If ethnic TV isn't fresh, don't buy it

By ERIC DEGGANS

© St. Petersburg Times, published September 18, 2000

Growing up in Gary, Ind., I remember a grocery close to my home that must have been the worst store of its kind on the planet.

Basically a shoddy convenience store expanded to fill the shell of a once-great neighborhood market, this space was packed with secondhand merchandise on battered shelves. Forget about fresh produce -- you were lucky to find anything without a brown spot or mold.

The employees, probably ticked off that they had to spend their days in this pit, offered service with a sneer. And for all this quality, you got to pay prices often higher than those found in nicer stores miles away.

Of course, I had no idea how really bad the place was; like most customers, I had no access to a car, so I was part of a captive market. Nowadays, I'm certain the faraway owners counted on that, pocketing profits squeezed from an almost entirely black, underprivileged community with few options.

These memories returned, unbidden, while I was screening tapes of several new Monday night series that debuted this month on UPN.

All half-hour comedies, they feature mostly black casts and share another important distinction.

They are all awful.

And watching them felt like stepping back into that long-ago grocery store in my old neighborhood: You might not want to, but you don't have much choice.

That's a tough thing to have to say, for a black TV critic who wants to see more people of color on-screen. Worse, these are among the few shows made "For Us, By Us," handing network TV jobs to black writers, producers and "ghetto famous" stars such as Steve Harvey, Jamie Foxx, Brandy Norwood and D.L. Hughley.

But there is no avoiding it. Formulaic and predictable, the season debuts of The Hughleys, Moesha, The Parkers and the new series Girlfriends weren't even distinctive enough to serve as examples of buffoonery or stereotyping.

Instead, they are simply unfunny, filled with barely-there jokes gamely delivered by performers who deserve so much better.

Limping into its sixth season, Brandy's Moesha negotiated a raft of tired jokes while outlining troubles in the star's relationship with her rapper boyfriend. The Hughleys' debut featured Survivor star Gervase Peterson as a pizza delivery guy in a lame-o parody of the CBS summer hit.

Girlfriends, developed by Frasier star Kelsey Grammer and ex-Jamie Foxx producer Mara Brock Akil, is a Sex and the City rip-off, complete with four gal pals who obsess about men and a lead character who talks directly to the viewer.

The Parkers, derided by critics as the worst new show on television when it first aired in 1999, showed in its season debut that age doesn't improve everything.

These shows, and others like them, are bad for many reasons. One is that the industry has developed a formula for ethnic-oriented television: keep costs low to make money on the small, niche viewership black people provide.

"People get paid less when they work on smaller networks, the residuals are less, and licensing fees are much less," says Sharon D. Johnson, chairwoman of the Writers Guild of America's committee of black writers and a veteran of black-oriented shows such as The Sinbad Show and Goode Behavior.

"(Eventually), these are the only places people market you . . . and a stigma comes with it," says Johnson, noting that many talented black writers are afraid of being "trapped" in the world of lower-paying, lower-funded black comedies. (A friend of mine, now studying screenwriting in Los Angeles, refuses to consider writing jobs at these programs for just that reason.)

"You can't fill your resume with UPN shows," Johnson concludes with a sigh. "Sure, I could buy a Range Rover, but I want a career."

It all comes back to the grocery store theory. Another reason so many black-oriented shows are this bad is because black people will watch them no matter how lousy they are: If we want to see TV "FUBU," we don't have much choice.

But it's time for that to end. Unlike the folks from my old neighborhood, black TV viewers don't have to shop at the crappiest stores just because they're the only game in town.

Critics say such programs spread racial stereotypes, but I fear a different problem. They teach us all to expect less from TV entertainment focused on ethnic themes.

This is the real reason there's such segregation on the TV dial. Who in their right mind would sit through a drama as awkward as City of Angels or a comedy as stale as The Parkers if they weren't starved for the sight of black folks on television?

In the grand old days of In Living Color and The Arsenio Hall Show, black-centered TV shows were hip and edgy, a place to go for street flavor you couldn't find anywhere else. Even the inconsistent Living Single (which featured six hip, young urban pals almost a year before NBC's mega-hit Friends) and New York Undercover managed some breakthrough moments.

To find that spirit these days, head over to cable, where HBO's The Chris Rock Show and Showtime's Soul Food and Resurrection Blvd. have broken comedy and drama boundaries with shows aimed directly at black and Hispanic fans.

At the Emmy Awards -- which were so diversity-challenged just three black actors earned nominations for any honors -- HBO's black-centered miniseries The Corner won three trophies (though its black stars were snubbed). Halle Berry also won an acting trophy for HBO's movie Introducing Dorothy Dandridge.

Even the hidebound cable channel Black Entertainment Television -- notorious for filling its space with infomercials, music videos, low-budget comedy shows and reruns of failed sitcoms -- juiced up its schedule this year.

Debuting last week, BET's new lineup features six music-oriented shows produced in New York, a jazzed-up variety show temporarily hosted by former Detroit Pistons star John Salley (don't worry; he's much better than Magic) and a revamped news show featuring anchor Ed Gordon, who years ago had left the channel for MSNBC.

Call it a coincidence, but Newsweek last year kicked off a major debate about BET's offerings, calling them "outmoded, even offensive." Amazing what a little high-profile criticism can accomplish, sometimes.

When News Corp., the owner of Fox, announced a deal last month to buy a group of key UPN affiliates, industry experts wondered if the network would survive past the coming TV season.

I remember a snide column from a fellow TV critic that said, basically, so what if UPN goes away? It has only wrestling and Star Trek anyway.

Still, UPN is easily the most diverse network on television, with black characters numbering 36 percent of its total, according to a recent study by the Screen Actors Guild (once-groundbreaking Fox had the lowest numbers, at 9.7 percent).

Together, UPN and the WB account for 44 percent of all black characters on prime time television, the study said.

Which makes this a really important issue. It's easier to wipe a network off the air if no one values its programming beyond simple diversity figures.

So this critic is going to be avoiding The Hughleys, Girlfriends and Jamie Foxx for a time, while urging all involved to do better. I learned long ago the folly of sampling the worst product in town just because there's little alternative.

- To reach Eric Deggans call (727) 893-8521, e-mail deggans@sptimes.com or see the St. Petersburg Times Web site at http://www.sptimes.com.

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.