I remember when "Rural" became a dirty word. Do you? CBS, wanting an urban image, massacred their hit shows and stars: Red Skelton gone. "Green Acres" gone. "Petticoat Junction" and "Beverly Hillbillies" gone.
CBS didn't hide their motive. They admitted to following a new word: DEMOGRAPHICS.
You might have hit shows, but what if they attract older viewers? Rural viewers? You'd THINK that there'd be enough sponsors (Homer & Jethro were shilling corn flakes!) to sate CBS, but heckfire, NOPE NOPE NOPE.
Ageism became "a thing," as young illiterate Millennials would call it.
It's not even "a thing" to be embarrassed about. Come right out and say YOU'RE TOO OLD. Or "You're too rural." Don't worry about old people rioting and looting. Nobody came up from Georgia to destroy the Santa Monica promenade stores and swipe all those designer sunglasses and Gucci handbags.
Today's "thing" is BLACK LIVES MATTER, and ONLY BLACK LIVES MATTER. You put "ALL LIVES MATTER" on a t-shirt and Walmart won't even sell it. (It's not a free ocuntry, and it's not about free enterprise, and it's not about a slogan that could easily be intended the way JESUS would intend it -- to embrace ALL).
What have we here?
It didn't take more than a day to learn of the "new creative direction" ABC had in mind. FADE WHITEY to BLACK.
The New York Daily News made it seem pretty innocuous. Bergeron and Andrews weren't FIRED. They quit, right? "EXIT." They just headed for the "EXIT" sign of their own free will, because middle-aged white people can easily get employed these days.
The entertainment world, contrary to what some BLM sulkers think, has always been keen to show how liberal they are. Find a local TV news show where there's no mix of black and white and male and female. You've got an anchor, a sports jerk and a weather person? At least ONE of them is going to be black and ONE of them is going to be female. In a big city, there will be two anchors, and...oh, here in New York the most successful news show for many many years was NBC's combination of white Chuck Scarborough and BLACK FEMALE Sue Simmons.
You're gonna have a white talk show host? Well, Mr. Colbert, Mr. Fallon, Miss Corden, you're gonna have a BLACK band leader aren't you? As for Mr. Kimmel, he hired his friend's father, but at least he was Latino.
An old quiz show gets a re-boot? Maybe the original host was a memorable white guy, but the NEW host is gonna be a black guy. "America's Got Talent" went from Jerry Springer (of all people) to a succession of blacks: Tyra Banks (gee, that name's familiar), Nick Cannon (the noted anti-Semite) and now Terry Crews.
The BLM movement has simply scared the shit out of the Entertainment world and hastened the departure of whites, especially expendable middle-aged ones like Bergeron and Andrews. Even if you flip the dial and you'd think America was 50% black (the TV commercials, the TV shows...) that's not been good enough. The Grammy Awards may be loaded up with rap acts, and hosted by Jay-Z and hat not. Tony Awards might go to "Hamilton" (about the white founding fathers now played by blacks). The Emmy Awards may have plenty of black winners. BUT...hey you at the Academy Awards, some years there's NO guilt-movie about slavery. Some years you don't give "Best Song" award to a shitty rap number. And the repercussions shake Hollywood like it's under the San Andreas Fault.
Here's what the London Daily Mail had to say less than a week before Tom Bergeron and Erin Andrews were FIRED:
Hmmm.
A few days later, BERGERON and ANDREWS both get axed.
HOW...BAD...IS IT...when the need to hire somebody BLACK overrides that of Erin Andrews. She's only 42, and she could be the poster girl for the #METOO movement. She suffered a humiliating stalking incident in 2008 when a jerk nearly twice her age screwed a hidden camera into her hotel door and eventually sent nude images of her walking nude inside her hotel room all over the Internet.
Eight years later, and she's battling cancer. Cervical cancer. Along the way she's merely lent her name to a host of worthy charities. Nah. Fire her.
Who did they replace her with? A pretty worn-out Tyra Banks, now 46, and past her prime as a daytime talk show host and the host of that talent contest, "America's Got Talent." SHE is a "NEW CREATIVE DIRECTION?"
I don't see it.
If ABC said they simply couldn't pay for TWO hosts, ok. But ABC wasn't claiming poverty.
Have you watched this God-awful "Dancing with the Stars" show? It's usually a cringeworthy debacle where some D-lister idiot makes a fool of himself or herself but keeps getting voted through for the ratings. There have been freak show contestants, there have been ridiculous politicians, and it's been a circus. The HOSTS really don't matter. Nobody's watching for Bergeron (65 years old and admittedly tiresome, only from being around for so long doing the same crooked smile and perplexed wincing). Nobody's watching for Andrews. POSSIBLY they watch for the asshole judges who love to make a big deal over their own opinions.
TYRA BANKS is going to make a difference? Blacks are going to suddenly watch BALLROOM DANCING?
So far I haven't heard ABC say "our ratings are shit, old white people aren't watching as much...we're gonna start having TWERKING..."
Here on the blog, I mentioned how this reverse-racism is in the book world, too, and I showed how the book reviews in NEWSWEEK and ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT were completely slanted toward authors "of color."
As Johnny Carson (forced out as too old) used to say, "It's all in the timing."
The timing, as reported by the London Daily Mail among others, is that there's a PC panic going on, a BLM hysteria going on, and the trend is AGAINST anything involving middle-aged white heterosexuals.
Well, it's a good thing THAT bunch is dying off, and the population continues to get more DIVERSE. And hell, if the population isn't getting DIVERSE fast enough, a little more violence in the streets, a little more looting, and there will be a lot less whites, right?
Everybody knows who GEORGE FLOYD is. Killed by a white cop in Minnesota. He allgedly had a criminal record and allegedly was resisting arrest and allegedly was passing counterfeit money.
NOBODY knows who Justine Damond was. She was killed by a black cop in Minnesota. She came outside of a private home when she heard a commotion, and she was shot dead. She was, of course, unarmed and had no police record, and was no threat to anyone.
More chunks from the London Daily Mail article, in case it disappears off their website:
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