Color Adjustment

“Color Adjustment” is a landmark study of prejudice and perception in the Television Age. Pathbreaking filmmaker Marlon Riggs (“Ethnic Notions” and “Tongues Untied”) traces how African Americans were reluctantly “integrated” into America´s prime time family. From “Amos ´n´ Andy” to “The Cosby Show”, “Color Adjustment” explores television´s vital role in selling the American Dream, brilliantly illuminating the interplay between American´s racial consciousness and the dominant medium of our time. In a blend that is alternatively nostalgic, insightful, and disturbing, the filmmakers weave carefully chosen excerpts from the programs with revealing observations from creators, writers, producers, and performers involved in making them, as well as several prominent cultural critics. Clips from “Amos ´n´ Andy” to “Good Times”, “Roots” as well as “The Cosby Show”, and interviews with producers Norman Lear, David Wolper, and Steve Bochco illustrate how network television absorbed deep-seated racial conflict into the non-threatening formats of network television. Actors including Esther Rolle, Diahann Carroll, and Tim Reid and cultural critics Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Alvin Poussaint discuss how these series increased visibility while obscuring crucial issues of African American life.