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Why It Matters

Howtogetawaywithmurder

Try this. Press mute a few minutes into the first episode of ABC’s How to Get Away With Murder. For the better part of the next hour, you’re likely to be equally as engaged. It’s the type of show that captivates multiple senses, and when the sound is eliminated, the visuals are heightened, enhancing the experience. It’s a kaleidoscope of humanity, best represented through Viola Davis’ character, Annalise Keating, who is at once tough, intelligent, morally questionable, vulnerable, and spectacularly accomplished. The premiere introduced us to murder, sex, mystery, and adultery through a plot narrative driven by legal industry veterans playing a game of “mentee mayhem” with eager, young law school students.

No one program is owed our time and attention. This is truer than ever, as hundreds of channels (plus the services of companies like Netflix and Amazon) are available to the modern television consumer. But audiences have spoken with the premiere episode of How to Get Away With Murder, which broke prime-time records.

The fall 2014 lineup is notable for its groundbreaking racial diversity. An unprecedented number of shows feature people of color, in particular women of color, in complicated and meaningful ways. Though the audience response to, and staying power of, this lineup remain to be seen, this is nonetheless a significant shift. As a cultural critic and writer, I’ve frequently lamented the lack of diversity in mass media, of which I consume quite a bit. Many others have done the same, and now, it seems as if this shift is starting to happen in meaningful ways. A leader in making it happen, of course, has been the brilliant Shonda Rhimes, whose creations Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and the new How to Get Away With Murder, created by one of her protégés, feature Black women in decidedly complex ways.

Now, each day of the week, I can watch prime-time television and see a woman who looks like me. There are villains and victors who are physicians, lawyers, mob bosses, and businesswomen, who struggle with codes of morality amidst the white male power structures they must navigate. In this week’s episode of Chicago Fire, the character Gabriela Dawson (played by Monica Raymund) was snubbed for a promotion at a firehouse because her soon-to-be commander did not want to work with a female firefighter. Scandal’s Olivia Pope is, in part, a trickster figure out of the African American literary tradition, a woman who must use guile and savvy in equal measure to maneuver the interminable quagmire that is D.C. politics. In the new Gotham, Jada Pinkett Smith’s character, Fish Mooney, is a mob boss desperate to eliminate her competition in an underworld hierarchy that was never created for someone like her. And Tracie Ellis Ross as Rainbow Johnson in the new show Black-ish is an anesthesiologist who celebrates her husband’s promotion as the first black ad executive at his company while also trying to balance her work and family.

Inevitably, there is the question of why diversity of this kind in popular culture matters. After all, it’s just entertainment, the purpose of which is to entertain. There are many ways to answer that question. But consider this. Popular culture like television has a powerful reach, a pull that can illuminate the humanity of others within a society that often seeks to deny it. Nelson Mandela himself remarked to Phylicia Rashad that, while imprisoned, “We watched your show on Robben Island. I watched it with my guard and it softened him.” Even the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. recognized the importance of visibility in the pop culture space, which is why he encouraged Nichelle Nichols to remain in her role as Lieutenant Uhura in Star Trek immediately after learning that she wanted to leave to embark on a career in Broadway. Because when the diversity of humanity becomes normalized, so does diversity of empathy and compassion.

On a more micro level, as I watch this new television lineup, I see Black women being desired, succeeding, fighting, failing, blundering, loving, and ultimately thriving—which is the reflection of myself that I most readily recognize. It’s re-affirming to see yourself represented in a full, rounded way when such a thing has rarely happened before. Now Black women, in much more diversity, are in American homes week by week.

This shift, in my view, is only practical. Some of the nation’s most visible and dynamic women in politics (Michelle Obama), music (Beyoncé), sports (Serena Williams), and business (Oprah Winfrey) are African American. It seems logical that television should follow suit, especially in a world where young girls and women of all races can see a role model in a Michelle Obama or an Ursula Burns.

Still, despite these gains, there is much work to be done. Women of all ethnicities are still woefully underrepresented in directing, writing, editing, cinematography, and producing capacities. And there is always the question of quality—characters that are not defined by their race and/or gender, and allowed the latitude to enjoy a rounded character arc. In her recent collection of essays, Bad Feminist, Roxane Gay remarks on this reality:

This is the famine from which we must image feast. I’m tired of feeling like I should be grateful when popular culture deigns to acknowledge the experiences of people who are not white, middle class or wealthy, and heterosexual. I’m tired of the extremes…We need more. We need pop culture that demonstrates not only the ways people are different but also the ways we are very much alike.”

I am looking forward to many of the remaining premieres—especially State of Affairs, which will feature award-winning actress Alfre Woodard as the President of the United States. Like it or not, success is often measured by numbers. There are plenty of good shows that were canceled before their time simply because the viewership was too small. Only time will tell whether any number of the new shows debuting over the next several weeks will stand the test of time from both artistic and commercial perspectives. But it is a step in the right direction.


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