Behind the Blog

My name’s Janae and I’m a senior Communication Studies major at Longwood University. I’m a feminst with an unhealthy obsession with television and film, which brings us to this blog.

Unapologetic on Screen will be about the representation of black women in television and film. For the next eight weeks, I’ll talk about the representation of black friendships, LGBTQ+, natural hair, and even Tyler Perry films.

We’ll watch movies and TV shows with predominantly black casts or a black main character from the nineties to today. As a black woman in college, we’re gonna kick off this blog talking about the representation of black women as college students in the popular 90's sitcom A Different World and Netflix show Dear White People.

A Different World follows a group of black college students through their college journey. Whitley, Kim, and Freddie are the main black women featured on the show.

Whitley (shown to the left) represents the bougie black girls. She comes from a wealthy family and I’d say, in the beginning of the series, she came to college to find a wealthy husband. Whitley was smart, but her future centered on being the wife of someone powerful. She had the right mindset, but the wrong work ethic. Coming from a wealthy family, she expected things to come easy for her.

Kim (shown to the right) represents the scholarly, humble black girls. She comes from a working class background. Kim was studying to become a doctor and always put school first because she strived to be the smartest in her class. Her high standards caused her lots of stress throughout the show. She struggled to take time for herself because she wanted to make her family proud of her.

Freddie (shown on the left) was a super optimistic activist. In 2021, I could see her being a popular social media activist like DeRay Mckesson. I think she was an anthropology major, but the show never went much into Freddie’s academic life. I think it's fair to assume she was a free spirited student, just went off vibes, unless she was passionate about the subject. Freddie just wanted to save the world one protest all the time. She represents the free-spirited black girls.

Dear White People is a Netflix show following a group of black students living with the racial tension at their ivy league school. I’ll be discussing the characters CoCo and Joelle.

Colandrea “CoCo” Conners (shown on the right) is another bougie black girl, but she comes from a poor family that she’s too embarrassed to talk about. CoCo’s ambition is fueled by her refusal to be another stereotypical black girl from the hood. She “white washed” herself to be the token black girl to get ahead in life, which has been working in her favor.

Joelle Brooks (shown on the left) called herself a “Huxtable Black,” a reference to The Cosby Show because her mom was a lawyer and her dad was a doctor. She's a competitive student and plans to become a doctor. Joelle was high school valedictorian and her professors and classmates admire her genius at the college level. She represents the upper-middle class black girls that still work hard for what they want.

So what was the point of this? Why did you read about some of my favorite TV characters for the last 3 minutes?

Because we learn about the world through the media. When I was younger, I wanted to be like Moesha from the show Moesha. AsI got older, I wondered what other people learned about black women from TV and movies and how that affected their attitudes towards them. It's what I've enjoyed about being a Communication Studies major.

What I love about A Different World and Dear White People is that they show different types of black women. Their representation of black women as college students is excellent because none of the characters were alike. The only thing they had in common was their race and gender.

The writers allow the world to see black women as bougie, ambitious, clueless, and selfless which don’t fit the stereotypes black women are associated with. It’s good for the world to see there's more than one kind of black woman.

Join me next week in a discussion about black women in Tyler Perry films. Be on the lookout for “Should She Suffer?” next Monday morning at 11.