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Femin-ish TV: Blackish Richard Youngsta

So here's a quick recap about last week's episode of Blackish... which had a pretty good feminist/ intersectional theme to it... so I thought that I would share it on this blog. There were actually 2 pretty femin-ish stories... also if you're wondering where the word "Feminish" came from... it's blackish lol.

Anyway the main plot of the episode was about Andre creating an ad for a Champagne called "Ovoo" with a rapper named Richard Youngsta. The ad that Andre came up with was a funny little advertisement with Richard Youngsta pouring champaign on different things and it improves them. Some guy is in a regular chair- he pours some Ovoo on it and it's a nice chair. Then he pours some Ovoo on a black woman that is "yelling" at Youngsta so he pours the champaign on her and it turns her into a white woman that dotes on him. While it goes over the kids heads and they just laugh, Bo and Ruby point out that that is a bad message for him to be sending out. Pouring some champaign on a black girl turns her white? It's messed up... and although the ad was well received by Dre's bosses and his kids... and his white neighbor... he still gives thought to the criticism of his wife and his mother. And in the episode the rapper tells Dre to "put some ovoo" on his wife when Dre says she didn't like the ad. Then when the twins Jack and Diane are fighting and he hears Jack say that "he'll put some ovoo" on her to make her less annoying... that's when Dre sees the effect that advertising has on young children. His daughter was hurt and felt like she was lesser because of that ad- so he had to change it so that no one would feel like that. I thought that was a really powerful message. Advertising really can effect kids... I mean hey, they stopped showing ads for cigarettes on TV and they can't use cigarettes in movies with a PG-13 rating... but they still show some highly sexualized ads on TV that definitely don't make me feel good as a woman... so that's messed up.

Side note: I just wrote my Chicago review- and I included a fact at the bottom about the cigarette usage in the movie- and that's what made me jump there... I don't have anything for cigarettes... I think it would be great if they stopped cigarette ads everywhere... but there are other harmful things that they can stop too!

The other storyline was a much more lighthearted story... but I'm sure one most women can relate to... Bo was cooking dinner for her kids and they all wanted something different, so she was going to order them something different, have them get food on their own or make them something different... but then Ruby said that that was bad parenting and that in her day, there was only one meal on the table and if they didn't eat that, they didn't eat. Ruby cooks Meatloaf for the kids and they complain, but they all eat it, except for Junior, who didn't finish his vegetables because he was allergic to squash. She made him stay at the table till he finished it.

I don't really want to get too spoiler-y here... but I did already spoil the first part of the episode... so I guess I will kind of. Bo cooks something Ruby doesn't like that everyone else in her family does... and she does the same thing to Ruby. And then Ruby reveals it's a whole different issue that she has about the kids and that's what made her upset.

There's no right or wrong way to parent as long as you're putting your kids needs first. Ruby wanted to help by making the kids less picky- but she went a little too far. Bo wanted to feed her kids and give them what they wanted... which was a little hard for her as a working, pregnant mother. It's easy for parents to judge other parents and it's especially hard to take if someone in your family disagrees... but in the end everyone ate food... so that was good!

I just thought this was an interesting episode... the show has a lot of great themes of race and feminism... I could probably do a few more of these posts with other episodes that they've aired recently... I highly recommend watching it!

Byeee!
-Shannon

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