GENDER, RACE, AND MEDIA REPRESENTATION

1 297In our consumption-oriented, mediated society, much of what comesto pass as important is based often on the stories produced and dis-seminated by MEDIA institutions. Much of what audiences know andcare about is based on the images, symbols, and narratives in radio, tele-vision, film, music, and other MEDIA . How individuals construct theirsocial identities, how they come to understand what it means to bemale, female, black, white, Asian, Latino, Native American even ruralor urban is shaped by commodified texts produced by MEDIA for audi-ences that are increasingly segmented by the social constructions of raceand gender . MEDIA , in short, are central to what ultimately come to rep-resent our social sex differences are rooted in biology, how we come to under-stand and perform gender is based on view culture as aprocess through which people circulate and struggle over the meanings ofour social experiences, social relations, and therefore, our selves (Byers& Dell, 1992, p.)

2 191). Just as gender is a social construct through whicha society defines what it means to be masculine or feminine, race also is asocial construction. Race can no longer be seen as a biological category,and it has little basis in science or genetics. Identifiers such as hair and skincolor serve as imperfect indicators of race. The racial categories we use todifferentiate human difference have been created and changed to meet thedynamic social, political, and economic needs of our society. The premise16 gender , RACE, ANDMEDIA REPRESENTATION Dwight E. Brooks and Lisa P. H 6/11/2006 1:42 PM Page 297298 gender and Communication in Mediated Contextsthat race and gender are social constructionsunderscores their centrality to the processesof human reality. Working from it compelsus to understand the complex roles playedby social institutions such as the mediain shaping our increasingly gendered andracialized MEDIA culture.

3 This chapterexplores some of the ways mediated com-munication in the United States representsthe social constructions of race and genderand ultimately contributes to our under-standing of both, especially research on race, gender , andmedia traditionally has focused on under-represented, subordinate groups such aswomen and minorities, this chapter dis-cusses scholarship on MEDIA representationsof both genders and various racial , we examine MEDIA constructionsof masculinity, femininity, so-called peopleof color, and even white theother hand, given the limitations of thischapter and the fact that MEDIA research onrace has focused on African Americans, wedevote greater attention to blacks but notat the exclusion of the emerging saliencyof whiteness studies, which acknowledgewhiteness as a social category and seek toexpose and explain white theoretical and conceptual orienta-tion encompasses research that is com-monly referred to as critical/culturalstudies.

4 Numerous theoretical approacheshave been used to examine issues of RACE, gender , and MEDIA , but we contend thatcritical/cultural studies represent the mostsalient contemporary thinking on mediaand culture. More important, unlike mostsocial and behavioral scientific research,most critical and cultural approaches tomedia studies work from the premise thatWestern industrialized societies are strati-fied by hierarchies of race, gender , andclass that structure our social , cultural studies utilizes inter-disciplinary approaches necessary forunderstanding both the MEDIA s role in theproduction and reproduction of inequityand for the development of more equitableand democratic societies. Cultural studiesscholars have devoted considerable atten-tion to studies of MEDIA audiences, institu-tions, technologies, and texts.

5 This chapterprivileges textual analyses of MEDIA thatexplicate power relationships and the con-struction of meaning about gender andrace and their intersections (Byers & Dell,1992). In addition, we draw considerablyfrom research employing various feministframeworks. Generally, our critical reviewof literature from the past two decadesdemonstrates the disruption of essentialistconstructions of gender , race, and sexualidentities. Black Feminist Perspectivesand MEDIA Representationsof Black WomenA feminist critique is rooted in the struggleto end sexist oppression. We employ femi-nism as a multidisciplinary approach tosocial analysis that emphasizes gender as amajor structuring component of powerrelations in society. We believe MEDIA arecrucial in the construction and dissemina-tion of gender ideologies and, thus, in gendersocialization.

6 We acknowledge feminismand feminist MEDIA studies tendency toprivilege gender and white women, in par-ticular, over other social categories of expe-rience, such as race and class (hooks, 1990;Dines, 1995; Dines & Humez, 2003). Blackfeminist scholars have acknowledged theneglect which women of color, specificallyblack women, have experienced throughtheir selective inclusion in the writingsof feminist cultural analysis (hooks, 1990;Bobo & Seiter, 1991; Valdivia, 1995).Black feminism positions itself as criticalsocial theory (Hill Collins, 2004) and is nota set of abstract principles but of ideas thatcome directly from the historical and con-temporary experience of black women. Itis from this perspective that we begin 6/11/2006 1:42 PM Page 298 gender , Race, and MEDIA REPRESENTATION 299discussion of black female REPRESENTATION inthe contemporary academic writinghas criticized mainstream MEDIA for theirnegative depictions of African Americanwomen (Bobo, 1995; Hill Collins, 2000,2004; hooks, 1992; Lubiano, 1992;Manatu,2003; McPhail, 1996; Perry,2003).

7 Challenging MEDIA portrayals ofblack women as mammies, matriarchs,jezebels, welfare mothers, and tragic mulat-toes is a core theme in black feminist bell hooks (1992) contends thatblack female REPRESENTATION in the MEDIA determines how blackness and people areseen and how other groups will respond tous based on their relation to these con-structed images (p. 5). Hudson (1998) andHill Collins (2000, 2004) both advance thenotion that MEDIA images of black womenresult from dominant racial, gender , andclass ideologies. Furthering hooks s discus-sion of REPRESENTATION , Hudson (1998)argues that these stereotypes simultane-ously reflect and distort both the ways inwhich black women view themselves (indi-vidually and collectively) and the ways inwhich they are viewed by others (p. 249).The study of black female REPRESENTATION isinformed by whiteness studies and, accord-ing to Dyer (1997), the only way to seethe structures, tropes, and perceptual habitsof whiteness, is when nonwhite (and aboveall, black) people are also represented (p.)

8 13).Scholars have studied black female repre-sentation in a variety of MEDIA (2004) used discourse analysis toexamine the REPRESENTATION of violence againstAfrican American women in local TV newscoverage during Freaknik, a spring breakritual held in Atlanta, Georgia, throughoutthe 1990s. Her study concluded that thenews portrayed most of its victims asstereotypic Jezebels whose lewd behaviorprovoked assault (p. 95). Orbe andStrother s (1996) semiotic analysis of thebiracial title character in Queen, AlexHaley s miniseries, demonstrated howQueenfell in line with traditional stereo-typing of other bi-ethnic characters as beau-tiful, yet threatening, inherently problematic,and destined for insanity (p. 117). Larson s(1994) study of black women on the soapopera All My Childrenfound the show con-sistently embraced the matriarch fact, the image of the black woman asoversexed fantasy object, dominating matri-arch, and nonthreatening, desexualizedmammy figure remains the most persistent inthe MEDIA (Edwards, 1993).

9 Black feminist thought also challenges theway some MEDIA outlets run by black menengage in misogynistic depictions of blackwomen. Burks (1996) notices the saliencyof hooks s phrase, white supremacist capi-talist patriarchy, in many black independentfilms. She explains that black independentcinema is not necessarily free of the dominantwhite, male, heterosexual hegemony that hassucceeded, at one point or another, in colo-nizing us all (p. 26). Several cultural criticshave focused their studies of black femalerepresentation on majority-produced anddirected Hollywood films (Bobo, 1995;Bogle, 2001; Holtzman, 2000; hooks, 1992,1994). Many other MEDIA scholars havefocused their analyses on the way black film-makers depict black femininity, as part of atrend that Burks (1996) argues leaves main-stream (white) Hollywood producers free toconstruct the black female image in any waythey like and to reach a larger viewing audi-ence in the female scholars Wallace (1990)and hooks (1993) both have written exten-sively on the work of black writer/directorSpike Lee s portrayal of black contends that while Lee isuncompromising in his commitment tocreate images of black males that chal-lenge perceptions and bring issues ofracism to the screen, he conforms to thestatus quo when it comes to images offemales.

10 Sexism is the familiar construc-tion that links his films to all the otherHollywood dramas folks see. (p. 14) 6/11/2006 1:42 PM Page 299300 gender and Communication in Mediated ContextsMcPhail (1996) continues hooks s argumentand argues that Lee s films subscribe toessentialist conceptions of race and genderthat reify the same ideological and epistemo-logical assumptions that undermine boththe REPRESENTATION of race and gender inmainstream MEDIA (p. 127). According toour (Brooks & H bert, 2004) study of Lee sBamboozled,he creates female characterswho become defined by the men in their claim that although his films fight tochallenge racist frameworks within the massmedia and society, they simultaneously per-petuate sexist norms as they relate to blackwomanhood. Although Spike Lee is not theonly black male filmmaker who perpetuatesnegative representations of women, he hasgarnered the most attention by cultural crit-ics.