Help me find a half-remembered movie scene
June 23, 2015 8:47 AM   Subscribe

You guys are good at this: please help! I'm trying to find a half-remembered scene from a movie, probably by Spike Lee, in which African-American kids are excited to see a black person/family on television. I thought it was Crooklyn but I've read the script and I'm not finding the scene I want. Help me!

My hazy memory: It's the seventies, and a bunch of preteen kids are playing (maybe hopscotch) on the street outside their house in New York. One is inside watching TV when a black person comes on. The kid calls the others and they run in excitedly to watch, talking about how they never get to see black people on television. I remember the tone as being kind of sweet and happy. The movie was probably made in the early nineties, and I'm pretty sure the director is African-American. Probably Spike Lee, maybe John Singleton, maaaaybe Mario Van Peebles.
posted by Susan PG to Media & Arts (4 answers total)
 
Skip Gates describes such a scene in his autobiography but it's from earlier than the 70s, Colored People.
"“Colored on Channel 2"
posted by Ideefixe at 8:53 AM on June 23, 2015


This response is half remembered from an article about Bill Cosby's current debacle. The article referenced what I recall was a kids animated program, now I have it, Fat Albert and elaborated about a segment where they, the kids in the program, watched an episode of the Huxtables in amazement about the program. Caveat: This may be a false memory. But in fact the article did reference Fat Albert's program and the issues of black families in TV programming.
posted by Jim_Jam at 9:40 AM on June 23, 2015


Could you be remembering this comment? (Sorry, no movie scene.)
posted by rjs at 9:57 AM on June 23, 2015


Not a movie, but Whoopi Goldberg apparently did this in real life:
"Well, when I was nine years old Star Trek came on," Goldberg says. "I looked at it and I went screaming through the house, 'Come here, mum, everybody, come quick, come quick, there's a black lady on television and she ain't no maid!' I knew right then and there I could be anything I wanted to be."
posted by Metroid Baby at 9:59 AM on June 23, 2015 [4 favorites]


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