the mean machine
July 29, 2003
Part One: Real Comedy
Reality TV as Sitcom: 'Green Acres, We Are There': Just when it seemed as if reality television might succumb to endless variations of the dating, talent and survival show, a batch of ambitious producers have discovered a new twist that they hope will inject freshness into the genre: the reality show as sitcom. [...] While comic elements are present in many reality shows, this variation on the genre builds comedy into the concept. "Average Joe," NBC's comic take on the dating format, follows the quest of a group of overweight, balding, nerdy guys to win the affection of, yes, another former cheerleader, accompanied by depictions of their accidents on the tennis court, belly-flops in the pool and misadventures in tanning.
Fox's "The Simple Life" is "Green Acres" as reality show. Two Beverly Hills "celebutantes," as the show calls them — Paris Hilton, an heiress to the Hilton hotel fortune, and her friend Nicole Richie (daughter of the singer Lionel Richie) — try to make a go of living with an Arkansas farm family, which means milking cows and cleaning up a lot of road kill.
ABC, which has steered clear of reality to this point in the summer, will jump in next week with "The Real Roseanne Show," a video-vérité chronicle of the comic Roseanne's efforts to start a cooking show on a cable channel.
And Spike TV, formerly TNN, has "The Joe Schmo Show." It is a full-blown satire of reality shows that centers on one unsuspecting contestant in a faux reality series. The contestant obliviously performs gag challenges ("Keep One Hand on the High-Priced Hooker") with a cast of comic improvisational actors who try to keep him from discovering the joke. [...] "What's great about this one," said Mr. Stone, the Stone Stanley partner, "is if you love reality shows you're going to love this show. And if you hate reality shows, you're going to love this show."
Actually, I'd think that if you hate reality shows, you're going to loathe and despise that show. There's quite a lot more to loathe about it, after all.
Comedy may or may not be the next frontier of the reality show, but the first two are very different in kind from the latter. In "The Simple Life" and "The Real Roseanne Show", you have people who are used to the public side of fame, who are in on the joke, and who understand exactly what's going on. In the latter, you have someone who is utterly clueless being humiliated in public for the amusement of us all. How droll! How charming! How funny!
How utterly disgusting.
Leaving aside for the moment the public's apparently intense desire to watch unknowing people humiliate themselves for the public's joy and amusement, this trend would seem to pose significant problems for the networks broadcasting this material that they are pleased to call entertainment. SciFi has already been sued at least once over its Scare Tactics (it's baffling how that show got past any lawyers anywhere; I can't imagine that anyone with a brain cell in their head would think that it's remotely appropriate to make people think that their lives are in danger, or that their friends and acquaintances are being harmed or even killed).
The additional problem is that the subjects of the show may decline to be further associated with it once they learn exactly how they have been used. As the NY Times article notes, Mr Gould was clearly not amused by the charming little joke that was played on him:
Mr. Gould may not agree. Although he signed a release granting the show the right to use his image in any way it chose, he has refused to help with the show's publicity. The producers declined to describe how he reacted when he learned he had been duped for the sake of comedy.
One can understand that he would feel spectacularly betrayed and humiliated. It's not beyond the bounds of reason that one of the subjects of these shows might in the near future sue the producers and networks for fraud and material deception, in an effort to prevent shows like this from airing. And it is not beyond the bounds of reason that they would win; the argument that they would never have signed any contract for the show had they known what the show's producers truly meant to do is an argument that would probably play well with jurors. Frankly, it's fairly likely, given recent reactions of the subjects of "Joe Schmoe" and "Boy Meets Boy", that producers will try to force people to do positive publicity for their shows -- that it will be a part of their contract that they MUST go out and say how wonderful the show is, regardless of how they feel about it. (Of course, then the producers would be on the line for material deception of the public, of which the FCC takes a dim view.)
Gay guys join reality show scene, for better or for worse, with two new shows by Tim Goodman (SFgate.com, Tuesday, July 15, 2003): ... A MEAN TWIST: Much more controversial, of course, is "Boy Meets Boy," television's first gay dating series. It joins a long list of heterosexual "Bachelor"-type shows on the dial. The twist is that some of the contestants are straight. The series airs two weeks after "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." ... But rather than elevate what is a cheesy, embarrassing genre, "Boy Meets Boy" only makes it more cruel. After all, the "leading man," James, honestly seems like a nice guy looking for love. He doesn't come across as one of these vultures from the straight dating shows. What point can ultimately be made when (or if) he chooses a straight guy? None.
"Boy Meets Boy" would seem to be a prime example of the sort of truly mean and humiliating turn that reality shows are aiming for, in their desire to gain audience share.
The concept behind Boy Meets Boy vies with that of For Love or Money (also, interestingly, produced by NBC, Bravo's parent company) for sheer offensiveness. Exactly what do they prove by throwing the straight guys in there? Why would the producer -- a gay man, even -- feel that humiliating their lead is so amusing?
Interestingly, the producers of this show seem to be aiming for all around, comprehensive humiliation of almost everyone involved with the show. In the ads, one of the straight guys is also heard to lament, "All those guys think I"m gay!" The general impression from the ads is that the straight guy is perhaps just a bit dense; after all, unlike James -- the principal subject of humiliation -- he knew precisely what was going on when he stepped into the show. It's only on reading the Newsweek article linked below that you discover that his distress is due to the fact that one of the other people in the bachelor pool, as it were, is interested in him; he wound up deceiving people whom he had no intention of deceiving. (Interestingly, this means that the other gay men in the bachelor pool also clearly had no idea what was going on. One wonders whether or not, if they had been explicitly and clearly informed about the show's premise, most of them might have refused to take part. There does seem to have been a truly spectacular amount of material deception all around.)
Not at all surprisingly, it turns out that leading man James, like Mr Gould of "Joe Schmoe", was not exactly happy with his experience on "Boy Meets Boy":
Boys R Us (Newsweek, July 21, 2003, issue): ..... Douglas Ross, the show’s executive producer, says he “wanted to test boundaries between gay and straight, and create a world where the straight people were in the closet.” But the show may even prove divisive among gays—especially when they learn that the leading man himself is still smarting from the experience. “I felt betrayed,” says James, a California human-resources executive, perhaps the first reality star ever to speak a bad word about his own series. James was finally let in on the big secret when he’d narrowed his suitors down to three—we won’t give away their orientation—and he was livid. “They told me they put the twist in there because they wanted straight people to watch,” he says. “I said to them, ‘Well, you’ve played gay people as entertainment for straight people. Of course they’re going to watch’.”
To be sure, of course they're playing gay people as entertainment as straight people, to appeal to the broadest audience possible. Has he not seen one second of "Will and Grace"? The default assumption should have been that they would, shall we say, soften the edges to make the show appeal to straight people. (One notes that they are also pushing, very hard, the concept that there's just not that much difference between straight and gay, if they all had such a difficult time telling the difference. Of course, that's not surprising; pushing that sort of positive, evenhanded educational experience is about the only way they could avoid being pilloried by the gay press as well as the straight ... Oops! Too late! Much too late!) On the other hand, most assuredly he did not and had no reason to expect that sort of "twist", which anyone would consider an outright betrayal, if it happened to them. Since it happened to him, of course, that makes for fun entertainment!
Both Ross and James, however, agree on one thing: that people will be tuning in. “Is it entertaining?” James says. “Sure. To people who are not involved, it will be interesting because they’ll get to see me cry and wallow in misery. That makes for good television.”
Frankly, I don't want to see him cry and wallow in misery. I don't actually think that makes good television. And I don't intend to watch.
God help us all, there's apparently going to be another gay dating show with a "twist" Thankfully, it looks like it may be purely local to Florida. The "twist" would seem to be that it looks like a merge between American Idol and a dating show, judging from the production company's website (both Flash and Adobe Acrobat required, for heaven's sake; this is just a nightmare of design -- but I digress). Seriously, there's the talent portion, then there's the date, then there's apparently an elimination based on some combination of the two.
I don't even want to try to think about that.
Part Two: Real Hollywood?
Elsewhere on the gay reality dial, as part of its series The AMC Project, American Movie Classics is airing "Gay Hollywood" in August.
Making It by Jeffrey Epstein, OUT.com: How do you join the ranks of gay Hollywood? If you’re Morgan, a friend in business school forwards you an E-mail. If you’re Robert, a producer approaches you at a party. If you’re Allan, it’s the result of a deal not working out. If you’re Lance, you need to be convinced. And if you’re Micah, you just apply.
That’s how these five guys became a part of Gay Hollywood, a documentary airing in two parts, August 11 and 12, at 10 p.m. (Eastern/Pacific) on AMC as part of its new series, The AMC Project. It’s the latest reality concoction from its executive producers, World of Wonder’s Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey—the team responsible for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Monica in Black and White, and both versions of Party Monster, the documentary as well as the upcoming narrative film. “AMC was interested in doing something about gays in Hollywood,” explains Barbato, adding that the original thought was to do a more historical look at the subject. “Then we thought it might be more interesting to do something contemporary—more personal and verité. We are always interested in gay Hollywood. Because we’re gay and live in Hollywood!”
On the slightly less exploitive -- if no less peculiar -- side, we have an examination of what it's like to be gay and try to work in the industry in Hollywood. It will be interesting to see exactly how this is put together. They seem to be proceeding from the concept that Hollywood has always been more welcoming to gays than the nation at large. As long as you're talking about behind-the-scenes sort of work -- script writers, set designers, hair, makeup, tech work in general -- then, yes, Hollywood's attitude in general has been "Gay, schmay. Who gives a damn? Can you do the work? Can you get awards for it? If so, welcome! If not , go away." However, for the high profile positions -- anything in front of the camera, or being a director (until fairly recently) or even a producer (well, SOMETHING has to be responsible for David Geffen and his public floundering on the issue) -- then Hollywood's attitude is, "If you're gay, shut the hell up about it. Not only do we not want to know, but we want you out there, dating people of the opposite sex, getting married, engendering children. We don't give a good goddamn if you don't want to do it, you're GOING to do it." Thus, you wind up with people being desperately coy about their sexuality, because they don't want to lie and they don't want to tell the truth. You wind up with Tom Cruise suing stupid pornsters to protect his reputation. (Note to Mr Cruise's lawyers: This is meant in no way to imply or assume that Mr Cruise is anything other than 100% heterosexual.) So to say that Hollywood is friendly to gays is to somewhat misrepresent the actual issue.
It will be interesting to see if "Gay Hollywood" actually has scope to deal with the various nuances of the issue.
Posted by iain at 11:22 PM
attack of the fab 5
July 23, 2003
Queer Eye smash ratings hit for Bravo (Advocate.com Entertainment, 07/19/03-07/22/03): The premiere episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, in which five gay men with expertise in fashion, food, grooming, culture, and design remake a straight man, set ratings records for cable channel Bravo, the network said on Wednesday. Citing data from Nielsen Media Research, Bravo said the show's Tuesday debut at 10 p.m. Eastern time set records for the NBC-owned network among total viewers, households, audiences aged 18-49, and audiences aged 25-54. Bravo said the show attracted 1.64 million total viewers, which made it the number 2 ad-supported cable network during the hour.
You know, I'm convinced that, given any of several options to advertise a show, these days Bravo is likely to choose the most offensive and thoroughly inappropriate method possible. Curiously, offensive and inappropriate frequently works.
Having finally seen the show, one suspects -- just suspects -- that the brainstorming meeting went something like this:
- You know, we should do a home improvement show of some sort. That Trading Spaces, While You Were Out ... all those shows on TLC and Discovery are really popular these days.
- Yeah, but then people would say we were just copying them.
- Oh, yeah .... well, what about maybe a makeover show? Like that What Not To Wear on TLC and the Brit version on BBC America?
- Well, then they'd say we were copying that show.
- Oh, yeah ... hey, what about a show that combines both a home and personal makeover?That'd be different!
- Maybe ... but it needs a gimmick, something to get people to watch.
- Well, maybe we could aim it at guys.
- Oh, get real. How would you get men to watch? Even if you only do makeovers on single guys and their apartments, how do you get the men to watch?
- Hmmm ... hey, I know what'll work!
And, one must confess, work it did. On a large portion of the country, apparently.
The show itself is a truly bizarre combination of "What Not To Wear", TLC/Discovery's "Surprise by Design" and the Food Network's "Food 911", covering personal makeovers, home improvement and how to prepare food for a special event. Two of the designers seriously dominate proceedings. Carson -- easily the most flamboyant, and the target of a stunning amount of many commentators' ire -- has made not-particularly-serious yet fairly annoying passes at every single man. (Actually, I think he was trying very hard to be annoying with Tom on the third show, he was so utterly disgusted by his apartment. Tom did manage to get his own back, just a little. A very little, because Carson is not a man to be outdone. Also, one suspects that Carson might have had something of a thing for him, even through the disgust. But one digresses.) Carson is easily the most memorable and also easily the most offensive. (If I'd been third-show Tom, Carson would have lost his hands either the first time he touched my crotch or the first time he touched my ass. Neither one was remotely appropriate, and Tom took it with a lot more equanimity than I would have.)
After that, Kyan gets somewhat more screen time than the others because (1) he's conventionally prettier, and (2) with Carson, he's responsible for the personal makeover, and watching a person being made over is more interesting than watching an apartment being made over. Other than that, frankly, the others give the impression of being naturally more quiet people, so it's fairly understandable that they would be overshadowed by Carson and Kyan; the show, in some ways, really doesn't have a good balance of personalities. (That said, I do like food guy Ted's periodic deadpan one-liners, especially in the little teaching segment at the end. "Whether you want to brown or crisp or just burn down your house, a kitchen blowtorch comes in very handy.")
The approach of this show is strikingly different from other home improvement and makeover shows. For one thing, it's clear that unlike other home improvement shows, "Queer Eye" either has no set budget, or the budget is set very high indeed and they're not going to tell us what it is. In the first show, they make over a small apartment; in the second, they do a fairly large house; in the third, a moderately sized apartment. In all three cases, they not only paint and/or paper walls, but sometimes redo floors and purchase a surprisng amount of new furniture. For all three of the men to date, they purchased complete new wardrobes from very fashionable stores. The makeovers and home improvements are generally aimed at getting the guy ready for A Big Event at the end of the show: to date, an art exhibition, the wife's birthday and a proposal of sorts. (The fourth show apparently involves an actual "Will you marry me?" proposal at the end.)
Their approach to these makeovers would probably get them dismissed from other such shows. Those try to work with the individual's personal style, to make them comforable with the concept and work within their tastes when possible, while "Queer Eye's" approach is to say, basically, "Your style sucks. Hers's what you shoud do instead." (That said ... sometimes, the straight guy's approach really does suck. Second-show Adam's house and third-show Tom's apartment really were utter and absolute disasters at the beginning. However, actually telling people "You suck" at the beginning of an undertaking guarantees that it will take a long time before they're comfortable with you and willing to accept your advice. Which may, in fact, be part of the point of this approach; establish resistance to make a more interesting dramatic situation.)
The consultants are, at the least, sincere -- if, as mentioned, frequently extraordinarily offensive -- in their approach. They truly do seem to want to help their subjects, giving them advice for the future, working to help the subjects understand why they're doing what they're doing. That said ... the comments in the last section of the show, where they watch their subject go out on their own to put the teachings into action are extraordinarily catty. SPECTACULARLY catty. They clearly want the men to succeed at whatever the big event at the end of the show is, but the comments are truly nasty sometimes. (Of third-show Tom's girlfriend's attire, Carson said, "Hello, a hooker in Trenton wants her shoes back.")
Overall ... it's OK. Seriously, it's OK. Periodically amusing. Periodically weirdly fun. Frankly, in terms of personal makeovers, "What Not To Wear" can be much more fun (and nastier, for that matter, although it's also to date a bit more uneven in its approach). In terms of home makeover, all of the TLC/Discovery shows are more interesting, because they try to do as much with far fewer resources. Food 911 is more interesting on the food-event front. Basically, pulling snippets of each type of show somewhat shortchanges and compromises each part.
The reactions to the show, from both straights and gays, have been remarkably polar. People are saying either ,"My god, that's so stereotypical and condescending that I can't stand it," or "Oh, lighten up! It's fun!" There seem to be very few people in the "Eh, it's OK entertainment, and it's not THAT offensive," camp. On the one hand, there's a certain rough justice to the rather savage attacks the show's been getting hit with. After all, we're not all like the guys on the show. We're not all skinny arbiters of haute couture. We don't all care to be skinny arbiters of haute couture. That said ... consider this.
Once Bravo had decided to do a home/personal makeover show featuring male victims ... er, that is, male subjects and (at least theoretically) aimed at men, they would need male consultants, because dramatically, it doesn't quite work to have men being told what to do with all these aspects of their lives by women. Unless they're married or in relationships with them, many men will simply not trust women's advice in these areas. This is not to say that the subjects would have had that many problems with it -- after all, if someone is giving you a home makeover, new furniture, new wardrobe and interesting food, you'll put up with a lot more than a woman giving you personal advice. (Obviously.) The problem would have been that women giving men that sort of personal advice would alienate male viewers -- might not have done much for the women, either. Once you allow the need for male consultants to make the show work for the viewers, you're stuck. These fields, in this country, have traditionally been havens for gay men; places where esthetically inclined men could express their esthetic sense and not be pilloried for it. The plain fact is, you're just not likely to find dramatically macho men in those fields. It may well be that the staff came before the concept, that Bravo decided to do a makeover show for guys, and then during staffing realized that they were seeing nothing but gay lifestyle consultants, and what on earth were they going to do with that?
Unfortunately, when you're going from invisibility to a noticeable presence in mass media, minorities always want only the paragons to be shown. And, for whatever reason, gay men have always hated that the swishy, flamboyant man is the one that seems to make it onto television. Largely because the swishy, flamboyant man has been the only one to make it on television regularly, and he's always been seen as an object of derision and distaste. (From both straights and gays, unfortunately.) Sothe desire for other facets to be seen, and seen in a good light, is understandable. However ... these are real people, and not characters played by actors. That's just the way they are; they're not (presumably) faking it.
In any event, nothing succeeds like excess:
"Queer Eye" Spies NBC Slot by Lia Haberman (E!Online), July 21, 2003, 11:30 AM PT: The Peacock is giving its Thursday night lineup a little preening this week. NBC plans to air a condensed version of Bravo's lifestyle makeover series Queer Eye for the Straight Guy July 24, following Will & Grace. [...] "After as much media attention and a breakout premiere on Bravo, we want to offer this unusual series a bigger platform," said NBC entertainment prez Jeff Zucker in a statement released Friday. However, the crossover is described as a onetime only event to boost Queer Eye's exposure. But Industry watchers speculate that Bravo, which is part of the NBC family, could be used as a testing ground for new programs that could later wind up on the Peacock.
Somehow, I just can't see Queer Eye actually winding up on NBC. Not unless the condensed version pulls monster ratings, in any event.
Interestingly, actual progress (if that's quite the right word) was made by the ads in Queer Eye, of all things:
Commercial Closet: Travel Site Reaches to Gays on Cable TV: In a unique effort to reach gays on TV, travel site Orbitz has customized its mainstream commercial to add a gay twist that will air on cable TV networks with gay-themed shows throughout the summer. The ad features marionettes as characters, with a man and woman enjoying a South Beach hotel terrace overlooking the pool. In the mainstream version, the guy comments on the great view from their room and the woman agrees -- while she admires the pool boy through binoculars. In the gay twist, the man eyes a sun-bathing stud through his binoculars. Roman Coppola, son of Francis Ford Coppola, directed the spot from Young & Rubicam, Chicago.
For viewers old enough to remember, the commercials are really a nod to the children's action show from the 1960s, "Thunderbirds," which featured square-jawed marionettes in exciting "space-age" adventures.
It is the first-ever customized commercial meant to speak directly to a gay audience alone, and it will air on gay-themed programs on Bravo Network and BBC America through the summer.
Actually, the first thing I thought when I saw the ad was, "There were gay Thunderbirds?"
Interestingly, using Thunderbirds-like characters means that the ads were targeted not only at gay men, but at gay men who were 40 and above. The Thunderbirds hasn't been much repeated over the years, and hasn't endured well when it was. Peculiar approach for an industry that seems to think that nobody over 35 is really worth noticing. Peculiar for a social segment that frequently acts as though "30 equals death". Who knows? Maybe all sorts of progress is represented by that commercial.
Posted by iain at 12:06 AM | Comments (2)
spike unspiked
July 22, 2003
Spike TV tries again: Two months later than its operators had hoped, The National Network (TNN) will be renamed Spike TV. Viacom announced Tuesday it will make the change Aug. 11. It had been scheduled for June 16, but was put off when filmmaker Spike Lee sued to stop it. Lee and Viacom settled the lawsuit earlier this month. Viacom is positioning Spike as a TV channel for young men.
Eh. I was wondering when they'd get around to it, once they settled. (I still think that BCBTBBtv was a better way to go, though.)
One does begin to wonder ... Spike Lee and Viacom are still in bed with each other on various projects, despite the lawsuit. There seems never to have been any chance that those projects were going to be dropped. The suit was settled awfully quickly, especially considering that the judge said that there were clearly grounds to proceed. One might be excused for wondering ... was it perhaps somehow arranged that this suit would be brought and then dropped, thereby getting SpikeTV all sorts of publicity that it couldn't otherwise get? After all, there was all sorts of sampling of its Thursday night animation lineup that wouldn't have happened otherwise, simply because people who didn't catch the ads in the right places wouldn't have known it was there.
In any event, merely editorial speculation and opinion. Certainly not any sort of accusation. After all, both Spike Lee and Viacom would be fools to take that route. If they were found out, the consequences would be disastrous for both.
Posted by iain at 11:34 PM