Are you not entertained?
—Russell Crowe as Maximus, Gladiator (2003)
YOU ARE NOT THE FATHER!
If Maury—the longrunning daytime talk show hosted by Maury Povich—were around in 1776, Thomas Jefferson would have been the perfect guest—I’m talking season opener level. Jefferson, the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence, allegedly had secret children that he not only owned, but lived with—all while married with another wife and family. If that’s not a daytime talk show plot line, I don’t know what is.
America turned 250 this month, and this quarter-millennium begs the question: Does America value entertainment more than decorum? Moreover, has America always been a bit of a hot mess?
The current president celebrated the milestone last month by hosting a UFC cage fight on the White House lawn. And while I had to roll my eyes, I couldn’t help but recognize that the man is a showman, and this country loves a show.
Few shows have been loved in this country like Maury.
Maury was the reigning champion of daytime TV throughout the ’90s and mid-2000s. The classic “you are not the father!” punchline, delivered while revealing paternity test results, always elicited laughs and jeers from the crowd which certainly rivaled the peak of Roman Colosseum events. I watched far too many of these episodes in my elementary and middle school days—and I know y’all did, too.
The show was defined by its weekly paternity reveals, coupled with theatrically overwrought reactions to the results: waterfall tears, jumping on couches, dance routines, and of course running backstage—falling out in convulsions.
Maury, like so many other shows from this era—from Ricki Lake and Jenny Jones to Jerry Springer—thrived on drama. Secret children, out of control teenagers, race wars, love triangles—mess.
At its peak, Maury was one of the most-watched shows in America, averaging five to six million viewers per episode.
Entertainment is easily one of the most potent forces in our society in that it can be both a mirror and director of culture. It’s by way of that force that even art that’s not explicitly political has some role in steering the politics of the day.
YOU ARE THE FATHER!
Thomas Jefferson is oft-heralded as a top tier intellect. Jefferson, the nation’s third president, concerned himself greatly with matters of the world. He knew five languages, played several instruments, loved the arts, and had an affinity for agriculture.
Expansive as his mind and interests were, his thoughts on race often lived in the gutter.
In his 1785 book, Notes on the State of Virginia, he declares Blacks as inferior.
“Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior.”
While slavery went against Jefferson’s ideals, he simultaneously believed that there was no place for Black people in this country should emancipation come to pass, likening the notion to having “a wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go.” Given such, he advocated that Black people should return to Africa.
Sounds familiar.
Despite Jefferson’s meek anti-slavery stance, he built a 5,000 acre plantation in Virginia that rivaled the size of the Disneyland Resort, complete with 600 enslaved people who could grow his crops and tend to his cattle.
His Monticello home still stands as one of the most revered landmarks in the country today.
Jefferson loved to entertain and be entertained at his Monticello plantation.
He owned Sally Hemings, who was 14 when she first met Jefferson, who was 44.
*Cue: “Not Like Us” by Kendrick Lamar*
It’s widely believed Jefferson fathered six of her children across several decades, and possibly another, though it’s never been unequivocally confirmed. Two of the four who survived to adulthood were allowed to leave the plantation without pursuit, and he granted freedom to the remaining two upon his death. Jefferson never granted Sally her freedom—she was “given her time” by Jefferson’s daughter after his death.
THE MINSTREL SHOW
The first quintessential American theatrical event was the minstrel show. Emerging in the 1830s, these stage shows saw White people darkening their faces, presenting mockeries of the plights of Black folks complete with song, dance, exaggerated facial features, and tattered clothing.
“These performances characterized blacks as lazy, ignorant, superstitious, hypersexual, and prone to thievery and cowardice,” according to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. But the minstrel show wasn’t merely a stage play. It was big business, and launched some of the country’s first stars.
The popularity of minstrel plays decreased as a new entertainment medium came onto the scene: cinema.
As Hollywood began to take root as the “entertainment capital of the world,” Black people still found it hard to find roles in film without reinforcing the stereotypes oft-found on the minstrel stages.
Then came TV. By the ’60s, more than 90 percent of households in America had a television stationed in their living rooms, fundamentally changing American entertainment forever.
Today, Black folks make up just about six percent of directors and producers in American-made films and TV shows.
The entertainment industry has been shaken up in recent years between COVID, the emergence of AI, and big corporate mergers. As such, it’s harder and harder to get new shows greenlit these days. It’s even harder if those new shows are Black.
I saw this up close with my show, Where We Goin: The Power of Place. Created alongside Devin Boss and Zoe Piliafas, this docuseries explores a young Black man from the Whitest city in America (Portland) exploring the Blackest zip codes in the country on his search for home and belonging. We debuted the pilot nearly two years ago to a buzzing crowd at the iconic Hollywood Theatre, and just days after the ’24 election, a night when many of us thought we’d be celebrating the first Black woman president.
Since then, we’ve screened the pilot across the country, picking up awards along the way—along with praise from producers of some of our favorite films and shows.
Alas, we’ve never been able to get the series greenlit.
By contrast, Maury ended in 2022 after 30 years on air.
Today, the American entertainment industry is valued somewhere in the realm of a trillion dollars. To put that in context, a million seconds is about 12 days; a trillion seconds is about 32,000 years.
And we can’t get a piece of the American pie to talk about home and belonging?
FREEDOM (OF ENTERTAINMENT)
Many rightfully gasped when our president threatened to wipe an entire country off the map with a mere tweet a couple months ago. By contrast, Thomas Jefferson expanded the American empire with the flick of a pen, commissioning the Louisiana Purchase, the Oregon Trail, and by doing so signed off on the slaying of hundreds of Indigenous people. Simultaneously, Jefferson, the abolitionist, expanded the footprint of slavery in these growing United States.
Oh, how it must have pained him.
Every good show has a tagline, and if America had one it would be “freedom.”
There are surely freedoms in this country, but none perhaps greater than the freedom to be entertained.
Or moreover: the freedom of escapism.
There are endless paths to be entertained in this country. Many of those have been forged, above all, as propaganda.
America vs The Terrorists.
America vs The Thugs.
America vs The Cartels.
America vs The Insurgents.
America vs Sin.
And when it comes down to it…
U.S. vs THEM.
The lynch mob mentality still lives in our DNA. From the Colosseum to our living rooms, to the Wild West of the World Wide Web. This particular brand of entertainment has never been more in demand and on-demand.
While today’s president surely lacks any semblance of decorum, he is wholly recognizable.
That drama. That mess.
That showmanship.
The genes of the Founding Fathers are strong.
We don’t need to bring Maury back to see what’s already there.
A UFC cage fight on the lawn of a White House built by enslaved hands somehow sums it up so perfectly.
Happy 250th, America.
Donovan Scribes is an award-winning writer, communications consultant, speaker and producer. A former vice president of the Portland NAACP, he writes on culture, place, and politics. Follow him on Instagram @donovanscribes. Want to keep the conversation going? Email him at
donovanscribes@gmail.com.
