The dumbest women on television

Right. Here’s the rant again. Now that I’ve calmed down.

So, this subject actually came up in another thread (where it was WAY off-topic) and I felt like exploring it a little further.

After a little reflection I realised that I wouldn’t be exploring it, I would be exploring my abilities at diatribe (monotribe, anyone?) which, let’s face it is…well…ranting.

So, rant.

The Simple Life.

We all know what I am referring to, the capitalisation is a give away.

It’s not that I hate the simple life, in fact it’s not a bad concept for a show, but I really hate The Simple Life.

In my opinion The Simple Life is a perfect barometer of all that is wrong with the US today.

Either the executive producer is a marketing genius and Mr and Mrs Average American are out there glued to their sets watching these two bimbos and saying to each other “Thank God our daughters aren’t that DUMB”, or the entertainment industry really does have as its mission statement “insult your audience at every opportunity.”

My problem is not only am I not American, I don’t live in America. I don’t even live in Australia all the time. Therefore I view this show through a different set of filters.

When I’m not in Oz, I spend time in SEAsia, which, let’s face it, has some insanely rich nations and some insanely poor ones. Here’s a hint, I don’t take up residence in the Raffles, Singapore, for “the season”.

So, cable and satellite tv bring me, for my viewing pleasure, The Simple Life.

Here I am, in a land where people do actually starve to death as a result of poverty, being confronted with what are, without a doubt the two dumbest bimbos I have ever seen.

I’ll admit to having a certain predisposition to dislike this show. I am not reality tv’s biggest fan. At least, not US reality television. There was a great series from Britain called “House”. The 1900 House, The 1940s House etc. Each one took a family and forced them to live with the clothes and technology and trends of the period. In the 1940s house the father had to dig an Anderson bomb shelter in the backyard and the family had to sleep in it to avoid the Blitz. Great stuff. But this steaming pile…

From the beginning I had doubts about this. Let’s take 2 insanely rich young women and have them pretend to do “real” work in “real” jobs, just like “real” people do. Let’s have them fail at it constantly, allowing us to feel superior to them, but let’s never tell the audience that after each failure they retire to the nearest five-star hotel to “refresh” and “rejuvenate” themselves ready for next week’s bruising encounter with “reality”.

And let’s pay them money to do it all. Let’s pay two disgustingly rich women to dent the merchandise in used car yards.

From the moment I saw an ad for The Simple Life, Interns, I wanted to kill somebody.

There’s Hilton, directing Ritchie (neither with a clue) and there’s Ritchie forgetting which one is for “stop” and ramming a parked car. The vacant look of mindless stupidity (tautology, I know) on Ritchie’s face made me want to physically reach into the television and strangle her with my own hands.

I say this is a barometer for two reasons.

One, just look at al the air and web-time that was devoted to the fall out between these two bimbos. I mean, who really gives a flying crap about where two incredibly rich, yet amazingly pointless, women eat dinner, go to parties or even avoid each other.

That is all your country can talk about?

Two, I have students asking me questions about this show. They find it utterly inconceivable that people who are so rich they have never had jobs can be so self-absorbed and utterly, utterly incompetent in everything they do. They are dumbfounded by the thought of never having done a day’s work in your life and yet being so rich you never have to do a day’s work. They cannot believe that with so much money and time these two pathetic, moronic, walking tragedies can think of nothing but themselves.

And the US chose not only to put said tragedies on air, but chose to do it in some of the poorest countries on earth.

Is this your message to the world: “We are so rich in the US that not only don’t we care about you, we actually choose to insult you by showing how rich we are and how we waste our money.”?

Every time I watch this show I feel my blood pressure start to rise, an interesting phenomenon at the age of 32, I am actually counting the minutes of wasted life I cannot regain simply by being forced to watch ads for this show before I have time to pick up the remote and look for something on Discovery…

I have tried this: :bnghd: but it didn’t help. I am left with only this alternative:

Well, I can't speak for all Americans, and what they watch on TV. However, if I've found that I've accidently tuned into a show such as the one you speak of, I just immediately change the channel. There must be a 3 Stooges film fest playing on some channel.

I hate both of them. I think as a reality show, they should take away all of their money, and really force them to work for a living. After they starve to death for being a bunch of moronic, shallow, self-absorbed stupid whores then the rest of the world gets the money the show took from them.

There, I got it off my chest.