Their time, their moment, their city: a critique and Black feminist reading of "Harlem"

Abstract

This article analyses Tracy Oliver’s comedy series "Harlem" (2021) through the lens of Black Feminism. Invoking combined traces of "Living Single" (1993-1998) and "Sex and the City" (1998-2004), I contend "Harlem" aims to fill in the representation void that has erased Black women from mainstream comedies that are reduced to the white experience as it also aims to transgress the stigmatizing image of Black women in mainstream popular culture. In this manner, Oliver’s "Harlem" addresses several aspects of the Black female experience and shows the gendered racism Black women endure, such as racial stereotypes, medical mistreatment, or white women’s tears, among many others, prioritizing social accuracy and racial sensibilities through comedy as it follows the lives of four Black women in the neighborhood of Harlem in the twenty-first century.