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MASARYK UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

Department of English Language and Literature

Portrayal of African Americans in the Media

Master’s Diploma Thesis

Brno 2014

Supervisor: Author:

Mgr. Zdeněk Janík, M.A., Ph.D. Bc. Lucie Pernicová

Declaration

I hereby declare that I have worked on this thesis independently,

using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

........................................................

Bc. Lucie Pernicová

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank my supervisor Mgr. Zdeněk Janík, M.A., Ph.D. for the patient

guidance and valuable advice he provided me with during the writing of this thesis.

 
 
Table of Contents 
 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 5 
 Portrayal of African Americans in Films and on Television ..................................... 8 
1.  Stereotypical Images and Their Power .............................................................. 8 
2.  Basic Stereotypical Images of African Americans ............................................ 9 
3.  Stereotypical Film Portrayals of African Americans and the Arrival of the 
Talking Era .................................................................................................................. 12 
4.  Television Portrayals of African Americans .................................................... 14 
4.1.  The Increasing Importance of African American Viewers ....................... 17 
4.2.  Contemporary Images of African Americans ........................................... 20 
 The Portrayal of African Americans on 30 Rock .................................................... 23 
1.  Meet the Jordan Family .................................................................................... 31 
2.  The Black Crusaders ........................................................................................ 44 
3.  The Restrictions of the Entertainment Industry ............................................... 46 
4.  James and Tracy- “The Good” and “The Bad” ................................................ 51 
 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 57 
Summary ......................................................................................................................... 61 
Resumé ............................................................................................................................ 62 
Bibliography: .................................................................................................................. 63 

1. Introduction

This Diploma thesis is concerned with stereotypical portrayals of African American

Americans in films and on television. Historically, African Americans have been

assigned many stereotypical roles and many critics claim that “it is easy to still fit the

vast majority of black media personalities today into these same old and well-defined

categories” (Ginneken 110). Working with this assumption, the purpose of the thesis is

to analyze the main African American characters on a contemporary comedy television

series called 30 Rock (2006-20013) to discover in which ways the stereotyped images

still survive today and to determine in which ways has the portrayal of African

Americans changed throughout time.

30 Rock is an American sitcom which aired on NBC from 2006 to 2013. It was

created by Tina Fey who also stars in the comedy series as Liz Lemon, the head writer

of a fictitious variety show which she created. Tina Fey has experience with creating a

TV comedy show since she formerly worked as a head writer and a cast member on

NBC’s Saturday Night Live. 30 Rock provides its viewers with a behind-the-scenes look

into the making of the fictitious variety show airing on NBC. The show takes place at

30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York, the GE Building, where the NBC television network

headquarters are situated, the name of the sitcom is derived from the address of the

network’s headquarters.

Tina Fey’s character on 30 Rock, Liz Lemon, is in her mid-thirties and is a single

woman who has no children and who is trying to “have it all” and to find time for her

personal life. Liz is usually working long hours because she is responsible for a team of

writers and for the cast of the fictitious comedy sketch show called The Girlie Show.

Liz’s job is highly demanding as it is but she also has to cope with her new boss Jack

Donaghy (played by Alec Baldwin) who is the “Vice President of East Coast Television

and Microwave Oven Programming” and who hires a new staff member, an African

American actor and comedian Tracy Jordan (played by Tracy Morgan), who has bad

reputation, into Liz’s show and changes the show’s name from The Girlie Show to TGS

with Tracy Jordan (“Pilot”). Jack’s decision to hire Tracy Jordan is unpopular with the

current cast of the show as well as with the writers of the fictitious show and they all

have to learn how to work together.

This comedy series was chosen for analysis in this Diploma thesis because it is a

contemporary sitcom in which several African American characters are casted. Also, the

focus of this thesis is put on the analysis of the dominant forces in popular

entertainment—Hollywood production and broadcast television; therefore, this sitcom

which aired on one of the biggest television networks represents a suitable material for

the analysis. The analysis of 30 Rock in this thesis concentrates on selected episodes

primarily from the first four seasons of the show.

The first chapter of the thesis provides a short historical outline of portrayal of

African Americans in early films and on television. The chapter at first aims to explain

the power of stereotypical images and it introduces the basic stereotypical images of

African Americans, this section is supported by David Bogle’s classification of five

basic stereotyped images. The basic tendencies of filmmakers and television show

makers to cast African Americans into very limited range of roles are discussed in this

chapter. This chapter is also concerned with contemporary images of African

Americans and an explanation of why African American audiences are becoming

increasingly important for producers of television shows, as well as for filmmakers and

for advertisers is given.

The focus of the following chapter shifts to the discussion of the portrayal of

African Americans on the comedy series 30 Rock. The ways in which this comedy

series presents race and racial issues are commented on in this chapter. I claim that the

series often demonstrates its awareness of the issues in its episodes. Consequently, the

ways in which Tracy Jordan, the main African American character on 30 Rock, and his

wife Angie Jordan fulfill the old stereotypical portrayals of African American men and

women as well as the ways in which the series manages to move beyond these

stereotypical portrayals are discussed. The Jordan family organization is also analyzed

in the chapter. Furthermore, the only African American writer on the staff of the

fictitious TGS is subjugated for an analysis in this chapter too. Tracy’s and James’

characters are compared and an explanation of why Tracy may be viewed as “bad” and

James as “good” by the dominant society are given. I argue that the series 30 Rock has

vastly contributed to the discussion of the portrayal of African Americans on television.

2. Portrayal of African Americans in Films and on

Television

2.1. Stereotypical Images and Their Power

Since the time of slavery in the United States, many stereotypes about African

Americans’ behavior or abilities existed. According to some of the stereotypes, African

Americans possess negative personality traits—including stupidity, immorality, or

dishonesty, and are low achievers (qtd. in Punyanunt-Carter 242). Early portrayals of

African American on television were influenced by these stereotypes and African

Americans have been portrayed in stereotypical roles.

It is vital to realize that stereotypes are dangerous because they are usually

oversimplified and they “seldom correspond with the objective data” (Rinehart 137).

Moreover, several studies have shown that “stereotypes may arise without any basis in

fact whatsoever” (138). Small children do not know the concept of stereotypes, they

learn the meanings of stereotypes in interaction with others and the world around them

(140). Media represent a great part of the world around us and have the power “to shape

and reshape the culture” (Entman, and Rojecki 3). The images media present have a vast

influence on peoples’ attitudes and their feelings towards minority groups; this claim is

supported by Ford who asserts that “Television portrayals of African- Americans […]

have been shown to influence whites’ perceptions of those groups” (Ford 266). When

African Americans are portrayed as possessing negative qualities, it has a negative

impact on the way the dominant society members see them. According to Entman and

Rojecki “the mass media convey the impressions [...] that Blacks are somehow

fundamentally different from Whites” (6). Entman and Rojecki further claim that

“Whites expect the typical Black, if not a criminal, to be a member of the serving class”

(62). These negative expectations have their basis in the stereotypical media portrayals

of African Americans. The result of the negative images media present is that “African

Americans […] appear more threatening, less sympathetic than Whites” (94).

2.2. Basic Stereotypical Images of African Americans

A film historian David Bogle identified five basic stereotypical film roles of African

Americans in his book Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks: An Interpretative

History of Blacks in Films (2001). Bogle asserts that the five stereotypical roles: the

tom, “the coon, the tragic mulatto, the mammy, and the brutal black buck. All were

character types used for the same effect: to entertain by stressing Negro inferiority”

(Bogle 4).

The Tom characters are obedient and always do what is best for their masters,

toms “keep the faith, n’er turn against their white massas, and remain hearty,

submissive, stoic, generous, selfless, and oh-so-very kind. Thus they endear themselves

to white audiences and emerge as heroes of sorts” (6). Toms work perfectly for the

system of racial domination because they do not question their position in the society,

they are aware of their “‘natural” inferiority” and are always willing to serve (qtd. in

Riggs).

Another stereotypical image is the coon which presented the African Americans

“as amusement object[s] and black buffoon[s]” (7). The main character traits of the pure

coons were unreliability, craziness, and laziness

(8). By portraying African Americans

as lazy and unreliable, there was enough justification for the dominant society that

African Americans should remain in their subordinate position because they need

Images portraying African American men as “care free and irresponsible” and as “simple, docile, [and]

laughing” men who were “quick to avoid work while reveling in the easy pleasures of food, dance and

song” and whose lives were those of “child-like contentment” were called “the Sambo” and were popular

in early 1900’s songs and “became one of the classic portrayals of black men in film” (qtd. in Riggs).

supervision. These images suggested that African Americans cannot make it on their

own since they are good-for-nothing. According to Bogle, there are two variants of the

pure coon characters, the picaninny and uncle remus (7). The picaninny are child

characters, they are “harmless, little screwball creation[s]” (7). These “brute caricatures

of black children […] showed them as victims. Victims who evoked- not sympathy- but

the feeling that blacks were subhuman […] there was a need to imagine black children

as animal-like, as savage” (qtd. in Riggs). Uncle remus characters may be characterized

as “harmless and congenial” and they distinguish themselves from the tom characters

“by [their] quaint, naïve, and comic philosophizing” (Bogle 8).

The tragic mulatto characters were female characters which were very likeable

and popular “because of [their] white blood” (9). However, they usually ended up

tragically and died because of the sin they bear with them- the mixing of races.

Different types of stereotypical female characters, according to Bogle, are the

mammy characters and aunt jemina characters. A mammy is very independent and

bossy and “is usually big, fat, and cantankerous” (9). Aunt jemina is “mammy’s

offshoot” and she is “sweet, jolly, and good-tempered—a bit more polite than mammy

and certainly never as head strong” (9).

The last of the basic characters, the brutal black buck, was introduced in The

Birth of a Nation (1915). This film uses the “blackface” practice

; there are two main

African American characters in the movie, Silas Lynch and Gus who are both played by

The “blackface” characters emerged in minstrel shows, which were “a type of musical comedy variety

show[s] that featured white actors impersonating blacks” (Benshoff, and Griffin 79). The first such

character was brought to theatres in the late 1820’s by T.D. Rice who “saw a crippled black man dancing

an exaggerated Jim Crow dance” and who “took the man’s tattered clothes and that night imitated him on

stage.” This image was not a true image, “it was a devastating image” but it appealed to the audiences and

it marked the beginning of the minstrel tradition which “emerged as America’s first form of national

popular entertainment” (qtd. in Riggs). The first “blackface” African American character appeared on

screen in 1903 rendition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the blackface practice continued to be popular during

the silent films era (Bogle 3).

Caucasian actors in blackface (Benshoff, and Griffin 80). This film was very effective

“at inciting hatred for blacks” (79). This film “was denounced as the most slanderous

anti-Negro movie ever released” (Bogle 10). It portrays African Americans as “lazy,

vicious, and rapacious” (Benshoff, and Griffin 80). Bogle divides the brutal black buck

characters in this film into two categories: the black brutes and the black bucks (13). He

claims that the “differences between the two are minimal. The black brute was a

barbaric black out to raise havoc. Audiences could assume that his physical violence

served as an outlet for a man who was sexually repressed” and the “bucks are always

big, baadddd niggers, over-sexed and savage, violent and frenzied as they lust for white

flesh” (13-14).

The black brute characters portrayed in The Birth of a Nation “articulated the

great white fear that every black man longs for a white woman” (Bogle 14). The film

also served as a justification of slavery. As Bogle asserts The Birth of a Nation “made it

appear as if slavery had elevated the Negro from his bestial instincts” (13). Slaves are

portrayed as happy and contented with their position and slavery is presented as a

desirable state for African Americans because a “Negro as a naïve figure [is] incapable

of comprehending the social dynamic of the world in which he or she lives” (13). The

Birth of a Nation was “used for decades as a recruiting tool by the Ku Klux Clan” and

was “perceived by some as documentary truth and not manipulative Hollywood fiction”

(Benshoff, and Griffin 79). Benshoff and Griffin further claim that “even President

Woodrow Wilson, mistaking fiction for actuality, allegedly said it was ‘like writing

history with lighting’” (79-80). President Wilson’s quotation is a reminder of how

powerful the effect of images people watch on screen can actually be (80).

Stereotyped images of African Americans in films and on television served to

ensure the maintenance of the menial position of African Americans in the American

society. These controlling images of African Americans were “designed to oppress”

both African American women and men (Collins 118). As Bell Hooks claims: “control

over images is central to the maintenance of any system of racial domination” (Black

Looks: Race and Representation 2). The stereotypical images worked well for the

system of racial domination because they presented African Americans “as either a

nitwit or a childlike lackey” (Bogle 4). None of these images did anything which would

harm the system of racial domination because none of them seriously criticizes or tries

to change the system, they work perfectly for the dominant society because these

images “reinforce the status quo” in the society (Larson 29).

2.3. Stereotypical Film Portrayals of African Americans and the

Arrival of the Talking Era

African American actors were presented with more roles during the talking era

of the

film industry than in the silent era. The talking era brought “music, rhythm […] singing,

dancing, [and] clowning” into movies and the increase of parts for African Americans in

the era of sound is based, according to Bogle, on the popular “American myth” which

suggests that African Americans are very “rhythmic” and “musical” (26).

However, although the number of parts was increasing, the quality of the

representation was not as African American actors were casted only into certain roles

and under the supervision of the dominant society members. These representations of

African American culture could in no way be considered valid representations (Bogle

27). During 1930’s African Americans were presented mainly as domestic servants (35).

Even businesses made profits from the public’s affection for the stereotypical images of African

Americans as African Americans appeared on various product labels ranging from pancakes, beans,

syrup, tobacco, oysters, or different home decorative items (qtd. in Riggs).

The talking era in film industry started with the release of The Jazz Singer (1927), which is a film that

makes use “of the minstrel tradition at its sentimentalized, corrupt best” (Bogle 26).

The reinforcement of the Production Code

in 1934 led to fewer African

Americans being casted in Hollywood films (Benshoff, and Griffin 82). The Motion

Picture Production Code, also known as the Hays Code, was adopted in 1930; it was

believed that it is vital to supervise the content of movies which were made because the

entertainment industry has a great influence on the nation’s life. One of the general

principles of the Code was that: “No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral

standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be

thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin.” Amongst particular applications

belonged that: “miscegenation (sex relationships between the white and black races) is

forbidden” (qtd. in Bynum). Hollywood producer tried “to get past the Code’s

miscegenation taboo;” therefore, a Caucasian actress, Jeanne Crain, was casted to play a

light-skinned African American woman who is in a relationship with a Caucasian man

in Pinky (1949) (Benshoff, and Griffin 86). Several other films casted Caucasian actors

and actresses with dark make-up on to play African American roles, this practice can

also be observed in The Imitation of Life (1959) for instance.

American cinema and television helped maintain dominant cultural attitudes

since it “for the most functions under the dominant ideology of white patriarchal

capitalism” (Benshoff, and Griffin 78). Early movies did not reinforce critical

commentary on race and most films produced with all African American casts during

the classical period in Hollywood (1930-1945) “were produced, written, and also

directed by white men” who tended to present a “romanticized” vision of African

American lives and culture, these films were filled with the stereotyped characters “now

commonly viewed as derogatory” (84).

Throughout the 1940s the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement

The Production Code was forced on Hollywood by The Legion of Decency (Ginneken 110).

of Colored People) “and other concerned groups petitioned Hollywood […] to make

more diverse, less stereotypical representations of African Americans” which did not

prove to come on solid ground because films which portrayed African Americans as

happy and docile servants continued to be made (Benshoff, and Griffin 85).

2.4. Television Portrayals of African Americans

Television as a new communication medium won over the USA in the 1950s (Benshoff,

and Griffin 90). In the early part of the decade African American actors and actresses

were casted in supporting roles in several shows and again “played only certain roles,

genres, and stories” (Larson 24).

First television sets were available in department stores in the United States in

1938 (Black, and Jennings 320). At its beginnings, the medium of television was seen as

an educational and informational device and was supposed to make it possible for its

audiences to see all the true diversity that exists in the United States through the images

which appear on the television screen (Johnson 166-7). The Communication Act of

1934

, which was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and which created the

Federal Communications Commission (FCC)

, was supposed to ensure that broadcast

television stations would be “licensed based on their service in the best interests of the

public that each served” (Johnson 166-8). Nevertheless, television grew “faster than the

FCC could regulate it” (Black, and Jennings 322). Television became a market-driven

medium and it “often appears to value only the audiences and interests that are the most

The Communications Act “regulates U.S. telephone, telegraph, television, and radio communications”

(Justice Information Sharing).

FCC is an independent U.S. government agency overseen by Congress and it “regulates interstate and

international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable in all 50 states, the District of

Columbia and U.S. territories” (Federal Communications Commission).

profitable— generally representing a narrower audience of middle-class and upper

middle-class urban professionals who are predominantly white” (Johnson 168).

African American “characters who populated the television world of the early

1950s were happy-go-lucky social incompetents who knew their place and whose antics

served to amuse and comfort culturally sanctioned notions of whiteness, especially

white superiority and paternalism” (Gray 75). The most popular show with all-African

American cast in the 1950s was Amos ‘n’ Andy (CBS, 1951-3). The show was an

adaptation of a popular radio show which was created by two Caucasian comedians

Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll who imitated African Americans on their show

(Benshoff, and Griffin 90). When the show moved from radio to television, African

American actors were hired and Amos ‘n’ Andy became the first prime-time program

with all-African American cast (Johnson 177). The African American actors hired for

the parts on the show “had to be coached to act stereotypically and to speak with heavy

dialects like the whites who had mocked them on radio” (Larson 24). The show

showcased negative stereotypes about African Americans but was “hugely popular

among both white and black audiences of the early 1950s” (Benshoff, and Griffin 90).

The critics of the Amos ‘n’ Andy show also claimed that it “misrepresented the lives of

African Americans by portraying the central characters as buffoons” (Johnson 177-8).

Victoria Johnson further asserts that the characters on the show “were disempowered in

relation to dominant cultural ideology. Seen as incapable of attaining the American

Dream, African American characters in early television comedy stood as symbols of

what not to do and be” (172).

It was only during the 1960s and 1970s when television shows began to integrate

African American characters into their casts and “television became more aware of race

and racial issues” (Benshoff, and Griffin 90). New images of African Americans began

to appear on television. The so-called “black and white buddy”

shows also started to

appear on television screens, I Spy (1965-8)

introduced Bill Cosby and Robert Culp as

international street agents (90). Another new image of African Americans can be

observed in modern situational comedy Julia (1968-71) which introduced the first

central African American female character. This show “entered into a dialogue with a

larger social and cultural struggle over ‘what it meant to be black’ and ‘what it meant to

be white’ at the end of 1960s in America” and the social and cultural issues which Julia

dealt with created a great tension in the USA (Johnson, 174).

A wider range of African American characters on television came with Norman

Lear’s shows, such as Good Times (1974-9), or The Jeffersons (1975-85). These shows

“dealt with topical issues” (Benshoff, and Griffin 90). The premiere of the television

mini-series Roots in 1977 is considered “by far the most important television event of

the 1970s centering on America’s understanding of race” (90). The broadcast of Roots

became a “national event watched by millions of Americans. The compelling drama put

a human face on the tragedy of slavery, and afforded Americans the chance to

contemplate the terrible institution” (90-91).

However, after Roots, the images of African Americans are said to have dropped and

seemed to be of a much lower quality again. Many shows with African American casts

were canceled on television or were scheduled at wrong viewing times. There was a

great demand for programmes which would offer characters to which African

Americans could relate (qtd. in Beacham). The change came in the 1980s when The

Cosby Show (1984-92) was created by Bill Cosby who expressed his disappointment

with the former representations of African Americans on television:

The “buddy” practice also translated into films. In the “buddy” films African American actors “played

side kicks to the white males in 1980s detective stories and to white women in 1990s.” (Larson 24).

The first African American couple kissing each other on television was seen on I Spy in 1967, they were

Bill Cosby, Jr. and Janet MacLachan (Larson 29).

Run down what you saw of black people on TV before the Huxtables. You had

Amos ‘n’ Andy, one of the funniest shows ever, people say. But who ever went to

college? Who tried for better things? In Good Times, J.J. Walker played a

definite underachiever. In Stanford & Son, you have a junk dealer living a few

thousand dollars above the welfare level. The Jeffersons move uptown. He owns

a dry-cleaning store, lives in an integrated neighborhood. Where are the social

writings about this? (qtd. in Gray 80).

The Cosby Show presented new images of African Americans as it centers on a modern

upper-middle-class professional family. Herman Gray claims that “Under Bill Cosby’s

careful guidance the show quite intentionally presented itself as a corrective to previous

generations of television representations of black life” (80).

2.4.1. The Increasing Importance of African American Viewers

In the late 1980s, a change in demographics occurred when the Fox Network was

launched by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. This resulted in “The Big Three”

television networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC

experiencing a decline in viewership

(Johnson 176). The reason why “The Big Three” networks experienced a decline in

viewership is that “the Fox Network built up its audience by targeting typically

underserved viewers—particularly, youth and urban African American audiences”

(176). This change meant that the “Commercial television network executives, program

makers, and advertisers were forced to define their audiences ever more precisely in

terms of demographic characteristics such as income, class, race, gender, and age”

(Gray 58).

ABC, CBS, and NBC are called “Three major networks” because they “have dominated commercial

television” (Black, and Jennings 324).

The television networks and advertisers are deeply interested in obtaining the

information about “who is watching” the show, whether the people watching the show

also “watch the commercials” and whether they are willing to actually buy “the

products which are being advertised” (Black, and Jennings 332). TV ratings represent a

vital part of the making of television shows because larger audiences guarantee larger

amounts of money from the advertisers. Ratings represent a kind of feedback for

television networks as well as for the advertisers because they measure “the

effectiveness of product consumption” (329). Ratings originated already in the early

days of radio when there was a demand for measuring audience acceptance. The firm

which dominates television ratings research nowadays is the A.C. Nielson Media

Research Group. It is important to note that “Nielsen research is not perfect; for

example, the Rocky Mountain states have long been underrepresented, out-of-home

viewing is weakly represented, and a lower frequency of compliance by minority

viewers typically requires tenuous statistical adjustments” (329). Nielson’s ratings use

different methods of collecting data, they are audiometer, diary and People Meters. All

of these methods have their restrictions too (330). Nevertheless, there are billions of

dollars invested in advertising time and the amounts money spent on advertising time

are based on the Nielsen ratings and Nielsen’s “measurements are accepted as valid by

the networks” (329). When, for example, “Market surveys revealed that black people

buy more Pepsi than other soft drinks […] suddenly we see more Pepsi commercials

with black people in them” (Black Looks: Race and Representation 28).

The television industry has become aware of the fact that African American

audiences are “ready-made, already organized, and exploitable market niche” (qtd. in

Gray, 67). African American audiences are becoming increasingly important for the

television networks and the advertisers according to a report published by Nielsen in

2013: “With a current buying power of $1 trillion […] the importance of connecting

with African-American consumers is more important than ever” (The Nielson

Company). The study also claims that African Americans are “more aggressive

consumers of media and they shop more frequently” (The Nielson Company). African

Americans therefore represent very significant demographics and the networks as well

as advertisers should take their needs and interests into consideration more than ever

before.

African American culture has become appropriated by the dominant society and

has become highly profitable, Scott and Shade claim that “the current absorption with

black culture is most dramatically displayed in the extensive borrowing by ‘African

Americanized’ white teenagers of the alternative styles of music, speech, and dress

associated with the black youth street culture of rap music, graffiti, and breakdancing

known as ‘hip-hop’” (12). The hip-hop culture has earned an extensive economic

success in the USA and it reaches a wide spectrum of audiences. Caucasian suburban

adolescents who “are known as ‘mall rats’ […] provide the largest audience for hip-hop

music and economically sustain its existence” (12). The so-called “‘gangsta’ ghetto look

and lyrics […] sell well among the youth of all colors when properly packaged” (12).

Hip-hop has expanded into various types of media, including movies, television, video

games, advertising, or merchandizing.

Even though some elements of the African American culture have had a great

impact on the mainstream culture and have become highly profitable, the struggle for

accurate and complex representation of African Americans in the film industry and on

television continues. Many critics claim that “although the quantity of African

American representations on television has increased, the quality of these images has

not” (qtd in. Punyanunt Carter 241). A filmmaker Spike Lee criticizes the way African

Americans are depicted in films and on television. Lee “wrote and directed Bamboozled

[2000] in response to what he felt was the ongoing racial stereotyping of and

institutionalized discrimination against African Americans within the US television

industry” (Benshoff, and Griffin 98). According to Spike Lee, “the same old”

stereotypes or caricatures portraying African Americans as the “noble savage” or the

“happy slave” are still being recreated (qtd. in Gonzales). Bell Hooks is concerned

about American viewers and she asserts that “Many audiences in the United States resist

the idea that images have an ideological intent. This is equally true of black audiences”

(Black Looks: Race and Representation 5). She further claims that most African

Americans “do not want to think critically about why they can sit in the darkness of

theatres and find pleasure in images that cruelly mock and ridicule blackness” and

insists that African Americans “have learned to cherish hateful images of

[themselves]”(6).

2.4.2. Contemporary Images of African Americans

Herman Gray in his book Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for “Blackness”

(1995) suggests that “contemporary images of African Americans are anchored by three

kinds of discursive practices” (84). He calls these practices assimilationist (invisibility),

pluralist (separate but equal), and multiculturalist (diversity).

The assimilationist television discourses are those which “treat the social and

political issues of black presence and racism in general as individual problems,” these

discourses marginalize the social and cultural difference and make it appear that

everyone is universally similar. These programs, according to Gray, “erase the histories

of conquest, slavery, isolation, and power inequalities, conflicts, and struggles for

justice and equality” (85). They also promote color blindness and racial invisibility, the

African American characters on these programs accept the dominant society’s ideals and

are separated from the African American social life and culture (85-86). According to

Larson, this is a very common practice since “filmmakers assume their black characters

don’t need cultural background or references” (24). African American “characters are

usually shown in the context of their relationship with whites rather than with each

other” and the African American characters tend to “appear ‘raceless’” (25). Gray

names some of the programs which belong to this discourse, they are, for example,

Designing Women, L.A. Law, Night Court, or The Golden Girls (85).

The pluralist “discourses situate black characters in domestically centered black

worlds and circumstances that essentially parallel those of whites.” In these programs,

the African American characters find themselves in the same “situations, and conflicts

as whites except for the fact that they remain separate but equal” (87). These shows

“seldom, if ever, critique or engage the hegemonic character of (middle-class

construction of) whiteness, or for that matter, totalizing constructions of blackness”

(88). Gray put programs such as Fresh Prince of Bel Air, The Jeffersons, or What’s

Happening!!, into this category (87).

The last but not least, there is the multiculturalist discourse to which belongs

The Cosby Show, Franks’s Place, or South Central. According to Gray: “The Cosby

Show constructed black Americans as the authors of and participants in their own notion

of America and what it means to be American.” The multiculturalist shows provide

more complex representations of African American life (89). These programs also

“represent questions of diversity within blackness more directly, explicitly, and

frequently, and as central features of these programs” and “the experience of otherness

that derives from subordinate status and social inequality are recognized, critiqued, and

commented on” (91). I would suggest that the television series 30 Rock, which is

analyzed in this thesis, belongs to the multiculturalist discourse as well, reasons for this

suggestion are discussed in more detail in the following chapter.

3. The Portrayal of African Americans on 30 Rock

30 Rock, based on Hermann Gray’s classification of contemporary images of African

Americans, belongs to the multiculturalist discourse because this television series

questions and comments on the position of African Americans in the society and their

representations on television. The issues of racism, discrimination, or white guilt are

examined in the series. African American characters on the show are not one-

dimensional as the show manages to present varied African American characters who

are shown in the context of their relationships to each other as well as in their

relationships to other non-African American characters on the show. The series does not

practice the “separate but equal” policy as the characters learn how to co-exist and how

to get along with each other.

Tracy Jordan, the main African American character on the show, is not separated

from the African American social and culture and is shown in the context of his

community. Tracy is always followed by his entourage, which is comprised of his two

childhood friends Grizz and Dot Com. Tracy also regularly attends his African

American friends’ parties, he leads a very active social life and is even hosting hip-hop

music awards, The Source Awards, in one of the episodes of the first season of the

show. Tracy is also not excluded from socializing with his work colleagues, he and the

staff of TGS meet every week for drinks on an occasion they call the “Thursday Night

Thunder” (“Khonani”). In this way, 30 Rock’s African American characters distinguish

greatly from the assimilationist or the pluralist discourses.

Although the head writer on the fictitious TGS Liz Lemon states that “You can’t

do race stuff on TV” because “It’s too sensitive,” (“Rosemary’s Baby”) racism, together

with white guilt, are commented on in the series on various occasions and neither are

they treated as invisible nor are they viewed only as an individual problem. The head

writer of TGS Liz Lemon is called racist on numerous occasions on the show. She is

called racist by her former boyfriend Denis in The Break-Up episode in season one, for

example, when Dennis tells Liz a story of how his cousin Teddy was “running from

some black guys who pulled a gun on him” and Liz assumes that the “black guys”

Dennis is talking about were muggers, while they actually were police officers. Liz’s

assumption that the muggers were African American demonstrates the series’ awareness

of misrepresentation of African Americans on television. Entman and Rojecki explain

that only a limited range roles is assigned to African Americans, these roles include

“crime and sports” (8). Also, African Americans are prevalent in crime news on

television. This prevalence makes African Americans look more dangerous than the

Caucasians (94). Therefore, Liz’s suspicion about the role the “black guys” played in

Dennis’ story is a sign of media’s influence on people and of how easy it is to make

stereotypical assumptions.

Liz Lemon’s inclination to believe what she watches or reads is revealed in an

episode in which she comes to an assumption that Tracy Jordan is illiterate. Liz blames

the educational system in the United States for Tracy’s illiteracy because of an article

she thinks she read. She states: “We spend all this money in Iraq, but meanwhile, our

inner-city graduation rates are lower than they are in the Sudan. That doesn’t sound

right. Maybe it was Sweden. Maybe it was teen pregnancy. I gotta read more.” Liz’s

statement manifests how quickly can people misinterpret the information the media

send them and it also projects the feelings of guilt among Caucasians for the treatment

of African Americans when Liz blames “the system” for their misfortunes (“Jack-Tor”).

Tracy Jordan, offended by Liz’s assumption that he cannot read, manages to take

the situation into his advantage and pretends that he in fact is illiterate and exploits Liz’s

white guilt. According to Julie Ellison, “White guilt and liberal guilt emerged as

synonymous terms during the civil rights movement” (345). It comes from the

assumption that “White Americans know that their historical advantage comes from the

subjugation of an entire people” (qtd. in Ellison 351). This guilt can be felt by

Caucasian people for the treatment of African Americans in the past. White guilt is

associated with the “beliefs in the existence of White privilege, greater estimates of the

prevalence of discrimination against Blacks, and low prejudice against Blacks” (Swim,

and Miller 500). Liz, as a Liberal, clearly feels some responsibility for Tracy’s lack of

education and Tracy lets her do so. Liz Lemon tends to think about herself as an

unprejudiced citizen but it is proven to be the opposite on numerous occasions on the

show.

Liz’s view on white guilt is that it should “be used only for good, like over-

tipping and supporting Barack Obama” (“Jack-Tor”). But her white guilt is being

exploited and turns against her again when an African American man, Steven Black,

with whom Liz is on a date, calls her racist. Liz does not think that her and Steve would

make a good match because both of them have very different interests and tastes and

when she tries to tell him so, he pulls off “the race card” and tells Liz that he

understands the real reason she does not want to go out with him again is that he is

African American. Although this is not true, Liz feels offended by Steven’s statement

and agrees to see Steve again out of her white, or liberal guilt. Liz and Steve’s following

date ends in a disaster and Liz does not want to feel bad for not wanting to see him

anymore so she explains to him that she does not like him “as a human being” and that

the color of his skin has nothing to do with it (“The Source Awards”).

30 Rock’s discussion of racism is quite complex. The series is not blind to the

fact that racism is still alive in the USA, as it is stated in the series “Race is a huge issue

in this country” (“The Source Awards”). When Barack Obama’s Presidential candidacy

is talked about, the female star of TGS, Jenna Maroney asks Liz Lemon about Obama’s

ethnicity: “Obama, what is he? Hispanic?” and Liz informs Jenna that he is an African

American to which Jenna answers: “And he’s running for President? Good luck” (“Hard

Ball”). This scene demonstrates the series’ characters’ awareness of racial attitudes in

the United States. Entman and Rojecki comment on the position of African Americans

in the US society and they state that although materially the position is definitely better,

“Politically, Blacks are depicted as sources of disruption, as victims, or as complaining

supplicants” (3-8). And 30 Rock is not promoting color blindness or racial invisibility

and deals with the issue of racial attitudes in its episodes.

In Lee Marvin vs. Derek Jeter episode of the fourth season, the effect of

Obama’s Presidency on racial relations in the USA is questioned when Tracy Jordan

blames Obama’s Presidency for bringing the “old-school racism” back. This statement

is considered illogical by an African American writer on the show who asks Tracy

“How can racism be back when we elected a black president?” Consequently, a

conclusion is made that the old-school racism is back because “white people no longer

feel sorry for [African Americans]” (“Lee Marvin vs. Derek Jeter”). No longer feeling

sorry for them, the Caucasians can openly start criticizing African Americans without

feeling guilty about it

Tracy Jordan is right in his assumption that Obama’s presidency did not end

racism in the United States. Barack Obama’s Presidency was considered to be a great

success as 43 percent of Caucasian voters voted for him, no other Democratic candidate

Entman and Rojecki make a similar remark about the effect of The Cosby Show. They contend that the

Cosby family’s success had the dominant society members thinking that if some African Americans are

unsuccessful, they only have themselves to blame because The Cosby Show sent the message that African

Americans “could actually make it if they worked hard enough” (146).

received more votes since Lyndon Johnson in 1964 (Wise 9), and many people believed

that Obama’s election would end the “systemic racial discrimination and profound

inequity of opportunity” (8). However, according to Tim Wise, an American anti-racist

writer and activist, the opposite is true because Obama’s election “signal[s] the

emergence of an altogether new kind of racism” which he calls “Racism 2.0” (9). In

Wise’s view, Obama’s Presidency cannot be looked on as ending racism because the

President is viewed as an exception, Wise explains that Barack Obama is viewed “as

having ‘transcended’ [his] blackness in some way” (9). Wise’s “Racism 2.0” is

described as a “form that allows for and even celebrates the achievements of individual

persons of color, but only because those individuals generally are seen as different from

a less appealing, even pathological black or brown rule” (9). This statement supports the

idea that many African Americans are still considered inferior to the members of the

dominant society; therefore, a similarity between Tracy Jordan’s and Tim Wise’s

statements can be found. Wise also claims that “Obama has issued a challenge for black

folks to be more responsible for the problems in their communities” (12) which is a

statement similar to Tracy’s utterance he made about Caucasians no longer feeling sorry

for African Americans.

Affirmative action, the practice to include more minority groups in the

workplace, is commented on in the series as well. The only African American writer on

the staff of the fictitious TGS, James Spurlock, has suspicion that his presence on the

staff is tokenism

because his pay checks are of a different color than other writers’.

His suspicion turns to be right when the head writer of the show tells him that his

“salary does not come out of [the show’s] budget” and that James “provides[s] a point

Tokenism is also a common practice in films, non-Caucasian characters are placed “into a film in order

to deflate any potential charge of racism. Token characters can often be found in small supporting roles

that are peripheral to the white leads and their stories” (Benshoff, and Griffin 52).

of view that is essential to keeping the diversity guy from bothering [the show]” (“Lee

Marvin vs. Derek Jeter”). James is outraged about this revelation because he believed

that his presence on the show’s writing staff was based on his abilities and talents, not

on his ethnicity. According to Wise, African Americans “have long worried about being

tokenized” (11). James’ outrage and his decision to quit the show are therefore

understandable because he as a Harvard graduate should not be working in a position

which only serves to ensure that the diversity quotes are fulfilled. Liz Lemon, the head

writer on the fictitious TGS, undermines the issue and views affirmative action in a

positive light until she herself discovers that the network chose to produce her Girlie

Show only to repair its reputation after the airing of an action drama series called Bitch

Hunter which was followed by a wave of criticism from feminist groups. Liz comes to

understand the real meaning of affirmative action and feels that she should not be on the

show because she did not actually earn her place and is now able to understand why

James felt offended (“Lee Marvin vs. Derek Jeter”).

African Americans’ political preferences are commented on in the series as well

when Jack Donaghy tries to persuade Tracy Jordan to vote for the Republican Party and

to become a celebrity face of the GOP. Tracy agrees to do so at the beginning but

realizes that he would “be turning [his] back on [his] people to support it” and that

African Americans “are gonna always vote Democtat[s]” (“Subway Hero”). The reality

in the United States is that African Americans have been and still remain identifiers of

the Democratic Party (qtd. in Mangum). One of the reasons why African Americans do

not identify with the Republican Party may be that the New Right helped in deepening

the stereotyped images of African Americans. According to Gray “the new right’s

strategy [was] constructing the representation of ‘blackness’ as threat and menace and

therefore undeserving of state-protected entitlements” (30). Therefore, African

Americans’ identification with this party’s policies is not common.

30 Rock kept holding the mirror to the hypocrisy of the society when the series

kept bringing up racial issues. The history of slavery is not erased in the series, it is

brought up for a discussion when Tracy Jordan discovers that he is Thomas Jefferson’s

descendant. During slavery, “Rape was a common method of torture slavers used to

subdue recalcitrant black women” (Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism 18)

and on 30 Rock, it is not denied that sexual intercourse between Caucasian slave owners

and African American slaves was a common practice. Thomas Jefferson is described in

the series as the Caucasian man who “was into black chicks” (“Fireworks”).

30 Rock enters into a debate of what it really means to be Caucasian or African

American when Tracy’s DNA test reveals that he is “genetically mostly white”

(“Fireworks”). However, although being genetically mostly Caucasian, he is only

viewed as African American by the society. Wise explains that the racial identity of

“biracial persons in the United States […] is often ignored” and that “a person so

designated will typically be seen as a member of whichever group is lowest in the racial

hierarchy” which results in that “to be black and white […] is to be black” (14). The

hypocritical limitations of race are up for a discussion in 30 Rock.

The issue of what race actually means is being questioned on the show and it is

quite interesting to observe how race is thought of by different characters on 30 Rock.

The GE executive, Jack Donaghy, does not see race, he sees social rank. In Believe in

the Stars episode he states that white men are in the most difficult position in the society

because they have to “make the unpopular, difficult decisions.” Jack’s statement is

opposed by Kenneth, a Caucasian NBC page who says that he is also “a white man” to

which Jack responds that he is not because “socioeconomically speaking [he is] more

like an inner-city Latino.” In Jack’s interpretation, “white men” are not only those men

whose color of the skin is white but those who are in managerial positions and who hold

economic power. The concept of whiteness is questioned in this scene as much as the

concept of blackness.

30 Rock is not afraid to cross boundaries when the series brings the history of

blackface into several of its episodes. First blackface is presented in the second episode

of the third season of the show Believe in the Stars. Tracy Jordan engages in an

argument with the co-star of the fictitious TGS with Tracy Jordan Jenna Maroney

(played by Jane Krakowski) over the issue of who has it more difficult in the society,

whether African American men or women. To prove their point, Tracy and Jenna make

their “social experiment”—Jenna comes to work dressed as an African American man

with her face blackened and Tracy dresses as a Caucasian woman and whitens his face.

Jenna’s blackface is offensive to African American employees at the studio but at the

end of the episode, Tracy and Jenna reconcile. This is not the last time we watch Jenna

in a blackface, Jenna darkens her face repeatedly when she dresses for a costume party

as an African American football player Lynn Swan because her cross-dressing boyfriend

dresses as Natalie Portman in Black Swan. Together, Jenna and her boyfriend make the

“two Black swans” (“Christmas Attack Zone”).

The final blackface in 30 Rock appears in the nineteenth episode of the sixth

season Live from Studio 6. In this episode, 30 Rock returns to the tradition of live

television shows for the second time

. On this show, the past of television shows is

discussed and a short sketch is performed in which Tracy plays alongside Jon Hamm

who is in blackface. One character from the show, an NBC page Kenneth Parcell,

Most shows were performed live in the early years of television (Black, and Jennings 322).

introduces the sketch by saying: “NBC had the first two black characters on TV, sort of.

For Alfie and Abner, NBC hired one African American and one Caucasian because they

thought two black people on the same show would make the audience nervous. A rule

NBC still uses today” (“Live from Studio 6H”). In the sketch, the character in

blackface, Abner, represents a very stereotypical character as he plays a buffoonish

African American man who only needs playing banjo and eating to lead a fulfilling life

and who believes he can “catch a rainbow in his hat.” Tracy’s character, Alfie, is more

serious, he thinks about the social positioning of African Americans, he fought for the

US country in WWII, since he is a former Tuskegee airman, and is extremely annoyed

by Abner’s foolish behavior. This sketch looks back into the racist past of television and

presents its viewers with stereotyped images of African Americans; a parallel can be

drawn between the Alfie and Abner sketch and between Amos ‘n’ Andy.

30 Rock also manifests its awareness of the fact that the representation of

African Americans could always be better when the whole NBC is called racist by an

African American congresswoman Regina Bookman in the third episode of the fifth

season, Let’s Stay Together. The series’ awareness of the racial issues that exist in the

American society and its examination of them is one of its biggest contributions.

3.1. Meet the Jordan Family

Some of the old stereotypes of African American men can be traced in the analysis of

the Tracy Jordan character. Tracy’s character traits resemble very much those of a coon

since he is often presented as a child-like character who can do nothing but entertain

and who is crazy, unreliable, and lazy. The black buck image can be traced in Tracy’s

character as well because Tracy is often portrayed as over-sexed, and as having violent

tendencies. Throughout the episodes of 30 Rock, Tracy Jordan is described as “a strange

man who can’t be taken seriously” (“Gavin Volure”), “a buffoon” (“Lee Marvin vs.

Derek Jeter”), a “horny child” (“The Collection”) and “a ridiculous, unstable human

being” (“Mamma Mia”) who is “always bananas” (“Tracy Does Conan”). Tracy’s

intelligence is also often undermined as he is called “a fool” (“Dealbreakers Talk Show

#0001“), “an imbecile” (“The Aftermath”), or an “idiot” (“The Baby Show”).

Similarly to the coon, Tracy Jordan often demonstrates his craziness. The whole

staff of the show Tracy is about to join remembers him for his ridiculous actions of the

past. Tracy, for instance, was running on a road wearing nothing but his underwear,

holding a sword and screaming he is a “Jedi” (“Pilot”). In the very first episode when

the viewers have the chance to create their initial expression of Tracy, he is introduced

as insane and mentally unstable and he tells to the head writer of the show, to Liz

Lemon, upon their first meeting, that he has “got mental health issues” (“Pilot”).

Tracy’s disease has no real name but it can, according to his doctor, be described as

“erratic tendencies and delusions brought on by excessive notoriety” (“Tracy Does

Conan”). Tracy’s disease serves to demonstrate Tracy’s inability to cope with his fame.

Tracy Jordan is compared to a child in several 30 Rock episodes. Tracy’s wife

Angie calls him a “horny child” who “needs constant adult supervision” (“The

Collection”). Tracy demonstrates his need for adult supervision through his poor work

ethics. It is difficult for the head writer Liz Lemon and the staff of the fictitious TGS to

keep Tracy at work because he has tendencies to run away. Tracy prefers partying and

fooling around to working and is amazed that the show he is now part of takes place

every week and that he has to be present at all the rehearsals (“The Aftermath”). Tracy

resembles the “cartoon-like creature only interested in drinking and having a good time”

which was a popular representation of African American men in the 19th and early 20th

century (Black Looks: Race and Representation 90). Tracy does not read the cue cards

and improvises and his laziness makes the work on the show more difficult for everyone

else.

Tracy’s irresponsibility and his constant late comings for rehearsals at the studio

force the staff of TGS to develop a system which would make Tracy come to work on

time. The members of the staff treat Tracy like an irresponsible child when they set his

clock to different times so that he would come to rehearsals earlier, they also lie to him

about the times at which the rehearsals take place, they usually tell him an earlier time

so that he would be present sooner. Tracy finds out about this practice one day when he

is late for the rehearsal again and is confused about what time it actually is. He calls the

staff “a bunch of racists” for “treating [him] like a child.” However, Liz Lemon reminds

Tracy that it was him who taught the staff to be treated this way. Liz uses Oprah

Winfrey’s words to support her statement: “Oprah says you teach people how to treat

you. And this is what you’ve taught us because you are always late and you take no

responsibility for your actions” (“The Natural Order”). But Tracy is not willing to take

the responsibility and he constantly requires special treatment from everyone around

him and needs to be accommodated to the show.

Tracy has the need to be treated differently and needs to feel special all the time

and his two close friends, and his entourage members, Grizz and Dot Com, support him

in it. They encourage Tracy’s childish behavior when they laugh at Tracy’s repetitive

jokes, when they let him win in video games and in basketball matches and when they

try to make him feel like a “king” (“Hard Ball”). When Tracy discovers that Grizz and

Dot Com have been giving him this special treatment, he ask them whether they have

“been doing this the whole time, treating [him] like a child” and he feels offended and

tries to do everything on his own and to live without them. However, Tracy is unable to

function without his entourage. He does not know to turn on the television in his

dressing room and is not able to do without their protection (“Hard Ball”), which again

demonstrates Tracy’s need for adult supervision and supports the idea of him

reinforcing the coon image.

Tracy’s unreliability is clearly visible in his relationships to his family. Tracy

and his wife Angie have two sons together but Tracy is not a particularly caring father,

he does not attend his son’s birthday party because “There was a better kid's birthday

party up the street” (“Dealbreaker Talkshow #0001”). He also picks up his children

from soccer practice after a whole night of partying (“The Source Awards”) and when

he is asked to pack his sons lunch for school, he packs mayonnaise and a pack of

cigarettes (“The Bubble”). Tracy also lives under the impression that his two sons are

going to kill him, Tracy misinterprets his sons’ attempts to have more contact with him

as their attempts to get rid of him. According to Tracy, his sons “have been acting really

weird lately” and he does not want to go home to be with them (“Gavin Volure”). One

of Tracy’s sons confesses to him that he “keep[s] having a scary dream. [He] dreamed

that [Tracy] would get so rich that [he] would leave [them] and get a new family. And

never come back.” Tracy’s sons do not wish their dad to leave them and they love him

and Tracy would know it if he was around more and if he tried to talk with his children

more. However, Tracy loves his son too, which he tells him but he also threatens him

immediately and says: “If anything ever happens to me, you and your brother are going

to go to jail” (“Gavin Volure”), which is not something a responsible father should say

to his children.

When Tracy comes to his wife Angie with a wish to have another child, Angie

tells him that she is “not gonna raise another child by [herself]” (“Dealbreaker

Talkshow #0001”). Angie gives Tracy an ultimatum as she tells Tracy that they will

have another baby if he buys Christmas presents for the family. However, Tracy does

not manage to do so and buys a present for himself instead and tells Angie that he “got

something better than presents for [Angie] and the kids,” he bought them “all this

‘EGOT’ necklace” for himself (“Dealbreaker Talkshow #0001”). All the responsibility

for taking care of the family is therefore upon Angie. Despite this fact, towards the end

of the Dealbreaker Talkshow #0001 episode, Angie agrees to have another baby with

Tracy although Tracy himself admits that he “won't be around a lot” and will not

therefore participate in the upbringing of their new offspring. Once Angie is expecting

their new baby, Tracy persuades an NBC page Kenneth to take care of Angie because

there are some complications during the pregnancy and Tracy has hard times taking care

of his wife (“Khonani”).

Tracy bears with him the “life-long scarring of an absentee father” (“Gavin

Volure”). He grew up in a single-mother family because his parents were separated and

his father did not live with them and did not visit Tracy. Some of Tracy’s “acting out” is

attributed to his father’s absence during his childhood. In Rosemary’s Baby episode, for

example, Jack Donaghy tells Tracy that the only thing he cannot do is dog fighting. And

although Tracy himself views dog fighting as “repulsive and hideous,” he is willing to

engage in it because who is Jack to forbid him to do something when he clearly is “not

[Tracy’s] dad” (“Rosemary’s Baby”). Tracy’s unresolved relationship with his dad

projects into his relationship with his own children. Never knowing his father, Tracy is

incapable of acting like one and he basically is a third child in the family.

African Americans’ capabilities of having functional families have frequently

been questioned. According to Dyson, “Historically, black men are seen as having large

sexual appetites and being ultra endowed to perform sexually, but psychologically too

immature to have meaningful relationships” (qtd. in Brown 75). The existence of the

“matriarchal system” within African American communities, which is “caused by an

absent father” or by the presence of an “overpowering Black woman” who stands in the

opposition to the patriarchal society of the United States which expects men to be the

heads of their families (Bush 49), was marked as one of the reasons for the instability of

African American families. It was believed that African American men are not “real

men” when they cannot take care of their families and be their leaders. The woman

figure, the “Matriarch,” was labeled as “the source of problems in the African American

community” and the “overbearing female head households [were held] responsible for

the breakdowns of the family” (Carpenter 267). Also, this perceived matriarchy among

African American families was viewed as an “obstacle to assimilation [of African

Americans] within a dominant patriarchal culture” (267-8).

Tracy Jordan’s frequent absence from his family and his wife Angie’s nurturing

of her family suggests that the Jordan family is matriarchal. Angie Jordan is the care-

taker of the Jordan family and she practically has to raise her and Tracy’s children on

her own because Tracy is frequently absent from home. Angie Jordan’s character can be

linked to the image of the mammy because similarly to the mammy, Angie “is a

controller of her own people” and also a controller “of the males in her society” (qtd. in

Riggs). Angie proves to be extremely controlling when she is following her husband

Tracy on every step at his work and when she wants Tracy “not to leave [her] sight for

one second” (“Jack Gets in the Game”). Tracy agrees to Angie’s monitoring of him at

work because he does not want to lose her and it is Angie’s condition for their

reconciliation after an argument they had. Tracy is under Angie’s absolute control,

women who usually do Tracy’s make-up cannot do it now because Angie cannot stand

it when these women are near Tracy and talk friendly with him. Angie’s goal is to make

sure that her husband behaves the way she wants him to.

Angie’s influence on Tracy is good, when she oversees his every step, Tracy

comes to work on time and even comes up with useful ideas for the sketches for the

show, which he usually does not do. However, once Angie abates her supervision and

leaves Tracy to go for her hair appointment, Tracy uses the situation into his advantage

and disappears into a strip club. Although the head writer of TGS, Liz Lemon, tries to

stop Tracy from leaving work, she fails to do so and Tracy’s irresponsible behavior

wins, as Tracy himself states: “This is who I am. You can’t ask a bird not to fly. You

can’t ask a fish not to swim” (“The Collection”).

When Angie finds out that Tracy disappeared from the workplace during her

absence, her control at the studio becomes overbearing, she is not only willing to

oversee Tracy, she is also willing to make the decisions concerning the show as she

wants to be the decider of which roles Tracy will perform on TGS. Angie Jordan’s

character and her temper is described as “controlling,” “manipulative,” and “loud”

(“The Collection”). Her overpowering presence makes the work of the writing staff on

the show rather complicated. Angie feels betrayed by Liz Lemon and starts to be

extremely argumentative and is not easy to deal with. Angie’s behavior resembles very

much that of a Sapphire, who was a character on Amos ‘n’ Andy and who became a

popular stereotypical image of African American women. Sapphire is “nagging,

emasculating, shrill, loud, argumentative, and a master of verbal insults” (qtd. in Jones

Thomas, McCurtis Witherspoon, and Speight 429). As a prototypical Sapphire, Angie

“assume[s] that the only way to be heard is to be aggressive, loud, or rageful” (qtd.

429). Angie is outraged and demands “new writers for Tracy, or he doesn't do the show”

(“The Collection”). She is offered a consultant credit on the show but refuses it, as a

Sapphire, she is “obnoxious, and never satisfied” (qtd. 429). At the end of the episode,

Tracy has to be the one who intervenes and who resolves the situation although he is

“the immature one,” he is forced “to act like an adult.” He tells Angie that her behavior

is not acceptable and they start making love in his dressing room (“The Collection”).

The claim that Tracy is a “horny child” supports the idea of both his increased

sexual appetite and his psychological immaturity to have children. Tracy, although he is

married and has two children, spends an enormous amount of his free time, respectively

“eight times a week,” at strip clubs (“Black Tie”). Even for Tracy’s first meeting with

the female head writer of The Girlie Show Tracy chooses a strip club because the

environs of these establishments are very appealing and comfortable for him.

Tracy is said to be sexually aggressive and has a reputation of being a ladies’

man and is known for attending wild parties and for his “fooling around” with different

women. When Tracy walks into the writers’ office for the first time and sees a young,

blonde and beautiful assistant named Cerie, he immediately mutters: “Don’t just sit

there, come here and give me some sugar […] if you ever want to piss off your parents,

you come see me” (“The Aftermath”). In one of the episodes, Tracy is even served with

a paternity lawsuit and is accused of having an illegitimate child (“Fireworks”). Tracy is

also encouraging one of his co-workers, Pete Hornberger, the producer of TGS and a

married man, to cheat on his wife and to “embrac[e] his power” as a man. Tracy is

portrayed as a voice of a devil in a bathroom scene where he is telling Pete that he

should commit adultery (“Black Tie”). Entman and Rojecki assert that sexual

intemperance is one of the most common negative stereotypes about African Americans

(41). There is a long history of portraying African Americans as sexually loose, it was

by the eighteenth century when “the sexuality of the black, male and female, [became]

an icon for deviant sexuality” (Black Looks: Race and Representation 62). The

Caucasians “saw themselves as proper and monogamous, and others as debauched and

polygamous” (Ginneken109). One of the reasons why African Americans became to be

seen as sexually loose and deviant was the difference in dress codes among African

Americans:

The dress codes of Europeans originating from moderate climates often became

the implicit norm for judging others living in warmer tropical climates. If they

[Africans] lived primarily in dense and shadowy forests, they were often half

naked or minimally dressed, which was taken as a sign of their shamelessness

and therefore probable promiscuity” (108).

Tracy Jordan demonstrates his tendency to under-dress quite often as he is fond of

taking his shirt off whenever possible.

Tracy is also very open about his sexual practices, he likes to tell his stories from

strip clubs and other wild parties. Both Tracy and his wife Angie are portrayed as

sexually very active and loose as they have sexual intercourse even at Tracy’s

workplace when there are people around. They seem to be unable to escape their urges,

Tracy and his wife make love publicly in several episodes, this can be observed in The

Collection, or Senor Macho Solo. According to Jones, “black sexuality is often

represented by the dominant culture as animalistic and carnal with a lack of intimacy

and true humanity” (qtd. in Brown 75). Tracy’s and his wife’s behavior support “the

dominant culture’s perception of African Americans as sex-crazed buffoons who are on

public display” (Brown 76).

While African American men have often been portrayed as “sexual predators”

(Larson 30), African American women have been presented as “sexually available and

licentious” (Black Looks: Race and Representation 65). Bell Hooks argues that

“contemporary films continue to place black women in two categories, mammy, or slut,

and occasionally a combination of the two” (Black Looks: Race and Representation 74).

The portrayal of African American as “sluts” is common in the stereotyped image of

Jezebel who uses her sexual power and who “is perceived as seductive, manipulative,

hypersexed, animalistic in desires, and unable to control sex drives” (qtd. in Jones

Thomas, McCurtis Witherspoon, and Speight 429). The character of Angie Jordan also

bears the characteristics of Jezebel when she is portrayed as unable to control her sexual

urges.

Tracy Jordan’s connection to the brutal black buck image is demonstrated in

Tracy’s violent tendencies and in his inclination towards committing crime which are

revealed in several 30 Rock episodes. In Tracy Does Conan episode, Tracy is portrayed

as an unpredictable and a violent man. Tracy Jordan is about to make an appearance on

Conan O’Brien’s talk show but the host of the show feels uneasy about it because

Tracy’s former appearance on the show ended in a disaster as Tracy tried to stab Conan,

the host of the show, in his face for no reason. Tracy was claiming he is “a stabbing

robot” and that he will stab Conan. This performance did not put a good light on Tracy

and Conan compares Tracy to a “loose canon” because people never know what to

expect from him (“Tracy Does Conan”).

Tracy is portrayed as quite prone to committing crime. In the twentieth episode

one of the first season he is portrayed as stealing a television from a store, which he

does only “Because the Jets lost” (“Cleveland”), in the thirteenth episode of the fourth

season Tracy claims that he is trying to break into Beyonce’s house because she is not

answering to his letters (“Anna Howard Shaw Day”). In the Ludacristmas episode of

the second season of the show, Tracy is ordered to wear an alcohol monitoring ankle

bracelet because he appeared drunk at court. He was only supposed to “sign his

community service papers” there but since he was under the influence of alcohol

because he made a “stop for a breakfast first,” he has to wear the bracelet. Tracy seems

incapable of staying sober one day and although he is forbidden to drink alcohol by the

court, he breaks the court order and has “couple of drinks” (“Ludachristmas”).

Tracy is served with the paternity lawsuit in season one and in the third season

of the show, Tracy is sued again. In the Do-Over episode, the co-star of the fictitious

TGS, Jenna Maroney, is suing Tracy for not compensating her for the voice acting she

did on Tracy’s pornographic videogame.

The issue of violence in the hip-hop community is discussed in the sixteenth

episode of the first season in which the hip-hop music awards, the Source Awards take

place. An African American hip-hop producer Ridikolos is disrespected at one of Tracy

Jordan’s parties, because he is not let in, and threatens Tracy that he “is going to eat

[Tracy’s] family” (“The Source Awards”). To settle their dispute, Tracy agrees to be the

host of the Source Awards which Ridikolos is producing although Tracy is not

particularly willing to be hosting the awards because “shooting people at the Source

Awards is a tradition.” However, Tracy feels like he has no other choice because if he

does not “go, Ridikolos is gonna kill [him]. And if [he does] go, someone else is gonna

kill [him]” (“The Source Awards”). The African American community is presented as

extremely violent in this episode but 30 Rock makes a parody out of the issue of

violence in the African American community when the one who shoots at The Source

Awards is not an African American man but a Caucasian woman— the head writer of

TGS, Liz Lemon.

However, none of the other characters on the show is being sued or has trouble

with law or is inclined towards committing crime as much as Tracy Jordan’s character

is. Portraying African American men as prone to acts of crime is considered demeaning

and stereotypical because these portrayals point back to the Brutal Black Buck image

which portrayed African American men as violent and savage. These portrayals of

African American men portrayed as violent were very popular in the era of

blaxploitation films, which “were firmly rooted in the traditional genre formulas-

gangster, crime thriller, [and] horror movie” (Benshoff, and Griffin 88). These films

presented images of African American men as hustlers, gangsters, drug dealers, and

Caucasian cop killers became popular at the time when African American civil rights

movement became more violent and when the Black Panther Party with Malcolm X as

their leader “advocated violence against the system where necessary” (88). These films

are called blaxploitation because they “exploited African American audiences in that

they took money out of African American communities to fill white Hollywood’s bank

accounts.” These films projected negative images of African Americans (89).

The violent images reinforce the notions of bestiality of African American men.

Cooper claims that “The bestial black man images […] lead to the hypercriminalization

of black men” (876). The accusation of African American men’s bestiality dates back to

the sixteenth and seventeenth century when “Europeans alleged blacks were both part of

the animal kingdom—they interbred with apes—and animal-like” (877). In the colonial

times, “whiteness became associated with positive meanings such as life, superiority,

safety, and cleanness, and Blackness became associated with negative meanings such as

death, inferiority, danger, and dirtiness.” These images were translated into popular

culture and transmitted through newspapers, film, radio, and television and persistent

till the present day (qtd. in Brown 67).

It is important to understand that the issue of violence in the African American

community is a widely discussed issue in the United States. In 2012, stormy debates

aroused when an African American teenager, Trayvon Martin, was shot. President

Obama delivered a speech about the event in which he pointed to the fact that the

African American community’s outrage over the ruling of the case must be viewed in

the historical context and that the case evokes “a lot of pain.” In this speech, Obama

comments on the reality in which young African American live and also comments on

the society which views them as threats and as perpetrators of violence. Obama claims

that:

There are very few African American men in this country who haven’t had the

experience of being followed when they were shopping at a department store,

that includes [him]. Every African American man has the experience of walking

across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happened

to [him], at least before [he] was a senator (“President Obama Speaks on

Trayvon Martin”).

President Obama also reports on women in elevators who hold their purses “nervously

holding [their] breath” in the fears that their belongings might be stolen when an

African American man is in the elevator with them. And although the statistics bring

attention to the fact that African American men “are disproportionally involved in

criminal justice system,” it is vital to understand that “Some of the violence that takes

place […] is born out of a very violent past of this country. And the poverty, and

dysfunction that we see in this community can be traced to the history,” which is a fact

that is sometimes unacknowledged and which increases the tension in the African

American community (“President Obama Speaks on Trayvon Martin”).

African Americans are also often portrayed as “takers and burdens on society”

(Entman, and Rojecki 8) and are, predominantly the underclass, “bombarded by

messages that [they] have no value, are worthless” (Black Looks: Race and

Representation 19). Entman and Rojecki make an interesting point when they state that

while media use the term “white trash” to label poor Caucasian people of lower social

class and of lower moral standards, no such term as “black trash” exists (XXV). This

statement is later explained by stating that for the members of the dominant society “the

prototype of the Black person is a lower class or ‘under’ class individual of little

economic attainment or status” (53), which is actually an equivalent of the term “white

trash”. When African American “men are viewed as threatening, it is easier to pass

social policies that contain [them] through means such as consignment to the lower-

classes” (Cooper 875-6).

The issue of African Americans being viewed as an underclass is brought to life

in 30 Rock when Tracy Jordan gives the head writer, Liz Lemon, advice on how to get

rid of a potential buyer of a flat she is willing to buy for herself. Tracy tells Liz that the

easiest way to scare off buyers is to make an African American move in. Liz considers

Tracy’s advice a good idea and pretends in front of the potential buyer of her desired

flat that she has an African American ex-boyfriend who is threatening because he is

“unreasonable,” “angry” and who will “be coming by all the time, getting’ jealous [and]

takin’ things out of context” (“Sun Tea”). Entman and Rojecki assert that physical traits

are very important and that African Americans are in general viewed as dangerous, even

if they in fact studied at Harvard, or dressed nicely (52).

3.2. The Black Crusaders

Tracy Jordan’s stereotypical behavior does not go unnoticed and he is forced to leave

the show and the city of New York and goes into hiding because a group of prominent

African American figures is going after him in the twentieth episode of the first season

of the show. Tracy Jordan is being followed by a fictional group of influential African

Americans called the “Black Crusaders” who monitor him because they claim that

“Tracy Jordan has made a career out of exploiting black stereotypes” and that “he is an

embarrassment to African-Americans.” According to Tracy, the “chief mages” of this

group are Bill Cosby and Oprah Winfrey who want to get rid of his public persona

(“Cleveland”).

The “Black Crusaders” group is a parody of a group called the “Dark Crusaders”

which, according to an anonymous author, is a group of powerful African American,

whose members are Al Sharpton, Jessie Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, Bill Cosby, Whoopi

Goldberg, Robert L. Johnson, and Oprah Winfrey, who allegedly targeted an African

American comedian David Chappelle who “reinforce[d] negative stereotypes and

need[ed] to be censored” and forced him to leave the entertainment industry, this

conspiracy theory is called “The Chappelle Theory.” This theory “offers no concrete

evidence and could be someone’s zany joke on America’s thirst for conspiracy theories”

(Carpio 114).

Nevertheless, the “Black Crusader’s” claim that Tracy Jordan became famous by

reinforcing racial stereotypes is valid because some of the films which made Tracy rich

and earned him the status of a celebrity were exploiting the old stereotypes. A film

“Honky Grandma Be Trippin”’ for example presented Tracy in a cross-dressing

character (“Pilot”). In “Honky Grandma Be Trippin’” Tracy appears in drag to play a

female character, which reinforces the old exiting stereotypes. African American men

were emasculated during slavery and were denied “the social ability to be viewed by

society as men despite their biological sex” (Bush 49). African American men have

been emasculated because they “have historically been blocked from enacting both the

traditional African and traditional American mainstream gender roles of provider and

protector” (Lawrence-Webb, Littlefield, and Okundaye 628). Any African American

“man who wanted to stand up and be a man—according to the Western patriarchal

definition, meaning leadership—was isolated, killed, beaten, or ridiculed” (Bush 50).

Therefore, dressing as a woman may be viewed as shameful and as undermining

African American men’s masculinity

. The only African American writer on the

fictitious TGS, James Sperlock, informs Tracy that dressing as a woman is demeaning

for an African man because it evokes the stigma of emasculation African American men

had to overcome in the American society. James tells Tracy that “drag is a way for

Caucasians to emasculate you and make you seem non-threatening” (“The Break-Up”).

Historically, young African American men “were seen as a possible threat” and only

when they were portrayed as “constantly laughing and clowning, or when [they were]

contained to the worlds of entertainment and sports, they were easily accepted” by the

dominant society (Ginneken 109-10). Therefore, entertaining audiences by dressing as a

woman is a good way of making Tracy seem non-threatening. Tracy also starred in a

movie called “Black Cop/White Cop” which directly points to the “black and white”

buddy practice of the 1990s. Tracy Jordan’s filmography further contains titles “Who

Dat Ninja,” “Black Cavemen,” “Fat Bitch,” or “Death Bank.”

3.3. The Restrictions of the Entertainment Industry

In the fourteenth episode of the first season of the show the GE executive Jack Donaghy

invites Tracy to join him on a GE charity golf tournament to secure a place on the

CEO’s team because Tracy is the CEO’s “grandchildren’s favorite movie star” (“The C

Word”). Jack’s plan seems to be well-thought out but Tracy starts asking the CEO, Don

Geiss, about the small number of African Americans being present at the event: “how

come you don’t hire more black people around here? Black people can’t make light

However, African American male actors appearing in drag is quite a popular and profitable practice.

According to Dunn “Hollywood added Mammy’s alter ego—the emasculating matriarchal image of a

‘bitchy’ black woman […] which these days has been appropriated with huge financial success by cross-

dressing actors Eddie Murphy (Norbit), Tyler Perry (Madea) and Martin Lawrence (Big Momma’s

House)” (Dunn 51).

bulbs?” Tracy expresses his disappointment over the lack of African American presence

by remarking that there are only two African American men present at the event, him

and “Carlton

”. Don Geiss feels offended by Tracy’s remarks and Jack Donaghy loses

his much wanted place on the CEO’s team.

Tracy’s behavior embarrasses Jack who tells Tracy that he “wanted [him] to

entertain these people, not publicly humiliate them” (“The C Word”). Tracy starts to

realize that Jack invited him at the tournament only because Jack wishes Tracy “to just

be a funny black man who says funny things.” Tracy decides to give Jack what he wants

and starts to behave as the stereotyped character which Jack sees him as and asks the

bartender to bring him “Mustang Melon and a bag of barbeque chips” and later goes on

to say that he “studied fried chicken at the school of hard knocks.” Tracy is aware of the

image Jack wanted him to present in front of the executives and is deeply offended by it

so he is bringing the exaggerated stereotyped version of this character to life. When

Tracy is referring to “Mustang Melon” and “fried chicken” he is pointing to very old

stereotypes which survived till the present day. African Americans are said to love

watermelons and fried chicken. According to Claire Schmidt, the myth of African

Americans loving fried chicken “started with Birth of a Nation [sic]” in a scene in

which “[A] group of actors portraying shiftless black elected officials acting rowdy and

crudely in a representative hall […] Some of the legislators are shown drinking. Others

had their feet kicked up on their desks. And one of them was very ostentatiously eating

fried chicken.” According to Schmidt, this “image really solidified the way white

people thought of black people and fried chicken” (qtd. in Arit). Theodore Johnson

explains why watermelon are stereotypical: “Just as the undesirable leftovers of farm

Tracy is making a reference to Carlton Banks character from NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

(1990-6). Carlton’s character is known for being puritanic and “straightlaced” as it is explained by Jack

Donaghy (The C Word).

animals, such as pig intestines and feet, are linked to the slave diet, watermelon is the

food most associated with the 19th and 20th century depictions of blacks as lazy

simpletons […] lazy blacks, and watermelon still remain today” (qtd. in Arit).

Later in the episode, Jack Donaghy explains to Tracy that he did not try to use

him and that Tracy should “play the game with [him].” Jack explains to Tracy how the

dynamics work and tells him that men like Don Geiss are important because they “run

everything” and therefore, Tracy should consider calming his temper down and being

more friendly with Geiss and not get into any quarrels if he wants to be successful and

be offered more roles in movies (“The C Word”). Bell Hooks observes that becoming

successful usually brings a great amount of sacrifice for African Americans, she states

that “One of the tragic ironies of contemporary black life is that individuals succeed in

acquiring material privilege often by sacrificing their positive connection to black

culture and black experience” (Black Looks: Race and Representation 19). This is

exactly what Jack Donaghy asks Tracy Jordan to do. In order to be more successful,

Tracy has to sacrifice his commentary on the underrepresentation of African Americans

in the GE managerial positions.

At the end of the day, Tracy understands Jack’s point and gives a serious speech

on diabetes in front of Don Geiss and other important people at the tournament to earn

their respect. Although Tracy’s speech is made up, it achieves its goals and Don Geiss

asks Jack and Tracy to join him on his team. Jack Donaghy is satisfied with the way

Tracy presented himself to the executives and tells Tracy: “Welcome to the grown-up

world” (“The C Word”). Jack’s remark indicates that he viewed Tracy’s former

behavior as childish and that a grown-up man should know how to present himself.

Ernest Cashmore in his book The Black Culture Industry (1997) observes the

dynamics of the relationship between African Americans and the entertainment industry

and he claims that African American “culture has been converted into commodity,

usually in the interests of white-owned corporations” (1). Cashmore explains that “What

was once disparaged and mocked is now regarded as part of legitimate culture” and that

African Americans “have been permitted to excel in the entertainment industry only on

the condition that they conform to white’s images of blacks” (1). At the golf

tournament, Tracy is asked to conform to his bosses’ images of him and is forced to

realize that his role is to entertain people and not to point at their mistakes or faults.

Tracy is asked to give up his dissatisfaction with the social positioning of African

Americans in the interests of succeeding in the industry.

Tracy Jordan is a commodity himself in fact. It is important to note that even the

reason for hiring Tracy to the fictitious TGS was based on him “bringing the black back

to NBC” (“The Aftermath”). Tracy is hired into the cast so that The Girlie Show can

increase its viewership. Jack Donaghy is the one who makes the decision about hiring

Tracy since Jack is the one who represents the power figure and is the one who makes

most of the decisions concerning the show. Jack Donaghy’s main concerns are the TV

ratings and to make TGS profitable because his market research on The Girlie Show

revealed that the show is missing male audiences between the ages of 18 and 49 and

therefore, a new cast member was needed to improve the ratings (“Pilot”). Tracy Jordan

is not an employee of the show, but a “product” to be sold because when Tracy Jordan

became a cast member of the show, the whole “Tracy Jordan business” joined the show

as well (“The Aftermath”). And the Tracy Jordan business is built on a certain image

Tracy has created for himself and which he was forced to create in order to become

successful.

The problem is that the entertainment industry refuses to take Tracy seriously.

After Tracy discovers he is Thomas Jefferson’s descendant, he is willing to make a

serious movie about Jefferson’s life but is not able to obtain funds for the movie to be

made. Don Geiss, the CEO of GE, would be willing to sponsor the movie only in case it

would be a comedy, not a drama. When Tracy tells Geiss about his intentions in the first

place, Geiss is excited about the project thinking that Tracy is willing to make “the

movie version of The Jeffersons” but is disappointed to find out what Tracy’s real

intentions are and tells Tracy to make “Fat Bitch 2” comedy movie instead (“Corporate

Crush”). Tracy is a “subject to narrow casting by the dominant culture who still

constructs comfortable images […] as well as stereotypical images of black men to feed

white society’s fear of black masculinity” (Brown 81). The industry is willing to see

Tracy as the comedian who is “shucking and jiving [his] way in the society” (76) rather

than a serious and a respectable man.

The whole staff’s tendency to undermine Tracy’s competences and his

intelligence is revealed frequently. For instance, in the twenty-first episode of the fourth

season, Tracy introduces his illegitimate son Donald to his co-workers who all come to

the conclusion that Donald is too old to be Tracy’s son and that he is only using Tracy

to give him money. The staff assumes that Tracy is not aware of the fact that Donald is

actually older than him and that he cannot be his son. However, Tracy reveals, to

everyone’s surprise, that he has known this the whole time and he states: “I may hug

people too hard and get lost at malls but I’m not an idiot.” Tracy is only trying to help

Donald because he reminds him of himself. Tracy never forgot where he came from and

by giving money to Donald, he is helping the underprivileged people from the

community. With Tracy’s help, Donald is able to open a community center for urban

children (“Mamma Mia”). However, nobody thought Donald’s and Tracy’s intentions

were good and Tracy’s capabilities were undermined because everyone views Tracy as

the “funny black man who says funny things” (“The C Word”).

3.4. James and Tracy- “The Good” and “The Bad”

James Spurlock, whom everyone calls “Toofer […] because with him you get two-for-

one—he’s a Black guy and a Harvard guy” (“The Aftermath”) and Tracy Jordan are the

only two African American members of the staff on TGS but they do not get along well

and cannot find a common ground and are not even “speaking the same language.”

James does not think very highly of Tracy and calls him an “imbecile.” Tracy, too, does

not show much respect for James and voices his doubts about whether James is aware of

his heritage when he asks James whether he actually is an African American (“The

Aftermath”).

Although James clearly is an African American man by his physical appearance,

he attempts to conform to the dominant society and presents himself more as the

“Harvard guy” (“The Aftermath”). Tracy points out that James is ashamed of being

African American and James in return tells Tracy that he embarrasses him “Because

there are racist people in this world, and when they see [Tracy] act like a fool, they

assume […] all [African Americans are] fools” (“The Break-Up”). James is aware of the

fact that Tracy’s behavior is very stereotypical in many ways and given to the fact that

Tracy is a celebrity and therefore is being constantly watched and judged by the society,

Tracy does not bring a good light on African American people. When Tracy acts

foolishly, he creates an uneasy position for other African Americans because people can

then assume that all African Americans are the same. Entman and Rojecki explain that

“People tend to see members of other groups as pretty much the same” (55). Entman

and Rojecki point to the prototype theory, which was developed by Eleanor Rosch, to

support their ideas. Although prototypes are “often formed swiftly and inaccurately”

they “encode habitual ways of thinking that help people make sense of a complicated

and uncertain world” (60). Entman and Rojecki further explain that “people think in

categories” and the “most representative members [of a group] are called prototypical”

(61). Therefore, James’ concerns about Tracy’s behavior are legitimate. Although James

is an African American man who has “achieved a status” and who “attempts[s] by dress,

grooming, and other communication behavior to signal [his] acceptance of mainstream

norms and strive[s] towards similar cultural ideals as Whites” (62), he may still be

viewed by the members of the society differently because some African American men,

such as Tracy, are viewed as the prototypical African Americans.

Cooper asserts that “popular representations of heterosexual black men are

bipolar. Those images alternate between a Bad Black Man [...] and a Good Black Man”

(853). “The Bad Black Man” is the one who is portrayed as “animalistic, sexually

depraved, and crime-prone” whereas the “The Good Black Man” may be characterized

as the one who “distances himself from black people and emulates white view” (857).

Cooper states that these “myths about heterosexual black men […] structure the very

way that whites think about [African Americans]” (875). Based on Cooper’s

classification, Tracy Jordan represents “The Bad Black Man” and Toofer is a

representative of “The Good Black Man”.

The image of the “Good Black Man has a long history,” and it can be traced

back to the “figure of the Uncle Tom” (Cooper 880). Tracy Jordan calls James “Uncle

Tom” because of James’ conformity to the dominant society. James’ attempts to

assimilate to the mainstream society have led to losing his “blackness” and James is

said to be “just afraid of black people” (“The Aftermath”). James associates himself

with Caucasian friends exclusively and is not even willing to go out on a date with an

African American woman his cousin set him up with on Valentine’s Day. James states:

“My cousin set me up on a blind date for Valentine’s and I just found out that the girl is,

well, urban.” This statement is followed by a question from the head writer of the show

who asks: “Are you saying she’s black?” to which James responds that “[He doesn’t]

know how to get out of this” (“Anna Howard Shaw Day”). James fits the description of

the Good Black Man because he “distances himself from blackness and associates with

white norms” (Cooper 853).

Not much is known about James’ background, his family, or his personal life,

his character misses the connection to his origins and culture. James seems to have lost

his “double consciousness” W.E.B. Du Bois wrote about in his essay Of Our Spiritual

Strivings. This “double consciousness” is described as “twoness,—an American, a

Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one

dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder” (45). What

Du Bois highlighted was that African Americans have to aim at preserving both sides of

their personalities, they have to be African as well as American: “He [an African

American] would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he

knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it

possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American” (45). And James in Tracy’s

eyes failed to attain both the African as well as the American side when he accuses

James of wishing he was Caucasian (“Fireworks”).

Nevertheless, although James is trying to fit into the dominant society, his

attempts are usually laughed at and he is made fun of most of the time. 30 Rock

challenges the view of “Good Black Man” and as opposed to The Tom, Toofer is not

viewed as a hero of a sort nor is his obedience applauded. James’ pride over being a

Harvard graduate is a target of jokes quite often and James is laughed at for bringing up

the fact that he went to Harvard extensively: “Oh, really? Did you go to Harvard? Cause

you haven’t mentioned it in like three hours” (“The Baby Show”). Harvard graduates

are also viewed as not “cool” by the cast on TGS (“Lee Marvis vs. Derek Jeter”). Also,

James’ conformist style of dressing is frequently commented on: “Hey, look, Sherlock

Homo is here to solve the case of the gay sweater” (“The C Word”). James’ attempts to

assimilate are seen as a joke in the eyes of the staff on the show.

Even though Toofer himself firmly believes in his own goodness and thinks that

he is a descendant of an African American soldier “who had achieved an officer’s rank

during the Civil War,” it is revealed that his ancestor was in fact a Confederate officer

(“Fireworks”). By making Toofer a descendant of a Confederate officer, 30 Rock

challenges the view of Toofer’s goodness once again.

Tracy Jordan, as opposed to Toofer, does not distance himself from the African

American community and he embraces his heritage. Tracy’s style of clothing, his way

of speaking and his behavior bear sings of “blackness”. Tracy identifies himself with

what can be called “hip-hop black masculinity” which places Tracy “in conflict with the

dominant culture” because “hip-hop black masculinity is counter-cultural and resists

conforming to dominant culture” (Brown 69). Although Tracy gained economic success

and is a member of the middle class and has some privileges due to his status, he still

presents “an image that retains lower-class signifiers and the mentality of the hood”

(69). Tracy works hard at preserving his image of a dangerous and unpredictable

celebrity. He is outraged when a magazine calls him “normal” which is, according to

him, a “character assassination” and therefore he decides to have his face tattooed to

maintain his “bad boy” image. Tracy needs to maintain this image to earn “street cred”

(“Jack Meets Dennis”). As quoted in Brown, “For most young black men, power is

acquired by stylizing their bodies to provoke fear in others,” this stylization “is a form

of self-identification and resistance to the dominant culture” and it is this “unique

stylizing, posing, clothing, and dialect that signify a hip-hop black masculinity” and the

“hip-hop black masculinity is a way for young people to exercise power” (76-8).

Tracy grew up in a poor neighborhood in Bronx, he dropped out of school,

married young and had children. After he was discovered at the Apollo theatre, Tracy

rose from rags to riches. He claims his childhood was filled with painful memories as he

“watched prostitute stab a clown,” his “basketball hoop was a rib cage,” or how he

“slept on an old dog bed stuffed with wigs” (“Emanuelle Goes to Dinosaur Land”). In

such a rough neighborhood, respect means everything and it is earned by being tough.

But Tracy’s toughness and his attitude is being “viewed with suspicion from both the

dominant culture and older African Americans” because it is “an oppositional identity

that is reified as a sign of a strong black man” (Brown 77-8).

However, Tracy’s image of a tough “gangsta” is not entirely true. Instead of

being a violent man, Tracy actually is a “sensitive artist” (“Kidney Now!”). Tracy never

was as tough as he presents himself to be, during Tracy’s high school years, Tracy was

asked to dissect a frog but was not able to do it because he felt sorry for the animal and

he started crying in front of his whole class. After this incident, he decided to leave

school because nobody respected him there anymore, even one of Tracy’s closest

friends, Grizz, admits that he “had to deny being friends with him” (“Kidney Now!”).

Also, Tracy’s reputation of a promiscuous man is revealed to be fictitious in the

nineteenth episode of the third season. Tracy confesses to be a faithful husband to his

wife when he speaks to Jack Donaghy, Tracy states that in “twenty years [he has]

known her, [he] never cheated on [his] wife” and that “the partying is just for show”

(“The Ones”). Tracy is only pretending to be unfaithful so that his public image is not

harmed. Tracy is afraid that the public would get to know the truth about him, when one

of his voicemails which Tracy recorded for his wife and in which he asks her about the

type of curtains he should buy and in which he is presented as the loving husband he

actually is when he says: “Oh, you’re calling me on the other line. I can’t wait to talk to

you. I love you” leaks, Tracy is seriously considering having an affair so that his

reputation would not go away because it is his image which earns him great amounts of

money. Tracy is also willing to go into extreme lengths in order not to lose his public

face when some women he claimed to be intimate with “came forward to say [Tracy]

didn’t have sex with them” (“Don Geiss, America, and Hope”).

According to Brown, African American “men in general live in a cultural site of

struggle between the dominant culture and African American culture” (68). This

struggle is clearly visible in Tracy Jordan’s character. The society views him as the “bad

guy” because of his identification with the “hip-hop black masculinity” but Tracy is not

a bad person, he is only maintaining a certain image to be respected in his community;

the image also ensures him great amounts of money since the way he behaves and his

connection to the hip-hop culture are profitable.

4. Conclusion

Throughout history, the roles assigned to African Americans have been influenced by

the dominant society’s stereotypical views of what Africa Americans are like or of how

they behave. African Americans have been compared to the Caucasians and were

believed to possess more negative qualities than the members of the dominant society

who saw themselves as more moral, intelligent, or hard-working in comparison to

African Americans. It is important to understand that the stereotyped images of African

Americans have ideological intent and that they served as a form of oppression of

African Americans. Early films and television shows functioned under the dominant

ideology and did not reinforce critical commentary on race. African American actors

and actresses were casted into a limited range of roles and were forced to play

stereotyped characters which portrayed them as either conformists who are contented

with their menial position in the society and who do not question the social order or as

characters who were seen as threats and menace to the society because they were lazy,

had violent tendencies, had lower mental capacity, or were sexually aggressive.

A more complex or accurate portrayal of African Americans which would show

more diversity was missing for a long time. The history of slavery or of the struggle for

equality was erased and African American characters were often portrayed in isolation

from their culture and appeared “raceless.” A wave of change came during 1960s and

1980s when television shows began to be more aware of racial issues and when a wider

range of African American characters could be seen on television screens. Moreover, in

1980s a significant shift in demographics occurred and the television networks started to

realize that African American audiences are becoming increasingly important for them.

However, many critics nowadays claim that the complexity is still missing in the

portrayal of African Americans and that the tendency to reconstruct the old stereotyped

images is still alive.

Some of the old stereotyped images may be observed in 30 Rock’s characters as

well but the series manages to move beyond them and projects a rather complex view

on race and racism in the United States. 30 Rock challenges the old categories when the

conformist character of James Spurlock who identifies with the dominant society’s

ideals and who lives in isolation from his community is not viewed as the ideal to which

African Americans should aspire but is mocked for his attempts to fit in. James’

character can be viewed as a parody of the Uncle Tom character who was viewed as the

“good” character and who was appealing to the Caucasian audiences.

Tracy Jordan’s character represents the struggle of an African American

entertainer. Tracy works for an industry which is driven by profit and Tracy is asked to

preserve a certain image. In some ways, Tracy may be viewed as the contemporary

version of the coon whose primary objective is to amuse the audiences and who

demonstrates his craziness, laziness, and unreliability on numerous occasions. But this

is not who Tracy really is, Tracy is not the ridiculous and incompetent man, he is a self-

made man who was able to succeed despite his underprivileged background but he

stands in a difficult position in the society which is not willing to take him seriously.

30 Rock is not avoiding the discussion of complicated issues and manages to

cross the boundaries of the stereotyped categories and makes a parody out of them. The

series makes fun of the stereotypical and prejudiced depictions of African Americans

when Tracy finds out that he actually is a descendant of Thomas Jefferson, the third

president of the United States, and when he discovers that he is “genetically mostly

white” (“Fireworks”). The series is thusly demonstrating the irony of the stereotyped

images and the hypocrisy of the society.

The stereotypical portrayal of African Americans as hyper-sexual is also mocked

when Tracy’s alleged promiscuity is revealed to be something Tracy does “just for

show” (“The Ones). Tracy Jordan and his wife Angie actually are one of the most stable

couples on the whole series. 30 Rock keeps making the stereotyped portrayals a parody

when it keeps breaking their boundaries time and time again. The parody of the show is

clearly visible when the “Black Crusaders” are going after Tracy or when Tracy acts as

an exaggerated stereotyped version of the chicken and watermelon loving coon at the

GE golf tournament.

The series presents various issues, 30 Rock demonstrates how easy it is for an

African American entertainer to be viewed as a brute when the series showcases Tracy’s

inclinations towards committing crime. The series is aware of the fact that the issue of

violence in the African American community is a complicated one. The so-called “hip-

hop black masculinity” is African American men’s oppositional identity which

developed as a response to the emasculation of African American men and is Tracy’s

way to gain respect in his community but also makes him look dangerous in the eyes of

the dominant society although he is not actually a violent man at all or a menace to the

society. In fact, Tracy donates money to help the underprivileged people in his

community because he remembers where he came from.

30 Rock recognizes racial issues as it widely questions and comments on the

position of African Americans in the society. The series acknowledges the fact that

although African Americans are nowadays doing materially better than they did in the

past, their position is rather complicated. 30 Rock refuses to stay blind to the fact that

racism is still a big issue in the American society. The series also manages to provide

commentary on the history and the present state of television portrayals of Africans and

demonstrates its awareness that television could always do better when it comes to the

representation of African Americans.

Summary

This Diploma thesis deals with stereotypical portrayals of African Americans on

television. Historically, African Americans have been assigned many stereotypical roles

in films as well as on television. Basic stereotyped image of African Americans are

introduced in the first chapter of the thesis and a limited range of roles which were

assigned to African Americans is discussed as well. This chapter is also concerned with

contemporary images of African Americans and the reasons why African American

audiences are becoming increasing important are presented in this chapter too. The aim

of the thesis is to trace the progress of the portrayal of African Americans. The second

chapter of the thesis is concerned with the analysis of African American characters on a

contemporary comedy television series called 30 Rock (2006-20013). This comedy

series represents a suitable material for the analysis because there are several African

Americans characters casted on this sitcom. Also, the fact that the series aired on one of

the biggest television networks in the United States is another reason why 30 Rock was

chosen for the analysis. The focus of the thesis is put mainly on the first four seasons of

the television series. I argue that 30 Rock has greatly contributed to the discussion of the

portrayal of African Americans on television.

Resumé

Tato diplomová práce se zabývá stereotypním zobrazováním Afroameričanů v televizi.

V minulosti byli Afroameričané obsazováni do stereotypních rolí jak ve filmech, tak

v televizi. V první kapitole této práce představuji základní stereotypní zobrazování

Afroameričanů a zabývám se tendencí obsazovat Afroameričany pouze do určitých rolí.

Soudobé zobrazování Afroameričanů je v této kapitole diskutováno také spolu s důvody

toho, proč jsou diváci z řad Afroameričanů čím dál tím důležitější. Cílem této práce je

vypátrat, jakým způsobem se zobrazování Afroameričanů v průběhu času změnilo.

V druhé kapitole práce se zabývá analýzou Afroamerických postavy v soudobém

televizním komediálním seriálu pod českým názvem Studio 30 Rock (2006-2013).

Tento komediální seriál byl vybrán pro účely této práce, jelikož se jedná o soudobý

komediální seriál, ve kterém je obsazeno několik Afroamerických postav a jelikož byl

seriál vysílán na jedné z největších televizních stanic ve Spojených státech amerických.

Práce se zaměřuje především na první čtyři série tohoto seriálu. V práci tvrdím, že tento

seriál významně přispěl do diskuze o stereotypním zobrazování Afroameričanů

v televizi.

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MASARYK UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

Department of English Language and Literature

Portrayal of African Americans in the Media

Master’s Diploma Thesis

Brno 2014

Supervisor: Author:

Mgr. Zdeněk Janík, M.A., Ph.D. Bc. Lucie Pernicová

Declaration

I hereby declare that I have worked on this thesis independently,

using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

........................................................

Bc. Lucie Pernicová

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank my supervisor Mgr. Zdeněk Janík, M.A., Ph.D. for the patient

guidance and valuable advice he provided me with during the writing of this thesis.

 
 
Table of Contents 
 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 5 
 Portrayal of African Americans in Films and on Television ..................................... 8 
1.  Stereotypical Images and Their Power .............................................................. 8 
2.  Basic Stereotypical Images of African Americans ............................................ 9 
3.  Stereotypical Film Portrayals of African Americans and the Arrival of the 
Talking Era .................................................................................................................. 12 
4.  Television Portrayals of African Americans .................................................... 14 
4.1.  The Increasing Importance of African American Viewers ....................... 17 
4.2.  Contemporary Images of African Americans ........................................... 20 
 The Portrayal of African Americans on 30 Rock .................................................... 23 
1.  Meet the Jordan Family .................................................................................... 31 
2.  The Black Crusaders ........................................................................................ 44 
3.  The Restrictions of the Entertainment Industry ............................................... 46 
4.  James and Tracy- “The Good” and “The Bad” ................................................ 51 
 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 57 
Summary ......................................................................................................................... 61 
Resumé ............................................................................................................................ 62 
Bibliography: .................................................................................................................. 63 