The AP and CNN Get 'The Huxtable Effect' All Wrong

Posted by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, Brave New Films at 1:30 PM on November 13, 2008.

Sigh. The good thing about having a blog is that you have a blog. The bad thing about having a blog is that news reporters can take your theories and mangle them all to hell and publish it all over the world.

Today, the Associated Press had a piece crediting me with something I never did. They claim I have a theory that The Cosby Show is why Obama was elected.

What I actually posited was much more complex than that. I said that the social norms of a population are generally formed through its popular culture.

I also said that many social scientists agree that political movements of sweeping scope must be rooted in prior cultural movements, in order to prime the public for the change. Most notably this theory was put forth by Harold Cruse in his book The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual.

Cruse points out that the Civil Rights Movement in the US needed the Harlem Renaissance in literature, art and music to prime the next generation to truly believe themselves capable of producing the political change they sought was possible. The one helps the other.

This pattern of political change echoing cultural change happens across the world, in every culture. It adheres to the concept in social sciences that in order for the status quo to actually change in a society, many sectors of the public must coalesce around that change.

Popular culture and entertainment tend to be the most effective tools for changing public perception. (Sorry news media!)

The US government knows this; that is why it has, over the years, spent billions on covert propaganda, such as the "good neighbor" Hollywood films starring Carmen Miranda, coming at a time when our nation sought to make inroads in Latin America.

There are endless examples of this, and they continue to this day. I am a TV writer, and in my circle it is well-known that the networks were all waiting until the elections to decide which shows that were in development would be put into production.

The independence movements in Latin America are beautiful examples of poetry preceding politics, with poets and musicians often leading the way to a new sense of national identity through their work. It is no mistake that in much of Latin America the revolutionaries have also been poets or singers. No mistake that when Pinochet rounded up those most dangerous to his regime, it was the artists and writers he killed first.

It is only in America that we pretend the arts and culture are separate from politics, evidenced clearly in the AP's profound misinterpretation of my words today, and in the supposedly unbiased article's dismissive last line, aka "kicker."

By having Cosby himself joke about the Bart Simpson voter, the AP not only did not understand the nuance of what I had put forth (or the fact that it is not ME saying it, but the discipline of sociology), they managed to make what they thought was my point (but was not) look idiotic. By going to Cosby himself and saying "are you responsible for Obama?" the AP not only misses the point that both men are part of greater movements, they neuter the thesis.

Ironically, the AP has taken a stark, datedly individualistic approach to this piece (one man's work begets the next?) rather than the community approach that both movements in question present.

This is disappointing, but not surprising. The news media have, throughout American history, been woefully behind the ball on these issues. If you want to know the truth of a time, I say, look to its popular culture - to it's novels and movies. If you want to know the myths of a time, look to its "objective news."

What I actually said: I believe Cosby was part of a massive movement in US pop culture, begun in the mid-1980s, that elevated the mainstream image of African Americans in TV, movies, music and literature. This movement included talk show host Oprah Winfrey, singer Whitney Houston, the entire mainstream hip-hop and rap movement, Denzel Washington, Will Smith, and many others; and it continues today. (It even, for better of worse, included the Carlton dance.)

That a generation grew up with these images as the norm contributes greatly to that generation's ability to see other African Americans as not only being part of their daily lives and "just like us," but as being smart, capable leaders. The cultural movement went a long way toward chipping away at the racist attitudes of the past.

It would be absurd and stupid for anyone to say Bill Cosby's show alone was the reason for Obama's presidency. The only person I have heard say that is Karl Rove -- him and the Associated Press, which, we should remember, is not a person.

For my part, I have said that Obama is one part of a political movement made possible in part by a massive cultural movement begun in the mid 1980s. It takes a village to raise a president.

The NY Times also sort of mangled my ideas when they tried to run with it last week (the AP then likely copying them). Both the Times and the AP -- and, I am now told my a friend, CNN -- have grossly over-simplified what I wrote.

But then, that's what corporate media do all too well: oversimplify complicated issues. The result, in this case, is to make the argument look stupid.

Both the Times and the AP missed what I thought was the most important point of my argument: most other oppressed minority groups in America have not had the type of pop culture movement needed to prime the population to accept their equality at a political level.

In particular, Latinos have had essentially no dignified presence in pop culture and, in fact, we face a staggering rise in hate crimes against us at this time in history due to the scapegoating and nativist fearmongering that, sadly, almost always accompanies an economic downturn in any society.

It is therefore dangerous for the AP, Times and other media to proclaim Obama's presidency the sign that "race" is over in America.

For many of us, the "race" has just begun.

Tagged as: black, cnn, barack obama, ap, african-americans, bill cosby, the huxtable effect, cosby show