The Performance of Cultural Citizenship:Audiences and the Politics of Multicultural Television Drama by Floris Müller and Joke Hermes, addresses how multicultural television is used when trying to build connections in society. Multicultural television can strengthen the beliefs of how multicultural societies are viewed in society. Müller and Hermes explain how pop culture plays an important role in defining the role of multicultural societies in the media. Ultimately, Müller and Hermes finds relation between popular cultures and cultural citizenship and how popular culture helps to define the audience reactions to multicultural characters on television. Cultural citizenship is described as bringing strong emphasis on multicultural societies
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The series stars Kerry Washington as the character Olivia Pope, who is a crisis manager and former aid to the White House. Her character is confident, educated and well respected within the political scene in Washington DC. She is a professional fixer who is quick at solving problems. Pope is someone who Black women can look up to as a role model. Having a well spoken educated Black woman playing a role of a fixer in the nation’s capital, allows her to showcase that multicultural people can hold these positions. New York Times article The Weight Those Heels Carry by writer Felicia Lee supports this. She asserts, “…Ms. Washington has arrived in the center of a major cultural discussion…She is the only second black woman in almost 40 years to lead a network television drama…” (Lee, 1). This supports Müller and Hermes theory due to the fact that Olivia Pope is a multicultural woman working in a position which is not typically held by a multicultural person. Pope also refers to her team of workers as young “gladiators in suits”(Lee,1) due to their ability to fix tarnished reputations and fix scandals. Due to the diversity of the show, the content of the show makes it relatable to viewers from different cultural backgrounds. Olivia Pope and her team have certain characteristics that audiences can relate
The series stars Kerry Washington as the character Olivia Pope, who is a crisis manager and former aid to the White House. Her character is confident, educated and well respected within the political scene in Washington DC. She is a professional fixer who is quick at solving problems. Pope is someone who Black women can look up to as a role model. Having a well spoken educated Black woman playing a role of a fixer in the nation’s capital, allows her to showcase that multicultural people can hold these positions. New York Times article The Weight Those Heels Carry by writer Felicia Lee supports this. She asserts, “…Ms. Washington has arrived in the center of a major cultural discussion…She is the only second black woman in almost 40 years to lead a network television drama…” (Lee, 1). This supports Müller and Hermes theory due to the fact that Olivia Pope is a multicultural woman working in a position which is not typically held by a multicultural person. Pope also refers to her team of workers as young “gladiators in suits”(Lee,1) due to their ability to fix tarnished reputations and fix scandals. Due to the diversity of the show, the content of the show makes it relatable to viewers from different cultural backgrounds. Olivia Pope and her team have certain characteristics that audiences can relate