0:00 Hey, Talon Marks.
0:01 This is Shaniah, Arts and Entertainment Editor.
0:03 I just wanted to touch bases with certain things going on in entertainment recently.
0:09 This is relating to a story that I just wrote pertaining to how black women are treated in the entertainment industry and how we’re often deemed as aggressive, negative, hyper, sexualized and things of that nature, and have many different networks like Zeus and Now That’s Tv as TV kind of profit off of those same stereotypes that I just mentioned, and how it can be very damaging to how people perceive black women to be because it’s very disheartening to see how black women are often thought about, or how we’re aggressive and such, and that’s not the case most of the time.
0:53 Honestly, I feel like those stereotypes, those stereotypes, kind of just trickle back down to racism and slavery as a whole, and how we were deemed to be all those things. And not only is it damaging to our community, but it’s always so damaging to all the young black women and all the young children out there that CD shows or see these different things because Zeus and now this TV is very, very public.
1:25 It’s public all over social media. It’s on, it’s via Tiktok. So a lot of people are seeing these scenes or seeing certain things, and seeing these fights, and these children are seeing all these things, and have access to it. And it just comes down to them seeing that and thinking that it’s normal to get drunk and fight and want to argue and do all these different things, when majority of the time that’s not the case, and that should not be the case.
1:55 That should not be normalized in our society, like we should not be looking at these, these women as role models or as pawns, when these networks and these companies are just using them for a quick dollar, just using them for entertainment purposes, and then throwing them out to the trash, like I just think that that’s not cool, and that should not be normalized at all, and it just comes down to the point of just, is it, is it really worth the money?
2:26 Is it worth the nor the the fame? Is it worth being seen, like putting yourself in that predicament,
2:37 is it all worth it?
2:41 In this case, I don’t really think that these women should be exploring themselves in that way, because I feel like a lot of them have the have the opportunities, with the platform that they have now to do better once they’ve done it.
2:57 But you you’re continuously going season after season after season after season, doing the same things and just like, not fully focusing on the bigger picture, because I’m pretty sure, like they’ve they’ve thought about, in my opinion,
3:14 I just feel like these new shows, these new recreations of Bad Girls Club, have no structure, at least with Bad Girls Club, like there was structure. There was like it wasn’t just all about fighting and violence and throwing a girls mattress in a pool and just being negative and doing all these things. It had structure.
3:36 You know, they had some people had friendships in the house. People made alliances, people they went out, they did certain things, like they made it they made it a show. And just in these shows, all you see is women in the house, women in the Airbnb, just fighting, and then fighting for no cause, fighting for no reason. Because I’m not gonna lie.
3:58 As a kid, I did watch, I did watch Bad Girls Club.
4:03 but it just comes down to like a show having structure. And even though I wasn’t supposed to be watching the show, I always understood the concept of what the show was supposed to be, but how these networks are portraying the show, it does not, does not seem very structured. It just seems like you’re gonna fight, I’m gonna pay you to fight.
4:28 You’re gonna get drunk and you’re gonna be in this Airbnb for two weeks, and you’re gonna fight, and you’re gonna do this for two weeks, and all you’re gonna do is fight sleep and do it all over again the next day. And there’s no there’s no structure in that.
4:39 And even though it should not be normalized, that’s just the honest given truth. Like, there should not be an instance where a girl has to think about, oh, I’m gonna have to fight when I get up in the morning.
4:56 That’s crazy. That’s madness. Like, doesn’t make any sense to me. You. Already have it bad enough as a society, from people looking from outside looking in, they don’t know the issues that we have to face every single day as black people, or as a black woman, and as a black woman, I feel like a lot of times, like we’re always even if we raise our voice a little higher, or we do something to assert some sort of dominance.
5:25 We’re looked at as masculine and negative and a bitch and all these different things just because we’re voicing something or we’re doing something, and it’s not cool.
5:36 And even with these reality TV shows, that just implements what people already think about us. So when these these networks put out these TV shows and do these things, and even in TV shows or in movies where the dark skinned girl, she’s always the aggressor, the the black girl, she’s she’s always hyper sexualized, it’s very, annoying to me, like, I feel like the stereotypes need to change when it comes to black women, because black women are not just in that box, like we have different things that we are and different things that should be normalized in entertainment and in this industry.
6:19 Like, not everything has to be sexualized. Not everything has to come off as aggressive. Or a black woman shouldn’t have to tone down her approach for people to understand it. And I feel like with a lot of these shows and a lot of these reality TV shows, what they do is people will see them and think that’s how women act in real life, how black women act in real life
6:40 and that’s not the case. Like a young girl might see a TV show like that and think, Hmm, that’s how I’m supposed to act. So let me try to reenact that.
6:49 Let me try to do that.
6:50 Let me try to mimic. So, it’s normal or I think it’s normal, and it’s not normal.
6:57 It shouldn’t be normalized at all. It’s really like disgusting sometimes to see the difference in how we’re often treated because of shows like this, or because of how people portray us, or people how people already look at us.
7:18 For example, just I was seeing a clip from a couple weeks ago where a girl that was on the show, she fought at a reunion show, and her tooth got knocked out.
7:31 She got into a fight, and she got into that fight so bad that her tooth was knocked out. And honestly, with that, it seems like nothing’s really gonna get done until someone really, really, really gets hurt or like something’s like life threatening to someone’s life like no one’s really gonna take it seriously, especially like from either cast members or production or anything like that sort.
7:58 I don’t think anyone’s Gonna take it as serious, until someone’s life is in danger, until someone is literally at their wits end and is nearly a vegetable.
8:10 Like no one is taking anything seriously. And a lot of people will look at that, look at that woman getting her tooth knocked out as entertainment, and as it being, oh, well, she got paid to do it, or she knows she was getting herself into and it’s like, that should not be it.
8:27 That should not be the end all be all like that should not be it at all. It’s absolutely disgusting.
8:32 I just don’t understand, like, how people could see things like that and not be turned off and not stop watching these shows, or not say, You know what, this is wrong.
8:43 I don’t think I should be watching this like, I don’t understand what it’s going to take for people to really, like, see what’s going on in these shows, or see, like, what’s happening on the camera, or even behind the scenes.
8:55 Who knows what happens behind the scenes? It’s probably even worse to say, You know what, I don’t think we should be like indulging in this type of entertainment, or indulging in this type of thing like this does not seem right.
9:07 It doesn’t seem well. And honestly, even then, like these women with these platforms, that have these platforms, they have the ability to change their narrative, and they have the ability to change their change their lives for the better, and tell people that, you know, it’s not worth it. It’s not worth having the getting this money is not worth me fighting.
9:33 I just want people to take from this that there’s more to black women than just fighting. There’s more to black women than just being aggressive. There’s more to black women than just being stereotyped that you guys know us as, because there these shows don’t portray us in a healthy way at all.
9:59 It’s Completely sad that people will see these shows and be like, yep, that’s how, that’s how they act, yep, that’s how, that’s how they you know, and that’s not the case for us, because us as black women, we already have a stigma against us, so these shows just make it 10 times worse, or instead of just the negativity, like there’s more to us than just fighting and being belligerent and drinking and having sex and being wild and being that one girl that just does, you know, does certain things, youth will see these shows and think that these Things are normal and these things are okay to do, and I don’t think that that’s a good look in the long run, because you have a lot of children out here that are very impressionable and do the things and reenact the things that they see online.
10:55 And it just goes to show you that they have a pressure to conform to certain things because of them being so young and not really having a full identity as of yet.
11:09 So they’ll see these shows and be like, Oh, well, she’s on TV doing that. That’s normal, so I should do it too, and that’s having negative peer influences like to get validation from other people as a child or as a young, young girl coming up is not the best way to go about things.
11:34 And I feel like there’s, I hope that a lot of young women don’t see these shows and think that that’s the normal way, and they just solely think it’s entertainment, and solely think that it’s fake and it’s fabricated. Because a lot of other people see these shows, or see things like this, and think, yup, that’s normal, yep, I’m gonna do that when I get older. I’m gonna be on these shows when I get older.
11:57 Honestly, when I was a kid, I had a lot of friends that we would literally, we would watch battles club and think about these things. So I remember as a child, on Tuesdays on oxygen, watching Bad Girls Club with my cousins and literally, just like trying to conform to those same stereotypes. And as a as a kid, I really didn’t understand it.
12:23 Yes, I knew it was bad, but I still wanted to do it because I thought it was fun, and it’s not fun. It’s like looking back at it as an adult, it’s like, you have to remember that these women are on these TV shows.
12:37 They’re getting paid to be on these TV shows. They’re doing these things for entertainment, and it’s not real, like most of it is for TV.
12:48 You know what I’m saying. So the takeaway from this can just be to have your own have your own identity, and just be yourself, and not just be that person who wants to indulge in this type of thing because it’s literally disrespectful to not only yourself, but maybe to your family or to other people in your life that may be affected by it, like it’s not cool at all.
13:19 And also, even for these women that are on these TV shows, it can have a serious, serious mental, mental, negative toll on them, having to fight, having to get drunk, having to do all these things like I know, it has a toll on them and even to the viewer.
13:37 It can even a young child seeing this video, I mean, seeing these shows, can say Could, could be negative, negatively impacted by it, by even seeing the conflict on the screen and thinking that there it’s really normal, because it’s not, it’s not cool at all.
13:55 That’s what’s pushed that’s what’s pushing the media. That’s what we see on social media. That’s what’s pushing the media for us to over consume and to indulge into their lives and probably even fund their lifestyles.
14:07 So the takeaway I have from this is to be yourself and not conform to the ideas that people have placed on us, especially as a black woman.
14:18 A black woman should never have to conform to the things that were negatively put upon them or upon us. I should say we’re more than just those things that I mentioned earlier in this podcast.
14:32 There’s more to us than just being what we would call a baddie, or we’re more than that. We’re beautiful people, we’re smart, we’re determined, we’re assertive, we know what we want out of life, and we’re more than all those things I mentioned earlier today in this podcast.
14:51 With that being said, I hope y’all enjoyed it. I love y’all, and I’ll talk to y’all soon. Bye. Y’all.
