Chance Of a Lifetime

I may be wrong, but I think the popularity of noted entertainer Dana Owens - best known by her pompous nom d'etage, Queen Latifah (I'm not going to call by that silly name, I'm calling her Dana Owens) - may be fading.  In fact, I think her moment in the sun has passed.  And I say all this knowing that I'm going to tick off a lot of readers, but then, when did you know me to write something that doesn't tick someone off?

So what was it that led me to this conclusion? Well, it is true that Owens's stint as host of the People's Choice Awards is over, as she's been replaced by sitcom actress Kaley Cuoco, but that's not it.  It is true that Owens has mostly made movies that are primarily filler for the underutilized eighth screening room in the local octoplex, later to be used to fill early-afternoon and late-night time slots on cable movie channels, but that's not it.  What led me to this conclusion is the fact that she appeared in an all-black remake of "Steel Magnolias," which some observers would lament for the fact that black actresses are not playing original roles of their own.  But I'm not saying Owens is a hasbeen because she appeared in a black remake of a story originally conceived for whites.  I'm saying she's a hasbeen for where this remake appeared.

It aired on Lifetime.

Lifetime, the female-oriented cable channel known for showing interchangeable movies depicting women as perfect beings and men as scum of the earth, isn't the bone of contention it used to be.  Men don't talk about it as being anti-male anymore, but women don't seem to talk a lot about it either.  No one seems to talk about it at all.  How can Lifetime's programming - much of it mush for people who can't take the edgy programming of the Hallmark Channel - be so controversial when no one cares about it? It's kind of embarrassing for a star like Dana Elaine Owens to appear in film premiered on a basic cable channel like Lifetime - after having done so many theatrical releases - when all the basic-cable buzz has moved to AMC and "Mad Men," which picked up the cable-TV gender war where Lifetime left off. How can I not come to the conclusion that appearing in a movie on Lifetime means you're a hasbeen?

Which brings me to the even more unpleasant subject of Lindsay Lohan. At least Owens is a black icon.  Lindsay Lohan spent her entire career perpetuating the stereotype of Irish-Americans as hopeless drunks, hardly making her a source of pride for the Irish diaspora in These States.  Her left hand never knew what bottle her right hand was holding. She drank her way through several arrests, unappreciated movies, and failed rehabs - so many, in fact, that her name is a punchline. Then it was announced that she was playing Elizabeth Taylor in a movie about the actress's life with Richard Burton.  The buzz was that this movie would be Lindsay's comeback.  But as soon as I heard the movie was going to be aired on Lifetime, I chose not to believe the buzz.  It aired this past November.  No one liked it. No one cared.  And life went on.  As far as Lindsay Lohan was concerned, it was time to stick a fork in her career.  She was so done.

To wit:  Lifetime isn't a channel where you go to make great television  for women or anyone else.  Lifetime is where you go to keep your name in TV Guide.  The listings, not the articles.  Lifetime is, in essence, where you go when your career is over.  In fact, it's where you go if you've never had a great career in the first place.

In other words, it's where you go if you're Teri Polo. 

(That last sentence was written more in sorrow than in satire.)