There’s something odd about watching America’s Next Top Model in my university sweatpants, a vintage T-Shirt from Peterborough and my bangs bobby-pinned off my face. Odd because around me are sprawled out mountains sprinkled in snow and fir trees, a pile of classic fiction I’ve just read, some puppy toys, the sound of the dishwasher I’ll soon have to open and chipped nail polish on my toes.
My setting is so anti-top model. There are no catwalks in my living room, no beds built for six skinny girls, no Tyra Mail. No makeup mirrors with a billion bottles and tubes and palettes, no stilettos, no tight jeans, no handbags.
Instead there are hiking boots, moisturizer/sunscreen, Mountain Equipment Co-op layering systems and elastics to pull my hair back.
I watch the show and pass judgment, but it’s not who’s pretty, who’s ugly. It’s who’s faking, who’s real, who notices how awkward and obnoxious Tyra’s antics can sometimes be. But I live and die by Next Top Model. It falls on hump day, dividing my forlorn workweek with a pique of entertainment. The show is of no real use to me. I do not take notes on Miss J’s walking tips to practice as I strut down Main Street. People would probably wonder if I’d hurt myself. I don’t practice being fierce, and when people take my picture, I don’t work my angles.
The coined term guilty pleasure works well, although I hate to use a cliché. I enjoy turning my brain off and returning to things that were important to me in grade ten: hair, poise, fending off catty beeyotches and aspirations of the glamorous life. Not that I scoff at my 15-year-old self, but I like my non-glamorous Yukon life.
I could probably give the show up if I had to. But then what would I ask my little sister about when I call her after school on Thursday? And in what other situation could I laugh at someone else’s expense and not feel guilty and immoral? The contestants aren’t real, they are on a show called the next top model! Of course they’re crying when they get top model makeovers!
I’m not proud of it, and by no means would I want to step into those uncomfortable but haute couture shoes and do that myself. Of all the talents people embody and roles there are to fulfill, I think filling the niche of clothes-seller is quite limited. “We show people how to dress and wear their hair in interesting ways?” quips one of Derek Zoolander’s model roommates before dying in a freak gasoline fight accident.
The rest of the week I’ll weep during Oprah, watch the news, Intervention on A&E and documentaries about how the world works. But Wednesday night, all brain bets are off as I immerse myself for 60 minutes into the world of weaves, smiling with your eyes but not your mouth, and top model eliminations.

Labels: reality TV

There are some up here who don’t even own a TV. They have nature and skidoos and have no need for sitcoms, they tell me.
I need my MTV, as the saying goes. Especially since MuchMusic stopped playing anything but the O.C.reruns and VJ commentary shows. I need my brain-dead celebrity TV that robs my of intellect, and the sappy dramas that wind me in with their stylish actors and scandalous plot lines. I make no apologies-- I am a twentysomething who may have left behind her crazy bar days but will fight tooth and nail to retain the right to be a Gen Y-er who is sometimes apathetic and easily amused by what pop culture tells me is cool.
SaturdayNightLive is one of my favourite turn brain off outlets, and has been since Grade 6 when I was allowed to start watching it. I love “getting” all the witty refernces in Weekend Update, laughing at the bathroom humour and recurring characters. Last year’s addition of Digital Shorts was genious and has given me something fun to look up on YouTube and pass around the next day before they’re all taken down.
The situation with SNL and I was even better when I moved to the west coast, with its Pacific time zone and television show airings. Usually, I missed the truly live SNL episodes, being out and about (read: hammered) with girlfrends in the market. Now, it’s on at 8:30 p.m. my time. This is convenient because 1- I don’t have to worry about missing it most times and 2- I am lame and old and don’t usually stay up that late anymore, even on weekends.
But now, what am I to do? Like so many other outlets of entertainment that help me escape the monotany of my 9-5 and give my active, analytical brain some reprieve, SNL is in reruns. All the shows will soon be in reruns. Why can’t the stupid writers’ strike end already?
The Golden Globes were reduced to a press conference, people. I threw my hands up awhile ago, why can’t the writers and their bosses do the same? It is that easy, I’m sure. Is this a bore-off, whoever runs out of things to do first succumbs to the others’ demands? I suggest turning on the TV to speed things up, if that’s the case.
Bring back my TV! Leno did! I know in theory reality TV (among my fave brain-killing activities!) should be able to keep taping without writers, but for some reason they need them. Maybe so the hosts know what to say? Regardless. Stop not-working, writers, and let my shows come back. Get drunk at the staff party and get the boss to agree to a raise then! Or privately challenge them with a bogus sexual harssment suit like the rest of us do when we want extra cash! But don’t make me, the poor Yukon twentysomething whose husband is working night shifts, be deprived of the one thing that allows me to turn off my thought-maker, stare, eat chips without thinking until the bag is empty. I need that!

Labels: reality TV, Yukon

Labels: free, lost brain cells, reality TV