by Reality Television bores me now, but what really angers me is when television shows pretend to be honest contests when they’re really all a pre-determined setup from the get-go, just as we have indelibly learned this week with Bristol Palin’s horrible — but she’s staying! — routine on Dancing with the Stars; as well as Nicki Minaj’s fake meltdown with Mariah Carey on American Idol… which hasn’t even officially aired yet!
Websites like Vote for the Worst tend to take credit for contestants like Bristol Palin beating the odds and staying when it is really all about contractual agreements set in stone before the first dance begins:
They said it was impossible… She’s by far the worst dancer; She’s has the personality of a rock; She’s as likeable as the plague. But it doesn’t matter as VFTW and The Tea Party have done it once again as not only was Bristol safe, she wasn’t even in jeopardy! Meanwhile, VFTW and Bristol knocked off Joey Fatone, who even as the worst dancer in N’Sync can dance circles around Bristol.
Bristol Palin knows she is a public pariah — just like her misbegotten mother — and she would never agree to return to Dancing with the Stars without some sort of financial guarantee, and promise of lasting weekly exposure, that she will be well paid for her time served getting hit over and over again in the public eye.
There are lots of internet rumors that Bristol was guaranteed a three-to-five week stay on the show — to avoid the humiliation of immediately being sent back home to Alaska as she deserves — and that makes a lot of business sense even though it betrays any particle of reality that Dancing with the Stars is an honest competition based on actual dancing.
If Bristol learned one thing from her mother, it is to “know your worth” and Bristol Palin is worth a lot of money to ABC because people love to hate her, and the longer she stays around, the more people will tune in to hope to watch her final, humiliating, demise. Postponing the inevitable for a few weeks only makes the cathartic release of her slapdown even more refreshing. ABC and the Palins are in on the gag — and we owe it to ourselves to realize Bristol Palin isn’t on a dancing show, she is the Sideshow.
Speaking of Sideshows, don’t be fooled into thinking the Nicki Minaj/Mariah Carey “fight” was real. It was all a setup, too. Faked just for you! The producers want heat and fire to save their flailing franchise and they will falsify reality in order to get the end result they want: You panting for a bitch slap catfight on American Idol!
You know the whole fight was a fake because it was recorded on video! Nobody in that American Idol studio would ever be allowed to shoot their stars without explicit preapproval and detailed planning. It just doesn’t happen. So if we have the “insider” footage of the fight — obediently distributed through TMZ — we know it was planned, and the joke is back on us for being so gullible to believe American Idol producers would ever allow the release of such a video if there was any chance of embarrassing their newly minted “stars.”
Billboard lets the catfight out of the bag — as much as they can — based on their promotional role in the music industry:
Is it a publicity stunt or the sort of bitter animosity that could derail America’s most-watched show? With the arrival of on-set video showing “American Idol” judges Nicki Minaj and Mariah Carey practically at each others’ throats, the show’s fans are mulling that very question and further wondering: Did Fox make a huge mistake with its flagship program by seating two divas at the same table?
To the contrary, a high-ranking Idol insider tells The Hollywood Reporter it’s all for show. “The Mariah-Nicki diva battle is exactly what Fox executives wanted all along,” says the source, who insists the two singers are in on the joke. “No one’s really worried. They know the parts they’re supposed to play.”
The only way we can defeat these false reality shows is to stop watching them. I’ve officially given up on The Voice and X-Factor this year. I will not watch American Idol after this stunt. I’m done with Big Brother. I decided I would watch one last season of Dancing with the Stars because I like a lot of the past winners — they won the prize when the show was much more real and genuine and improvement week-to-week actually meant something — but I almost gave up on watching this season when I learned of Bristol’s return, because I knew the fix was in for her to hang around much too long, but my appreciation for Emmitt Smith and Gilles Marini is too strong for even the Palins to overcome.
Not too surprised about how fake the fight was — didn’t even look genuine as they were doing it!
Right! It’s the barefaced cynicism of it all that galls me. These reality show producers think we’re dim and stupid and spoon-fed.
Apparently SOMEBODY is or it wouldn’t fly. That’s what gets me.
That’s the problem. The audiences have been dumbed-down so much that they now expect to be fed pablum instead of manna. Television used to be the great gateway to education and experiencing the world. Now it’s a babysitter for adults.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablum
I have learned a new word and it’s connotation. Interesting. 🙂
Thanks for that link, Lillian!
It’s stunts like this and more like it that convince me ABC isn’t the network of intelligence.
“Stunt” is the perfect word, Lillian. What was once an interesting concept show has now devolved into a great big PR student for the network.
Here’s more proof the Minaj/Carey catfight is all for show:
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/american-idol-producers-dismiss-nicki-minaj-mariah-carey-feud-20121006
It’s clear the producers know they’ve gone to far with releasing this fake fight to push interest in their dying show — this sort of ongoing, negative publicity bites in too many unpredictable ways. Are they running a celebrity circus or a show to find the next singing star? I think we all know the answer — and the producers don’t like it that we’ve figured them out.
I will not watch American Idol this year. Fox has decided that making the judges more controversial is more important than the talent. Nicki Minaj is a mildly talented freakshow, Mariah Carey is an emotionally unstable, aging egomaniac, Keith Urban is a recovering addict desperately needing to boost his career and Randy Jackson just stayed for the money. The talent is now irrelevant. Move to cable and start cursing and fist fighting; it is the logical next step for this tabloid reality train wreck of a show.
You make an excellent point! These reality talent shows are no longer about talent — they’re just about silly spectacle.
LMAO! So it’s all a big conspiracy that Bristol remains on DWTS? It’s not because people VOTE for her? What about the Kirstie Alley conspiracy? If Bristol is still around because of some conspiracy then surely Kirstie Alley has some similar conspiracy laden contract! She kissed Tom Bergeron on the LIPS so maybe she SLEEPING with him! OOOOH! That would make a JUICY headline! Might as well go for it even if you don’t have diddly squat to back it up.
Did it ever occur to you that maybe people are actually VOTING for Bristol the Pistol? Maybe these voters have seen the constant derision piled upon all things Palin in every desperate manner and they have rallied around the Palin’s rather than give into the Hollywood Palin hating propaganda?
Let’s face it – the Hollywood gossip types would be melting down if any perceived ‘right winger’ were not sufficiently whacked like the mole they are. The fact it is a Palin that survives their furious ‘whacks’ only to pop her pretty little head up for another week infuriates the institutionalized left to no ends. Wild theories are contrived to explain this conflict with their Hollywood perception of reality. Surely it must be the work of sinister forces and shady backroom deals. It simply CAN’T be the will of the voting public.
Right. Contract guarantees are signed and honored. Viewer voting doesn’t matter. The producers decide who wins based on who and what creates the largest viewership. The show is not about the best dancing. If voting really had consequence, each week they would reveal the voting numbers broken down by method of voting and region. There’s no transparency in the process by design.