“Hot Ghetto Mess” Presented as a Modern Day Minstrel Show

Regarding the topic of the show, Hot Ghetto mess—We Got to Do Better, this will serve as my final post on that horrific subject.

I watched that controversial show at 10:30 this evening and it was a total waste of 30 minutes of time. I’m not kidding when I say that a group of high school students could have put together a more creative, amusing, interesting program. Scratch that. I’ll go on the line and say that a group of sharp middle school or even elementary school students could have created a better show.

What it boiled down to was a bunch of junky videotapes thrown together haphazardly. The video snippets highlighted a few people who were obviously retarded. Some simply lacked hometraining. Some were simply not socially aware and some were clueless.

There were people spotlighted who were attempting to sing but were poor singers. I’m not sure how someone who clearly does not have a singing voice could “do better” or even why they were on the show—beyond humiliating them publicly.

One of the most pathetic aspects of the show was the fact that its host (Charlie Murphy) kept saying, “We’ve got to do better” as apparently a way of helping the idiots spotlighted on the show. It was clear that much of his dialogue was thrown in as an afterthought. There was no actual guidance on what people could do to get themselves better, beyond reading a book. It was really poorly put together and downright silly. In fact, the show was pathetic.

What surprised me most was that Charlie Murphy, a “comedian” who apparently must really need a job, kept bucking his eyes and producing a goofy smile. He looked like he was straight from a minstrel show and even without “blackface” makeup, he presented as a straight-up coon. Pitiful.