Whitney Houston’s family members, sister-n-law Pat Houston, her mother, Cissy Houston, and niece, Rayah, appeared on The View yesterday to promote their reality TV show, The Houstons: On Our Own.

In the interest of disclosure, Sandrarose.com was contacted by the production crew to help promote this show. They made promises they didn’t keep, such as taking out ads on my blog and flying one lucky reader and a guest out to New York for the premiere party, which took place yesterday.

The likely explanation is the network refused to OK the budget for promotion on my blog. But, no worries. I’m not mad at ‘em.

The Houstons: On Our Own (in its present state) began filming just 3 months after Whitney’s death.

There have been accusations lobbed by Whitney’s fans that Pat Houston is using Whitney’s death to capitalize for her family. But Pat denies such accusations. Still, it’s interesting that Bobbi Kristina did not appear on The View alongside her family members.

Also interesting is the fact that the network canceled a planned private dinner and screening last night for select members of the NY media. You know industry people love to be wined and dined. So the cancellation didn’t pass without much speculation and rumors amongst the invitees.

Esteemed gossip columnist Flo Anthony took to her Twitter page yesterday to ponder over why the event was canceled. The obvious answer is the lack of interest since Bobbi Kristina would not be attending the event.

It’s difficult to promote a reality show when the cast members are not very well liked by the media or the public.

Barbera let Pat have it!!...She is not buying it....

One word: gross.

As long as these shows remain cheap to produce, reality tv is here to stay. The days of paying trained, scripted actors 1 million dollars per episode for their "craft" (think Friends, Seinfeld) are long gone. While that's not entirely a bad thing, the down side is that networks are going to scrape the bottom of the barrel to stay ahead of the ratings curve to arouse the public's interest and attract viewers. They will make as much money as possible from these reality shows no matter who they have to exploit to do it and I don't like it, but in all fairness many times I will actually watch a show 2 times to see what direction they're going in before I dismiss it entirely as one thing or the other.

There have been times when I've been pleasantly surprised in that a show's direction has been positive, family friendly, and encouraging personal growth on behalf of the cast participants and the show's audience who invest their 20 or 40 minutes of viewing time each week. Then there have been other times when I've just been completely flabbergasted by the blatant thuggery, misogyny, and relationship dysfunction of other shows (Love & Hip- Hop Atlanta? Basketball Wives Miami?), and have actively boycotted them with the loudest voice I can muster.

In all sincerity, I have lived outside of the US for so long now that, as I am not inundated with whatever transpires over there via 24/7 US social& tabloid media, I'm probably a lot more open to watching anything at least once (if just for the chance to see other American faces, people of color, hear spoken English, and especially English in black dialects). That said, I will likely check this out to see what all the hub-bub is about, and discern for myself whether this will be a family show worth watching with life lessons to be shared or just some bull**** that could have stayed in the network storage room.

It was a hot mess.

purplethunder3121 said: