TheLoop21.com

By: Raechal Leone (Add to your loop)
Tue, 05/26/2009 - 07:52

The "girls" of 'Charm School.' (Courtesy VH1)

Toss the mostly black cast of VH1's dating show Real Chance of Love and the all-white (except for a few token members) cast of VH1's Rock of Love Bus into one show, and you've got its latest offering, Charm School with Ricki Lake. It's the kind of show that makes you wonder "who does that?" several times each week, the kind where you suspect the stars don't ever think about what they'll look like to people watching the show. So it was only a matter of time until race became an issue, or at least you can tell that's what the producers hoped.

This week's episode, only the third of the season, was promoted by a clip that showed former talk show host Lake asking if some of the women — called "girls" throughout the show — feel she expelled the wrong person last week because of race. Had Ashley, one of the white women, received a pass because she was white?

First, because I know some of you probably have better things to do with your time than watch this show, let me give you some background. Each week, the women — many of whom have danced or posed or acted while naked — battle it out in a challenge about manners and charm hoping to become the one person to graduate and win $100,000 in the end.

Meanwhile, they're forced (or so I assume since everyone does it) to wear schoolgirl uniforms of plaid skirts, knee socks and little gray jackets with the school pin. They do not appear to be forced to suck down the drinks, usually shots, they enjoy by the pool in every spare moment, but many of them do that, too.

Early on, it looked like the women were split into two groups, sticking mostly to the people they knew from previous shows. Then all hell broke loose at the end of the second episode when the headmaster, Lake, decided to send home Ki Ki, who's black, instead of Ashley, who's white.

Their crimes? Watch for yourself.

Ki Ki was a loud contestant to say the least and had problems with several people from what I could tell. (I didn't watch her first show, so this was my introduction to her.) She and Bubbles, who also came from Real Chance of Love, apparently had a bad history. They seemed to pick up right where they'd left off, mostly with Ki Ki screaming and Bubbles cowering.

Yeah.

Still, Ashley was not so charming herself. She was consistently hateful and vicious on Rock of Love Bus, and the first couple episodes of Charm School showed she hadn't changed much. She and Farrah, her closest friend on both shows, locked one of the other women in a bathroom and threw food at her under the door.

When Lake announced her decision to expel Ki Ki, several women defied the rules and walked out. So the headmaster and "deans" Stryker and La La Vazquez, who had her own run in with racism and violence this month, quickly brought everyone in for a heart to heart.

Ki Ki wasn't part of the conversation, but she said exactly what she thought in a post-elimination interview with VH1. There, she made it clear she still "most definitely" thinks her elimination was racially motivated.

"The thing is that I don’t even like pulling the race card, but sometimes you have to ... go there to make people see ... from a different light," she said. "The white girls, they get on there, they get drunk, they act a fool, they pull hair, they throw cucumbers, they lock each other in the bathroom, and it’s, 'Ha, ha, ha, they’re so funny.' But then the black girls get loud and yell and scream and it’s, 'Oh my god, they’re so ... ghetto!'"

But the group conversation is where the show surprised me and handled the issue relatively well, actually better than it's handled just about anything else.

First, Ricki Lake, who learned how to handle drama on her talk show from the '90s, stopped talking around the issue and just asked whether people thought race was a factor in her decision. Some people did.

Lake refused to change it, saying Ki Ki's "aggressive behavior was disruptive to many of my girls," but then, she listened.

We all listened as another black contestant from Real Chance of Love, Bay Bay Bay, said the Rock of Love women were segregating themselves from her group. She was also upset Ashley called her "ghetto," when she's educated. The connotation of the word really bothered her. If anything, Bay Bay Bay said, it's Ashley, a stripper, who's ghetto.

Ashley didn't want to be seen as racist though, she said, because her son's not white.

Not everyone was happy after the talk, even though the whole thing was wrapped up nicely with music. It was, after all, only about five minutes of the 60-minute show.

Still, and I never thought I'd say this, other reality shows could learn something from Charm School about how to handle race. The main lessons: truly integrate (this means you, The Bachelorette); acknowledge racial tensions when they arise; and stay sensitive to stereotypes and words that mean a lot more than the dictionary definition.

Raechal Leone is TheLoop21.com's senior editor. She writes the Inside The Loop blog.

Are sexually explicit images liberating or exploitative of black women?

Liberating; it's a women's right

Exploitative; they aren't in control

Depends on the compensation

I don't know