For the majority of its history, from Newton Minow’s “vast wasteland,” to the anti-TV activist groups who believed the medium to be a public health concern akin to illegal drug use, television has been labeled a low cultural form. As television entered the post-network era in the late 1990s, this began to change. Today, some critics assert that the cultural significance of televised serial drama has surpassed that of Hollywood films (see Epstein, O’Hehir, Polone, Wolcott). Such assertions are supported by the increasing cultural legitimacy (see Newman and Levine) associated with prime time cable shows like The Sopranos (1999-2007), The Wire (2002-2008), Mad Men (2007-), and Breaking Bad (2008-2013), which “advance a particular moral view of the universe and operate in the Dickensian tradition of morality tales and social critiques dressed in the guise of realism” (Kuo and Wu n. pag.). Nonetheless, by failing to account for the distinct economic realities of broadcast networks, advertiser-supported as well subscriber-supported cable channels, these broad comparisons fail to address the ways in which differing contexts of production are reflected on a textual level (Lotz 87).
This essay explores the correlation of such distinctions by examining the degree to which prime time dramas, produced
by subscriber-supported and advertiser-supported cable networks, challenge the racial ideologies of white Americans. Following the civil rights movement and its backlash, the dominant racial ideology in America has become “colourblind” through assertions of essential sameness between racial and ethnic groups despite unequal social locations and distinctive histories (see Frankenberg). As a consequence, racial inequality is explained as “the outcome of nonracial dynamics” by whites that rationalize minorities’ status as “the product of market dynamics, naturally occurring phenomena, and blacks’ imputed cultural limitations” (Bonilla-Silva 2). In the context of this colourblind ideology, racism becomes othered. Furthermore, as Nancy DiTomaso notes, whites frequently “attribute the problems of racial inequality to ‘those racists’ (often defined in terms of prejudiced people who are still holding on to hostility toward blacks and other nonwhites) . . . They do not see themselves as racist or prejudiced people” (7). Yet, as I argue below, the HBO dramas The Sopranos and The Wire challenge this ideology with depictions of morally ambiguous main characters that display overt racial prejudice. In contrast, the FX dramas The Shield (2002-2008), Sons of Anarchy (2008-), and Justified (2010-) support colourblind racial ideology by positioning morally ambiguous characters as superior to and victorious over racist others.