A Darker Shade of TV

Watching TV as usual these days, I notice a lot of new faces. Well, not just new faces or because of Obama but faces of minorities. Of course there are channels like BET, CW, Univision and Telemundo that cater to minorities but mainstream TV has been predominantly white, but even those channels are taking a noticeable turn.

I remember Jai Rodriguez from Queer Eye has done a commercial to encourage children of colors to join the entertainment business because they are underrepresented both in front of the spotlights and behind the scene, but I'm happy to report that there is an obvious improvement.

Food Network - It has been one of the biggest mystery for me on how Food Network could remain to be an all-white network in the past few years since food is so cultural. Sure they had a few show in the beginning that has to do with ethnicity, but they haven't had any non-white person on the network since Ming Tsai left in 2003. Al Roker would occasionally do ad hoc stuff on the network but that's about it. But now, they are introducing Simply Delicioso with Ingrid Hoffman which focus on Latin cuisine, Down Home with The Neelys, a cheeky black couple who teaches the art of barbeque, and Cooking for Real with Sunny Anderson, an adorable girl who cooks soul food.

For years, Emeril Lagasse has been taken care of the soul food front southern cuisine. He even managed to make up a couple of Asian dishes and that's as exotic as the whole network gets. And that arrogant asshole Bobby Flay has been the in house barbeque expert. I'm glad to see some new shows. Not to mention that Patrick Neely of the Neelys is quite the cutie, I wonder if he would want to see anyone on the downlow. And could anyone cancel Semi-homemade with Sandra Lee? That bitch is looks crazy. She looks like those people who cut themselves when things don't go their way, the whole show is too painful to watch.

HGTV - The Home and Garden Channel, full of design ideas again it used to be white, rich elitists who have too much money and time on their hands, but I'm happy to announce that it has become home of one of the three shows with an Asian host. (The two other shows are MadTv with Bobby Lee and the lady in Big Brother) Vern Yip from TLC's Trading Spaces got his own show on this network called Deserving Design. A low budget version of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. They go out finding deserving people and redesign their house for them. Kinda neat. By comparison, Vern Yip was a few level better than all the other designer on Trading Spaces, so if Ty Pennington, Paige Davis can have their own shows, Vern Yip definitely deserves a show of his own.

Kim Myles, the moolatto winner of the network's interior design competition Design Star got her own show as the reward. Her own show Myles of Style can be now seen on the network.

Oxygen - Deion & Pilar: Prime Time Love is about NFL star Deion Sanders, his wife and their five kids. Think MTV's Run's House or Being Bobby Brown

VH1 - I know MTV and VH1 have long utilized minorities to get more street cred but this time they have gone Hispanic, which is rare for any network. Viva Hollywood! is another competition reality show, but the goal this time is to be the next big telenovela star. If it wasn't for Principe I would have no idea what telenovelas are, but since I do now I can't help but be drawn to the show. I love Latino men, and the ones in telenovelas are gods. Given, there's only one or two guys in the competition worthy enough to be in a real telenovela and most of these next Top Models/Idols/Whogivesashits never made it in big time but the first week and they are already backstabbing each other and learning how to fight telenovela style. The show is made of cheese, people! Muchos quesos!

I guess I have to say I do like it better with more people of color on TV, although of course I probably won't see a few of these shows but I think it's a great sign.