Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (June 1, 1992)
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Choose a Realtor that will give you extra service at no extra cost Jlin <zÁ/ oar MBA "I have a Masters Degree in Business, 16 years of experience, and / am dedicated to giving you the Best Real Estate Service in Portland " HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT TRADING UP? • WITH INTEREST RATES AS LOW AS THEY ARE, YOU MAY BE ABLE TO SELL YOUR HOUSE AND BUY SOME THING CLOSER TO YOUR DREAM FOR THE SAME MONTHLY PAYMENT YOU ARE MAKING NOW. Call anytime 220-1144 The RealtvGwup Jnc, arlon Riggs is the Emmy Award celled because sponsors refused to underwrite the winning filmmaker who created show for fear of alienating Southern consumers. By 1963,90 percent of US homes possessed a Tongues Untied and Ethnic No tions. Last year at this time, his television set. The Civil Rights movement was film Tongues Untied was part of under attack and the battles were being fought in front of of View the nations television cameras. Dramatic a public broadcasting series called Point (POV). Oregon Public Broadcasting refused to footage of non-violent freedom marches and sit- show Riggs’ film because of its “homoerotic ins projected powerful images of African-Ameri content.” This year, OPB has the opportunity to cans fiercely engaged in a struggle for basic human rights. Meanwhile, programs on televi make partial amends to Riggs sion continued to promote the comfortable Fiction by airing Color that everything was all right, that the United Adjustment, which States was one big happy white family. is kicking off the Primetime television’s first attempt to provide fifth season of a ‘positive’ image of African-Americans in a POV, Monday, dramatic role came in 1968, over 20 years after June 15. the advent of television. In Julia, Diahann Carroll Color Adjust became the first black woman to star in her own ment explores ^ series in a ‘prestige’ role. But Julia, a widowed television’s vital role in selling the American nurse living in an integrated environment, was Dream, and brilliantly illuminates the interplay viewed by some critics as a colorless ‘sellout.’ between America’s racial consciousness and the Bill Cosby’s portrait of the debonaire dominant medium of modem times-television. It Alexander Scott in I Spy, a Rhodes scholar, traces the parallel development of the Civil Rights furthered the image of black people as fully as movement and broadcast television, and the in similable. Says cultural critic Henry Louis Gates, fluence they had on each other, over a period of 40 Jr., “People who could move into your neighbor years. hood and not disturb you at all.” Riggs allows viewers to revisit some of Though the turmoil of the 60s forced some television’s most popular shows, among them changes in the television landscape, new myths The Nat King Cole Show, I Spy, Julia, Good replaced the old. With Norman Lear’s All in the Times, Roots and The Cosby Show. Riggs weaves Family, for example, “the TV family, as in real carefully chosen excerpts from the programs with life, became a political battleground,” narrates nostalgic, insightful, disturbing and revealing Ruby Dee. observations from creators, writers, producers, Itwasn’tuntil 1977 that television broke away actors and cultural critics. from representing African-Americans primarily Television emerged after World War II and by in situation comedies and light-hearted adventure 1955, 67 percent of homes in the US had televi series. The 12-hour dramatic mini-series, Roots, sions. Nightly viewing became a family ritual. exposed white America to the black experience in The family itself became the centerpiece of enter a non-comedic way. Says Ruby Dee, "Primetime tainment programming. had selectively reframed American history, trans Excluded from the American dream, black forming a national disgrace into an epic triumph people on television were reduced to sources of of the family and the American Dream.” comic relief, and for the most part, played minor In 1984 black Americans could finally point to roles. Two programs allowed blacks in leading a “successful” black primetime family with the roles, Amos 'n Andy which stereotyped African- premiere of The Cosby Show. Its relentlessly Americans as vaudeville buffoons and Beulah wholesome, upbeat themes and its implicit sug who was the “cheerful” domestic. In contrast, gestion that the Civil Rights movement had re during this period, European-American culture solved racial inequities in America reaffirmed the was always shown as good and wholesome. “American Dream” and hardcore middle class In 1957, just as the civil rights movement was values. Cultural critic PatriciaTumcr says, “Any stirring in the South, Nat King Cole began to host thing that digresses from that norm will probably his own series. Finally, a show that presented not be granted tenure on primetime television.” positive role models for African-Americans, and James Baldwin sums up the role that televi one that network executives would allow since it sion has played in perpetuating the stereotypes of did not threaten white middle class family values. African-Americans, ‘The country’s image of the Bob Henry, the show’s producer and director Negro, which hasn’t very much to do with the says, “He was the kind of guy that you could Negro, has never failed to reflect with a kind of welcome into your home, he was just a gentle frightening accuracy the state of mind of the man.” After just one season, the show was can- country.”
