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Start Date
23-6-2022 12:00 AM
End Date
23-6-2022 12:00 AM
Abstract
According to film scholar James Naremore, one of the central questions regarding adaptation remains: Why this text now? What is it about a particular text that makes it appealing to the capitalist entertainment industry in that socio-historical moment (Film Adaptation 11)? This project is interested in why CBS choose to remake / reboot / adapt The Equalizer with Queen Latifah as Robyn McCall following a year of protests against state-sanctioned racial violence. Using Black Feminist Theory and Nancy Fraser’s concept of progressive neoliberalism this paper analyzes the reboot as a tool to de-radicalize Black and feminist politics. I argue that the network effectively harnesses progressive neoliberalism by marketing the series as an engagement with social justice by utilizing the trope of the mythic Black Superwoman. The reboot’s backwards, nostalgic glance works with progressive neoliberalism’s symbolic justice to reinvest the viewer’s commitment to the established socio-political order. Through the use of the race and gender swap, CBS manages to retain their core audience while simultaneously reinventing, or, rebranding, itself to a Black and female audience. The figure of the Black female lead, functioning as a symbolic sign of racial progress, is used as a response to the demands for change within the entertainment industry. While the cast and storylines may differ, the show’s ideological messages remain the same. The series communicates a commitment to middle class values of respectability and neoliberal concepts of personal responsibility, effectively distracting viewers from the radical calls for a drastic change to our current social order.
The Black Superwoman and Neoliberal ‘Justice’: De-Radicalizing Black Feminist Politics on the CBS Television Reboot of The Equalizer
According to film scholar James Naremore, one of the central questions regarding adaptation remains: Why this text now? What is it about a particular text that makes it appealing to the capitalist entertainment industry in that socio-historical moment (Film Adaptation 11)? This project is interested in why CBS choose to remake / reboot / adapt The Equalizer with Queen Latifah as Robyn McCall following a year of protests against state-sanctioned racial violence. Using Black Feminist Theory and Nancy Fraser’s concept of progressive neoliberalism this paper analyzes the reboot as a tool to de-radicalize Black and feminist politics. I argue that the network effectively harnesses progressive neoliberalism by marketing the series as an engagement with social justice by utilizing the trope of the mythic Black Superwoman. The reboot’s backwards, nostalgic glance works with progressive neoliberalism’s symbolic justice to reinvest the viewer’s commitment to the established socio-political order. Through the use of the race and gender swap, CBS manages to retain their core audience while simultaneously reinventing, or, rebranding, itself to a Black and female audience. The figure of the Black female lead, functioning as a symbolic sign of racial progress, is used as a response to the demands for change within the entertainment industry. While the cast and storylines may differ, the show’s ideological messages remain the same. The series communicates a commitment to middle class values of respectability and neoliberal concepts of personal responsibility, effectively distracting viewers from the radical calls for a drastic change to our current social order.
Bio
Melissa Clairjeune is a third-year PhD student in Literature, Media, & Culture at Florida State University. She specializes in African American Literary & Cultural Studies, Black Feminist Theory, Black Diasporic women's narratives, and Television Studies. She has earned a BA in English and Africana Studies as well as an MA in English from Brooklyn College (CUNY). She is also a recipient of the McKnight Doctoral Fellowship.