“Did Whitney Houston Deserve Better than a Lifetime Biopic”

“Did Whitney Houston Deserve Better than a Lifetime Biopic”

(When will we Cinematically begin to speak for Ourselves?)

By Glenn Peppers                 1-19-2025

We live in such an exploitive and vicious world! For me saturday night was a night of relaxation and healing for me. In my quest for relaxation, I first thought to watch the Whitney Houston Biopic on Lifetime. Then I thought to myself. Why? I'd read all the literature about how Whitney's family did not sign off on this film! It was clear that the producers (including director, Angela Bassett) had no real technical guidance from anyone in the Houston family while making this film. 

No one in Whitney Houston's camp granted or consented to re-create any life situation, or divulge any information played off as real and true, as portrayed in this film about Whitney Houston, Bobby Brown or anyone in their family! Cissy Houston replied to Entertainment Tonight with this reply below!... 

"Lifetime has chosen to go ahead with the movie about Whitney in spite of my family's objections. No one connected with this movie knew Whitney or anything about her relationship with Bobby," she said in a statement to ET. "In the two years since Whitney's death, many people have stepped forward to speak about their close relationship with her. I find it difficult to believe people who knew and supposedly loved her would participate in a movie about her done by folks who didn't know her. We are exhausted by the continuing misinformation and comments offered by people who did not know her. Please please let her rest." 

                      Cissy Houston

For this reason, and because I am just not ready to see any kind of film that shows this woman's downfall and apparent death so soon after her passing. Lifetime parading Whitney's end of life scenarios across my saturday night television screen was not entertainment for me. Aside from being a movie that I suspected would be badly done, as only Lifetime (seemingly here of late) can do them! 

From there I decided to leave this exploitation of an icon (of whom I love) alone and stuck to watching old movies on DVD that I love, and took a well deserved nap in the process! It was when I saw this graphic hours later that I was inspired to write this blog! 

After seeing the photo above, I'm glad I didn't watch another one of Lifetime's hastily and inaccurately pieced-together biopic's! One other biopic that was done some years ago that I saw, which also  had so serious inaccuracies throughout. Some of which were quite embarrassing, was The Temptation Movie! 

All I can tell you is this! Temptation member, Paul Williams did not die the way they depicted his death in the movie! And David Ruffin did "NOT" die in a crack house! Nor was Ruffin thrown from the back seat of a moving car onto the curb, in front of some hospital emergency room entrance! 

Believe me, I know this certain family member of one of the Temptations (yet for privacy sake, I'll not say which one). This man knows how his father left this world! Don't believe all the foolishness you hear, see and read! 

Yet I know why this movie is so popular. The movie clearly has its moments. The music was great, and the characterizations and likenesses were dead on. The movie does generally depict the Temptations pretty very close to how they were. But its those critical, and important historical inaccuracies that were and are enough for me to not fully support the Temptation movie storyline through and through! 

Cissy and Whitney singing together

The same goes for Whitney Houston's biopic. Had Cissy's Houston's name been all over this project! I'd have been glued to the TV screen, popcorn, cola  and candy in hand! I'm sick of Lifetime, and other movie production companies telling the life-stories of people they really don't know anything about, except for the tabloid hype and the leading headlines!

If world history has proven one thing at all to me, it is this! I think it is oh so very important for people of color to always tell their own stories for posterity sake! For when other people tell our stories, for us, our lives and all of who we are suddenly get lost in the sauce! 

The good gets clouded and muddy, and then all at once all the places and faces and the images are changed. We become minus'ed and lessoned out of the equation as we go along that long dark corridor, through the annals of history and time! And as a result, generations from now, the facts will have changed, and only the lies will remain! 

Singer Songwriter Erykah Badu

The Sphinx showing clearly that in the hands of others through history. "We get our noses shot off!"

In the words of Voltaire — "History is the lie commonly agreed upon!" Yet in a far more personal platitude, I think the words of singer songwriter Erica Bydu are more fitting. For when we let others write our history, she said... "We get our Noses Shot Off!"

Glenn Peppers            1-19-2015

“Will ABC Cancel The VIEW?”

Whoopi Goldgberg and Rosie O'Donnell

“Will ABC Cancel The View?”

(Maybe The View is not so clear these days)

By Glenn Peppers                1-16-2015

Can you believe it? I saw it coming close to two years ago. ABC is considering canceling its longtime daytime talk show, The View! When I read this, that Janet Jackson song, “Control” kept banging around inside my head! You see, for me when The View brought Rosie O'Donnell back this past season, I knew they were done! In my mind when this happened, I knew that it would only be a matter of time. Whoopi is enough to deal with. Putting those two back together and you get nothing but a grey film covering the screen! After all these years, fat cat upper office TV people still don't get it! 

Could this major Cougar Cat Fight bring the View to its knees?

On screen battles are better fought when the two people fighting each other have a mutual respect, and a love hate relationship. Not a Hate HATE relationship! Television audiences are uncomfortable with that kind of thing! People need to be able to like or dislike you. An audience has to have an option to shift their allegiance! To choose either way or person or theme one day to the next! Like watching Wrestling! By leaving your audience no room to choose or move. They in turn will eventually change the channel! 

Its like watching your parents play fight. It embarrassing kinda cute. In fact its harmless! Then one day you see that they have gotten to the place where they are really REALLY fighting, and its vicious! Hair pulling and all bloody and nasty and dirty, and terribly uncomfortable to look at. So what do you do? You leave home!

Those producers of the View are really one track minded and are so not in tuned to what women are interested in these days. If its cat fighting people want, they can turn to Jerry Springer for that! I’m not referring to guest either. The View has wonderful guest on the panel. Its the group time that is so unnerving! Women want more from The View than what they have been getting! Women are close! They share and lean on each others shoulders! I’m referring to camaraderie!  Women function well as a unit! Much better than men do! Women bond and come in agreement on things, and stick together! And when they fight, boy do they fight. But when woman make up they cry, they talk, and they share how they feel or felt about things! Rosie and Whoopi are not on those kind of terms at all! There’s no girlie making up here! And that makes for some pretty ugly TV! Ugly TV in HD does not mix well in the morning! 

Just think. All these wonderfully talented women in the entertainment industry, and in the business class world of fashion, beauty, media, movies, medicine, music, etc out here and they reached back and dragged Rosie O'Donnell out of the muck! Com'on now!!! The View could have have had a national vote and gone to the public and picked (by way of Skype or something like it) a person from everyday life to be placed on the View panel. But Noooo, they went garbage picking! I know that sounds mean but its true! To me Rosie didn’t deserve to get a chance to sit on that panel again! She had her time there!

To go back to the garbage dump and recycle "anyone" (heaven forbid say the likes of Elizabeth Hassleback) back up onto a nationally syndicated million dollar TV show is programming suicide! But to bring back the one person who almost dragged the show down to hades the first time, and the expect her to come back and shine as if nothing was ever happened was wrong! Excuse my blunt charge but whomever signed off on that deal for The View was not thinking productively, and showed a keen shortsightedness concerning audience demographics! If The View does end up getting canceled, it will be for not keeping their panelist and producers fresh and accountable! 

Donald Trump and Rosie O'Donnell Feud! 

For me, Rosie's row with Donald Trump would have been the last straw had I been on the board at ABC! That whole thing went on way too long, and was one of the reasons a lot of folks stopped watching The View. The fight between O’Donnell and Trump became almost unbearable and quite annoying even after the first week. Had I been executive producer,  both Whoopi and Rosie would either have had to tame it down; got it together or resign! There are too many beautifully entertaining people out here. Too many young fresh faces with great young fresh ideas on what women of all ages like and want!

The Real

For instance those girls on "The Real!" We all know them from former and even present TV shows! They’re alive and bubbly. And best of all they have a chemistry, and it works really well for them! I feel that this show will only get better as long as they stay as real as they are with one another, and their audience! 

The Talk when Leah Rimini and Holly Robinson Peete was on the show Leah Rimini on the far left and Holly Robinson Peete seated second on the right back at the outset of The Talk's premiere.

"The Talk" (in my opinion) is just about done as well! Its become too much like The View! When they fired Leah Remini and Holly Robinson Peete off of The Talk, that did it for me with The Talk. Even more so with me because I'm partial to Leah Rimini from the old "King of Queens" TV show! We all have our favorite picks. Especially if they were on other shows that we liked! Leah and Holly are favorites of mine! To fire them both at the same time showed a brutal power struggle within The Talk panel cast of characters. That’s all I’ll say about that. Still I thought the firing of Leah and Holly was mean spirited, and controlling! 

The Talk pissed a lot of people off when they fired the two most popular people on the show. All I know is I haven't watched it since! Holly Robinson was the cool factor on the show. And Leah was the piss and vinegar that the show needed! So in that 2pm time slot, I’ve been watching the continuation of The Today Show with Kathy Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb. I love them! They’re funny, and naturally quite entertaining together!

Hoda Kotb and Kathy Lee Gifford on the Today Show

In the long run as far as panel shows like The View is concerned, I feel that there'll only be one REAL winner (Real, get it? Hint Hint)! And I feel that The View with Whoopi and/or Rosie on its panel will not be in the running! Their producer and creative staff ideas of what star power as far as panel shows is pretty much out of date, and is a tad bit out of touch with the pulse of new-breed daytime television! 

So will ABC keep The View on is daytime TV lineup with all the Cougar Cat Fighting and Unforgiving Bickering? Who knows!... At this point with so many other options on cable television and on demand and with Netflix and the like, who cares!

Glenn Peppers               1-16-2015