1970’s African American Situation Shows Reinforced Stereotypes

During the 1970’s sitcoms pioneered a way for African Americans to be seen on television, through shows such as Julia, The Bill Cosby Show, Sanford and Son, Good Times, and The Jefferson’s. These shows showed characters and lives that African Americans could relate to these shows, but these shows also reinforced stereotypes that were from the past and would carry on to the future.

The Assimilationist era (1968-1971), Julia and The Bill Cosby Show introduced characters that seem to have abandoned or not recognize their level of being African American. The Lear era (1972-1983) reintroduced comedy situation shows, such as Sanford and Son, Good Times, and The Jefferson’s. These shows showed the world as Black and White, parallel worlds or separate. During this era stereotypes were formed based on sex, language, place of dwelling, and several other features. The 1970’s sitcoms and situation shows reinforced negative stereotypes of African Americans while devaluing African American culture and experiences in America, by promoting Anglo-American beliefs, values and stereotypes.

Sanford and Son, Good Times, and The Jefferson’s were shows of Lear’s that put more African American faces into television. These shows weren’t too helpful for the Kerner Commission; it showed African Americans functioned separately from the rest of the world, something that the Commission did not want. The comedies “reinforced an unequal separation and segregation in which it was communicated that Whites and Blacks “…cannot, should not, and will not coexist without deleterious results based on one group’s (African Americans) differences, if deficiencies” (AAV pg. 94). Lear’s comedies still contained the problems of segregation, that of the Minstrelsy era seen in such shows as Amos ‘n’ Andy. Lear’s comedies also failed to recognize “Blackness as worthy”, as seen in the Assimilationist era.

The mix of racial exploitation and role-modeling by force formula proved to be vulnerable of time for the Assimilationist era and the Lear era. The devaluing and stereotyping of African Americans in the 1970’s situation shows created a wave that carried on from show to show. The bigotry of Fred of Sanford and Son influenced the character George of The Jefferson’s. The ghetto settings of Sanford and Son pioneered settings for several shows to follow. The minstrel qualities proved to be strong through every Lear situation show of the 1970’s. During this era women’s characters either had to be a reinvented mammy or a sapphire of some sort.

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