B(l)ack By Popular Demand: An Analysis of Positive Black Male Characters in Television and Audiences’ Community Cultural Wealth

Abstract

Often media research interrogating Black male characters featured in television does so from a deficit-based framework. To shift the conversation and showcase affirmative examples of Black male roles in scripted television, the following essay analyzes portrayals in the series This Is Us (2016–current), Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2015–2019), S.W.A.T. (2017–current), and A Million Little Things (2018–current). This work adopts critical race theory and community cultural wealth as mechanisms to examine depictions of Black male television characters to illustrate how each offers various forms of cultural capital, including aspirational and resistant capital, for minority audiences. The portrayals discussed here demonstrate a shift in depictions of Black men in television as characters express nonaggressive idiosyncrasies, display vulnerability, and engage in social support with other characters.