As we have been discussing in Media and Society, minorities have long been underrepresented in the mainstream media. Scholars have even used the term structuring absence to describe how the lack of images of minorities in the media results in white people being the natural identity category.
One show that really opened the doors to television for African Americans was The Cosby Show. When the show premiered in September of 1984, it gave Americans a new image of a black family.
The parents were successful as a lawyer and a doctor, and the family was thriving. They owned a fashionable home in New York City,one episode even focused around the expensive art that the family had used to decorate.
Accoding to the website for the museum of television, The Cosby Show was designed to address the history of negative portrayals of blacks on televison.
The show topped ratings charts for more than five years. It forced people to face the race issue in America. It made them rezlize that there were African-American families out there just like them.
I don't think that Cosby understood the impact he would have on people when his program first aired. He inspired other minorities to get involved in the media. Today, there are many programs that include minorities.
Even Grey's Anatomy can be used as an example. The Cheif of the entire surgical unit is african-american. So is the chief resident and one of the top surgeons.
It is programs like these that are pushing us towards equality among Americans. I think we are still a ways off, but the Cosby show was the program that made it acceptable to present blacks on television.
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