Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Karin Nestesovä The African American Family and Its Portrayal in American Sitcoms: A Comparative Analysis of Black-ish and The Cosby Show Bachelors Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Jeffrey Alan Vanderziel, B.A. 2020 / declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. Author's signature I would like to thank my supervisor Jeffrey Alan Vanderziel, B. A. for his time and valuable advice he provided me during the writing of this thesis. Table of Contents Introduction - 5 - 1. The African American Family Structure - 9 - 2. Features of the African American Family -19 - Parenting Strategies and Relationships in the Family - 20 - Racial socialization - 23 - Cultural Maintenance - 26 - The Black Church - 27 - 3. African American Families on American Television - 30 - Stereotypes and Stereotypical Portrayals - 31 - An Overview of African American Families on Television - 35 - 4. Analysis of Selected Motifs in The Cosby Show and Black-ish - 44 - Methodology - 44 - Race and Racial Issues - 45 - Racial Socialization - 54 - The Black Church and Religiousness - 57 - The Extended Family and the Black Community - 59 - Conclusion - 63 - Works Cited - 66 - Summary - 76 - Resume - 77 - Introduction African Americans are an ethnic group which has faced oppression and racism alongside racial prejudice for centuries in the United States. Although the social status and the position of African Americans in American society have improved significantly in the years after the end of segregation, the stereotypes, racism, and prejudice towards this ethnic group persist even today. The African Americans and the African American family have been portrayed in a stereotypical manner and their media representations have been oftentimes racially prejudiced. However, the portrayal of African Americans on television has been improving in the last decades and the main objective aims at demonstrating how has the portrayal of a black family and racial issues in American sitcoms changed over the last thirty years. This thesis aims to demonstrate a positive shift in the representation of a black family in American sitcoms based on the analysis of selected themes related to the African American family in two selected sitcoms, namely The Cosby Show and Black-ish. These two sitcoms, which were created thirty years apart, provide a framework for the analysis of the representation of different themes related to the African American family. The main focus is put on the topic of race and racial issues, racial socialization, the black church and the extended family. The themes are analysed individually in each sitcom and episodes relevant to the themes demonstrate how each sitcom deals with the selected topics and portrayal of a black family. In order to provide a comprehensive image, the first three chapters provide a theoretical framework regarding the African American family and its representation in American sitcoms. The first chapter deals with the structure of the African American family. It traces the origin of the structure in Africa and provides an overview of its development in the New World. The chapter further illustrates different structures and various patterns of residence of the family. The subject of a marriage of black people in Africa, during slavery -5- and in the modern era is also discussed. The concept of fictive kin and the importance of the extended family and the black community is likewise presented in the first chapter. These concepts are discussed in relation to slavery and the history of the black family in the United States. The second chapter regards the functions of the African American family. This chapter discusses the primary functions of the family and the socialization of children. The chapter is divided into four subchapters. The first subchapter discusses the variety of parenting strategies that African American parents use in their children's upbringing. It also briefly discusses the relationships and bonds and their significance for the African American family. The term racial socialization is defined in the second subchapter. The importance that racial socialization has for African American children is likewise mentioned in this subchapter. The third subchapter is connected to the racial socialization; it characterizes the term cultural maintenance and its significance for the African Americans as a minority. The last subchapter is dedicated to the concept of the black church, its history and meaning for the black community. The functions of the black church are also concisely mentioned in this subchapter. The third chapter examines the influence of different television portrayals of African Americans on African American children. It also presents several studies of the African American television portrayals and the perception of them by various groups of people. Namely, the Fujioka's study of Japanese international and white students' perception of stereotypes used in the portrayal of African Americans on television and Punyanunt-Carter study of undergraduate students' perception of African American portrayal are discussed. This chapter is divided into two subchapters. The first subchapter defines the term stereotype and examines different types of stereotypes used in the portrayals of African Americans. The main medium for the propagation of stereotypes about African Americans -6- and African American family in the 20th and 21st century has been television. Television can, in some situations, serve as the only source of information about African Americans, mainly to people who have never come into direct contact with this ethnic group. The influence and consequences of the stereotypes, both positive and negative, used in the portrayal are explained in this subchapter as well. The stereotypes are important to consider because they can alter both the majority's perception of African Americans, as well as the self-perception of the minority. Moreover, the perpetuation of stereotypes in media can affect the lives of African Americans and strengthen the racist attitudes towards them, as well as their low social position in American society. The second subchapter provides an overview of the progression of the portrayal and representation of African American family on American television, namely in the genre of a situation comedy. It provides a timeline of different portrayals, as well as examples of the most influential sitcoms about a black family from different decades of American television. The sitcoms Amos 'n' Andy, Julia, Good Times, The Jeffersons, The Cosby Show and Black-ish are discussed in greater detail in this subchapter. In examining the sitcoms, the stereotypes and family portrayals are likewise considered. The final chapter includes the analysis of the selected themes in The Cosby Show and Black-ish. The chapter is divided into five subchapters. The first chapter discusses the methodology used in the analysis of the selected sitcoms and themes that appear in them. The sitcoms were selected on the basis of the year they were created, and the social-economic status of the African American family presented in the sitcom. The thirty-year difference between the pilot episodes of the two sitcoms provides an adequate span for evaluation of a positive shift in the representation of African American families. Both of the sitcoms' families are upper-middle-class and both of the sitcoms were created by an African American, which was another basis for the selection of these particular sitcoms. Each of the ensuing subchapters deals with individual themes related to the African American family, the analysis -7 - of the themes in selected episodes and their representation in individual sitcoms. The findings are concluded at the end of each subchapter, where the differences between the representation of the selected themes in the particular sitcoms are discussed as well. The results are deduced by comparison of the two selected sitcoms and the discussed themes. - 8 - 1. The African American Family Structure The term African American family in the context of this thesis is used to denote the descendants of African slaves or other people who came from Africa to the American continent, more precisely the United States of America, and who established their families in the New World. The terms African American family and black family are used interchangeably in the context of this thesis. The institution of the family is a very important aspect of African American life and the black community. As Harriette McAdoo notes, "[F]amily, as a basic unit of universal human community, is the essential focus from which core human and cultural values are transmitted and cultivated" (8). The family is essential to human development because it provides its members with love, support, protection, and it is usually in the family that people learn moral, cultural, and societal values. According to Andrew Billingsley: [African American family is] an intimate association of persons of African descent who are related to one another by a variety of means, including blood, marriage, formal adoption, informal adoption, or by appropriation; sustained by a history of common residence in America; and deeply embedded in a network of social structures both internal to and external to itself. (Jacob's Ladder 28) The African American family helps to strengthen the ties between African