Stylista - 1x08 "The Right Fit"

In perhaps the ultimate twist of reality tv irony, the most professional and drama-averse contestant in a crowd of half-talented, back-stabbing, petty, infantile, entitled, short-sighted, misanthropic, misogynist, profligate goons and goonettes took home the top prize*, and cold is the heart that didn't skip a beat when Johanna sat at her desk and gazed with starry eyes at her new gig.

I've been conditioned by the prodigious amounts of reality tv I've watched to automatically assume that her choices in the final task would implode spectacularly. Seemingly putting all her eggs into the structured + purple basket? Monopolizing creative input? Th-th-that's reality tv hubris! But Stylista -- or, rather, Elle -- exists in the real world, too, and in the real world, spelling counts.

Less glibly, I'm struggling to disentangle Johanna's two decisions and place them back in a workplace context; I can see the purple/structured gambit as a savvy move, risky yet borne out of her confidence, but when she marginalized her assistants, I read her move as "doesn't play well with others," and I'm still surprised that Joe Zee and what'shermanagingeditorface saw it as an example of bold leadership. On the other hand, they didn't see how, through sheer force of will, Johanna extinguished a percolating crisis -- of which Megan was dying to be the center** -- so positive and negative cancel out.


* That's an analogy to half a dozen different things that have happened these last couple months, not the least of which was the vote that determined our new winner of Survivor
** Here's a tip: if you're going to quit a reality show, just leave, don't go for the histrionics of trying to get the cameras to stop filming your exit, and under no circumstances should you go back up the center of action to give yourself a dramatic send off... only to be talked out of it. Also, it's pretty clear that Megan has never interviewed for a real job.

Indie rating: Paula Frazer & Tarnation - "Pretend"

Stylista - 1x05 "It's All About Who You Know"

Proof that I'll watch anything.

First of all, I expected Stylista to be a trampier reality version of The Devil Wears Prada, but instead I can't stop watching a reality competition with the worst, most detestable cast I've seen in a long time. In descending order of loathsomeness:

Megan
She's a 22-year-old boutique owner, which smells like mom and dad are loaded and have spoiled Princess with her own store/life, which seemingly manifests in Megan's imperiousness. She combines narcissistic egotism with a fickle persecution complex, repeatedly asserting that only she deserves to win, but rather than compete on merits, Megan resorts to strategizing that's simultaneously heavy-handed and feeble. In the beginning of the season, she teamed her strongest competition (Ashlie) with the weakest competitor (Kate), hoping that the latter would drag down the former in a blaze of ineptitude. How Ashlie would be eliminated when she was on the same team as CWL (Consensus Weakest Link) Kate -- a Zen koan. When this master plan somehow failed, she acted like nothing less than Fate itself conspired to thwart her -- if Megan can't effect a certain result, then no one can. Ever since then, she's more inclined to viciously insult Kate rather than prove she has what it takes to etc.
Hate Rating: Forced gender reassignment surgery so that I can kick her in the balls

DyShaun
His witless barbarity -- e.g. throwing two fists in the air and yelling "YES!" when a catfight was threatening -- might be a more voyeuristic and ironized hoot, but his banal mediocrity (constantly reiterating that he'd be outraged if Kate outlasted him in the competition, when he's so far misspelled names and omitted credits) makes me want to punch this social excrement in the throat.
Hate Rating: One million throat punches

Ashlie
After CWL Kate avoided elimination for about the fourth time, Ashlie broke down into hysterical tears, screaming that she didn't "understand anything anymore!" and having to be restrained. Laughably pathetic.
Hate Rating: Reading Of Grammatology

Kate
An enigma wrapped in breast implants and lip collagen. Kate started off as the underdog, as everyone took one look at her unavoidable heaving embonpoint and heard her ditzy little girl voice and promptly dismissed her. Yet, along the way, she's evinced preternaturally sharp editorial and fashion instincts (nailing the outréness of a spread on metallics, noting the repetitiveness of the wood-paneled backgrounds in a page of party photos) even as her teammates marginalized her, which inevitably led to a biosphere of interpersonal tension and recriminations; team dismisses her opinions as worthless in the midst of challenges, boss lady Anne Slowey eventually validates those very opinions, Kate pipes up during elimination panels, team accuses her of throwing them under the bus. Naturally, she's been painted into a confrontational corner -- the house talks constantly about her, she's compelled to defend herself, and fights become unavoidable. Then, maybe as a result of all the recriminations, she struggles to integrate her divergent opinions with the rest of her team, or maybe she just doesn't get along well with others. Notably, though, the one time someone didn't underestimate her, Kate failed spectacularly, preferring to quit preparations the night before a challenge, and then investing her most of her attention on checking her lip gloss during the challenge. Also, when she called her mother for moral support, describing how the entire cast was abusing her, her mother told her to come home without further delay. Some mom.
Hate Rating: Motorboatin'

Danielle
The token regular girl, though "regular" in Stylista context dovetails with obese, which would normally be of no consequence, but that Danielle pointedly defended her weight when a challenge involved raiding the Elle closet (full of size 2s and 0s) by saying that she's at peace with her body image (fine, if she actually believes it) because she's at a normal, healthy weight (not quite).
Hate Rating: Fatcamp

Johanna
Here we depart from my polemics, as I'm completely undone by Johanna. She's a military analyst (despite my liberal bonafides, my inner/outer geek is geeked out) who speaks Chinese (definitely with a foreign accent, but I bet her vocabulary's heh heh bigger than mine), who is unusually expressive for a human, professional enough to try to avoid the nightly Kate dramas, and heady enough to over-intellectualize her tasks (an unironically appealing trait)(instead of trying to absorb all 85 names, she and her two teammates should have each taken half of the names so that they'd have less memorize while still maintaining redundancy!). Despite her grown-up demeanor, Johanna still has child-like moments, such as when she was completely undone by the opening of the Elle closet, at which point she could barely speak.
Infatuation Rating: I'll be your Sugar Daddy

Indie rating: Bob Dylan - "Visions of Johanna"