Quote:
Originally Posted by tomia
I realize that Debbie Allen's and Phylicia Rashad's dad was very fair-skinned, and perhaps he was a multigen or maybe even a first gen biracial. However, the most everyone views "Mrs. Huxtable" as black and everyone looks at Bill Cosby as Black.
I think lots of us look at "Mrs. Huxtable" as brown, mulatto, multigenerational mixed looking in appearance. This is related to a side concern for me in the media, of brown/mulatto men being underrepresented in American media compared to brown/mulatto women and dark skinned black men.
When I see someone who looks like Debbie Allen or Phylicia Rashad, I don't think "That looks like a black woman." I think that they look like they could be mixed with black and white like me and lots of other brown mulattos. And when I see a media image of a dark skinned black man and a brown mulatto woman, I don't think "That's an accurate representation of what black people look like, the man is dark and the woman is brown." Instead, I think "why aren't there an equal number of images of brown mulatto women with brown mulatto men?" So, I guess I'm an example of someone who doesn't just look at Bill Cosby and Phylicia Rashad as the phenotypical archetype of a black couple.
Quote:
It's not really like they got Lonette McKee to play the mother, someone who is very obviously mixed and just as ambiguous looking as the two Mulatta daughters.
Well, I think Phylicia Rashad looks just as obvoiusly mixed and ambigious as Lonette McKee and her TV daughters. However, I agree that they don't look to many people like they would be the product of a Phylicia Rashad, Bill Cosby union. More power to families that do look like that though. I'm sure we've all met a few.
Quote:
I do have to give some recognition to my favorite daytime soap opera if I could. The Young and the Restless typically gets biracial actors to portray the children of established characters who are played by biracials. They never have been brave enough to show a first generational interracial family who has a Mulatto child but atleast they cast mixed race people to play the family members of other mixed race people.
Victoria Rowell, the actress who plays Dru Winters:
Dru with her "husband" Neil (played by Kristoff St. John)
Dru with daughter Lily (played by Krystle Khalil)
[/QUOTE
Sounds like The Young and the Restless is doing some good things for biracials. There are a lot of things related to mulattos that I haven't seen yet on tv. Like a show with an adult first generation mulatto son and/or daughter with a living black parent and a living white parent, where the family is not more dysfunctional than the typical tv family. I know that's a very specific request, but I'd like to see it.
