Mapping Mammy 2.0: Insecure and the Middle-Class Black Woman's Burden

ABSTRACT

This article engages in an oppositional reading of the current HBO series Insecure to determine whether the emergence of Black women as creators and executive producers of dominant, cultural productions disrupts representations of Black women who historically have been portrayed as exotic primitives. Black feminist thought, specifically bell hook's critical Black female spectatorship, is the theoretical framework used to examine the series' portrayal of the dynamic between the middle-class character Molly and her co-worker Rasheeda. The textual analysis shows that Insecure imitates classic, Hollywood filmic practices such as constructing a cinematic binary in which White signifies middle-class civility and Black represents underclass dysfunction. Further, Insecure recreates a White savior narrative using Black women actors, producing a middle-class, Black woman's burden. In the end, Insecure reproduces racist-sexist and classist ideologies that legitimate Black women's oppression, although a Black woman oversees creative processes.

KEYWORDS:

• Black feminism
• Whiteness
• White savior
• popular culture