Basketball Baby Mamas

You all know that I hate reality shows. I hate them because I think that they're either scripted and / or the drama is manufactured. Although I can understand the allure to these shows, since Americans love train wrecks, I also get frustrated when someone passes one of these shows off as "positive" or "real."

This is what Shaunie O'Neal did in a recent interview with CNN discussing her garbage of a show, Basketball Wives. Here's a quote from it: "I do believe some of the shows featuring African-American women have positive story lines and are not meant to tear black women down. Shows like Tiny & Toya and Monica: Still Standing, LisaRaye: The Real McCoy, What Chili Wants and The Braxtons."

I won't comment on any of those shows because I've never watched an entire episode of either. Well, I did watch 10 minutes of Tiny and Toya and I thought my SAP (Secondary Audio Programming) was on because I don't think they speak English.

But, I did watch the first three episodes of the first season of Basketball Baby Mamas. Now, the reason I call it that is because I think only one of them is even married to an NBA player. They are either long-term girlfriends/baby mamas or ex-girlfriends/baby mamas. How any of that is "positive" is beyond me. I thought the show would actually represent some behind the scenes look at the NBA, but it's quite the contrary.

The show promotes this glamorous lifestyle of women who want to be socialites and the amount of self-inflicted drama on this show is worse than any episode of Maury Povich. For O'Neal to say that she wants the show to be powerful and uplifting to black women is like me saying I want Family Guy to be a tool of learning for children. BBW's promotes fighting, cursing, backstabbing and materialistic things. They leach off of their baby daddies (most who are not even recognizable players in the league anyway) and they basically remind the world that a-holes come in female forms, too.

I used to wonder if people who watch the show only do so for entertainment. I no longer think that about most people after hearing over-30 somethings talking about the show as if they're talking about their neighbors. They believe it so much that it's as if they know the ladies on the show. They are that much invested in something that doesn't represent anything legitimate about how people are supposed to interact with society.

Now, check out another previous quote from Shaunie in an interview from Sister 2 Sister magazine:

"And, I had some other original choices that just didn’t work out after we got a mini kind of casting reel of them. It was like, eh, not so exciting anymore. It was one wife I talked to, she said, “All I do is take my kids to school and pick ‘em up and cook dinner and have it here and go to the game.” Well, that’s not going to work for TV."

Sadly, this hypocrite is absolutely right. We only want to see drama. We thrive off of it. That's why this Casey Anthony trial has blown up like crazy. The media has pushed it on us so much for so long that people exploded emotionally when the verdicts came down. Mission accomplished.

So, how do we reverse this trend? How do we keep our kids from thinking that this is the way to live? How do we disprove that fighting, pouting and seeking materialistic things is what life is about?

Just like Shaunie said, if you put a nice, respectable person on TV, who's gonna watch that?