Coleman has a very calm, reasonable approach to her research and analysis of the way Blacks are portrayed in comedic television shows. I really liked her style of writing and careful, yet direct, approach to the subject. I found it interesting that her "favorite" or what she considers to be the "most accurate" portrayal of Blacks in a comedic TV sitcom was The Cosby Show. A few years ago, we debated this TV show in class: two white kids, two black kids. I argued that it was finally an accurate portrayal of a lot of Black families that up until this point had absolutely ZERO media representation. I watched the show and loved it! The two Black kids I was discussing this topic with, however, were not from families like the Huckstables. They felt that The Cosby Show set that bar TOO high for (not themselves, but other young adults from their home neighborhoods) other Black people to reach. They felt that when they or one of their friends was unable to reach that standard, they backlash they would receive after from society because of this show being aired would be so much worse. To say the very least, they were not appreciative or receptive of this.
Even after hearing their point of view, my stance on The Cosby Show stands firm. It's a solid family, with good morals and values that are really irrelevant to the viewers race or ethnic background--but the color of skin of the character is so very important because the only roles they were given on television before this were degrading, demeaning, and reinforcing of so many stereotypes.
Another show Coleman did not discuss that I think comes close (not all the way, but close) to what The Cosby Show did for Blacks is the comedic TV sitcom, Sister, Sister. It's a show about a pair of identical twins who are separated at birth, one raised by a single male, Ray, and one raised by a single female, Tina. The two sisters meet up, and for the sake of the girls, Tina and Ray move the two families under one house, creating a new "family" (there is no romantic interest between Ray and Tina). The humor is clean, the girls are driven and active members of their school/neighborhood, and the "parents" are both working professionals. For me, it doesn't match up to The Cosby Show because there is no marriage between the "parents," and the girls are adopted. However, this may be the reality for many people out there (race aside), and so in that way, it is an accurate portrayal of the lives of those individuals.
The one critique I have of the Black sitcoms (and of the White sitcoms--Friends, my personal fav : )) is that it's either 100% Black representation, or 100% white representation. WHY??? In my life, if there were a sitcom about my family, it would be full of all different kinds of races and cultures interacting. The world we live in is not so divided and separate. I think it becomes so much harder to create a show with equal representation and positive interactions between races that writers would much rather stick to and all-Black or all-White storyline. Once this changes, and representation (no just among Black and Whites, but Latinos, Asians, Indians, etc.) becomes more diversified and equal in screen time (I don't know the specific term, haha, but the amount of time an individual is actually portrayed on the screen), THEN I will say we've made another step forward in the fight for racial equality.
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