Friday, June 8, 2012

Great TV Shows Starring Black Women

I will try to minimize putting spoilers in this post :) 
Recently I have seen a few fantastic television shows starring Black women! I like to see women who look like me in the media especially if they appear very feminine, elegant, desirable, and non-stereotypical. When I watch these shows I almost feel like I am the characters...but then again I feel like the main character most of the time anyway. Now that so many shows are available over the internet it is possible to watch past and current shows including international ones at our leisure! I watch almost everything online and it's wonderful! The shows I'll mention below include a high profile lawyer, a young woman on probation, a ghost, a maid servant/Queen, and police officers, who are all involved in romantic relationships at some point, in multicultural casts, on popular shows!

Of course everyone already knows about Scandal that I adore! Scandal depicts the life of Washington "Fixer" Olivia Pope (played by Kerry Washington) and her band of lawyers who "fix" (handle and resolve) scandals involving influential people. Each episode is about a different scandal including one involving Olivia and her romantic relationship with the current, married, President Fitzgerald (revealed in the first episode anyway)! Yes, Olivia Pope is the lead character and the desired woman :) Those scenes between her and Fitz are so intense and hot it's really shocking the effect they have on me! I think the plot and the acting are fantastic and I have a new found love for Kerry Washington who is definitely an EBW if you have noticed on my Tumblr site! The first season was only seven episodes but it is coming back for another season and I can't wait! This has been the best show I have watched so far this year. The show is produced by Shonda Rhimes the same mind behind Grey's Anatomy (starring Chandra Wilson as Miranda Bailey), and Private Practice (formerly starring Audra McDonald a fabulous EBW).



I am a big fan of fantasy shows and one of my favorites has to be the UK show Misfits. The show is about a group of young people on probation who develop super powers after a freak storm (happens in first episode). One of the stars is Antonia Thomas and she is actually highly desired by men on the show and has romantic relationships. In fact, she was in one of the most romantic and dreamy love scenes I've ever seen on television! In that relationship I was just dying and wishing I was her! The show has really funny dialogue and actually a lot of swearing and raunchy humor but very entertaining. Apparently swearing is allowed on UK cable and I think some Canadian shows allow it too. I thoroughly enjoyed the first three seasons and the show has ended after four seasons :)




I am also a fan of any show about supernatural things and if you are like me you will love Being Human. This is a UK show but there is also an American version. The show is about a vampire, werewolf, and ghost who are roommates and their coping with being supernatural in a human-run world. It stars Lenora Crichlow as the ghost. There is a bit of romance for the ghost but really not much unfortunately. I found the show to be very interesting, quirky, and unique and very moving sometimes. I'm not sure if it is coming back for a fourth season.




Recently I have also thoroughly enjoyed watching The Adventures of Merlin another UK show. I LOVED this show because it had all the things I like including monsters, magic, adventures, great fight scenes, chivalry, romance, comedy, and drama....really the perfect type of show for me. The show is about a young Merlin who you probably know as the great wizard of Camelot and ally of King Arthur who is still Prince Arthur at the beginning of the show. As you also probably know King Arthur eventually marries Guinevere (played by Angel Coulby) who was actually a maid servant on the show! Amazingly Guinevere is played by a Black woman and is seen as THE ONLY female character who is of romantic interest to any of the attractive men on the show. What I find amazing is that we get to see a Black woman in the role of someone (although a maid servant) who displays such elegance, femininity, and ladylike behaviour. She is seen as highly desirable and beautiful by everyone and we all know she eventually becomes Queen! The show is coming back for a fifth season :)

I have also just started watching Rookie Blue, a show filmed in Canada starring Enuka Okuma and Melanie Nicholls-King. So far I'm liking the show because of the adorable rookies learning what it is really like to be cops and the romantic relationship drama that is brewing. I don't know if I like the fact that Enuka Okuma seems to be playing an unwed mother with a history of being promiscuous and violent from "the hood" but I'll give it a chance because at least she doesn't look or speak in a stereotypical manner. I suppose her character could have actually been cast as any race and based on the first two episodes no character is without flaws. In the future I will also watch Eureka starring Sally Richardson because I love sci-fi.
EDIT: After watching the first season of Rookie Blue I do love it! Enuka's character never actually acts hard or any different from the lead character (actually the blonde rookie is the one with the nasty attitude lol). Melanie's character is kind of hard at times but then again she is the only non-rookie female on the show and she is playing a cop after all. So my verdict on the show is positive!


Do you know what's interesting...in every single show I have mentioned ALL of the women have at least one interracial relationship and some are only in interracial relationships! All the UK shows had women with natural hair too. None of these shows are "Black shows" where most of the cast is Black and I don't recall Scandal, Misfits, Being Human, Merlin, Grey's Anatomy, or Private Practice ever even discussing race. I think that made the shows so enjoyable for me because there was no race burden, people were just people, and the plots were focused on more exciting things. I want to see more shows like this please!

2 comments:

  1. Just a note about Misfits, it is not a 'cable' programme, it is actually on Channel 4 but is aired on digital channel E4 first, which is not a Pay service. British television allows swearing after the "watershed" which is a standard time of 9pm. The watershed also allows more explicit violence and sexuality.

    ReplyDelete
  2. i love your article,i am all for black women,i am for who they really are, elegant,down to earth,respectful,educated to mention just a few,oh not forgetting beautiful,natural beauty that's who we are we stand for the truth for what we are ,yes we are black and that's because we have a little bit of more melanin than the others,but we do not represent black we do not represent the outside colour we represent what's inside kindness,willingness to share,helpful, friendly,we represent being human and unity and love and family unity that's who we are and we will always be like that..we do not look back to where we came from we do not look at how poor our background is or was we are focused we look forward e are the black women of the future and we are the black women of today successful.WE fear God and we respect not only other people but we respect ourselves...AND THIS IS WHO WE ARE WE ARE BLACK.
    Bold and Beautiful
    Lovely
    Affable
    Charismatic
    Keen

    ReplyDelete