• If there was any doubt that Zahara is the most amazing Jolie-Pitt. [MG]

• Calling all We Got To Do Better producers! [TAN]

• Janet Jackson describes her yo-yo dieting as something "like a fighter getting ready for a fight." [BV]

• This is just sick, but I've grown to expect little from college football fans. [DS]

• A blog post after my own heart. [FN]

Here's the thing. Why do we really need BET to produce a show called We Got To Do Better? In addition to the fact that it sucks, we already have something similar. It's called the newspaper. And most of those tales are far more cautionary than grainy YouTube clips of ignorant people doing ignorant shit.

Take 28-year-old Denver Broncos running back Travis Henry, for instance. The man has a $25 million contract, he makes roughly $50,000 a month, he recently spent $100,000 on a car and $146,000 on jewelry. And he has 9 kids by 9 different women scattered across four Southern states. Unfortunately, he has a bit of trouble paying their child support.

Things are so bad that he once had to borrow $9,800 from the Tennessee Titans so he wouldn't miss a payment, and now a judge is requiring him to set up a $250,000 trust to ensure he has the money to pay every month. According to his lawyer, Henry has "significant financial issues." Clearly, he's too broke to buy a damn condom.

[AJC]

I wasted 30 minutes of valuable time last night watching We Got To Do Better, aka Hot Ghetto Mess, because I didn't feel entirely appropriate criticizing a show I hadn't seen yet. Luckily, I don't have to eat any of my words. It was bad, and not just in the way we expected it to be bad. The production value was terrible, and I can't figure out which was worse, Charlie Murphy's script or his delivery of it. The network changed the name of the show in response to criticism, but they made no move to reshoot Murphy's segments. This was obvious every time he said, "Welcome back to Hot Ghetto Mess."

The clips didn't make me sit back and think, "Wow, we've got to do better." They made me think, "Damn, there are some ignorant, idiotic people in this world. Good thing I don't know them." The social commentary angle is a thinly veiled excuse to air something that should be called America's Ghetto and Redneck Home Videos. Charlie Murphy awkwardly advising the people in the clips not to do those things anymore rang pretty false. And the man on the street segments, where they asked people who Barack Obama is, how many blacks are on the Supreme Court, and what the black unemployment rate is, were interesting for the first few wrong answers and then got really old.

CONTINUED »

Surrounded by massive, widespread, vitriolic criticism of BET's new show, Hot Ghetto Mess, network execs made a decision to change the program completely. Actually, no. They made a decision to change the name to We Got To Do Better, which was originally the show's the poorly-worded slogan. Now it's the show's poorly-worded title. Way to make changes.

From a BET press release:

This week, BET will be launching a new series called WE GOT TO DO BETTER, a half-hour video clip show that, at its core, is pure social commentary.

The show’s original title was HOT GHETTO MESS: WE GOT TO DO BETTER. We’ve decided to change the name because we want to highlight the show’s real intent, which is to offer social commentary in a context that sparks dialogue, debate, and most importantly, change.

Additionally, the early misperceptions about the show and its title were diverting attention from the overall original programming strategy we’ve begun implementing at BET Networks – which is to deliver smart, creative shows that explore the full range of the Black experience.

I laugh at this whole "social commentary" angle, not because I don't think that in some skewed way this is actually BET's intent, but because the people who become real fans of this show will be watching not to better themselves or their people but to laugh their asses off at some hot ghetto messes. Social commentary, indeed.