The Amazing Race - BOWLING WOMB

As follow up to part of last night's post, I want to examine my support for the Bowling Moms. I wondered why I would pull for such an easily typed team constituted by their ostensible wholesomeness and outward mediocrity (cos, you know, bowling), which in short translates their roles as tenacious underdogs. Those two hallmarks I just mentioned -- wholesomeness and bowling -- are probably the among the very aspects that make them appealing to me.

Attributing their team identity as mothers obviously contributes to their wholesomeness, but why exactly do I like them for this particular quality? After watching the repellent "personalities" on The Apprentice, the admirably Machiavellian machinations on Survivor: All-Stars, and Top Model's alternately inanity and bloated self-righteousness, I've been saturated on bad behavior, though if you make the assertion that their appeal is because of a yearning for "simpler times," I'ma punch you inna face! The Bowling Moms buck the trend against the homogenization of characters on reality television -- seemingly dominated by Richard Hatch-wannabes -- and I'm sticking with that as my story (i.e. if instead goody-two-shoes peppered the casts of reality shows, I'd eventually gravitate towards positively evil characters).

Second, the bowling. If were no more than cherubic middle-aged women, they'd be retreads, well-meaning but ultimately dispensible. But they have a coherent aesthetic (admittedly a gimmicky one) that trounces the "styleless" style of typical housewives.

Of course, taken separately, these two factors wouldn't amount to much, but their combination creates an idiosyncratic duo who aren't that young or fresh-faced or even cynical/ironical, but (oh god I'm actually going to type this) unprepossessing and genuine people who aren't merely using a reality program to audition themselves into ephemeral celebrity.