On Thursday night, ABC's Scandal will step out as a rarity on TV: a show developed by one of the most powerful black women in TV, Grey's Anatomy creator Shonda Rimes, depicting a powerful black woman in Washington, D.C.: Olivia Pope, a top-flight crisis manager.
She's a "fixer" so impressive, she can negotiate down payments with the Ukrainian mob in a burst of rapid-fire dialogue. She is played by Kerry Washington, whom you might recognize from wife and girlfriend roles in films like The Fantastic Four and Ray.
But in Scandal, she shines as Olivia, a lawyer and crisis manager inspired by real-life fixer Judy Smith, whose cases have included Michael Vick and the BP oil spill. Neither one of them is anybody's girlfriend, wife or sidekick.
The last time I can remember a black woman leading a network TV drama, it was 1974. TV producers were looking to cash in on the blaxploitation movie trend, so they got Teresa Graves to star as an undercover cop in Get Christie Love.
TV has come a long way since then, when a guy flung the N-word at Christie Love, thinking she was a prostitute. But television still hasn't found much room for showcasing black women in starring roles outside comedy, until now.
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