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The 99%: Why the Real Housewives of Atlanta Aren’t "Our Kind of People"

TV post by GretchenSisson on January 18, 2012 - 11:00am; tagged reality tv, social class, The Real Housewives of Atlanta.

The women of real housewives of Atlanta

Few women of color are allowed to represent themselves on television with much nuance; frequently they are reduced to stock characters like mammies and Jezebels that deny them full, complex humanity.  Successful women of color are slammed with stereotypes of the "Angry Black Woman" or are forced to represent all women of their race as impossibly perfect standard-bearers.

Within this all of this, the Real Housewives of Atlanta become caricatured and over-representative of what we think wealthy black women should like like.

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4 comments

Thursday Night 'Lights: New Year, New Lineup

TV post by Kirthana Ramisetti on January 13, 2012 - 4:35pm; tagged 30 Rock, Comedy, NBC, Parks and Recreation, The Office, Up All Night.

Tina Fey, back on ThursdaysSo with the start of 2012 ushers in a new lineup on Thursday nights on NBC. With Community and Whitney replaced by 30 Rock and Up All Night, we have a comedy block in which three out of the four series are headlined by women, which is pretty awesome. So how did the brand-new TNL lineup fare? We kick off this week’s recap with the return of 30 Rock.  

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Project Runway All Stars: A Pa-poom Moment?

TV post by Kelsey Wallace on January 13, 2012 - 4:12pm; tagged Project Runway All Stars, recaps.
Project Runway All Stars went to the opera last night, and brought their "pumped up prom dresses" with them.

the contestants from last night's episode standing on the runway
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5 comments

The 99%: “There’s Always Money in the Banana Stand”: Class Passing on Arrested Development

TV post by GretchenSisson on January 13, 2012 - 12:18pm; tagged Arrested Development, passing, social class.

For the Bluths, their wealth is a performance, but their class privilege is real. They live in a former shell of their old life: they share a model home built by the once-lucrative Bluth construction company that stands alone in an unfinished development. Beautiful inside and out, the home deteriorates throughout the series, but the façade remains intact.  And to most of the members of this family, that’s what’s really important.

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2 Broke Girls Showrunner Doubles Down on Racist Humor

TV post by Kelsey Wallace on January 12, 2012 - 3:07pm; tagged 2 Broke Girls, racism, television.
Han, the Asian owner of the diner where the 2 Broke Girls work, talks to them while they sit in a booth

The CBS sitcom 2 Broke Girls has earned a reputation for racist jokes (also for unfunny jokes). You'd like to think that showrunner Michael Patrick King was working on fixing these problems instead of sticking to—and defending—his racist joke guns. Think again.
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11 comments

The 99%: Trashy People Talking Trash on Trash Television, or Jersey Shore

TV post by GretchenSisson on January 11, 2012 - 11:49am; tagged Jersey Shore, social class.
the tanned cast of Jersey Shore hanging out on the beachTrailer trash, white trash—these ways of describing low-income people aren’t new.  They're meant to make people quite literally disposable, a way of denying their humanity and their potential to offer anything of value. With Jersey Shore, though, we get the "trash" without talking about money at all.  What the castmates wear, how they behave, how they style their hair, how they speak, these all communicate to the viewer their lack of cultural capital and, consequently, their social standing.
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29 comments

The 99%: "But look how far we’ve come!" Downton Abbey and Historical Representations of Social Class

TV post by GretchenSisson on January 9, 2012 - 11:25am; tagged Downton Abbey, social class.
the giant old fancy house from Downton Abbey with the entire cast, about 20 white people in various stages of fancy dress, standing in frontYet, what Downton Abbey also offers for the modern viewer is the idea that, today, class differences have been overcome.  The stark separation between the lives of the family and the staff illustrate a segregation that is no longer overt in today’s society.  Few people have lives in literal servitude, and even fewer have actual servants.  We like to believe that now, a hundred years later, class is really something entirely different, something more transmutable, blurrier, and more easily overcome.

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9 comments

Pomp and Quirkumstance: Portlandia Season Two Airs Tonight, Air Your Thoughts

TV post by Kelsey Wallace on January 6, 2012 - 3:44pm; tagged Carrie Brownstein, Portland, Portlandia.
I have a complicated relationship with Portlandia. To start, I was born in Portland and I still live here, and I want everyone in the world to know that it's a great city with more to offer than coffee and bearded white dudes, so I am psyched that it is getting national, positive attention. However, Portlandia does little to challenge stereotypes about Portland and instead reinforces them by mocking bearded white dudes drinking coffee, causing my Facebook friends from the east coast to message me out of the blue, reminding me to "put a bird on it!" (I hate birds). And like others of you, I wish Portlandia was more critical of Portland and of white hipster culture in general, because a lot of race and class privilege is required before you can sit around all day watching Battlestar Gallactica and have audiences get the joke instead of telling you to get a job.

Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen holding a copy of Bitch
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Project Runway All Stars: Mondo, Mondo, Mondo!

TV post by Kelsey Wallace on January 6, 2012 - 2:18pm; tagged Project Runway All Stars, recaps.
Project Runway All Stars premiered last night, and though a few familiar faces were missing (wherefore art thou, Nina Garcia?) there was plenty to talk about. Let's get to it!

the all stars on the runway for the first time this season
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Pop Pedestal: Brad Williams and Jane Kerkovich-Williams from Happy Endings

TV post by Kelsey Wallace on January 5, 2012 - 2:54pm; tagged Happy Endings, Pop Pedestal.
Welcome back to Pop Pedestal, the series where we pay tribute to pop culture personalities we admire. Up today are Jane and Brad, married couple extraordinaire from ABC's Happy Endings.

Brad, a black man, and Jane, a white woman, sit on a couch. Jane is wearing a bacon costume.
True love means not making fun of your wife for wearing a bacon costume.
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