Shonda Rhimes’s TGIT: Representation of Womanhood and Blackness

Abstract

For the first time in television history, Shonda Rhimes, a Black female showrunner obtained an entire prime time programming block on American broadcast television. She has been recognized as one of the most successful and influential TV showrunners and her shows are celebrated for promoting a strong feminist agenda that tends towards equality regardless of gender, race, class, religious belief or sexual orientation. Concentrating on ABC’s prime time night Thank God It's Thursday, our analysis focuses on Grey's Anatomy (ABC, 2005-), How to Get Away with Murder (ABC, 2014-) and Scandal (ABC, 2012-2018), respectively a medical, a legal and a political drama. The main goal of the paper is to propose a hybrid methodology, that moves at the intersection of several approaches to investigate which aesthetics, identities and relationships of race and womanhood are represented in these three case studies.