As Olivia Pope hangs up on the President’s Chief of Staff, and starts strutting away, audiences h... more As Olivia Pope hangs up on the President’s Chief of Staff, and starts strutting away, audiences have seen a character unlike any Black female character. For Olivia embodies a new kind of Black woman, one who commands respect wherever she goes, and one not held back by labels like Mammy, Matriarch or Black Lady. She is a woman on a mission to fix the lives of Washington’s elite, as well as the negative images of Black women (BW) that have graced the screens since slavery. She defies stereotypes and shows audiences how unique, flawed and normal BW really are. This chapter will examine the ways in which the negative stereotypes of BW discussed in the previous chapter, as well as dominant Eurocentric beauty standards, have started to be dispelled by popular television shows: Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder (HTGAWM). However, while these shows have started to dispel negative stereotypes, they only do so to an extent. Maxine Craig’s Ain’t I a Beauty Queen? about the experiences of BW will be used parallel to television roles to help demonstrate the changes in portrayal and representation. This chapter will also use Laura Mulvey’s Gaze Theory as a framework to look at the ways in which the female protagonists are viewed by the audience.
In the tradition of American political thought, liberty and equality are each given priority; how... more In the tradition of American political thought, liberty and equality are each given priority; however the greatness of priority given to each has depended on the time period. During America’s early years right after their independence from Britain, liberty was given greater priority. However, following the Civil War, especially in the mid twentieth century during the civil rights movement of the sixties, equality was given more priority, as minority groups, such as women and African Americans, who had been suppressed by American society, called for change.
An excerpt of my MA dissertation about the rise of Black women from slavery through to the presen... more An excerpt of my MA dissertation about the rise of Black women from slavery through to the present day using television and films as a marker to demonstrate the progress Black women have made.
An essay written during my final undergraduate year about the ways in which fiction can help refl... more An essay written during my final undergraduate year about the ways in which fiction can help reflect the continued importance of history for contemporary America
As Olivia Pope hangs up on the President’s Chief of Staff, and starts strutting away, audiences h... more As Olivia Pope hangs up on the President’s Chief of Staff, and starts strutting away, audiences have seen a character unlike any Black female character. For Olivia embodies a new kind of Black woman, one who commands respect wherever she goes, and one not held back by labels like Mammy, Matriarch or Black Lady. She is a woman on a mission to fix the lives of Washington’s elite, as well as the negative images of Black women (BW) that have graced the screens since slavery. She defies stereotypes and shows audiences how unique, flawed and normal BW really are. This chapter will examine the ways in which the negative stereotypes of BW discussed in the previous chapter, as well as dominant Eurocentric beauty standards, have started to be dispelled by popular television shows: Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder (HTGAWM). However, while these shows have started to dispel negative stereotypes, they only do so to an extent. Maxine Craig’s Ain’t I a Beauty Queen? about the experiences of BW will be used parallel to television roles to help demonstrate the changes in portrayal and representation. This chapter will also use Laura Mulvey’s Gaze Theory as a framework to look at the ways in which the female protagonists are viewed by the audience.
In the tradition of American political thought, liberty and equality are each given priority; how... more In the tradition of American political thought, liberty and equality are each given priority; however the greatness of priority given to each has depended on the time period. During America’s early years right after their independence from Britain, liberty was given greater priority. However, following the Civil War, especially in the mid twentieth century during the civil rights movement of the sixties, equality was given more priority, as minority groups, such as women and African Americans, who had been suppressed by American society, called for change.
An excerpt of my MA dissertation about the rise of Black women from slavery through to the presen... more An excerpt of my MA dissertation about the rise of Black women from slavery through to the present day using television and films as a marker to demonstrate the progress Black women have made.
An essay written during my final undergraduate year about the ways in which fiction can help refl... more An essay written during my final undergraduate year about the ways in which fiction can help reflect the continued importance of history for contemporary America
Uploads
Papers by Alice Okoye