Kirsten West Savali: Three White “Hoes” and Betty White: The Unspoken Double Standard

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By: Kirsten West Savali, Your Black World

While sitting under the hair dryer Friday afternoon, I grabbed a stack of magazines that were haphazardly scattered on the small table to my right and began sifting through them for suitably mindless, I-work-hard-all-week-so-let-me-catch-up-with-fashion-and-entertainment chatter.

Apparently, the Universe decided that a mind was a terrible thing to waste because featured on the front inside cover of my magazine of choice was an advertisement for Hot in Cleveland, a sitcom starring the legendary Betty White, along with actresses Valerie Bertinelli, Wendie Malick and Jane Leeves.

The premise of the show seems innocent enough. The lives of three white, 40-something American women — enroute to Paris to get their groove back — are forever altered when their plane is diverted to Cleveland, Ohio. They immediately form a contentious bond with White’s weed smoking, “grandmotherly” character, Elka Ostrovsky, and television-approved raunchiness and hilarity ensue.

Nothing to see there, right?

Wrong.

In the advertisement, the three younger cast members, in the white equivalent of coonery, pout prettily in festive Christmas sweaters with “Ho” emblazoned across the front, while White clutches her ball of yarn, oblivious to the shenanigans of her castmates.  Some may wonder why this presented an issue for me and the explanation is simple.

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Kirsten West Savali: Three White “Hoes” and Betty White: The Unspoken Double Standard