Racism, Classism, Homophobia- Oh my!
I never even knew about this proposed reality show. Queer Day offered these thoughts on its cancellation:
ABC cancels Welcome to the Neighborhood
“Welcome to the Neighborhood,” the ABC reality television series, has been cancelled. Queer Day is applauding. Let me tell you about it. The show premise had three white Texas Republican Christian families getting to pick who gets to move into the suburban dream home on their sleepy cul-de-sac, all done in the name of expose them to differences so they could overcome their biases. Sounds good in theory at least, right? There’s a religious African American family, a “loud and boisterous” Hispanic family, an asian family that – guess what – operates a sushi restaurant, a “homosexual” white male couple who’ve adopted a black child, and let’s not forget the white and rather ordinary looking Morgan family – but wait! Mrs. Morgan has ” a little secret.” My guess is she’s a transsexual.
While GLAAD quite often annoys me, I just don’t have faith in ABC or reality television as a medium to give racism, classism and homophobia in America the attention they deserve, especially with the judges being those that judge us every single day of our lives. Let’s not forget the ABC episode of Wife Swap where the Republican African American right-wing Christian mom swapped lives with a lesbian mother only to brutalize and condemn the family in such a way that really only made her look justified in the eyes of America and left a couple of lesbians and their daughter crying.
With the affection between the gay men on the show reported as provoking disgust from the families, all I can say is thanks ABC for figuring it out.
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