Author |
Message |
Jan
Member
08-01-2000
| Tuesday, June 21, 2005 - 8:34 am
This one just sounds all wrong. Neighbours get to pick who wins a new house - and they choose from white couples, black couples, gay couples, Asian couples, biker-looking couples etc - hey let's watch discrimination at work is really what it is all about,no?? New Reality Series Draws Fire From Minority Activists, Others Welcome to the Neighborhood, a reality game show in which the prize is a new home in a suburb of Austin, TX, is drawing fire from minority rights activists long before its scheduled launch date on ABC on July 10, the New York Post reported today (Monday). Neighbors will be allowed to select the winning contestants, who include African-American, Caucasian, Korean, Latino and gay families as well as one in which husband and wife are heavily tattooed and another in which the couple practice a kind of witchcraft. Among those protesting against the show is Shanna Smith of the National Fair Housing Alliance, who told the Post that it "perpetuates the problems of housing discrimination, segregation and racism in America." The gay organization GLAAD said that watching the neighbors "get rid of disenfranchised families they don't like is really disturbing." However, the show's co-exec producer Tony Marsh told the Post: "This isn't like [the judging families] were renting an apartment to somebody or actually the sellers of a home. This is a prize, so in that realm, those discrimination laws and all that stuff are not part of this process." He added that the intent of the program is "to show what people really say behind closed doors." IMDb
|
Julieboo
Member
02-05-2002
| Tuesday, June 21, 2005 - 9:27 am
It does look weird. Seems to be a form of reverse discrimination to me. Seems to me they are setting the eligible families up as ones with some sort of a "flaw" be it a "different" race, religion, sexual orientation--so that people will try to think which is the lesser of these "evils". Anyone else feel like that?
|
Katbee
Member
09-15-2001
| Tuesday, June 21, 2005 - 11:51 am
I think your choice of words is a bit of a flaw. Being a different race, religion, etc. is not a flaw. The "flaw" in this case would be the ignorance of the neighbors who, according to what I've seen in the promos, prejudge people because of their limited knowledge of others.
|
Babyboo
Member
06-16-2003
| Tuesday, June 21, 2005 - 12:21 pm
I agree katbee, Julieboo, i really wish you would have thought about what you were writing before you wrote it.
|
Spygirl
Moderator
04-23-2001
| Tuesday, June 21, 2005 - 12:55 pm
I didn't take Julie to be stating that she felt the word "flaw" was her own interpretation and that she agreed with it, hence her inclusion of the "quotation marks". I took it that she was trying to say what it seemed the show was attempting to convey. I just hope the show does what it has the potential to do - to demonstrate that differences are NOT flaws. They are just differences.
|
Watching2
Member
07-07-2001
| Tuesday, June 21, 2005 - 3:02 pm
From what I've seen recently, they seem to be cleaning up their promos for this show a bit by showing how people are changed by meeting the people they first judged as "not good enough." I've heard some - "We'll never judge anyone again...." etc., etc. Let's hope some good comes out of it, but it could be just a huge mess!
|
Julieboo
Member
02-05-2002
| Tuesday, June 21, 2005 - 3:10 pm
Spy is right. That is why I put "flaw" in quotations. (Thanks Spy for "getting it!")
|
Jewels
Member
09-23-2000
| Tuesday, June 21, 2005 - 3:23 pm
I got it too, Julie. I would have never thought you meant it in a bad way. I agree with what you said though, it seems a little weird to me too.
|
Yankee_in_ca
Member
08-01-2000
| Tuesday, June 21, 2005 - 3:29 pm
I saw the intial promos for this, and it is just wrong, wrong, wrong. (I also understood what you meant, Julieboo, and yes, the promos did convey that feeling to me too -- about the production's intent).
|
Mizinvanccouver
Member
02-22-2003
| Tuesday, June 21, 2005 - 3:34 pm
Maybe this will be not be a bad thing, maybe the viewers will learn something from watching this show too?? All depends on the editing although usually bigots will believe what they want to believe no matter what is said or done. Just thinking aloud...don't mind me...lol P.S. Julieboo...I knew what you meant too.
|
Julieboo
Member
02-05-2002
| Tuesday, June 21, 2005 - 4:18 pm
Thank you so much Jewels, Yankee, Mizinvan and Spy! I really thought I was being pretty clear. It makes me feel a LOT better knowing you all got what I meant! We will have to see what the show is actually like. But I think it is kind of sad that all these families are practically being marketed as though their heritage, sexuality, tatoos, etc. is going to be held against them. Then again, maybe this will be something like Mizvan describes. Maybe something like All in the Family, where we all know just how wrong and ignorant Archie is. I wonder what "secret" the one white mom has. And I also wonder why they are keeping it a secret. Heck, maybe they should go for broke and have the contending families include a family of potheads, convicted felons, etc!! that is a joke for those of you who may not understand. 
|
Jennabeesmommy
Member
06-06-2004
| Tuesday, June 21, 2005 - 5:40 pm
I got you, too, Julie. I've come to believe that reality shows are cast for conflict, so I'm sure that was their focus here.
|
Watching2
Member
07-07-2001
| Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - 10:27 am
I got you Julie! 
|
Julieboo
Member
02-05-2002
| Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - 11:28 am
Thanks Watching and Jennabees. Looks like they already drew people into their "web" of controversy, which is just exactly what I bet they are hoping for!
|
Jhezzie
Member
07-05-2001
| Wednesday, June 29, 2005 - 7:47 pm
Well, this steaming pile is now out to sea. ABC pulled it. http://tinyurl.com/dohbj
|
Whoami
Member
08-03-2001
| Wednesday, June 29, 2005 - 8:15 pm
Well, that's a bit of a bummer. No chance to even check it out! So will we never know which family won? Or does nobody win cause the series was pulled?
|
Cathie
Member
08-16-2000
| Wednesday, June 29, 2005 - 8:22 pm
So, does one of the families still get the house?
|
Kc103
Member
07-13-2004
| Wednesday, June 29, 2005 - 8:26 pm
They probably wouldn't want to disclose any winner for fear of negative repercussions, even though the show's not airing. The commercials caught my attention, but I must admit I wondered what the premise behind it was. Anyone remember that show "Under One Roof" or something like that? The families were competing to win a beach house or something. Some ugly behavior on that one! I remember it was also pulled.
|
Watching2
Member
07-07-2001
| Thursday, June 30, 2005 - 1:39 am
Oh great..... thanks for nothing ABC!
|
Jan
Member
08-01-2000
| Thursday, June 30, 2005 - 6:48 am
Further to the cancellation mentioned above, ABC had this to say:
"Our intention with 'Welcome to the Neighborhood' was to show the transformative process that takes place when people are forced to confront preconceived notions of what makes a good neighbor, and we believe the series delivers exactly that," Walt Disney Co. -owned ABC said in a statement carried by Daily Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. "However, the fact that true change only happens over time made the episodic nature of this series challenging, and given the sensitivity of the subject matter in early episodes, we have decided not to air the series at this time." Daily Variety said ABC could eventually air a condensed version so that the feel-good ending comes sooner. Yahoo News
|
Frogichik
Member
06-11-2002
| Thursday, June 30, 2005 - 7:19 am
As usual, ABC = Already Been Cancelled. I used to say I wouldn't watch the first 2 episodes of a show on ABC, because more often then not, if I liked it, they would cancel it before the season's end. They redeemed themselves with Lost and Desperate Housewives, but now I see they've reared their ugly heads again. I could see protesting a show if you watched it and you didn't agree with the content, but should they be protesting a show just because of what it is they assume the show will be like.
|
Tishala
Member
08-01-2000
| Thursday, June 30, 2005 - 8:27 pm
One thing I think is funny about this cancellation is that the conservative Family Research Council and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation were equally opposed to it. The NY Times account of it does not paint a pretty picture. It says that the show, in the opinion of many lawyers, clearly violated the spirit if not necessarily the letter of the Fair Housing Act. They also include this: "In the first two episodes, some members of the voting families are seen making disparaging remarks about the gay family (two white men with a black child), questioning whether a Korean family was foreign-born and rejecting a white family who practiced Wicca, a pagan religion. [...] As for the show, "It's hilarious and had me in stitches," said John C. Brittain, chief counsel for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a nonprofit civil rights organization. "If it weren't so discriminatory, it would be great." The Washington Post said, "In the early episodes, one man makes a crack about the number of children piling out of the Hispanic family's car and displays of affection between the gay men provoke disgust." Nice. for the record, i think the show should have been aired.
|
Julieboo
Member
02-05-2002
| Thursday, June 30, 2005 - 8:32 pm
Still sounds like an All in the Family episode.
|
Seamonkey
Member
09-07-2000
| Saturday, July 02, 2005 - 4:10 pm
The protest of the show was made by a group who had viewed some episodes, as I understood the article I saw in the paper. In addition to the examples Tisha gives above, there apparently were disaparaging comments made about the size of the hispanic family, as they got out of the vehicle on arrival..
|
Yankee_in_ca
Member
08-01-2000
| Sunday, July 03, 2005 - 3:04 pm
Here's another article: Associated Press Link By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer NEW YORK - ABC's extraordinary cancellation of "Welcome to the Neighborhood" less than two weeks before its premiere proves that reality television can only handle so much reality. With a threatened lawsuit and accusations the network was tone deaf to bigotry, ABC may have traded a major headache for the temporary embarrassment of throwing out a series that was already finished. But executives must surely be hearing uncomfortable questions about how ABC got so close to the brink in the first place. The six-episode summer series, which was to debut July 10, was heavily promoted and given the plum "Desperate Housewives" time slot. ABC saw it as the potential hit follow-up to "Dancing With the Stars." "Welcome to the Neighborhood" followed three families in a comfortable cul-de-sac near Austin, Texas, given the chance to choose who moves in when a neighbor moves out of a 3,300-square-foot home on their block. Each family is white, conservative and initially interested in neighbors like them. Instead, they have a rainbow coalition of choices: a black family; a Hispanic family; an Asian family; two gay white men who've adopted a black boy; a couple covered in tattoos and piercings; a couple who met at the woman's initiation as a witch; and a white family where mom is a stripper. After the usual reality show contrivances — voting a family out each week after a competition to give one family immunity — the winning family gets the house. The idea is to see preconceptions, even prejudices, break down as the white homeowners get to know the competitors as people instead of stereotypes. But you can't show a transformation without illustrating what people are transforming from. "Why should people of color and others ... be humiliated and degraded to teach white people not to be bigots?" said Shanna Smith, president of the National Fair Housing Alliance. "That's not good for race relations in America." Within the first two episodes, one man made a crack about the number of children piling out of the Hispanic family's car. The citizenry of the business-owning Asian family was questioned and displays of affection between the gay men were met with disgust. Anger about the series even united the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (which found it "really disturbing" to watch privileged couples vote out families they don't like) with the Family Research Council (which worried that conservative Christians would appear like overly judgmental buffoons). Smith said it was illegal for homeowners to pick and choose neighbors. Her group was readying a lawsuit, saying the series frustrated all their efforts to see that people are not discriminated against in seeking housing. The protests clearly blind-sided ABC. "I didn't think that people would be this nervous," Andrea Wong, head of alternative programming at ABC, said before Wednesday's decision to ditch the show. "Because I really think it's such a positive show and such a good thing to put on TV and cause viewers to look at themselves, I'm surprised by the negative reaction to it." ABC's lawyers gave "Welcome to the Neighborhood" the go-ahead, and it apparently didn't disturb Wong when the family that shared her Asian-American descent was the first to be knocked out. Wong was not giving interviews after the cancellation. Series producers Jay Blumenfield and Tony Marsh also weren't talking. Smith, who had seen tapes of the first two episodes, was disturbed at a lack of balance. Competing families couldn't address biases because remarks weren't made in their presence; besides, they were on their best behavior to win a house they could otherwise not afford. ABC said last week that "given the sensitivity of the subject matter in early episodes we have decided not to air the series at this time." "You only sort of get half the story in watching the first two episodes," Blumenfield said before the cancellation. "You see the harshness, the entrenched points of view. These things kind of melt away as the humanity comes out. It was astonishing to watch and I think everyone felt very positive at the end." The progression was telegraphed by the tattooed Sheets family, the most instantly reviled by the homeowners. Yet the Sheets quickly bonded with the neighbors when they realize they're all Republicans, and one couple came to see them as versions of themselves a decade earlier. In talks with network President Alex Wallau, Smith said she was convinced ABC meant nothing malicious in preparing the show, and that ABC was unfamiliar with housing law. "We're still concerned it's not gone forever," she said, "and if there are any other attempts to air it, we are prepared to take legal action to stop it." Since producers clammed up after ABC's abrupt decision, Marsh wasn't available to address the irony of his words from just a week earlier. "One of the horrible things that is happening right now in this country is that people are so afraid of a healthy debate," he said. "Somehow if you put out a strong point of view you're either painting someone improperly or you're offending the people who might oppose that view. We don't believe that preconceptions and prejudices are something to hide. They're something explore and hopefully get over." The only good news for ABC is that for viewers, this is a tree falling in a very distant forest. Since the public won't see it, it will be hard for the public to get worked up. There's also good news for one of the eight competing families: the winner will still get the house, even if their moment of joy has been censored. To keep the secret, the family had not been allowed to move in until after the series was supposed to conclude in late August. An ABC spokeswoman declined to say who won.
|
|