February is Black History Month, so I made a list of must-see movies by Black filmmakers for the students in my African American Studies course. Rather than focusing on films that are frequently mentioned in lists like these, such as Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing or Jordan Peele’s Get Out, or well-watched classics from the 1990s, such as Forest Whitaker’s Waiting to Exhale or F. Gary Gray’s Friday, I wanted to highlight lesser-known movies that deserve more attention than they usually get in mainstream media.
Read moreExplaining the Seventies Malaise through “F Is for Family”
F Is for Family follows the Murpheys, a fictional working-class suburban family based loosely off the life of comedian Bill Burr. While the setting and the characters on the show are fictional, they represent actual historical moments, distinguishing the show as unique for its kind by depicting the tangible struggles and sensibilities of the 1970s. Since the Seventies have often been remembered as an uneventful decade, TV shows such as F Is for Family helps to correct the historical memory of this tumultuous decade through the accessible medium of popular culture.
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