Who Is Killing The African-American Sitcom?
With dozens of new sitcoms premiering on major networks this fall, only two center on African-American families. Both programs, Brothers and The Cleveland Show, were picked up by Fox, and The Cleveland Show is voiced by mostly white actors. So how can it be that in an era when our country's cultural balance is shifting faster than ever underneath the joint leadership of our first African-American president and American Idol's soul judge Randy Jackson, black sitcoms are rapidly approaching extinction? And more importantly, who is responsible for their demise?
There was a period after NBC premiered Sanford and Son in 1972 when networks, inspired by the program's ratings boon, hungrily sought out Norman Lear-produced series featuring an occasionally argumentative African-American patriarch. Thus, CBS's Good Times and The Jeffersons (which is still the longest running black sitcom) were born. The growing market for minority casts extended through the '80s and '90s, when networks continuously scrambled to cash in on the next stage of black sitcom evolution. NBC hit ratings gold again with A Different World, the culturally significant monolith Cosby Show which bridged color-sensitive audiences when it earned five seasons worth of number-one Nielsen ratings, and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. ABC scored with Diff'rent Strokes and Family Matters; CBS bought Family Matters and developed Cosby. You get the picture.
At some point in the early '90s though, just as Fresh Prince was cresting in ratings, the three major networks shut down their black sitcom production trade. Maybe the abrupt stop was due to a focus group determining that the "trend" had been exhausted or just that the networks rode their plotlines into the airwave graves. Whichever the cause of death, Fox, the WB and UPN snatched up the carcasses and resuscitated them with fresh writers and talent over the late '90s and early '00s for notable hits like Living Single and The Bernie Mac Show.
Then in 2006, the genre hiccuped again when WB and UPN, the most supportive networks of African-American sitcoms, merged into the CW. After the CBS/Warner unit aired Everybody Hates Chris, the network's programming ran lily white (One Tree Hill, Gossip Girl, Melrose Place and 90210) despite the successes of its more diverse parents.
Since The CW's homogenization, black sitcoms have mostly been exiled to the cable ghettos. BET airs the shows for its largely African-American audience, and TBS has discovered rich ratings with Tyler Perry's House of Payne. But what happens to the sitcoms when TBS runs out of gas with House of Payne and BET's declining viewership results in network disintegration, especially considering the increase in cost-efficient reality programming? The prognosis is simple: The African-American sitcom is the latest host for network parasites and will not have long before it is pronounced dead.
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Thanks, Movieline.
Now you've pretty much guaranteed the announcement of a new "Sanford & Son" on NBC starring (Tim Conway and Bob Costas.)
It's funny that A Different World doesn't get more national recognition despite being TOP 5 for it's ENTIRE run.
Also, BET should be the network to produced good, innovative original programming but ever since Bob Johnson sold his soul to Viacom, they could care less about improving the presence of black families on TV. Sad really
I blame UPN directly for this. By creating a "place" for largely black shows it created an excuse for EVERY black show to be taken there. It sucked them out of the other broadcast channels, and when it died, there was nothing left.
I watched it basically forever, but I think it lost some clout when all the casting changes started (Jada Pinkett became the star, etc), and people like Kadeem Hardison started to run the show from behind. It made a conscious effort to be 'conscious', which only Tyler Perry is getting away with now, though he's far from secular.
They cancelled "The PJ's" a decade ago to bring us the like of "The Cleveland Show"? Ever since Chappelle opted out of the same questionable focus as the writers of Cleveland have chosen, Networks don't know HOW to pen a black-centric comedy without tired, overused sterotypical depictions. In other words, they don't know how to make being black funny, so they make it insultingly lame.
I would agree with most of the article but I wouldn't exactly call Melrose Place "lily white". There's an interracial couple (white male and black female) and a Portuguese/Chinese woman. Now that's definitely NOT balanced but not exactly "lily white" either.
I think there are two problems. The first is just that it's difficult to produce quality TV shows of any color at all, in any genre. It's not like there's a hundred Bill Cosbys out there or a hundred Will Smiths, who are getting turned away at the gate. A good 80 to 90% of all the shows on all the networks, cable TV channels certainly included, is swill.
That said, there is indeed a reluctance by the "major networks" to pick up any show that features minorities. It's not racism however, just that the "major networks want to appeal to the largest demographic, and that means the "majority" and not the "minorities".
The "majority" still means white people.
That allows the cable TV stations to target the niches that the "major networks" are ignoring.
The "major networks" don't have a plan to exclude African American programming, they are just really timid and reactionary. They are spending their time oversaturating the airwaves with police procedurals because that's what sells.
I'm happy with the incremental changes that spell real improvements, like Laurence Fishburne taking over star billing on CSI with nobody blinking an eye about how a black man is now headlining the number show on the tube.
I'll take that over another screechy black family 'talkin' trash' on BET any day.
White is the new black.
'Sherri' premieres soon on Lifetime.
I'm fairly certain what is killing/killed the black sitcom are shows like The Wayan's Brothers, Martin, The PJ's and anything by Tyler Perry. The reason shows like The Cosby Show and Fresh Prince worked is that they were still intelligent and meaningful. They did not fall back on 'sassy' stereotypes, but created three-dimensional characters.
Well on some level I think we need to put responsiblity on the audience and creators of shows. If Tyler Perry could make a sitcom as well written, realistic, funny and entertaining as The Cosby Show I'm sure he would have been able to find a network. Instead his stereotypical, preachy, poorly acted sitcoms on are cable.
Everybody Hates Chris is a good example of a well made, funny black sitcom and that was on network, not the best network but it was on network TV.
Sherri does look quite funny however, I was a little disappoined ABC wouldn't have picked it up, she's HILARIOUS on 30 Rock when she guest stars.
There are so many blacks doing so well, i.e., Oprah, Bill Cosby, Will & Jada Smith, Jay Z & Beyonce, Tiger Woods, black professional athletes, Russell Simmons, Sean Combs; why don't they pull their resources together with black director's, i.e., Spike Lee, John Singleton, Carl Franklin, the Hughes brothers, etc., and represent their communities. Stop depending on the white man, slavery is over, think for yourself, be creative.
If you build it they will come. I think it's just black writers and producers and directors are not creating a quality sitcom. The fact is, that if it's good, audiences will show up for it, look at the acclaim of Cosby, a show so well written it still works today. It's all in the writing, it's all in the product. Give us a product that is amazing, and this entire, it's dead thing, will seem like paranoia.
No reason to make this a black thing. There are very few sitcoms of any kind anymore, since stupid reality shows and boring dramas took over TV.
The problem is sitcoms in general. The normal (i.e. white) sitcoms now embrace the whole 'awkward' comedy genre. 30 Rock, The Office, and Flight Of The Conchords are the spearhead of today's comedy. Grating characters full of uncomfortable silences is the status quo. Black comedy doesn't want to follow in these footsteps and adheres to the more traditional comedy that studios don't know what to do with anymore.
I am a Black woman and refuse to watch any Black programming at all. I am sick of Black people being portrayed as buffoons and idiots. The main problem I have with Black-oriented movies and television programs in general are their sterotypical and one-dimensional portrayals of Black life. There are no quality Black dramas at all. These movies and televison shows rely heavily on ghetto humor. The Black community is very diverse. I prefer to watch progams where Blacks are presented in non-stereotypical roles. I watch a lot of programming from the UK and notice that Black people are portrayed as more mainstream in these televison shows and movies than Black programs in the US.
Don't forget about how the CW killed Girlfriends and The Game.
Regardless of genre, American television is very diverse regarding cast and character ethnicity and social background. Black, white, rich, poor and everything in between is represented to some degree. I like television the way it is...multi-cultural.
Maybe the other problem is that Blacks are no longer the only minority in America. Nowadays you have also the Hispanic minority, the Vietnamese minority, the Italian minority, the Moslem minority, the Chinese minority, the French minority... 🙂
There are only just so many slots in the average TV network's programming schedule. Every slot a network makes available for one these other Johnny-com-lately minorities is one less for the Black minority.
they stopped doing black sitcoms so they could focus on latino sitcoms. next up, asian. then, middle eastern.
it's simple
with there being minorities on basicly every show thse days there is no need for black ONLY sitcoms. This isn't the 80s and 90s when blacks were still underepresented in "normal" TV and basicly had to watch black only sitcoms to get any meaningfull black characters at all. Today black people (and other minorities) are everywhere. look at melrose place, it has black women (or doesn't that count beacose she is a women? Or beacose she is with a white guy?), 90210 has black character. Like said in comparison to 20 years ago there isn't a lack of black characters on "normal" television that black viewers can relate to, so there is no need for black only sitcoms/dramas/whatever (even channels, hence the lowering viewership of BET)
It's not like the article seems to suggest that channels don't want to catter to black people anymore, it's the other way around, the channels include black characters in everything thus the need for specific TV shows for only black people diminishes
sorry for my english, it's not my native language
Living Single, Golden Girls, The Parkers and One on One were my shows growing up. I was sad when One on One was canceled at such in inconclusive moment.
I have to say that The Cleveland show is probably going to fester like a cancer. It just doesn't look very good or original. I remember the scene between Cleveland and the Bear and I thought to myself, "what does a black man have to do with a bear?" The fear of both are not inherently the same, unless you're trying to say a black man is potentially as dangerous as a bear. T_T
Then I was just pissed off.
Kimberly, please share with us the UK shows that you watch. They sound very interesting. Idris Elba got his start in the UK before being on "The Wire" (a show that has completely ruined me for any network TV police procedural).
Actually upstart television stations capitalize on creating programming for what is considered niche markets (aka brown folk) which is why in the late 80s/early 90s we had a variety of network shows starring non-white casts in order to get the necessary viewership to prove to be a successful network (aka FOX, the WB, UPN, CW, and now My 9). Once they become part of the mainstream culture they stop developing their "niche" shows and begin to invest in what would be seen as high ratings grabbers (ie shows about pretty white people with problems). Networks quit taking risks on shows with a focus on non-white characters because they'll deem it as non-profitable now that they are "successful" despite the fact that what got them that success and viewership initially was the non-white shows.
All in all its the American way of things, use brown folks to build shit up cheap but keep them away once its all done.
Racism, sexism, and classism are over in Hollywood and the only reason we don't get quality shows written by, produced by, and starring POC and women (and not just your usual gang bangers, fat mammies, bimbas and police women) is because said groups are playing the victim and not getting their work out there? Wow, I didn't know this. Thanks, guyz!
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