First, I learned that Girlfriends was coming to an end. Melancholy set in.  But wait, the finale episode is actually a pilot episode for a new show featuring colorful and truthful characters never seen before on American television. Joyous.

The pilot was for The Game, the second brainchild of Akil Productions that focused on the lives of professional footballers and their women. Now the male fans of Girlfriends could openly admit to watching the show. It was refreshing, entertaining, and promising: a look into the lives of African-Americans that did not use a clumsy brush stroke to depict an entire race but meticulously applied daubs of the sub-communities within.

However, networks were blind to the popularity of this show, and like its predecessor Girlfriends, it came to a premature end. Miffed. An outpour of requests and petitions were posted on social media groups demanding the show to be reconsidered and in the end, BET picked it up. Mixed-emotions. As any pessimist that is familiar with BET knew, The Game was doomed.

BET has turned The Game into an over-the-top-real-gold-digging-housewives-of-ex-football-stars satire that has the depth of a music video. As I believe in the talent of Akil Productions, I like to hope that their remains some hope for future episodes but the over-the-top drama and buffoonery style comedy makes me cringe and miss the earlier seasons.

Renee (Vanessa Williams) hooks her hairdresser up with Lynette. As revenge, her hairdresser (the only hairdresser in this part of the burbs that knows how to relax black hair) leaves Renee with an afro.

Having an afro is revenge? Is natural hair that horrible? Could the writers not find another act of revenge like dying it purple or cutting it uneven. Plus, Vanessa Williams is so stunning with her afro that it is hard to see as an act of malice, even a humorous one.

Seriously?

Line please? oh yeah- “You, my son can’t read, and you want him to sing and dance!” (throw brick)

Image from last night’s episode “Pot O’ Gold”

Reed Between the Lines has an almost entire all-star cast and was able to pull in 3.3 million viewers when it premiered. This viewership has since dropped and only time will tell how this cable based sitcom will perform, especially once BET’s The Game returns.

My impression: I love the leading actors and find them to be well casted and believable. The scenes are not over the top as what tends to happen in these types of sitcoms so it avoids the slapstick meter and remains very tasteful. It is definitely a family show – refreshing in this modern TV landscape where dysfunctional is an acceptable norm. I would like the supporting characters to improve and the topics to become a bit more evolved and less predictable (there are more family/career issues to tackle). With the intro music, every 5-sec laugh box and the over acting, it feels like a stage play which has become dated in modern TV but holds strong in comedies (which is why I prefer comedies that use a mockumentary style such as in Modern Family and The Office to bypass these conventions- but I digress).

Reed Between the Lines gets my support and vote because there is a lack of programming displaying families of color and positive family values. It is nice to sometimes have your “back to basics”.

We finally got more dimensions to some of the characters of color; Mike Chang and Mercedes Jones. Obviously the added elements are founded in stereotypes as this is Glee but it was good to finally have a back story to Mike and to finally have a chance for Mercedes to shine.

By the end of the episode, I felt that Mike’s story was universal and did not get too caught up in stereotypes. I equally felt his parent’s were well casted as it showed that Mike was not first generation (Asians have been in the United States for many generations but in the media they are portrayed as new immigrants or first generation).

I did not like, however, the story for Mercedes. She has always been one of the strongest singers on the show but the most underutilized. Mercedes finally has a relationship/friend (she was best friends with Kurt until he left the school and remained a loner) but by the end of the episode, we see that this relationship has led her to her demise. Not only is Mercedes always seen as lazy but she also went from lovable to aggressive in a matter of minutes through the encouragement of her boyfriend. I know the writers needed a catalyst for one of the Glee members to move to New Directions to keep that story going but why was it done in such a cliché and thoughtless way? Mercedes could have remained humble while discovering that the Glee club was biased in the way they treated her vs. Rachel. The already heavily stereotyped character did not need this added element of combative, lazy and sassy.

Despite this, we did get to see a polished Mercedes and multi-talented Chang for the first time.

Susan, the ideal citizen who always follows the rules, is trying to now break the rules to be punished. In the first sequence we see that she accidentally steals a case of sodas and is stopped by the store’s security guard, a young white male, that is over-doing his job and wants to arrest her. A second security guard approaches, an older white male, who explains that the new guard did not get into police academy and is therefor taking it out on everyone else. The young guard explains that he is all about justice and Susan decides to start purposefully breaking the rules. This leads us into a strand of three sequences where Susan attempts to be punished again and fails.

Sequence 1: Attempting to be punished for putting kitchen trash in her recycling bin

Sequence 2: Smoking in a no-smoking zone

Sequence 3: Eating more than her share of free samples

I try not to be overly sensitive to racism or stereotypes but by the time I got to sequence three, I could not ignore the obvious. For a show that at most has two black characters in any given episode, seeing three Black roles in a row caught my attention.

Unfortunately, all three demonstrated a lack of professionalism and care in their jobs and lives. Watching the initial sequence with the white security officer over-doing his job with alacrity followed by the only Blacks in the community (besides for Vanessa William’s character who is trying to seduce the neighbor) working blue collar jobs carelessly and not living up to the expectations of these jobs, this can not be seen as accidental or coincidental in the writing or casting process.

The hit Fox TV series Glee is a great example of this writing style. Outside of the singing, most of the script is filled with purposeful political incorrectness that is overall equal opportunity as its directed towards the whole gamut – homosexuality of both men and women, OCD, low IQ, obesity, poverty, foreigners, Asians, Jews, down syndrome, Apergers, and the list goes on.

I have never been a fan of being “PC” just for the sake of it. If you have issues with other groups and pretend not to or avoid them, I find that just as disturbing. Only through discussion, exposure and exchange can one move past that. However, sitcoms are not the place where this understanding will occur. Sitcoms are written to be funny by a staff of comedians and writers. The writers are a small group and have written for other popular shows on TV. Basically, this select group controls the media. As a writer, you draw from your own personal experiences, good or bad, and this is where the problem lies.

The lack of diversity among the writers creates a narrow-sighted view of the world, which is then projected onto film and then into society.  It is no secret that the majority of writers in this select group are white males.  White males continue to dominate the film and television sector, even despite efforts on the part of networks to encourage diversity. Of course diversity is not only represented through skin color and gender as among these white males you have the “mix” of gays and straight, Jews and WASPS, young and old, blue collar background and old money families. However, the lack of presence of women (a 2009 study showed women make up about 28% of the writers) and the near inexistence of minorities (a mere 6%) creates an unhealthy media world and the lack of this diversity is being felt.

In Glee, we are force-fed the story of Kurt – one of the few multidimensional characters – and follow his struggle of being a proud homosexual adolescent. Why are we able to dive deep into the emotions of Kurt and his struggles as a gay teen? The co-creator of Glee, Ryan Murphy, is openly gay, sung in a choir when he was young and recently married his partner of 15 years. Personal experience and interest is what gives writers material.

On the other hand, we are presented with very one-dimensional minority characters; Mercedes, Tina, Mike and Santana. Mercedes is a walking stereotype with no thought behind her creation and no surprises to her persona (at least not yet). She is an overweight, soul-signing, African-American diva who is named after a luxury car and dresses in kiddy urban wear – now dating the overweight simple-minded football player and only African-American male on the set. Tina and Mike represent the entire Asian community and yet still have the same last names. The only thing we know about Tina is that she is a Goth and faked a stutter and that Mike likes to dance. Then we have the Latina of the group, Santana Lopez – she is a promiscuous manipulative bombshell from the Projects and likes to start fights.

Granted that there are jokes made on every group but when the characters are already one-dimensional and a stereotype representing an entire community (ex. Mercedes subliminally represents all Blacks because she is the only Black lead where Kurt does not represent all white males because there are several other white male leads nor all gays as there is two other white male roles not including Rachel’s parents and is a complex character within himself) the result is more damaging and offensive. Even if these writers find it as a way to increase ratings and justify it based on reality, it is a reality seen through their narrow lens.