ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 analyzes three racially conscious dramas created, helmed and written by women of color: Being Mary Jane, Queen Sugar, and Vida. These series produce on-screen and off-screen “safe spaces” where women of color can speak openly about power relations and empower each other to resist it. Being Mary Jane was created by Mara Brock Akil and produced by BET, which targets Black audiences. It features an upper middle class professional Black woman facing institutional aggression with the help of family and community. Queen Sugar was created by Ava DuVernay, produced by the Oprah Winfrey Network, directed exclusively by women, and adapted from a book by a woman. It features a Black middle-class family and community that is impacted by police brutality, mass incarceration, and other legacies of slavery. Vida was created by Tanya Saracho for the Starz network as part of their strategy to target the underserved female demographic on premium cable. The writers and directors are predominantly women or people of color. The series centers around a Mexican-American family and community, as it explores colorism, gentrification’s impact on Latina/o communities, and female sexuality, heteroflexible and queer. This chapter builds on earlier chapters’ consideration of second wave feminism’s limitations by illustrating how racism is inextricably connected to gender, and specifically to the experience of Black and Latina women in American society.
