Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Harlem Lows and BET Woes

So Broke Entertainment Television (BET) aired its new reality series, Harlem Heights, on Monday. With the greatest sadness, I report to you that the show should have been called Harlem Lows.

First of all, there was zero publicity for this retardedness with the exception of an ad on the blog Young Black and Fabulous and a bootleg KFC commercial featuring the cast members. If you did not get a chance to catch the season premiere, I am extremely jealous!

Harlem Heights is intended to be the older, professional, fashionable, and successful version of Baldwin Hills. Sure a lot of the young ladies and fellas on the show dressed to the nines, but with the exception of the law student, the urban developer, and the chick who worked for Victoria's Secret, it was not clear as to what the others did for a living. Worst of all, you had your typical struggling boughetto actress and a street hustla with an elementary school aged daughter. I'm all for black empowerment and promoting a positive image, but this "crew" of harlemites (I refuse to describe them as socialites) was very WHACK. If you don't believe me, please check out the following: http://www.bet.com/onblast/default.html?chan=3&id=2750&i=8&sub=&itype=e.

The season premiere showed the group watching the November 2008 election of Barack Obama. Now, I even cried, jumped, and acted a fool during the historic moment. However, I did not expect to see the hard ass ninjas on that show balling like little bitches. It was a disturbing scene to watch. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with men expressing emotion, but if we want to cover the spectrum, I needed to see some straight men on that show too. Why did they all have to be gay? You might disagree, but every single ninja on that show was gay, especially the one (Pierre) who ran in some marathon (real ninjas don't do marathons).

So that whackness took up almost over an hour of my life and I missed the majority of the other ghetto mess known as For the Love of Ray J (I'll dish on that later).

I guess ever since MTV came out with rich white kid shows like Laguna Beach and the Hills, there has been an obsession with creating a negro equivalent. Although everyone loves Baldwin Hills, nothing about them screams money to me. When I say money I mean you got a Range Rover for your birthday type of money. Those kids are pushing honda civics and what not. I'm not hating on civics cuz I clearly drive a Toyota. However, if I am supposed to watch you on TV and be envious of your life, I'm gonna need you to do better.

I really think that if BET sticks to doing re-runs of shows like Martin, Living Single, In Living Color, Family Matters, and the Cosby Show, it will do just fine and probably get higher ratings. All this keeping up with the trends shit is not working. Just think about other whack ass shows that have aired on BET like Hell Date and DMX: Soul of A Man (arh arh).

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*Photo 1: taken from Black Entertainment Television
*Photo 2: taken from Black Entertainment Television

1 comment:

  1. According to your feedback I assume Harlem Heights really takes place in Atlanta...LOL

    As for Baldwin Hills the reason there are not a lot of rick black people is because viewers were complaining and unhappy seeing rich black people. They said they could not relate to the cast so BET had to change the show to average social class (Like the reaction of The Cosby Show). It's sad black people hate seeing other black people prosper.

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