homogeneous monogamous.
During a recent discussion with dear friends, we discussed the ever entertaining Girls Next Door starring blonde bombshells Hugh Hefner girlfriends. Anyone who stands next to magazines while purchasing groceries knows that all three girls have moved out of the Playboy Mansion, but as one of E!’s most popular shows, new episodes are pumping out and its bound to be synidcated for reruns soon enough. The discussion that evening was based on whether the show should be on television. And as it is one of the few shows making us, even if only at a superficial level, question where nonmonogamous relationships belong in our culture, I think we need more and definitely not less.
Pop culture has thus far shown these relationships at the extremes. On one hand, we have Hugh Hefner’s girlfriends which are protrayed in a lovable, adorable, at times upright innocent manner. On the other hand, we have those images of the polygamous camp news story of marriages performed to girls as young as 12 that exploded some time this fall. And in the middle, we have probably the most provocative take which is the HBO show “Big Love”. But still, in these three perspectives all we see is either Mormons or girls using an old man for his money while they still have their looks.
Is this really the best our culture can come up with? Even in Sex and the City the closest they came to discussing nonmonogamous relationships was probably a three-way. According to a recent article in the New Yorker, there is, albeit limited and super discreet, a number of couples who enjoy relationships beyond physical commitment barriers. Beyond the occasional Real Worlder who has a boyfriend back home and is doing the open relationship thing until those four months in a different city end, where the heck are these couples?!? I’m not particularly advocating CBS to pick up this as a new after-school special but couldn’t we do better than just that measely side plot in “How to Make an American Quilt”?
Not to point my finger and blame the industry for society’s ills, but it seems that when such a subgroup exists, sometimes it is best to illuminate it in some spotlight. Whether it’s fiction like Queer as Folk which brought real gay issues and softcore porn to Showtime or documentaries such as MTV’s True Life, these shows do bring into our living room the realization that these people exist and are not to be merely joked about. We all can likely name one couple we know to be swingers in our hometown and probably all giggle when we hear their name. And although private lives are private for a reason, a relationship based on consentual decisions by two or more adults that harms no one should in some way be respected.
Update: I did recewntly see some hour long special on one of those TLC type channels. I believe it was called “My Three Wives” and followed the drama of a nonmonogamous man who had two wives and kids with each and wanted to bring a long time friend in to be #3. The kids didn´t like, the wives didn´t like it, so in the end, the potential #3 ended up in tears and moving out of the house. At the end of the episode, they show the “where are they now” text and apparently, wife #2 moved out and wife #1 filed a legal divorce and the man now says he is going to try to remain monogamous. Dang, if they can´t make it, is there any hope for the rest of us?
I Don’t Think That’s a Good Idea.
Tsk! Tsk! Kiddies!
I feel like if there was a list of 100 ways to ruin an amazing show, the cast and crew of Gossip Girl are trying each and every one of them. First, they started adding in crazy story lines, and now a real life romance between two of the biggest stars on the show?!? Not a good idea.
Take advice from me. I obviously know what I’m talking about when it comes to making a hit tv show. See these Emmy’s? They didn’t get there by themselves!
Correct Me If I’m Wrong
But I thought Jared Leto was gay. Or there were rumors he was bisexual and he never commented about it. Whatever, I don’t judge. I only judge when a dude is caught making out with Paris Hilton in complete public and does not realize someone is taking photographic proof right in front of him.
I don’t care what his sexuality is. All I know for sure now, he is a complete idiot.
Shot Through The Heart
As made clear by numerous posts on such half hour of bliss delights like “The Hills”, I love awful television. Love it. Now, when my dear friend who usually teases me about my guilty pleasures suggested “A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila”, I mentally balked at the idea.
Two Reasons:
A) I don’t like MySpace whores. For your information, there are two types of MySpace whores. 1) The type that have hundreds or thousands or millions of “friends” they have never met. 2) The type that stage amateur pornography shoots to get the sexiest and most scandalous default photo. Tila Tequila not only qualifies as both of these two types, homegirl made a career out of it.
B) Finding love on an MTV or VH1 reality show is about as easy as finding one’s true love in the line outside MisShapes. You have the most egotistical, self-centered people just dying for attention.
I may have been skeptical with my approach towards the show, but I nonetheless approached it. Nothing to make me feel better about my life choices than to watch how others make poor choices in their lives. Honestly, I was curious. And we all know what curiosity does to the cat.
The premises of the show is that Tila Tequila is a bisexual looking for love. So she first meets sixteen straight guys and narrows it down to eleven that she wants to move into her MTV house so that she can see if any of them is the one for her. Before they move in though, she meets with sixteen lesbians and chooses eleven to also move into her fake house. The catch? The straight men thought she was a straight woman, and the lesbians thought she only liked her girls. Drama ensues. The straight men are either scared of lesbians or treat them like a sex object, “you girls gonna make out now?“. The lesbians basically hate men in general. One of them even said in such an eloquent manner, “It’s kinda messed up, it’s messed up just to introduce these guys. It’s kinda, like, a betrayal, in a sense.”
It is a bit odd to step back and think of how many years of reality television where people are looking for love, and this truly is the first show of its kind. I don’t want to give these people credit by saying they’re breaking down barriers, but the show forces us to think about a lot of the judgments we have about others. And the great minds at MTV decided to make all contestants vying for their shot at love to sleep in the same bed. That’s right. One gigantic bed for eleven straight men and eleven lesbians. It should make for a really interesting time.
If anything, the show is a promise for loads of drama. The premiere ended with a snip-it showing clips from the upcoming season. It was basically a thirty second long concentration of every human emotion. Desire, love, friendship, hatred, jealousy, despair, rejection, violence, sex, and tears all somehow made their way in and will play out for the rest of the season. With all that intensity, maybe it is my kind of show after all.
cry me river. nope, that was the other n*sync member.
Reichen Lehmkuhl is threatening to sue Lance Bass for defamatory comments. Ummm, what did you expect when you dated someone who gave interviews, buddy?
Lance Bass is a former N*Sync member, the one that looked like a hamster. When he publicly came out of the closet last year, he did it with hot boyfriend Reichen Lehmkuhl, who was on The Amazing Race, by his side. They parted ways amidst rumors of Reichen’s infidelity.
So basically Race boy is suing former boybander because comments made in an interview were defamatory. Someone either A) hasn’t moved on (doubtful considering his new boyfriend) or B) needs some publicity. Dare I say it, I might have to go with choice B. I know, I know. A former reality show member doing an act for publicity. The shock! The horror! The insanity!
Suck it up, hot gay man. Not that many people know who you are, and those that do know, it’s because of your ex-boyfriend. You should send him a present everytime he mentions you in an interview. Because that’s the only way you’re getting into magazines, buddy.
f.i.n.a.l.l.y.
Very few things can bring me joy when I am trapped in a law school for eleven hours straight.
Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal finally coming forward with their relationship is one of them.
I have amazing amounts of respect and admiration for both these actors and to see them happy together makes me ecstatic.
Is it natural for this to happen? Am I living vicariously through celebrities? It was only about a year ago when I was at my computer reading my celebrity gossip for the day, and when I read the news of Reese and Ryan Phillipe’s divorce announcement, I gasped so loud the entire apartment heard. Are we becoming so wrapped up in the lives of others that we attach an emotional sentiment to it? I remember when rumors of Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey’s breakup began swirling and one of my friends said “If they can’t make it, who can?” as if the fact that these two pretty dumb people having a reality show made them the poster couple for a successful marriage. However, this interest in celebrity personal lives is nothing new, and it isn’t just in the entertainment industry. Millions of people around the world watched on television to see lady Diana in her Cinderella dress arrive to wed Prince Charles. Last week’s announcement of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and wife’s divorce made front page news. For whatever reason, we are intrigued by the personal lives of those who live in the public eye. Perhaps it is merely curiosity but it may reflect something lacking in our own lives or voyeuristic tendencies.
Regardless of the reason, this photo of Ryan and Reese finally acting like a couple in public has made me happy, and on a rainy day like today, I’m just gonna accept it and be grateful for it.
Smart Choices by Britney, Lesson 5
While in a lot of cases it is a good idea not to take career advice from the person you’ve been spotted hotel bedroom hopping with, other times, it is.
After Britney’s flop of a performance with floppy skin last month, a lot of us were wondering where the heck the magic was in the literal sense. For about two weeks before the performance, Britney had been spotted out with magician Criss Angel into the early hours, and publicists explained they were simply working together for her VMA performance. Likely story. Sure enough, her performance came and went without any magic or mystic in any shape, sense, or form unless a pile of broken dreams and gross hair extensions was what you were looking for in a magic potion. And now, when that performance has almost left our memory, it comes back to haunt us.
Criss Angel apparently has no other way to get back into the tabloids unless he rides the BS-train some more. He has come forth to shock the world with two quotes:
“We were supposed to do a creation of stuff that we worked on and it took a lot of dedication and work to do the things that we wanted to do. Unfortunately for me, she didn’t really want to put forth that type of effort.”
Britney Spears does not even put forth any effort to pass a drug test so she can see her own children. We are talking about pissing into a cup here. Not that difficult. Moving on.
“Basically I said, ‘Don’t worry about me. Do what you want to do. This is a big opportunity for you to do the VMAs, so if you don’t feel it, go with something else.’ And she chose to go with something else.”
Well, alcoholics are known for many things and one of them is making excellent choices. This was no exception. Someone should tell MagicBoy that when you see someone’s life falling down into an endless pit, you don’t tell them to just do whatever they feel like doing. That’s how people die. People have been telling that to Britney for the last four years. Look where that got her.
Over and out.
