A few years ago a group of us went to a meeting at a TV network. Four dudes, all Black, even one semi famous actor sprinkled in just to show we meant business. The script I wrote was hot; the director who was attached to shoot it was A list. So we bop onto the studio lot with our dicks swinging like we're about to run shit. To paraphrase what was said by the Executive, “Wow this is really good; honestly I didn’t think a Black person wrote it since the cast is predominantly white”. Pause. The actor speaks, “so what’s the next move, how interested are you?” The Exec dances around for another half hour then says it’s too similar to a show they already have on the air but—“this is really good writing. Do you have anything else? Like a Black Comedy”… PAUSE. Angry car ride home with the Actor getting on his soap box about Black people not being respected, “this is how good shows are killed and bullshit gets made, I hate this industry”. Some of what he said was true but he was being overly dramatic, no nigga driving a 750 should hate anything. Hollywood is a cesspool but once you learn how to navigate it, you can make it work for you. When I see people bashing shows with Black actors in it, I get mixed feelings, yea it's fun to make fun, but I know firsthand that making a good show isn’t as easy as going from darkskin Derwin to lightskin Derwin.
I admit Black TV sucks. It consists of waiting two years for an episode of The Boondocks, reality shows, and Sister Sister wanting a 3 sum or having a secret abortion. The days of Martin and New York Undercover are dead and buried. The Networks cast Blacks as the neighbors not the stars. Is it fucked up, yeah, but its TV, the median hasn't been meaningful in years. The only people doing “art” if we’re honest, are the premium channels because they don’t have to worry about if a redneck in Montana will understand the Gay rights undertones of a show about Vampires. They run Law & Order marathons like Goons run trains on hoodrats, because it’s easy to understand. Procedural shows make the dumbest motherfuckers feel like they’re Sherlock Holmes. “Girl, I knew she didn't get raped by the retarded guy all along, they can’t get shit pass me!” It’s just TV, an escape for the masses. Not all Italians like to tan and fist pump. Not all Asians know Kung Fu. And not all Black women are gold digging hoes like Lisa Raye… wait… are they?
A white girl asked me on twitter if Black Women really act like those girls on Single Ladies. That’s not racist. That’s telling. When the only Blacks you know of aren’t in real life but are on TV, you have to wonder. If I were white and isolated from Blacks you know what I would get from watching TV:
Black men Are pimps who live in mansions, rap, and choose which girls they want to give a clock to.
Black women are bitchy, shallow, backstabbers who dress nice but can’t find a man.
Those are stereotypes, but if you don’t know any better and turn on Basketball Wives, which is marketed as unscripted and REAL, you get these bitches setting the entire race back one “Non Motherfuckn’ Factor” at a time. Good old Blacks and Hispanics throwing drinks on each other over men and “He Said, She Said” gossip. If that’s your only exposure to Black women, and you see several shows with those same types of women acting niggerish, wouldn’t you assume that it’s accurate? A lot more people watch those trashy shows than they do Hawthorne. I remember the first time I wrote a ratchet character, this was before the term even existed, but that’s what this female character was. I wrote the fuck out of her, she stole the movie in the earlier drafts. This development guy tells me, “she’s too over the top, tone her down; no one would react like this.” That was the note. Once Flavor of Love and Bad Girls Club unleashed the niggarella’s on main stream society every producer wanted that type of character. If I made up Tami The Ratchet. Evelyn The Hoephisticated Golddigger, and Shaunie The Two-Faced Manipulator, no one outside of Black America would have believed those archetypes. Now being Tasha Mack Esq. is as standard as the Token Blackie who says, “Damn”!
You can argue that White people are just as bad, but they maintain a balance. For every Rock Of Love or Mob Wives you have The Good Wife or the Closer, the opposite end of the spectrum. Black people don’t get the benefit of that kind of balance. Shit, Oprah retired and we get Star Jones and NeNe fighting like little girls in front of Donald Trump, and bashing Latoya Jackson for being lightskin. These aren’t ghetto women they’re wealthy and educated, yet you can’t tell the difference once they get to yelling at each other.
"Ebony Got Raped At Junior's Party..." >
Yes TV is just TV, but after I stop laughing I feel bad. I’m laughing with Toya’s fine country ass as she tries to right her family, but everyone else is laughing at the bitch’s butchering of the English language. You watch a show like Single Ladies which has poor production value, horrible acting, and cliché plotlines and you wonder who would watch this shit? 2.8 million people watched it the first night and more tuned in the next week. I saw Cam’ron on the show and got tricked into watching five minutes of it, then when Lisa Raye’s “I’m still playing Diamond 10 years later” routine started to make me contemplate puncturing my ear drums; I went to turn the channel. But my wife said, “Don’t change it yet, I want to see what happens”. This girl’s seen enough quality TV to know the difference; she knows it’s a shit product. When I ask why she’s watching it, she answered honestly and unapologetically, “How often do I get to see people who look like me on TV?” and I guess that’s the conundrum. Do you turn one shitty show off just to watch another shitty show with white people? Or do you put the remote down and watch a poor representation of your people, because a poor representation is better than no representation?
People always say we have to do better, but do we want to see better? They had a show about an all Black hospital that the critics dick rode, but niggas didn’t watch. Why? Because most of Black America couldn’t relate to that shit. No matter how educated or uneducated, how sophisticated or unrefined, Black people from all walks of life love things that speak to our hood nature. We want ratchetness, we want scandal, we want sex, we want fights, and we want to laugh. And as I sit here putting the final touches on my ultimate gift to all the Black Girls Are Easy readers, I’m challenged with whether to be responsible or entertaining. The little Spike Lee popped on my shoulder telling me to do the right thing. Then the little ratchet popped up on my other shoulder (I call her Meeka, she wears baby phat and has pink bangs) and said fuck it, 17, give these niggas what they want—a good time. At the end of the day it isn’t TV’s job to educate and enlighten, it was invented to entertain. Lauren London couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag, but the bitch was hired to play New New not Elizabeth The 1st, cut her some slack. Lisa Raye’s acting is stiffer than Jon Benet Ramsey, but she isn’t the enemy. Viacom isn’t the enemy. There are 400 other channels to watch, if you don’t like that show go watch Bobby Flay throwdown with some nigga in the Bronx who knows how to make Kool-Aid really good. You’re not a prisoner to these shows! We can sit here and bash The Braxtons, Love That Girl, and the crap that evil bastard Tyler Perry passes off as TV, but for what? Stop screaming “Exploitation!” on the internet and take your neo Black Panther ass to DC if you want to make a difference because hating on a show isn’t going to change the world. I’m a movie snob, not a TV snob. I’m going to chill, watch television with my girl, and take shots every time Evelyn uses the word “Bum Bitch” because it’s fun damn it. If I want something deep —no homo-- I’ll read a fucking book.