Entertainment

Shawty Lo and his crewYou already know there’s something wrong with a reality show called “All My Babies’ Mamas” just from the title. Whenever you refer to something en masse as “all my,” it implies there’s a whole heck of a lot of whatever it is, and that’s what rapper Shawty Lo has in the way of women who’ve birthed his brood of children. Ten. Ten mothers for 11 children.

While you’re processing that, think about this too: obviously somebody either double dipped or double birthed, but it also means almost a dozen women decided this dude was worthy of condomless sex and co-procreation. (Yikes.) If that doesn’t make you squeamish, consider that it will all be splayed out in a ridiculous comedy of tomfoolery on Oxygen for public view. (A resounding yikes again.) Unless the change.org petition circulating right now puts the kibosh on it before it even debuts.

Shawty Lo has just barely squeezed out enough music to make himself a career in hip-hop, so he resorted to the ubiquitous Plan B: shuckin’ and jivin’ on the reality show chitterling circuit. The thing hasn’t even finished production yet and already, it’s being met with a tangle of controversy. The petition, launched by family activist Sabrina Lamb, has more than 20,000 signatures on it and outraged and outspoken public figures have taken to their favorite form of media to decry how the show portrays black families.

The concept of it alone is a scalding hot mess.

I actually think there’s a little insult in there for everybody associated with this mess—black women, all women, black men, all men, black mothers, all mothers, black fathers, all fathers. It’s even an abomination to babies and little kids. The press release describes the plot as “the man of the house splitting his affection multiple ways while trying to create order” and then adds the insight, “sharing your man with several opinionated women is bound to create issues.”

Funny that the same network that pumps out “Bad Girls Club,” which is MMA for half-naked angry chicks, and “Snapped,” highlighting women who become murderers, often in the heat of combustible situations, is also masterminding this mess, which is just one big ol’ combustible situation in and of itself.

I signed the petition. If enough of us cry foul whenever networks try to capitalize off of debauchery, maybe they’ll be less debauchery to cry foul about and creative development will stop even conceptualizing crap like this right here. So far, Oxygen isn’t giving up the mission to put this exploitative trash on the air. Every network is trying to make their money, but making it off the backs of children and the adults who don’t seem to know better is over the line. Way over it.

Which reality shows do you find offensively excessive?


Image via Oxygen