Scoot Over Arsenio Hall, Queen Latifah Loses Her Job Too

Written By Cyrus Langhorne

Television host Queen Latifah's popular "The Queen Latifah Show" has come to an unexpected end after two seasons and handfuls of notable celebrity guests.

1.2k Views 27 Comments

According to reports, the show’s run will officially end this March 2015.

It’s official: The Queen Latifah Show has been canceled. The syndicated daytime show from Sony Pictures Television will shut down production at year’s end. Originals will continue to air on CBS stations through March but cease afterward. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Check out this statement producers issued right here…

Sony Pictures Television has issued a statement on the program ending.

“We want to thank Dana, the producers and the entire staff of The Queen Latifah Show for creating a program that we are all very proud of. Thank you also to our terrific station partners and advertisers who supported the show.” (Statement)

Latifah penned a letter to herself and staff about the cancellation on Facebook this week.

Dear Dana,

Just a little note to say Thank You…

Thank you for your strong work ethic and great effort in getting The Queen Latifah Show off the ground and running.

Your dedication and sacrifice was crucial to the entire team, and in the face of intense challenges, you displayed “True Grit”!

Your Family, Partners, Staff and Crew showed up with you every step of the way. Be very proud of that! Not everyone can say the same.

You can also say you have been a blessing to and been blessed by amazing guests and incredible audiences for this show.

We truly changed people’s lives for the better.

So… STAY POSITIVE, STAY STRONG, and most importantly, STAY OPEN… There is so much more God has in store!

Lovingly, You!

P.S. This letter is for me, my staff, my crew, and everyone who was by my side for this incredible journey. The most important thing in life is that you wake up every single day and take chances. No matter what the outcome…believe in yourself and continue to fly. (Facebook)

27 Comments

Written by Cyrus Langhorne

27 Comments

    • It’s not the about the guests. It’s about the television host. Look at Oprah for example.

        • I think he meant appeal lol. Oprah has the appeal to appeal to more than just black people. She had book clubs, cooking shows, relationship experts, the list goes on. She had an appeal to make the white folks accept her and thats what it comes down too. It hurt to see the Arsenio show go off the air but looking at Hollywoods mindset for just about a century now, it made sense!

          • So there’s no success for Black folk in that market without appealing to the white majority? In essence doesn’t that say we still need to depend on “the man” for success?

          • Well Oprah did raise the bar way too high so the next black TV host will have to do better. And I do believe that if a black person wants to become succesfull when it comes to entertainment he or she has to appeal to all majorities just like Oprah, MJ and Pac did. I’m so happy everytime when I see that commercial of all those dead celebrities including Pac at an island.
            We wouldn’t see Pac on there if he would only appeal to black folks.

          • And thats all Im saying too bro! Gotta get the clout to preach and you cant get to clout until you appeal to the majority instead of just us. Pac is a great example of that. “Dear Mama” (one of his first hits) wasnt a song that just appealed to black folks, everybody fell in love with that song! And Pac became one of if not rap’s biggest star after that song! IJS

          • We have to canonize our own saints like Marcus Garvey said. A slot on a tv commercial, a grammy, an oscar, american music award, rock n roll hall of fame nomination shouldnt be the tools we use to measure success. Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr received none of those things (though they’ve been awarded posthumously) and weren’t rich when they died but we left them up for their contributions. We don’t have to wait for someone to reach Oprah’s level to love and claim them. We can appreciate the people on the come up, locally, and in our communities doing good work everyday all the time. But I know you were moreso speaking to entertainment.

            If there’s a person on youtube speaking truth and they do so in an articulate, eloquent, and passionate manner and speak to issues affecting Black people, we can lift them up, praise their name. I think we are doing ourselves a disservice by limiting our definition of success (whether in entertainment or other areas) to the narrow definition of one who acquires mass wealth and fame. If we use that as the rubric or measurement for success then we will see more Black sellouts.

          • In a way, yeah bro (hate to say it). Hollywood is closed to “Black Hollywood” in a sense, yeah we got the couple of people doing there thing but they not trying to hear shit if it doesnt appeal to the “man”. In this instance, I would suggest just play the game until you get the clout. Spielberg said once you get the clout, you could do whatever the hell you want in Hollywood. The clout comes from a hit and a hit comes from appealing to more than just Black people. I think that the only reason Tyler Perry is as big as he is (outside of Oprah) is he amplifies black stereotypes. I think whites watch his shows to laugh at us instead of just supporting us.

          • Whites have many avenues and lanes that appeal to whites only. Latin American stars rep their heritage. Why do we always feel the need to accommodate others?

          • Fuck how we feel, its Hollywood politics. People in the industry have commented on that. Antoine Fuqua, director of Training Day, made a point in an interview he did. He said its hard for black directors, actors, etc. because its still about race instead of the job. Instead of it being just filmmaking, its black filmmaking. Its nothing wrong with repping your heritage but you’re only going to go so far if thats what its about. If thats the only audience black folks want to entertain, thats fine but you cant get mad and say that Hollywood is holding us down. Alot of black folks dont care about their heritage and history ( look at the mentality of us now) so why should a Jewish producer lol? Going back to the Arsenio argument,his show would work on BET (a network meant for black people) not ABC. Im rooting for all niggas in the industry, but I understand why so many of them get held back.

            We can end it like this. Guys like Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, and James Earl Jones arent who they are because of their “black movies”.
            Think about it!

          • Fuck how we feel? Can’t agree there. That’s more self sacrifice.

            Of course you can say Hollywood is repressive. White film directors are free to create films with all white casts, white leads, with stories that reflect their lives, showcase their talents, humor, history from their perspective and you’re saying we have to compromise our stories, our legacies, our history, our heritage? Can you not see how that reinforces Black inferiority? That we have to give up on speaking to our community, to our heritage, our history, and our issues in order to gain success? That reinforces Black inferiority. That we are not worthy of success as we are and therefore have to strip ourselves of various parts of our existence to acclimate to the dominant society’s will. That’s more second class citizenship and negates whatever racial progress we’ve made.

          • I say fuck how we feel because that seems to be Hollywood’s mindset. If it wasnt that, Queen Latifah and Arsenio will still be on the air! Im for the black cause just like you are but Im not naive to reality. Appealing to more than just black people has nothing to do with black inferiority and if you feel that way, you setting yourself up for failure. Obama didnt become president by “appealing to just black people”. I feel your passion and truthfully I feel the same way but I know Hollywood.Oprah can do whatever she wants to do because she has the clout to do it and thats all Im saying people should do. Waiting until you have the name and clout to address your race is not sacrificing your race. Its playing the game until you get in position to do what you want to do (a concept only a couple of black stars seem to grasp and look at where those stars are compared to others)

            Ill bring up some more names. Chris Rock, Samuel L. Jackson,shit Kevin Hart. All of them niggas ARE 100% nigga yet they are icons because they appeal outside of black folks!

          • You just said it. Those names are 100% “NIGGA”. Not revolutionaries.

            Sadly, it doesnt work the way you say. Jay-z, Oprah, Beyonce and others have conspicuously stayed away from touching on controversial topics that might cripple their empire. Therefore they are not free. Jay-Z, Oprah, and Beyonce aren’t free to talk about mass incarceration, the prison industrial complex, the war on drugs, police brutality, racial profiling, racial discrimination. So it’s not a matter of appeal to whites, get in, then do what you want. Once you are in you must continue to neglect and ignore the community you come from. How many of those entertainers promote the likes of Malcolm X, The Black Panther Party, George Jackson, Nat Turner, Joseph Cinque, Shaka Zulu, Thomas Sankara, and others? Notice how silent Nikki Minaj, Wayne, Drake, and the rest are on Ferguson Missouri and the Eric Garner case. They are all scared as hell.

            How many align themselves with movements to address the aforementioned issues? They don’t, because they are still slaves. They are just high paid slaves sleeping in the room down the hall from master on the plantation. Kanye is probably richer than all those names you named and he talked about the racism in the fashion industry.

          • Once you get the clout, I think its a personal choice. Oprah outgrew the machine, so she doesnt have to check into the machine to do what she wants to do. SHE CHOOSES not talk about that stuff, she isnt being forced to avoid that stuff. Same with Jigga and Beyonce. And you still missing what Im saying. The argument in Hollywood is blacks arent afforded the same opportunities as whites. While thats true to a certain degree, thats correct its understood why.

          • When I say forced I don’t meant at gunpoint. I mean they will lose opportunities for advancement if they retained a commitment towards helping the lower income earning, underprivileged, and marginalized Blacks. They would lose endorsement deals, their ratings would decline, record labels and film production companies wouldn’t want to get behind their projects. They would be stigmatized in the media. That’s why it’s no coincidence the most famous and wealthy Blacks are the most silent on community issues (police brutality, war on drugs, educational racial disparities,

        • LOL @ Mike thx. English is not my first language you know. But Oprah was/is so big and an icon that she actually was way bigger then her guests. There are so many shows that all of them are pretty much the same.

    • It’s about ratings which is more or less related to a target group of audience. The 25-45 age (white)group is the major consumer of products. I don’t know how good the ratings for those two shows were but I did hear Arsenio Hall’s show being canceled had to do with him not having an appeal to the right demographic group.

        • I don’t know remember who did but I heard it somewhere. The truth of the matter is , I blame us black people. I really don’t know why we don’t support our own as we should. Shows like that are destined to fail which is why you make a good point about Oprah. She really caters to everyone out there, especially the white demographic that includes the moms, the older white population and the black upper class.

          • Yeah bro, it was his interview at the Breakfast Club! He didnt say his name but if you listen to what he was saying, he was talking about Arsenio. And I agree bro, we gotta get out of this “appeal only to the black demographic” mentality that alot of us are in. I personally feel that Spike Lee would be bigger than what he is if he dropped movies like “The Inside Job” before his “Malcolm X”s. Doing that would of gave him the clout to make the movies he wants to make/we want him to make. Same with Arsenio. He should of got the clout first before focusing on the black demographic. His second coming in my opinion should of made him an even bigger star than Oprah ( learning from his first run and watching how Oprah became big) but we got to get out of that mentality!

          • I don’t think we got to get out of it. To say that is to say we have to sacrifice part s of ourselves, our history, our heritage just to get insider access. That basicall reinforces the notion of white supremacy and Black inferiority. We can’t get ahead unless we appeal to white folks while white folks can appeal only to whites and do just fine. David Letterman didn’t have to appeal to Blacks to stay on, nor Jay Leno, Conan O’ Brian, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon. If the cost to get insider access means stripping ourselves of our identities, I can’t say I’m with it.

          • I said that wrong lol. Not change our ways, just change how we go about them. I dont know about you but I want to see more Oprahs. The only way we are going to get that is if blacks plays the game and get the clout first. Im not saying that Spike shouldnt have dropped Malcolm, Shes got to have it, School days, etc. Im saying he should of gotten the box office clout first and then dropped them movies. Had he done that, he wouldnt have problems getting some of the projects he wants to do green lit. I think him dropping “Inside Job” caliber movies at the beginning would of given him Hollywood’s trust. Like I stated earlier, once you get the trust they let you do anything you want. Spielberg wasnt the same after Jaws, Tarantino after Pulp Fiction, Scorcsee after Godfather, Lucas after Star Wars. I guarantee you if one of them wanted to make that Black Panther Movie that Spike wants to do, they could do it easily because of the clout. Lol its that reason why I believe QT did Django instead of Spike. Think about it!

  1. Nothing but love for Latifah but her show was awkward. Her laugh seemed forced and the time slot was weird. She’s good though. Regardless she’ll always be a queen.

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