Reading Benet-Weiser this week unearthed a necessary complexity with my relationship with Nickelodeon. As the safeguard of my childhood, Nick was everything to me. So, while reading Benet-Weiser, I had to reflect on the Black characters I grew up with.
Benet-Weiser comments on Nick's "lucrative" business strategy of championing diversity and girls. It made me want to explore their formula a bit deeper and I realized that most of their Black characters ranging from the mid-1990s to early 2000s are damn near the same person, some of these characters even voiced by the same person (shoutout to the incomprable Cree Summers). They all carry either "urban" sensibilities (Gerald from Hey Arnold) or were the "sassy" smart kid that saved the white kids from ruining themselves (AJ from the Fairly Odd Parents; Susie Carmichael from the Rugrats). Rarely were they explored, although in my opinion, they were more interesting than the white lead characters.
I'm now interested in the formation of Black characters on Cartoon Network, especially as they believe themselves to be the "Diverse Channel" because even to this day, they have yet to have a Black-led animated series, which presents a contradiction to their whole "strategy." This may even serve as a potential paper idea.
I would love to read whatever you come up with if you go down this path! Disney Channel seems to have been doing something of value with shows like The Proud Family and That's So Raven, but I wonder if those are examples of the kind of things Herman Gray was against in the 1980s. Add in Mr. Moesby from Suite Life and Corbin bleu and there seems to be a pattern developing of normalized representation, but it also could be read in the blandly acceptable way Banet-Weiser characterizes Dora.
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