Lucious Lyon Research Paper

Imagine yourself being a Hip-hop artist and CEO of an Empire Entertainment living the life you could dream of; when suddenly things starts to slowly fall apart on you. Welcome to the life of Lucious Lyon. Lucious Lyon is known to the TV world and his fans as the powerful CEO of Empire. Empire is a show about a Hip-hop artist trying to build a legacy for his family before his time is up. Terrence Howard plays Lucious Lyon, who was a drug dealer that use his money that he made off the streets to help promote his rap career with the help of his wife at the time “Cookie Lyon”. Lucious Lyon had everything that he could ever dream of until he got diagnosed with ALS. ALS is known as Lou Gehrig’s disease that affects the nervous system and weakness

muscles. Empire was created by Danny strong and Lee Daniels. The network behind the show are Fox which is owned by News Corporation. The entire show is focused on keeping the music alive. Throughout the series the audience is introducing to different types of music.

When the show first aired on January 7th it had 9.87 million viewers, now on the 9th episode that number has changed to 14.33 million viewers with each episode the ratings increases; which has averaged out to be 11.93 million viewers. By the ratings it is clear that the producers have done their research very well on what consumers love. Over the past few week’s social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram has buzzed about Empire. There have been some derogatory words said throughout some episode referring to the homosexuality of Lucious Lyon middle son “Jamal”. Daniels doesn’t follow the typical role of what others might change in their shows. He went as far as defending the backlash of Cookie Lyons the mother using the “f” word that some found offensive. The reason for this is because Cookies had accepted her son's homosexuality along with the rest of the family, but the father couldn’t come to terms with it. Most people find this melodrama show to be provocative to some audience. For those fans that love the music and drama that unfolds with each episode they don’t mind it so much. Empire has pushed the boundaries for network television of what can be said and done on

television. The intended audiences that the show seems to be targeted are music lover’s middle to higher class that are trying to make a difference in their life. Some audience can relate to the struggle that the family had to go through to be where they are. Strong was inspired by his love for music and the store of King Lear when he came up with the idea of Empire. When deciding whether to place this show on cable both Lee and Strong decided to go with the local channel.

They could have place this show like the others on the cable channel, but decided on to not do that. They knew that not everyone had the means for having cable in their homes. Most of the commercials shown during the show is about car and we see cars as a luxury in our society. The show itself is about the rich and it shows wealth as well. Another commercial that was shown was based around health. It seems to be raising awareness of the many health risks that goes on in our society. The show itself focuses on two health, disease such as ALS, which luscious had and a mental sickness his son Andrea have. So it’s safe to say they are making people aware of sickness and diseases that most people would overlook. They are targeting those who have such illness. This show gives people with these illness hope to follow their dreams by not allowing anything to stand in their way. It encourages the audience to seek help if they are suffering from a mental disease or other challenges to not allow that to stand in their way. Most of the music that gets played during the show's audience can reflect upon it because it tells about the struggles that these characters are going

through. This show everyone, rich and poor can reflect to it through the music that gets played. Pop culture has evolved over the years. According to Fischer he made the point that “culture is sometimes subdivided into categories as high and low, on the basis of preferences within the system that are associated with difference in social class, education, and other variable within the community”. Empire proves this throughout the episodes. Due to the culture evolving it is now more acceptable to be broad and open to homosexuality along with interracial couples playing the lead role within a television drama. Fox network to me have done something that they normally would not have done, which is having an all-black cast playing the lead roles. There is clearly an institutional purpose for them doing so. Our society is completely diverse and coming to terms with a major controversial issue shows an awareness that viewers can all relate to. This show is no exception to the rule