11.01.2005

Buffoon Entertainment Television

I know. I know. Such a cliche. An HBCU alumna that doesn't like BET. I'm just saying tho, why does BET have to be so ignorant some times? The things you allow to air! Ugh!!! Come on! I did cheer when I saw "Civil Rights Activist Rosa Parks has died at 92" or something to that effect. I cheered because I promptly flipped over to CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, CNBC, CBS, ABC, and NBC and all of them were at least 5 to 7 minutes behind. Finally, BET wasn't slackin on their pimpin. Although call me crazy, but I don't recall seeing a special on Mrs. Parks.

Why is it so rare for BET to follow important black news events? I saw the Katrina images from the news crew they sent down there. But why has the coverage stopped? According to BET's website, it is a multi-billion dollar media conglomerate. So it can more than afford to keep the coverage up when everyone else has stopped. It is obvious that this hurricane disproportionately affects Black people. I'm hoping that BET's new CEO Debra Lee will make some changes for the better. But since she's been with the company for 20 years, who knows. In some way, she's at least partially responsible for what is on their now. "The Ultimate Hustler?" Come on. And I think "College Hill" may have single-handedly undermined the years of work that "Different World" accomplished. BUFFOONERY!!!

But the real reason I wrote this post, "25 Years of Fine" or whatever it was called. So the version about women listed Alicia Keys. Whatever. Your boy, the ever idiotic Bobby Valentino says (and I paraphrase), "Ooh. She a red bone. I'm from the south. You know we love redbones. And she got that good grade of hair. And she usin Proactiv now so she got that nice, crisp skin." My mouth. It hit the floor. I fell out laughin!!! It was the shock. I just couldn't believe he had the nerve to get on national t.v. and say that! And ya boy got on 106 & Park in October and said something to the effect of I like my women barefoot and pregnant. Then Lil Wayne piped up with, "Yeah and I don't like a woman who talks too much because if she's talking, then she not listenin to me." Oh my goodness. That is so sexy. A man with barbaric ideas. The sarcasm. Its killing me.

Okay but my beef on the men's version. First, when I saw it, I said, "Ooh! Denzel's #2! Who's #1? Wow." And then they showed the man with the largest ego in the world. Usher. WHAT?! You think USHER is finer than Denzel? USHER. Stop the madness. I can't. I really can't. Awful. And Blair Underwood? Oh yeah they left him off. Enough. I think I'm done with BET for a minute.

Except I like "In Living Color." Our version of SNL. Lol. Two snaps, a twist and a kiss. Lolololol!!
But yes, so that brings me to one of my goals. To transform BET. Yes, we need entertainment, but we need a channel that encompasses the whole person. Clearly you can't cater to every Black person, but I think it is severely missing the boat. The channel just seems so disjointed. Like does BET have a goal? What is its mission? Wait til you hear this. This just in directly from BET corporate. If you want to see it for yourself, roll over the title of the post. VERBATIM here it goes.

CORPORATE MISSION: To be the preeminent source of entertainment, music, news and information for the African-American consumer.

BRAND POSITION: BET provides contemporary entertainment that speaks to young Black adults from an authentic, unapologetic viewpoint of the Black experience.

Oh but I wish you did that. That sounds so good right? I mean, damn. That sounds like everything I want for Black America. A place to find entertainment, music, news and info for the African-American consumer? Speaks to young Black adults from an authentic, unapologetic viewpoint? Wow BET! Doing big things. *buzzer* You're wrong. You're definitely not doing this. And five, four, three, two, one. I'm officially pissed.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

i feel ya ... just like the top 25 women list ... i saw some of those and was like .. "YO, she is not finer than Patti Labelle."

Like they had Lisa Raye, now she cute and all, but she ain't got shyt on Patti, the orginal Foxy Brown and Tina Turner!

BET has no clue ...

Anonymous said...

Hmmm just stopping through. You have a great blog. I don't even watch BET anymore, and I can't remember the last time I watched for more than five minutes, it's probably been a few months. BET does not provide news, music, and entertainment that I want to see. The news is non-existent, the music I can do without, and their entertainment ain't all that. Now I admit some videos you could only turn to BET to see, but if I mean it's so sad the direction in which it has gone that I can go without. The three biggest mistakes BET has ever made
1) Getting rid of Teen Summit
2) Getting rid of BET Tonight/ BET Nightly News
3) Getting rid of Midnight Love
The three things BET could do to regain some prominence and some respect
1) Pick up "A Different World"
2) Bring back some kind of cutting edge teen talk show
3) Bring back real news and make that authentically black

Chris said...

I stopped watching BET a long time ago, especially that night I returned from an assignment to see Uncut and our midwestern Negro icon Nelly swiping some chick's gluteus with a damn credit card. I was good on BET from that point on. I'm glad Reg Hudlin is in charge of programming now because we're actually going to - hello - see some real programming.

Jameil said...

Yeah. I didn't like Nelly and the St. Lunatics before "Tip Drill," but once I saw that, it was a wrap. Glad BET thinks reaching the entire Black population means demeaning arse videos. Please let us not forget tho, that these women choose to be in these videos. There has to be some level of respect for yourself. But men, too, need to respect women enough not to use such images and offer these types of roles.

T Dot said...

I would only watch BET every once ina while to catch up on my "black culture" - aka videos - but I think the last straw was a few weeks ago when they did the Katrina benefit. I bet a whole lotta kids out there thinking Ourselves is two words instead of one because of BET's effort to Save Our Selves. Ignorance. It just made me mad just looking at it.