Color by Fox: The Fox Network and the Revolution in Black Television

In the early 1990s--before Party of Five and Ally McBeal--Fox Television carved out its niche by producing and airing black TV shows, beginning with Keenan Ivory Wayans's In Living Color. Network executives had realized that African-American viewers were a huge segment of the total TV audience and jumped to position themselves as ""urban"" and to establish Fox's reputation as a network that was hip and different. Yet, as Zook demonstrates in this engaging but somewhat slight account, which began as a doctoral dissertation, black writers' and producers' efforts to confront race-relevant issues were often stymied by executives who tended to prefer straightforward sitcoms that appealed to both whites and blacks. The result was that even the shows trying the hardest to deal with thorny racial themes on screen--such as Roc, South Central and New York Undercover--were, sooner or later, forced by the network to avoid controversial or unconventional material. Often the shows were canceled outright, or control was given to white producers. Zook also looks beyond Fox to NBC's The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Martin, Living Single and The Sinbad Show, and breaks down the various ways--positive and negative, simplistic and complex--in which race is represented by network TV, revealing how a producer's identity often shapes programming decisions. Zook raises significant issues and writes in an accessible style, but her conclusion, that in the highly corporate business of network TV, ""the possibilities for black authorship are tentative at best,"" is hardly revelatory. Photos not seen by PW. (Mar.)