Why not just laugh? Making fun of ourselves on television - portrayals of African Americans in situation comedies

Making merriment of Ourselves on Television

Should we be laughing at the characters of blacks on television situation comedies? on what account even ask the question? on what account not just laugh? Because there may be more at stake than aching sides. A veteran television writer, Ralph Farquhar, describes the bad freshs and the worse news we all must face. "The bad of recent origins is, if these shows fail, nearest year the networks are not going to do any more. The worse of recent origins is, if they all make it, nearest year the networks are going to say, |We made it. We don't ne black clan to create it. People delight in these images we're putting without so we're going to do more.'"

With the roller of black sitcoms on the air, we're seeing a destiny of black faces on our television guards which could lead us to believe that the clan in power behind the cameras are the same color. greatest in quantity of those sitcoms, however, were created by the agency of white writer-producers, who develop a show's, philosophy, determine its direction and thereafter hire black writers to carry without their overall plans. Writers are not necessarily hired to be creative; ideas are set before them and they become "problem solvers" according to Eunetta Boone who writes for Roc Writers are at handed with a situation and must answer the question, "How do we come by from point A to point B and make it funny?" she says.

To learn more about, the creative power behind black sitcoms and the part of black writers in Hollywood let's pass to "the table." That's where a show's writers - who range from executive husbandman co-executive producer and supervising husbandman on down to story editors, staff writers and trainees - work together. In television writing, everything happens at the table. Story ideas are pitched, scripts are read, notes are made, rewrites take place. Sitcom writers gain to know one another intimately. "There's a doom of instantaneous bonding because you lay out so much time in the expanse and writers are always, consciously or unconsciously, making [i]jeu d'esprit[/i]s to prove that they're sportive or to keep the muscle going," says Thad Mumford, a writer-producer at Paramount Pictures.

Mumford is an anomaly in the business of television writing. Before landing the position of staff writer upon the Electric Company in 1971 he worked as a page upon the Tonight Show. His biggest credit came after a short stint as story editor for Maude. He was the executive story editor/producer for M*A*S*H for four years. Since then, he has worked upon A Different World and Coach. He believes his succes "has to do with just unable to speak luck and the world being different when I started out" Maybe because there were no blacks to help him along, he now reaches without to aspiring black writers.

When pillage Edwards, the co-executive producer of without All Night, graduated from Syracuse University in 1985 he was told not to smooth consider moving to California, because black race don't work behind the exhibitions in Hollywood. "That's when I lay the foundation of Thad Mumford," he says. "I wrote him a alphabetic character and said, |What's the deal? in what way does this thing work?' And he told me

Edwards has gone from being a production assistant upon Mary to a story editor upon Full House and A Different World. He admits he's more at ease writing in black harmonious flows "I would get into derange a lot of times upon white shows because "I would start pitching material from a specifically black childhood, like parents combing your hair. You can't pitch a nap quip on Full House." In seven years, Edwards has worked upon six successful shows. He, too, considers himself an anomaly, on the other hand he qualifies the statement: "I don't want to draw near off like I'm the big cheese, on the other hand it always seemed to me that there are with equal reason many black shows on TV I just assumed that there were a fate of black writers."

inequitable There is a shortage of black writers. The handful of experienced black television writers are at work upon current series, so that when a novel show is created, it's hard to find blacks with husbandman credits. Ehrich Van Lowe is in demand because he has those credentials. He was wrapping up a season's worth of his of recent origin sitcom, Where I Live, when he was yanked into the position of executive director of Roc Van Lowe has been in the business for nearly 10 years and did his growing up working upon such diverse shows as Knight Rider, Charles in Charge and The Cosby exhibit "In this industry, it have the appearanceed if you were a black writer like myself, who clicked, then you were just discharge up to the top, and all the other clan in the middle seemed to be falling out"

Bennie Richburg reached "the top" in just three years. He started as a trainee upon Fresh Prince of Bel Air and is now the co-producer of the hit Martin. "The mark of writing that I do is actual hot right now," he explains, "which has enabled me to propel up as fast as I am."

"I was kind of a Cinderella story," says Michael Moye the co-creator of Married With Children. He got into the business in an unusual way - he penetrateed a playwrighting competition and won the Norman Lear Comedy Playwrighting Award in 1977 He left behind a budding career in marine biology to write for serviceable Times. Then he wrote for The Jefferson for five years, during which time he reached the position of executive husbandman Haunted by the taunt, "Yeah, on the other hand can he write white?" Moye co-created what he considered the whitest display Silver Spoons, in 1982. For the last seven years, he has written for and produc Married With Children. "There's not too many of me unfortunately," he says.