Strategically Ambiguous Shonda Rhimes: Respectability Politics of a Black Woman Showrunner

Joseph, Ralina L.

doi:10.1080/10999949.2016.1230825

Cited by 14 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…2. Scholars have widely critiqued Grey's Anatomy showrunner Shonda Rhimes (who is also the showrunner for Private Practice and Scandal, all of which have featured abortion stories) for crafting a "colorblind, post-racial" sensibility on her programs (Ralina Joseph 2016;Warner 2015). Rhimes is one of the only showrunners to consistently incorporate an abortiondecision making plotline in many of her shows, yet she avoids discussions about race or racism in these contexts, obfuscating institutional barriers to abortion that are compounded by race.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“I can’t believe your mixed ass wasn’t on the pill!”: race and abortion on American scripted television, 2008-2019

Herold

Sisson

Sherman³

2020

Feminist Media Studies

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Racial identities provide important context for understanding reproductive experiences, including abortion. However, this context is often not fully reflected in popular cultural narratives about abortion, including on American television. Because onscreen depictions have the potential to influence public understandings of abortion, it is crucial to examine the messages these plotlines convey about the relationship between race, racism, and abortion access. We analyze a decade of onscreen abortion depictions, finding that the vast majority contain no racially-specific content. When plotlines do portray a character of color obtaining an abortion, these depictions can be both progressive in making race visible and regressive in relying on problematic racial tropes. These patterns differed by race: Black characters often obtain abortions while wrestling with and reinforcing racial stereotypes; Latina characters' abortion stories are predominantly concerned with Catholic judgment. Plotlines featuring Asian or multiracial characters are largely absent. In contrast, white characters' stories comprise the vast majority of abortions on television, and none of these plotlines substantially address issues of race. These disparate patterns obfuscate structural barriers to abortion access and may contribute to the skewed beliefs that the American public holds about abortion.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“I can’t believe your mixed ass wasn’t on the pill!”: race and abortion on American scripted television, 2008-2019

Herold

Sisson

Sherman³

2020

Feminist Media Studies

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show abstract

“…Rhimes’s revolutionary spirit and embodied resistance has been referred to as strategic ambiguity or the “choice to take on a certain amount of risk, to play with fire, to appropriate something that is used against you and make it work for you” (Joseph 2016:305). Her audaciousness, in attempting to transform network television from oppressive to liberatory, paid off as she unapologetically drafted complex characters and story lines which for too long had been neglected.…”

Section: Data and Methodological Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unapologetic Blackness in Action: Embodied Resistance and Social Movement Scenes in Black Celebrity Activism

Allen

Miles

2020

Humanity & Society

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American popular culture was established to appease a white audience and continues to operate in such a manner. This pervasive white gaze in the entertainment industry manifests in anti-Black depictions and ideologies. Black celebrities have resisted this distinct form of racial oppression by overtly affirming their Black identity in entertainment spaces. To further explore this phenomenon, the present article examines: How do Black celebrities employ unapologetic Blackness as an embodied resistance tactic to challenge racial inequality in pop cultural spaces? We analyze five cases of contemporary celebrity activism across various pop cultural platforms (YouTube, film, sport, music, and television) and find that just as race is socially constructed, varying across social locations, resistance to racial oppression also varies depending on the site in which it occurs. We further argue that Black celebrities’ embodied resistance converts pop cultural spaces into social movement scenes, thus transforming moments of entertainment into opportunities for political mobilization.

show abstract

“…This ‘strategic ambiguity’ (Joseph, 2016: 302) is further problematised in the second section. Jade Petermon succinctly summarises this struggle, arguing that Shondaland’s colour-blind casting strategy leads to the ‘hyper(in)visibility’ of people of colour, where ‘black bodies in the neoliberal era are paraded across the visual field, signifying progress and promise, while the humanity of black people is obscured’ (p. 104).…”

mentioning

confidence: 96%

Book Review: Adventures in Shondaland: Identity Politics and the Power of Representation

Weidhase

2019

Critical Studies in Television

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Strategically Ambiguous Shonda Rhimes: Respectability Politics of a Black Woman Showrunner

Cited by 14 publications

References 0 publications

“I can’t believe your mixed ass wasn’t on the pill!”: race and abortion on American scripted television, 2008-2019

“I can’t believe your mixed ass wasn’t on the pill!”: race and abortion on American scripted television, 2008-2019

Unapologetic Blackness in Action: Embodied Resistance and Social Movement Scenes in Black Celebrity Activism

Book Review: Adventures in Shondaland: Identity Politics and the Power of Representation

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