Black Males on Television

Have you ever stopped to think about how Black males are portrayed on TV? I, like most Americans, watch way too much TV, and I have seen my share of Black male characters in various shows (sitcoms, dramas, etc). I’ve recently noticed that there are only two types of Black male characters portrayed on TV. There is the happy go lucky clown type (Will Smith in Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Jimmy Walker in Good Times), and there is the ultra-broody-sometimes-violent Black male who’s always angry (Eriq LaSalle in ER, John Amos in Good Times).

Notice that though some of the characters were on sitcoms, they were still broody. Good Times was not a drama, yet the James Evans character was more angry, frustrated, or serious than not. Granted John Amos is a talented actor and he can do comedy as well as drama, but his character was really not written to be funny in any way. Odd for a sitcom, eh?

The only exception to this rule of note is Bill Cosby. On all of his shows, he strayed from playing too far into either stereotype. He was funny, without being too slapstickish (most of the time) and still could play the stern father figure convincingly. Of course this stems from the fact that Bill Cosby was conceivably the most famous Black man on network television for most of his career and had massive amounts of creative control. It seems as though most of the other characters fall into one of the two above mentioned camps. I am sure that there are exceptions, but none of them is so clear cut as the Cos.

If you have any thoughts or blatant exceptions to this rule, feel free to post them in the comments.

Tags: black males, ER, Eriq LaSalle, Screen, tv

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August 15, 2003 | Filed Under Screen 

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