Reality strikes!

As a bored housewife waiting to get a job permit in the USA, life is full of communication media - TV, Internet, magazines (free ones at that!), the mailbox full of junk mail you'd have hated otherwise, but love to see the so called discounts now and just some waiting. You also try to understand the society you are living in. Yes, though they have taken the world over in numerous ways, I'm still trying to understand their society. It defies logic and any sort of sense. Am I a US basher? Oh yes, I am and I love doing this. This is therapy for me, really.

Coming back to the point, I've started watching TV all day long now. And all I can watch apart from baseball ( I hate this game coz AB watches it all the time, and mostly because the Championship series for this game is called The World Series) and basketball ( I quite like basketball. There is action and am willing to watch it, though not ALL the time) are these reality shows. Yes, they suck. But I suck too, and so watch them. I wait eagerly for all the bitching, the behind the scenes talk and what not. Hate me, but I do not care. I'm a desperate housewife.

So, the one reality show I love is Top Chef. No, I do not watch it for PadmaLakshmi or for the dishes which seem complicated to even watch, leave alone make them. But I love the challenge, the thrill, the team work. Actually, its the whole team work and the human dynamics on the show which keep me hooked. I love it when they magically come up with a dish, all the time so confident and bitchy! I like it that they are judged objectively. AB does not think so. He HATES the show, but obviously. Duh! They are not throwing ball around there, though there is some show of testosterone. I've always wanted to be a part of something like this. Err..not a cooking contest or something. But something that involves action, team work. I realize now how much I miss working in a team and being with people around me. So there. It could be something like the Amazing Race for me. I find the idea super cool. Working/Living with someone, doing things with them, having fights, making up for the sake of the team...the exhilaration of your team winning is something different altogether. I've been there before, and I've loved every moment of it. And I want to do it. So, this affinity towards a show like the Top Chef.

However, today, as I waited in vain for my fave show to start ( I cannot make out American TV and they run these marathon shows. I'm confused. So, I look out for Top Chef everyday), I ended up watching 'The Beauty and the Geek.' I watched it, lazy to do anything else. This show puts some beautiful women (mostly blondes, unfortunately, and unjustly so) and some geeky looking geeks who do not seem to know anything including that a women's shoe shop will have only loads of women's shoes! It was stereotypical. The women were blonde as I mentioned, and the men had these spectacles on. They wore these clothes which were preppy, while women dressed in hot shorts or cleavage baring tops. Its all about living together, and 'learning' from each other. Most of the women were waitresses or parlour women and the men ranged from guys who were MIT graduates ( a desi was. What else do you expect, you say?) to someone who catches monkeys through lasers to someone was a speed chess champion. Why? Could they not get men like my husband who is geeky but knows what I want rather well? Or, could they not get women like me, who are very stereotypically girly (read why below) and know computers well too? Its just about the people, dammit. Each one to his/her own. Why not pair those geeky women with life guards from a Florida beach? Beats the stereotype and lacks entertainment value haan?

Well, I think it is a horrible show. Sorry. I'm in many ways a very 'typical' girl. I love chick flicks, the colour pink, but I'm not dumb. No woman is. This show portrays women to be dumb, and very 'typically' blonde. I have immense respect for blondes and do not think every blonde woman is dumb or something. I hated the show for all those geeky men too! Oh, from when have geeky men stopped being good looking or sexy? Or aren't there geeky women who understand them? What is the whole confusion about how geeks and these 'beauties' are mis-matched? I do not think so. I'm beautiful and a geek at some level, and my husband is a geek and well, yes, good-looking (:P) We are doing good, I'd say! I think its just about individuals. Some people are outgoing, can do things like ask men/women out, while some others are introverts and shy. They are not shy because they are geeky! Or, they are not these bold women, coz they are beautiful and have dated before! Really, I hated some things the show portrayed. The women are given activities like burning a CD and what not. I've burned CDs and do not think any man can do it better. Okay, the man who taught me probably can! But here you go - my husband can cook way better than me or look for bargains way better than me. Does that make him any less man? Those men got a makeover, and got their chests shaved, and their eyebrows shaped and did some interior decoration (they sucked). Ewww. Those women had to navigate through a map, and any activity they even understood and did partly right, they were complimented with : 'Oh, she is so smart, and she really picks up fast.' Whatever.

This show was nauseous ( so much that I was depressed when AB got home and needed some pep talk to cheer me up) and absolutely illogical. The activities were childish and juvenile to say the least, the men and the women who were on the show including the desi called Ankur need to be flogged. Yes, flogged. And it does not surprise me that Ashton Kutcher produced this show. What is wrong with these people? Lack of creativity, you say? So, why accuse Ekta Kapoor? Atleast, her serials are all fiction!