She's a Queen and a Boss: Examining the Representation of Empire's Cookie Lyon from a Black Feminist Perspective
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Authors
Gary, Danyelle C.
Issue Date
2018-07
Type
Thesis
Language
en_US
Keywords
Academic theses , Communication Arts , Feminism , Feminism on television , Empire (Television program) , African American women , Stereotypes (Social psychology) in mass media
Alternative Title
Abstract
This research uses a black feminist perspective to examine the portrayal of Cookie Lyon on Fox’s popular primetime series, Empire. Through a textual analysis of the first three seasons, this study suggests that the Cookie Lyon character defines new representation of black womanhood that empowers and disempowers black women in contemporary society. Five key representations were discovered: the Queen Mother, the Self-sacrificing Savior, the Second-best Love Interest, the Boss, and the Street Outsider. Cookie’s depiction as a supportive mother and a powerful, creative woman empowers black women. However, the character and the character’s storyline encourages defining women according to black manhood, the abandonment of self-care, colorism, the attainment of power through manipulation, and respectability politics. Thus, the depiction of Cookie Lyon also disempowers black woman. Such television depictions contribute to the establishment and understanding of self-perception among black women and offers a lens through which others perceive black women in American pop culture.
Keywords: black feminism, stereotypes, Empire, Cookie Lyon, black women
Description
Citation
Gary, Danyelle. "She's a Queen and a Boss: Examining the Representation of Empire's Cookie Lyon from a Black Feminist Perspective," Master's thesis. Valdosta State University, July 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/10428/3160 [2018].
Publisher
License
This dissertation is protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States (Public Law 94-553, revised in 1976). Consistent with fair use as defined in the Copyright Laws, brief quotations from this material are allowed with proper acknowledgement. Use of the materials for financial gain with the author's expressed written permissions is not allowed.