A Journal of Research in Africana Studies
Freedom: Volume 2
The Symbolic Annihilation of Black Working-Class Women in The Black Family (aka Good Times)
By Angela Nelson, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Popular Culture, Bowling Green State University
Published in Freedom: Volume 2
Keywords
Symbolic Annihilation, Black Women, Good Times, Eric Monte, Television
Abstract
Good Times (CBS, 1974-1979), a television situation comedy about an urban African American working-class nuclear family, started as the idea of two African American men, Mike Evans and Eric Monte. Presented to white executive producer, Norman Lear in the fall of 1971, Monte’s pilot teleplay “Who’s Got the Rent?” for a series he titled The Black Family introduced James and Mattie Black, their children Junior, Thelma, and Michael, and their friend Willona. A textual analysis of Monte’s teleplay reveals the symbolic annihilation—condemnation, trivialization, and victimization—of the Black working-class mother, Mattie, and daughter, Thelma. Though they shared condemnation and trivialization with mothers and daughters in white-cast sitcoms of the fifties and sixties, victimization through violence in Monte’s teleplay distinguishes Mattie and Thelma from them. I review Monte’s background and the work of the Black Women’s Community Development Foundation to understand how the issue of violence against Black women resonated among them. This analysis of the fictional symbolic annihilation of Mattie and Thelma Black reflects the marginalization of Black women in American primetime television as well as may serve as an indicator of the marginalized
status of Black women in American society. This paper advances understandings of Black working-class women’s intersectional identities in seventies primetime television portrayals, reveals the culpability of Black men writers in creating those depictions, acknowledges the challenges of Black men staff writers, and contextualizes a popular artifact within the discourses of grassroots Black women’s advocacy.
Digital Object Identifier
DOI: https://DOI.org/10.65373/PHWF1084