“In Double Negative Racquel J. Gates places us in front of image after black image that folks concerned with the 'positive' representation of the race have tried, unsuccessfully, to repress. In the process, this willfully disobedient book challenges us to look at ourselves, as readers—the aesthetic judgments, political assumptions, old anxieties, and surprising pleasures that animate our encounters with blackness onscreen.” - Jacqueline Najuma Stewart, author of Migrating to the Movies: Cinema and Black Urban Modernity
“An amazing and much needed critical intervention, Double Negative interrogates the ways in which respectability politics are imbricated in discussions of black representation. By questioning how media representations are deemed negative, Racquel J. Gates explodes the idea of privileging ‘good’ texts over less desirable ones. She contests the notion that negative texts are bad objects and guilty pleasures on every front, allowing for negotiated readings that offer spaces for identification, pleasure, and even empowerment.” - Bambi Haggins, author of Laughing Mad: The Black Comic Persona in Post-soul America
"Gates considers not only formal producers of media but also black audiences who engage with these works, successfully arguing for a more nuanced understanding of what makes for black cultural production." - Anna J. Clutterbuck-Cook, Library Journal
"Racquel J. Gates’ unpacking of black racial media figures postulates that negative images derived from cultural theorist Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding practice can be reconfigured to provide agency and hybridity to black figures. . . . Recommended. All readers." - S. Lenig, Choice
"Its potential for broader application across identity studies and the culture/media industries makes Double Negative essential reading." - Leah Aldridge, Film Quarterly
"Double Negative is unique for recovering and giving value to texts that are assumed to be without value. Gates’ sharp analysis of how negative images interrogate American society in ways that the more positive ones do not is an important contribution to the fields of media studies, popular culture, and cultural studies." - Linnete Manrique, Ethnic and Racial Studies
"Double Negative skillfully investigates these and many other negative images portrayed in the modern context, making it a significant critique on contemporary black representation. This book challenges pre-existing views that consume the public discourse regarding the magnitude of negative images, and provides an alternative perspective. Gates’ book is therefore a critical intervention on the proliferation of negative images, and the ways that such images can be used to make a lasting, and even positive, impact." - André E. Tyson, Global Africana Review
"Double Negative offers evocative academic insight into past and present representations of black identity." - Audrey Liow, Continuum
"An exciting entry into the academic study of African American media representations. . . . Gates reclaims negative images and foregrounds their importance for understanding hierarchies of media taste and the complexities of minoritarian identity and experience. The result is an evocative and provocative foray into what she calls the 'metaphorical gutter' of representation. . . . Highly accessible and engaging, Double Negative should be required reading for academics, students, and even pop-culture journalists who are interested in the complexities of race, identity, and contemporary media." - Brandy Monk-Payton, Journal of Cinema and Media Studies
“Building on media studies, cultural studies, genre studies, media industry studies, reception studies, film and television formalism, critical race theory, gender theory and queer theory, Gates masterfully shifts the conversation about black image production from one mired in a reductive positive/negative binary to one that demonstrates how ‘disreputable’ images are productive as a conduit to nuanced discussions about black images.” - Alfred L. Martin, Film Criticism
"Gates’s intervention is exemplary for critical cultural scholars who aim to destabilize oppressive structures by resisting hegemonic paradigms that continue to dominate media studies. Double Negative underscores the obligation of scholars and critics to implement reading methods that produce culture-specific analyses."
- Aysha LaBon, Critical Studies in Media Communication
