Victoria Rowell: "Debbi Morgan wanted to come to Y&R"

[SFK]

You mean House of Paynefully Unfunny? His plays are hilarious, his movies I can't attest to though they've done extremely well, but his sitcoms are abysmal. And I have triiied to get into them. I'm glad that they exist, I just wish they were better.

[bellcurve]

I don't claim to speak for Black America, but I will say this again...my issues with Tyler Perry have to do with how he treated the writers on his sitcoms. He wants to claim "ownership" of his products, which is great, but he wants to own other people's scripted work based on those characters without giving his writers(many of whom are struggling minorities who were in the same position he was in years before he became rich and famous) the money they are entitled to as being part of the entertainment industry. He can happily join SAG and DGA and get revenue and benefits from that, allow his actors and other directors to benefit from residuals, but not his writers?! And he still pisses vinegar about it when someone mentions it in print interviews.

[MoTheGreat]

I try to get into House of Pain but it is painfully to watch. He either needs to change it into a drama or get somebody else to write the jokes. Meet the Browns is better.

[Khan]

Okay...

First of all, I refuse to look at the failure of GENERATIONS as the reason for the current dearth of AA characters in daytime, especially when all TPTB had to do was look at the inroads AMC and OLTL had made w/ their AA characters and realize they could at least give minorities representation on their shows w/o alienating the core (meaning, Caucasian) audience. Second, if TPTB did see that show's cancellation as a sign not to make other soaps ethnically diverse, then they really missed the point. Again, GENERATIONS didn't fail b/c "Black folks" shared equal billing w/ Whites; it failed b/c it was a poorly written and produced show that very few of any ethnicity found entertaining.

So I should just be grateful there's "coloreds" on my TV, even if the shows-in-question have no entertainment value, or at times reinforce stereotypes and misconceptions that the AA community-at-large has fought long and hard to eradicate? Is that what you're saying? If that's the case, then maybe I shouldn't complain about shows like "Will & Grace" and "Queer as Folk," b/c, hell, it beats not having any gays on TV at all!

Well, maybe he'd get it if he didn't write and produce something that wasn't formulaic and didn't pander to the lowest common black denominator with one-dimensional characters. (It also wouldn't hurt him to learn how to tell a [!@#$%^&*] story.)

[bellcurve]

FYI, American QAF is garbage.

[Khan]

Oh, please. Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman, life and writing partners, did a better job writing for Nora Dunn's lesbian TV producer character, Norma Lear, and her partner on "Sisters" than they did for all QAF characters combined. And "Sisters," unlike QAF, was a show written and produced for network television.

[alphanguy74]

I LOVED IT!! yu guys are just a bunch of "Mikeys" you don't like nuthin!

[Khan]

No, not "nuthin." Actually, some of us get a real kick out of post-ers trying to start flame wars on message boards. ;-)

[SFK]

But alpha, why should black folks beg and wag their tales to be thrown a bone?? No minority should have to be "catered" to out of some efforted board room decision to *appease* a denied group. The Wire and Soul Food were huge successes in the black community. They were also very good. In today's America, writing for people of all walks should be second nature, something writers (especially soap writers!) should be *excited* to do, there is SO much to be mined here. And black folks don't have the market cornered on being fickle, apparently TPTB feel that TV viewers in general are as they have no qualms about yanking off programs one episode in and filling the void with yet another spare pilot.

[bellcurve]

American QAF was a total wasteland of tragic twink stereotypes that encouraged ridiculous promiscuous behavior in 2(x)ist thongs.

And you're wrong...there's lots of stuff I like. You just happen to have poor taste.

And the funny thing is Nora Dunn was "Special Guest Star," not a series regular.

[SFK]

An Early Frost was really good.

[OldSchoolSoapFan]

Then how would you like blacks to be portrayed on television? Minstrels and mammies are replaced by ghetto families who are in turn replaced by Huxtable families who are then replaced by Family Matters/My Wife And Kids/House Of Payne families. The more things change, the more they stay the same, right Khan?

[Khan]

It's an old statistic that I've quoted on numerous occasions, but according to this book I'd read back in high school, the most popular series on primetime TV in a particular season (forget which -- maybe the '86-'87 season?) among AA families was not "The Cosby Show" as the book's author(s) suspected it would be, but "Knots Landing." Knots. Landing. A show that didn't even have Black people moving into the cul-de-sac until its' ninth (out of fourteen) year on the air.

Folks, it's simple: we -- and by "we," yes, I mean "African-Americans" -- don't care if everyone on a particular show is Caucasian, under 25 years of age and lives in Orange County. We just want good storytelling.

[OldSchoolSoapFan]

Nora Dunn...her claim to fame was that she was the beeyotch who, when she was on Saturday Night Live, got her BVDs in a bunch over Andrew Dice Clay hosting one week. The execs replaced him with some no-name group nobody ever heard of. Norma Lear? So original.

[OldSchoolSoapFan]

Have fun being on Spike Lee's chit list. Then the subsequent article on AOL's "Black Voices" section about blacks who are content watching those evil, "lily-white" shows that they're supposed to throw their hands up in anger and demand "diversity" on (and the gist of the article will castigate them for liking said shows via its author) will follow.