Earl cares about Annie and has overprotective need to keep her safe from harm. But he has to keep doors and windows locked, shielding Annie inside a childproof environment.

“First she couldn’t find her keys,” states Earl. “Then she forgot what the keys were for.”

Meanwhile, Tracy, Loretta’s autistic daughter, has screamed, cried, and hollered nearly the entire film, leaving terrified strangers to think her a monstrous and demonic child. In a scene after the bus arrives at a location, a distraught woman blasts Loretta’s parenting skills, blaming her for not being able to control Tracy. Everyone wonders why Loretta keeps Tracy inside of a crib, but like Earl, Loretta is protecting Tracy from endangering herself. Angelou parallels Earl and Loretta’s dealings with disease, their gnawing frustrations and little triumphs, and bridges their connection closer together. It is not romantic, but friendly, familial, and bittersweet, one that succeeds because they provide comfort to each other.

Loretta also spends time with Annie’s caretaker, Zenia who offers her beer. Now Loretta, appearing uncomfortable and noticeably silent, could have easily declined. Alcoholism is a real disease to master and for her to suddenly kick back and have a chuckle makes light of the real difficulty people have just being around a bottle–having one little drink (or in this case, a whole bottle) is downright impossible.

The late Roger Ebert, however, was one of several critics who enjoyed Down in the Delta:

“Angelou’s first-time direction stays out of its own way; she doesn’t call attention to herself with unnecessary visual touches, but focuses on the business at hand. She and [Myron] Goble are interested in what might happen in a situation like this, not in how they can manipulate the audience with phony crises. When Annie wanders away from the house, for example, it’s handled in the way it might really be handled, instead of being turned into a set piece.”

Down in the Delta ends with the “feel good” message that life can be filled with turmoil and can appear inescapable, especially to a minority woman, but it’s never too late to turn things around. After Nathan is “rescued” from the pawn shop and handed down to Loretta, everyone now trusts her, the threat of drugs/alcoholism disappears, and Earl promotes her to running Just Chicken so that he can spend more time with Annie. Loretta now has reached a positive place.

As director, Maya Angelou’s spirit floated between the Mississippi-centered delta, but sometimes drifted away like it was never there.

However, that doesn’t mean that I don’t want her to make another film.

In fact, I wish she would.

Ava DuVernay’s ‘Middle of Nowhere’ a Complicated, Transformational, and Feminist Love Story

Written by Megan Kearns.

I often talk about how I want to see more female-fronted films, created by female filmmakers, including women of color on-screen and behind the camera. I want complex, strong, intelligent, resilient, vulnerable, flawed women characters. I want more realistic depictions of love: tender, supportive yet complicated. I want my films to make a social statement if possible. In Ava Duvernay’s award-winning, poignant and evocative film Middle of Nowhere, she masterfully displays all of the above.

Middle of Nowhere is such a brilliant film – quiet yet intense – I worry my words won’t do it justice.

When we meet the intelligent, persistent and amiable Ruby (Emayatzy Corinealdi in a captivatingly powerful performance), she’s living for her husband Derek (Omari Hardwick). She has put her life, her career, her education, her dreams on hold. All so she can emotionally and financially support Derek. Ruby quits medical school after her husband Derek faces an 8-year prison sentence. She wants to visit her husband in prison on weekends and doesn’t want to miss his weekday calls. Ruby envisions them as a team, a united front. But Derek wants her to let go and move on with her life.

These two exchanges in the beginning of the film punctuate the disparity in Ruby and Derek’s views:

Derek: “You were on your way to doing something. Don’t stop.”
Ruby: “We were on our way.”

Derek: “I want you to keep going with your life…Don’t stop for me.”
Ruby: “You are me.”

You want Ruby to succeed. You want her to find happiness. But she can’t move on. Derek isn’t the only one trapped. Ruby is imprisoned, haunted by the beautiful memories of the past, determined to survive the present, waiting it out for her happily reunited future.

Ruby must adapt to her new life. She bonds with another wife of an inmate on her weekly bus ride to the prison, the two support one another through their ordeal. Ruby tells her mother Ruth (Lorraine Toussaint) she’s taking night shifts at the hospital so she can support Derek as he’s going through a tough time. Her mother skeptically questions this as she knows her daughter struggles and sacrifices too. Frustrated and angry, she believes Ruby is throwing her life away for a man who doesn’t matter.

Ruth: “Oh he’s going through a tough time? I see. Then, by all means, sit home and wait to comfort him. That makes a lot of sense.”

It’s also “radical,” although it shouldn’t be, to see a loving black relationship on-screen. A beautiful yet heartbreaking love story, Ruby and Derek passionately love each other. We see Ruby and Derek cooking together, playful and tender, in Ruby’s memories. We witness her bittersweet words to Derek as she writes in an anniversary card, “Next year, I’ll whisper this in your ear. Happy anniversary. I love you.” Throughout the film, Ruby imagines Derek sleeping next to her, holding her. When Ruby visits Derek in prison, their love hangs in the air, unspoken yet palpable.

When we see a prison story, it follows the inmates, rarely their families. My mother worked at a prison, doing payroll for correctional officers. So I grew up hearing stories of inmates and COs. But what about their families? DuVernay was curious about all those women who visit their loved ones in prison. Where do they go? What are their stories? It’s a story seldom told. In an interview, DuVernay said:

“I’m from Los Angeles and I know countless women who live this kind of life every day, year after year. You see women struggling to keep it all together while a loved one is in jail. But we don’t hear about them or their struggles in a way that resonates with others. Their stories are so compelling. It’s as if they are in their own little world and no one else sees them.”

I had the pleasure of seeing Middle of Nowhere at the Athena Film Fest a few weeks ago. In her Q&A at the festival, Duvernay — the first African-American woman to win Best Director at Sundance — talked about the travesty of the prison system. How prisons charge an obscene amount of money for inmates to call their loved ones. How they place inmates in prisons far from their families. When asked in an interview if she’s a feminist filmmaker, DuVernay responded:

“I’m a black filmmaker. That covers all my politics.”

While DuVernay may not call herself a feminist or identify as one, this to me was an undoubtedly feminist film. Boasting a strong, intelligent female protagonist, the film raised intersectional issues of gender, race, class, incarceration, marriage, fidelity and motherhood.

We see everything from Ruby’s perspective, witnessing her journey. DuVernay isn’t afraid to allow silence in the film, to let Ruby’s emotions sink in. Middle of Nowhere is a “complicated love story” yet passes the Bechdel Test with ease. While Derek at times consumes her thoughts and words, Ruby converses with her sister Rosie and her mom Ruth about other topics besides men. Ruby and Rosie’s relationship nurtures yet challenges one another. The two sisters unite against their complicated relationship with their mother. Ruth tries to steer her grown children to not follow in her footsteps making the same mistakes she made. She wants her daughters to not be afraid to ask for help. She demands Ruby live her own life, wanting her to stop being afraid to speak up for herself.

With each character, you see their mistakes and flaws. You understand the circumstances that led them to make the choices they have made. Yet Middle of Nowhere villainizes no one. Derek, the easiest character to potentially demonize, retains his dignity and humanity.

We witness Ruby’s fierce passion when she confronts Derek’s lawyer and Derek’s friend Rashad. While she seems more comfortable to speak up on Derek’s behalf — although these encounters obviously impact her future too — Ruby eventually becomes more at ease articulating her needs.

Brian (David Oyelowo), the bus driver who unexpectedly enters her life, tells Ruby she expects a fairytale ending. But like reality, there is no magical fairytale ending. No one’s going to rescue Ruby. She must decide what’s right for herself.

After Ruby experiences a devastating betrayal by someone she loves, she realizes she must go after what she wants. She can’t keep living in the shadow of memories, hoping for a reality that may never materialize.

Ruby: “We are somewhere in between, in a middle place…The past has disappeared. And the future? It doesn’t exist, until we get there.”

When do you stay? When is it time to move on?

I loved Middle of Nowhere, one of my favorite films of 2012. The haunting story boasts complex, fully dimensional characters. Poetic yet realistic dialogue emanates, draped in vivid images and lush, stirring music. The bittersweet yet satisfying ending brought me to tears.

While a romance, it doesn’t fall into the stereotypical gender traps: a woman changing for a man, a woman trying to catch a man, a woman throwing her life away for a man. Putting the pieces of her shattered heart back together, Ruby emerges from a woman living for her husband to living for herself. Middle of Nowhere transcends the usual boundaries of a love story between a woman and a man to become a transformational story about loving yourself. And that’s incredibly rare and powerful.

Women of Color in Film and TV: ‘Eve’s Bayou’ belongs in the canon

Written by Robin Hitchcock.

Eve’s Bayou dvd cover

Eve’s Bayou, Kasi Lemmons’s 1997 debut as a screenwriter and director, should be seen by every movie lover, every filmmaker, every storyteller. It’s a nearly perfect narrative feat, but it only generated minor waves among film critics upon its release (although Roger Ebert did name it his Best Film of 1997), and failed to garner mainstream awards nominations (it did better at the Independent Spirit Awards and NAACP Image Awards). In the intervening sixteen years I would have expected it to build up a huge following and status as a cult classic, but it is, at best, remembered as “a contemporary classic in black cinema.”

To be fair, one of the most remarkable things about Eve’s Bayou is that it features an all-star cast of black actors (including Lynn Whitfield, Debbi Morgan, Dihann Carroll, and Samuel L. Jackson), all playing characters informed by race, but not defined by it. Race and culture give Eve’s Bayou some of it’s richness and depth, but are not the main driving forces of the story. It’s sadly very rare to see a film about black people that isn’t entirely about their blackness.

Eve’s Bayou is also unusual in that it focuses on women, and is told through women’s point of view. Mainly, that of ten-year-old Eve (Jurnee Smollett), whose adult self provides the bookending narration: “Memory is a selection of images, some elusive, others printed indelibly on the brain.“

The power of memory and the unreliability of perception are the main themes of Eve’s Bayou, but these themes are infused into the story without reducing its clarity or straightforwardness. A bit of magical realism is used (in one stunner of a scene, Eve’s many-times-widowed aunt recounts how one of her husbands was murdered, and both women see the events play out behind them in a mirror’s reflection as the story is told), but these devices help ground the more fantastical elements of this story (including psychic visions and voodoo).

I was reminded of last year’s Beasts of the Southern Wild while rewatching Eve’s Bayou this week, as both take place in Louisiana, contain elements of the fantastical, and feature a powerfully-realized young black girl as their main character. Beasts of the Southern Wild didn’t work for me because I felt it sacrificed storytelling at the expense of its lyricism, which may be why the brilliant plotting of Eve’s Bayou stood out for me upon this rewatch. Eve’s Bayou leads you down a path where you think you know what is going to happen, but turns those expectations on their head in a ways that are both heartbreaking and moving.

Jurnee Smollett as Eve in Eve’s Bayou

I also think Eve’s Bayou is remarkably truthful and recognizable in its depiction of childhood, with all its joys, confusions, frustrations, and fears. There are many charming moments where Eve and her older sister Cecily (Meagan Good) and younger brother Poe (Jake Smollett) torment each other in ways very relatable to anyone who grew up with siblings or other children. But this film’s depiction of the challenges of childhood go deeper: we see Eve and her siblings wanting desperately to be included with and seen as equal to the adults (sometimes in very shocking ways), but also their anxiety and discomfort with growing older and leaving childhood behind.

All in all, Eve’s Bayou is a remarkable film that should have more fame and esteem than it does. If you haven’t seen it yet, it deserves the top spot on your to-see list.

Women of Color in Film and TV: Mammy, Sapphire, or Jezebel, Olivia Pope is Not: A Review of ‘Scandal’

Scandal, created by Shonda Rimes and starring Kerry Washington

Guest post written by Atima Omara-Alwala.

Like every other woman of color who enjoys film and probably many film and TV critics alike, I waited with baited breath to see what the debut of Scandal, the first major network television show in nearly 40 years with an African American woman in the lead would bring. Even with a number of film awards that many black actresses have received in recent years, there has always been the criticism, and justified, that they are stereotypical limiting roles. With Shonda Rimes as creator of Scandal (the godmother of Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice), whose work pioneered color-blind casting and complex characters regardless of race, I had exceptional high hopes this show would be different. Shonda didn’t disappoint.

Many writers and film critics have written about the three usual archetypes that black women have fit into in popular culture representation. And it is through this prism Scandal is viewed. The Jezebel, who is very sexually promiscuous; the Mammy, who is the tireless devoted mother like figure regardless of all the wrong you did; and the Sapphire, a head-whipping, finger-snapping, anger-filled black woman. These stereotypes permeate all aspects of the American black women experience.

In Scandal, the actress Kerry Washington (from Save the Last Dance, The Last King of Scotland, and Django Unchained) plays Olivia Pope. Olivia Pope is based loosely on the life of Judy Smith, a real Washington operative who is a former member of the George H. W. Bush White House and a well-known crisis manager in DC circles. Like Judy, Olivia works with her team of lawyers, former CIA operatives, and political operatives to fix the problems and very real scandals of her very prominent clients.

Olivia Pope is tough but not in a stereotypical overbearing black woman portrayal like Sapphire. She is tough with necessity. She works in Washington DC and is in the thick of national politics and crisis managing. As someone who actually has worked as a woman of color in politics, I know for a fact no shrinking violets need apply to a world where required skills to success are extreme confidence, intelligence, and very quick thinking, and in Scandal, apparently very fast talking. Among Olivia’s clients are Congressmen, candidates for public office, corporate executives, a renowned pastor, a President, and a former Presidential candidate.

Olivia is not a tireless devoted Mammy because to fix other people’s problems and scandals, Olivia takes a NICE check to clean up your mess. (Evidence: A townhouse in Washington DC and a designer wardrobe to die for, ladies!!) Olivia truly is the lady boss. Her team is fiercely loyal to her as she takes care of them and they do the best for her because she is the best at what she does. It’s established within the first couple of episodes how good she is at what she does. The White House, which she left, calls her back often, and people come to her because her gut, as she infamously says, “is never wrong.” While many of us have seen this in our personal and professional lives (eg. Judy Smith), Olivia Pope is something rarely seen in black women representation on screen and is LONG overdue.

Being a Shonda Rimes created character, Olivia is like all of Shonda Rimes’ female characters: while tough and brilliant, Olivia is a flawed and complicated women. Kerry Washington is a great actress with a broad range who can pull this off well. In one second Olivia is talking tough and intimidating even world officials and next she is sensitive woman with a trembling lip in the next.

But even though Olivia is the great fixer of other people’s problems and scandals, she hides and really can’t fix her own major one: Olivia has a long running affair with the President of the United States, Fitzgerald “Fitz” Grant III (Tony Goldwyn), from when she worked his campaign, who is also white.

Herein lies the debate on Scandal: Is Olivia a Jezebel dressed up in 21st century political correctness? Instead of being a hooker on the stroll, slave mistress, or black girl in heat, she has her own job and career but still got to be all up on someone else’s man, especially a white man? The black blogosphere and Twittersphere debate and differ in opinion. Some say yes: 45-year veteran in advertising Tom Burrell, who has worked to promote positive portrayals of black people in media, calls Oliva Pope “a “hot-to-trot” sexually aggressive trope as old as the institution of slavery itself in the character” (damn!). Some brought up, by extension, the inevitable comparison to a Thomas Jefferson/Sally Hemings drama pretty darn quickly (of course) and some go as far as to guilt other black women (specifically) viewers for watching the show, in one popular meme (seriously?). Others defiantly say no, Olivia Pope is NOT a Jezebel. For my part, I tend to agree with the naysayers.

Olivia Pope is a groundbreaking black female character on television, period. She is a self-reliant, highly accomplished most sought-after professional. But she also made the mistake (something which she very much realizes) of falling in love with a white married man, who also happens to be, oh, the leader of the free world. The show is sharp in that it doesn’t make Olivia blind to her circumstance as any black woman in her shoes wouldn’t be. You find out in Season 2 that not only does she leave the White House to start her own firm but to get herself away from the President and let him focus to be the President he needed. Even in a fit of frustration she says of her relationship with Fitz to him, “I’m feeling a little Sally Hemings-Thomas Jefferson about all this.” Later Fitz confronts Olivia and tells her that the comment was “below the belt.” Because, he said: “You’re playing the race card on the fact that I’m in love with you.” He then proceeds to soliloquize his love so intensely for Olivia, that she (and even I) were a bit worried for his mental state.

Olivia is no Jezebel, because she takes control of her destiny being tied to Fitz and leaves it to chart her own path. Olivia is no Jezebel because the show has progressed long enough for her to have built a relationship with another man, a highly accomplished black man at that, while she still unquestionably loves Fitz she actually attempts to move on with her life, unlike him. No, she’s not perfect, but raise your hands in the air and wave them like you just don’t care if YOU are. As a black woman I realize we want to see ourselves escape the stereotypes because we’ve been held down by these images so much that we inevitably hold ourselves up to perfection to escape it. But this is also damagingly unrealistic for the black woman to do that not only to our mental health but perception from others. Frankly, the more of our stories are out there, the more we’ll reach parity in representation in film and television.

If I have any criticism on Scandal, it’s who IS Olivia, before Fitz, before the White House, and how she came to do what she does. We have a better snapshot, if not complete, on most characters, and knowing Shonda likes to take her time unfolding a character, I am looking forward to what that brings.

All in all, I think Shonda Rimes has done an outstanding job breaking barriers and it looks like she has struck a chord with African American audiences, according to the latest New York Times article. According to Nielsen, Scandal is the highest rated scripted drama among African-Americans, with 10.1 percent of black households, or an average of 1.8 million viewers, tuning in during the first half of the second season. Real life crisis manager Judy Smith live tweets during the show as do other prominent black political operatives and commentators, namely Donna Brazile and Roland Martin. Among the group aged 18 to 34, the show typically ranks first in its 10 p.m. Thursday time slot, which means success to the industry. It’s fast moving, jaw dropping, how-in-the-hell-did-I-not-guess-that cliff hangers that Shonda Rimes is so good at, combined with great actors, projects nothing but continued success for Scandal.

And I will be there every Thursday to watch.

———-

Atima Omara-Alwala is a political strategist and activist of 10 years who has served as staff on 8 federal and local political campaigns and other progressive causes. Atima’s work has had a particular focus on women’s political empowerment & leadership, reproductive justice, health care, communities of color and how gender and race is reflected in pop culture. Her writings on the topics have also been featured at Ms. Magazine, Women’s Enews, and RH Reality Check.