television

Accents on Television

The discrimination against blacks and their language has been going on for many years. One of the first sitcoms to discriminate against blacks was the television show Amos and Andy. In this show, they were offensive to the black race and the way th ey spoke. In 1953 the sitcom was pulled off the air because it was said that "times were changing" and the once acceptable program was suddenly unfit for television. But when we turn on the television today, do we still see this racial discrimination, o r is it true that the times have finally changed?

Since television has a great influence on people, we decided to try to find discrimination in sitcoms. We taped five different sitcoms. We looked for a number of different things, such as the ratio of blacks to whites, if there was discrimination pr esent in these sitcoms or not, the way the different black characters spoke, and most importantly, if the way they spoke was the reason for the discrimination. We thought that the only discrimination towards blacks would be from whites. If anything, we thought that we would see segregation on television.

The five shows that we chose were: Friends, Seinfeld, Sister Sister, The Hughleys, and The Fresh Prince of Bel Aire. We chose these five sitcoms because we had seen them before and they had some black and some white characters in them. These shows a re also fairly popular.

When we looked at these five shows, we first looked at the ratio of blacks to whites that had speaking parts. We noticed that in the dominantly white shows blacks only had, if any, one or two speaking characters and that these characters were not mai n characters. And in the black shows, there were also only a few whites that had speaking parts. We noticed that in Friends and Seinfeld, there were hardly any black people present and if they were present, they had very insignificant parts. Once again, the same went for The Fresh Prince of Bel Aire, Sister Sister, and The Hughleys. There were only a few white people in these shows also and their parts were insignificant.

Because there is much controversy going on about the use of ebonics, we decided to listen to the way the black people in these five shows spoke. In the dominantly white shows, the black people all spoke Standard English. Because of this, we were lea d to believe there was no discrimination against blacks. However, in Friends, there did seem to be some discrimination going on with the Latino man that Monica was dating. By the end of the show, he seemed to be portrayed as a sexist man, which seems to be something whites stereotype Hispanic males as. Whether they were trying to prove a point by this or not is unknown to us.

SISTER SISTER

In the dominantly black shows, however, some uses of ebonics were present. In Sister Sister, a show that has all black characters, they spoke Standard English. However, there were some instances when the mother used ebonics phrases such as, "Who th at," "You askin," and "I don't want no". It was unusual to see that the two girls spoke such Standard English considering that the mother, who spoke a mixture of Standard English and ebonics, raised one of the girls. There was one incident when the dau ghters did use Ebonics and it seemed that the reason for this was to emphasize their point they were trying to make in the show.

THE FRESH PRINCE OF BEL AIRE

In the Fresh Prince of Bel Aire, the way the characters spoke had a lot to do with their surroundings. Will, who was originally from Philadelphia, moved to Bel Aire and began using Standard English while he was living with his rich uncle, Phil Banks . However, when he wants to get his point across he uses Black English. Will's father-in-law Fred, who is from a middle class family, seemed to use standard English even though he lives in a lower class residence than the Banks. The reason why Fred was using Standard English could be because of the fact that he was in the presence of a family of a higher society than his own. The whole Banks family seems to speak in Standard English. Because they are a rich family, this seems to be more expected. Whe n Will and Lisa went to get married, a lot of ebonics was used in the chapel. This might have been because the setting they were put in was not of high society, or also because the majority of the people in the chapel spoke ebonics. In this show it seem ed like the surroundings of the characters affected the way they spoke. Some examples of ebonics that were used on occasion throughout the show were, "Who you invitin," "Why you ain't tell me," and " Ain't no way I'm."

THE HUGHLEYS

In The Hughleys, in general the characters used Standard English, but this show had the most examples of ebonics out of the five shows we watched. The father, Darrel, mainly used the ebonics. In the show, comments were made on the Darrel's backgrou nd when he was a child. He seemed to have grown up in a more poor area of town, whereas his wife Yvonne, who used less ebonics in the show, seemed to be from a more wealthy area. Darrel's friend Milsap, who also grew up in a poor area, seemed to speak th e same Black English that Darrel did. Also, Darrel's children seem to rarely use ebonics in the show. Is this because they are growing up in a wealthier area? Our data seems to point out that surroundings affect a person's way of speaking; therefore th e answer to that question is "yes". Some examples of ebonic phrases used in this program are, "Ain't no point," "You payin em on time," "birfday," and "Ima tell you." In one case the mother does break into ebonics, but then she goes right back to Stand ard English.

In the episode of The Hughleys that we watched, there was also an interesting switch in linguistic roles during a dream that Darrel was having. In this dream, he is suddenly a rich man at a country club who speaks very Standard English. When he aw akens from his dream, he is so happy about his race, linguistic identity, and culture that he basically jumps for joy. He feels that his family is going to turn white themselves because of the fact that they live in a white neighborhood. There were many comments made by Darrel directed toward whites. One comment is made about how they're being white because they are paying their bills on time. He also doesn't want his daughter to buy a white doll because he thinks they are turning white.

In Friend's, Seinfeld, The Fresh Prince, and Sister Sister, we really didn't find any distinct discrimination based on their linguistic identity or any discrimination in general for that matter. However, in The Hughleys there were a few counts of di scrimination toward whites. Also, we found that not only do the characters discriminate against whites, but they discriminate against themselves as well. One example of discrimination on the show occurred, after the main character Darrell bought his dau ghter a white doll, when he commented on the reason being because, "Blonde dolls get a Corvette, a Chanel wardrobe, and a horse. All black dolls get is a rusty sac dress and a bus pass". Another example was when Darrell told his son that he couldn't lis ten to Hanson because it wasn't their music, meaning black music. Although there was discrimination in general, there was not discrimination based on their linguistic usage.

We ended up finding a little discrimination in The Hughleys. This discrimination we found had nothing to do with the way the characters spoke. We thought there would be more discrimination in general throughout the shows. We also thought that the discrimination would be against blacks; however, it was the opposite. We did find segregation between the sitcoms, but found no segregation within the shows themselves. The most non-segregated show seemed to be The Hughleys. This was because the family lived in a mixed community of whites and blacks. Because these sitcoms are watched by people of all different ages, we feel that these examples of discrimination, linguistic difference, and segregation would have an effect on the way people view other ra ces. We also feel that the younger the person who watches these sitcoms the more influential they will be. To find out more about these topics check out these links.

Nearly 98% of all households own a TV, and it's speculated that stereotypes are often learned by watching TV. For many, the television and film industries have become a major avenue to the world outside our homes and communities. In the past these industries have given false impressions on other races and nationalities. Since we are moving into the 21st century you would think attitudes would change.

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