My Life, Made Possible By Pop Culture

With the summer television season just around the corner, the influx of new reality shows about to inundate our small screens is just about inevitable.  With gems like Farmer Wants A Wife or The Greatest American Dog set to hit primetime, we can be breathe a little sigh of relief that at least they can’t possibly be as bad as some of reality shows past… or so we hope.

In 2005, USC professor Todd Boyd made a prediction to his students that the next big thing in hip-hop was going to be a white, female MC.  Three years later the infamous MC Serch branded EgoTrip and brought forth Miss Rap Supreme, a competition reality show featuring ten aspiring MCs who are picked to live together in the same house while battling each other for the same prize: $100,000 and the title of “Miss Rap Supreme.”  Unfortunately for VH1, no self-respecting MC would submit themselves to a show that uses only four initial bars to figure out who has the most talent.  With the actual amount of spitting (lyrics) kept to less than ten minutes of on-screen time, Miss Rap Supreme is filled with tasks and challenges that have nothing to do with embracing hip-hop swagger, and just make all the ladies in the house (but MC Serch most of all) look like fools.  Even co-host Yo-Yo can’t hold back her embarrassment at being involved with the show, and every week, she grimaces like she’s counting down for the damn thing to be done.

Hooking a loved one up to a lie detector test and forcing him or her to reveal answers in front of a live studio audience, three cameras, and a nation sounds, in theory, like a recipe for some laughs, and assumedly, that’s what Fox was banking on with Moment of Truth.  Unfortunately, host Mark L. Wahlberg drums up extra drama by insinuating salaciousness and pausing strategically with every question.  When he asked a contestant on a recent episode if he had ever felt attraction to another man, the wide-eyed expressions and audible gasping caused more controversy than was warranted and basically set the progression of the network back a couple of decades.

Fox’ The Swan and it’s little sister on MTV, I Want A Famous Face, were more than just your typical feel-good-makeover shows, as they both promoted the use of drastic plastic surgery to make the contestants all new people.  The Swan even went so far as to “rank” the successes of the surgeries by crowning a winner, and I Want A Famous Face encouraged teenagers to conform even more than typical peer pressure by indulging them in the nose jobs, chin implants, and veneers to resemble their favorite actors and/or other public personalities.  The result was always a bit more robotic than organic, and we couldn’t help but wonder what would happen when the pain meds wore off, and they realized they actually look nothing like said celebrities… or even a passable human being.

Reality shows featuring the Why Are They Even On TV? personalities have always been head-scratchers.  Who are these well-coiffed but little known people and why do they warrant their own shows?  More importantly, why do we watch?  MTV’s There And Back followed former boy band member Ashley Parker Angel (of O-Town infamy) and his struggles for a solo career and to become a family man; Keeping Up With The Kardashians (E!) follows three sisters of a very affluent and fashion-obsessed family as they party, primp and process, getting ready to party, and then primp and process, recovering from their partying.  While LA locals have known the Kardashian name for years, very few knew the faces until this show came along, and most are still left wondering just why exactly they’re famous in the first place.  Similarly, E!’s new Living Lohan features the not-so-glamorous escapades of Dina and Ali, neither of whom is very interesting on her own, nor would be in the limelight without Lindsay’s public career and even more public legal troubles.

Flavor of Love has become the quintessential trashy competition for “love” reality show, making a mockery out of the concept in the process.  Taking the lesser-respected half of a 1990s rap-duo, VH1 hoped by casting twenty wannabe actor and/or models and plying them with plenty of alcohol, they would have an instant hit on their hands… and they did, if you consider a train-wreck a hit (with both, sometimes you can’t look away).  Flavor of Love gives reality dating shows a bad name because of all of the screeching, hair pulling, finger pointing, and drunken hysterics, sure, but mostly because the guy at the center (Flavor Flav, who is supposedly looking for a soulmate) is such a cartoon and can’t be taken seriously; news of casting the newest season spreads while the current season is still airing, so clearly he, just like all of the contestants, are only in it to get on television.  Due to its ratings success, Flavor of Love can even be blamed for the slew of spin-offs and copycat dating disasters (I Love New York, That’s Amore!, Rock of Love) running rampant recently, too; need we say more?

Time and again Mariah Carey has claimed she is “eternally twelve,” but her most recent album, E=MC2 takes her fans back to 1989, when at the ingenue age of nineteen, her demos were up-tempo, her skirts were short, and figure was waify– before Tommy and Sony got a hold of her and molded her into the ballad queen, putting her in high-necked but form-fitting dresses that made her look (and sound) much older than her years. The Mariah of E=MC2 is the not the sober, somber MC from “Close My Eyes,” “Looking In,” or “Outside;” she is fun, flirty, and seemingly the most comfortable in her own skin that she has ever been. “Touch My Body,” then, a light-hearted, G-rated romp, was the perfect choice for the first single to showcase not only the place Mariah is in today but also to fit in nicely with the place radio is in today. It was no surprise that “Touch My Body” quickly soared to Number 1, making it Mariah’s eighteenth hit, and officially crowning her the biggest selling female artist of all time. After surpassing Elvis, Mariah was on track to take on the Fab Four themselves, but unfortunately her deeply personal “Bye Bye” never reached those same heights, holding Mariah at bay from that coveted nineteen.

Where “Touch My Body” was tongue-in-cheek and kitschy, “Bye Bye” was a regression to her early nineties debut on the music scene. For the true lambs, this was Classic Mariah at her best: emotional and chock full of the powerhouse five-octave notes that made her a superstar. For newer listeners and the ones who wrote her off during the tumultuous 2001 escapades, though, “Bye Bye” was a little too old-school. Radio may be almost dead in its traditional sense, with MTV, VH1, and BET following suit (their line-up boasts so many reality shows now that their On-Demand channel doesn’t even offer videos anymore!), but the Internet has busted open the music industry, introducing potential new fans to artists they might never have found without the aid of MySpace or iTunes. And unfortunately, the Internet is a very vapid, superficial place. With thirty second preview clips offered, there has to be a solid (usually fast-paced) hook to get “the kids” coming back, as most of them want light-hearted, at times comical, joints that they can bump in their cars just as they would in the clubs.

With a deep bass driving beat and equally deep romantic lyrics, Mariah’s just-announced third single off E=MC2, “Love Story,” stands a better shot than the death-laden “Bye Bye” at turning into her next Number 1. Both are stripped-down songs returning to reliance on the simplicity of a strong vocal– even the video for “Bye Bye” features the normally glitter-glam Mariah in a simple pair of jeans and white tee. Returning to her roots as a storyteller, Mariah no longer uses a million and one metaphors (to this day most don’t realize “Vision of Love” was about the power of God) to tell her stories. In “Love Story,” she weaves a tale of a young couple as they come together after time just specific enough to raise eyebrows about her own relationship (”And then his friends/Said “it’s too soon to settle down”/And then her friends/Said “he’s a playa, slow it down…”) and just general enough to create yet another one for the prom play list.

And that’s what Mariah’s lambs love most about her: the intricacy with which she can weave details of her own sagas into songs that really could be speaking to just about any (and every)one. Will that translate into widespread, mainstream success, though? For the casual listener, as long as they’re entertained, they don’t really care how, and in today’s frenetic, ADD-laded society, what entertains is often only the flashy. “Love Story’s” climb on the charts may rely very heavily on its video then, so though I never thought I’d say this, Mariah’s camp would be well-advised to follow a little more in Bret Ratner’s lead of “Touch My Body” than the home movie route of “Bye Bye.”

Those Winchester boys just can’t seem to escape the demons of hell they inadvertently set loose at the end of season one of Supernatural. Unfortunately for the actors that portray Sam and Dean (Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, respectively), though they’re currently the ones doing the chasing on the small screen (and in those exploits they are doing their fighting together), the tables are about to be turned and the stakes (as well as the screen) are about to get bigger, pitting brother against brother in a battle for the number one box office spot.

Perhaps due to a bit of typecasting, both Ackles and Padalecki have been cast in upcoming horror films– films, I might add, that were originally supposed to be released on the same day of February 13 2009. Since the initial announcements, however, Ackles’ My Bloody Valentine 3-D (which we’ll get to in a minute) has been pushed up to late January to keep it out of direct competition with such a similar release. Undoubtedly, though, it will still be in theaters when Padalecki’s Friday the 13th remake premieres, and can’t you just hear the studios’ bickering now?

The comparisons and pitting of brother against brother started early, when Padalecki was the first to sign onto a summer project, nabbing the role of Clay in the Friday the 13th remake. While not much is known about the characters or the plot, it is safe to assume Padalecki’s role will closely mirror that of his in the 2005 version of House of Wax. With floppy brown hair, a non-threatening wide white smile, and two pencil eraser-sized dimples, Padalecki pretty much screams innocent in such material. In House of Wax, he played the supporting male eye candy, a character who was the sensitive boyfriend type, and who managed to appear pensive even when poking around a creepy mausoleum. Though it was obvious from the get-go he would be… getting it, so to speak, his death scene did at least provide one of the cooler visuals in recent horror film history.

Only a few weeks after the trades reported Padalecki’s deal, Ackles’ followed suit with the lead in My Bloody Valentine 3-D. Just like with his straight-to-DVD indie release, Devour, Ackles’ character in My Bloody Valentine 3-D promises to encompass his trademark duality with which fans and critics alike have fallen in love. Hopping from sarcastic to sadistic with just a slight adjustment of a smirk and in a split second, Ackles successfully towed the line between the game-manipulated and the Satanic manipulator in Devour. Though the film as a whole often felt contrived, Ackles’ boyish charm kept the audience in the journey, and you wanted to root for him, even when it seemed clear he was the bad guy. As Tom, a man who returns to his hometown on the eve of the anniversary of a twenty-two victim massacre, Ackles will have to tap into the same conflicting emotions to throw the audience off the track, as he will be suspected of those original murders while inevitably getting caught in the middle of a new string of violence.

So whose film will come out on top… or as the months and weeks tick off on the calendar, will the dates just be spread further and further apart so as not to cause the competition after all? The Supernatural fans I spoke to a few months ago at the convention in L.A. all were eager to tell me which brother they fancied most, but will that preference mean they will only see one film to have that brother come out on top? Or will their support for both boys translate to modest numbers for both films? If you’re an avid reader of my blog, you already know where my loyalty (and my money) will lie, but regardless, it is an interesting concept to track nonetheless.

Considering she was seen in the bubblegum pop musical Hairspray only last year and has been quietly designing her own clothing line for tween girls, Amanda Bynes hardly seems a likely candidate for a Whatever Happened To…? segment. However, considering she mastered the art of multi-tasking at the early age of thirteen, embarking on a career that had her bouncing back and forth from television show to television show to movie, this recent change of pace has left her always sunny demeanor and manic peppiness sorely missing in action on both screens alike.

Beginning her career on the Nickelodeon hit All That!, Bynes quickly proved herself as quite the little sponge, soaking up as much as she could from those that went before her in similar roles (the title may have been flippantly tossed at Debra Messing a few years ago, but Bynes truly is the next Lucille Ball), as well as all she could from the set. Though she entered into this business at a young numerical age, Bynes’ wide eyes were not merely with awe; she was overly alert, the wheels turning as she took careful note of how things were working around her and how she could work to improve and further her talent.

Bynes just as quickly won over young fans, as well as their parents, for her girl-next-door appearance and clean sense of humor, which garnered her her own headliner, aptly named The Amanda Show. There she spent two years introducing sketch comedy to a new generation before taking on her first feature in Big Fat Liar, opposite fellow child star Frankie Muniz (ironically, someone who just announced his retirement from entertainment). Bynes’ popularity began to take off like a snowball rolling down a hill, and while voicing a character on the (also Nickelodeon) animated favorite Rugrats, she was given her second show, What I Like About You with Jennie Garth. Finally Bynes was playing to girls her own age.

Proving time and again she is not just another trendy but dumb member of the Young Hollywood elite, Bynes has always chosen her parts carefully, picking scripts that allow her to shine as both a comedienne and a role model. She knows where her talent lies, as well as where her limitations do, and she embraces both, determined to do the bet she can do. She is exceptionally professional, but she is also smart about her decisions; from day one, she was creating a brand, and now she has expanded to do so in the most literal (and lucrative!) sense with her fashion line. Additionally (and exceptionally importantly today), she has kept her personal life out of the flashing paparazzi bulbs, as well, focusing on her work instead of what club she’ll hit tonight. She poured herself into cute and personable turns in teen chick flicks like What A Girl Wants, Lovewrecked, Sydney White, and even a modern day take on Shakespeare with She’s The Man, a group of films which helped parlay her onto the list of the Richest People Under 21 (in 2007).

Perhaps this break, then, is just Bynes choosing to follow in Natalie Portman’s footsteps, someone who said she choose college because “[she’d] rather be smart than be a movie star.” While Bynes may not have enrolled in a university (or maybe she has but has managed to keep that from the press as well), she is undoubtedly off learning something, whether it’s about how to successfully transition from child star to adult actor or just some new things about herself. In that way, she is an even bigger breath of fresh air. Maybe she’s holding out for the perfect script; maybe she’s finally slowing down and taking a much deserved break; or maybe she’s considering pursuing a life in another field altogether. Whatever the case may be, Bynes’ choice to walk away while she was still climbing to the top is admirable; she is a breath of fresh air when she is working and also when she is not.

Welcome and thanks for stopping by! If you surfed onto this site from today.com’s homepage or if you’ve read some of my writing at www.starpulse.com, www.ew.com/ew, or www.socal.com, you can be rest assured that what I will post here will be in a similar vein. Since I was a very young child, pop culture (namely television) has been the main influence on my life and making me the person I am today (whether that’s a positive or a detriment, though, I guess is still left to you to decide). I am motivated to write about the things I love (and often the things I hate, as well). You will see many common themes and some recurring characters in my upcoming articles. When it permits, I will include original photographs and external links, as well. Feel free to leave comments; I welcome them all!  I also welcome suggestions or “assignments:” is there someone I haven’t been writing about whom you think I should?  Are you wondering my opinion on [insert television show here]?  Etc.  Feel free to contact me!