TMC
01-20-2018, 05:01 AM
http://www.vulture.com/2018/01/deep-space-nine-revolutionary-depiction-of-black-fatherhood.html
The arc of American history is undergirded by a continuous, pointed degradation of the black family.
The crux of this is the pervasive mythology surrounding the “missing black father.” At his feet has been laid the blame for poverty, mass incarceration, police brutality, and any number of ills, rather than the real culprit — the systemic, institutionalized racism that defines so much of American life. Despite statistics and studies that contradict this mythology, this archetype continues to cast a shadow on the black community. It’s because of this that the representation of the black father in television holds so much weight.
Recent series like the CW’s superhero adaptations, Black Lightning and The Flash, as well as the beautifully rendered southern drama Queen Sugar, have been showcases for complex depictions of black fatherhood. But the arc of the black father in pop culture is most defined by its representation in beloved sitcoms in the 1970s and 1990s. The sharp-tongued James Evans Sr. in Good Times, the highly successful and caring Uncle Phil in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and the perfect representation of middle-class aspiration, The Cosby Show’s Cliff Huxtable, have become iconic for their blend of familiarity, warmth, and representation of the black nuclear family. These sitcoms have guided our conversations about black fatherhood in television, and they’re important for how they refute the noxious mythology of the missing black father. But their episodic nature, and the need of sitcoms to connect with broad audiences, meant they lacked a certain complexity necessary to consider these ideas with further depth. The series I find to be the most personally moving, narratively complex, and politically potent depiction of black fatherhood also happens to be the most underrated: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
When Deep Space Nine premiered in 1993, it was walking in the shadow of its immensely successful predecessor, The Next Generation, which was still on the air. The series was also entering a politically fraught environment on the heels of the Los Angeles riots, and not far removed from the presidency of Ronald Reagan — a politician who framed black people as stark stereotypes of criminals and “welfare queens,” establishing a cultural understanding of black families that America continues to grapple with. In this context, the DS9 producers’ decision to cast its leading commander (and later captain) as a black man was not just a historic first within Star Trek, but politically resonant in ways that have only deepened over the years.
The arc of American history is undergirded by a continuous, pointed degradation of the black family.
The crux of this is the pervasive mythology surrounding the “missing black father.” At his feet has been laid the blame for poverty, mass incarceration, police brutality, and any number of ills, rather than the real culprit — the systemic, institutionalized racism that defines so much of American life. Despite statistics and studies that contradict this mythology, this archetype continues to cast a shadow on the black community. It’s because of this that the representation of the black father in television holds so much weight.
Recent series like the CW’s superhero adaptations, Black Lightning and The Flash, as well as the beautifully rendered southern drama Queen Sugar, have been showcases for complex depictions of black fatherhood. But the arc of the black father in pop culture is most defined by its representation in beloved sitcoms in the 1970s and 1990s. The sharp-tongued James Evans Sr. in Good Times, the highly successful and caring Uncle Phil in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and the perfect representation of middle-class aspiration, The Cosby Show’s Cliff Huxtable, have become iconic for their blend of familiarity, warmth, and representation of the black nuclear family. These sitcoms have guided our conversations about black fatherhood in television, and they’re important for how they refute the noxious mythology of the missing black father. But their episodic nature, and the need of sitcoms to connect with broad audiences, meant they lacked a certain complexity necessary to consider these ideas with further depth. The series I find to be the most personally moving, narratively complex, and politically potent depiction of black fatherhood also happens to be the most underrated: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
When Deep Space Nine premiered in 1993, it was walking in the shadow of its immensely successful predecessor, The Next Generation, which was still on the air. The series was also entering a politically fraught environment on the heels of the Los Angeles riots, and not far removed from the presidency of Ronald Reagan — a politician who framed black people as stark stereotypes of criminals and “welfare queens,” establishing a cultural understanding of black families that America continues to grapple with. In this context, the DS9 producers’ decision to cast its leading commander (and later captain) as a black man was not just a historic first within Star Trek, but politically resonant in ways that have only deepened over the years.