As commenter

• In Media Res
  Re: Awkward (and Real) Race Talk on ABG

  Thanks for the post Ralina.

  By

  Alfred Martin University of Texas at Austin

  Thursday, May 2, 2013 — 7:58 pm

  Thanks for the post Ralina. I love the way this week's post have come together to discuss the ways in which ABG and Issa Rae, as its producer/creator, are concomitantly racially specific and universal. Is part of the reason the series has enjoyed so ...
• In Media Res
  Re: Awkward Black Girl’s Success in New Media Highlights Old Racism

  All Multicultural Shows Are Not Created Equally

  By

  Alfred Martin University of Texas at Austin

  Wednesday, May 1, 2013 — 1:46 pm

  Thanks for a great post. What is fascinating here is that you hypothesize (and I tend to agree with your assessment) that a show with a multicultural cast can only be defined by its racialization and not by any of the narrative characteristics that might ...
• In Media Res
  Re: Awkward: The Floating Signifier

  Great post Racquel. The

  By

  Alfred Martin University of Texas at Austin

  Thursday, May 2, 2013 — 7:53 pm

  Great post Racquel. The reductive positive/negative binary remains slippery and problematic and I think most people realize/recognize that is the case. As such, language is becoming re-configured so that other words, like "awkward" begin to stan ...
• In Media Res
  Re: Where Do We Go From Here: Musings on Issa Rae and Black Content Producers

  Taking a Chance on White Writer/Producers

  By

  Alfred Martin University of Texas at Austin

  Friday, May 3, 2013 — 6:38 pm

  I'd argue these niche networks are, in some ways, taking risks, but they're taking said risks with white writers/producers. Particularly if we look at TVOne, they took a chance with Belle's (which they also recently cancelled), but did so w ...
• In Media Res
  Re: God and Country and Scotty McCreery

  The Southern Strategy

  By

  Alfred Martin University of Texas at Austin

  Monday, May 30, 2011 — 11:32 pm

  I think one of the issues that you hit on is interesting... why is there seem to be a pre-disposition for the winner of American Idol to be from a state that is (or can be construed as) part of the American south? I believe all of the winners have been fr ...
• In Media Res
  Re: Hottentot Venus 2.0?: Still Gawking at the Black Woman's Buttocks

  Black Actors Are Complicit

  By

  Alfred Martin University of Texas at Austin

  Thursday, March 24, 2011 — 7:03 pm

  Richard, Thanks for your comment.  Certainly SNL is problematic generally in the sense that it is meant to be both comedic and parodic.  But, black actors are absolutely complicit in the ways in which they allow blackness to be portrayed on SNL, particula ...
• In Media Res
  Re: Gleaning Alex Haley's Scriptural "Roots"

  Root(ing) American Blackness

  By

  Alfred Martin University of Texas at Austin

  Thursday, March 24, 2011 — 3:53 am

  One of the legacies of Roots is that it, for the first time, gave black Americans a sense of geneologial rootedness.  The mythology holds that once black people trace their geneology to slavery and eventually off the continent, that there is a cold trail. ...