RANT: Show Me The Pussy!

Oh, wow. Just wow. Just when you thought primetime gameshows couldn’t stoop any lower. Have you seen Show Me The Money? I bet you haven’t. And you know what? That’s really okay. It will be minutes and minutes of your life that you will never get to live again, and that’s a price far too high to pay. After all, you could just go to Hooters, and then you’d at least get some wings and a beer with your t’n’a.

I’m sure there are young lesbians and boys everywhere just salivating over this show. I’m waiting for the Clearasil ads to appear in the commercial slots. That and Trojan condoms. For her pleasure.

This thing, man, it’s Reno, not Las Vegas, goes gameshow. It debuts Nov. 22, on ABC. They had a special preview tonight. Aw, gee. Special! Thanks, ABC!

Your host? William Shatner. Who, I might add, is all gussied-up like a ‘70s porn producer who has a side gig as Tony Bennet’s promoter. Black tuxedo shirt, red vest, black tuxedo suit. Shit-eating grin. Alcoholic’s doughiness.

His sidekick? Why, there’s a good dozen or so of ‘em! The Dancers! Yes, if that ‘80s institution, Solid Gold, mated with The Price Is Right, it would be this. Throw in a healthy dose of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and Deal or No Deal? and you got yourself Show Me The Money. They’re all bombshells, too, and you just KNOW their cellphones have at least one plastic surgeon’s number in ’em.

This, quite possibly, could honestly be as low as it goes. I mean, you couldn’t have more blatant sexualizing of women that you’ve got in this fucking show. You got yer 13 dancers, and they’re all ho’d up with their red micro-tube dress with hollowed-out backs. They come in dancing like they’re fresh from their Girls! Girls! Girls! tour where they took on names like Fluffy Cums-a-Lot and Mi-Yung Cunt.

And they all take their places on the stage, which, I shit you not, has six or so “terraces” and each, heh heh, comes with its very own pole. Uh-huh. And all these girls do is stand there beside a scroll that’s sitting on a stool, and they wait until, yes, the “contestant” chooses them and has them serve their use. And then, well, they’re no longer of any use and they stand there looking pretty, until Shatner instructs them to dance.

Even the stage/studio is decorated like it’s a stripper club out of Beverly Hills Cop.

Good god. And you should see fucking Shatner! At the end of the show, his eyes practically POP with glee when he says, “Ladies, let’s have the dance for this-hot-young-sailor-from-the-Navy-but-I-can’t-remember-his-name.” And Shatner gets down and boogies with the girls on the stage, surrounding the sailor, who’s a fucking numbskull and lost $420,000 on a dumb-ass question. I veto his right to oxygen, all right? Paula Abul? Paula Poundstone! Fucking ditz.

The only thing I can possibly say about the show is that it’s about goddamned time that someone thanked Cameron Crowe for his “gimme” of a gameshow title, a la Cuba Gooding Jr. and his Scientologist freak of a friend, Tom Cruise. Hell. It took, what, eight years? It was only the most repeated phrase that year. Who doesn’t compute it to be a good name for a gameshow? Not a piece of shit like this, but hey, good name.

The premise of the game is too fucking complicated to explain in a nutshell, ergo the show probably has an unfortunate half-life of about 2/3s of a season. If that. But the premise itself? Not too bad. No brains involved, really, and far too many safeties built in, even though you know they’re prescreening the contestants, and it’s obvious they’re stacking the deck.

Don’t even get me fucking started about the dancers. Throw any old goddamned mix of feminist complaints in there and I’ll go “Yeah! That!” Treating women as sexual objects? They DANCE on FUCKING COMMAND! They’re USED ONCE and DISCARDED. They serve no purpose but that of looking pretty… suggestive. What they do, a chimpanzee – or a signboard – could do.

Yeah, you’re bloody right I find it offensive! I find it STUNNING to be happening so blatantly, and with few apologies, in a mainstream primetime slot! Fuck, man. It’s 2006. Can we please get the hell past Barbie?

I don’t know, man. How do you close with a “bang” on something so goddamned potent as this? A creepy old dirty widower who won an Emmy playing a redneck misogynist (if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, chances are…) and a dozen chicks who are trying to fuck their way into a better place in Hollywood, each of whom has their very own pole on primetime television (but – wink, wink – they don’t use it). I honestly am at a loss here. I’m really beginning to wonder if the whole women’s movement-success/advancement-of-women’s-issues thing was just a really dull, happy dream I had had that I’m finally waking up from. I mean, I just got to wonder.

Don’t you?

14 thoughts on “RANT: Show Me The Pussy!

  1. the x-guy

    A creepy old dirty widow who won an Emmy playing a redneck misogynist (if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, chances are…)

    Widower, not widow. And I don’t think it’s fair to cast aspersions on the character of an actor because of the roles he or she plays. Ralph Fiennes has played Nazis in several movies, for example. Would you say that he walks like a duck?

    There are plenty of other reasons to conclude that Shatner’s a crass, talentless, misogynistic ego on wheels, but Denny Crane isn’t one of those reasons.

  2. scribe called steff

    Oh, see, now you’re just causing trouble.

    I’m simply accusing both shows of typecasting. Shatner’s great in the role, but I’ve always found him to be a little bit sleazy. Likeable as all hell, but still.

    Like if Tom Cruise played a whacked-out religious zealot, I’d point fingers and cry “Typecasting!” for that one, too. Denny Crane never seemed a stretch. Hence, walks like a duck, talks like a duck.

    And I knew widow was wrong. Know better, too. Kept missing it. Bah.

  3. The x-guy

    Nope, not buying it. “If it walks like a duck” is a statement of general principle; by using it as a parenthetical explanation, you are asserting it as a generality, not merely as it pertains to the particular example.

  4. Gael

    Hi Steff;
    Apologies as this is totally off topic but thought this may be of interest. A friend of mine, Heather, has the big C, Hodgkin’s lymphoma to be exact. Some more friends of mine have got naked and made a calendar to raise money towards her meds. ‘Cos bare naked ladies sell…
    This project needs as much pimping as possible; would be great if you could help.

    http://www.limeproject.org/about.php

    Thanks, Gael

  5. Anonymous

    We watched some of it last night. I was picturing the “creative” minds sitting around a table, doing their best to pull together the elements that sell from Who Wants to be a Millionaire and Deal or No Deal. Once they had the concept all nailed down, someone probably sat back and said, “You know, Deal already has girls. We need something different. Our girls should DANCE.”

  6. Markbnj

    Sigh. I still say that the Sci-Fi Story of “My teacher is an alien”, in which the teacher is revealed to be an alien paying his prison time on earth by teaching youngsters. His Crime? He gave Earth television 50 years before they were ready for it, and so (the shit happened).

    I’ve gotta say.

    The only thing that comes to mind is the film version of Rohld Dahl’s Classic book, MATILDA.

    In which in one scene, the parents and other(older boy) child are watching a tv Game show, called, “THE BIG STICKY”, in which contestants in bathing suits are wiped with glue, and then put in a money chamber.

    That would be a good way.
    Say the male contestant, glues up the woman in her (ONE PIECE you PERVERTS) swimsuit, and then as they are boht in the $$ chamber he sticks bills to her (wherever…)

    But I am REALLY really just as shocked as you are.

    That’s why I don’t have a working TV anymore, and ahvent thought there was anything worth seeing on live tv.

    Sigh

    Shatner? Dirty old man, couldn’t resist the idea of all them bouncing young things he couldn’t touch

  7. Thats Mr Anonymous to You

    Hey!

    The mention of Wm Shatner dancing scares me as much as the mention of his singing.

    I’m not going to be able to sleep tonite.

    Something something something.
    Anonononononymous

  8. Anonymous

    you know what, steff? it’s not worth getting your undies in a twist over. if there are women who are stupid enough to want to dance in skimpy attire on a gameshow with a dirty old man in attendance, let them and don’t let it worry you. our society has gotten so shallow, it seems that everything is based on the premise that sex sells, and that demeans everybody.

  9. scribe called steff

    X-guy: Yeah. Okay. Whatever. You’re getting into the semantics of it a little too much. And I don’t care enough to argue. Shrug. You have your opinion, and you’re entitled. But it’s my blog. Ha.

    Gael: Noble cause, but I’ll forget to link to it or anything without an email, and two, they don’t have a bloody photo of the calendar up. Without a sample layout, they’re going to sell a quarter of their potential sales. Not smart, that.

    Anon — Yeah, bizarre. Freaks.

    Mark — There’s a lot of good television, and I’m a movie junkie. I hate it when people slam all TV as if there’s nothing worth watching. No offense. 🙂

    Mr — Hope you slept.

    Anon — I like ranting. I will be sad if the world ever becomes one that no longer inspires me to rant. Ranting’s about as much fun as I can have without throwing my clothes off and ravaging a guy.

    To think I’m all upset and crying into my coffee in the corner just because I’ve ranted is a mistake.

    I get things off my chest and move on.

  10. Sal Laughter

    TV blows.

    ALL of it!

    Hahahaha!

    But it does. Don’t you feel the urge to go buy some Clearasil and some Trojans now? I do! Yuck.

    All those ads, man, wow.

    The only time I watch tv is when I’m staying in a hotel. Like last weekend. I watched Ultimate Fighting Championship and some terrible Steven Segal movie. Like wow.

    I hadda take a shower after.

    The way you feel about Show Me The Pussy? That’s how I feel about ALL tv. Barf!

    Swell rant, Steph-

    Best,
    Sal

  11. Scotsman

    I’m afraid this kind of show was always going to happen. You only have to look at what has been happening for the past few years, young girls getting famous not for finding the cure to cancer or having a talent but for wearing next to no clothes or having a dodgy sex tape. Some women have the ambition of having a family, some a career, others still would like to balance the two, now we have a generation coming through who only care about being famous and they don’t care what it takes to get there as long as its easy. You can’t get easier than standing there looking pretty showing a little bit of skin and acting stupid. Women have always been able to look pretty, tease and act stupid whether they were or they weren’t. It’s just been taken to a whole new level and television and the media are only to happy to exploit it. But who is being exploited? The girls? Or the dumbasses sitting there on the couch watching it?

  12. meanderin

    This show is transparent… what I am beginning to hate is the subtlety of titillation. As a guy, I am aroused by hot women dancing around. The point to me is that it is constant and everywhere. A more tasteless format does little to send me off the cliff. It’s the constant use of it. I am beginning to love films with ugly people, just for the relief they bring. Shows I love, like Six Feet Under, Dexter and Huff
    to name but a few, have the same logic driving the appearance of attractive women. Sex is a commodity. As to dancing on command? Actresses are paid to act in a ludicrously unrealistic and sexual context all the time. I’m not saying “get used to it”, more, “where the hell have you been for the last 30 years?”. And it’s getting worse.

    I think that lately, we are lurid without context. The repressed dark side is gussied up in a publicly acceptable format. Sex is a very private affair, imbued with dangers, risks and very serious consequences. Most of us don’t shtup in public, we keep our sex lives private. Contrast that with constant suggestive imagery. Neither the suggestion or the public nature of it are issues in and of themselves, but couple them with the taboos surrounding addressing sex, and there is a potent cocktail of arousal and repression. I don’t think of solutions, just addressing what is apparent to me. I know of no fix, other than to address the time we are in.

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