Abstract
After a period of intense activity in the decade or so following the publication of Stuart Hall’s (1988) seminal ‘New Ethnicities’ paper, the study of the ‘politics of representation’ and the treatment of ethicised and racialised minorities in the media has stalled somewhat in recent years. But some recent contributions potentially reinvigorate cultural and media studies of ethnicity and difference. Evelyn Alsultany’s (2012) study of the affective responses to Arab and Muslim American identities as formed through popular cultural representations of the War on Terror is one such contribution. As is Timothy Havens’ new book, Black Television Travels.
Havens follows the social life of ‘African American television’ – that is, sitcoms and drama series with a heavy emphasis on African American ‘political, thematic, or cultural concerns’ (p.7). The focus though is on production in the cultural industries, and in particular, the business of international syndication. For Havens, the exporting of domestic television shows to international markets has become a crucial, and indeed, an increasingly central revenue stream for television companies, particularly in the United States, which has had profound effects upon African American television. In a nutshell, Havens’ argument is that industry understandings of how African American television will be received abroad by international audiences – no matter how informed or uninformed – shapes representations of African American culture produced at home.
In putting forward this argument Havens coins the phrase ‘industry lore’. Such lore is simultaneously produced and reproduced by television executives involved in the production and trade of African American programmes. Industry lore is the knowledge that informs programming executives’ strategies and decision-making regarding the international distribution of television. This knowledge is produced through a complex web of factors, including commercial, technological and regulatory dimensions, as well as individual cultural and social values of media professionals. As such, industry lore around African American programming is a distinct form of power/knowledge; within the cultural industries, race becomes a commodity that circulates within global markets, connecting audiences, and communities, while simultaneously sustaining racial hierarchies.
The crucial point is that industry lore shapes the types of representations that get made, or more precisely, informs what gets bought and sold. For instance, Havens uses the example of the massive international success of The Cosby Show, and how the industry lore that formed around it in fact downplayed the racial and class dimensions of the show. Instead, it asserted that the show’s success was because of how it was based upon universal family themes that transcend race. As a consequence, rather than paving the way for a greater range of narratives dealing with African American experiences, television executives produced a lore that suggested that The Cosby Show was a success in spite of its blackness. As such, in the wake of The Cosby Show’s accomplishments, rather more conservative (non-black) family sitcoms abounded. The unexpected global popularity of African American programmes such as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Moesha with a more unabashed representation of blackness forced executives to question this lore, and consider instead how the particularities of African-Americanness, rather than alienate foreign audiences, can actually resonate with them in a number of ways (both progressive and problematic). Thus, Havens stresses the complexity, contestedness and ambivalence of industry lore. The book in fact finishes on a hopeful note, in the identification of a new lore based around the appeal of narratives of ‘cultural journeys’ brought about in particular, Havens suggests, by the relative success of non-US representations of blackness such as the New Zealand-produced animation bro’Town.
Black Television Travels makes two vital contributions to the field of television and critical race studies. First, it makes the connection between each of the nodes of the circuit of culture. Working within the relatively new field of ‘critical media industry studies’, Havens manages to draw attention to political-economic, regulatory, technological, and postcolonial contexts – as well as the institutional situation ‘on-the-floor’ – within which the production and circulation of the television show occurs. Each of these contexts receives equal attention, as, for Havens, they all play a critical role in the shaping of African-American television. Moreover, Havens sees these different structures as related and intertwined and deals with them as so. Havens convincingly demonstrates how structural contexts shape (though in a non-deterministic way) the form of cultural representations. Havens talks equally sophisticatedly about the cultural politics of race as he does about the political economy of global television. Indeed, he gives the textual the attention it deserves, more so than others working in the critical media industries/cultural industries tradition(s), where consideration of representation still remains frustratingly sidelined.
Second, Havens makes an important intervention in drawing attention to how domestic television is formed through global flows. In this way, as Havens himself acknowledges, the book works in the same vein as Clarke and Thomas’ (2006) important collection, Globalization and Race: Transformations in the Cultural Production of Blackness, albeit with a greater focus on the media. As domestic cultural industries all over the world shift towards deregulation and neoliberal market models, highlighting the way in which the increasingly lucrative global trade of programming shapes representations at home is an important insight. For those studying the politics of representation, it no longer makes sense to deal with them solely within the particularities of the nation state. Representations travel further than they ever did before, and as Havens highlights, they can be received in a myriad of different and contradictory ways, over time and space.
An important question remains however, after reading Black Television Travels: How can Havens’ argument feed into a progressive cultural politics of difference? Does producing more enlightened forms of lore demand regulatory change that can ensure a diversity of narratives, or does it necessitate greater activism from cultural producers themselves? Or is in fact the impetus with audiences to drive change and challenge industry perceptions? From the way it is presented in the book, new forms of lore emerge haphazardly within the unfolding changes and continuities of the cultural industries, as well as from the unexpected responses of transnational audiences. Quite simply, can anything be done to produce and harness more progressive forms of industry lore?
This is a minor point however, in light of the depth, scope and ambition of Black Television Travels. Havens’ book provides another important contribution by critical media industries research to the field of television studies. But more crucially in my view, the book makes a valuable impact by providing a unique and innovative framework for approaching the study of the cultural politics of difference.