Ahead of Mother’s Day, we asked folks on the Twitters about the sordid details of their mothers’ pasts that they only discovered as they got older.
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I was reading this piece on the 10 most promising network pilots and while I was excited to see some of these shows, I have to admit that I was slightly disappointed that we would go another year without seeing my television dream come true. I long for the day when a network will put on a drama with a cast made up mostly of African-Americans (Sorry, Netflix, Scandal is not an African-American drama so stop classifying it as such). Yes, there are Tyler Perry’s various comedies on TBS but I want more. I want a show like Breaking Bad or Sons of Anarchy. Is that too much to ask? We all know why it won’t happen. Networks assume it would be a ratings disaster. They are trying to get the most amount of eyeballs as possible so having a show where the cast doesn’t reflect a majority of the population is probably a bad idea. I’m sure there is tons of marketing research that supports that view but I think it can be done. Sure, it would take a perfect storm but here’s that I think would need to happen. It would have to be cable (AMC, FX, HBO, Showtime). Aside from the fact that the best shows are on cable anyway, I don’t think this hypothetical show could garner the required ratings to stay on the air. Cable dramas attract the best talent behind and in front of the camera. If I had to choose a channel for my dream show, it would probably be FX. John Landgraf appeared on Grantland’s Hollywood Prospectus podcast and he sounds like the kind of exec who would give this show a chance. Also, the FX brand is strong enough that you would give anything they aired at least one show. (Worst case scenario: if the show had horrible ratings, we would at least get one full season.) I would have said AMC but after The Killing, I approach all their new programming trepidatiously. It would need to star at least one established movie actor/actress. We need a respected actor or actress that will make people say, “Damn, if ____ is doing television, this must be good.” Obviously, this isn’t a foolproof system as many great actors have starred and appeared in many horrendous pilots. The biggest problem with this is there aren’t that many African-American actors/actresses that would make your casual television viewer say “Wow.” I don’t think Denzel Washington, Will Smith or Halle Berry is ready to give up being movie stars. I wonder what Eddie Murphy’s appearance is going to do for Shawn Ryan’s Beverly Hills Cop pilot. Speaking of Shawn Ryan… It would need to be produced by someone with a proven track record in gritty cable dramas. It makes me laugh when I see a trailer for a movie and the words “From the producers of..” pop up. It is a completely meaningless statement. However, in television, those words mean something. If this show had the backing of a Shawn Ryan (The Shield), Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad) or Kurt Sutter (Sons of Anarchy), it’s going to guarantee a certain amount of viewership that might give it a chance to survive. The first four episodes would have to be perfect. Not all pilots are great but the shows manage to survive. Our show will probably not have that luxury. It needs to be firing on all cylinders from the beginning. It needs to great enough compel television writers like HitFix’s Alan Sepinwall, Time Magazine’s James Poniewozik or Huffington Post’s Maureen Ryan to recap this show on a weekly basis. When a great show struggles, the critics can be your most important cheerleaders. If our show is on the bubble towards the end of season one, critical acclaim is the best way to survive. Well, viewers would actually be the best way but we might need a back-up plan. It would have to be about crime in one way or another. This isn’t an African-American thing just a fact that most of the popular dramas on cable are about criminals (Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy) or the pursuit of them (Justified). The beloved HBO drama, The Wire, was about the institutional failings in Baltimore but if you ask your average fan, all they remember is Omar. It needs to be marketed as a universal drama while still marked specifically to African-Americans. A little under three years ago, NBC premiered Undercovers, a spy action/drama produced by J.J. Abrams, with two Black leads, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Boris Kodjoe. Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t a good show but I always thought NBC made a mistake by not having a marketing campaign aimed specifically at African-American viewers. It is a rarity to have two black leads on network television in prime time and NBC should have tried to take advantage of that. The lead might have to be white. I’ve been trying to find a way around this but it might be the only way to get our magical show greenlit. White viewers who make up a majority of the ratings need an entry point. The already cancelled Last Resort on ABC starred Andre Braugher but in a majority of posters and bus ads I saw around Los Angeles, the only cast member featured was Scott Speedman in a wet t-shirt. The established movie actor I mentioned might have to be white actor/actress with a lot of appeal and surround him with a solid minority cast. Dominic West wasn’t a star (actually he still isn’t) but I doubt The Wire gets made without him as the lead. As long as the show isn’t about this star saving African-Americans from themselves or their lot in life, I can live with it to make my dream come true.
Brad Paisley was kind enough to pen a tribute to my childhood. I’d like to think that I’m the man who works “in the Starbucks down on Main.” Or rather: I’m the kid who shudders a bit and starts biting his nails upon walking into an auto parts store far flung from the interstate, finding myself swarmed by men wearing gruff glances and countless Confederate prints: t-shirts, hats, stitched jacket patches, hairy tattooed forearms, etc. Often their apparel will bare such proud and explicit warning: “IF YOU DON’T LIKE MY FLAG, YOU CAN KISS MY ASS!” This is all, I’m often assured, a warm celebration of freedom and Skynyrd. When I was a kid—a black kid in the eastern Richmond suburbs—I hung around enough Lost Causers to know (and love) many of them as folks with open hearts, if stubborn intellects. Over the years, in my fair share of arguments with neighbors, friends, their parents, I posed Ta-Nehisi’s question plain: “How well do you know the history of the symbols you claim?” Dude, did you know half these damn states straight up claimed slavery as their instigating cause? Some days I had back-up in yapping such heresy: a few fellow nerds, and one decisively sympathetic high school history teacher. But most days I met with shrugs and resilient denials of historical record—as the Stars and Bars flapped overhead, clipped to the gutter of a nonetheless friendly garage. So Brad Paisley, man, I feel you. Knowing as I do how deeply entrenched and hotly defended Confederate mythology is, I respect your clumsy kumbaya— “…and I don’t know the answers, but I feel like asking the question is the first step, and we’re asking the question in a big way. How do I show my Southern pride? What is offensive to you? And [LL Cool J] kind of replies, and his summation is really that whole let’s bygones be bygones and ‘If you don’t judge my do rag, I won’t judge your red flag.’ We don’t solve anything, but it’s two guys that believe in who they are and where they’re from very honestly having a conversation and trying to reconcile.” —but you’re strumming a false choice “between Southern pride and Southern blame,” between an iteration of the South that welcomes me and one that fantasizes me in chains. If you asked me what it means to partake in the South, I’d spring to life and:
That’s white, that’s black, that brown, that’s damn near err’body from around my hometown way, swelled with sweaty delectable pride. What the white kids back home never gracefully explained to me, though, is why this pride is a matter of waving a literally belligerent banner—the avatar of a nation that meant to maim, enslave and murder its citizens, i.e., your neighbors. If that banner falls, does the South unravel with it? Of course not. The Confederate flag not iconic of the South in any modern, livable sense; it’s simply, decidedly, unapologetically white. The Confederate flag is white pride, full stop. It doesn’t celebrate black freedom, or Southern blackness, nor does it mean to. What’s the point in denying this sleight, or forgiving it as LL does? How does counterfeiting history nudge us toward, of all things, understanding? I don’t need Uncle L to concede what I will not: that pride in the South should make way for pride in a rebellion that meant to chain and rape my family. For real, you ain’t even from ‘round here, bruh — the exchange LL feigns, I’ve braved too often: glancing that flag on a stranger’s shirt, in a county where more times than I wish to recall I’ve been called a nigger to my face, and worrying whether they’ll dish me harm or disrespect. One day I grew up, grew weary of both this tension and this argument, so I retreated. At eighteen years old, I packed my life and fled north up I-95, dolefully sure that I’d overstayed my welcome in Dixie’s bitter capital. Convinced that all along, despite the pride of my drawl, I’d been a nuisance to my own home. Justin Charity is a writer in Washington D.C.
Why is the PB fam all over up in your iTunes and your Stitcher, though? Seriously, in the last few weeks, we’ve been popping up everywhere:
It’s been a minute since we’ve recapped the Real Housewives of Atlanta! Let’s get everyone up to speed:
Ta-daa! All caught up.
Once upon a time, Tyrese Gibson was a master MAN-ipulator who would sneak around behind his girlfriends’ backs in order to whet his ravenous appetite for T&A. If his girlfriends started to suspect anything, he’d turn into a MAN-gician, pulling out all the stops to dazzle himself back into their good graces and convince them of his MAN-ogamy. It didn’t matter if the woman was hot, smart, successful, and great in bed. Once he got what he wanted from them, he’d move on. Tyrese cites the Tyler Perry classic, Why Did I Get Married?, to explain his logic: “men are going to get 80 percent of what they need in a relationship, yet when a new woman comes around offering that other 20 percent, most men will be ready to leave the good thing they have.” But Tyrese is no longer the man he used to be. He’s found himself a good MAN-tor in Reverend Run and now sees the error of his ways. In fact, Tyrese and Rev want to help women so that they don’t choose the wrong guy off the MANu, and they’re willing to break the MAN code to do it. Presented in two different fonts so there’s no confusion as to who is giving the advice, Manology will probably hit close to home for some of you. There will be some hard truths you ladies need to face. I’ve culled the four most important lessons from Manology for your consideration even though they might upset you. Because it’s like Tyrese says, “If I’m not striking that nerve, then I’m not being a good friend.” And ladies, I am your friend. So if you want to know more about how to find and keep a MAN, take a deep breath and keep reading. These insights are deep.
Cross-posted from Don’t Cross The Streams Even before Cindy and I were married, I joked how I would side-eye anyone who gave our future child anything with a monkey on it. The first image that would pop in my head is the “That’s Racist” animated gif. Now that we have a baby boy on the way, I’ve been questioning how serious I am about it. This just can’t be real. Like, this is a grown-up and they’ve done some forced perspective or some green screen/CGI stuff, right? I’ve made a lot of life goals, but after watching this I realize that my aims and hopes are but trifles. There is truth in the universe, and this child can show us where to find it. Her magic is real and pure. |
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