Reality TV

One might argue her attitude only fuels the truly dysfunctional mindset of folks like The Daily Beast's Lisa Hilton, who earlier this week applauded "poor old Kate Moss for suggesting that nothing tastes as good as skinny feels" by writing, "Well, right on, Kate."

But there's a difference between someone who's looked at life from a whole lot of dress sizes and one who hasn't, between one person's honest, complicated experience and a writer leaping to the defense of that helpless beleaguered class of individuals known as supermodels.

So while I'm no fan of public dieting (or the diet industry, period, for that matter), Alley's sense of humor and awareness of the absurdity of it all may just keep "Big Life" from turning into yet  another exercise in televised size-shaming. And her frank admissions that she wants to be booty-called sure looks like more fun and fewer tears and tantrums than, say, Bobby Brown's meltdowns on "Celebrity Fit Club." 

In yesterday's issue of the ever-classy Sun newspaper, the show's tan, surgically augmented soon-to-grandmother Sharon explained, "I just feel empty if I am covered up as I don't get the attention I love. I thrive on it." Based on the Sun's reader comments on their "sag and plastic," if it's attention these ladies seek, it's attention they shall have.

No one's suggesting anybody has to slap on a pair of mom jeans and write off her womanhood permanently once she's reproduced. But there's something pretty vicious about exploiting a woman's insecurities by pitting her sexual viability against that of her own offspring -- all in the name of prime-time entertainment. It goes way beyond even the old MILF-leering and straight into mocking the mutton dressed as lamb territory. And maybe the most pathetic thing of all about "Hotter Than My Daughter" is knowing that if it takes off, it won't be long before we see an American version starring Dina Lohan and Lynne Spears.

Who knew that two perpetually frazzled but otherwise flatly uninteresting parents could transform into figures of international intrigue overnight? All it took was keeping the cameras on long enough to dissolve their marriage and confuse their children about the difference between parents and production assistants. Like magic, a nation filled with aging parents and grandparents on the constant prowl for small children and puppies to ogle (and failing marriages to deconstruct) went from transfixed to disgusted faster than you can say "product placement opportunity."

Once fame-seeking-whore missiles, corporate and freelance alike, started zooming toward the couple and their spawn, that's when the real fun began: Jon got an earring, flirted with young singles in bars, and jetted to the south of France with Kate's plastic surgeon's young daughter. Kate drank water as her children looked on thirstily before an "Early Show" appearance. Kate's brother and sister-in-law disapproved of the whole mess quite vociferously, explaining for the cameras that it was all for the cameras.

After you send in the clowns, though, the clowns send in the lawsuits: TLC prepared to sally forth with "Kate Plus 8" but Jon said he'd sue if they kept filming, so TLC sued him and he countersued. Meanwhile Kate sued Jon for divorce and Jon's ex-lover sued him for breach of cocktail napkin contract. Somehow, somewhere, Michael Lohan got involved. (They say that every time you hear a cellphone playing Bobby Brown's "My Prerogative," Michael Lohan survives another day without getting a real job.)

So who's crazier, Jon or Kate? Early fans of the show agreed that controlling Kate was the crazy one, but since then, Jon has given her a real run for her money, proving once again that behind every nitpicky, nagging wife is a passive-aggressive skeeze with a taste for cooing, fame-hungry sea donkeys.

But, then, this couple was star-crossed from the start, bound to be tied together forever in our minds (if not in real life) as a two-headed hydra of unethical parenting, moral slippage and the ways that national television appearances, corporate sponsorships and promotional book tours tend to compromise your underlying humanity.

Not that we have real proof that Jon and Kate are actually human. More likely, these two are part of a secret alien mission to undermine and humiliate earthlings by rubbing our noses in our own pop cultural excrement. Mission accomplished!

It's not like there are many role models out there in the media. The disabled are rarely portrayed as sexy. Brave, yes. Melancholy, sure. Angry about their lot, check. Objects of concern and pity (stop calling me "special"!). But sexy? No. The hot babe who gets the guy isn't limping toward him, gnarled fingers grasping his strong shoulders as they kiss. And if she is in a wheelchair, it is only temporary.

Because if you're disabled, you're pretty much unfuckable.

The women of "Britain's Missing Top Model" are certainly meant to be seen as fuckable. So, you know, points for that. Now it's just about the 100 or so demerits the show deserves for sexism, exploitation, cluelessness, condescension, etc. -- and I feel perfectly confident docking those points without having seen the show. Alessandra Stanley's article in the New York Times and the show's website (spoiler alert -- the show is already over in Britain, so if you click, you'll see who won) provide enough rant fodder for 10 blog posts. Lucky for you, I'll only do one.

First, on a show that's supposedly about challenging narrow beauty standards, guess how many models are young, white and thin. That's right, all of them! Better still, half of the contestants are women with disabilities that aren't necessarily visible in pictures: Two are deaf, one has partial paralysis that makes walking the catwalk difficult, but says she finds posing for still photographs "easy," one sometimes uses a wheelchair and wears "splints on her wrists, but treats them as a fashion accessory." They're no less disabled than the other four, obviously, but in a competition that's largely based on how you look in photos, pitting four women with highly visible disabilities against four who photograph very much like young, white, thin, able-bodied aspiring models is an interesting choice, to say the least.

Having said that, in fine reality show tradition, the producers appear to have designed challenges that would make all of the contestants feel inadequate in turn. On the "quotes" page of the website, immediately after Jenny explains that her disability "greatly affected" her in the catwalk challenge, one of the deaf contestants, Kellie, says she felt confident in that one: "I love the music. You feel the vibrations. I feel I can express myself when I'm walking." But that wasn't true of a casting for a TV ad, in which the producers insisted Kellie speak instead of sign. "I hated it," she says. "That made my confidence go right down." So, it's a show that aims to challenge the audience's perception of people with disabilities -- by insisting that they display those disabilities for the audience's gawking pleasure. Feel the love!

And yet, it's still a show about young, thin, white hotties, so we can't have too much disability in the foreground. At least, not in the foreground of the pictures. In many of the photographs on the website, visible disabilities are covered up or underplayed. In one group shot, Rebecca's prosthetic leg is hidden behind another model, Kelly, who was born without a left forearm, keeps both arms behind a feather boa, Jessica's "fashion accessory" splint barely registers and Sophie -- the only full-time wheelchair user -- leans forward as though she might just stand up from the chair. Also, they're all in their underwear. There's that. At FWD (Feminists with Disabilities)/Forward, blogger Annaham criticzes a pin-up calendar meant to "raise awareness" of fibromyalgia with points that seem just about as relevant here:

The fact that the calendar is full of photographs that, by and large, seem designed to appeal to a heterosexual and possibly able-bodied male audience, is obviously problematic in a feminist sense... The goals of the Polka Dot Gals are admirable, and the calendar may bring some much-needed attention to a condition that lacks a public face, but the project's uncritical reproduction of the white, attractive and (seemingly) able-bodied female body as body-on-permanent-display -- no matter if the body in question is wrought with constant pain and fatigue -- is still troubling.

I know, I know, it's a modeling competition. Putting the female body on display and making it appear as close as possible to a cultural ideal is the whole point. But then, that's also my point, and Annaham's. How much progress are we making toward appreciating body diversity -- let alone becoming a society that's fully inclusive of people with disabilities -- by objectifying a slightly different set of bodies in the same old ways? Writes Stanley in The Times,

One thing never changes in the beauty industry, however: an ounce of fat is a greater hurdle than a missing limb. 'Rebecca's disability didn't cause me any problems,' a photographer says after shooting Rebecca, 27, a stunning brunette who was born with a deformed hip and wears a prosthetic leg. 'It was just the fact she's not really in shape. Most models are pretty toned, slimmer, more agile.'

And although Stanley's right, of course, that an ounce of fat is usually the kiss of death in reality TV modeling contests, I still see at least as much ableism as sizeism in those remarks. Most models are usually more agile? You don't say! But it's totally not her disability he's got a problem with. (Fun fact: Rebecca's bio says "When doctors recommended that she exercise to build up her strength, she became a gym addict. She works out every weekday morning for at least an hour: swimming, rowing, cycling, weights -- anything that gets her heart pumping." But clearly, "she's not really in shape.")

"This series comes with a paradoxical premise," writes Stanley. "[I]t's a contest designed to raise the profile and confidence of disabled women but makes a spectacle of their hunger for acceptance... 'Missing Top Model' tries to bolster self-esteem yet revels in the piquancy of physically imperfect women competing in a profession that demands physical perfection, which one judge defines this way: 'It's what 99 percent of the population do not have and never will.'"

Meanwhile, people with disabilities make up around 20 percent of the population, yet remain rarely and poorly represented on TV. I'll let Meloukhia, another FWD blogger, have the last word on that:

I want to see people like me when I look at the television. It's why I watch, to escape into a magical world that I think I might be able to inhabit. And it's easier for me, as a viewer, to place myself in that world when I see people like me. I think a lot of people feel like this. There's a distance involved when you can't connect with any of the characters, experientally.

And when the only people who are like me are introduced as tokens, figures for mockery or abuse, it makes me feel uncomfortable. It makes me not want to watch, because if I want to be tokenized, all I have to do is walk out the door.

 

Meanwhile, CNN confirmed that the Salahis had canceled an appearance they had scheduled for "Larry King Live" on Monday.

Network news divisions say they don't pay for interviews. But for eagerly sought interviews in the past, they have offered to pay for access to exclusive material, such as pictures or videos from their subjects.

Representatives for the couple did not immediately return telephone and e-mail requests for comment.

Michaele Salahis is a reality TV hopeful trying to get on Bravo's "The Real Housewives of D.C." Her and her husband's success in getting into the state dinner Tuesday without an invitation embarrassed the White House and Secret Service.

The agency acknowledged its officers never checked whether the couple were on the guest list before letting them onto the White House grounds. But it initially insisted Obama was never endangered by the security breach because the couple -- like others at the dinner -- had gone through magnetometers.

When it became clear the couple had interacted with Obama and Vice President Joe Biden during the event, Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan expressed concern and embarrassment. He said that while an investigation continues, the agency has taken measures to ensure the oversight is not repeated.

A White House photo showed the Salahis in the receiving line in the Blue Room with Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in whose honor the dinner was held. Obama and Michaele Salahi are smiling as she grasps his right hand with both of hers and her husband looks on. Singh is to Obama's left.

On Saturday, Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-NY, who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, called for a review of Secret Service practices and asked for a briefing this week.

Agency spokesmen declined to comment on reports that agents had visited the Salahis' vineyard in Hume, Va., in search of the couple. Voice mail messages left Saturday at two separate telephone numbers for the Oasis Winery, south of Washington, were not immediately returned.

It is unclear what the couple told officers at the checkpoint that allowed them to go through the security screening. The Salahis lawyer, Paul Gardner, posted a comment on their Facebook page saying his clients were cleared by the White House to be at the dinner.