Excerpt: The Rise of Reality TV Racism

Note: video slightly NSFW – bleeped out profanity

IN THE BEGINNING, the Network Suits said, “Let them be white,” and reality TV cast members were white. Seasons passed, and they multiplied to a mighty celluloid nation, populated by dominant men and decorative women, Bachelors and Top Models, Apprentices and Swans. We shall remember this age as “BF.”*

After half a decade the Cable Suits gazed upon their Network neighbors’ unscripted creations, saw the ratings bounty sexism had provided, and grew envious. Then the Cable Suits decreed that producers must layer racism atop their misogynistic bedrock, saying, “Let us remake Black people in advertising’s eternal image.” So producers birthed a minstrel show and called it Flavor of Love, and it was bad, and Kentucky Fried Chicken was happy.+ Flavor of Love begat Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School and I Love New York, which begat Real Chance of Love. And lo, people of color began to rule over their own plots of televisual land. But there was much suffering; visibility became a plague on their McMansions. Competing Cable Suits discovered Black Housewives in Atlanta, reformed Black and Latino men From G’s to Gents, and taught White Rappers their place.

And so it was, and so it still is today.

* Before Flavor Of Love
+ For the viewers, it was bad. For VH1, it was the biggest hit they’d ever had. And KFC? Their product placements figured prominently
# After Flavor Of Love
- From Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth About Guilty Pleasure TV, by Jennifer Pozner (site includes more video excerpts)