This is what the Bratz want to be--Pussycat Dolls:
Alpha women run the reality show
By Joanna Weiss, Globe Staff | March 20, 2007
There is no sympathy, no pity, for those who wish to be Pussycat Dolls. In the premiere of "Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll" -- the CW show whose third episode airs tonight at 9 -- a virus whipped through the women auditioning for a spot in the sexed-up girl group. It was a nasty bug, featuring vomit, but word came that illness was no excuse. Some contestants unhooked their IVs, roused themselves from mats beside the stage, and performed a song-and-dance with glassy eyes and gritted teeth.
Sitting at the judging table, Robin Antin, the botoxed impresario who created the Dolls, seemed particularly pleased. These, it seemed, were women hungry enough to deserve a place in her group, a modified burlesque troupe held up as the pinnacle of female empowerment.
In some circles, "empowerment" might be defined as banding together and fighting, or walking away from a stupid idea altogether. On today's reality TV, it apparently means something different: suffer and endure, in pursuit of the feminine ideal. And submit wholly to the power of another woman.
It's a particular kind of woman, too. The you-go-girl types who lead the fashion makeover shows have given way to a harsh form of female lordship. From Antin to Becky Southwick, the crabby modeling agent on VH1's "The Agency," the arbiters of beauty are an increasingly ugly set.
Perhaps Martha Stewart -- who presides over her syndicated talk show with an unmitigated chill -- made it clear that TV's alpha women need not temper their delivery with rounded edges.
Or perhaps it's a sign that reality TV is moving more completely toward self-parody: Lately, the portraits of femininity have turned ever more grotesque. In 2003, ABC offered, as its original "Bachelorette," a physical therapist named Trista, with a pug nose and a wholesome outlook; she just wanted to marry a man, have his babies, and make a brief return to the spotlight on "Dancing With the Stars." Not so on "I Love New York," the campy spinoff of "Flavor of Love" that is VH1's latest take on the dating genre. Tiffany Pollard -- known to her suitors as "New York" -- is a cartoonish version of the form, with superhuman breasts and eyes so loaded down with makeup she seems to have trouble keeping them open.
New York is the boss of her world -- more powerful than anyone but her mother, who presides over the affair like an irritated ice queen. But her suitors are bumbling; it doesn't feel so bad to see them squirm, particularly since they're largely in on the joke.
In the case of the Pussycat Dolls, it's women doing the groveling. And the contract they've entered seems to require that they take an optimistic view of Antin. (It's unclear, in the premiere, whether 20-year-old Jaime is saying "She's like an icon" or "She's, like, an icon," but the former is probably closer to the truth.)
With her amply lined lips, Antin bears more than a passing resemblance to former supermodel Janice Dickinson, whose own show, "The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency," ended its second season on Oxygen last week. But Dickinson never hides her snarls; she's doling out tough love, in the face of a tough business.
Antin is peddling a different brand of sisterhood, one of thinly masked sadism. She jumps up and down like a schoolgirl as she shows off the finalists' living quarters, then invites them to a hip LA restaurant for a dinner that turns out to be a contest. In this case, the girls must demonstrate their "confidence" by donning lingerie and dancing inside a glass box.
As usual, the contestants don't peep; they dutifully bump and grind. Nor do they question the fuzzy distinction the judges make between "sexy" and "stripperesque." It's impossible to watch these women high-kick and tell who's getting closest to the ideal.
That's part of the secret of a show like "American Idol." Simon Cowell's standards are clear: You've either hit the money note or you haven't. This year contestants have felt empowered to sass him and the other judges. In the subjective world of beauty and femininity, the hopefuls don't dare complain. Certainly not on "The Agency," as Becky, ever-scowling, dismisses every would-be model in her path. "She's not symmetrical," she barked about one woman, as if that were a character flaw.
Of course, that's part of what makes the show feel real; there's no contest to win, no promise of moral victory, no false description of what modeling represents. The women set themselves up to be dehumanized, examined for blemishes and stray centimeters of fat.
And Becky doesn't pretend to be an icon, herself. When she demonstrates the art of photo-shoot modeling for one willowy contender -- gyrating her shorter, chunkier body with impressive fluidity -- she's not a bit self-conscious. It's just business. It's a kinder way to treat your charges, all in all. Becky isn't a friend. She's not quite an enemy. She's just speaking the dressed-down truth, with an unforgiving eye.