Not Your Mother’s Mammy examines how black artists, mostly women of the diaspora, many of them former domestics, reconstruct the black female subjectivities of domestics in black media. In doing so, they undermine and defamiliarize the reductive, one-dimensional images of black domestics as perpetual victims lacking voice and agency. In line with international movements like #MeToo and #timesup, the women in these stories demand to be heard.

Covering a range of beloved television series from M*A*S*H to Mad Men, this book explores how historical sitcoms and dramas have depicted earlier parts of the twentieth century, while still reflecting the concerns of their own era—including the Vietnam War, civil rights movements, changing gender roles, and technological advancements.

Arguably the most brutal crime committed by the Japanese military during the Asia-Pacific war was the forced mobilization of 50,000 to 200,000 Asian women to military brothels to sexually serve Japanese soldiers. Korean “Comfort Women” explores Korean comfort women’s brutal experiences and their residual marriage, family, economic, and healthcare problems. It also examines the transnational redress movement, demonstrating that the Japanese government has tried to conceal the crime of sexual slavery by resolving the issue with money alone.