Date of Award
Summer 8-1-2021
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School
Communication
Committee Chair
Dr. Cheryl Jenkins
Committee Chair School
Communication
Committee Member 2
Dr. Loren Saxton Coleman
Committee Member 2 School
Communication
Committee Member 3
Dr. Christopher Campbell
Committee Member 3 School
Communication
Committee Member 4
Dr. Fei Xue
Committee Member 4 School
Communication
Committee Member 5
Dr. Vanessa Murphree
Committee Member 5 School
Communication
Abstract
This dissertation investigates the politics of re-presentation of the two Black leading characters in Shonda Rhimes’s televised series, Scandal (Olivia Pope) and How to Get Away with Murder (Annalise Keating). This textual analysis explores how the characters are re-represented as leaders at the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality using Kimberlé Crenshaw’s (1989) theory of intersectionality. This study also imposes Patricia Hill Collins’s (2005) matrix of domination to explicate how the hegemonic structure of the concrete ceiling conditions their identities and exertion of power in the workplace. To do this, the researcher investigated cultural workplace expectations tied to notions about Black women, the ways white culture is levied in the workplace.
Their re-presentations as leaders can be summed according to four themes: highly competent, Supermammy, modern-day sapphire, and the loveless Black boss. Each trope articulated a performance of Black women affirming identities in heteronormative spaces. The concrete ceiling was depicted as a culture that affirmed the workplace as a matrix of domination. This analysis also revealed that in the culture of the concrete class ceiling, competency is an intersectional notion for Black women, containing both an emotional and cultural power dynamic.
This analysis found that particular variances in the characters’ social, cultural, and political experiences demonstrated how Black women’s workplace experiences are intersectionality different and concludes that the shows reinforce a post-racial narrative about Black women’s experiences in the workforce.
ORCID ID
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4655-0871
Copyright
Jessica Frenshea Love, 2021
Recommended Citation
Love, Jessica, ""Ain’t I A Woman?”: The Intersectional Representation Of Black Women Professional Leaders above the Concrete Ceiling In Scandal And How to Get Away with Murder" (2021). Dissertations. 1921.
https://aquila.usm.edu/dissertations/1921
Included in
Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication Commons, Mass Communication Commons