Everyone can’t stop talking about last night’s long-awaited fight between Porsha Williams and Kenya Moore and now Civl Rights groups are expressing their dissatisfaction with not only the fight, but the portrayal of Black women on Bravo television.
“After weeks of promoting the RHOA reunion altercation, on Sunday executive producer Andy Cohen finally condemned the violent behavior of cast members — completely ignoring the staged hostile environment that provoked the altercation and the troubling pattern of violent, stereotypical portrayals of Black people across many of Bravo’s Black reality franchises,” reads the statement, obtained exclusively by The Hollywood Reporter.
NBCUniversal did not respond to request for comment.
“We’ve been in contact with NBCUniversal last week verbally and shared concerns in writing — specifically about this Real Housewives of Atlanta confrontation that was coming up,” Arisha Hatch, campaign director at ColorOfChange, tells THR.
The group would like to see Bravo enact policies similar to what VH1 has in place for Basketball Wives. The network and producers adopted a no excessive physical confrontations policy for the show in 2012.
Hatch says ColorOfChange is not calling for the cancellation of Real Housewives of Atlantaas the show — violence aside — does contain positive images of African-American women and families.
Read the full statement from ColorOfChange below.
“From the Real Housewives of Atlanta reunion to the second season of Married to Medicine, the physical violence displayed during Bravo’s Sunday primetime lineup was deeply alarming. After weeks of promoting the RHOA reunion altercation, on Sunday executive producer Andy Cohen finally condemned the violent behavior of cast members — completely ignoring the staged hostile environment that provoked the altercation and the troubling pattern of violent, stereotypical portrayals of Black people across many of Bravo’s Black reality franchises.
“Research shows that dehumanizing portrayals of Black people on television lead to real-world consequences for Black folks — influencing how we are treated by doctors, judges, teachers and lawmakers. No matter how entertaining, this should be the last fight between Black women that Bravo profits from.”
It’s been brought to our attention that Bravo already adopted a ‘no physical violence’ policy shortly after the violent altercation between Brandon DeShazer and Apollo Nida earlier this season — and that it’s by that policy that Porsha could end up getting fired from the show.
However when it comes to entertainment, once money and other things come into play…you never really know what’s going to happen. We’ll truly have to wait and see.
As far as what ColorOfChange is saying, we agree…but we know it’s going to take a lot more than a statement for Bravo to make changes.
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