*Project Runway* lets me down

You'll think this is terribly naive of me, but last week I lost my innocence with respect to reality television. For the last year or so, I've become an avid watcher of Project Runway, which will be a surprise to anyone who knows my extreme reluctance to invest any time or money with clothes and fashion. My mate got me into it. At first it was only something to do while snuggling on the couch; I brought my book with me. Gradually I came to see that clothing design is an art form like any other; following its trends is no more inherently contemptible than following literary trends. Tim Gunn is a delight, providing the kind of compassionate, honest critique I aspire to as a teacher and workshopper. And besides, the human drama is riveting. Watching the designers try to maintain grace under the pressure of extreme desire and fear as they wait onstage to hear whether they will be eliminated is a moral education just like literature is. I'm often very impressed by their integrity. (Whether it's at all decent to exploit that kind of mental suffering by actual people for mass entertainment is a different question.)

So, but, okay, Season 8, Episode 9, "Race to the Finish." At the end of the previous week, Episode 8, the preview scenes showed Tim saying to Valerie "You can't forfeit!" Then the bathroom door swinging shut and Gretchen saying: "Val...?" And then Tim in the workroom in announcement mode saying "Even I'm shaking over this." My mate and I looked at each other in wild surmise: what's next? A contestant dropping out? (It's happened before.) A trip to the hospital? (It's happened before.) Worse?

http://www.mylifetime.com/shows/project-runway/season-8/video/full-episodes/episode-8/a-rough-day-on-the-runway

Well, what it was, really, was nothing. The implied narrative arc among these three incidents was a complete fabrication. Tim's "shaking" was just a commiseration with all the designers over the not-really-all-that-surprising twist added to the ongoing challenge (create a ready-to-wear complement to the high-fashion piece). The "forfeit" business was only an offhand bit of teachery encouragement. And the bathroom weeping was unconnected with either of the other moments of dialogue and action. AND they were put out of chronological order.

Oh! Oh! I'm so disappointed in the person who bears moral responsibility for this piece of blatant fibbing. The director, would that be? Well, not Tim, anyway, I comfort myself.

I mean, of course the material for any show like this is manipulated, shape is imposed on umpteen hours of raw footage edited down to a scant one hour. I knew that. But there are honest and dishonest ways to do that kind of artistic manipulation, and I guess somewhere in the back of my head I assumed, naively no doubt, that Project Runway was more or less honest. Now it's right up there in the front of my head: What if there are things in the show that are lies in the same way that trailer was a lie? Nothing prevents it. This could be happening all the time, and I wouldn't necessarily know it.

The Project Runway trailer reminds me a bit of emotional upsets that my mate and I had early on, before we arrived by mutual efforts at our present happy state of stable equanimity, affectionate generosity, and tolerance. Not that there was any dishonesty involved in the case of our relationship, but I would be shocked sometimes to learn that out of two or three of what I had regarded as completely trivial and unrelated incidents over the course of a few days, she had constructed a linked narrative of inconsiderate behavior rising to a plot climax. I've been the object of unflattering narrative-construction at work also, where Dr. X believes, on the basis of a botched communication from Dr. Y, plus another unfortunate coincidence--I happened to be present when somebody asked him something he didn't like, but it wasn't my idea, but he probably thought it was--that I'm an enemy. Alas! There's pretty much no fixing that impression at this point. Every new contact between us gets grafted onto the existing story.

And then, and then... what if--? Could I myself, honest memoirist that I am, also be falling into unconscious narrativization errors? Creating a storyline at times where none really exists, from random events no more related in the real world than the stars of the astrological constellations? It's what people do. It's what Buddhist teachers are warning us about when they tell us to "drop all the stories we tell ourselves."

Okay, I'll try to keep a skeptical eye on my human tendency to narrativize, and I hope y'all will too. But as for the Project Runway preview, that's just despicable.

Lesbian Vampire

Oh, no, no, Rachel, no.

I watched the podcast (a day late as usual) of the Rachel Maddow show from Friday, September 17. The film clip ("The Shocking Truth About Rachel Maddow")of the redneck guy denouncing you for being an out lesbian and very probably also a closeted vampire was very funny, of course, but it made me uneasy, because I knew the guy couldn’t be for real. Where did this fairly obvious plant come from? thinks I, and is Rachel’s show in on the deception, or not? Much as I admire your work, I admit I felt a qualm. Unless the podcast somehow differed from the live show, the source of the final segment was not identified in any way, neither by Rachel nor by the speaker in the video. That’s a dangerous habit on a news show, a real news show, something that fits in quite a different category from, on the one hand, Stewart or Colbert, and on the other hand anything broadcast by Fox….



I’ve since learned that the persona of “Billy Bob Neck” is the creation of comedian Paul Day. So, whew, I don’t need to fear for the Maddow show’s integrity. This was satire, and intended—??—I guess—to be recognized immediately as satire. Though it would have helped if you hadn’t clipped off the beginning of the video where Day says “This is Billy Bob Neck…” The outrageous name, along with the exaggerated accent and mannerisms, might have been just enough to clue in all reasonably savvy viewers. But as it is, a significant percentage of the commenters on the Maddow Blog clearly took the performance straight: “Another Tea Tard trying to 'think'!” and “He is what he is, bless his heart.”

Rachel, you have to be careful. You’re an important cultural voice now. Vice presidents speak to you. Right-wingers campaign for public office as if they were running against you: this is evidence that you’re making a difference in the political landscape. Don’t jeopardize that for a lark. Sure, be news with humor, news with lively commentary, news grounded in a particular perspective, but don’t do anything that’ll make it easier for people outside your most devoted base to see you as simply the mirror-image on the left of the distortion machine on the right. After the ACORN smear, after the Sherrod fiasco, surely it’s clear that high-minded progressives need to avoid even the appearance of impropriety in how video clips are presented? Otherwise, there goes the center-right and center (if anyone is still in the center): You see? they’ll say. Both sides are equally extreme, equally biased, and take equally cheap shots. And since it’s now been established that no one at all can be trusted to hold accurate reporting as a higher value than their short-term political agenda, then we might as well just tune in to whatever panders most effectively to our current feelings.

What I’m saying: don’t give your detractors any ammunition. I hope when I watch Monday’s podcast (on Tuesday), I’ll hear you say “Just in case some of the viewers didn’t get the joke, the “lesbian vampire” guy is comedian Paul Day….” I know, you did it on the blog. But that’s not enough.