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- 5
I wasn't as dismayed by the new Project Runway as Hanna and Jessica, but that might be because my reality TV excitement (and addiction) lies elsewhere. The original Brit version of What Not To Wear has always far outclassed the lame TLC* version—and now Trinny and Susannah are heading stateside, with a series on the same network starting tonight. For all their groping and grabbing and relentless assessment of their victims' bodies (and their own), Trinny and Susannah have—as we put it in Xxtra Small—heart.
Granted, Trinny and Susannah are utterly ruthless when they evaluate their subject. The "Can she (or occasionally he) take it?" question is paramount in every episode. You'll need to minimize that bum, they declare. Your tits are way too big for that bra! And they accompany every comment with the kind of grabbing most women associate with a really bad date
But unlike TLC's Stacy London and Clinton Kelly, Trinny and Susannah are never unkind. I've seen Stacy and Clinton actually dump a person into the trash can along with her wardrobe. Where Stacy might say "You're very short," Trinny and Susannah would say,"Because you're so tiny, you'll want to avoid those long dresses," and I imagine that to the person in the dreaded four-way-mirror, there's a world of difference. It's pretty easy to avoid long dresses. It's impossible to fix being short. And being thrown into the trash on national television? I thought we were supposed to be watching someone's life get better. Trinny and Susannah host What Not to Wear; TLC's version could better be called Who Not To Be.
*August 21, 2009: The original version of this post said that What Not to Wear is on Lifetime. It is on TLC.
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- 19
We are used to sports federations getting worked up about drug tests. But a gender test? South African runner Caster Semenya won the world championship this week by 2.45 seconds. Watch the video. She’s nowhere near the pack, and barely sweating. The Israeli sportscasters just keep repeating “This is amazing! Where did she come from?” Great Britain’s Barbie runner, Jennifer Meadows, looks miffed. “I’ve heard a lot of speculation,” Meadows says. South Africa’s track and field federation, meanwhile, is being asked to perform a gender test. What does this mean? They won’t really say, except to assure that it’s an “extremely complex, difficult test” that involves a gynecologist, endocrinologist and psychologist, and will take time. I can’t imagine what test one could come up with that would definitively prove gender. If it’s a simple XX/XY test, that would take an afternoon. Her father and paternal grandmother insist she is a female. And if Semenya turns out to be intersex—meaning she was born with genitals of both sexes, or even that she had a sex change operation—is she not a woman? She is, by any humane standards. I look forward to the results. They will, at the very least, provide an important and entertaining philosophical treatise on the meaning of gender.
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- 2
Hanna, I'm with you that last night's Proj Run was a lackluster event. But the thing that's really going to make me stray from Heidi and Tim is their competition: Lifetime is airing the show at the same time as Bravo airs Real Housewives of Atlanta. If you're not familiar with the backstory, Runway used to be on Bravo until the Weinstein Company sold the show to Lifetime. Bravo was distinctly unhappy about this sale. After a lengthy court battle with hundreds of millions of dollars wasted, Lifetime was given the go-ahead to air the show. Bravo is clearly not taking this lying down, as they're putting their marquee show (the ratings for RHoA have been boffo this season) up against Runway. Earlier this week, Choire Sicha at the Daily Beast even handicapped the Housewives/Runway reality tv brawl.
I knew that the shows were both airing at 10 p.m. yesterday, so I did what any modern girl would do: set my DVR to record both. I watched Proj Run first, and like Hanna, was disappointed at this new, zombie Runway. The contestants this season are a little emo for my taste—everyone's a crier. And poor guest judge Lindsay Lohan. Her eyes had about as much life in them as roadkill, and she delivered incredibly bland commentary in a monotone voice. That spunky teen from Mean Girls is pretty much history.
Onto Real Housewives. Even though this week's drama couldn't compare with last week's wig-pulling, there was still much to enjoy. Kim fired her nanny (whilst getting that damaged wig repaired) because she left the kids alone to go buy tampons; everyone still hates Kim, except for the new girl Kandi; everyone goes to a party and talks smack behind Kim and Kandi's backs. One could argue that watching Project Runway in real-time is more important than watching Housewives night-of, because someone actually gets voted off. But part of the joy of watching Housewives for me is talking to my few Atlanta-obsessed friends the next day and saying, "OMG, did you see what NeNe did last night?" I'm giving Project Runway one more week to impress me. Otherwise, auf Wiedersehen, Heidi.
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- 8
Can you destroy a great franchise in one episode? Project Runway is certainly trying hard. The new season, which aired last night, is now on Lifetime at 10. These two minor facts alone have ruined it as a family viewing experience. Ten is too late for the hordes of girl fans, including my daughter. And commercials on the Lifetime network (Spa Breeze, vacuums, odd vaginal ailments) are just too embarrassing for any self-respecting husband to sit through. More importantly, the show has moved to L.A., and now seems to be aiming for the tabloid reading public’s vision of what life in L.A. is like.
In previous seasons, the first challenge has often been offbeat—make dresses out of stuff you find in a grocery store. This season opened with a runway dress, no extra challenge—yawn. Lindsay Lohan judged, the resident addict broke down, the sneak peek of next week promised they would get to dress an actual celebrity. Also, now we get an extra hour of “behind the scenes with the models.” And finally, they kicked out the oddball, which they never do right off the bat.
Project Runway has always been TV Soulcraft for me. I like it because you get to see people actually make stuff—giant speeded-up art projects that can range from sublime to disastrous. Now, it feels like the craft might be taking a back seat to trumped up, Us Weekly-style drama. It’s only week one, so I’ll give it a chance. But at this point I have to steal a line from Tim Gunn: I’m worried.
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