GQ South Africa — May 2017

MAY 2017GQ.CO.ZA 73

comedy; John

Ridley’s potent

serial drama

American Crime;

Amazon’s

Transparent

tackles trans

identity and

ageism with

compassion

and quirkiness;

W

hen

Ithink

back

to growing up

in 1990s Los

Angeles, it’s

the cultural

touchstones

I land on first.

Of those, none

remains quite

so vivid as the

launch of United

Paramount

Network. UPN

couldn’t match

the budget of

broadcast rivals,

butitwastheonly

oneofthebig

US broadcasters

that devoted a

hefty slate of

programming

to investigating

black lives. Even

more important,

somehow it found

an unprecedented

breadthinits

focus.

It was a post-

boom era for black

TV–bynowpioneeringcomedies

likeGood TimesandThe Cosby

Showseemed like relics of a more

conventionaltime–andoverthecourse

of 11 years, UPN’s show creators and

staff writers rendered black Americans

in full, vibrant strokes. These were not

tales of the exceptional but of the

mundane. On sitcoms likeMoeshaand

The Hughleys, the rigours of teenhood

and family life were made plain in

episodes dealing with financial security

and substance abuse.Malcolm & Eddie

introduced the peaks and valleys of

black entrepreneurship. WithThe

ParkersandGirlfriends,theimage

of the Black Woman morphed and

expanded before viewers’ eyes – she

was loving, she was witty, she was

vulnerable, she was free. These shows

were disruptive by virtue of their very

perspective: blackness was the default,

notthesubjectmatter.Thesewere

people I knew.

AndUPNwasn’ttotallyalone.Major

US networks featured an array of shows

devoted to working-class angst (Roc),

brotherhood (New York Undercover),

and social integration (The Fresh

Prince of Bel-Air). Still, UPN seemed like

an outlier among a patch of networks

more concerned with safer and whiter

narratives. And in spite of show ratings,

which were never anything to brag

about, the message was palpable:

thesestories–ourstories–mattered.

The landscape of TV has changed

since those sitcoms were first aired 20

years ago, in large measure thanks to the

introductionofonlinestreaminghubs

like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime.

Thesweepofshowsisasrobustas

it’s been in decades. There’sThe

Carmichael Show,aquarrelsomefamily

Streaming is ringing in the changes

Words by Jason Parham

HOW THE TOPOGRAPHY

OF TV HAS SHIFTED

‘I am

making

TV look

like the

world

looks’

Netfl ix boasts

Orange Is the New

Black and Narcos.

All of them, in

varying ways, tap

into the rich and

complex palette

of daily life.

Yet for all the

inclusion the

streaming

revolution has

cultivated – across

gender, race,

sexual orientation

and religion –

roadblocks persist,

both in front of the

camera and behind

it. According to

a 2016 report

from the Writers

Guild of America,

West, minorities

account for 13 per

cent of TV writers

and remained

underrepresented

nearly three to

one. Even worse:

among scripted

television creators

on broadcast >>

Sometimes you have to give

people what they don’t know

they want,’ says Donald G lover.

Before he was the creator

of FX’s Atlanta, he was kind of

a professional friendly face

(see The Martian and

Community). But with Atlanta,

we saw something different.

‘People want the myth of

Atlanta, but we didn’t want to

give them just that,’ G lover says.

So instead of a half hour of

voluptuous women, Ferraris and

rappers eating lobster platters

• which is how every hip-hop
  song depicts the city – Atlanta is
  about how everyone else in
  Atlanta lives. The weirdos and
  the conspiracy theorists. The
  ones still chasing their ATL
  dream. And it’s sneaky-brilliant


• Louie if comedian Louis CK
  were young, black and
  not depressed.
  Like when Glover created
  a black Justin Bieber – as in,
  a black actor playing Justin
  Bieber. ‘In a show grounded in
  reality,’ Glover giggles, ‘it’s
  pretty cool to make Justin
  Bieber black, right?’

Words by Mark Anthony Green

Photograph by Peter Hapak

Homecoming king of Atlanta

DONALD GLOVER