Sunday, August 3, 2008

Occupational Therapy

Although Miss Ginger is not much of a TV watcher (she's a participant, darling!) she does find herself strangely fascinated by the current crop of Occupational Reality shows.  You know,  the ones where a bunch of hairdressers, or designers, or chefs live together at night and compete against each other all day, in challenges that presumably allow them to demonstrate their aptitude and professional techniques.  She got way behind during her vacation,  but thanks to the miracle of DVR she is caught up and ready to share her take on some of her favorites!

Her absolute favorite is Project Runway,  with Heidi Klum and the inimitable Tim Gunn, upon whom Miss Ginger has a serious crush! 

Tim Gunn

 Each week in a gentle and fatherly like way he tries to help the contestants "make it work" to avoid Nina Garcia's wrath,  and Miss G says the silver fox can "clean out her space" any day!

The current crop of contestants is a mixed bag.  Her favorite was Wesley,  but he was auf'd in the 3rd episode.  What's not to like about his too tight, too short pants and nerdy, overly worn shoes?!  Miss G says "come to Momma, baby"- she'd gladly get him some clothes that fit and a new pair of kicks!

Wesley

The other two "lookers" on the show are the "bad boys" Keith and Joe,  but there's issues with both. Keith is a tatooed mormon fag, and if that doesn't scream "drama" Miss G doesn't know what does,  and Joe is overly straight and kind of a thug.  Plus,  he put in his bio that he used to work for Bugle Boy. C'mon!  Even if it's true,  you don't put that!  Ralph Lauren, yes. Bugle Boy? Not so much!

KeithJoe

After that, it's pretty much downhill from an eye candy standpoint.

Then there's always the ones who are "memorable" in a bad way.  There's Blayne,  who by all rights should be cute,  but isn't because he's a weird ass jerk.  And Suede,  who irritates the shit out of Miss Ginger and the rest of the world by consistently and affectedly referring to himself in the 3rd person: "Suede needs to work. Suede needs to take a crap. Suede needs to jump in the lake!" And Stella,  the one-trick pony with an obnoxious Brooklyn accent who makes everything from lambskin to a garbage bag look like a biker costume,  complete with a too-tight fit and lacing on the side of every garment. She whines "it's my style" to which Miss G says- anything that one dimensional is not a style,  it's a schtick.  We predict she will be auf'd in the next episode or so.

BlayneSuedeStella

Miss G's favorite for the win is Kenley,  who has this sort of Betty Page retro pinup aesthetic that Miss G finds chic and charming.  But here nemesis may be Nina,  who will call her out quickly if her looks become too predictable or costumey.  Here she is with Miss G's favorite outfit of the show so far:

Kenley

Suede has also shown a lot of talent,  and after 5 seasons of the show it may be really hard for the contestants to follow Tim's most memorable advice: "Don't bore Nina!"

The other show Miss G just has to comment on is "The Next Food Network Star".  She simply cannot believe that Aaron McCargo, Jr. won that show!  He struggled through every contest,  was petrified in front of the camera,  and his food was big, sloppy,  and common. 

 

In Miss G's humble opinion, he was enormously outclassed by the adorable Dallasite Lisa Garza and the super adorable Adam Gertler from Phillie. Miss G says Adam can butter her bread any time!

But, if you think about it,  Food Network already has it's line up of "precious" white girls: Rachel Ray, Giada Di Laurentiss,  etc,  and an entire stable of celebuchef hotties: Tyler Florence, Jamie Oliver, Bobbie Flay, et al.  So our guess is the marketing gurus at Food Network decided they needed to expand their demographic to include more "people of color", and hence chose Aaron to be the next star.  Now,  I'm not saying that diversifying the offering is a bad thing,  but I do think it's a shame that it was done in the guise of a "contest" at the expense of the dreams of 2 talented people.  If they want an African American host,  by all means they should hire one- but don't rig a contest to make it look like he was better than the others.  I'm just sayin'- Miss Ginger won't be watching his show.  However, she may have to google Adam and take a trip to Phille to sit at one of his tables!  Road trip, anyone?

Be sure to leave a comment and let Miss G know who you think will win Project Runway, and why you think they will win!

 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You're correct.  He won because of demographics.  I had to explain that to some folks the other night and they thought I was making something up but when you look at the shows on the network they don't have a Big Daddy.  

Aaron was the The Morning Show-Saturday with the adorable former Houstonian Chris Wragge.  It was the smoothest live cooking demonstration.  It didn't flow too well and I could see the adorable Chris Wragge struggling to make it work.