Today was a good day. After reminiscing on The Cosby Show, we circled up and compared 4 shows; Flavor of Love vs. The Bachelor and Run’s House vs. Snoop Dogg’s Fatherhood. Flavor of Love is one of my favorite reality shows for a couple reasons. Seeing a group of women fight over one of the ugliest people in the industry is pure entertainment, not to mention the fact that they are given nicknames like Bootz and Deelishis to take away their real identity and turn them into personalities. But not everyone is as cool and laid back as me, which means that some people can tend to take what they see on the show as real life and feed into the stereotypes of the angry black woman, the oversexed male, back-stabbers and so on. Therefore the show can be an embarrassment to the black community and hurt the perception that people are people regardless of race. The Bachelor, which I just looked up and watched for the purpose of this blog, represents the white race pretty well. The women are classy and are not over doing it to gain the love of the bachelor. With that being said, I think the show is extremely boring. The main fact being there is no real personality mixes on the show, in other words, every contestant is pretty much the same. The sad thing is that’s the way producers want the show to be, explicitly claiming identity immediately disqualifies a participant from the show (Dubrofsky2008). This technique is what I think divides the crowds/races from the show. It’s hard for me to imagine a black woman that doesn’t display her own identity, and I know black women well, therefore it can be hard to identify with the show and keep you interested in watching it. And no, I’m not saying that fans of The Bachelor are boring and have no identity; I’m simply saying that the contestants between the two shows are completely different which attracts completely different people to watching them.
Moving on. Run’s House has been called the modern day Cosby Show and Shandrea hates that. I think the shows are close in comparison. They both have the successful fathers being the head of the household, and they give the appearance that “it’s all good when you not in the hood”… but that’s my opinion. The thing is, they don’t display any real “black” problems like economic perils, racism, and societal barriers (Smith 2008), which makes them unrealistic to some people. But Arnesha said that issues these days are more of a class issue instead of race issues which I agree with so… good job on that. Snoop’s show has a different feel to it, even though he is the head and provider for his house; he is more of a laid back parent. He takes the friend approach when it comes to him dealing with his kids. He doesn’t live in a spectacular neighborhood and embraces his hood(ness) which helps people better relate to it and see it as a better example of a real black family. I think they are both positive regardless of the ability to relate. To finish this up, just remember before you judge something on its “realness”, what’s real to you might not be real to me and what’s real to me probably isn’t real to you. Thanks for reading. Peace.
By: Antonio Mignott
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ReplyDeleteWOW!! This post has made me realize some things!
ReplyDelete1) Love the fact about the whole what’s real to me may not be real to you comment. this is sooo true but the funny thing is that I never looked at things this way. This is so true for life and television!
2) I think that you are COMPLETELY right about how the Cosby and Runs families are similar! Because these shows are for one in two different eras... Discipline styles have changed completely but both fathers discpline their children and are head of their households... and two Run's house is a reality show... not a sit-com like the cosby's. You can't do re-takes in a reality show...or can they??? Who knows with "REALity" TV.....?
3)Thank you
The End!
Tyra J
I agree with the article as well as everything that Tyra had to say, but one thing that stood out to me was the comment about giving someone a nickname and in doing so taking away their identity. I believe this is true. When we give girls and guys a nickname sometimes it tends to stick, and with that name comes a 'new' you. (for example Audri and Roxie) Each person molds that persona into whatever they want it to be. Whether they choose be go from normally being the loud mouth to a well spoken lady, or from being just one of the girls to 'Miss. Diva', these the character ideas come many times from something that one has seen or been told. I think that in the case of Flavor of Love those girl chose to embrace the names that were given them instead of telling Flavor Flave that they would prefer to be called by their real names. I also believe that the nicknames are a mask that these girls can hide behind to keep the producers of the show happy by becoming the created stereotypes we love to watch. Sometimes a nickname can be like alcohol, the excuse that is given but not a good one to stand on.
ReplyDeleteI thought Antonio did a great job with explaining how everyone has a different sense of reality. Because we go through our lives expecting everyone to see the same point of view that we have, and it does not even dawn on some people that others come from different backgrounds and have had experiences that shape their reality.
ReplyDelete~Christina
It's funny bc lately I have found myself telling people that reality is what you decide it is for yourself so I'm definitely in agreement with the "what's real to you might not be real to me" line. I could go on and on about these reality TV shows but at the end of the day who cares...it's entertainment and the people that I come in contact with who do choose to take them for more than what they are make me laugh a bit. With that being said however I do thing that the comparison btwn shows is rathering interesting and something that I have never taken the time to think about before this blog :-)
ReplyDelete*clearly the "Runs" are the Huxtables of reality TV*
Ma.J
First, I would like thank Antonio for the shout out. Second, after reading the article about Run's House and Fatherhood, I do see some similarities with the Cosby show. All of these shows depict parenting in a positive light. These shows also portray the fathers as active members of the family. Maybe these shows are the modern Cosby Show.
ReplyDelete