A New Low For TV’s Minstrel Channel

Posted by SHAUN MULLEN, TMV Columnist in At TMV.
Jul 20th, 2007 | 7 responses

Although it helps, you don’t have to be black to be offended by the premise behind “Hot Ghetto Mess,” a new series on the Black Entertainment Television cable channel that is an orgy of stereotyping that mocks ghetto culture.

Led by blogger Gina McCauley at What About Our Daughters?, a rather formidable coalition of religious and women’s groups is asking advertisers to pull their ads from the show, which debuts on July 25, and threatens a boycott of their products if they don’t.

Although BET must be delighted by the publicity, two advertisers apparently already have complied, while Jam Donaldson, creator of the website on which the show is based, has penned a “Why Can’t We All Just Get Along” appeal below a photograph of the “June 2007 Mess of the Month” (see photo) that struck me as being transparently phony.

BET is in business to make money, not act as a beacon of positive reinforcement by providing quality entertainment for black Americans, as well as other viewers, but the lowest common denominator content of its predictably shallow programming continues to amaze me.

More here.

7 Responses to “A New Low For TV’s Minstrel Channel”

1. superdestroyer says:

   July 20, 2007 at 5:12 am

   I am surprise to see that you are posting on this. It has been mentioned the last two night on Fox News. I thought once something was mentione don Fox News, the left could no longer discuss it because it might look like they support the Bill O’Reilly’s of the world.

   I believe you are misusing the term Minstrel. Minstrel shows had whites dressing up as blacks. BET is black owned and totally staffed by blacks. I do not believe that they can be considered “Minstrel.”
2. Shaun Mullen says:

   July 20, 2007 at 5:24 am

   You manage to cram a lot of misinformation into a brief comment.

   My posts are not driven by Fox News.

   The term “minstrel” has been used widely by black bloggers and commentators in connection with this controversy.

   BET is owned by Viacom. Its CEO, Sumner Redstone, is not black.
3. superdestroyer says:

   July 20, 2007 at 6:22 am

   Sorry, I had forgotten that Robert Johnson had sold BET. However, he was still CEO until 2005 and the current f President and Chief Operating Officer of BET is black.

   I am sorry but I do not recognize others misuse of history. If black bloggers do not understand the history behind Minstrel Show is not my fault. It is the same for their urban legends surrounding working like picnic or even Uncle Tom.
4. T-Steel says:

   July 20, 2007 at 7:12 am

   *SIGH* SD, we of the darker shade use the term minstrel in the black community to describe those blacks that perform the same “acts” the mirror the minstrel shows of yesteryear. It’s not misusing history. It is recognizing history and applying it to situations today. Hot Ghetto Mess (and other crap shows like this) does the same damage the same way that past minstrel shows did: enforce stereotypes, demean, belittle, and embarrass.

   These type of shows perplex me. What is the point? As a product of the “ghetto”, I’ve seen living stereotypes. But they weren’t the norm. Many times they were scorned. But to advertise this as a “Hot Ghetto Mess” does what? And it makes money?

   I just don’t know anymore.
5. Rudi says:

   July 20, 2007 at 7:38 am

   The ugly side of SD and the Pat Buchanon racists rears it ugly head. Shaun – While this show is disgusting, it isn’t breaking new ground. The “reality shows” started out as harmless voyeurism, now the sleaze factor has ramped up and sex sells. MTV’s Realworld and another networks Bigbrother tarted out as soap operas, now they are just an excuse for on camera sex.

   These reality shows sell for a couple of reasons:
   1) viewer voyeurism and the consumer is ALL to blame.
   2) networks make more money on shows without professional casts and creative writers. Instead of Mary Tyler Moore or Bonanza, we get 20 somethings doing staged hookups in Vegas or Paris MotelSix on a farm.
   Is Brett Michaels and VH! any less guilty with “groupies in a house”?
   http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/music/ny-p2two5296989jul19,0,7173492.story?coll=ny-music-headlines

   If you haven’t already guessed the show’s premise, here it is: A group of beautiful women, all living together in a Bel-Air mansion, must compete to become Michaels’ girlfriend.

   You can imagine the possibilities – and Michaels, best known for the hits “Talk Dirty to Me” and “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” already has. The various games and tasks he dreamed up for his admirers include motocross racing, target practice at a gun range, playing mud football in lingerie and – wait for it – allowing Michaels to play their rumps like percussion instruments on his upcoming solo album.

   “You remember the song ‘Sympathy for the Devil’?” Michaels said. “You know, that boomp-chi-bomp-ti-pah, that bongo beat?”

   But seriously: Despite the word “love” in “The Rock of Love,” Michaels, who has never married, said he’s just looking for “someone I can like a lot.”
6. Pyst says:

   July 20, 2007 at 3:00 pm

   Now for all americans that snarl at France for caring about culture, here is ours on full display LOL.
7. DavidTC says:

   July 31, 2007 at 7:58 am

   Apparently, black people have their act together more than white people when it comes to actually doing something about pieces-of-crap disguised as television programming.

   Why the hell weren’t us white people out protesting the stereotype-laden reality shows of the last decade? Why didn’t we try to have their advertisers drop them?

   It’s the ‘boiling a frog in water’ theory, I think. Do it slow enough and they don’t notice. Make every reality show a little bit more horrible than the next. So when BET jumped it, viewers of BET got scalded and actually did something.