Ideas for Final Project (Hopeton Harrell)

Hopeton Harrell.

Black Reality TV. Good or Bad, Real or Fake, Positive or Degrading?

Whether on the football field, basketball court, boxing ring, on stage or the movie screen, the world has always enjoyed watching African Americans Do Their Thing. Today there are several new so-called Reality TV series that portray African Americans Doing Their Thing, which has some critics applauding the success and the exposure that black personalities are receiving on television and it has some critics describing it as baboonery, classifying them as modern day black minstrel shows. Ratings for such shows are soaring and new shows ideas are pitched daily, which supports the fact that whether or not the images or messages that are portrayed on these series are positive or degrading they have captured American television Audiences.

I will attempt to examine the content of Black Reality TV shows such as College Hill, Harlem Heights, Real House Wives of Atlanta, Black Ink, Love and Hip Hop, Run’s House, The Family Hustle, and several others.  The shows with the highest ratings and widest fan base will be explored because they are perceived to have the greatest impact on viewers. Reality TV shows attempt to portray how things work, who people are, what people do, and essentially how people live. Because so much of these show’s content is about African American women my essay will focus heavily on but not limited to Black women.  My goal is to give both sides of the debate using academic sources, journalistic reviews, and audience reactions as my evidences.

Potential Sources

http://newsone.com/1373345/black-reality-tv-basketball-wives/

http://www.reelurbannews.com/?p=1042

http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1996/3/96.03.05.x.html

http://library.uoregon.edu/sites/default/files/data/guides/english/howard_journal_communications.pdf

http://newsone.com/2131606/black-people-african-americans-reality-tv/

http://www.darronsmith.com/2012/06/entertaining-while-black-the-depiction-of-black-males-in-popular-media-existing-while-black-in-america-series/

http://www.darronsmith.com/2013/03/racial-thugging-in-massachusetts-and-mississippi-kinder-gentler-still-deadly-forms-of-race-based-domination/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN9wwlT4Gvo

Requests. 

I'm having a time trying to find current data from academic sources. Much of what I find is from early or mid 2000s. If anyone can point me in the right direction please help!