Last night, the Logo network debuted a brand-new reality show, Eden's World, a spinoff of Toddlers & Tiaras, about at 7-year-old "diva" working the pageant circuit along with her mother. This is the first of what's supposed to be several "mainstream" attempts at programming, not to mention the addition of Teen Mom reruns. But wait a minute. I thought this was Logo, the channel for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered community to call home. What's happening here?There's been a huge debacle about whether little girls like Eden are actually having fun doing all this stuff on shows like this. Eden and her mother deny negative rumors and say that they're happy. However, whether or not Eden Wood is actually enjoying herself, or that she's behaving like a spoiled child is another discussion for another day; and is pretty irrelevant in this case when talking about who picked the show up. What does this series have to do in regards to relating to a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender audience? What are gay people like me as well as others in the same boat who question this show's relevance going to get out of it? And the "following your dreams" reasoning that Logo is using on its Facebook page to explain airing this show doesn't fly with me. They couldn't find a gay adult that was pursuing their dreams? There has to be another one out of thousands that they could choose from. It's been done before and could be done well again by them. After all, this is the same network that gave us Open Bar.
People have had issues with this channel for a long time for a variety of reasons. They've licensed some great off-air movies (such as Trick, Latter Days, and Get Real) and television shows (Queer as Folk, The L Word). And I can't forget originals like Noah's Arc and US of Ant. But some viewers were turned off by the amount of editing done to some of these acquisitions to make them "presentable" enough for cable television. Which I agree, while it was truly fun experiencing many of these shows for the first time, on the other hand, watching them be altered could be very tedious.Then there was picking up shows like Absolutely Fabulous, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Nip/Tuck. And I must say, if they did use some research or something and picked up reruns of those shows and some movies based on what most gay people like, then I could see how that would have made logical sense.
It's also worth stating that recent series like RuPaul's Drag Race aren't for everyone of the LGBT persuasion, and while people who do fit in the demographic have their problems with The A-List (personally that's not my type of show), at least both of these shows star and are driven by gay men. So these types of shows, whether we all like them or not, have a place on a channel like this.But picking up reality shows like this Toddlers & Tiaras spinoff? No. I realize not every LGBT person loves a show like Buffy or Nip/Tuck, but it's not out of left field to point out that they have huge LGBT fanbases. Not that there should be endless marathons of these shows in place of fresh gay programming, but simply acquiring those shows works. And I swear, I'm not saying this because I live for Willow Rosenberg. I don't know about anyone else, but I can't justify how a reality show centering around a 7-year-old that doesn't directly involve gays or lesbians can balance itself within those other things.
So, to sum this up, there's this oddity, what's to come, and if reruns of Reno 911, and non-related episodes of MTV's True Life have shown us anything, this seems like it's going to be par for the course as far as programming on Logo is concerned for now as well as the upcoming future. With the exception of 1 Girl 5 Gays and the occasional gay-themed documentary, until someone higher up in the programming department changes their tune, you can count me out. Because I would take edited movies and shows that fit any day of the week over programming chosen with an obviously unclear balance and no direction whatsoever for a network like this.
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