Character Analysis: Why Everybody Hates Chris

Why Everybody Hates Chris: Analyzing Race in Media

Everybody hates Chris is a television series created by Chris Rock and Ali LeRoy that focuses on the life of young Chris rock in 1980’s Bedford Stuyvesant (Bed-Stuy), New York. Bed-Stuy is a neighborhood that’s directly affected by the then rising problem of crack cocaine. Chris lives with his father who has two jobs, his mother, younger brother and sister. Although Chris lives in bed stuy his mother sends him to Jr. High School across town in a poor Italian neighborhood called Brooklyn beach. She believes Chris will have a better education with “White kids”. Chris’s good friendship with Greg, one of the least popular students in the school, makes Chris more of a target of bullies and other white students. I chose this show because it focuses in the struggles of a teen facing racial problems head on and searching for solution to defeat dominant stereotypes placed on him and his family.

I analyzed a two part

episode from season two called Everybody Hates Class President and Elections. In this episode Chris is running for class president as an attempt to make a stand for himself in his school. Since Chris is black and geeky, he is at a huge disadvantage to any other student who runs. He runs against his bully, the racist Caruso who consistently spouts racial slurs and sly comments at Chris. Race is a major emphasis of the show, this substantive area includes several problems that emerge when you place a black kid in an all-white neighborhood and school. Being lower class makes Chris’ family is the minority in the country and being the only black boy makes Chris the minority in his school and subject to racism, prejudice, discrimination, and ethnocentrism from classmates and staff. This show upholds the. The only black kid in an all-white school makes running for class president a nearly impossible task and his classmates create a social control that you must be white and popular to win. Dominant ideology about black identity in American society force minority races to work harder to achieve more to show their worth and deconstruct the ideology.
Media and culture are the major drivers of social norms in our society. Our culture tells us how to dress, behave, speak, and what to believe. If we step outside our norms, then we are sanctioned either formally or informally. The media feeds us a plethora of standards of right and wrong. Analyzing the media and culture allows us to poke holes in dominant ideologies and hegemonic views to define social phenomenon. In the show, Chris’ main goal is to achieve status among his family and his peers. He needs to prove himself to be able to excel with cards stacked against him. Chris does several things throughout the show to show his worth; he goes out and works two jobs without being asked, he stands up for himself against oppression in his school by running for class president to protect the students in the school who face the same problems as him ( being picked on and beat up). The master status in the show is white upper middle class male. Chris challenges this by running for president. Chris’ antagonist, Joey Caruso runs against Chris out of spite; he displays a superiority complex and he fears Chris achieving more power than he and no longer being above him.
“Social control is the mechanisms that create normative compliance in individuals” (Conley 194). In the show Chris and his family deviate from social control mechanisms in many ways. He comes from a two parent household and they both have jobs, dominant ideas lead us to believe that many black children come from single parent homes or with unemployed parents and several siblings. Chris deviates by doing well in school, working, providing a positive example for his siblings, and running for class president to get Greg and himself into a better social position in his school.
Dalton Conley explains the Myth of Race as a “social construction, a set of stories we tell ourselves to make sense of the world, rather than fixed biological or natural realty. We tell these stories over and over and collectively believe in it and act on it therefore making it real.”(Conley 322) Conley points to the fact that race is not reality, it is something we have created.
Dr. Otto F. von Feigenblatt describes problems with race struggles in American society with The Fallacy of Race. Dr. Feigenblatt describes ways in which the race battles lack strong consistency. He describes a particular idea of how discrimination is accepted based on certain circumstances. “Norms of contemporary Western society… frown on discrimination based on ascribed status…it is socially acceptable to discriminate based on achieved status… if the status of black or white becomes achieved rather than ascribed then it would be less controversial to discriminate since people would theoretically have a choice to change identity.” (Feigenblatt 46) In applying status to how we generally accept discrimination Dr.Feigenblatt helps point out how in the show discrimination is so normal at times it’s not even recognized. In the show the norms are opposite yet closely related to those described by Dr. Feigenblatt. It’s acceptable for discrimination and prejudice based on ascribed status, being black; and it is also widely accepted to discriminate on achieved status. The show makes race a major focus and it clearly affects its main character negatively; he strives to achieve a higher status because he sees his current ascribed status brings him pain and struggle. Chris believes making himself class president will rid him of his social struggles.
IN a study of African American children in a black school system, Amanishakete Ani answers the question how does being black affect what you hope for. She says, “Each of [the students] expressed that their group membership impresses upon them the need to succeed for their community group, or prove naysayers wrong (Ani 416).” Two of the students in the study presented by Ani said they recognized their race had an effect on their future. One student cited being black as being a motivational tool, to “prove people wrong”. While another student saw that “a lot of black people don’t get good jobs” and that had some effect on him but he intended to overcome it by “working hard in school” (Ani 416). Ani’s studies back my argument that Chris’s oppression is only motive for him to fight harder to win class presidency.
In racial theory there are several substantive areas.

Racism and ethnocentrism are two major substantive areas that stand out to me in the show. “Racism is the belief that members of separate races possess different or unequal traits” (Conley 323). “Ethnocentrism is the belief that one’s own culture group is superior to others and the tendency to view all other cultures from the perspective of one’s own” (Conley 326). Chris faces racism of some sort each day, he is picked on by white students and when he rides the bus to school no one will sit in a seat with him or stand near him. Chris’ teacher believes Chris is the product of every black stereotype known, and she sympathizes with him on a regular basis as an attempt to prove too she is not racist when in reality she says offensive things to him daily. The students in school have been raised with these ideologies about black people. When he decides to run for president he is able deconstruct some of the stereotypes and garner the support of his

classmates.
The show utilizes Ontological equality to make Greg and Chris respect each other and become best friends regardless of their races. Greg and Chris acknowledge the fact that they are equals and they join to fight for the same cause (having no respect in school). Chris’s antagonist Caruso, establishes his position on black people in the pilot episode where he makes it known that he targets Chris because his black by calling him a “nigger”.
Chris and Greg are establishing a small scale collective resistance, they are standing together to fight for their dignity and pride against the bullies and bigots. They are searching for a way to stand up for the other students that are like them; the bottom of the jr. high school hierarchy. They are fighting back non-violently and ethically despite the fact that their opponent uses violence to oppress them. Caruso physically harms them or intimidates Greg and Chris each day of school. Chris and Greg see this presidency as the answer.
Dominant ideologies of black identity force the people of the race to work harder and achieve more to prove their worth and deconstruct the ideology. Racism and ethnocentrism are two major examples or ways racial problems occur in the show. Chris faces racial stigma from his classmates, his teachers and administrators, and people in the neighborhood. Chris’s opponent and bully Joey Caruso has ethnocentric views of Chris’s life and culture because he is black. He makes fun of all the shortcomings of his culture and tells Chris why he is lesser. Chris’s teacher has a social construction of what a black student from the ghetto lives like. She makes many assertions on his life based on what she has heard from the media or the stereotypes she has learned about black culture. When befriends Greg and when school elections come around, they form a collective resistance to combat the oppressive nature of their classmates. Greg and Chris have an ontologically equal relationship in which neither of them sees color in their friendship though everyone else does.
These themes align with racial turmoil and tension black people face every day. It is difficult to achieve when there are racists there to hold you down but there is power in numbers. When the ontologically equal relationship was formed greg and chris where able to make their efforts pay-off. The media shows us how to think and behave. The media can be a lens of portrayal by promoting dominant ideology and control mechanisms. When the media creates views of a culture, they become normal. It allows people to form stereotypes and beliefs about culture.