African America Sitcoms Today

My question builds off Calvin’s.

Below is the abstract of a (rather lengthy) article that can be found at: http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/0/9/2/3/9/p92390_index.html

“This paper examines two black situation comedies (Good Times and My Wife and Kids) in order to determine how portrayals of the African American family have changed in the past thirty years. A content analysis shows that the family on Good Times was friendlier and more supportive of each other than the family on My Wife and Kids. In contrast, the My Wife and Kids family was significantly more likely to show tension and be unfriendly towards each other. In addition, the earlier family representations were more mother-focused, with all family members being equally represented; the later representations were more father-focused, with the husband and wife as the source of most interactions. These results support the notion that transformations in the portrayals of African Americans may have led to these changes in family dynamics, as blacks are no longer presented as “fighting to survive” but as experiencing “universal” trials that plague every American household.”

I would like to discuss how appropriately today’s “black sitcoms” represent African Americans. Do they present images and stories that relate to people’s real life experiences? Or are they perpetuating stereotypes about the African American community? Who is creating these shows and the characters they present? Who is watching them? Are they really presenting more “‘universal’ trials” and stories? Or do they try to present “African American” stories and families? Is one representation better than the other?