Racial gender tropes in media, such as the depiction of a promiscuous or angry Black woman, continue to be prevalent in the entertainment industry, especially in reality television shows.
Jalylah Burrell, a San Jose State assistant professor of African American studies, said if media is put out by members of society that hold oppressive values, the entertainment industry will reflect those views.
“While multidimensional portrayals of Black womanhood remain rare, stereotypes of Black womanhood abound and the same stereotypes written into scripted television programs inform the depiction of Black women on reality television,” Burrell said in an email. “Additionally, the post-production process allows for the crafting of storylines on reality television that hew to the stereotypical depictions of Black womanhood that viewerships [accept] and savor.”
When a racial stereotype runs rampant in entertainment, it can wrongfully depict a group of people and give others outside that race racist or offensive conclusions they accept as the truth.
Though not as explicitly jarring as blackface and minstrel shows, racism and oppression continue to manifest itself in different forms on the big screen.
According to the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia’s website, there are two main types of tropes found in media related to Black women that portray harmful personas: the Jezebel stereotype and the Sapphire caricature.
A “Jezebel” is defined as a shameless and morally corrupt woman with ties to a biblical character, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary.
In the context of a racial stereotype, a “Jezebel” would be a “bad,” hypersexual Black woman, according to a post on the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia’s website.
The hypersexualization of Black women can be traced back to when white men colonized Africa in the 1800s. European white men considered the minimal, non-Victorian-style clothing African women wore as a sign of promiscuity, one of the posts detailed.
Across Europe, the Victorian-style fashion consisted of women wearing ankle-length dresses with sleeves down to the wrists and showing very little visible skin, according to The Fashion History Timeline, an online project put together in 2015 by the Fashion Institute of Technology art department.
Meanwhile, the “Sapphire” caricature portrays an angry mammy stereotype that emerged in the 1800s and continued into the mid-900s called “sassy mammies.” This caricature conveys the image of an ill-tempered and belligerent woman, according to a post on the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia’s website.
Edith Urbano, a childhood and adolescent development junior, said she’s watched advertisements for season 5 of the UK reality TV show “Love Island” in which a contestant, Yewande Biala, was portrayed with a stereotypical persona.
“They made her out to be very sassy, very stereotypical,” Urbano said. “She got a lot of hate for it and I'm assuming production made it that way.”
While some people push for more representation in media, especially in reality TV shows, others feel the representation is not always accurate or sincere.
Communications senior Natasha Harris said she noticed that while representation of Black women in entertainment is limited, including in reality shows, Black women often shape themselves to fit a euro-centric mold.
“You never really saw these all-natural Black women, they've always had to kind of change their hairstyle, change their personality,” Harris said. “They just have to fit this mold otherwise they won't be successful.”
Burrell said these portrayals and stereotypes can have real-world impacts that affect Black women.
“To encounter people who refuse to treat you as an individual, but as a perpetual boogeyman makes it difficult to live,” Burrell said. ”Even worse is how the proliferation of stereotypes can make it difficult for some Black women to disentangle the stereotype from who they are and who they want to be.”
