Mirror, Mirror

Miss America: Countdown to the Crown on TLC bothers me. Not because of the blatant unoriginality, this lame attempt to update what is essentially the oldest reality-show on television to the age of Big Brother, not even because it is without a doubt one of the most bland hours available on cable television. No, Countdown to the Crown bothers me because it purports to offer up role models for young girls based on the most vapid, colorless, and ultimately uninteresting women the country apparently has to offer.

On the show, the Miss States compete in cringe-worthy competition, putting on displays of talent that look like high school pep rallies, debating the merits of curling their hair inwards versus out, and generally standing around with tight smiles and blank stares. Virtually indistinguishable from one another, these fembots have all the personality of Japanese love dolls, with even less of the appeal. While I imagine the show was an attempt to make the Miss America Pageant germane again, it instead seems to prove just how irrelevant the distinction really is. If the women are that interchangeable, indistinguishable beyond their tone of skin and shade of hair dye, then what's the ultimate difference who wins anyway? Miss America is a crown for the most anti-outrageous; the winner wins for being not the most different, the most original, but for being the most like the rest only more.

The flip side of this coin is of course Rock of Love Bus on VH1. Packing two tour busses with the most outrageous skanks available (and I do mean available), the show plies them with booze (Tequila is virtually everywhere, even in the bathroom) and sets them all on heat-seeking mode, competing for the affections of a has-been rocker that peaked in the late 80's, and other than a brief appearance on Billboard's Top 200 albums last year (most likely due to his ubiquitous nature on VH1), hasn't had a real hit since a sex tape more popular for the participation of Pamela Anderson almost half a decade ago. The stated goal of the show is to find a suitable lifemate for Bret, someone he can rock the night away with until the stars fall from the sky. But the obvious goal to anyone that's actually watched the show (or seen a commercial, or just heard about it) is to create the biggest, most silicone-filled, insecurity-fueled, needy clusterfuck of an orgy ever seen since the days of Caligula.

Now I'm not saying these ladies are any more suitable as role models for young women than the pageant contestants of America's crown jewels. But I do respect them more, as well as the innate honesty of the show, as nobody on the Love Bus seems to pretend for even a moment that they are anything other than what they are. These walking, talking cautionary tales cloaked in stiletto heels and cheap extensions are to me the real Miss Americas of the post-modern age, and at the very least, stripping them of all else, they sure are more entertaining.

ER

I started this blog thinking I would denounce most of the empty, offensively ignorant and (more offensively) bland the content of my nearest television always seems to be. However, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed last night's episode of ER, the longest-running of the glut of medical drama television shows, and the second-longest staple of NBC after the original Law & Order. Titled "Dream Runner," the story had a distinct Groundhog Day vibe to it, with Neela repeating the same day over again three times, albeit in a dream, until she (and others) finally got it right. Dealing with a teenage girl fighting a tenacious infection, and a man who physically acts out his dreams, the characters make increasingly better decisions as they become more confident, more outspoken, and in the end, more honest. The episode had a pop Buddhism theme going on, with a hip transport driver even observing that sometimes inaction is, in and of itself, action. This is bolstered later on when the young girl with an infection predicts Neela's fortune (courtesy of one of those folded paper things that usually predict how many children you're going to have, or if you're going to marry a nice rich man). This one seemed more fortune cookie than predictor of marital satisfaction, and predicted/enlightened: "Your actions are the seeds of fate."

As in Groundhog Day, Neela learns the lessons of her mistakes, the lessons of her inaction, as she gets to relive the day over and over again. Luckily for her (and the show's running time), she only needs three go 'rounds for the lessons to be learned. Presented with the same scenarios, Neela makes subtly different choices, speaking up instead of holding back, and confidently trusting her instincts/knowledge/self instead of listening to others or playing it safe. In the end, her bespectacled mentor sums up the entire lesson Neela learned, the moral of the story, and probably wonderful instructions for life in general: you don't always have to know where you are going, as long as you are moving forward. Maybe because I often feel so paralyzed by indecision, or because I'm a sucker for rationalist metaphysics, but the story resonated with me and reminded me that sometimes it's alright to be driving blind.

Now I'm not going to miss ER when it's through, and I haven't watched a full episode since a fun splattercore comedy of an episode directed by Quentin Tarantino many years ago, but this episode will be filed away as an example of good television, plain and simple. I knew almost none of the characters, and yet it stood alone as an hour of good, brief reflection-provoking entertainment, which is one of the better things I could ask for from my television.