Black women on TV still stereotyped.

Many critics have commended "The Cosby Show" for being one of the first television programs accurately and positively to portray African-Americans, including women. However, according to K. Sue Jewell, assistant professor of sociology, Ohio State University, and author of From Mammy to Miss America and Beyond: Cultural Images and the Shaping of U.S. Social Politics, the show didn't start much of a trend. Such recent programs as "In Living Color" and "Family Matters" continue to present African-American women in stereotypical roles. "Not much has changed. |The Cosby Show' provided a new and positive image of African-American women, but this is still overshadowed by the traditional, negative images which remain."

One of the most common and oldest stereotypical images is that of the "mammy," generally a servant responsible for domestic duties and rearing children. She often is portrayed as the antithesis of American standards of beauty - overweight, with exaggerated buttocks and breasts and wearing a head rag. Mammies are seen as nurturers, women good at comforting and taking care of others, but also verbally aggressive.

For example, in "Good Times," Esther Rolle played Florida Evans, who originally worked as a domestic for a white family. Nell Carter was a live-in housekeeper for a single white father in "Gimme a Break." The mammy stereotype was given a new twist on "The Jeffersons," when Marla Gibbs portrayed a maid working for a black household.

In "Family Matters," the main female, Harriette Winslow (played by JoMarie Payton-France), fits the common "Sapphire" stereotype, named after a character in the "Amos...