I Like to Watch

May 27, 2007 | Once we were young and fearless, but now we're afraid. Talk of world travel calls to mind rickety, overcrowded buses speeding across some muddy road in Thailand. The word "adventurous" triggers images of bungee-jumping accidents and hepatitis B. The sight of old people informs us of how alone we'll be in the end, no matter how many friends we have on speed-dial now. The Internets remind us daily of how elevators plummet and brides get left at the altar and teenagers stockpile weapons and killer bacteria lurk on every surface.

This is why we love "House," a weekly snuff film for neurotics and hypochondriacs, and cling to "The Sopranos," a dark morality tale for guilt-plagued competitive consumers, wandering like ghosts through their crappy jobs just to keep their high-end appliances and service-economy lifestyles intact. "The Bachelor" is just an extended exercise in heart-splitting rejection for insecure wannabe Cinderellas who fear that the champagne-rose-fantasy-suite fairy tale will always evaporate into a few beers, a rented movie and a suspiciously stained futon. And "CSI" offers an endless loop of random, unfair victimization of ladies with bad habits for women who feel powerless in their marriages, and the men who love them that way.

TV distracts us from our pathologies by -- perversely enough -- allowing us to live them out, over and over again, on the small screen.

Hair that's a fright
Naturally, then, Bravo's "Shear Genius" (10 p.m. Wednesdays) isn't about the hairdressers themselves. A cursory glance confirms what we knew all along: Hairstylists, particularly those who aspire to be celebrity hairstylists, are almost roundly insufferable. From the vainglorious, borderline-delusional Tyson to his seething enemy Tabatha to that hideous himbo host, Rene Fris ("Go shake eet!" he cries at the stylists, hoping against hope for a catchphrase to call his own), the humans who populate "Shear Genius" may belong on television, but only in the VH1-freak-show sense.

The real genius of "Shear Genius" is the way it plays on one of our deepest, most abiding fears: the fear of a terrible haircut. With a sadistic glint in their beady eyes, the producers drag out lovely girls with long, flowing locks, clutching photographs of their favorite celebrities (of course!), the ones who look nothing like them and have hairstyles that would offer them all of the sophistication of a carnival whore. Other wide-eyed "models" have a wedding around the corner, or they have long hair but they miiiight be convinced to take a little off the bottom if the hairdresser is talented and persuasive enough. We can see it in their eyes, the deep longing for a miracle, the foolish hope of a complete transformation. There are cameras rolling, after all -- what could go wrong? Surely if it's for a TV show even the riskiest style will look chic and extra-special! Where else would I be magically retailored from a mousy frump to a glowing replica of Jessica Biel, if not on a Bravo reality show?

But this is the point. Why else would Tyson and Tabatha, the two most irritating and (not coincidentally) most inspired stylists of the lot, be sent home last week for expressing strong opinions and bitching at each other -- you know, the way people with vision and talent (aka sociopaths) so often do? Why else would one of the final four stylists, Dr. Boogie, be utterly unfamiliar with scissors, limited to creating every single style with a pair of electric clippers? Why else would the stylists be challenged to cut hair using child's scissors and razor blades and gardening shears -- which Evangelin absurdly embraced, claiming she'd found a valuable new tool? (Her enthusiasm reminded me of a hairdresser I had who swore he was going to bring back the Flowbee and make it all the rage among the bedheaded bohemian set dying to pay too much for the latest moronic trend.)

Of course, the money shot is that moment when the pretty young girl realizes that her brand-new transformative style is an unmitigated disaster, a one-way ticket on the Ugly Train, a yearlong tour of duty in Heinyland. The camera lingers on her look of recognition, followed by quiet desperation, followed by a deep, dark rage from the pit of her soul, thinly masked by a strained grimace of politesse. The judges rub it in: "What do you think of your style?" The subject cringes, a chagrined chuckle, darting eyes. "It's ... Well, I was worried about it being too short..." (And maybe you also should've worried about it being too pointy and too red and too similar to a style worn by a certain memorably coiffed keyboardist.) "But ... it's ... I ... I like it!"

Jaclyn Smith, who may be the most appealing host and head judge to rise from the mediocre detritus of the Bravo reality factory, does her best to treat these words at face value and play along with this pained expression of approval. Her voice is husky and matter-of-fact, but her eyes say it all. Her eyes say, "You poor, poor dear, what have they done to you? Here, let me give you the number of my stylist, he can fade that awful bright orange color right out and fix those nasty trimmed-hedge lines in the back, I promise..."

Who knew Jaclyn Smith's eyes could express so much empathy and warmth? Oh, Jaclyn! Take us away from all of this! Save us from the unpredictable twists and turns of modern life, the bad haircuts, the dry-cleaner-shredded blouses, the jagged bikini lines, the brutal manicures! Make us hot tea and pat our backs and tell us nasty little stories about Farrah Fawcett from ye olden days!

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