Hello! My research into The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air - a thread!

So I’m taking over Prof Kate Williams’ Twitter today! I finished my Masters by Research in Jan and am due to start my PhD in September. My research has focused upon the cultural and historical significance of 90s Black popular culture, including The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

I decided to focus on Black popular culture because it hosts voices and conversations often neglected by academia. Anirudh Deshpande notes how “historians fetishized documents and ended up writing the history of only 10 percent of the human population.”

As Black voices have long been neglected from academia, in order to find them we often have to look for source material outside of traditionally academic places. With that being said, I am now going to talk about what I will be studying for my PhD, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

I have not started my PhD yet, so this is all from my early research, and I’ll mainly be detailing what I wish to explore further; there will be many gifs! Questions are very welcome, and I’ll be talking about my completed masters research later.

Far from being simply entertainment, the themes the show tackled, and the centering of a Black family, made the show hugely significant. Additionally, the show was based on the life of one of the producers, who moved to stay with wealthy relatives for safety and security.

Let's start with the episode where Will and Carlton are wrongly arrested for car theft. Its significance grows when one considers, the racially motivated attacks by the police, since America's inception, and the growing awareness of police brutality during the 90s.

In a later episode set in court, Uncle Phil tells Jazz he can lower his hands. Jazz replies “Dude's got a gun, next thing you know I got six warning shots in my back” This aired on November 11, 1991: 8 months after Rodney King, a Black taxi driver, was beaten by the LAPD.

Following events such as this, and the related protests, a prime time audience watched a fictionalized version of the same police force wrongly arresting the two beloved Black male leads.

Uncle Phil and (OG) Aunt Viv coming to Will and Carlton's aid, with an impassioned speech about forced confessions and mistreatment in custody, is perhaps my favourite moment from the show, and definitely one of the most significant.

On that note, forced confessions are one of the aspects of police brutality and misconduct that are often left out of conversations, but cases such as that of the Exonerated Five highlight just how damaging they were, and still are.

Another episode sees the Banks family shelter a Black nationalist, who is being investigated by the FBI; making it one of the ways the fraught relationship between the FBI and Black nationalists was brought to a white audience.

Given the FBI's treatment of Black Nationalist groups and leaders, such as the work of COINTELPRO, having this fraught relationship displayed on prime time television, where it is more likely to reach white and middle class viewers, was certainly significant.

Another episode, which will feature in my research, sees Will attempt to get Black history taught at his new predominantly white private school.

This episode is undoubtedly funny, as (OG) Aunt Viv arrives at the school ready to teach a new Black history curriculum. But aside from the laughs it also highlights the whiteness of previous and current curriculum's.

This episode was used to critique how African American history was excluded from the curriculum, and brought this conversation to the large, racially varied, audience. The show was great at hiding these teaching moments, and criticisms of the US racial hierarchy, inside laughs.

Of course we can’t ignore Uncle Phil, played by the late great James Avery. A stunning depiction of a Black father during a decade where mass incarceration of Black men, the racially biased ‘war on drugs’, and the school to prison pipeline was attacking Black fatherhood.

Alongside him, we had Aunt Viv who was a great representation of a Black female character who was entirely human. The writing allowed her to express the full spectrum of human emotions without being shamed or for doing so.

Popular culture has a pattern of placing Black women into clear stereotypes. Aunt Viv was angry, sexual, SMART, emotional, and nurturing without being shamed for any of these traits, and without any of them defining her character.

Aunt Viv was nuanced, lovable, and iconic. Apparently Janet Hubert-Whitten, who played her, was not afforded this same level of care, and the way the character was coded certainly changed (e.g. becoming more passive) after the ever controversial ‘swap’.

Now, Geoffrey! Firstly, what must be noted is that he is a great subversion of the usually offensively written Black housekeeper character, which audiences have often been 'treated' to by popular culture.

Not only because the Banks family are Black and Geoffrey is male, but also because of the agency and control over the plot his character is given.

Geoffrey is a far cry from other Black housekeepers in popular culture, who tend to fall into a vast array of stereotypes and tropes; usually doing nothing more than furthering the plot development, and the narrative arcs of other characters.

Geoffrey on the other hand, does everything from performing poetry to stealing Will's love interests. The fact he is British is also interesting in terms of power dynamics within the Banks household, as a microcosm of wider America. CAANNOONNSS.

The economic discrepancy between Will and his family also showed the audience how class intersected with race in 1990s America. The audience was confronted with the differing opportunities afforded to the two sides of the family.

The 2007 Urban League report into ‘The State of Black America' said that there were “two stories” to tell about Black America and argued that we must not use Black success to disregard the issues still unsolved. The Fresh Prince did a great job of showing both of these “stories.”

Fresh Prince showed Black success, Black love, and Black joy, but also showed the ills of racism that still plague Black Americans. We saw Carlton's carefree dancing....

and we also saw him get a gun after Will was shot.

Despite their money and Bel-Air address, the Banks family could not escape the issue of race. The American racial hierarchy does not care about your zip code, or your country club membership, which is perhaps the most important thing the show taught us.

The mainstream, and racially varied, audience the show gathered, provided a huge platform for highlighting such issues, and the lived experiences of Black Americans. It brought these conversations and problems into homes across the country and globe.

What must also be noted is that the issues the show tackled are still prevalent and in need of deconstructing. The impact of the show can still be felt today in the applicability of episodes to contemporary race relations.

During my PhD I aim to analyse the way The Fresh Prince illustrated these real life experiences, in a sitcom format, and assess whether the reality of these experiences was successfully conveyed. How accurate was the show, and exactly how significant?

Whilst it of course has the problems and limitations of every television show, The Fresh Prince is undoubtedly more than entertainment. It became a symbol of 90s culture and provided a new, and huge, platform for Black grievances and, importantly, for Black joy.

Please fire away with any questions! Oh and I am absolutely sending all your wonderful and supportive tweets to the next funding board that rejects my application ha!

Well this has been an absolute pleasure, thanks for all the support, questions and thanks to my old but faithful laptop for not choosing today to die. But, most importantly thanks to @KateWilliamsme for giving me and the others her platform, a truly wonderful thing to have done.