The Symbol of Hair in ABC's How to Get Away with Murder

“I’m an African American woman and there is not enough time on the show to discuss hair issues” (“Viola”). This is what Viola Davis answered on Anderson Live when being asked whether she found it odd that people notice and comment on the hairstyle of black women so much recently. Beauty standards and hairstyle trends have shifted over time, but there is a profound difference recognisable between the prestige associated with hair of white people versus the hair of people with African heritage. The protagonist in ABC’s TV series How to Get Away with Murder, Annalise Keating, played by Viola Davis, is a successful defence attorney and lecturer. She lives in a big house and is married to a white man. She is also black and wears various hairstyles throughout the series. Whenever she is depicted as strong and professional, she wears a wig. On the other hand, her natural hair is only shown in a few scenes, particularly at times when she is undergoing a crisis. By discussing three scenes from How to Get Away with Murder in which her natural hair is shown, this article aims to reveal how hair is used as a symbol in the show How to Get Away with Murder

Self-Defined: A Womanist Exploration Of Michelle Obama, Viola Davis, And Beyonce Knowles

Intersectional research that focuses on the experiences and representations of Black women should place emphasis on examining the communication of resistance. This dissertation builds upon the work of Womanist (Walker, 1983) and Black Feminist scholars (Collins, 1991; Harris-Perry, 2011) in order to identify and interrogate the harmful systemic nature of various stereotypes and controlling images of Black women. These controlling images historically include representations such as the Mammie, Sapphire, Jezebel, tragic mulatto, and even newer images like the angry black woman. Through a close reading of Josephine Baker’s “Danse Sauvage performance, the research points to modern day examples of when privileged Black women utilize their platforms in the name of activism. To be specific, the analysis codes self-definitive demonstrations by Michelle Obama, Viola Davis, and Beyoncé Knowles. This project stresses that Black women must respond to these mis/representations through what Patricia Hill Collins (2004) identifies as a process of “self-defining.” By self-defining, we center Black womanhood as an epistemological site, advancing Black women’s social movements, and creating a stronger body of knowledge about the impact and importance of Black women’s experiences in a system that often generates knowledge from a European patriarchal perspective. From the analysis at least two themes were identified congruently from all women; they include authenticity and power in sisterhood. Lastly, the newly identified image of the Beautiful Black Boss Lady emerged. Ultimately, this reflexive research approach of centering ourselves and our experiences as Black women further strengthens and (re)establishes the importance of Black Feminist Thought as a valid epistemological approach to communication studies research

The Power of the Color Spectrum: The Case of Halle Berry and Viola Davis

La industria de Hollywood ha estado dominada principalmente por hombres de raza blanca. Por esa razón, las actrices afroamericanas son el segmento más infravalorado en el cine. El propósito de este trabajo es examinar la relación entre el color de la piel y los rasgos físicos por un lado y los personajes que las actrices afroamericanas han interpretado en el cine comercial. En particular, este trabajo compara los casos de dos actrices contemporáneas, Halle Berry y Viola Davis. Las dos tienen una edad similar y comenzaron su carrera aproximadamente al mismo tiempo, sin embargo tanto la tonalidad de su piel como su físico son marcadamente distintos y los papeles que han interpretado en el cine también han sido distintos. Su caracterización se ha basado en mayor o menor medida en los estereotipos a través de los cuales ha representado a los afroamericanos durante décadas y en un ideal de belleza occidental. Por esta razón, se ha partido de las historias de racismo y sexismo que subyacen en la cultura estadounidense para determinar las formas en que la discriminación por razón de raza y sexo se perpetúa en la actualidad

Remixing Old Character Tropes on Screen: Kerry Washington, Viola Davis, and the New Femininity

While there is a substantial amount of scholarship on the depiction of African American women in film and television, this thesis exposes the new formations of African American femininity on screen. African American women have consistently resisted, challenged, submitted to, and remixed racial myths and sexual stereotypes existing in American cinema and television programming. Mainstream film and television practices significantly contribute to the reinforcement of old stereotypes in contemporary black women characters. However, based on the efforts of African American producers like Shonda Rhimes, who has attempted to insert more realistic renderings of African American women in her recent television shows, black women’s representation is undergoing yet another shift in contemporary media. Moreover, the career choices of African American actresses are an indication of a push for positive representation. Through identifying historical tropes of African American femininity, and through utilizing the insights of black feminist thought, this thesis will explicate the portrayals of black womanhood in contemporary film and television. The recent film and television roles Kerry Washington and Viola Davis, two prominent African American figures in film and television today, will be case studies for this analysis. The films and television shows of Kerry Washington and Viola Davis contain moments of resurgence and moments that refute stereotypes of black femininity. Black actresses must constantly negotiate their stake in the representation of African American women and the problematic standards of mainstream studios

A screen actor prepares: Self-taping by reversing Stanislavsky’s Method of Physical Actions

The popularity of streaming services, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, reinforced the understanding that screen acting skills should be prioritized, prompting a reimagining of Stanislavsky’s practices to address the needs of the contemporary actor and acting graduate. Screen actors are expected to self-tape using digital technologies to showcase their acting skills independently. This indicates a growing demand for self-reflective abilities on what works or doesn’t work in recorded performances. Aspiring to develop lifelong learning screen actors, this essay argues that Konstantin Stanislavsky’s Method of Physical Actions can be reversed for generating findings from acclaimed screen performances to use in self-taping. The reverse Method of Physical Actions proposes that physical scores are artefacts that can be objectively broken down into psycho-physical gestures and character behaviours that can be appropriated for self-taping etudes, and analysed when reflecting on self-tapes, fostering an ongoing embodied understanding of how acting choices work on screen. The breakdown and examination of two scenes portraying Helen Mirren in The Queen (2006) and Viola Davis in Fences (2016) illustrate how the Method of Physical Actions can be rediscovered for do-it-yourself screen acting. This essay helps actors, students and actor trainers to understand how acclaimed actors create outstanding screen performances

Da curvatura 1A a 4C : a representação do cabelo da negra mulher através do olhar sobre as personagens Olivia Pope e Annalise Keating

Este trabalho tem como objetivo geral analisar a representação midiática das protagonistas Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) e Annalise Keating (Viola Davis) com relação aos seus cabelos naturais no contexto das séries Scandal e How To Get Away With Murder, respectivamente. Os objetivos específicos são: identificar como se dá a relação das personagens com seu cabelo no âmbito profissional e íntimo; e investigar a percepção do público sobre cenas em que as personagens aparecem com seus cabelos naturais. Como procedimentos metodológicos utilizamos: questionário, pesquisa bibliográfica, análise documental, análise de conteúdo e técnica projetiva. Por meio da análise teórica feita neste trabalho tivemos base para averiguar os resultados a partir da coleta de dados. Pudemos constatar a ligação do cabelo crespo com a fragilidade contida nas cenas analisadas, assim como a modificação das particularidades nas cenas em que as personagens estão com seus cabelos alisados.Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) and Annalise Keating (Viola Davis) with their natural hair in the context of the series Scandal and How To Get Away With Murder, respectively. The specific objectives are: to identify how the characters interact with their hair in the professional and intimate environment; and investigate the public's perception of scenes in which the characters appear with their natural hair. As methodological procedures we used: questionnaire, bibliographic research, documentary analysis, content analysis and projective technique. By means of the theoretical analysis made in this work we had basis to ascertain the results from the data collection. We could see the connection of curly hair with the fragility contained in the analyzed scenes, as well as the modification of the particularities in the scenes in which the characters are with their hair smoothed