<strong>Black Women in Science-Fiction</strong> | Where are they? at Schema : more than ethnic

According to science-fiction television, black women remain a visible minority. Despite the dominant visibility of African American women on American television today, according to sci-fi know-it-all Richard Whettestone's firsttvdrama.com, as of 2005 only 15 science-fiction television series have featured black women in lead roles:

Less than 9% of Science-Fiction television series have featured black women as main characters. And that is assuming you were to count recurring characters who were usually tossed in the background.

This has improved a little with recurring black female characters in the most popular sci-fi TV series Heroes and Battlestar Gallactica. However, the exhaustive list from 2005 (after the jump) still makes a statement, that up until recently, black women didn't exist in the imagined future. Weird! Perhaps TV execs didn't believe black audiences watched science fiction? Just for some balance, see the List of black actors in science fiction film and TV on wikipedia.com

Recent TV sci-fi heroines to note: Simone Deveaux played by Tawny Cypress in Heroes Season II (200&); Monica Dawson played by Dana Davis in Heroes Season II (2007); Anastasia Dualla played by Kandyse McClure in Battlestar Gallactica.

HEROES -- NBC Series -- Pilot -- Pictured: (l-r) Masi Oka as Hiro Nakamura, Ali Larter as Niki Sanders, Noah Gray-Cabey as Micah Sanders, Leonard Roberts as D.L Hawkins, Milo Ventimiglia as Peter Petrelli, Adrian Pasdar as Nathan Petrelli, Hayden Panettiere as Clair Bennet, Sendhil Ramamurthy as Mohinder Suresh, Greg Grunberg as Matt Parkman, Santiago Cabrera as Isaac Mendez, Tawny Cypress as Simone Deveraux -- NBC Photo: Mitch Haaseth

Science-Fiction TV Series that have NEVER had Black Female Main Characters (source: firsttvdrama.com).

1. Airwolf
2. Alien Nation
3. Aliens in the Family
4. Alf
5. American Gothic
6. Andromeda
7. Angel
8. Automan
9. Avengers
10. Babylon 5
11. Battlestar Galactica
12. Baywatch Nights
13. Beauty and the Beast
14. Beyond Westworld?
15. Big Wolf on Campus
16. Bionic Woman
17. Blue Thunder
18. Brimstone
19. Brisco County Jr.
20. Buck Rogers
21. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
22. The Burning Zone
23. Captain Power
24. Champions
25. Charmed
26. Codename: Eternity
27. Conan
28. CopRock
29. Crime Traveller
30. Crow: Stairway to Heaven
31. Cupid
32. Dark Shadows
33. New Dark Shadows
34. Dark Skies
35. The Dark Room
36. Dead at 21
37. Deadly Games
38. Doctor Who
39. Doomwatch
40. Dracula : the series
41. Earth : Final Conflict
42. E.A.R.T.H. Force
43. Earth 2
44. Fantastic Journey
45. Farscape
46. Firstwave
47. The Flash
48. Forever Knight
49. Freddy's Nightmares
50. Friday the 13th : the series
51. Future Cop
52. Galactica : 1980
53. Gemini Man
54. G.I.Joe
55. Girl from U.N.C.L.E.
56. Stephen King's Golden Years
57. Greatest American Hero
58. Good vs. Evil
59. The Guardians
60. Hard Time on Planet Earth
61. Harsh Realm
62. Hercules : Legendary Journeys
63. Highlander
64. Highlander : Raven
65. Highway Man
66. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
67. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids : TV Show
68. Human Target
69. The Immortal (1969 series)
70. The Immortal (2000 series)
71. Incredible Hulk
72. Invaders
73. Invasion: Earth
74. Invisible Man (1958 series)
75. Invisible Man (2000 series)
76. It's About Time
77. Jack of All Trades
78. The Jetsons
79. Kindred: The Embraced?
80. Knight Rider
81. Kolchak: Night Stalker
82. Land of the Giants
83. Land of the Lost
84. Legend
85. Lexx
86. Logan's Run
87. Lois & Clark
88. Lone Gunmen
89. Lost In Space
90. Bill Bixby's The Magician
91. Maniac Mansion
92. Manimal
93. Man from Atlantis
94. Man from U.N.C.L.E.
95. Max Headroom
96. Matrix (a TV series, not the movie)
97. Misfits of Science
98. Moonbase 3
99. Now and Again
100. NoWhere Man
101. Nightmare Cafe
102. 100 Lives of BlackJack Savage
103. The Omega Factor
104. Once a Hero
105. The Others
106. Otherworld
107. Outerlimits (1960's good original)
108. Outerlimits (1990's cable crap)
109. Outlaws
110. Peter Benchley's Amazon
111. Phoenix
112. Planet of the Apes
113. Powers of Matthew Star
114. Pretender
115. Prey
116. The Prisoner
117. Probe
118. Project : UFO
119. Profiler
120. Psi-Factor
121. Q.E.D.
122. Quantum Leap
123. Queen of Swords
124. Red Dwarf
125. Return of Captain Nemo
126. RoboCop : The series
127. Roswell
128. Sable
129. Sabrina the Teenage Witch
130. Salvage-1
131. Secret Adventures of Jules Verne
132. Secret Agent Man
133. The Sentinel
134. Seven Days
135. Shadow Chasers
136. She-Wolf of London
137. Sinbad (Adventures of)
138. Six Million Dollar Man
139. Sleepwalkers
140. Something Is Out There
141. So Weird
142. Space : 1999
143. Space Precinct
144. Space Rangers
145. Spy Game
146. Star Cops
147. StarGate SG-1
148. The Starlost
149. Starman
150. Star Trek: Next Generation
151. Star Trek: Deep Space 9
152. Star Trek: Voyager
153. Star Trek: Enterprise
154. Star Wars
155. Strange World
156. Streethawk
157. Super Force
158. Swamp Thing
159. Tales of the Gold Monkey
160. Tarzan: Epic Adventures
161. Team Knight Rider
162. Tekwar
163. They came from Outer Space
164. Thief of Sherwood
165. Thunder in Paradise
166. The Tick
167. Time Cop
168. Time Trax
169. Time Tunnel
170. Total Recall 2070
171. The Twilight Zone
172. The Transformers
173. Treasure island in Outer Space
174. Twice in a Lifetime
175. Twin Peaks
176. Two
177. -V-
178. The Visitor
179. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
180. Voyagers
181. VR.5
182. The Wanderer
183. War of the Worlds
184. Werewolf
185. Whiz Kids?
186. The Wild Wild West
187. The Wizard
188. Wizards & Warriors
189. Wolf Lake
190. Wonder Woman
191. Xena : Warrior Princess
192. The X-Files
193. The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.schemamag.ca/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1066

Post a comment

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

Name:

Email Address:

URL:

Remember personal info?

Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style)