One of the shortcomings of this country's entertainment industry is its habitual promotion of negative African American character stereotypes in movies and television programs. The caricaturing is particularly striking in the genre of Black situation comedies.

How has this happened? From the mid 1800s through the mid 1900s, roles for Black entertainers typically were restricted to the happy-go-lucky, contented slave or the foolish, inept clown. The wide eyed, shuffling parody created by Stepin Fetchit, one of the first Black actors to perform in Hollywood movies, translated easily to the small screen during the early days of television and became a stock Black character type. Beginning with Amos 'n' Andy in the 1950s -- the classic portrayal of Blacks as inferior buffoons -- Black television sitcoms have continued to showcase negative stereotypes, replacing the now politically incorrect Stepin Fetchit image with updated characterizations like the jive-talking, swaggering Black men and loudtalking, hands-on-hips Black women who were the hallmarks of such shows as Beulah, Good Times, That's My Mama, What's Happening!, and The Jeffersons.

Those early Black sitcoms portrayed characters from poor or lower middle class backgrounds who used the shucking and jiving street-wise style the general public still associates with Blacks; contemporary versions like Martin Lawrence's Martin have a following among both Whites and Blacks. Viewers had become so accustomed to the Black sitcom "formula" that, when The Cosby Show first aired in 1984, the most frequent criticism of this ground breaking program was that it wasn't "Black enough." (Try to think of a show that's been criticized for not being "White enough.") It's not surprising that when Bill Cosby was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame in 1992, he expressed his frustration with the networks for spewing out "drive-by images" that reinforce shallow stereotypes of Blacks. The Black experience has always encompassed a rich heterogeneity; the demeaning Martin has never been representative of Black America.

Since The Cosby Show went off the air, old-style Black sitcoms have made a comeback. Exceptions exist, notably Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Family Matters, but most have been throwbacks, trashy comedies whose tired story lines affirm White superiority and Black inferiority, especially the shows carried by syndicated stations. The Blacks on these shows often demean other Blacks with displays of insult humor, projecting the image that Blacks not only fail to respect each other, they see themselves as inferior even when Whites aren't around to demean them. And the widespread practice of profane "street" comedy by stand-up African American comedians further reinforces the acceptability of social dominance and control by Whites as a theme in popular culture. Even some Black producers fall into the trap of promoting these negative styles: the system rewards those who play the game the way it has always been played.

Young actors performing in today's profane and foolish sitcoms protest that they're presenting an aspect of Black life that's as real as what The Cosby Show portrayed. But the stereotypes they're perpetuating aren't balanced by alternative images: the picture is skewed. While predominantly White shows present a range of styles, formats, and characters, nearly all Black sitcoms portray Blacks as dysfunctional. As Jannette Dates and Camille Cosby noted in 1992: "After more than 40 years of television, African American viewers, as a result of televised entertainment programs, could perceive their group to be clownish figures or savage brutes who are inept, corrupt, prone to misfortune and unable to solve their own problems" (The City Sun, Sept. 29-Oct. 6, 1992, p. 8+). Yet few Black performers appear to understand that the images they project have a powerful impact on the way African Americans are perceived by Whites and Blacks alike.

The American entertainment industry, including the television business, is dominated by White men. Their world view is reflected, inevitably, in the programming they promote. Producing a show that does not conform to their concept of a "Black show" can be extremely difficult, a circumstance the short-lived Frank's Place exemplifies. When the show aired in 1987, Reid and his colleagues were fulfilling their vision of a prime-time series focusing on authentic African American story lines in a dramedy format (drama plus comedy). Reid was an established and successful actor, and the show received positive reviews. Unlike series such as Northern Exposure and Cheers -- critical successes which needed time and nurturing to build audience loyalty Frank's Place received little marketing or promotional support, suffered multiple scheduling changes that prevented audiences from following the show, and was canceled after less than a year. Had more of the network's decision makers reflected the show's target audience, Frank's Place might have received the support it needed to succeed. Instead, there was a reversion, after this experiment with mature, quality programming, to tried-and-true formula shows whose cartoonish characters were guaranteed to get immediate laughs.

Humor based on honesty and respect can have a positive influence, and even sitcoms can tell stories incorporating serious and helpful messages without diminishing their entertainment value. When The Cosby Show was on the air, it dramatically altered the popular image of Blacks by presenting a positive, psychologically healthy family that supported its members. Bill Cosby's talent at finding humor in everyday life allowed universal identification with the ups and downs of the Huxtables' daily lives. The show deliberately avoided put-down humor while seeking to model a family unpretentiously steeped in Black culture: Black art, music and dance were frequently displayed; Black authors and books were often mentioned; and little-known Black colleges and other institutions were introduced on network television. Both The Cosby Show and A Different World, the spinoff about students at a fictitious Black college, offer powerful demonstrations of the positive impact possible within a sitcom format. Presidents of Black colleges, for example, attributed a steep rise in applications to Cosby's portrayal of their institutions on these programs. And there is ample evidence to suggest that as the programs improved Blacks' self-image, they simultaneously altered many Whites' stereotypical views of Blacks.

Ubiquitous negative images have been shown to have a particularly destructive effect on the self-esteem of young Black viewers, who as a group watch more television than their White peers and are more likely to accept the validity of the images they view. If the primary lesson young African Americans are learning from television is how dysfunctional they are, that lesson can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. At best, demeaning caricatures do not encourage young people to envision themselves as successful adults who can partake of the American Dream.

The ethnographic data presented in Situating Racial Humor corroborate the growing body of evidence that television's negative caricatures of African Americans, even when humorous, cause real harm to some viewers. Yet Black sitcoms do not have to perpetuate destructive images: the Huxtable family and their friends helped to dispel old stereotypes and move their audience toward a more realistic perception of African Americans. Like Whites, Blacks on television need to be portrayed in the full spectrum of roles and cultural styles existing in our pluralistic society. And viewers do have power to influence the quality of television programming: shows that don't sell will eventually be dropped. We all have the power of the "off' button.