Paula Deen has made quite a name for herself by hosting southern cooking shows on the Food Network. She has produced several cookbooks, has a magazine, and a huge line of branded cooking utensils. She received a fair amount of criticism for her fattening recipes that contained large amounts of butter, sugar, and salt, even though she is diabetic. Other than that though, she was mostly harmless...until we learned that she might be a bit of a racist. A lawsuit was filed against Paula Deen and her brother (Earl "Bubba" Hiers) by an ex-employee who worked at one of the restaurants they both owned. This employee (Lisa Jackson) claimed the owners created a racist and sexist work environment. During the disposition, Paula Deen admitted to using the "N-word" several times before, once when describing a black bank robber and at other times when repeating conversations held by black people. To make it worse though, Paula described wanting to throw a wedding for her brother in "true Southern plantation-style theme" with an all-black wait staff working for them, a type of theme that harks back to the days of slavery. As expected, companies started dropping her left and right, starting with the Food Network and continuing with Sears, K-Mart, Target, and a host of others. She made several awkward video apologies but it was a bit too late. Paula's reputation tanked and she'll have to fight extremely hard to get back to where she once was.
Ryan Estabrooks is a film writer/director and photographer. When he is not busy solving mysteries, he can be found working on his feature length film. You can view all of his work at the imaginatively-titled RyanEstabrooks.com
