...Reality is what they need.

Sometimes I feel like Disney is responsible for everything we see on TV, and everything we experience a the movies. I understand that these mediums are based in make believe but must of it is down right fantasy. I think that TV shows like Friends and Martin are very apt examples of real life. White people with White people and Black People. It almost seems like there is this new formula for TV shows... you have to have your overly horny Black guy, your angry Black woman, a ditsy White girl, a gay, and either a White or Asian "all American" athletic type. In this fantasy world, everyone gets along, nothing offends anyone, and somehow everyone fully understands the respective experiences of the other characters no matter how diverse their stories. In a perfect world this would be great, but unfortunately it is not a realistic characterisation of how we really interact. It is so much easier to tell the story this way than to open a dialogue about the fact that we all are fearful of what is different. If each group new the conversations that the others were having about them when it's "just us."

I'm sitting here watching the movie, The Fighting Temptations. I cannot get over the opening scene. The setting is an old school Baptist church featuring an energetic church choir led by Pastor Shirley Cesar. The time seems like As the camera pans the congregation... everyone in the church is IN. Folks are shouting, dancing, falling out, etc. Funny stuff... The funniest part is the church congregation is more mixed than any church I've been in.. and I grew up Methodist and went to Catholic School! Interracial couples, White men, women and children, Asians, and blacks... as though this naturally occurs. The only thing there were missing was the gay! But lets be real, it was a Black church! Don't get me wrong. I love the idealism of tinsel town but I'd rather we tell the story as it is and force people to admit to and work through their fear of what's unknown.