Reality Bites Back

I have been wanting to say something about this for some time now, but it wasn’t until I read this post at Feministing that I decided to add my two cents to the mix. The show has already aired, but it feels good to have this out.

What triggered me was this ad for a particular episode of “Reality Bites Back,” a showed designed to parody typical reality shows:

This really irritated me by perpetuating the stereotype of the fat, foul-mouthed, black women. This is not portrayed positively, of course, the “humor” in it is based off of how disgusting an experience this would be, as evidenced by one man’s comment: “I’m obviously nervous about turning Luenell on because A: it’s what I have to do, and B: it sounds really [expletive] scary.” She is solely focused on her sexual appetite, which of course is also portrayed as shocking and weird.

I suspect that they consider this parody of how stupid typical reality game shows are, but it’s like the New Yorker cartoon featuring Barack and Michelle Obama as terrorists. Both could have found a way to mock without offending someone else.

My favorite TV show is currently The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, so I don’t want to completely write Comedy Central off, but lately I am seeing a lot more of this type of trash appearing. They have a new show called The Gong Show, which seems to parody America’s Got Talent type shows in the same way, with the host making all sorts of cracks, because hey, he’s just joking.

Next week, Reality Bites Back is airing the episode “Almost-American Gladiators,” which Wikipedia describes as: “A series of immigration-themed physical challenges are presented to the contestants.” I can hardly wait.

[This post crossposted from here.]