Critiquing Reality-Based Televisual Black Fatherhood: A Critical Analysis of Run's House and Snoop Dogg's Father Hood

In the 1980s, The Cosby Show broke all molds for the negative representation of Black people in media by supplanting them with an upper middle-class family whose forays into high culture and familial values served to dignify Blackness on television. Two decades later, at least two Black families hav...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Critical studies in mass communication 2008-10, Vol.25 (4), p.393-412
Main Author: Smith, Debra C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
African-Americans
Black Family
Black Fatherhood
Black people
Class
Content analysis
Criticism
Critiquing
Cultural Values
Families & family life
Family
Family (Sociological Unit)
Fatherhood
Fathers
Programming (Broadcast)
Race
Racism
Reality programming
Reality TV
Run's House
Snoop Dogg's Father Hood
Social classes
Television
Television Viewing
U.S.A
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:In the 1980s, The Cosby Show broke all molds for the negative representation of Black people in media by supplanting them with an upper middle-class family whose forays into high culture and familial values served to dignify Blackness on television. Two decades later, at least two Black families have emerged on reality television shows, both of which provide a platform from which to examine the televisual construction of Black fatherhood years after Cosby's debut. Run's House and Snoop Dogg's Father Hood (Father Hood), both shows based on "real" Black families, can be interpreted in comparison and contrast to Cosby's version of upper-middle class Black fatherhood to (a) investigate themes of Black fatherhood in a variety of positive forms while challenging limited images of Black fathers on television; and (b) revive debates from Jhally and Lewis' book Enlightened Racism as the families in the reality shows simultaneously corroborate, shift away from and flaunt issues of race and class while still fostering a strong identification with viewers.
ISSN:1529-5036
0739-3180
1479-5809
DOI:10.1080/15295030802328020