Black Female Representation in American Popular Culture

When discussing contemporary strong Black female actresses, it's hard not to mention Kerry Washington.  From starring in the controversial Quentin Tarantino film, Django Unchained, to holding the prime time spotlight every Thursday night as Olivia Pope on ABC's Scandal, Washington has made a name for herself in these past few years.  Although Washington appeared in other mainstream works prior to the success of the nighttime soap opera, her role as a strong and independent, yet hypersexualized woman plays into and fights black female stereotypes.  It is a common practice in mainstream American society of over-sexualize women, in general, but mostly women of color and Hispanic-descent.  Scandal creator Shonda Rhimes constructed the character Olivia Pope to be strong and a very powerful political figure, but also has her play into this hypersexualized stereotype, as being the mistress to the President of United States.  I find it interesting that Rhimes has brought powerful female characters into the mainstream of American popular culture, promoting interracial relationships (although scandalous in more ways than one), yet still does not allow for Washington's character to gain her power on her own.  For example, in one of the episodes this past fall, they discussed Pope's former extremely powerful boyfriends, each with money and political fame who helped Pope achieve her own political success throughout the character's life.  I find it unfortunate that Rhimes wrote the character this way to depict such a strong woman who still, presumably, cannot make her own political career without the help of powerful men.  Whether Shonda did this intentionally in hopes of creating or more realistic or perhaps flawed character, I don't know.  But the feminist in me was not too pleased.  Reid's chapter discusses both Whoopi Goldberg's characters on interracial relationships and the hypersexualized black female characters in film.