The host of NPR’s “Pop Culture Happy Hour,” Aisha Harris, grew up on everything from the sounds of Stevie Wonder to the TV show “New Girl,” a sitcom starring Zooey Deschanel centered on young professionals. She reflects on those influences through the nine essays in her new book “Wannabe.”
“I can still recall these random tidbits and jingles and moments from my childhood,” she said. “I was in a space where I'd had enough time and enough growing up and aging into who I am now to be able to reflect on how pop culture has really both changed, in the larger landscape, of how it exists and how we interact with it and also how it's changed me.”
One of those early influences, which had its heyday before Harris was born, is “The Jeffersons.” The socially conscious Norman Lear sitcom starred Sherman Hemsley and Isabel Sanford as a Black couple. The show’s memorable theme song described how they “moved on up” from living next to Archie Bunker, in Queens, to a deluxe apartment in Manhattan. It was not a critical darling at the time, and spent half of its 11 seasons outside the Top 10. Yet it’s been recognized as a classic after its original 1975-85 run.
“A lot of Black people watched,” she said. “I think we’re able to look back now and realize that it was both revolutionary and, in some ways, could be challenging or considered problematic. And that's kind of a general theme of the book.”
One reason, according to Harris in “Wannabe,” is that there weren’t enough Black critics at the time. Harris said that seems to finally be changing.
"I don't want to say that it's great for non-white critics," she said. "There's still a lot of big, major newspapers and outlets still lacking in diversity. But... there are a lot of younger critics from all different demographics. You might have to search a little bit harder to find them, but we're out there.”
Harris does find that this often leads to a diversity of opinions, too, such as in the case of the 2019 film “Queen & Slim.”
“It's kind of like a ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ meets Black Lives Matter,” she said. “That is quite polarizing, especially among Black critics. We live in a really great time where we can have that diversity of opinion. It's not just all Black critics are in love with this or hate it. There's a lot of discussion and discourse that's happening.”
Harris said those voices are often discovered through social media – which can be a double-edge sword.
“That’s a huge theme of the book,” she said. “Just be kind. Don't troll people on Twitter because they disagree with you about some piece of Black culture. Be kinder to other people when it comes to what people like, whether it's a movie or a TV show or whatever.”
