Tuesday, March 24, 2015

One Step Back (Sorry): Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Race


I know this was last week’s topic, but directly after our discussion on television and racial representation, I binge-watched (twice, in fact) the new Netflix show, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. I watched it so quickly that I didn’t have time to read the trending popular articles/criticisms on the show. However as I watched, I was hyper-aware of its sordid handling of racial representation. Some of it, in my opinion, seemed problematically stereotypical (the performance elements of Native Americans and a Korean immigrant), but at times the show illumined some cultural failures as well (for example: when Titus feels more accepted in public dressed as a werewolf than as himself, a black man). Now, there seems to be a (contained?) storm of controversy surrounding its issues of representation and identification. I’m wondering--for those who have seem the show--if this was on your radar while watching the show.

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