I’m not sure what the role of a critic is, but I suspect it would be very similar to that of a reporter. What I mean is I would figure there would be some investigation into the subject, so when comments are made they are factually based.

I never thought I would see the need to defend Sherri Shepherd from The View, but after a very odd review on the LA Times website I felt I had to say something.

It was an odd review because the first part of the review showed the research I talked about. The critic talked about a litany of things Shepherd has done in the past, most of it talked about on The View. The critic even made the unintentional defining reference to Shepherd’s early lack of fact checking on the show. Shepherd had a way of talking before thinking, which led to a lot of YouTube moments. It seems the critic was so eager to show her superiority she could play fast and lose with actual facts.

This is where things fell apart in the article for me; the critic talked about how some comics with sitcoms, such as Ellen and Seinfeld, would draw upon their life to shape the sitcom, yet a few paragraphs later the critic put on her PC hat and declared it was sad that Shepherd used outmoded (in her opinion) racial setups in her show. Specifically the reference was to two instances; one being the main theme where Shepherd’s husband on the show left her for a white woman and a second where she went to the bank and tried to get her money out of the joint bank account she shared with her soon to be ex-husband, and the black teller wouldn’t give the money until she was informed her husband left her for a white woman.

Just as a side note, but what does a mix-raced president (as the critic put it in the article) have to do with the anger many black women have about black men dating white women?

The President reference is just plain ignorant but an added insult is, if the critic had paid attention to The View, would know Shepherd is basing the show, as the critic praised on Seinfeld and Ellen, on her life. The bank incident was talked about on The View as well as the fact the breakup of her marriage had to do with her husband sleeping with a white woman. Shepherd talked a lot about her in between job for acting as being a paralegal, which the critic thought was a bit of a stretch. The critic ended the review complaining about “the grouchy father, adorable son and hapless ex” as being stereotypes, but again all three were based on her own experience which she has talked about considerably on the show.

It might be true that the sitcom is a mess filled with characters we have seen before, but the critic, in trying to show knowledge of the subject, attacked her for flaws that weren’t just items pulled out of the air but things that are part of her life and personality. The critic said she hopes the show doesn’t become something about her dates and her weight, but anyone watching The View for a week would know a sitcom made by Shepherd would focus on that since she talked about that on the show. I guess for me it seemed a bit sloppy that the critic would seem to indicate she had knowledge of Shepherd on The View and knew the sitcom was based on her life, then criticized her for characters and situations that were based on her life.