I love watching TV, especially Netflix where I can binge watch shows. I am not particular in the shows I watch, but I sometimes tend to lean more towards drama. I was extremely excited when Scandal first debuted because it looked full of suspense and drama, which I like. The creator, Shonda Rhimes, was a well known writer for ABC who gained popularity from her show Grey's Anatomy. Therefore, I had high expectations for Scandal from the very beginning. I also liked that the main character, Olivia Pope, was a powerful black woman. For the first couple seasons, this show met all of my expectations. I thought it was entertaining enough for me to clear my schedule every Thursday night. However, as the season progressed I lost interest. It seemed that all Olivia Pope did was sleep around with either Jake or Fitz. I was disappointed that a powerful character was now hyper-sexualized.
I found hyper-sexualization of black women to be a running theme among other shows. For example, Being Mary Jane, a show on BET, has a similar set up as Scandal. In my opinion, the entire show is scandalous. The main character is a single black woman with a powerful job who sleeps around with different men. Sound familiar? I understand that sex sells, but there is a way to do such in a tastefully matter. A new show on HBO, Insecure, is falling into the same theme as Scandal and Being Mary Jane. Insecure is about a millennial awkward black girl who has one too many sex scenes with different men. I am sure there are black women who don't see this as a problem. The only problem that I have with this is that I think it negatively portrays black women. I think that all these sex scenes with various men glorify the rhetoric that a black woman can't get a good man.
Overall, people of color in Hollywood tend to get type casted. Whether it's the fat, loud, angry black woman or fast talking Hispanic woman, I want Hollywood to do better. As long as the ratings are high, none of this will change. In my opinion we need more shows that portray women of color in a positive way.
Check out these sex scenes from Scandal and Being Mary Jane.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-ZfcfifE_w&t=65s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8Jb_XoPGGo
I really like your analysis of both Scandal and Being Mary Jane. While I don't really watch Scandal (my parents have been binging it), I have seen the fact that Olivia is hyper-sexualized and was always with either Jake or Fitz. Another show you should consider is Sense8. Although Amanita (the black woman character you should analyze)is not a main character member of the title eight, she is a regular and adds a lot to the story!
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