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Cupid
I'm having a flashback to
my boyish childhood...and I deserve it. Long ago, the airwaves were filled
with male chauvinist crap (yes, ladies, even more than they are now!). Girlfriends would tell me such shows were
chauvinist crap, and I'd nod like a good gentlemen and change the channel.
However, even the
best of gentlemen cannot feel what the women feel, until they witness
sexist crap, the other way around. Welcome to Cupid: the most
sexist, egotistical, hypocritical, bigoted piece of reality TV fluff to
come down the female chauvinist turnpike in ages. Make sure your roller
coaster supports are locked, kids; this review is going to be a bumpy
ride!
Here's the deal: a
bachelorette is up for grabs. She is given a million dollar
"dowry," though only if she can find a suitable suitor, get him
to marry her, and stay married for at least one full year. The guys who
pass the nationwide auditions –NY, LA, Chicago, and Miami– are sent to
LA, where the prospects are narrowed down to 10. By this time, the
audience chooses, once a week, which guy will go, one by one, until there’s
only one guy left. Will he propose? Will she accept? That’s up to her.
 Let
me begin with the series' best trait: the chosen barchelorette, Lisa
Shannon. A 25 year old TV commercial writer, she is not your
average reality TV fluff-piece. One wonders why a woman like this isn't
married yet if she wants marriage, but ...whatever. It would be a pleasure to see Lisa
find her one true love. If only this show could help her. Yeah: if only.
Right.
Mind you, some aspects of the show are
inspired. For one, the concept of a show letting the viewers decide who
inevitably wins, means one thing: this show is much more LIVE than most of
the reality TV fluff out there! No "pre
taped three months ago" nonsense; these dates happen in the span of
the week that just passed, with the edited footage aired just days later.
Okay, so that isn't "live" exactly, though when most reality TV
is pre-taped many months in advance, I'll take what I can get. There's no chance
of the tabloids spoiling the ending to this show. Huzzah!
The methodology for choosing the last ten
men is amusing, too. See, each prospective suitor must be interviewed in
front of Lisa, and two of her friends. The possibility that they are among
the final 10, depends on a tribunal of sorts; two of the three
women must give a thumbs-up, and they've got a shot at the bachelor pad in
L.A. This sounds fair on paper, because if one of the ladies got up on
the wrong side of the bed that day, the other two can out-vote her. Yeah,
I'm sure that's what the folks at CBS had thought too: it sounds
fair enough...
 Here's
where the flaws with this show come cascading in. First, the tribunal is
supposed to include Lisa's two "close
friends." Apparently her best friends were too busy to go out
of town, so Lisa
has to settle for her
hairdresser and a business colleague. While people can say these are
her best friends in the whole world, come on: where is the typical friend
since grade school...the sister she always confides in...the sorority
sister she shared her deepest secrets with...? Lisa tells us she's very
family oriented, and keeps in touch with her sister, two brothers,
and both parents. Sadly, none were available to be part of this tribunal.
Poor Lisa.
 Mind
you, a business colleague can be the best blend of friendship and
impartiality. For this
reason, I'll give a modest thumbs-up to Kimberly --on escrow-- because she
has yet to grate on my nerves yet. She also made episode 2 network gold,
when she finally told Laura to shut up. Who's Laura,
you ask? You might be afraid you did...
Which brings us to Lisa's other friend,
Laura. Where do I begin with this woman...? Let's put it this way: just
because  you're a woman, doesn't mean you can't be as arrogant, caustic,
sardonic, smug, and sexist as any "good ol' boy" down the
chauvinist turnpike. That's Laura to a "T"; a woman who could go
to charm school for a week, and
still be obnoxious enough to piss off Gandhi. What's worse; the
stage must always be hers, as if she forgot Lisa is the star of
the show, dear. This is a girl who'd insult the clothes a man is
wearing, all while wearing what by all accounts looks like a doily from her Grandmother's dinner table. What-ever.
Fortunately,
weeding out the letches in the prospective suitors has been pretty
easy...or so the edited footage tells us. Here is a small sample of
men that were given the heave-ho: a 41 year old postman (remember: Lisa is
25); a guy who demands to be called "Super Dan" ('nuf
said there); a guy with an obsession for porn, who actually asked Lisa if
she'd like to film a movie with him (!!!); and the
typical clueless dude who needed security to escort him out.
Yeah; it makes sense that they'd boot those guys. Lots of sense.
 It's
who they eventually choose that gets me. Meet Nate: Ex-college
football player. He seems like a nice enough guy,
though what does this guy bring with him? Why, his college football ring,
and a poster of his team; that's what. Mind you, this guy could've brought
three lawn ornaments made by the neighbor's dog, and they'd still have chosen him. Sure, I'm
being unfair here, though mind you: this isn't "The Dating
Game"; it's a search for a husband and hopefully, a potential father
someday. What's the biggest
requirement...? Being cute. Harrumph.
Such is the Tao of Getting a Date for Lisa.
One guy was nice enough to bring roses for the ladies, with a red one for
Lisa, and pink ones for her friends. This was a cute enough gesture though
it makes you wonder if all a guy needed to get "in" on this show
was three long stemmed roses. Man, that's deep, isn't it? It doesn't help when Lisa's
commentary after Mr. Rose's acceptance was that he was a "tall drink of water."
For those keeping score at home, so far we have two proven requirements of the finalists: 1) tall
drink of water, and 2) a total cutie. I've heard of "lowering your
standards" to find a husband, yet this is just bananas.
The truth is, the more I think of this
factor of Cupid, the more I wonder if it's taking one step forward
for feminism, yet two steps back. Every time a nice guy comes through the
curtains --say, someone like "Bob" from The Bachelorette,
slightly chubby though with a vibrant sense of humor-- the ladies ask him
question after question, looking for a reason to trash him down. Then some
cutie-pie comes through the curtains acting like "a cupie doll, tee-hee!"
and suddenly there are schoolgirl giggles and twirled hair around the
fingers and a unanimous "Welcome to Cupid!" <Groan.>
Jumping ahead to the final 15 minutes of the
series finale,
the final guy is about to get married, and instead offers a speech about
how he'd like to forget the million, not get married, and just get to know
her first until they get married on their own. I'm not a
conspiracy theorist by nature, but...oh...come...on! My
guess is that the real final vote was for the other finalist; a
complete mismatch for Lisa who the audience voted
for because...well, because sometimes people can be mean. Lisa obviously
didn't love him; the audience kept voting for him. My personal feeling
will always be that they gave Mr. "I don't care about the million
dollars let's date" a stipend to keep his trap shut and give Lisa an
easy out. Mind you; that's the best possibility. The more likely
possibility is that even the final guy didn't want to get married, making
this entire series a complete and total waste of time.
Not that we were watching
much up to that final 15 minutes. I think the biggest sign
of failure for this show is in how it not only lost my interest, but all
my female fellow couch potatoes' interests as well. I didn't even have to
go into a "this is sexist crap" tirade to get them to change the
channel; they were already on a different station before I could even take
a deep breath. To use the same biting smugness of the female tribunal:
your show stinks, ladies. Though, hey, good luck getting a decent husband,
Lisa. It's not like this show helped.
---Techtite
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