"Television" Archive

The television show Millionaire Matchmaker ended this season with an appearance by Former Philadelphia Eagle Freddie Mitchell. According to Bravo’s storyline, since leaving the Eagles Mitchell has been working as a venture capitalist (really?), is currently considering a return to the NFL (huh?), and is looking for love after having being burned (financially) by supposed golddiggers. (Relax black girls, he aint talkin about yall. He only dates white Euros and Latinas)

If you haven’t seen the show, the owner of the Matchmaking service, Patti, matches two millionaires with dates. She first diagnoses their dating problems-in Mitchell’s case, Patti said he couldn’t tell a winner from a loser. She said “his picker” his “off.” After the millionaire gives Patti a few preferences to work with, Patti sets up a mixer with about 20 potential dates.

Mitchell ended up picking a southern girl who at first tried to hide her accent. Even after she faked an accent, Mitchell still chose to go out on a date with her. On their date, she said she googled him and proceeded to confront him about whether or not he’d pay child child support in the past. Mitchell decided not to go out with her again, but to continue to use Patti’s service to find someone else.

I knew that Mitchell’s appearance would be stereotypical, but I didn’t know he’d hit every cliche about athletes.

• Big spender in the club? Check
• Preference for nonblack girls? Check
• Crippling fear of being used financially? Check
• Unkempt appearance? Check
• Baby mama? Check
• Child support issues? Check

While I enjoyed Mitchell’s turn on MM I do lament that this is the image we constantly see of NFL players. Its far too one-dimensional for my tastes. Obviously, outlandish personalities and flashy lifestyles make us more likely to keep up with athletes’ comings and goings. I think that becomes really  clear when you look at which players have made it into the mainstream (think: T.O and Ochocinco). It’s no wonder that 90% of the content on 90% of sports sites is gossip. Still, I think there’s room to give players more visibility that doesn’t feed into the most base stereotypes.

We often see players in extremes: Either building homes for Hurricane Katrina survivors or dodging child support payments. Where is the middle?  This is one of the reasons I started this blog. It’s so easy to forget that there’s usually  A LOT more to players than what we’re fed on a whole.

To Mitchell’s credit, he did seem like a nice guy. And he didn’t display any of those no-thank-you qualities on camera that made him so hard to love when he was with the Eagles. I don’t expect a fairly scripted reality show to provide us with a clear picture of someone, but a departure from a stereotypical storyline would have been nice. I wonder what  Mitchell thinks about his portrayal.