Ellen Gray | BET keeping lid on 'Hot Ghetto Mess'

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - If you want to know who's to blame for the controversy over BET's plans to turn the Web site "Hot Ghetto Mess" into a TV show, well, that would be people like me.

Or so says BET entertainment president Reginald Hudlin, who's afraid I won't tell you about all the other stuff he's got planned in the coming weeks and months - shows like the animated sketch comedy show "BUFU," from "MAD TV's" Orlando Jones and "Everybody Hates Chris" producer Ali LeRoi, and "Sunday Best," an "American Idol"-like search for gospel singers.

TV critics and reporters who arrived for Sunday lunch with BET executives during the Television Critics Association's summer meetings were greeted by a local gospel choir - unfortunately amplified, in a smallish room, to ear-splitting levels - and, no, the singers weren't there to promote "Hot Ghetto Mess."

Holding off questions about the show till the end of his press conference, Hudlin managed to run down the clock. A smaller group of reporters stayed behind to ask about "Mess," which premieres July 25 and has reportedly already lost two of its advertisers.

Keep moving, nothing to see here, insisted Hudlin, who said the advertisers hadn't seen the show. Neither have critics, who were instead provided screeners of shows whose premieres are further away.

"The show isn't finished yet," Hudlin said. And yet, "everyone who's seen a rough cut of the show sees it's not remotely anything like what they presume the show to be."

Those who haven't seen it have only the Web site and the title to go on.

The title's staying, said Web site founder and show executive producer Jam Donaldson, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who said the name "Hot Ghetto Mess" "dictates what the show is" while insisting that the show will be different.

So what can we expect from BET's version of "Hot Ghetto Mess"?

"The intent of the show is no different than what Bill Cosby is doing as he's going across the country lecturing" about problems in the black community, Hudlin said.

"There are problems in the community that we need to address, all right? We're doing it in a way that actually is going to connect to our audience. You know, the core audience of BET is 18- to 34-year-olds. Now a lot of people say, 'Oh, no, no, no, that's not how we want those issues presented. We want these issues presented in a dry, boring format that's going to be sure to turn off the very people who need to hear it the most.'

"We're not interested in that. We're interested in actually making a difference. If that offends some people, that's unfortunate. But I believe that some of the biggest critics of something they haven't seen will be the biggest fans once they actually see the show," he said.

Donaldson, ever the lawyer, doesn't want to talk about the legalities of some of the images on her Web site but said those whose images appear on the BET series, which is hosted by Charlie Murphy, will have given their consent.

And though some of those images might show women dressed in ways Donaldson finds inappropriate, she doesn't see herself as BET's answer to Tim Gunn.

"I think a lot of images go further than fashion. They speak to the hyper-sexualization of our women or an obsession with consumerism and the bling mentality," she said.

"There's a message, there's a mission" to the show, she said.

Hudlin, for his part, sees "Hot Ghetto Mess" as part of BET's mission.

"It would be easy for us, as programmers, to do a bunch of escapist programming. We're not doing that - we're doing programming that addresses some of the toughest problems in our community. We are trying to be the responsible broadcaster that folks want us to be," he said.

Asked if he was unhappy with the attention, Hudlin hedged.

"I just want people to see the show. I want them to see the show and judge for themselves what our intentions are." *

Daily News TV critic Ellen Gray (graye@phillynews.com) is covering the Television Critics Association's summer meetings in Beverly Hills. For more, see her blog at go.philly.com/ellengray or join her at 11 a.m today on philly.com, where she and Inquirer TV critic Jonathan Storm will be hosting an online chat.