Malibu in the Media

To the residents of Malibu and others who are actually familiar with the city beyond the cameras of TMZ, Malibu is a rural city with a small-town feel that does not exist anywhere else in Southern California. But this is not how Malibu is perceived by many people outside the 90265.

It was announced earlier this month that singer/actress Reba McEntire will star in a television pilot that was picked up by ABC called "Malibu Country." The description in the Hollywood Reporter shows this is probably not going to be something that will be the pride of Malibu.

The half-hour project centers on Reba, who divorces her cheating husband and moves her family from Nashville to Malibu. There she'll try to reignite her own singing career and keep herself and three kids from being corrupted by the materialistic and rarified Malibu world she now calls home.

Are there materialistic people in Malibu? Of course. Every city has them. Are they the people who define this city? No.

Hopefully, the pilot will be a complete failure and the TV show will never take off. But if it does, this could be six or seven years of Malibu portrayed in a poor light on a weekly basis for laughs.

This brings up some interesting issues that I would like Malibu Patch readers to discuss in the comments section below. Why is there a bad perception of Malibu? How can it be changed, and is this even possible? If you had control of making a TV show about Malibu, what would it be like?