Problems with 30 Rock and White Sitcoms

 
NBC's 30 Rock is always hailed as one of the best shows on the air. However, I don't get it. It's just another semi-clever, overwhelmingly white sitcom show that features a coon in the form of Tracy Morgan. I enjoyed the first season, but it seems to get progressively worse, as most shows do, with age. However, looking back, I still don't see the appeal? It's sort of meta and makes fun of NBC, which is great, but Community does that in a far more appealing and ingenious way. Moreover, seeing Cornel West appear on the show in a recent season and offer advice to Tracy Morgan, the Sambo, on how to improve himself by finding black role models, forced me to admit that the sitcom, like many American shows dominated by white writers and staff, is about reinforcing negative stereotypes of people of color to fit into a white racial frame that seeks to ignore the shifting demographics of New York City and the United States. For me, the problem with shows like 30 Rock, which seems to subvert and make fun of racial stereotypes, nevertheless reinforces them in a white frame or racial context. Tracy Morgan, playing the coon for white audiences, does not subvert centuries of stereotypes of black inferiority, but only serves to further them while the well-meaning white liberals, such as Liz Lemon, have to deal with the buffoons.

These white sitcoms use race and blackness in a way that, although perhaps meant to poke fun at racism, use black history and culture to fuel comedy for audiences that do not, by and large, have enough background information or context to look past the stereotypes. Now, I will admit, the first season of the show had its moments, particularly Tracy Morgan playing Thomas Jefferson, but other moments, such as Toofer, the "two for one" whose blackness is presumed to be the reason he's hired and because he went to Harvard, presumably because of his race. He is used in such a way that demeans affirmative action and restorative, redistributive economic and employment strategies. In addition, Toofer is mocked for not being "black" enough and fictive history is employed by the show's writers to suggest that Toofer's ancestors fought for the Confederates during the Civil War, further implying his lack of "proper" blackness. Never mind the fact that virtually no blacks served the Confederates, the myth persists because revisionist white supremacists want to downplay slavery immoral and dehumanizing character. Even if the show's writers knew this, most audiences won't catch on and will continue believing that some blacks fought for the Confederates Toofer's improper blackness is contrasted with Tracy Morgan, who plays what is essentially a child and foolish Other who can be bent and turned to whatever silly being the writers want him to be. The latter, representing 'real' black people or black culture, is a bumbling fool who serves common stereotypes of black inferiority and innate childishness that white folks have constructed about Africa and people of African descent for centuries.

In addition to the virtual coonery of Tracy Morgan, instances of blackface and the continued portrayal of a very white world reveals 30 Rock's Eurocentric premise and goals. The show depicts a lily-white world of normative whiteness for the show's mostly white audiences. Like Friends and numerous other allegedly great shows, the tokenism and perpetuation of stereotypical images of people of color continues unabated. Indeed, Jon Hamm appeared in blackface on 30 Rock, and Tracy Morgan remains a consistent minstrel show for white America. I usually have more tolerance and acceptance for the kind of racist drivel shown in popular culture, especially because I'm not very invested in most of it. However, it remains sickening that this disgusting culture will be maintained through popular culture consumed by whites and people of color in the US and around the world.  If the show included black talent behind the writers' desks and starring in the show, with intelligent commentary on the state of race relations, like Dave Chappelle succeeded in doing (although he felt whites were laughing at him and not the stereotypes he believed he was subverting), then I would likely be more accepting. Divorced from a socio-historical context, 30 Rock and other sitcoms just come off as hideous tokenism, exoticism, and appalling practices such as blackface that fuel ignorance, xenophobia, and racism. Indeed, many white audiences, including a white friend of mine, came away from Toofer's character as not being a 'real' black person and believing in the myth of black soldiers fighting for the slaveholders, Confederates.

This is not to say that black folks, for instance, do not sometimes hold each other up by these foolish concepts of being "black enough," or that it cannot be amusing (Carleton Banks played this role quite well), but in a blindingly white context, for audiences that are mostly white, the unique context and historical experiences of African Americans are not fully included. We live in a society that continues to dehumanize Africa and African Americans, as simpletons, slaves, savages, never contributing anything to humanity, and a perpetual underclass. Since most whites, or even people of color, do not want to believe they are racist, they will never admit it. However, the ways in which African American history, culture, and contributions are continually cast aside or neglected by Eurocentrism, prevalent in sitcoms such as 30 Rock, does a disservice to black America. Whenever I see a clip of the show with Tracy Morgan or any other thing about black America, I feel deep disgust, since, once again, people who look like me are hypersexualized, dehumanized, and portrayed as unfit, inferior people.