Like I have said before, network tv is getting just too sorry. Creativity and imigination have just gone out the window. Let's list the the most recent orginal series to wind up on the scrap heap. Bionic Woman, Knight Rider, oh wait a min these were original in 1976 and in 1982--they were just re-imaged. Let's try again, law and order, svu, law and order CI, CSI Miami and CSI New York --whops, wrong again! These progams are spin-offs from orginal series. Ok so I think the point is made. Network TV simply sucks. Again which is why I
have turned to YouTube for some of the best orginal programing. I came across this gem last night which really is more of a mocumentary called The Confederate States of America. It was probably one of the cleverest pieces I have come across since Bamboozled and Network. This docu is the brainchild of some Alpha Phi Alpha Tish School of the Arts graduate and I was just howling at the moon while watching it. It really takes the concept of revisionist history to the next level. In short the film tackles the hypothetical question of what if the South had won the Civil War? It took me a little while to realize I was watching a spoof of sorts because it comes across so deadpan serious. You have two professors discussing the aftermath of the civil war with a scenerio saying Lincon wasn't assinated but was captured and taken by President Jefferson Davis. The only way he was able to escape was through wearing blackface and getting through the underground railroad. Asside from it's jabs at history, neatly placed inside of the docu are comercials which make you just say dayum! The first one that stood out was this play on the old show, the Dukes of Hazzard. The comercial is selling motor oil with a NASCAR racer (a parody of Richard Petty) named Duke Cooter and they are selling what else: Sambo Motor Oil!
Right I was tripping because it really adressed a question that was the topic of debate in my house for a number of years: Do we allow our black child to watch The Dukes of Hazzard, a show that really promotes southern "white trash" more commonly know as rednecks. By rights the question is slightly legitimate as the central character, a 1968 orange dodge charger was named The General Lee with a bright confederate flag on the roof of the car. As a boy I was caught in the middle because I liked the car stunts which reminded me of one of my favoriate movies Smokey and the Bandit. In another comercial they adress those fly by night corspondance technical programs. Called CI the freedmans studies institute of health they allow folks to take up medical studies in black folks studying things like the runaway slave gene, to birth studies, to even how to be an overseer and e-slave trading. Needless to say all the students were white. They even had a comercial for some electronic slave teathering device which the 21st century master could lowjack their slave and have them promply returned. I haven't seen anything so funny since I saw Eddie Murphy's character Velvet Jones selling the book How to be a Hoe. This really is a must see that I highly recomend.
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