Tweedle Dee

Tweedle Dee, originally uploaded by willabeast.

So I consider myself to be a pop culture fluent person. But I am having a hard time understanding how this Aaron Carter person took a year off...

Tweedle Dum

Tweedle Dum, originally uploaded by willabeast.

and then started working on a TV show as this Jesse McCartney person, without changing one thing about his appearance, and NOBODY NOTICED.
I want to be kidding, but looking at these pictures Freaks Me The Fuck Out. Look at these pictures. Holy Shit. Where is your doppleganger?

Tonya is a doomed spelling

This past weekend I got a chance to spend some quality time with my MTV, and, more specifically, the new Real World/ Road Rules Challenge, The Inferno II: Bad Asses vs. Good Guys. Beyond the core entertainment value (which is very, very high. As is always the case when a disgruntled girlfriend says, "If I was a guy and you stuck your vagina in my face I'd fuck you too," totally seriously. And is even more the case when the girlfriend is Robin "my boobs are fake, I am a drunk, yet I am somehow 'good'", and her boyfriend is Mark "I am far too old to be affiliated with this show, let alone be dating Robin," and she's fending off Tonya "most likely schizophrenic to ever go undiagnosed.") there’s something weird about the RR/RW challenges, having to do with the nexus of reality TV and performance and acting and longevity.
Reality TV participants are often acting, either by virtue of editing, strategy, or shame. Certain personality traits are emphasized, others de-emphasized, so the story can go forward, the game be won, and your mother not disown you. What’s different about the ongoing RW/RR series is the feedback. The same cast members appear again and again, giving them the chance to hone their shtick.
So maybe Tonya didn’t know that I would hate her for being a whiney, Christian do-gooder when she was on the Real World Chicago. And maybe she didn’t know that I’d love to hate her when she turned into a shit talking, mentally unbalanced, slut on her first challenge. But now, on a show where the viewers picked the teams by deciding who was good and who was bad in an online poll, she Must know that crazy, whorish antics are what we expect from her.
And, holy shit, she delivers. First in that catfight with Robin in which she monologues to the camera, “I am not a liar. I might be a whore. But I’m not a liar. Call me a whore. But I’m not a liar.” Will do. And then, when she takes all of San Francisco Beth’s clothes and throws them in the pool, all calm, cool, and 100% psycho (this incident is also the first and only time that SF Beth has ever been the wronged party).
While all of this is going on the rest of the cast is gathered around hysterically laughing about how they’re the “bad guys” and this is totally appropriate. The Miz flexes his arms and mugs for the camera, “I LOVE the Inferno II,” hopefully the one and only time we ever think the same exact thing at the same exact time.
The show’s participants seem happier to be on TV than anyone. They’re lives are complete scams of paid vacations, free drinks, easy sex, and motivational speeches that will go on forever and ever so long as they look good in bathing suits and display zero restraint. They seem happy about this deal (and if they weren’t, I guess they’d go get actual lives), and fully aware that it is, in fact, a deal. And that’s, I think, the weirdness. Tonya’s antics and all the self-congratulatory laughter it caused are really funny (to them) because, among other things, they know it makes really, really good television. And they’re all proud of themselves for it, primping like cocks, because they’re putting together a good show. After seasons and seasons of experience, the cast is staging the drama without direction.
But the cast isn’t quite laughing at themselves. More they’re laughing at how funny and clever they are, which is also why I’m laughing- because they’re so not. Their stagy arrogance even lets me laugh at them without feeling bad about it at all.
In the end, they’re so wrapped up in the RR/RW bubble (which conceivably dominates all aspects of their lives, as it’s their job, their friends) that they can no longer see what makes them jackasses. When they look stupid (all the time) fighting, stripping, dancing, cursing, strategizing, and generally misbehaving, it’s entirely self-inflicted.

Catfights make good copy

, originally uploaded by willabeast.

You must go read this article right now. It is as good as watching an episode of Desperate Housewives. No, it's even better. It's the best things about scripted and reality television melded into one delicious, naughty, funny, inappropriate fuck you. It is exactly what every single publicist, spoiled actress, stressed out creative and devoted viewer deserves. Who knew all those people could be served up in one helping?
Calling a piece like this brave is a silly thing to do- sending up a popular television show is not in the same universe as, you know, war journalism. But, if staking your career on an article, burning lots and lots of bridges, and consenting to spend the next week on the phone with people trying to rip you a new asshole can be considered something approximating brave, then it's that. Odds on Ned Zeman never writes a profile again and the head of ABC is still screeching at Graydon Carter. I applaud Mr. Zeman, Mr. Carter, and staff for writing something that will only make their lives harder and ours' more entertaining.
Nor were they merely content with a supremely catty article. They raised an additional, and enormous, middle finger to ABC and Co. with the cover shot, which manages to abide by the letter of ABC's rules (that Teri Hatcher not be the center actress) while entirely disregarding its spirit (Hatcher is, instead, the center of the frame).
Yet, given all this, there is probably no scripted show on television that could stand up to press like this better than Desperate Housewives. I see basically no downside for them. This just makes it a better soap opera. The drama and tension are ratcheted to another level. And to judge from the article, the actors are just playing themselves. See Susan/Teri say the flakiest shit ever, cry, and try to put a good face on everything. See Lynette/Felicity be a good person. See Gabby/Eva be self-involved and sweetly silly (discussing her audition, show creator Marc Cherry remembers asking Longoria what she thought of the script and her replying "I only read my part."? To which he thought, "Very Gabrielle."? Hollywood, the only world where being a complete trotch in an interview might help you get a job). See Bree/Marcia be a 100% crazy, high maintenance ice princess.
Cross is without a doubt the villain of the piece, and I could not love her more for it. She says, "I think of Melrose Place as Andy Warhol and this show as Kandinsky or a Francis Bacon."? Marcia, what a great fucking call. That is just so true. When I think of Melrose I think of irony and fame and reinterpretation and Marilyn and Mao and when I think of DH I totes thing of disturbing, fat naked men. You know what else it's like? It's like how 90210 is E.M Forster and The OC is Jane Austen. Its like how E.M Forster is sorbet and Jane Austen is Ben and Jerry's. How sorbet is daffodils and Ben and Jerry's is tulips. How daffodils are the Bills and tulips are the Packers. How the Bills are wet socks and The Packers dirty underwear. It makes exactly as much sense as that. And the amount of sense that makes people? That amount of sense is absolutely zero. 100% zero sense made.
But that's amazing! Because what kind of sense can you expect from a woman with a 6 inch scar running down the side of her head who keeps on keeping on with Michael Mancini even though she knows full well he is a very, very bad man? Not a very fucking good kind that's what kind. And you know what that means? That there is now very flimsy evidence that Marcia, Kimberly, and Bree are, in fact, all one, very real person. Thank God. The world is a much more livable place with psychotics as entertaining as M, K, and B running around in it. So three cheers for MKB who should feel free to fuck up every and any photo shoot she ever attends.