can Americans. During the eighties it seemed as though African Americans had gotten past the point of there being blaxploitation on television. With shows like, The Cosby Show and A Different World African Americans were portrayed in a way, which was never shown on television before. They were portrayed in a way in which Caucasians were usually portrayed on television, as upper class and intelligent. For some reason these types of shows did not last very long. During the 90s began a trend of African Americans once again being portrayed in and buffoonish and unintelligent light. With shows like The Wayans Brothers and Martin African Americans were once again shown as being able to be funny, but not being able to be serious. These sitcoms show African American males in particular in a buffoonish way. In both shows they do not seem to have any serious careers or goals in life. In Martin the character Martin is a disk jockey who does not seem very successful in his career because he is always aggravating his boss by acting foolish. In The Wayans Brothers, Sean is an amateur actor who goes to an audition for a job and gets high before he is about to audition. In predominately Caucasian sitcoms, like Frasier or Veronicas Closet, viewers will not see this type of portrayal. In Frasier, the character Frasier plays a psychologist and his brother plays a doctor. In Veronicas Closet, everyone works at a successful designing agency. When viewers turn on the WB and the UPN network they see these types of degrading African American shows. There are blocks of African American shows on Fridays and Mondays. The television companies do not even try mixing these shows with the Caucasian sitcoms. They bunch them all together, making it seem like these are the only types of shows African Americans are capable of producing. White producers are the majority behind the scenes and it seems as though they think African Americans are not good en...
