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Common Sense Note

Parents need to know that the show's female contestants perform challenges and go on dates with Flavor Flav (rapper and star of The Surreal Life and Strange Love), who will, by the end of the series, choose one to be his girlfriend. In their attempt to win his heart, the women degrade themselves and put each other down. Although teens will want to watch (it's like train-wreck TV -- you can't look away), much of this cartoonish, intentionally over-the-top show's content is wildly inappropriate for kids, and it definitely promotes an unhealthy view of male/female relationships.

Families can discuss self-respect. When someone puts you down, what's the best way to react? Why is it important to have boundaries in a romantic relationship? Do teenage girls think they'd ever compete in a series like this? Why or why not? Why do you think the women want to be with Flav in the first place?

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Common Sense Review

Reviewed By: Lucy Maher

In THE FLAVOR OF LOVE, former Public Enemy rapper Flavor Flav puts 20 women vying for his love through a series of challenges before whittling the group down to those who'd be a suitable girlfriend. (Keep in mind that most people have an entirely different definition of what "suitable" is than Flav does.)

As in The Bachelor, the women live together in an Los Angeles-area house; this one is called the "phat crib." Unlike that show, the women have full access to Flav throughout the day and night, and multiple women often end up sleeping in his bed. Flav relies on the help of his chauffeur and bodyguard, Big Rick; his mother; and his ex-girlfriend, Brigitte Nielsen, to administer the challenges and help weed out the women who only want to take advantage of his money and fame. At the end of each episode, one woman is axed from the competition.

In one episode, for example, the mostly twenty-something women -- who have been given nicknames like "Hoopz" and "Sweetie" by Flav and look like they just walked off of the Jerry Springer set -- spent some suggestive one-on-one time with Flav on a satin-covered daybed. The next day the group headed to church with Flav and his mother -- after having only 30 minutes to get ready -- and later had to cook fried chicken for Flav and his mother (most failed miserably). The winner accompanied Flav and his mom on a date to a local soul food joint. Other episodes have involved things like three of the women donning lingerie and piling into Flav's bed -- all at once.

But structured activities like the day described above aren't nearly as common as scenes centered around casual dates and the drama between the contestants themselves. The ladies are always trying to find out which of their competitors are in the game for Flav, and which ones just want to be on TV. (In one episode, Flav was in his room watching a different dating show on TV, when one of the Flavor of Love contestants appeared on the screen...!)

Not only does The Flavor of Love paint a demeaning picture of male/female relationships and women in general, it also presents the mostly African-American contestants in an embarrassing light (none of them objects to being asked to cook a stereotypically "black" dish in the episode mentioned above, etc.). What's more, the women's sexually charged comments ("You have a lot of meat waiting for me," says one, referring to the chicken but meaning something entirely different) lend a seedy feel to an already smarmy show.

There's really nothing redeeming about this show, which demeans everyone involved and seems to take pride in broadcasting crass, tasteless behavior. Teens will find a far better rapper-turned-reality-star role model in Run's House.

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Content
		CS	adults	kids
Sexual Content Plenty of skimpy outfits (lingerie, etc.) and sexual innuendo. In one episode, for example, Flav -- in an attempt to ferret out a solution to a problem -- says, "I'm going to put my finger on it; hopefullly she'll let me put my finger on it."
Violence
Language "Sluts," "bitch," and "s--tless" are used.
Message
	Social Behavior Sends the message that it's OK to step all over someone and put them down to win a contest and that it's OK to do anything to get a man. Lots of conflict between the contestants, too -- spitting, slapping, cat fights, etc. One contestant defecated on the floor because she "couldn't hold it."
	Commercialism Flav is a rap artist; the show helps promote him as a "brand." He's also done two other shows for VH1.
	Drug/Alcohol/Tobacco Plenty of social drinking; contestants sometimes appear very intoxicated. Smoking is common.

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