Abstract
As Hannah Hamad (2018) noted in her CST review of two books concerned with constructions of race on the television screen (Cheers, 2018; Malik and Newton, 2017), the current wave of publications on the work of women of colour in television is emblematic of two important developments in television studies: a long overdue accounting for the contributions of people of colour on the one hand, and ‘on the other hand,…correctives to the continued fact of the symbolic annihilation of people of colour both on television, at the level of textual representation, but also within television’s cultures of production’ (p. 525, original emphasis). Adventures in Shondaland: Identity Politics and the Power of Representation can be situated within this growing body of work. Focusing on the cultural significance of Shondaland, the production company of perhaps the most visible and prolific producer and woman of colour working in contemporary US television, the collection complicates the image of Shonda Rhimes as ‘television’s diversity queen’ (p. 2) by problematising Rhimes’ colour-blind casting strategy. The book is divided into three parts: the first part investigates Shonda Rhimes as a television auteur, the second problematises post-racial representations in the Shondaland universe and the third part looks at audience engagement. All sections are concerned – explicitly or implicitly – with the politics of post-racial representation.
The first four chapters are united by their exploration of boundary-pushing as a strategy for identifying Rhimes as an auteur. Richard G Jones Jr and Emily Vajjala’s analysis of manifestations of the carnivalesque in Shondaland’s storytelling and Joan Faber McAlister’s explorations of heterotopias that enable more complex portrayals of identity politics are concerned with pushing representational boundaries on television. Jennifer Billinson and Michaela DE Meyer consider formal boundaries in their chapter on the narrative function of popular music in Shondaland and analyse how heightened ‘musical presence and emotionality’ is used ‘to push the boundaries of what constitutes successful television’ (p. 85). In the context of the current political climate in the United States, where yet again reproductive rights are under threat, Jessica L Furgerson’s chapter is particularly timely. Here, explorations of the handling of abortion highlight Rhimes as a ground-breaking, unashamedly pro-abortion figure who breaks with ‘normative patterns and challenge[s] television industry norms’ (p. 63). This section effectively demonstrates how Shondaland critically engages with cultural and societal issues and pushes at the boundaries of the contemporary television drama. At the same time, however, these chapters also acknowledge the more conformist post-racial politics evident in these narratives.
This ‘strategic ambiguity’ (Joseph, 2016: 302) is further problematised in the second section. Jade Petermon succinctly summarises this struggle, arguing that Shondaland’s colour-blind casting strategy leads to the ‘hyper(in)visibility’ of people of colour, where ‘black bodies in the neoliberal era are paraded across the visual field, signifying progress and promise, while the humanity of black people is obscured’ (p. 104). Shadee Abdi and Bernadette Marie Calafell develop this further in their analysis of representations of bisexuality on Grey’s Anatomy (2005–present), emphasising the need for intersectional analysis of representations that account for race always to be done in conjunction with analysis of sexuality and gender. Stephanie L Young and Vincent Pham’s explorations of post-racial representations of Asian femininity in Grey’s Anatomy and Myra Washington and Tina M Harris’s analysis of interracial relationships in Scandal (2012–2018) and How to Get Away with Murder (2017–present) argue that ‘Shondaland shows partake in a discursive assemblage that purposely reifies racial normativity’ (p. 159) through the exclusion of dialogue that discusses race and racism. While all four chapters critique Shondaland’s post-racial representational formations, they also chart the evolution of Shondaland’s creative and political vision, highlighting the more explicit discussions of racial politics in the more recent episodes of, for example, Scandal.
How these conversations about race are negotiated is also at the heart of the discussions conducted by Shondaland audiences which are discussed in the final section. It is telling that three out of four chapters here focus on the online audience of Shondaland shows: Shondaland productions often are as much social media events as they are television phenomena, and these chapters untangle the convergence of television and social media persuasively. Mark P Orbe’s analyses fan reactions to the Scandal episode ‘The Lawn Chair’ which, he argues, ‘importantly highlights the persistence of racism and racial inequality while ironically achieving significant crossover success on television by de-emphasizing race’ (p.180) while Melissa Ames’s exploration of fan negotiations of morality in HTGAWM highlights the complex reception of representations by Shondaland audiences. Mary Ingram-Waters and Leslie Balderas investigate the tension between Twitter engagement as exploitation of fan labour and as fan engagement ‘performed in large parts by African American women [and] resulting in a shared fandom space to celebrate, criticize and reimagine Scandal’ (p. 201). Sean Swenson’s autoethnographic account of Shondaland’s medical fictions, framed through the author’s own experience of working in a hospital, offers a thought-provoking and moving engagement with the construction of medical morals on television, not least because within a collection largely concerned with textual meanings and online interactions, it offers a unique methodological perspective.
At times, some cross-referencing between the chapters would have further strengthened conversations in this edited collection. This would have reflected the polysemic nature of Shondaland storytelling, which arguably is one of its greatest pleasures and part of its wide appeal. Nonetheless, the book offers a thorough account of the complex politics of representation in Shondaland and offers important insights for readers in television studies, feminist media studies and critical race studies.