Comments on: News Shocker! Diversity Finally Comes to Food Network!

By: Tara

Tara — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 19:35:23 +0000

The Neely’s are the worse contribution to the Food Network that I have ever seen, and I am in awe that they have not been banned by now. Not only are they just plain ANNOYING, but if I want to see “sex in the kitchen” I’ll rent a porn. Get ‘em outta there!!!!!

By: Norm

Norm — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:16:01 +0000

I have my tv on in my computer room during the afternoons and watch the food channel. As soon as the Neelys come on I immediately change it the news… their voices are enough to flip channels not to mention their show antics…
Not very professional. Needs to be on another channel…

By: Josh

Josh — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 15:07:22 +0000

I got to where I hate them. Does he spray paint is hair on?

By: Jeff

Jeff — Fri, 29 May 2009 18:46:23 +0000

There are plenty of excellent african-american cooks that would be great on Food Network. But the Neely’s with their saccharin lovey-dovey schtick just grates on my nerves. Especially Gina with her constant mugging at the camera. Sorry babe, the camera does not love you back!

By: Olive Loahf

Olive Loahf — Mon, 18 May 2009 19:51:20 +0000

OMG the Neelys work my last nerve. He’s not so pathetic, but Gina….All this lovey, dovey pseudo sexyness in the kitchen is just tiresome. Don’t get me started on that other obnoxious cow Paula Dean…she does the same thing with her fat, ugly husband. What has happened to the FN? I can barely watch it now, except for the Barefoot Contessa. I go to my local PBS (“Create” here in Seattle) and see Jacques Pepin, Lidia Bastianich, Ming Tsai, Daisy Cooks, America’s test kitchen…all these shows without these goofy gimmicks and “Personality” trainwrecks…I hope it all catches up with the FN. I think it’s intersting the the only non FN types are Jamie Oliver and Nigella and those shows are on “early” Saturday mornings, while we get hammered the rest of the afternoon with these FN clowns.

By: Food Woman

Food Woman — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:42:02 +0000

It is very painful for me to watch the Neeley’s. Not only are they clowns but must they drown everything in sugar and bbq sauce? My 14 year old son and I are waiting for their bbq cheesecake recipe! I am surprised that this mess is still on the air. I haven’t caught the other show where the man made out with the steak. There just has to be better cooking shows on than this.

By: Zaratha

Zaratha — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:01:30 +0000

You know, as a black foodie, I had great hopes for the Neelys when they first came on. But after a few episodes I came to the conclusion that they’re a perfect fit for FN for all the wrong reasons: personality over creativity and actual kitchen skills. People need to set their Mammy issues aside and realize that just because someone is black and/or from the South does not mean they are great cooks (see also: Paula Deen). What they make might be authentic soul food but it’s shitty, just like the Colombian lady makes authentic but shitty Latin food. But that’s just the FN bias against talented chefs, in favor of “personalities” with a cute “story” or hook. Now we get to see black non-chefs failing in the kitchen and serving up hot messes in addition to the parade of white hacks. Yay for progress, I guess.

And I’m sorry, he’s a nice guy, but G. Garvin sucks as bad as anyone on FN, but TVOne is like a low rent BET (complete with endless 227 reruns) and he pretty much belongs on it. FN would never hire him, despite him being sort of a shoe-in due to his lack of talent, because he doesn’t have a schtick. I’m sure if he got a stupid catchphrase, he’d get snapped up immediately.

And Sunny…oh, Sunny. Sweet woman, sometimes baffles me, but at least her show is watchable even if I’m scratching my head most of the time when I watch it. I also thought it was hilarious that they didn’t even have her on for 10 minutes before they gave her yet another dumbass knockoff of Follow that Food.

By: Masamba

Masamba — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 21:21:20 +0000

Great restaurant, Interstate BBQ in Memphis.

Shitty show and the Africanization of FN. This show is a piece of shit full of typical Afro-centric can’t keep it in their pants immorality. Eat shit, Neelys.

By: Mel

Mel — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 11:49:49 +0000

i understand… i just don’t like to think that producers would be that shallow… and ignorant maybe? I mean… i’m sure they know that not all “light skinned” people are actually “white”. lol

(oh yea! sorry i didn’t realize i was that late into the topic lol )

By: admin

admin — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 01:30:05 +0000

hey, mel… thanks so much for your comment on this post. at the time this post was written, the only sense of “diversity’ on the food network was ingrid hoffman. now (october, 2008), there are many, many more dark-skinned hosts than there were even just a few months ago. what bothered me about the choice of ingrid hoffman to represent the latino culture was that, regardless of her being born in columbia or living there now or whatever, was that she looked just like everyone else on the network at that time. i’m sure she’s from latin america. i’ve seen the show and she does use those spices/ingredients,etc. but, the greater point at the time was that it was very noticeable that the food network chose her to represent latin food b/c 1)she’s pretty and 2) she’s light-skinned (ahem, white-looking). that’s just my opinion, of course!

but, the food network has clearly realized they were very mono-chromatic b/c they have finally added much more diversity to their line up. they still have a far way to go, though!