“It’s the most inane and idiotic show in the history of television. It’s right up your alley.” And with that, I was introduced to the most amazing piece of television wizardry since The Pick Up Artist. I can only be talking about one thing, “A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila.”
For the record, I know about this show because Danny (the source of the quote) was the sound engineer for the show. Danny is the only person on the planet that I know who has a job that is weirder than mine. He travels the world doing the sound for reality television shows. I watch these shows as mindless entertainment, for him it’s his freaking job. While my job is…is…still classified but vaguely involves spending all day surfing the net at least I can explain it. I’m not even sure how to explain this show.
I’ll start by explaining who Tila Tequila is. If you don’t know who she is then congratulations, you are probably above the age of 22. She is a MySpace celebrity. I’m not sure what qualifies someone as a MySpace celebrity other than accepting every friend request, even those that are clearly from spam sites. (For the spam sites, could you at least vary the page design? I hate getting requests for the same page under five different names.) Basically, Tila made a name for herself by posting pictures of herself in skimpy clothing and ceaselessly promoting herself as, well, someone who will post pictures of themselves in skimpy clothing for free. I believe Meryl Streep got her start in the same fashion.
All of this enables one to their own reality show on MTV, which has so given up on the concept of having anything relate to music that the idea of VJs seems quaint. But it can’t just be any type of reality show, it has to be a reality dating competition. And because you have to top Flavor of Love, Tila Tequila just happens to be bisexual so this show is, for all intensive purposes, Bisexual Bachelorette.
(I swear I’m not making any of this up. This all on Tuesday nights on MTV.)
Yep, so you’ve got guys and girls competing for the love of Tila, who has the personality of a block of wood. I know that’s not what has made her a minor celebrity but for crying out loud, can’t you show a slight bit of emotion? The guys all have six pack abs and seemed to have collectively failed to pack shirts. Or they can’t figure out how to put them on as they do not seem to be the brightest bunch. I’m pulling for the guy who has the subtitle “Pizza Delivery Guy” whenever he is shown, if just because I have a feeling that he isn’t actually a contestant but is in fact just the pizza delivery guy. The girls are a strange mix as you can imagine. I think the intelligent ones intentionally got eliminated first. Danny once told me that anyone who agrees to be on a reality show is at least a little unhinged, I’m pretty sure anyone who signed up for this show didn’t have a door to begin with.
You could make a lot of grand claims about what this says about society in general. We have someone who is famous for being famous except that she really isn’t famous in the first place. We have people who are so desperate for their fifteen minutes of fame that they’ll showcase themselves in the most embarrassing manner possible. And you’ll have someone with multiple degrees spend an hour watching the show and a half hour writing an essay about it in the hopes that a few people might find it funny. I’m not sure what this really says about society other than a) we all want to be famous, b) put people in skimpy clothing and you can guarantee ratings and c) I have way too much free time.
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