REALLY? I loathe reality TV. In fact, I almost never turn the TV on unless it’s to watch movies from TCM downloaded onto my DVR. But the write-ups for Bridalplasty made me watch it, regretfully. The premise is that any piece of trash deserves a chance at head-to-toe plastic surgery before being treated to a “rock star” or “Hollywood” wedding. And you don’t even have to be single to qualify; at least one contestant was already married but didn’t like her first wedding, and another has children already. Well, okay! The body-dysmorphic contestants are introduced on the first episode. The cattiness begins here. One contestant has dazzling reality show credentials: She mentions that she was on The Biggest Loser. In fact, she mentions it so many times that she lives up to that show’s title quite nicely. Another contestant bristles at this Biggest Loser routine, rolling her eyes and manufacturing enough bile to project that someone’s eventually going to get slapped because of it and another will cry copious tears over the injustice of it all. Speaking of The Biggest Loser, many of the Bridalplasty contestants are fat. The skinny girls are smug, but the reality is that, fat or thin, most of these women are unattractive in their attempts to be pretty. We see horrendous makeup (don’t try this at home!), hideously overprocessed hair, and nightmarishly ugly clothes. No wonder these girls all want complete surgical makeovers. But not so fast. Winning those surgical procedures requires the skill of a second-grader, all the savvy of a paper clip, and the perseverance of a Beanie Baby. In the first competition, the “girls” had to complete a life-sized puzzle of themselves looking like dream brides. Considering that there were only about 12 pieces in the puzzle and that each piece was about 1 foot square, this shouldn’t have been difficult … but it was. Some of these girls obviously need a remedial puzzle-solving seminar, while others demonstrated that doing puzzles may be their crowning achievement. Those who finish the puzzles first are allowed to grab a humongous syringe from the table and run into the next room to await the other also-rans. When all but two contestants have gathered, hostess (with the leastest) Shanna Moakler announces that they will be having an “injectables party.” Meanwhile, the two remaining contestants (aka losers) who didn’t finish their puzzles in time are lined up in front of the other girls like a shooting gallery while being forced to endure a voting process that will eliminate one of them. This is done by voting in front of the last two, ratcheting their embarrassment to the nth degree. The loser stated early on, “I deserve to win this because I’m a diva.” When will women like that realize that being fat does not a diva make? This, and so many other questions, will be answered in future episodes (Sundays, 8pm on E!) while contestants vie for up to 15 plastic surgeries that will truly make them dream brides. Really, it’s more like a pageant: the Jocelyn Wildenstein Junior Miss Pageant. Get your syringe ready … in case you have to ease the pain of watching this vile program.
MORE WEDDING BELLES The same day Prince William‘s engagement to Kate Middleton was announced, copies of her engagement ring were offered on the Internet for as little as $49. Well, actually, these aren’t copies of Kate‘s engagement ring, exactly – the ring was the engagement ring given by Prince Charles to Prince William’s mother, Princess Diana. But you know that when William gave that ring to Kate, hundreds of Third World jewelry manufacturers breathed sighs of relief and simply dug out all the old ring stock they had left over after Charles and Diana broke up.
HELPING CLIFFORD It seems like a thousand years since the Help Clifford Help Kids benefit for American YouthWorks at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center on Nov. 18. They raised the glamour bar on the event by moving it from the Austin Music Hall to the AT&T Center. On the other hand, the economic pinch that we’re all feeling seemed to make itself fairly obvious. The silent auction was lavish and appeared to be raising lots of money, but the live auction did not appear to do so well. Some of the auction packages seemed a bit incomplete – a trip to New York that doesn’t include a hotel? The bidding on these packages was a bit anemic. I only say this because having attended many, many of these benefits, I remember feverish bidding on items before, including a spirited competition to bid thousands of dollars on absolutely nothing. While the economy may have kept it from being one of the most successful, a private concert by Los Lonely Boys is the mark of a truly well-produced event.
This article appears in December 3 • 2010.