Once again, wit
h Run’s House, I broke my “no MTV in MY house” rule. I’ve seen the show a few times, probably not a full season of any given year. Eventually, the uncritical consumer-driven decadence, shallowness, and general deprivation of soulful expression or conscious existence that is typical of the network got to me and—sadly—I could not stomach anymore of the glitz and glam and shine that is Run’s House. 
I do want to come back to it, though, and think about it and A&E’s Hammertime as popularized televised forays into the lives of black family drama (both real and fabricated, spectacular and mundane). 
Are these shows the newest Cosby Show? Like Bill Cosby’s genre-saving sitcom (which recently celebrated its 25 year anniversary), these shows are replete with contradictions and are as problematic as they are promising.
At the very least, they remain interesting (if not altogether engrossing) but I think we have to read them historically, in the context of the line of black sitcoms that came before them, even as the reality formula is the most obvious departure from the previous installments of televised black family comedy and drama. As this is becoming a more visible popular formula (black entertainer’s family and
career presented as documentarian entertainment), these shows certainly seem worth more extended reflection. Keyshia Cole: The Way it Is, anyone?
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