Let’s talk Basketball Wives today… specifically Evelyn
Lozada. Unless you’re living under a
rock everyone knows or has heard talk about the over the top drama and violence
that took place in the last season of Basket ball Wives. The main two culprits were Tami Roman and
Evelyn Lozada, but we won’t be talking Tami today. In light of all the bad
press the show has been getting Evelyn wrote a letter to her seven year-old
self that was published in the Huffington Post a few days ago.
She wrote it from the
point of view of being her present day 36 year old self warning her seven year
old self as to what she is going to go through in her life and that she is
going to make mistakes and be in the center of a national discussion etc. And I kind of felt she like she was blaming
her upbringing for her rage-a-holic behavior.
When I first read this letter I was thinking “Oh brother, this is just damage control”.
And in a way it is, but at the same time
it’s necessary. Some people, namely my
boyfriend just couldn’t wrap his head around her writing a letter to younger
self, it made no sense to him. If anything, he feels that it would make more
sense to just apologize for her behavior. What’s with the letter writing? He
has a good point.
But this is more than just a cut and dry apology. She took
this approach because her very young step-daughter started imitating the scene where
she throw a wine bottle at another cast mate. According to her, this is when
she realized that little girls were watching her and she felt “painfully small”
because of her actions. In my opinion,
when you’re in the public eye, as these women are, you are role models whether
you like it or not. They should have
been prepped about that the minute the cameras started rolling, but of course,
good role models, don’t make good TV.
I have to admit, I kind of felt bad for Evelyn, I related to
her the most. I guess because she is a
New Yorker and she’s a Sagittarius as I
am; we are very misunderstood. But at
the same time I know that those VH-1 paychecks are nice. Let’s face it, with popular reality shows
like these, the main characters can rake in from 750,000.00 to 1 million per season! Evelyn is making bank! There has been a lot of pressure for them to
stop the violence and do more positive things, so of course they’re going to
apologize. Do I think she is really
sorry? Yes, on some level, but I don’t think this situation is going to make
her do a 360, maybe she’ll do a 90 for the sake of her BBW check! Meaning, she
won’t be throwing fists OR wine bottles, but I’m sure she’ll just be giving out
tongue lashings from now on, especially if cameras are rolling!
Evelyn is not the only woman of color behaving badly on TV…
reality TV that is. When I saw this cover below a few weeks ago, I was appalled
at the cover line that reads “Meet Your New Role Models”. Say What?!
I said to myself, those broads are
not MY role models nor are they my daughter’s role models. Fuck that! This has
to be some type of tongue in cheek play on these NON-ROLE MODELS.
Nope, I was wrong the Vibe reporter was actually giving them
props, even though they behave badly. The article basically highlights that
even though they do behave less than tasteful, they spun their reality TV fame
into successful businesses. So, that makes its okay? Don’t get me wrong I do watch these “Wives” reality
shows, its entertaining…it’s my guilty pleasure, but I don’t aspire to be like these women nor
does my daughter (especially not that Chrissy Lampkin from Love and Hip-Hop,
Uggh, can’t stand her!).
But it does say a lot about how these shows have become so influential
that they’ve taken over pop culture. Young girls ARE really looking up to these
women, as well as others, as role models, it’s a shame. Let’s hope Evelyn keeps her promise to her
seven year old self and really does better.
No comments:
Post a Comment