Being Bobby Brown

Apparently, the new rage for television this summer is "Being Bobby Brown". You know, how Bravo or some other junior cable network occasionally strikes gold cause they had nothing to lose by putting on a nonsensical show in a non-crucial ratings wise summer, and running with it? If it wins, it wins big, and if it loses, who cares, no big loss. Kinda like "Queer Eye" was two summers ago. But anyhow, back to the cause celebre' of tv critics, random pundits, and other notable or not so notable talking craniums, Robert (Bobby) Beresford Brown.

To those who are not familiar with Brown beyond his marriage to Whitney Houston, or his publicized run ins with the law, the show is an entertaining look into the wild but strangely normal life of the noted "bad boy". (read: media created term, generally used to dub black guys, especially celebrities, who have ever received as much or as little as a parking citation). But to those of us who know of B. Brown on a somewhat deeper level (read: ahh nevermind, if this includes you, then you know i'm talking to you, and why i'm singling us out), the show is a complete disaster, exposing to the world, in classic blaxpliotative, buffooneric fashion the resulting shell of a guy who really once was the man. And it goes a lil something like this. Follow me.


New Edition was, and in some ways are, my heroes. At the very LEAST, they were my earliest, and most distinct models for coolness. Until I take my last breath, I will have an absolute and irrevocable soft place in my heart for Ronnie, Bobby, Ricky, Mike, Ralph and Johnny. Before NKOTB, NSYNC, Backstreet, B2K, and every other boy group with the sole exception of the Jackson 5 (and don't challenge me on this one, cause I know what I'm talking about) , there was New Edition. In my eyes, the boys from Roxbury changed the world. And I know that I am not the only one who believes as much.




While Ralph Tresvant sang lead more than the others, one can certainly make the argument that at the height of the group's popularity, Bobby Brown was the Reggie Jacksonian "straw that stir[ed] the drink". Bob had a tough guy charisma that the ladies loved, and the guys wanted to imitate. He was the man. When he went solo, he proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he was the man with the 1989's Don't Be Cruel. Has there ever been a better (not higher selling, but better) major label debut album from a solo pop artist? (note the interjection "major label", because Don't Be Cruel was actually Bob's second solo album). My Prerogative, Tenderoni, Don't be Cruel, Every Little Step, On Our Own, the list goes on. The album was a flat out masterpiece. Bobby was the first hip hop era king of R&B, plain and simple.

Recap: up to this point, we have our subject, Robert Brown, as both the leader in a seminal, wildly popular supergroup, and as a worldwide phenom as a solo artist. Moving on in our critique...

Against the backdrop of such past glory, the nineties were not as kind to Bob B. While 1992's "Bobby" album was good (Humpin Around, etc), it was not the uber-project that "Don't be Cruel" was. As these things have the tendency to do, Bobby's popularity waned througout the decade. To make a long and already familiar story short, Bobby married Whitney, who was one of the biggest stars of her time, the drugs began, a tumultuous marriage ensued, including wife beating, husband beatings, self beatings, and many court dates for Bob for a plethora of infractions from weed to speed, to countless dirty deeds.

Recap redux: Bobby Brown: supergroup frontman, to solo dynamo, to coke (and probably crack) addicted convict turned cultural punchline.

This is the man that we encounter on the Bravo show, Being Bobby Brown. Given the above mentioned facts, to those of use who once and somewhat always will love Bob, this is a hard to watch, tragic comedy. Thankfully, my bar studies precented me from catching each of the episodes in their painful proper sequence, but I did make time to see the premiere, and I have seen random segments since. In assessing what I have seen, I concede that the show produces laughs. However, the majority, (people who never new BB other than as a common jackass) laughs because they see a funny display of comedic stylings provided by a wacky celebrity couple. I laugh to keep from crying. Yeah, it's that bad.