So, following my previous post on Jamaica, which got me thinking about race and class, of course I came across this news gem at Jack and Jill Politics, about “Hot Ghetto Mess,” a new show on BET. The news originally came via Racewire.
Here’s a quote from BET, but there is more to read at Jack and Jill:
“Hot Ghetto Mess” is an entertaining, tongue-in-cheek examination of the good, the bad and the ugly of Black popular culture. Utilizing comedy, man-on-the-street interviews, video clips, pictures and music, “Hot Ghetto Mess” aims to shine a spotlight on prevalent images in pop culture and examine what role they play in American lifestyle. “Hot Ghetto Mess” goes where most shows fear to tread. As host Charlie Murphy guides viewers through shaking booties, thug life, baby-mama drama and pimped-out high schoolers, “Hot Ghetto Mess” will explore what these images really mean to all of us. Cutting edge, original, relevant and irreverent, “Hot Ghetto Mess” is like the traffic accident you can’t look away from. Viewers will laugh. They’ll cry. They’ll think. They’ll learn, and hopefully they’ll recognize they’ve GOT to do better.”
You’ve got to be kidding me. No, of course, you aren’t…
Update:Oooh! According to a site called What About Our Daughters, advertisers are indeed already pulling away from the show… Hmm, this should perhaps be followed more carefully…
No related posts.
-
Reading this description and the post over at Jack and Jill reminded me of a panel discussion on HIV/AIDS I saw a couple years ago on C-SPAN (I think). One of the panelists was Sheila Johnson, the woman who co-founded BET with her husband Robert back in the day. Johnson kept going on about pop culture’s pressure on young women to be sexual/sexually active . . . although her points were well-spoken and well-taken, I couldn’t help but remember that she helped to found the network that now shows such gems as “Tip Drill” and “P-Poppin.”
-
You know, elsewhere, the CEO of BET has been known to defend her station’s programming decisions by claiming that she’s in the business of making money. It’s funny how there’s this space that allows a kind of lip-service (C-SPAN), but that such spaces seldom overlap with spaces in which people must take real responsibility for the impact of their decisions. It seems like, in the world of media/popular representation, real allowances are made for saying right and doing wrong.
3 comments
Comments feed for this article
Trackback link: http://mp285.com/2007/07/hot-ghetto-masses/trackback/