I grew up with a lot of black people on tv. It's not like black TV shows are some new and revolutionary thing. In fact there's only two modern black tv shows that I can think of....Empire and Blackish. The former glorifies basically everything negative about black culture. The latter is not shy about its stereotypes.
Contrast that with the 90s. Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Martin, Living Single, Family Matters, In Living Color. These were all funny, clever, and often profound TV shows that had something to say. But they would never be made today. The reason is, they depicted black people as being successful by doing something other than being in a gang or selling drugs. They often decried and criticized that very culture.
So today we are left with drivel like Hamilton. A sad attempt to force equality in media, when it only comes off as awkward and pandering.
The Jeffersons. Sanford and Son. Good Times. Diff'rent Strokes. Soul Train. Roots. And many more from the 60s and 70s. Anyone who claims black America hasn't been represented in TV/cinema is either a liar or stupid.
Bernie Mac was excellent!
Not sure that they'd be super psyched about claiming the Cosby show
The show was fine for its time, even if Cosby IRL was a creep and rapist.
It was a great show. Not because of Cosby, but because the writers had a pro family message. But in the era of me too, blm ain't claiming Cosby. I would however pay big bucks to watch a blm/antifa/#meetoo cage match on payperview. Get on it Dana white!!!
Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, Redd Foxx (both on-stage and in Sanford & Son)...
PS: When Roots came out (I was a little pede back then), the whole damned country shut down to watch it each night.
We only watched the first episode and half of the second. I remember my dad said it didn’t ring true. Made most of the white characters out to be villains.
Are you my brother??? My family did the same thing when Roots came out, centipede.
I loved those shows...
Will NEVER watch any of the new trash... Fat Albert was one of my all time favorites... the downfall of Cosby hurt a lot.
It's not a fluke that all black media glorifies violence and lawlessness.
See I always appreciated the Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, and Dave Chappelle approach. It didn't try and whitewash black culture, instead it was raw. For all the good and bad.
Normal. The word you're looking for is normal. These shows had a nuclear family with strong sense of self worth and an absence of victim mentality.
Thank you for taking the time to write this out, pede. I'm happy other people see it. <3
To help restore some of my faith in humanity, I recently downloaded the entirety of Family Matters and am working my way through it. I miss it. Things were so great back then. Carl Winslow was a successful family man employed as a Chicago PD officer.
Even commercials were great back then:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKRbJrAkf7E
and Music videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTFE8cirkdQ
https://youtu.be/S-AKUNpcLRg
I haven't actually seen Hamilton, but heard it just came to Disney+.
Should I skip it?