Television
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Regina King Has 'A Nose for White Supremacy' in HBO's Watchmen
Tick tock—we’re counting down to Watchmen’s series premiere on HBO. From the series’ press release: Set in an alternate history where masked vigilantes are treated as outlaws, Watchmen, from executive producer Damon Lindelof (Emmy winner for Lost; HBO’s The Leftovers) embraces the nostalgia of the original groundbreaking graphic novel of the same name, while attempting…
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Netflix’s Top Boy Is A Series You Absolutely Should Binge (If You Haven't Already)
Top Boy is one of the best shows I’ve seen this year, but no one seems to be talking about it. In 2011, we were introduced to Dushane (Ashley Walters) and Sully (Kane Robinson), two drug dealers in East London’s Hackney neighborhood, as they tried to navigate the treacherous waters of the London underworld. They…
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First Look: Forest Whitaker’s Bumpy Johnson Dodges Casual Racism and White Women in Godfather of Harlem
That moment when you realize microaggressions don’t only happen in the corporate office. EPIX’s Godfather of Harlem series is underway and this Sunday, we’re talking boxing. From the series’ official press release: Godfather of Harlem is inspired by the true story of infamous crime boss Bumpy Johnson (Forest Whitaker), who in the early 1960s returned…
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The Wealthiest Black TV Characters of All Time
Was Jefferson Cleaners’ seven locations worth more than Cliff Huxtable’s basement OB/GYN practice? Would Whitley Gilbert qualify for a Pell Grant? Was Flavor Magazine struggling so badly that Khadijah James needed two roommates? These are the arguments that can ensue when the staff at The Root gets a break from the unending meetings we are…
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Kid Fury and Crissle West Want to Bring Us a 'More Intersectional Point of View' With Their New TV Show
Cue The Read’s mix of “Oh Happy Day” because Kid Fury and Crissle West are about to adjust your television settings to “shade.” I recently hopped on a phone call with the 2019 Root 100 honorees Kid Fury and Crissle to chat about what they’re going to explore on their upcoming television show, whether or…
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Fox Ordered a Pilot for a Show Called Diversity Hire and I’m Looking Forward to It Calling Out Some Bullshit
Calling all diversity and inclusion campaigners! There’s about to be a TV comedy specifically for you! According to Variety, Fox has ordered a put pilot from Cameron Johnson and Felicia D. Henderson titled Diversity Hire. The pair already have a relationship with Fox through the show Empire, where Johnson is a story editor and Henderson…
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Of Course There's a Law & Order: SVU Episode About the Jussie Smollett Saga
There’s not a single entity that embodies the phrase “art imitates life” as effectively as Law & Order: SVU. At the top of the year, Jussie Smollett claimed he was attacked by MAGA supporters who hurled racist and homophobic slurs at him in the middle of the night in Chicago. The Chicago Police Department later…
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T.I. Admits He's Trying to 'Undo the Blunder of Iggy Azalea'
You could say T.I. was ahead of the curve in looking for and promoting a female rapper during one of the more lean years in hip-hop gender parity. Unfortunately, that curve threw the King of the South for a curve in the form of the Mouth From the South—if the “South” was “Down Under”—problematic rapper…
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Black-ish: Girlfriends Reunite to Talk Intersectional Feminism. Also, a Girlfriends Character Was Originally White?
Girlfriends are there through thick and thin—and sometimes even reunite on a successful primetime television show on ABC! On Tuesday, the much-anticipated Girlfriends reunion debuted on Black-ish’s third episode of the comedy’s sixth season and the topic was feminism. The episode was aptly titled, “Feminisn’t.” In the episode, Rainbow (Tracee Ellis Ross) realizes her women’s…
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8 Very Black Reasons to Check Out Raising Dion on Netflix
Netflix’s original series, Raising Dion, dropped on Friday, October 4, and became my newest binge. I watched all nine episodes over the weekend and now I feel like talking about it. While watching, I made some observations that I’ve turned into very black reasons to check out the series. I wanted to share them with…