Description
Book SynopsisRacquel J. Gates examines the potential of so-called negative representations of African Americans in film and TV, from Coming to America to Basketball Wives and Empire, showing how such representations can strategically pose questions about blackness, black culture, and American society in ways that more respectable ones cannot.
Trade Review"Gates considers not only formal producers of media but also black audiences who engage with these works, successfully arguing for a more nuanced understanding of what makes for black cultural production." -- Anna J. Clutterbuck-Cook * Library Journal *
"Racquel J. Gates’ unpacking of black racial media figures postulates that negative images derived from cultural theorist Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding practice can be reconfigured to provide agency and hybridity to black figures. . . . Recommended. All readers." -- S. Lenig * Choice *
"Its potential for broader application across identity studies and the culture/media industries makes
Double Negative essential reading." -- Leah Aldridge * Film Quarterly *
"
Double Negative is unique for recovering and giving value to texts that are assumed to be without value. Gates’ sharp analysis of how negative images interrogate American society in ways that the more positive ones do not is an important contribution to the fields of media studies, popular culture, and cultural studies." -- Linnete Manrique * Ethnic and Racial Studies *
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Double Negative offers evocative academic insight into past and present representations of black identity." -- Audrey Liow * Continuum *
"An exciting entry into the academic study of African American media representations. . . . Gates reclaims negative images and foregrounds their importance for understanding hierarchies of media taste and the complexities of minoritarian identity and experience. The result is an evocative and provocative foray into what she calls the 'metaphorical gutter' of representation. . . . Highly accessible and engaging,
Double Negative should be required reading for academics, students, and even pop-culture journalists who are interested in the complexities of race, identity, and contemporary media." -- Brandy Monk-Payton * Journal of Cinema and Media Studies *
“Building on media studies, cultural studies, genre studies, media industry studies, reception studies, film and television formalism, critical race theory, gender theory and queer theory, Gates masterfully shifts the conversation about black image production from one mired in a reductive positive/negative binary to one that demonstrates how ‘disreputable’ images are productive as a conduit to nuanced discussions about black images.” -- Alfred L. Martin * Film Criticism *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Introduction. Negativity and the Black Popular Image 1
1. Eddie Murphy,
Coming to America, and Formal Negativity 35
2. Relational Negativity: The Sellout Films of the 1990s 81
3. The Circumstantial Negativity of Halle Berry 114
4. Embracing the Ratchet: Reality Television and Strategic Negativity 142
Conclusion.
Empire: A False Negative? 182
Notes 191
Bibliography 211
Index 219
