so. i had seen commercials for this show and i was immediately ready to write it off. it's supposed to profile the 'glamorous lives of those in the industry' aka video girls. okay, anyone who knows anything about the industry knows that life as a video girl is anything but glamorous. even if you 'make it' a la superhead and are treated like the recycling rather than straight garbage, life is rough. that is not a stable living, even with an agency. i would venture to guess most of these girls are waitresses or something on the side. there is no way you can support yourself as a career video girl--there just aren't that many videos and they don't pay that much! if they consider themselves glamorous bc they get to vie for the attention of random rappers up close and personal ('i got to sleep with so and so!') then they can have that, but don't try to make people think that life as a video girl is 1) glamorous 2) anything to aspire toward.
let me talk about the show. the show is based on this woman danielle and her 'agency' called candy girls (let it not escape you that wikipedia's entry for candy girls says 'a line of sex dolls manufactured by orient industries). the other women in the cast are danielle's go-to makeup lady/stylist, who seems to lack personal style (she is tyson beckford's baby momma--hmm. i didn't think tyson was straight), some woman who wasn't in the first show and then the video girls. there is brooke, terrica, olivia, and blanca. i was hesitant to use this picture for this post bc these girls look *nothing* like these pics. they are average at best for the most part (olivia and brooke are pretty girls) but somehow think they are god's gift to tv. we know there's room for average girls in video girl world *if* you are thick (ie. we'll put you in the video but won't show your face unless it's a quick flash, in the dark, or a silhouette) but these girls are none of that. they are all pretty skinny and need lots of makeup to look any better than that woman you just passed on the street.
the dialogue on the show made me cringe from embarrassment. i knew it would be scripted and fake. i did not know it would be soooo embarrassing! first of all, this little olivia girl is just painful to watch. if she is that naive and sheltered, she need not be on this show. we are supposed to believe she was at ucla and she is trying to be an actress by exposing herself to 'the industry' as a video girl. a few problems: she is shy, naive, and her attempt at acting--fail. how are you going to be a shy video girl??
then it went straight to stereotypes--the darker skinned girls were the attitudinal ones from the jump, the lighter skinned girls were the sweet innocent ones. i don't even want to mention how if blanca was as funny looking as she is but brown she wouldn't be considered beautiful, attractive, or whatever else we're supposed to think they are. terrica's attitude almost cost her her job as she took the attitudinal black b**** thing to a whole new level. and she is just mean for no reason but is a mother (ps-where is her daughter while she's supposed to be living in this house?).
oh and then we're led to believe that it is a rite of passage for minority women to go to jail/be arrested as the group scoffs at olivia for not ever having been arrested. it was almost too much to bear.
i don't know where they're going from here, but you can pretty much count me out.
overall impression: womp, womp
