A successful petition drive by a furious public has succeeded in shutting down plans by Oprah Winfrey’s Oxygen Network to air a new reality show about a man who had 11 children with 10 different women.
ABCNews is reporting that the show, entitled All My Babies’ Mamas, was planned to follow the life of Atlanta rapper Shawty Lo, 36, who fathered 11 children with 10 difference women. Lo, who is currently dating a 19 year-old girl, is most famous for the song Laffy Taffy in which he refers to his children’s mothers with names like “Jealous Baby Mama” and “Baby Mama from Hell.”
Oxygen described the show in a December news release as “an intimate look at unconventional families with larger than life personalities and real emotional stakes.”
The public did not agree. The African American community was particularly outraged by the concept for the show and accused producers of trying to stereotype black families.
Author Sabrina Lamb launched a petition drive on Change.org to have the show shut down. Calling it a “one hour spectacle where 11 children are forced to witness their 10 unwed mothers clamor for financial support, emotional attention and sexual reward from Shawty-Lo, the apathetic ‘father’,” she urged people to sign the petition. ” . . . (T)ell Oxygen that their viewers will not tolerate a show that exploits and stereotypes Black children and families, and we will boycott any advertiser who chooses to support the show.”
People responded in droves and her petition quickly amassed 37,000 signatures.
In response, Oxygen released a statement to ABCNews saying that “as part of our development process, we have reviewed casting and decided not to move forward with the special.”
They claimed the special was “not meant to be a stereotypical representation of everyday life for any one demographic or cross section of society” and promised to continue to develop “compelling content that resonates with our young female viewers and drives the cultural conversation.”
It’s a sad commentary on both the state of our culture and the mindset of network executives who could even think that young women would be attracted to such a degrading depiction of womanhood, or that they considered a show based on such blatant immorality to be “compelling content.”
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