Illegal television Show Killed
"Welcome to the Neighborhood" was supposed to illustrate how three white-bread, Christian, Austin families can eventually settle for the stripe of diversity of their choice as a neighbor. In order to do that the show forced a rainbow coalition of minorities and marginalized groups to humiliate themselves.
Some commentators on this anomaly of reality television saw "Neighborhood" as a worthy social experiment where people were forced to handle their stereotypes and preconceived prejudices. Granted, documenting any kind of community outreach of this kind would be interesting - if not very useful in real-world applications in community development.
However, the producers of "Neighborhood" forgot about the Fair Housing Act that in very plain language prohibits this kind of discrimination. And don't for a second think it's not discrimination just because a non-white or marginalized resident is going to occupy the house. The neighborhood is acting as the real estate agent in this reality show: through this process they are expressly choosing the least-offensive family for the home.
The question that bugs me still is this: if the show were to air (and by some chance be a smash hit) would hit have any capacity for changing the way people think about cultural and racial segregation in their neighborhoods? Or would it have further deepened these divisions? There's no way to know now. The corporate leadership at Disney/ABC apparently would rather burn heaps of money than face any kind of public humiliation about discrimination.
Read the National Fair Housing Alliance's Call to Action on this subject and a synopsis of the story from Newsday.
1 comment:
I remember when ALL TV shows and advertisements including print only had white actors. Many of the first shows with blacks were shows that mocked the black lifestyle and culture, such as the Jefferson family on Archie Bunker Show. Another popular one had the Jimmy or JJ Jackson (Different Strokes) character where they lived in project housing. Both were very popular shows. This is how the minority groups broke into the business, paved the way for the now very rich minority actors and became accepted by the viewing public.
Reality TV shows are only a passing phase of entertainment and sometimes while switching through channels I find the Swapping Moms show when two moms from different backgrounds are humiliated on TV only because of their culture and different backgrounds - sometimes only a cultural food or meal they serve will be severly critized. Of course anything with a Hilton in it I can't stand. Many of these reality actors also really ham it up for the camera - so how real can it be?
Maybe someone will find a law that can prevent some of the really bad reality shows mostly the dating or big brother types.
Although as you already know I do have may favorites especially The Amazing Race and will hate to see the day they take if off TV.
Just Mom's opinion - which you probably already knew most of it.
Mom
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