ABSTRACT

In contemporary commercial popular culture, race is both ubiquitous and invisible. Racial labels are sprinkled throughout popular culture like markers on a map. Although racial controversy is rampant in American society, there has been little of it evident in recent music, television, film, books, and digital culture. In the 1980s and 1990s rap and hip-hop were major sources of controversy, resulting in multiple hearings in the US Congress. Gil Scott-Heron recorded his poetry and set it to music, rather than committing it to the page. "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"— which is easy to find on YouTube and other sources— is a powerful political song that speaks specifically about a racial revolution. A different kind of racial analysis of film audiences is Matthew Hughey's 2010 study of reviewer responses to the 2007 film Freedom Writers. The misrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities goes hand-in-hand with the misrepresentation of whites.