Reality T.V. Why UDC Should Jump on the Sailing Ship

We’re addicted to them. On any given day of the week we make a mad dash to the TV or set the DVR to hear our favorite tag lines in our favorite reality show. Love and Hip Hop Atlanta, Real Housewives of Atlanta, Married to Medicine and Basketball Wives take precedence during water cooler talk. These shows have instantly made some of the most ratchet of people household names and dumped a truckload of money in their hands to keep America occupied with fights, delusions of grandeur and conflict on epic proportions.

What if UDC had a reality Television show?

The idea wouldn’t be so far fetched. Nine years ago, BET began to air an original series, College Hill that lasted seven seasons. College Hill followed the lives of Historically Black College students from around the country – which were some of BET’s highest rated shows.  MTV also followed suit three years ago and released a season of “College Life” which followed freshman and sophomores at school University of Wisconsin at Madison.

There is a specific market for this. Because we are used to watching television a lot of people are taking advantage of YouTube and webisodes. This allows people to watch shows on the go that don’t take the standard 30 minutes to watch.

Currently there is a new reality show being cast called “Dorm Biz” it will be “The search for American college students who possess the entrepreneurial ambition to launch the next global brand.” Dorm Biz is being produced by Alloy Digital who boasts 8 million YouTube subscribers and are currently casting for 8 college students.

There are several reasons why UDC would benefit from a reality show. In light of recent budget cuts and rightsizing, UDC could capitalize on this opportunity by doing three things which all-equal revenue.

One of the main benefits of a reality television show for UDC would be to increase enrollment, which would in turn increase revenue. With more students, UDC cannot only increase their retention rate from 54% but it would also increase on revenue approximately 14k per new student. In season 3 of College Hill, Virginia State University was depicted. According to the University’s website, the University saw there was a 2 percent increase in out-of-state students, from 1,483 to 1,529 and the number of in-state students increased from 3,343 to 4,572 according to the university’s Web site. With this extra money, UDC could actually directly invest the extra enrollment revenue directly to departments to enhance the student experience without relying on DC government to funds to take care of things that can be handled in house.

A reality show at UDC would not only advertise our campus, but it would create and present opportunities that would be beneficial to students and to specific departments. The first benefit would be to the Mass Media Department, specifically Television Production. A reality show could mean hands on experience and internship credit for students while heightening awareness for the program. It would appeal to students who are aspiring to have careers in television production while giving the program a competitive edge over neighboring schools - neighboring schools that are costly, exclusive with absurdly competitive programs that do not cater to everyone. With the proper promotion and media attention, this could also garner attention from local television studios to recruit for jobs and or receive donations in the form of equipment or other perks to the Television Production department.  With the strategic highlight of events – a reality show could be easy promotional tool for what is going on what is going on at UDC, the Good, bad and the ugly. UDC could take this opportunity to transform the University and showcase it as the premier public University in Washington D.C.

Overall it would be a call to action for the educated, philanthropists of D.C. to invest in their own communities. UDC could take this to the next level, a reality show would mean enrollment, which would lead to a larger endowment and eventually empowerment for the university.

Finally, a reality show taking place at UDC, a Historically Black College would specifically change the stereotypes of Black students in the District. With College Hill, specifically during the second season at Langston University people complained about the way students and the University was portrayed. David Stevens, national president of the Langston University Alumni Association, stated “We are questioning what are the motives behind presenting many of the negative aspects without showing the good that goes on."

With most reality shows in the current market portray Blacks in a stereotypical fashion. We’re mostly displayed as ratchet, “turnt up,” belligerent, uneducated clowns.  That may be an aspect of culture, however we can also combine that with educated, talented, innovative, smart, well-rounded students who could potentially represent a new brand of black students while promoting a new brand of the University of the District of Columbia.

La Toya Jackson, The Ex-Drug Trafficker: Starting Over

Starting Over 

By La Toya Jackson

352 pages. Gallery Books. $26

La Toya Jackson. What can we not say about her? She is hands down the most infamous member of the Jackson Family Entertainment Clan. Whether it was her not so obvious, public competition to upstage Michael in pioneering a new era in cosmetic enhancements or her 1980’s Playboy spread, the mere sound of her name causes time to stop. She was a socialite before it was pop culture term and she is always known for making a headlining statement. Beyond her wacky, dramatic but surprisingly welcoming persona, La Toya Jackson has a pretty amazing story of survival.

The senior, Miss Jackson if You’re NASTY is no stranger to writing books. In 1991 La Toya released her first Autobiography, La Toya: Growing Up in the Jackson Family (1991, Dutton, 261p) which caused a tremendous uproar in the Jackson family and ultimately caused La Toya’s excommunication. Not only that, this title also made the best sellers list. In her first autobiography, La Toya spoke candidly about abuse from her Father and how she managed to get away. We would later find out that her then Husband/Manager Jack Gordon was also abusive towards her. The aftermath of Jack Gordon? Starting Over.

La Toya’s new book, “Starting Over” is an emotionally captivating tale of tragedy and triumph.  The title refers to life after losing her King of Pop, Icon brother Michael and divorcing and fleeing from her Husband/Manager in which she was in an abusive and controlling relationship for over a decade.

“Starting Over” picks up where her last book left off. She opens the book discussing how she was told if she didn’t do something, her manager threatened to kill her. Those threats ultimately led to her first autobiography, Playboy spread and her speaking against Michael when he was first accused of child molestation. 

La Toya recalls several, riveting candid details of abuse. Specifically one of the times Jack Gordon almost beat her to death. “I was lying in a pool of blood on the cold marble floor of my New York Apartment. I started thinking to myself, this is it. I am dying. What was my purpose here?” She recalls.

She often talks about how the abuse would often lead her to getting locked in closets without being able to use the restroom, or eat for days at a time. She often recalls times of confusion and ultimately just complying with whatever Jack Gordon told her, just to be able to use the restroom and eat. “Gordon knew not to threaten me in front of anyone. He would just give me that look.”

La Toya’s story goes into great detail about prostitution, money laundering, blackmail, abuse and drugs on a hierarchal level.  She recalls that Gordon was able to attain such control by playing mind games. Such has beating her and convincing her that he didn’t do it.  He would say to me “Why are you crying? I never touched you! Oh my God, You’re losing your mind.”

One mind-boggling story is when Jack Gordon attempted to pimp out La Toya to Mike Tyson for sex. She recounts, “Gordon always knew that Mike Tyson had a crush on me and wanted to marry me before Robin Givens. Gordon knew this and told Mike, You give me one hundred thousand dollars you can have her for the night.”

La Toya was not only being passed around for potential sex. Jack Gordon also had her trafficking drugs. La Toya recalls, “The agent detailed an extensive scam that Gordon and his associates ran through me, through ought the world for years, without me having a clue: international smuggling and money laundering.”  La Toya continues, “Because I was a known entertainer, officials would just let me pass through, thinking the same thought: she’s fine.”

La Toya does not dive off into the Michael Jackson business, as we would have thought. She does go into great detail about the things that happened after his death and slight mention of premonitions he was having about his own death.

What La Toya doesn't make up in taking advantage of Michael's death, (we can't help but associated - they are related) she does share a few Jackson family photo's that make us like them more than we already do.

“Starting Over” was really an explanation of the first book and how she reconciled her traumatic experiences at the time she was forced to grieve the loss of her younger brother. It does provide a wow factor and normalizes the most infamous Jackson, just enough for us to empathize with her. 

Nam Jone Paik

For the last 45 years the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. has served as the premier venue in hosting the largest collection of art made in the United States. In addition to the museum being the largest art museum in the country, it also hosts educational program for schools and hosts traveling exhibitions.

One of the museums current exhibitions is The Nam June Paik Collection at the Renwick Gallery, inside the museum. The Nam June Paik Collection showcases the work of Korean-American visual artist Nam June Paik. Paik, born in 1932 was considered to be the first video artist. He uses a combination of technology, instruments, household items and plants for his work.  Nam June Paik moved to New York in 1964 and began work with various musicians for live performance pieces, which gave him more notoriety.

The Smithsonian exhibition of Paik’s work holds several immersive works. While his work may be a bit off putting or difficult to interpret initially, I found his “Megaton Matrix” to be one of his most appealing works. The Megatron Matrix itself takes up an entire wall and is remnant of a jumbotron at a sporting event. The only difference is that the images on the television monitors reminded me of the glory days of MTV. The graphics reminded me of the late 80’s and 90’s when advancements in technology were new. What took me by surprise with the Megatron Matrix is Paik’s heavy concentration on colors, primitive computer generated images while another ten percent of the images focus on nudity and sex. The strategic placing and the sizing of the sexual themed imagery is interesting as once you spot them, you are enthralled and captivate by them completely ignoring the images and colors on the dominate images.

Another one of Paik’s works was the “Prepared Piano”. I did not completely understand the concept or the reasoning behind the piece – it ultimately led me to walk away completely uninterested. There was nothing captivating about a damaged piano. There is nothing captivating about an out of tune piano. Not at all to discredit it’s art affect, it was not appealing to me.

I am completely captivated by Paik’s imagination and visual display. The “Robot” family was a very unique use of television monitors to create bodies. In my head, the Robot Family was the perfect entertainment tool – a robot to perform all of your household cleaning duties, while being able to tune into multiple channels at once? Perfect.

The most impressive work in the exhibit was the “Electronic Highway”. I believe that this was Paik’s most captivating work. This layered piece was reflective of some of his common threads in his work. Again he combined television monitors, colors and the use of reality in his work. I thought it was brilliant how the television monitors to form the United States, and then used video footage to associate it with a particular state while using tube lighting to divide the states.

All in all I think Paik’s work makes one statement – society has often escaped technology to ignore nature and human interaction. I believe his work was reflective on attempting to combine nature and human interaction to make the human experience much more relevant and tangible. I found that the Electronic Highway was the most effect exhibit – simply because I felt it was the most real and relevant. The way that Paik, a foreign national had come to learn an exceptional amount of information about the States and incorporated facts and stereotypes in the piece were brilliant.

The tour guide started the tour by stating, “Art is the way we communicate our experiences.” I’ll end by stating, “Art is the way we communicate our experiences.” It was Paik’s experiences that were more of a social commentary on society and how we should see the world as an interconnected piece of art to enhance the human experience. 

The Jezinkas

When I was I kid, I would bug my mother to "read me a story." She did, but often times she was too tired after work to do it, so I stopped asking and ultimately didn't have that ultimate, storybook-fairytale experience that most kids are privy to during their first 5. 

It did two things, made me unfamiliar with fables and made my mind race with stories I created on my own. 

But one fairytale that does come to mind is the Bohemian Folk-tale, "Jezinkas" by Albert Henry Wratislaw. Jezinkas, follows the story of a orphaned boy who is looking for a place to live and have a relationship of reciprocal, emotional value. During the story he meets an old man who is unable to care for himself and his heard of goats after he gets blinded by 3 "Jezinkas". The Jenzinkas are beautiful women, sisters who tempt and lure unsuspecting victims with soothing trinkets that eventually put them to sleep. While the victims are sleeping, the Jezinkas steal their eyes out of their sockets. The boy is taken in by the blind old man who sees the boy as a blessing to him. He warns the boy not to venture off too far, for danger maybe awaiting him on the other side. 

There are a few themes that come to mind while reading this story. In today's social climate, we have really forgotten about human nature. We simply don't help the less fortunate, we don't pay it forward, we don't reach back and pull others up and we often forget our own struggles. The orphan boy in the story reminds of these things. The orphan also teaches us that sometimes when we are going through our own struggles, helping someone else is also helping ourselves. In the story it also reminds us that what goes around comes back around. The Jezinkas went around robbing people of their livelihood. They were good at it and did it for such a long time it not only became normal, they became arrogant, felt that they were untouchable and didn't think that someone would ever trick or trap them.

It reminded me of a story that a college friend once told me about his brother, being his keeper.

His Brothers Keeper

            Eric was a 4-year-old boy who never knew why his brother left. All he could remember was the Sade song that played on that rainy day in October of 1986. Kyle was a 17-year-old man doing what he had to do to survive. He knew if he didn’t leave, his brother would never stand a chance. Thirteen years had passed before they looked each other in the eye again.

            Kyle left his fathers house and never looked back, he never stopped thinking about Eric. Kyle never stopped wondering if the agonizing nights had been like his. Kyle remembered. He remembered being 4, 5, 6, 7, the screams of passion, the slams, the screams into the moon and the music that played thereafter, that seemed to make everything right. He remembered the nights, full of dark, sweaty, whiskey-scented musk. Groans of a pleasuring disdain oozing from his body against the dark moonlight. He remembered the day that his mother died, the day his brother was Eric. Eric saved him. He remembered the day that he left his fathers control. It was the day that replayed in his mind more than the other times and days before that one.

            Eric hated Kyle. He often thought how could his brother leave him alone to fend off their father.  How he could abandon him. Eric bore the weight of the world of on his shoulders. He hated the fact that he may spend the rest of his life in that house with his father having to make up for his mother and his brother.

            Thirteen years had past.

            Eric was a 17-year-old man doing what he had to do to survive. Kyle was a 30-year-old man doing what he knew he had to do to survive. As Kyle stood at the doorway, he stuck the key in the lock and it turned. The smell was familiar. Whiskey-scented musk. The sound was familiar groans of a pleasuring disdain oozing from his body.

Kyle made his familiar trek down the hall, into his father’s room. He was faced with his past, now very much his present as his brother and father all made eye contact, he could see his father get visibly shaken. As Kyle lunged towards him with his hands going at his father’s neck, he stopped. He looked in his fathers eyes and they all knew it was over. 

Even though we may not always know it, someone will always be there to help when we need it the most. Someone always understands.