Anyway, so besides a sweet episode of IMotD where a guy breaks down because his 2 pit bulls keep destroying his house but he can't give them up because they'll be put to sleep (they weren't aggressive or anything, they just got bored and ate stuff like his couch and blinds), we saw 2 new VH1 reality wonders, "For the Love of Ray J" and "Drag Race." (For the record, I just searched for a clip of the IMotD ep. and instead found all these sad videos about pit bulls and laws that want to outlaw the breed and then I cried for 10 minutes and now I'm pulling myself back together. For your future reference, don't youtube pit bulls. It'll just make you sad :(
I didn't think Ray J had anything going for him besides that sex tape and being Brandy's bro but supposedly he's also come out with a record or something. The Ray J show is the typical dating show a la I love New York, Flavor of Love, Rock of Love, Real Chance of Love. Not even any real twists. Reality tv looking for 'love' shows have become so ubiquitous and formulaic that every new show is uninspiringly the same. Just get the contestants together, edit the tape to find the characters you know will stay through till the 2nd to last episode (like the one everyone else hates but she's not here to make friends!), and then give the appropriate token of winning each round (insert rose/key/clock necklace/glass of champagne), followed by many episodes of fighting, drinking, jacuzzing, and no substantive conversation.
My favorite part was where Ray J gives each girl a nickname, not because he has to, but because that's how they do it on other shows. Following in the footsteps of Flava Flav, he goes around the table with a free association name game. The girl drinking wine is Chardonnay, the girl who is a cocktail waitress ::drum roll:: Cocktail. The girl with a tiger tattoo on her face is Dangerous. One girl had great skin, which made Ray J think of something soft, which made him think of a scarf, so he named her Cashmere. Yea. It's a good thing none of them were taking a bite of food and got stuck with "Roast Beef" or "Cauliflower" or sitting in front of a plant and got "Ficus." The rest of the show goes along pretty predictably. Some girls think they are classy because they just sit in his lap trying to take off his shirt, while others do the splits and hump the floor. Tomato, tomahtoe.
The real new wonder of reality tv comes from RuPaul.
If ANTM had an IVF baby with Project Runway, it would be Drag Race. Thomas Rogers in Salon recently wrote:
"The Bette Midlers and Whitney Houstons have been replaced by Katy Perry and the Pussycat Dolls. "The sad thing is, the pop stars that were popularly impersonated in my day all had personality," says [drag legend] Lady Bunny. "How are you going to impersonate Rihanna? What is her personality? You don't know, because she's just a product."
The point is a good one, and Tyra Banks is as close to a personality perfectly made for drag queens as you can get these days. RuPaul is basically doing Tyra in drag and it's a match made in heaven. Comparisons have already been made and Drag Race just really steps it up a notch. But back to the wonder of the show. It's basically an ANTM contest to find America's next top drag queen with its first contest being a Proj Run-esque 'make your own costume from pieces of crap from the dollar store,' with the added bonus of Santino being a regular judge.
There are a lot of great queens (with wonderful names like Rebecca Glasscock and Ongina) in the running but I was disappointed that they got rid of Victoria Parker right at the get go. She is classic drag (but I guess she just didn't lip-sync for her life hard enough) and just seemed like the sweetest person ever.
Apparently the judges and I don't agree on anything because they let creepy creepy creeepy Tammie Brown stay
And gave the top prize to Nina Flowers. I give Nina props for the outlandishness but the beauty and wonder of drag (at least for me) is the complete gender-bending aspect. I love how they can refer to each other in any pronoun: he, she, ladies, queens, regardless of what they're wearing. Androgynous is one thing but Nina's outfit looks like a character from The Dark Crystal or Labyrinth. There's not a hint of woman or man in there, it's just a costume. I was rooting for you Victoria!
One final thing we noticed was the interesting job the censor must have. Santino described one of the ladies' outfits as "You look like you're about to give a $20 handjob." Of course on TV he said "You look like you're about to give a $20 handbleep." This prompted a discussion about how confused the censor must be. Do you bleep out the hand or the job? Neither is censor-worthy, but together? Well there's a conundrum. And I wonder if they considered Rebecca Glasscock. Did they decide it was just too hard to keep up with always introducing her as Rebecca Glassbeep? Or is Glasscock ok because uh, cocks aren't normally glass? Aaaaand these are the important issues I think about. I'm glad RuPaul is back. We could all use some drag in our lives.
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