Laverne fired on I Wanna Work for Diddy

I was so hoping she would make it a little further. But Laverne Cox, the beautiful dancing queen trans woman, was kicked off I Wanna Work for Diddy on last night's episode. The reason I am upset is not because she is gone - hell, my favorite contestants never win reality shows (except for Dee of course) so I can't say I'm surprised. It's the reason Laverne was fired that bothers the hell out of me.

In mission 6 of the series, both teams have to sell as many bottles of Diddy's new perfume as they can. Laverne has recently been switched from the Downtown team to the Uptown Team, which includes queen bitch Poprah. And no, I will not link to Poprah's website because it does not deserve any more hits.

So the teams have to sell this perfume that must not be so hot after all since no one is interested in buying it. But the challenge is about hustling so the teams have to come up with some marketing technique. And Poprah decides that it would be a good idea to put Laverne in the window as a live mannequin. Because really, that's the only way that people won't be put off by her. Laverne says no - that is exploitative of who I am and I won't do it. Kudos to you, Laverne. It was an incredibly arrogant and exploitative idea that Poprah had, and I am glad that Laverne rejected it and told her as much.

In the end, Laverne didn't sell any perfume, and her team lost the challenge. Which meant that they had to vote one person into the board room. It was a tie between Poprah and Laverne. The people who voted Kim did so because her attitude is cancerous to the team, and the people who voted Laverne did so because she didn't meet the challenge. Diddy's panel of judges now have the opportunity to send one person home. You would think that they would finally get rid of Poprah. She has the same conversation with the panel every time she stands before them, and the only thing that changed last night was that she defended her obesity (though no one even brought it up). And Laverne has proven to be a smart, witty, productive member of both teams she has been on.

But they told her she's not ready to work for Diddy.

What???!!!!

The panel told her that in the end, this show is about results. And she didn't sell any perfume. Would those people have been happy if she'd stood in the window the whole time? She wouldn't have sold any perfume then either, and she would have been a spectacle instead of a salesperson. But perhaps that would have been a better approach, what with the transphobic attitudes of people in this country.

Laverne didn't deliver in this challenge, but Poprah has failed to deliver several times as well. LIke in the episode where the teams had to map trails through a forest, and Poprah couldn't even walk half a mile before she suffered an asthma attack. Guess what? She didn't deliver. And remember when Diddy's mom came to New York and Poprah promised her a Southern style breakfast? She couldn't deliver then either.

This show is about results, all right. And Poprah pulls in more ratings with her crazy bitchy antics. I don't want to watch her anymore. She depresses me because I know she is exemplary of too many people in this world who are just like her.

I am sad to see Laverne go. I hope that she finds something more fulfilling than a job with Diddy. Like Isis on this cycle of America's Next Top Model, I think Laverne probably felt some pressure to represent the trans community, which is a pretty large and unfair task. But I felt like she was as authentic as one can be on reality TV, and she probably impacted a lot of viewers in a positive way.

Whether you liked Laverne on the show or not, you should check out this piece on her blog, in which she talks about her experiences with objectification and devaluation in her life as a transgender black woman. I found it really smartly written and informative, and I'll certainly be following her blog from now on.