Thursday, March 1, 2012

Dear ABC Network

Dear ABC Network:

Los Angeles's vast network of bus stops (primarily used as low, nay, lowest income housing - or at least the one at the bottom of my street is), and the busses themselves are screaming advertisements for your newest show, GCB. Krtstin Chenoweth and her leering visage lord over the city; her shapely legs stretched out of her skimpy, be-crucifixed choir robe. Many a morning I've almost had an accident caused by the sun reflecting off the sparkly logo of the rooftop billboard at the corner of Fountain and LaBrea, nearly blinding drivers and causing them to run off the road and crash into a bus stop, ironically, with another ad for GCB in it - quite literally adding insult to injury.



ABC, I'm here to tell you that, unless steeped in the entertainment industry, next to NOBODY knows what your new show is, or what its title refers to. One needs to have followed the progression of the title of the script from the original GOOD CHRISTIAN BITCHES to the watered-down GOOD CHRISTIAN BELLES to the opaque and essentially meaningless GCB, its logo complete with drooping crucifix, to understand its eventual title. Is the strategy of the good people of the ABC marketing department to merely lure viewers to the show so they can find out what its title actually refers to, driving them bonkers with confusion in the meantime? Or does the ambiguous title and (admittedly slutty) Christianity displayed aspire to snag some wholesome red-staters? And frankly, unless you clearly spy the alphabet logo at the bottom right of the billboard, you might not essentially infer that the picture of the leggy woman in the come-hither pose with the phrase "love thy neighbor" over it even necessarily refers to a television show! This has undoubtedly caused some horny, commuting men across America to frantically Google the new strip club in town and find out what road out by the airport it's located on.

Clearly, ABC, between GCB and DON'T TRUST THE B- IN APARTMENT 23 (also premiering soon), you're flirting with disaster. Having a mid-season programming slate where multiple shows have an obfuscated version of the word 'bitch' in the title is a dangerous game. (And yet, conversely, what an age we live in that this is the case... No doubt Norman Lear is turning over in his grave.) (Correction: upon further investigation, Norman Lear, in fact, not dead.) But between those two titles, you're dangerously close to having yourselves dragged through the muck as "bitch network." Regardless, good luck entrapping the unsuspecting with your covert "ambiguous name" scheme, ABC... between that and the crucfix, you just might snag some Good Christian Viewership.



Poor name aside, for any show written by Robert Harling, the screenwriter of Steel Magnolias, Soapdish and The First Wives Club, I may just have to tune in. In the meantime, I'll spread the gospel of what the show's title actually means... that is if I'm not blinded by a billboard for it.

Sincerely,
Dear Crabby

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