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In late December 1991, a pre-credits segment of In Living Color contained a skit with a woman dressed in a charcoal-gray suit and wearing a string of pearls, with a blue blob covering her face. The woman walks toward a seat in an area resembling a witness box in a courtroom. Once seated, she cheerfully endorses the merits of the Equity Card: “I may not remember why I took off my hose, or why I went for a walk on the beach with a member of the Kennedy family. I may have my bra and underwear scanned under a microscope for stains. But, I never leave home without my Equity Card.” The woman’s figure fades from the screen and is replaced with the image of the Equity Card, as an authoritative male voice-over underlines her endorsement: “If you leave home without hose, make sure you have your Equity Card. Call now and say that the woman with the blob asked you to call.” This mock advertisement for a credit card is followed by a puffy-faced actor made up to resemble Senator Edward Kennedy, foregrounded against the Capitol, endorsing the Kennedy Carte Blanche Card. The senator praises the merits of his card by saying, “Kennedys not only get into the Senate, but also get away with anything.” He is then joined by a figure resembling his nephew, William Kennedy Smith. Together, they assert, “When we get off, we get off scot free.” The two-minute segment ends crudely with the senator urging Willie to put it in his pants, and then both men thrust their Carte Blanche Cards into the pockets of their pants. The parodic, self-reflexive commentary on television programming represented in this skit condenses many of the central elements of a counter-hegemonic discourse. It mocks the consumer culture that underwrites television programming, including In Living Color. The skit simultaneously draws attention to the nature of celebrity culture—the ways in which stars are produced and anointed by the media and then are recruited to participate in an economy that can underwrite more spectacle-producing television programming. In addition, this black-authored program points out the particular ways in which 1 Introduction (white) male privilege, the political and social advantages that have accrued around the Kennedy family, compares to the “equitable” status of women. In a reductionist stroke, it underscores that men and women are perceived differently , not just by society but also through legal and economic processes. In many ways this skit provided one of the sharpest on-air analyses of the William Kennedy Smith case and its media coverage. The interpretation of the rape trial mockingly offered by the woman with the blue blob and the two Kennedy men opened new ways of discussing the event; it offers understandings that were unavailable in other television genres. The skit highlighted the spectacular nature of “celebrity” rape trials and showed how identities are constructed by others, especially for rape survivors. Above all, it revealed how the logic of television culture—the industry’s practices and representational forms—could transform the violation of a female body into an asset to be traded in consumer culture. Simultaneously, it foregrounded who could speak and whose voices could be heard in television space; it introduced questions about the (racial and sexual) politics of enunciation. Even when the woman in the aforementioned skit speaks, in this case, to endorse the Equity Card, her utterance is supplemented by a disembodied male voice who lends authority and credibility to her claims. Through indecorous humor, the skit propels the male body into the public arena in a manner uncommon on television. It brings to the forefront the privileges that have accumulated around particular configurations of white masculinity, the ways in which the Kennedys and other elite white males can “get away with anything.” The segment combines social commentary with a critique of television practices in an ironic fashion that became emblematic of the situation comedies of the 1990s. The broad strokes of its criticism of white masculinity necessarily flatten some of the details, but the first time I saw it I marveled that an entertainment program from the denigrated Fox programming lineup would offer such biting commentary. Upon reflection, it becomes clear that it is precisely the devalued status of this network and of prime-time entertainment in general that allows this particular situation comedy to offer such an irreverent reading of a media event.1 The skit draws attention to...

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