A Higher Glyphic

Professor Novotny Lawrence does not look to the media for his identity. Lawrence, assistant professor of race, media, and popular culture at Southern Illinois University Carbondale said that in U.S. media there's just still too much of one image that's shown of black people. "It's always, you know, we're kind of funny, and then if you're not funny, well then you all are all thugs," Lawrence said. "It challenges the fact that there's a whole segment of black people doing a whole lot of different things besides that." "It's not that I don't want those images, but it's I want everything else too," Lawrence said.

In order to accurately portray black people, he says, the media needs to show more than just thugs and comedians. "When you turn on the TV and you see images of whites on TV you see everything, you see doctors, and lawyers, and nurses, and criminals, and soldiers, and whatever. You see everything. You have to do the same thing for minorities," Lawrence said. "Its about range," Lawrence said, "Show everything."

There is a very common theory that minorities don't sell the way that white people do. Lawrence said this theory is a problem because "networks, film producers, TV producers, whoever, want to do what sells."

Lawrence has some ideas to help solve this problem. "You have to get to the heart of the institution and find people that are willing to make films with people of color in them and who are willing to consistently take chances," Lawrence said. "Don't go 'well see, nobody went' and so we wont make another one for three years."

Lawrence, who has a doctorate in film studies from the University of Kansas, believes that films are guiltier of using stereotypes than other mediums because of the tremendous pressure to make money.

"You don't get to take five weeks of a season to try to see if it's going to change, the response you're getting. You get to do that on TV," Lawrence said, "If on the opening weekend that film doesn't do good, that's it."

A recent example of this is the film "Soul Plane," Lawrence said. "It's a film about black people and the joke is, boy wouldn't it be funny if black people owned an airline," Lawrence said, "the plane would have hydraulics, and the flight attendants would dress like hookers."

The thing that film and TV have in common is they both have the tendency to give people what they think people want to see, Lawrence said. "The desire to fill these needs and to say I know what people like and they like to see black people in a movie, and when black people are in a movie they need to do this and this and this," is what causes films to frequently use stereotypes, Lawrence said.

Not all media is this bad. Some mediums are doing a good job of portraying ethnic minorities. Lawrence said that cable TV is making the most progress. "You subscribe to cable, so they know that they have an audience who wants their product already and they're getting revenue from people who are subscribing," Lawrence said, "so with that they have been able to take some chances".

Lawrence said that the TV show "Nip/Tuck" is a good example of the progress that cable TV has made. "Some of the stuff they do on 'Nip/Tuck' is just wild, and that's on cable television," Lawrence said, "They had a couple of interesting things on there last season, they had a interracial relationship, which you don't really see that often on cable TV, and at the same time they had a little person on the show having an affair with a normal size person."

Lawrence has been teaching at the college level for nine years. He brings his knowledge of media and popular culture into the classes he teaches. In his media and society class this semester he is teaching students how to approach media from a sociological perspective.

The class covers everything from the effects of corporations and politics on media, to deviant versus normal behavior."It's an amazing thing to be able to hopefully teach people something important and to have them respond to that, and the feeling that you get knowing that hopefully they will carry that with them is great," Lawrence said, "it's absolutely what I want to be doing."

The media in society class that Lawrence taught last semester was the largest he has had at SIU - over 200 students - and one of his favorites of all time. "The idea that I could have that many students on the same page for the entirety of a semester, that's amazing," Lawrence said, "The response I have gotten from that class has been completely positive.""Every class has it's own personality", and, "once you know that personality, and you get in and you can start teaching, it's always good."

One of Lawrence's current students, CJ Smith, a senior studying radio-television said Dr Lawrence gets involved with the students. "You can tell he likes the subject he is teaching," Smith said.

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