television
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Why Paris Dennard Needs To Catch The Fade In The Worst Possible Way
For the past 6 months I’ve struggled to come to terms with the results of the November 8th that put Trump and them in the White House. Even worse, I can’t come to terms with the fact that many of our own people chose death over life and help to put him in there. I’m…
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Underground Season 2 Episode 3 Recap
Daniel’s learned a few more words since we saw him last episode. In addition to “love” we can add “strength” to his list of vocabulary words he’d choose to describe the black women in his life. He’s reading Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I A Woman?” speech to his daughter and she can’t believe northern black folk…
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Iron Fist Is Too Annoyingly And Inappropriately White To Be Any Good
Iron Fist, for all intents and purposes, is televised gentrification pre-equipped with its own heroin addiction. It is painstakingly everything I hate about Williamsburg, Austin, San Francisco, and anywhere else hipsters meet & breed like drugged addicted rabbits in chinos. Honestly, I can break down many issues with the show like this without spoilers: It’s…
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I Binged Watched ‘This Is Us’ And My Feelings Are In Shambles. I May Never Recover. ZOMG!
(There are very, very light spoilers in this piece. None of them tell you much of about the plot of the show.) On February 23, 2017, I wrote the following status update on Facebook: Well, I guess I need to watch “This Is Us.” I’ve not intentionally avoided it but have yet to see a…
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Why Black-ish Is Winning This Season
For years there has been a progressive erasure of high-quality black, mainstream television sitcoms. It feels as if, after Family Matters and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air went off the air, the idea of black family comedies went right out the door with them. Though many have tried (My Wife and Kids, Reed Between the…
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Lee Daniels Needs to Stop It With This White-Girl Lead in Star and His Magical Negro Speeches
Lee Daniels often espouses racial views typically heard only from characters in a Magical Negro movie. It’s one of those characteristics about the celebrated director that you like to forget in order to enjoy his art. Unfortunately, Daniels won’t cooperate with some of us in such an endeavor because he refuses to stop assuaging white…
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FX’s Atlanta Is Fucking Awesome. Signed, An ATLien.
I couldn’t wait for FX’s new series, Atlanta, to hit the screen. Ninety percent of my excitement is that it’s named after a city I like to call home. ZONE 4 ADAMSVILLE. WHAT! The other ten percent is because of all the press and promotion done on behalf of the show. If you watch television…
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Sale of 1st and Only Black-Owned Public TV Station a Wake-Up Call on Media Diversity
The possible loss of Howard University’s PBS affiliate could be a tipping point toward the extinction of black-owned broadcast media, but the Federal Communications Commission has no sense of urgency to fix the problem. That’s not hyperbole. For years, the FCC has watched female and minority ownership of broadcast stations dwindle without much concern for…
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On Being Mary Jane And Making The Leap Towards Greatness
I remember when Being Mary Jane first hit the BET lineup. I didn’t love the show, but I also didn’t dislike it. I largely watched the show because of Black Twitter and the tremendous shade tossed the way of Pauletta Patterson aka Mary Jane Paul. Mary Jane was one of those women who never saw a bad…
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Thank God The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Isn't Being Rebooted
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air may be my favorite television show of all time. Yes, I liked it even more than The Wire, Law & Order: SVU, and Unsolved Mysteries. I loved A Different World, and liked The Cosby Show Family Matters, but I was all about Fresh Prince. So when “news” broke that the…