An Amateur Sketch: Visual Representation of Race and Class in Local TV News

News has become increasingly sensationalized, and visual imagery plays a big part in maintaining the entertainment value of news. On TV, news segments are often divided into short segments using similar to tactics of advertising. The reports often include an anchor’s address to the camera, a newscaster’s interview with citizens and video or photographic footage that fill the screen accompanied by an anchor’s voice-over report. Some news segments have been deemed so entertaining that they become internet sensations. An example of this phenomenon would be a local NBC news report covering a leprechaun seen in Mobile, Alabama.

This clip relies on, and reaffirms, racial and class stereotypes persistent in and of the southern states of the US. The citizens interviewed are presented as the butt of the joke. The amateur sketch of the leprechaun visually illustrates the mockery of the citizens presented by the news segment. There are countless news segments that present similar problematic imagery, which in turn have become viral videos and have been parodied into songs and music videos. (see “The Bed Intruder”) I chose the Leprechaun in Mobile Alabama report in particular because it became so popular that is spurred a parody sketch from the comedy show Key & Peele.

The TV comedy sketch successfully engages in parody and satire in order to draw attention to, and destabilize the persistent racialized imagery of TV news. As a TV sketch, it is self-reflexive and nods to the construction of the televised image. In the sketch, the news program becomes the butt of the joke.