Talk Show Mammies?

by Esther Iverem
SeeingBlack.com Editor

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During one day in August 2001, I saw the premiere of Iyanla Vanzant's new talk show, followed by Queen Latifah's talk show and, of course, in the afternoon, "Oprah." There were also the co-hosts, Star Jones on "The View" and Bo Griffin on "Mars and Venus." In September, another Black woman, Ananda Lewis, from MTV fame, debuted her self-titled, syndicated show. Taken as a whole, and added to the revolving crop of Black TV judges — Judge Joe Brown, Judge Mathis, "Divorce Court," "Curtis Court" etc. — there is certainly no shortage of daytime Black presence on broadcast television. Author Michael Baisden also launched his talk show this fall.

But beyond the realm of individual opportunity, what does all this on camera melanin mean? First, it does not equal a safe space for the articulation of Black "talk." Decades of "Oprah" and years of Lewis on MTV certainly have shown that a Black host does not equal a "Black" show. Rather, these women become vehicles for conveying a staid brand of women's programming aimed at White Middle America -- interviews with movie stars or Jerry Springeresque tackiness. Also, more and more, talk shows present "expert" authors on individual or relationship misery. So, more and more, the Black woman sitting in the host seat begins to look a lot like mammy.

In this media burlesque of television therapy, assorted couples or individuals take the stage to confess their dysfunction or inadequacy, while the camera pans to the Black host — caring, uttering words of comfort and, sometimes, hefty in size. With a quick change of wardrobe, add an apron and a rag on the head, and it is not hard to imagine mammy — and yet, this perception is complex and, in many ways, unfair.

I believe that if the audience, both in the studio and in the perceived viewership was Black, the host would be a big sister, mama, aunt, grandma or girlfriend. We have been mammies in connection with caring for White people — cooking their food, cleaning their house, washing their dirty clothes, even nursing and raising their children. So it is not outrageous for the conscious Black viewer to be rattled by the TV mammy's new calling to heal White people and, perhaps, give them some soul. I think that the context creates the appearance of a mammy more than anything that the host does. Maybe if the Irish indentured servant was a national icon and historical servant to us all, Rosie O'Donnell would be in a similar boat.

Many of us are unprepared for something we consider a "Black" thing, a safe place to heal ourselves from the ravages of the White world, to be suddenly transformed and taken away into the unforgiving mainstream. Yet, this is what has been happening since the first "crossover" musical act. Global media and celebrity culture seek the widest audience possible. So just as defunct late-night shows like VIBE and Keenan Ivory Wayans did, or just as the UPN and WB networks did, these talk shows-with-black-hosts bank on support from a Black "core" audience, then seek to go as wide as possible. When the transition occurs, sometimes the Black audience feels used and discarded, but, most of all, we suddenly find ourselves minus one voice and space that we thought was ours. Our mama-aunt-grandma-girlfriend done left the building.

In this context, "Iyanla" is an interesting case. Because she has been steeped so long in the spiritual life and good graces of the Black community, it is easier — even while seeing her in the surreal TV host box — to envision her as our wise mama and not their mammy.

Yet this version of a Yoruba priestess, hair-weaved and permed, outfitted and airbrushed for mass consumption, is really fascinating. But it is "disappointing" for Black women like my friend Kimberly. At one time, Kimberly was a regular follower of Vanzant in a group of Black women who regularly met for a sister's circle in the Washington, D.C.-Maryland area.

When she looked at Vanzant's premiere week, with mostly White women in the audience and Whites as guests, she felt the same way she felt one day, when she showed up at the sister's circle, and there were White women there. While she agreed intellectually with the explanation by Vanzant's handlers — that the White women were our sisters too and that they too needed healing — she still left, disgusted that her refuge was taken away. There was no doubt in her mind that the group's conversation would change, that the circle would no longer be a healing from her pain, which was caused often by White women in the first place.

The same we-are-the-world sensibility is evident on Queen Latifah's show I saw that day. It focused on four rather dysfunctional relationships where the men are either mad jealous, mad possessive and, in general, mad crazy. One man said point-blank that his wife was his "property." Sometimes you wonder where they get these talk show guests. Is this an act? Do they just want to be on TV? On the plus side, by the end of that week, Latifah dealt with the serious issue of shortcomings within the criminal justice system.

Latifah, wearing a pantsuit, handles them all like a big sister who just might kick their ass. If she is anybody's mammy, she is a new-styled hip-hop variety who might give you a beat-down. The show also reminds me how angry I am that the entertainment-industrial complex has taken away Latifah from me as an artist (substituting Foxy Brown, Lil' Kim and Eve!). It has left me with only Latifah as a talk show host, which is far down on the totem pole of artistry. We need her art again, and we need her voice.

Only recently did I have the chance to see the Ananda Lewis show, which like the others, has become even more crucial as a place for therapy after the terrorist attacks in September. This show was billed as a discussion about racial attitudes but it was one of those skewed, damaging, one-sided affairs that are best not done at all rather than further twist the already emotionally fraught subject of race. As usual with these type of talk show race discussions, the interviews and discussions are designed to proceed without any historical or current context about White privilege or racism — internalized, institutional or cultural. Everything is reduced to emotion and personal proclivity, using the most extreme examples that can be found.

The show started with a Black man who had fathered two girls with a White woman yet did not want his daughters to date White men. His feelings set the tone early. This would be a show that would reveal and mock serious contradictions within the Black community yet not give the community any historical footing for its pain or pathology.

The next set of interviews focused on two mixed-race teenagers who disliked the fact that their 11-year-old sister "acted White." The younger mixed-race sister did not associate with Black girls, disparaged Black people and openly identified herself as White. Yet much of the questioning from the host did not focus the young girl's obvious self-hatred. Rather, it chastised the two older girls for their concern. It did not explore the fact that the teens were angry with their sister for choosing to identify with a culture that they recognized as hostile to their identities as young Black women.

When I catch the tail end of "Oprah" on my day of watching talk shows, a youthful White couple with two little boys is trying to cure what ails their relationship. They have been on the show before and received advice from the ever-present and arch Doctor Phil. This time around, there is a lengthy segment about how the wife has learned to get out and play driveway hockey with her husband and the boys. It is all quite warm, nicely shot, maybe it is the best that daytime TV has to offer. As a divorced single mother, I identify with the loneliness the wife felt in her marriage. I cheer at the path the couple has found to healing. But, in the end, this is another story about some White person's humanity. The video ends and there is a shot of Oprah, welcoming us back after the commercial.

And the audience applauds.

Copyright © 2001, Esther Iverem and SeeingBlack.com

— January 7, 2004

© Copyright 2001-05 Seeing Black, Inc. All Rights Reserved.