As much as I enjoy shows like Chewing Gum, Atlanta, Insecure, to an extent Master Of None and Dear White People, I have to be honest: I can recognize quality entertainment when I see it, but just at the core of who I am, these shows just irk me. For one, I never could understand how as a generation we went from shows like Fresh Prince Of Bel Air, Family Matters and One On One to shows like...this.
Look, I get it. A lot of us don’t have money or jobs that could get us homes in the suburbs. A lot of us have anxieties about love and relationships. A lot of us contemplate issues of white supremacy and other forms of oppression. But here’s my question: Why is that the subject of EVERY show we decide to write? Why is it when shows like Black-ish decide to show a more contemporary perspective on the black experience, They’re labeled coons? Why, because for once someone decided to make another attempt at recreating sad, arthouse hipster movies on TV?
Honestly, this is why I miss the 90s. Not because back then we had money, but because Hollywood really didn’t give that much of a damn about young black people in our 20s. And frankly they shouldn’t. Honestly, people in general between the ages of 18-26 should be ignored entirely by Hollywood as frankly you really are playing to people with the least amount of experience in life. Speaking as someone turning 26 this year, 25 years in the grand scale of things really ain't shit. Frankly, all someone at 25 can teach you is how to survive the last 25 years you lived. But because we, the loud and vocal minority of viewers have decided to come together and make our voices heard that we want TV to cater to us, a generation that can’t even afford the cable to watch said shows on, nor do we want to see ads paying for said shows. And we want to watch it on a network that only charges us 10 dollars a month for watching it. *Rolls eyes*
The problem is that this generation has no real sense of life nor the concept of demographics when it comes to who ELSE is watching and buying said products. When It comes to comics, rather than accept that this current run of Captain America is actually selling because people LIKE it, y’all would rather burn the comics and say Marvel doesn’t care about diversity when the reality is that while Marvel DOES need to improve on diversity, too many of you have a concept of diversity that is honestly so niche that most of you refuse to admit that even if every one of you bought said comic, it wouldn’t sell enough to justify continuing. Seriously, Any day now I await to see that Marvel hired Bell Hooks or Terry McMillan to write a Marvel story arch only for the shit to sell like Frozen Rhino turds but get all the “Yassss queens” and tweets about how it slays despite it likely being obtuse bullshit.
Seriously, this is why I couldn’t call myself a fan of shows like Dear White People as frankly it just screams “Millennials trying to seem intellectual while being hypocrites to all they tout” Seriously, Sam goes on and on about how white people are full of shit, but I guess her secret lover is one of the good ones, right? At least Atlanta had the self awareness to point out how ridiculous it is for black people to take ourselves so seriously and be so self righteous with all our shit. And I’ve already said how I feel about Insecure.
The problem I have is that frankly I don’t have this level of adversarial relationships with white people as frankly I don’t put myself around people I know don’t like me unless it’s my job or someone I love and care about needs me, and even then there’s limits. I don’t need dozens of shows, movies, comics and music about how life is so hard and there's injustice everywhere around me. I need an escape. It’s why I like shows like Scandal, Power and Empire. Take me away from all this bullshit and give me surrealism and hyperbole. Hell, go further. Give me a Black Assassin for the CIA. give me Black people in space and the future. Hell, Literally give me black people with magic powers. But don’t make me sit through more “See? They struggle just like you!” I don’t CARE. I don’t want to go through a life of being spit on and try and find entertainment in watching people who look like me get punched in the face.
I want more representation too. But of all the types of representation I tire of, this is amongst it. I’m tired of going to the movies and watching TV and having to be a slave, or poor, or struggling to find my place in society, or having to deal with being the only black person in the office. I’m tired of coming of age stories that really is just shorthand for “We’re gonna show a fuck ton of sex scenes and nudity.” Show me black people who are confident, rich, successful, badass and fucking win. I do NOT need anymore stories about black struggle when I live in a time where our president is deporting africans and haitians en mass.
I want images of strong black men and women in the “white” world, kicking ass and taking names rather than more mundane bullshit. In short, give me my black James Bond.
This submission comes courtesy of @awkblerd who you can keep up with on Twitter or hear him on The Lansing Anti-Hero Podcast.
