Melissa Harris-Perry To Get MSNBC Show

Y'all know I have much love for Tulane University professor and political analyst Melissa Harris-Perry, who has been a frequent guest on Rev. Al Sharpton's PoliticsNation show, The Rachel Maddow Show and Lawrence O'Donnell's The Last Word 

She has also guest hosted for Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell on their respective shows and I wondered when MSNBC would finally do themselves a favor and grab her to host her own show on their network before somebody else did so.

Was watching PoliticsNation yesterday when the Rev announced that professor Harris-Perry would be getting her own show starting on February 4.  The yet to be named program will be broadcast on Saturdays and Sundays from 10 AM-12 noon Eastern time

She becomes the second African-American woman and third African-American to host a show on MSNBC, and all I can say is it's about time in her case.

'Work It' Ain't Working For The Puerto Rican Community Either

For those of you who have been keeping up with the latest news and views in the trans community as the 2k12 goes through week one of the 51 remaining in this year you are probably aware of the kerfluffle that has been building since May over the problematic show Work It.

It has garnered protests, pleas from transpeople and our allies to either rewrite, recast or cancel the show with those requests being ignored by ABC and the producers. 

Maybe they should have listened to the trans community. 

Thanks to perusing ENDAblog I have advised of another reason I can hate on the show besides the fact it's full of trans stereotypes and it sucks.  Can you say 'anti-Puerto Rican racism' people?   Thought you could..

Now ABC has another marginalized community on their azz about a replacement show that's getting negative reviews reams of negative publicity and a worse Nielsen rating than the canceled show it replaced.  

And this latest controversy ain't gonna help those anemic ratings either. 

ABC has two choices at this point.  They can either revamp Work It or put it out of its misery and cancel it.  Then again, it may be too late for Option A.  

'Work It' Doesn't Work So Far For ABC

The trans community and our allies have been telling ABC that their proposed Work It show was problematic and didn't work for us.

I've posted about it while others tried to explain what the problems were with this show along with GLAAD and a long list of trans community bloggers and advocates. 

The trans community expressed its opinions in social media how and why the show was disrespectful to our lives, our lived experiences and our struggles.

Obviously you knew better ABC since you've done so much groundbreaking programming that positively talks about our lives and had positive trans characters on other shows such as Alexis Meade on Ugly Betty.

We appealed to ABC and the producers of the show to either not air it or make changes more in line with the reality of a transperson's lived experiences up to and including using trans actors. Instead ABC and the producers of the show arrogantly rejected that advice and ran it as is without the changes we implored them to make.

The verdict is in about the decision to air the universally panned Work It.  According to Adweek it's getting worse numbers than the show it replaced, Man Up!   

Work It debuted Tuesday night with a 2.0 in the 18-49 demographic they were shooting for, which is worse than the 2.4 that Man Up! had in the same time slot.  It's lead in show, Tim Allen's Last Man Standing averaged a 2.4 Nielsen overnight rating in its first broadcast episode since December 13.

Translation:  Work It lost 17 percent of its lead in audience.

(Snicker snicker)  Did ABC, the producers or the executives who made this programming call actually think this transphobic ripoff of Bosom Buddies would get an audience after the trans community warned you months ago to revamp it or not air it period?  

Did you not believe or arrogantly thought the United States trans community didn't have cis allies who would boycott the show in solidarity with us or presume that the bad publicity this steaming pile of fail garnered would translate into ratings? 

The proof is in the anemic Nielsen ratings and the piss poor reviews as to which point of view is carrying the day.