Ithaca College

Christopher House and Sean Eversley Bradwell publish book chapter on ABC’s political drama Scandal (2012–2018)

Christopher House, Associate Professor, Communication Studies and Sean Eversley Bradwell,  Director, Center for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Social Change, book chapter titled “You’re Nobody’s Victim, Liv,': The Scandal of Black Love and White Hegemony in Scandal” was published in Gladiators in Suits: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Representation in Scandal, an edited volume in the Television and Popular Culture series by Syracuse University Press.

Using Black Twitter as their primary data source, House and Bradwell employ Stuart Hall’s framework of audience reception theory to offer a more complicated explanation of how Scandal is a site of struggle for meaning for Black women and invariably contributes to the show’s success – particularly with Black women. They argue that juxtaposing the reality of a readily available and consumable form of Black love in then President and First Lady Obama, Scandal executive producer Shonda Rhimes may in fact be encouraging Black female viewers to engage in oppositional readings of White hegemony and Black love through Olivia Pope’s (Kerry Washington) romantic relationships with Edison Davis (Norm Lewis), Jake Ballard (Scott Foley), Franklin Russell (Brian White) and Fitzgerald Grant (Tony Goldwyn).

Read more about Gladiators in Suits: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Representation in Scandal here:

http://syracuseuniversitypress.syr.edu/spring-2019/gladiators.html