« 32: Hella! | Main | 34: "Fakehandbags is the new Kabbalah" »

August 18, 2004

33: I GOT NO GEL!

I don't need to hear about how you're tired of reality television, about how angry it makes you that you can't avoid it when you turn on your set. I don't actually believe that you're as disgusted as you claim to be, and what are you mourning anyway? Is it such a heartbreak that there are fewer sass-mouthed sitcom families with problems easily solved between commercials for Dentyne Ice?

Even more annoying that any of these self-praising lies is the pseudo-academic junk about how we're obsessed with watching our own lives and how the best entertainment is the mirror we turn on ourselves. What? Where do you get that from? That's not to say that a show about me wouldn't be infinitely interesting to, say, me. But I digress...

Actual reality programming would be horrifying! And where would you get sponsors for a program about babies in Third World countries dying, or a mini-series about at-risk kids in the US being failed by their local child services departments? And would you watch either? TV is bad for you, and you like to poison yourself with something entertaining, mindless, and miles away from reality. You want "reality television."

I have no need for Survivor or 90% of the non-reality we call "reality tv." I don't need hokey gameshows, people eating bugs, fools thinking they've found love, or Donald Trump's hair. What I need and love is the type of reality programming that gives me a view into the lives of celebrities. I want to judge their lives, their parenting skills, and their taste in decor.

It's like someone Up There was listening to my prayers, and they gave the world "Growing Up Gotti."

How can I describe this show? Awesome. I don't mean "gnarly" or "rad," I mean "What planet are these people from?" They live in a painfully white, faux-classical palace lorded over by the closest thing to Donatella Versace the New York area will ever produce. The kids are ill behaved, spoiled and seemingly unable to speak English. Perhaps time that could have been used to instruct these boys in any social graces was simply devoted to the painstaking grooming of their eyebrows.

I can't help but like Victoria Gotti. She has a heart condition, a lot of couture, and a fondness for chocolate. A blind date offends her and she storms home to throw his flowers into her yard like they were a Molotov cocktail. As shocked as I am by her bluntness (and her hair!), it's difficult to not like her. She's the new Sharon Osbourne!

Her kids are bewildering, I am continually amazed by their poor behavior and incoherent speech. (The new Osbourne kids!) But the most incredible thing about them is their hair product usage. Perhaps hair gel does not product the globally disastrous holes in the ozone layer like an aerosol can, but nothing good can come from the excessive product-usage going on in that house. I must know what sort of shampoo these kids use to counter product buildup in their hair. Is it citrus-based? And why do they want to look like Dragonball Z characters?

Clearly this hair gel is the work of THE DEVIL!

Is the show, therefore, evil? Maybe. But either way, it’s AWESOME!

Posted by ashley at August 18, 2004 12:29 PM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.ashleysaunders.com/cgi/mt-tb.cgi/10

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference 33: I GOT NO GEL!: