Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Why This Reality TV Fan Is Giving Up (Most) Reality TV

In a world where there is enough drama,  hateration, foolishness, shade and backstabbing, why do I want to continue the unwanted party by watching this drama unfold? Now let me clarify something, by most (and not all), I'm not saying I won't watch competition shows (love the queens on RuPaul's Drag Race, support the singers on The Voice, love Patty giving her advice on Millionaire Matchmaker and shaking my head at the will of the survivalist on Naked and Afraid). But I just can't get down with anymore female drama.

Yes, I know drama makes for good ratings but you can still have an entertaining reality family/frenemy show without laying hands on each other. I mean, the contestants on RuPaul and Project Runway give plenty of shade but I don't come out with my blood pressure rising. As a TV-holic, I had to take a step back and check what I was watching and how it affected me. How it even affected my sleep. With so much negativity out there I wanted to watch TV that made me do one or more of the following: laugh (Mindy Project), imagine (Game of Thrones), educate (any travel show by Anthony Bourdain) or push creativity (any contest where people are reaching their dreams). Therefore The Bad Girls Club, Housewives, Married to Medicine, Love and Hiphop, Basketball Wives etc. had no place for me. Not knocking these shows. They entertain for sure. I just am tired of seeing women, especially black women, especially black women living in Atlanta, portrayed as superficial, fake, catty, ghetto, violent beings.

Perhaps it's all for the show and these women all love each other in real life and don't mind clowning it up for ratings and pulling out blow horns and beating up on each other (I'm talking to you Kenya and Porsha) but I think we can do better. We can have a reality show where the drama is contained and spotlights us in a lighter note (Tia and Tamera, Braxton Family Values, Mary Mary).  It is so easy for society to discount us as fools who easily pull each other down as a race or dumb women who always have to hate on each other. And since we, as black women, already are easily prone to being stereotyped, we need to try, at every opportunity, to show how fabulous we are. Is it fair that we must always do differently than other races? No. But that's life. And for men, outside of wrestling, there isn't much reality TV where they show this much drama. So let's do better. Hands off each other and if you are going to dislike someone let it be for a reason worth the energy it takes to be angry.  Till then, I just can't watch.

1 comment:

Lady Dulayne said...

I'm not ready to give up my RHOA but I know what you are saying. It would be refreshing to see a show, featuring successful black women who love, trust, support and uplift each other. And it can be down because we saw that with Tia & Tamera.

The biggest disappointment to me is Married to Medicine which I have only caught once. I was think a doctor or even a wife of a doctor would be so above all that petty nonsense and its so sad to see these women bickering the way they do.

Maybe one day these type of shows will go out of style.