African American Women in the Oprah Winfrey Network's Queen Sugar Drama

Exemplary Representations of African American Women on Television: Queen Sugar On Screen and Behind the Scenes argues that the Oprah Winfrey Networks program Queen Sugar is a significant contribution to mainstream media that creates a space for deeper conversations concerning Black/African American womens social roles, social class, and social change. Ollie Jefferson provides a unique analysis of the television drama by using the exemplary representations conceptual framework, which is designed to define exemplars represented as characters that illustrate the complex humanity of Black livesin this case, multidimensional female characters. Jefferson highlights the best practices used by female African American producers Oprah Winfrey and Ava DuVernay, using Queen Sugar as a case study that broadens understanding of the media industrys need for culturally sensitive and conscious inclusion of people of color behind the scenesas media owners, creators, writers, directors, and producersto put an end to the persistent and pervasive misrepresentations of African American women on camera. Scholars of television studies, media studies, womens studies, and race studies will find this book particularly useful.