Where no Black woman has gone before : subversive portrayals in speculative film and TV

Summary/Review: When Lieutenant Uhura took her place on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise on Star Trek, the actress Nichelle Nichols went where no African American woman has ever gone before. Yet several decades passed before many other black women began playing significant roles in speculative (i.e. science fiction, fantasy, and horror) film and television--a troubling omission, given that these genres offer significant opportunities for reinventing social constructs such as race, gender, and class. Challenging cinema's history of stereotyping or erasing black women on-screen, Where No Black Woman Has Gone Before showcases twenty-first-century examples that portray them as central figures of action and agency--back cover.