Race on the Show Community

One of my favorite television shows to date is Community. It features laugh-out-loud humor, and plot lines that step outside of the box, while still managing to balance the line between comedy and insanity. It's charming, well-made, and entertaining. It also features people from all different backgrounds regarding religion, race, gender, age, etc. This works extremely well given the setting being a community college. Community deliberately uses stereotypes to point out flaws in the way we view certain groups of people.

First let's take a look at Shirley. She is portrayed as the stereotypical big black woman (similar to the "Mammy" character, very happy, loyal, and not seen as a typically "sexy" character). She is very Christian, motherly, and is a great example of the "sassy black woman" stereotype we see so much in modern media. But what Community does, is they take her character, and they use it to point out the way we view these types of characters. For example, in one of their Halloween episodes, Shirley dresses up as Glinda the Good Witch. But her friends, as well as the other people at the party, all assume that she is dressed as Miss Piggy. For a woman with her size and demeanor, people automatically jumped to that conclusion, and it caused her to feel genuinely upset. The show deliberately pointed out the way Shirley is stereotyped.

Senior Chang when first introduced, gives a long (and somewhat insane) speech about the fact that he always gets asked why he of all people teaches Spanish, as seen below;

"Every once in a while, a student will come up to me and ask, 'Señor Chang, why do you teach Spanish?' They say it just like that. 'Why do *you* teach Spanish? Why you? Why not math? Why not photography? Why not martial arts?' I mean, surely, it must be in my nature to instruct you in something that's ancient and secret, like, oh, building a wall that you can see from outer space! Well, I'll tell you why I teach Spanish. It is none of your business, okay?"

Now look at Troy. We see a black, tough guy football player. Stupid, self-centered, and basically what you'd assume him to be like. Yet when Troy comes into the study group, it becomes clear that he not only has a nerdy side, but he is kind, well meaning, and (surprise!) actually has a personality outside of football. He becomes best friends with Abed, a very nerdy, quirky guy, and they spend a lot of their free time doing random dorky things and watching "Inspector Spacetime".

This goes for pretty much every single character on the show. They all come from different backgrounds, and they all both embody and debunk the stereotype surrounding them, which isn't an easy feat to do. You can be a Christian woman and still get drunk at bars and have low moments. You can have a romance with the main character (Jeff) and still be your own person. You can be black, asian, biracial, while still being your own person. The list goes on and on. It's so nice to see a show that can point out the flaws in stereotyping groups of people, while not shaming those who DO fit the stereotype. It's a wonderful breath of fresh air to have outlandish crazy storylines and characters, while still accurately portraying race. It's not seen often, and it's not always done right. But when it is, it is so utterly worth it.