But I Love Basketball Wives (Part II)

"My faux shame is fake.  These 'itches are making me RICH!  Lawd, I just have so much money to count...SMDH...."

~Shaunie O'Neal

Yeah.  I'm a total effin hypocrite.  I hate scripted drama between black women, but I love the real stuff!  It's shameful, I know...

Maybe it's the reminder that my life isn't all THAT jacked up.  Maybe it's cause sometimes, when I do something messed up, I need to know that people are capable of doing worse stuff than me.  Or maybe, I just like judging real people more than fake characters.

Sadly, the latter is probably the most true.  Oh well.

If I'm honest with myself, I can't really decide what makes a worst impression of black people--this or the God-awful Single Ladies.

Think about it:

The scripted show gives everyone an excuse to think that few black people are capable of making good film and television, and put us all in the Tyler Perry Coon category.  But at the end of the day, you can look at the characters and a rational person will think, "these are characters and not fully indicative of black hoes women."

And then you watch Basketball Wives (or RHOA) and most rational people think, "these are real women.  They behave worse than the black chicks on Single Ladies.  These people have a serious problem.  Also how do they walk in high heels with butts that big?  Isn't their center of gravity off?"

So, even if you can excuse the former, the latter show gives some credence to the "black women are crazy" mantra so many people want to hold on to.  And tragically, through my viewership, I support such shows continuing.  

Yeah--normally I take really hard stances on sh*t like that.  I haven't turned on BET in over a year, EXCEPT when they air positive things--I figure adding my viewing to their Neilsen Share will help aid in more positive programming replacing the trash I don't watch.  (Hasn't worked so far, but I'm still trying).

But VH1, part of the Viacom conglomerate which owns BET, MTV, and CMT, is only a part of the problem.  As am I, if I keep watching.

Maybe I'll go back to watching it bootleg on Megavideo the day after it airs.  I can feed my dirty habits without helping to corrupt the rest of the world...

Le Sigh.  I love my trashy reality TV.  I'm a coon.  Go find a copy of DuBois while I brace myself.

Billy Dee!

Happy Memorial Day, everyone.  And by everyone, I mean the General and I, since we've let this blog go dry (not by desire, but by necessity) and no one ever has, or currently, reads us.


Hopefully, that will change :)


Anywho, on this Memorial Day, I've decided to write about someone who, according to Hollywood, might as well be dead:  the sexy, incomparable, Billy Dee Williams.


Question:  Tell me what you think about me.  I buy my own diamonds and I buy my own rings.  How the HELL did he go from this...

As Louis McKay in the Oscar Nominated "Lady Sings the Blues"

to this coonerific bull?

As some homeless ninja in some chitlin' circuit mess.

Now, For all of my (white) brethren who don't know what the "Chtilin Circuit" is, it was once the only medium by which black playwrights could get most of their work in front of audiences.  Now?  Oh now, Tyler Perry's plays are actually the BEST of what the circuit has to offer.  (The only time you'll ever hear "Tyler Perry" and "best" in the same sentence, excepting those times I say "Tyler Perry does the BEST job of making our people look like effin' coons.")

Back to Billy Dee.  You may not remember now that his star has fallen so, but Billy Dee was THE man.  Dynasty,  every Motown Movie ever made, The Jacksons TV movie, that mean old man on A Different World...he was friggin Lando Calrissian, for goodness' sakes!  Yeah, Star Wars, b*tches.

That means desperate middle aged white women loved him, all black women taught their daughters to marry men just like him, gave Michael Jackson a beat, and firmly secured the top spot as the favorite black man of every conference-crazed costumed nerd that ever lived.

But now he's playing homeless men in plays about silly people.  And he doesn't even star.  WTF?

Billy Dee has of course fallen victim to the fate of most black actors:  they get love few and far between while they're hot, and even if their star rises, there is typically an expiration date on their career that hits a good 20 years before their white counterparts.  Sir Michael Caine gets knighted and still plays great, Oscar-worthy parts and he's 198.  Helen Mirren is 77+89 years old and she still gets to play "sexy bad-ass with gun."  And Sean Connery?  Sean Connery could get it win pretty much get any role he wants.  I'm watching him right now in Just Cause (on Netflix, negroes...of course) in which he stars with the great Laurence Fishburne (ignore his daughter.)  Something tells me Sean Connery will continue to work long past his equally talented counterpart.  

But just because black actors get no love doesn't mean they have no talent, as I'm sure believers in the meritocracy would argue (like those dangerously silly idiots who actually believe anti-white bias is now greater than anti-black bias).  Sure, we have a few bankable stars around whom they'll build a movie:  Will Smith...Beyonce on certain days...Denzel...then Will Smith again.  Then we have some recognizable stars with whole heaps of talent but who usually get the "And" roles.  Think about it:  Jennifer Aniston, That kind of funny guy from SNL, and Jamie Foxx; a whole bunch of white people, and Queen Latifah.  Viola Davis plays everybody's favorite prostitute's BEST friend, and she STILL gets near bottom billing in 'Eat, Pray, Love.'  She damn near steals the show (and the Oscar) in 'Doubt'--away from Meryl Streep, which is no small feat, and yet she only gets best friend, 4th billing status?  Something is very wrong with this picture.

Black Hollywood is teeming with talented Black woodchucks, but the spend the prime of their careers playing the sassy best friend, funny sidekick, wise waitress or cameo criminal.  Then, as they age, they get "wise granny in Tyler Perry movie" and "wise granny in Tyler Perry movie."  Put Angela Basset in another "What's Love..." scale movie, do it EVERY DAY, and then I'll stop complaining.

So Hollywood,  and all you Hollywoodchucks, take note: put a little Billy Dee in something.  Throw him a bone.  He's still got it!  He may have put on a few pounds, but the hair still slicks and the smile still sparkles.  And he still has that growwwwwwwwwwwwl that'll make ya mama salivate. 

You are missed, Billy Dee.

Rise, Black Actors!  Rise!