Acknowledgments  ix
Introduction. Negativity and the Black Popular Image  1
1. Eddie Murphy, Coming to America, and Formal Negativity  35
2. Relational Negativity: The Sellout Films of the 1990s  81
3. The Circumstantial Negativity of Halle Berry  114
4. Embracing the Ratchet: Reality Television and Strategic Negativity  142
Conclusion. Empire: A False Negative?  182
Notes  191
Bibliography  211
Index  219

“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

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