Over the weekend I watched a new show that recently started airing on BET. Baldwin Hills was the name and although it seemed a bit fake to me was very entertaining. I enjoyed watching it but my father fell asleep of boredom during the first few minutes of the thirty minute show. I believe this show is aimed more towards a younger crowd. After about the second time seeing it, it seemed to be a little too corny to be taken serious. It was very amusing I thought. There were parts where I could relate and parts where I couldn’t stop laughing. This show is basically like a Laguna Beach but with black people. It takes place in L.A. on both sides of Crenshaw.

They profile a group of teens that live in two separate areas of Los Angeles. One group is from the upper class wealthy part of L.A. while we see another group of friends in a more urban area they like to call “the jungle”. These low-income housing projects are where a lot of the show is filmed. The area was very dirty and had a shady look to it. Everybody seemed to be outside on the block, unlike the other side of town where everybody seemed to stay inside. The relationship between the kids growing up in the ghetto and the upper class is what the main focus is. They are friends because they all go to the same school.

The kids in the wealthier area seemed to be spoiled, and the less privileged kids seemed to just be able to make ends meet. The spoiled kids were dressed in beach attire: shorts, tank tops, and sandals for both genders while the less privileged kids dressed in hoodies and pants everyday.

I watched it with my God bro and my girlfriend and we could not stop laughing at the slang they used throughout the show. Everything sounded fake. It wasn’t so much what they said but how they said it. They sounded really white washed. I mean, you can’t blame the kids from the wealthier area. We couldn’t believe how spoiled they were, they bought some rims for a party later in the afternoon. I wished I had money to buy some new rims for every party I went to. They all were trying to hard to fit in and it didn’t sound natural. When they laughed it looked like it hurt.

You would think that the less privileged kids from the projects would have fit the stereotype of knowing nothing but it seemed more like they were acting dumb then anything. Although it was reality they seemed more like they were acting. The actors either put too much on it or didn’t put enough. We were all interested because the stories were well thought out but the actors just could not project the emotions to the best of they’re ability I thought.

There was a main group of guys who would play basketball at a nearby park about every weekend and they would just chill ad talk about the problems they had the previous week. They were all from different parts of L.A. Some of them were from the jungle and the others were from the other part of the hill. One of them Jordan was his name was the one who decided to throw a party. Basically this episode is about how bad the party goes and how much trouble Jordan gets into but it’s worth it because he gets many greetings and comments about how good the party was.

I would recommend this show just because it was different, compared to others TV shows that mostly have white characters.
—Chris Vargas