Parenthood
"We have, obviously, broken with the past, in that the numbers of post-Loving interracial families grows larger, and (most0 advertisers are not afraid to put interracial couples in their commercials. But as we try to imagine the post-racial future, zombie stereotypes and attitudes from the racial past continue to stalk and shape our cultural output, populating our imaginations with contradictory elements of representation and narration. In other words, post-racial aesthetics of network television often reveal the struggle in the attempt to make something new, to forge what it means to get past our racial past. In this gap between present and post-, Parenthood emerges as an illustration of the uncertainty of the "post-," with its dramatic devices leaving many gaps for old stereotypes to flow into the narrative and its characters constantly bumping into the glass walls and ceilings of post-racial, post-feminist America" (105-106).
"Thus, while Crosby is at fault for being a jerk to Jasmine, post-racial logic often requires an assertion of white innocence, just as post-feminism displaces patriarchy and centers on (middle-class) women's alleged misuse of their freedoms to 'have it all.' Add it all up, and a dramatic showdown over the cause of Jabbar's fatherless first five years makes sense, in a post-racial, post-feminist way. Crosby can't be alone to blame for Jabbar's fatherlessness. And any surrogate father or father figures cannot be sufficient, because in post-feminist logic nuclear families are the best choice to make, and post-racial narratives continue to denigrate black extended families and single mothers. So Jasmine needs to share the blame. What rises from the (shallow) grave to make this all make sense is the old, multipurpose zombie of black matriarchy, the emasculating, family-killing power of the independent black mother" (114).
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Discussion of "Parenthood"
Parenthood and Bourgeois Ideology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzISzYy8up4Posted on 13 November 2014, 2:07 pm by Lindsey Macdonald | Permalink
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