Lifetime Continues to Decimate the Memory of Various Dead People With an Aaliyah Biopic

In addition to perfecting the art of the trashy TV movie, Lifetime has now fine-tuned the art of the trashy TV biopic. In the aftermath of Liz & Dick in 2012, Lifetime has shown no signs of slowing down their infinite ability to butcher a celebrity’s life story.

In the past month, they’ve continued to one-up themselves with levels of badness via The Brittany Murphy Story, a “film” that very loosely tells the tale of how Brittany Murphy went from “teen star” in Clueless to grown-up thin Hollywood actress in, um, Just Married with Ashton Kutcher. In addition to casting Amanda Fuller (a veterean of TV movies you’ve never heard of), Lifetime further dishonors Murphy’s memory by giving her lazy dialogue that even Ambular wouldn’t be comfortable with.

In spite of this movie being universally panned (even more than Liz & Dick, if that was possible), the executives at Lifetime still seem to have no qualms about releasing Aaliyah: Princess of R&B, starring Alexandra Shipp, another little known star whose main claim to fame is Nickelodeon. Presumably, we can expect some extremely artificial-sounding exchange between her and R. Kelly, among other assorted sacrilegiousness.

And so, at this point, it seems as though Lifetime is content to embrace itself as a caricature, championing only the lowest quality possible. Because if you can’t be great you might as well embrace being total shit. Though I doubt Elizabeth Taylor, Brittany Murphy or Aaliyah would be inclined to agree with this philosophy. Or Missy Elliott, for that matter.