of people coming on television and allowing themselves to be super vulnerable. it all started with the talk show. she brings these big thinkers who can give you different perspectives on how to get through life. - if you don t have a test, you won t have a testimony. and so when you have a challenge. - there is no more powerful speaker, or person, to sit across from than miss oprah winfrey. - we ve never seen you behave this way before. - i know. - [oprah] have you ever felt this way before? (audience cheers) - if you would go on her show with a book, with any type of product, it would instantly sell. and they started calling it the oprah effect . one day, she was doing a show about hamburgers and she simply said, i m never eating another hamburger again. and when she said that, the stock market went down. what, oprah said it? cause that s the oprah effect. - if you look at the people that oprah spawned
- heather, will you accept this rose? - absolutely. - in terms of the dating category of reality shows, obviously the bachelor , the bachelorette , and bachelor in paradise are probably the most well known, but until recently, there weren t many black faces on that show. they d be in the dating pool, but they definitely weren t leading. - in the early 2000 s, that wasn t a thing that america was ready for. you barely had interracial relationships on television at the time. you know, us just being the main source of attraction and beauty was just not it. - it really was the absence of black faces that really allowed for the more outlandish, hilarious, and also black-centric stories to be told. and the first one was flavor of love . - the bachelor didn t wanna put black faces front and center, cue flavor flav. - yeah! (women scream) flavor flav! - the door swings open, and it is flavor flav,
- so to see this influx of black judges on television now, it inspires young black kids to like, oh, i can do that too. oh, i can be a judge. - this matter, it is so ordered. (siren ringing) - [protestor] you are the only ones armed in this crowd. - in the early 2000 s, more and more people had become fed up with the system. - [protestors] put the guns down. put the guns down. - [newscaster] officers got physical with people who stood in the middle of the street. - judge shows allowed us to look at the criminal justice system with a bit of levity. unscripted also had a space for a raw gritty look at street crime. - as we, as a nation right now, are grappling with policing in this country, and black americans deep-seeded distrust of police in this country, you have a show like first 48 , which contradicts that by showing black detectives in the first 48 hours of a crime, trying to solve it. - [officer] i need y all to work with me and not against me. - [man] alright. - i don t want
because i wanted to emphasize those types of things that people considered to be not so beautiful, we actually highlight. - and it normalized celebrating that beauty. - what she did is she gave little girls at home, in little small towns, a chance to see what that life could be and that they could be in that life. - tyra banks just told me that i m posed to be a star. - that show really set the stage for other non-singing talent competition shows. and i think one of the most recent successors is rupaul s drag race . - rupaul really kind of brings us in behind the curtain, into the drag experience. it s a competition show for the most outrageous, the biggest personalities you ve ever seen. and it s everything from pageantry, to makeup, to lip sync, to how do you carry yourself when it s time to go? you know what i m saying? ooo, i don t like to show off - rupaul s drag race launched in 2009. think about that era.
- i actually started america s next top model because i wanted to emphasize those types of things that people considered to be not so beautiful, we actually highlight. - and it normalized celebrating that beauty. - what she did is she gave little girls at home, in little small towns, a chance to see what that life could be and that they could be in that life. - tyra banks just told me that i m posed to be a star. - that show really set the stage for other non-singing talent competition shows. and i think one of the most recent successors is rupaul s drag race . - rupaul really kind of brings us in behind the curtain, into the drag experience. it s a competition show for the most outrageous, the biggest personalities you ve ever seen. and it s everything from pageantry, to makeup, to lip sync, to how do you carry yourself when it s time to go? you know what i m saying? ooo, i don t like to show off - rupaul s drag race launched in 2009.