Jennifer Lopez New Lesbian Family Show Won’t Be A Sin, But It Will Probably Suck

The uber-conservative group, One Million Moms, has taken aim at Jennifer Lopez and her production company for slating a family show featuring a – gasp – lesbian couple.  Set to air on ABC Family, the comedy-drama reportedly focuses on “two women raising a 21st century, multi-ethnic mix of foster and biological kids.”   One Million Moms is calling the show a sin, but I think it’s just going to suck.

In their statement One Million Moms attack:

”Obviously, ABC has lost their minds. They haven’t let up so neither will we. ABC’s Family Channel has several anti-family programs, and they are planning on adding to that growing list. ABC Family has approved a series pilot from Jennifer Lopez’s production company, Nuyorican, about a lesbian couple and their diverse family.”

”Many families have already discovered that ABC Family Channel is anything but family-friendly.”  “While foster care and adoption is a wonderful thing and the Bible does teach us to help orphans, this program is attempting to redefine marriage and family by having two moms raise these children together. One Million Moms is not sure how the explanation will be given on how the biological children were conceived. None of this material is acceptable content for a family show.”

”Lopez will be an executive producer for the hour-long project. Casting has not been announced. It’s still in the pilot stage and hasn’t been picked up for a series yet. Let’s stop this dead in it its tracks.”

While I am appalled with One Million Mom’s reasons for wanting to stop the show, I have to say I would support a quick death to the series.  It sounds like a whole bunch of silly cliches wrapped together in one pilot.  Any show that tries to take on too many stereotypes at once is bound to fail.  Even Modern Family knows its limits.  The Lopez show has not yet been cast but I can just imagine there will be the token girl from China, the token child adopted from Africa, as well as the one-dimensional lesbian biological children who will be reduced to jokes made behind a misbehaving kid’s back such as, “I don’t know what you did when you were pregnant with him that made him this way,” and the return quip, “he came from your egg!”

If the show promised to be truly ground-breaking and could help this country understand new definitions of marriage and family, I would be all for it.  However, with Jennifer Lopez behind it, I’m not too optimistic.  JLo isn’t exactly known for breaking barriers.   Her movie roles are often squarely definitional stereotypes.  In The Wedding Planner we see a woman who is obsessed with marriage but finds herself failing miserably in her own love life.   I don’t even need to say more than the play on words title Monster-In-Law about, you guessed it, that token mother-in-law from hell.   The most offensive, Maid in Manhattan, showcases a Hispanic version of the movie Pretty Woman and reduces all Latinas to maids who dream of being saved by some rich white guy.   In Enough, Lopez’s character takes up boxing to protect herself and her child from an abusive mate.   Even her story of empowerment is stereotypical.

I just can’t see Jenny from the block bringing something fresh and important to family challenges as steep as a lesbian couple raising an ethnically diverse family of adopted and biological children.  I understand the appeal for mixing two wildly successful and appealing families:  the Jolie-Pitts with Portia and Ellen DeGeneres. But sadly, this smells like a recipe for disaster.

(photo: Helga Esteb  / Shutterstock)

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