Technicolored

From early sitcoms such as I Love Lucy to contemporary prime-time dramas like Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder, African Americans on television have too often been asked to portray tired stereotypes of blacks as villains, vixens, victims, and disposable minorities. In Technicolored black feminist critic Ann duCille combines cultural critique with personal reflections on growing up with the new medium of TV to examine how televisual representations of African Americans have changed over the last sixty years. Whether explaining how watching Shirley Temple led her to question her own self-worth or how televisual representation functions as a form of racial profiling, duCille traces the real-life social and political repercussions of the portrayal and presence of African Americans on television. Neither a conventional memoir nor a traditional media study, Technicolored offers one lifelong television watcher's careful, personal, and timely analysis of how television continues to shape notions of race in the American imagination

The Short Happy Life of Black Feminist Theory

Advocating for the applicability of black feminist theory to the study of all literature, Ducille uses “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” as her test case. Surveys critical opinion on the story, noting the lack of interest in its racial dimensions. Contends that while Margot may be a victim of white patriarchy, she is also actively engaged in and benefits from that system of oppression. Concludes that Hemingway’s story of the rich, idle, and brutal is “an ugly example of what white privilege can do to those who waste it.