Courtesy of The Root
Reality television is exploitative by definition. It’s a fishbowl with sharks — entertainment at its most primitive. You root for the good guys, boo for the baddies and gasp when a table gets flipped or a drink gets thrown. Simple.
But in Lifetime’s new reality series “The Houstons: On Our Own,” the formula gets a bit complicated as the masks of comedy and tragedy melt into a hot mess.
Debuting on Wednesday night, fewer than nine months after Whitney Houston‘s death in February, the show chronicles the grief-stricken survivors of the Houston clan: sister-in-law Pat, brother Gary, mommy Cissy and, of course, daughter Bobbi Kristina (and her “brother-boyfriend,” Nick). Something of a macabre crew.
Appearing on “The View” earlier this week, Pat Houston, Whitney’s longtime manager, batted down criticism that the show could be summed up in just two words: “too soon.”
But even while being polite, Barbara Walters wouldn’t back down. “Would Bobbi Kristina not have been better off if you didn’t do a reality show? If you didn’t show her visiting her mother’s grave with cameras on her? If you just let her grow up to have a life without the kind of attention that maybe contributed in a way perhaps to her own mother’s death?”
