The controversial stars of Have we gone too far? It's a question we ask at the outset of every outrageous new reality series—be it "Survivor" or "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo." It's also usually an early sign of a show's success.
How reality TV hurts girls
But response to a new show teased as part of Oxygen Media's spring
lineup, seems to mark a momentous moment when reality has truly jumped
the shark. Collective and largely unchallenged outrage over the
network's upcoming show "All My Babies' Mamas" is the unusual case of a
show sparking enough controversy to potentially kill it.
"All My Babies' Mamas," a one-hour reality special slated to air in the
spring of 2013, features Carlos "Shawty Lo" Walker, an Atlanta-based
hip-hop artist with 11 children by 10 different women. Oh, he's also got
a 19-year-old girlfriend, who's a year shy of his oldest child.
By the looks of the leaked sneak peak and an early press release, the
show's take on this challenging family dynamic is more "Brady Bunch"
than "An American Family."
"As the household grows, sometimes so does the dysfunction, leaving the
man of the house to split his affection multiple ways while trying to
create order," reads the goofy-sitcom-style description, in a press
release posted the Oxygen's website late December. "Will there be a
conflict over a family holiday, who needs school supplies and who holds
the household finance purse strings, or can these feisty babies' mamas
band together and live peacefully as one family unit?"
Since the show was publicized, the conflict has been primarily
off-camera. Calls for a boycott of the network and a petition to pull
the special from the network's lineup have risen to a fever pitch in the
past week.
"By pushing these degrading images, your company seeks to profit from
the humiliation of girls and women and the blatant stereotyping of
African-Americans," writes, Sabrina Lamb, the woman behind the petition.
Lamb first noticed the press release on Oxygen's website, and after
watching a 13-minute sample reel of the series on YouTube—which at one
point features Shawty Lo unsuccessfully naming his 11 kids as quiz show
music plays—she wrote an open letter to the present of Oxygen calling
for the cancellation of the show before it goes to air.
"The focus of our outrage is that they would dare exploit the pain of
these children and that Oxygen would promote this toxic situation to its
young, impressionable female audience," Lamb, an author and cultural
commentator, tells Yahoo! Shine. "There's no way this can go forward.
We're going all the way to the end with this."
As of Friday, her plea to the network's president had received well
over 13,000 signatures and countless support from bloggers, journalists,
and activists, including the NAACP.
But network executives may be just as hellbent on attracting those
young, impressionable women Lamb is talking about. In the show's press
release, Cori Abraham, senior vice president of development for Oxygen
Media promises, "All My Babies' Mamas" will be filled with outrageous
and authentic over-the-top moments that our young, diverse female
audience can tweet and gossip about."
Jennifer Lawrence weighs in on reality TV
Cat-fights, questionable parenting, and unregulated households have
become the bread-and-butter of cable TV ratings. The soaring success of
"Honey Boo Boo," "The Real Housewives" franchise, and the Kardashian
conglomerate all hinge on those three voyeuristic elements for success.
But it seems Oxygen has officially gone too far for viewers—if those
13,000 signatures are any indication.
Chicago Tribune editor Clarence Page likens the premise of "Mamas" to slavery. Huffington Post contributor and Syracuse University professor Dr. Boyce Watkins calls the show a "platform for ignorance."
"As a respected African-American media professional I can not in good
conscience allow this program to move forward," writes radio personality
Morris O'Kelly in an open letter to Oxygen.
Lamb and her fellow critics take particular offense to the press
release's suggestion of scuffles between women for entertainment
purposes, and the fact that each woman is given a pithy nickname to
describe their flattened, TV-friendly personalities ("Jealous Baby Mama"
and "Shady Baby Mama" are two of the moms). Shawty Lo's teenage
girlfriend as the can-it-get-more-outrageous X factor doesn't help.
"You've got a network with international reach telling a young female audience
it's okay to have unprotected sex, that other women are enemies, that
they're not valued by men, that their financial sustenance should come
from a man, and that babies are just spectators in all of this," Lamb
tells Shine. Still she wants to be clear: "This is not just a women's
issue."
The depiction of a disjointed African-American family, with an ill-suited father, is also a sticking point.
"To someone committed to the black family, who has spent a good part of
his career fighting to improve the image and perception of black men,
this all feels like a sticky gob of spit in my face," writes My Brown Baby's Nick Chiles in a post titled "If We Let Shawty Lo's Show Get On Air We Will Have All Failed Ourselves."
Chiles also notes the irony of the network's history. "Painfully,
Oxygen is the network that was started by, among others, Oprah Winfrey
in 1998, with the brilliant idea of—wait for it—empowering women," he
writes. "But 1998 was a loooong time ago. Since then, it was purchased
by NBC Universal in 2007 for $925 million and any kind of mission about
female empowerment was long ago abandoned."
Oxygen is not the first network to face backlash for exploiting the
tribulations of troubled family dynamics. In fact "Mamas" co-creators
and former MTV honchos, Tony DiSanto and Liz Gately, faced similar
outrage with the launch of their hit series "Teen Mom" a few years back.
But this may be the first time a show has been boycotted before it has
even completed production.
"What we have here is a show that's not even on air," says Lamb, who
also runs World of Money, a nonprofit dedicated to the financial
education of children. "We can fight this. We can say to advertisers if
this show, about kids watching their mothers fight each other for
crumbs, is what you value, then we don't support your brand."
Shine's request for a statement from Oxygen was not returned by press
time. However, we did obtain correspondence between Oxygen President
Jason Klarman and the New York Chapter of the NAACP, after a
representative from the organization requested the show be dropped from
the network.
In his emailed response, Klarman claimed "the show is still in early
development" and the footage leaked was "not representative of the final
special, which is still being cast and developed." He also responded to
the accusations of racial stereotyping. "While we are seeking to
chronicle a true story, it is not meant to be a stereotypical
representation of everyday life for any one demographic or cross section
of society…That said, we are highly attuned and sensitive to your
concerns and our diverse team of creative executives will continue their
involvement as the special is developed."
Klarman's email is unlikely to quiet the growing campaign against the
show and the network. Lamb, for her part, is making it her personal
mission to thwart Shawty Lo's debut. "I don't want him on TV," she says.
"He needs therapy and condoms, he doesn't need a TV show."
Justin
Langer and Shane Warne of Australia walk on to field at the SCG in
their last test match during day four of the fifth Ashes Test Match
between Australia and England at the Sydney Cricket Ground on January 5,
2007 in Sydney, Australia. 
Shane
Warne of Australia salutes the crowd as he leaves the field in his last
test match on day four of the fifth Ashes Test Match between Australia
and England at the Sydney Cricket Ground on January 5, 2007 in Sydney,
Australia. 
