Black Women In The Media Analysis

Since television has been around, there has either been a negative or false portrayal of African Americans. In the media industry, there has been a few directors and producers who have created realistic African American characters such as Shonda Rhimes and Spike Lee. In an industry that is white majority, Rhimes has been one of the few to make a large impact just like few other African American producers, however Rhimes portrays African Americans in a way that is realistic. Rhimes uses the color blindness approach when it comes to screening her characters. The character 's race is not the main focus rather it is about the relationships and their lives. She herself is well recognized for her work in creating award winning shows. Rhimes is creating …show more content…
In the article, That’s Not Me I See on TV… : African American Youth Interpret Media Images of Black Females, the authors collect information discovered from images of Black females in media. Adam-Bass states:
Nonetheless, respondents generally agreed that there were few positive or uplifting images of black women in the images they viewed. Overall, perceptions and meanings of black women imagery could be placed in the following categories: black women are unusually sexual, black women take care of others, black women are strong, and black women are angry” (Adam-Bass, 87)
The four common categories for black women are hypersexual, caring for others, strong, and angry. When it comes to hypersexualizing black women, they have been oversexualized in the media. Throughout the course of mass media they have been portrayed as having a desire for sex and strictly sex. As most women have been oversexualized, blacks particularly have been overexaggerated at great …show more content…
It is rare when an African American woman plays the main role in a movie or TV show, usually they are shown as a secondary character, sometimes they are not even a secondary character. Along with that society has associated fair skin with beauty, whether it is black, latino, or asian, all races associate beauty with light skin. It is unfortunate how that is the media’s portrayal of beauty, in most cases, but not Rhimes. Throughout her shows, she has placed dark skin African Americans and shown their beauty. For How to Get Away with Murder, the main character, Annalise is not only driven and well educated, but she is beautiful. It is significant to many viewers that Rhimes has a main character that is African American because rarely are they the main character. African Americans are underrepresented substantially in comparison to