Reality Sucks

I’m not talking about my reality for a change. You can all relax. No deep painful personal confessions from me today, just a little commentary on reality tv and what I’ve recently seen.

I don’t watch lots of tv, but I always have a couple favorites, a Tuesday night show, or a Sunday evening program, something I can generally watch with the kids, and something that allows me to root for folks. Survivor is too cut throat for me and far more suitable for the Bombshell heroine than the Presents girl, anyway. No, I like The Bachelor, and Dancing with the Stars (and the one making the loudest gagging noises is my own boyfriend but hey, I’m a drama queen, I love drama and am comfortable with it.)

With that said, Sunday night on Dancing with the Stars finale, and last night with Bachelor’s final episode I witnessed two injustices, and while both are different, they’ve impacted me the same.

I lie in bed and think, this is wrong.

Bachelor–the sexy doctor fell for a great girl, a pretty bubbly Kindergarten teacher from his own hometown, Nashville. How perfect is that? Not much more perfect, but I was surprised because I didn’t see a lot of chemistry between them. I saw them hug, and quick pecky kisses, but nothing hot and smoldering. Not like he had with Moana. Moana was surprised by his choice, too, and her shock, and anguish made me want to turn the t.v. off. She fell for this guy so hard, and she felt so happy and so comfortable and so pretty and sexy and smart and clever with him, that for her to discover he felt nothing of the sort, that he had in fact, fallen in love with Sara from Nashville, shattered her. On national television. And I felt evil for watching. And knowing. And turning out my lights and climbing into my bed with my heart intact while hers wasn’t. It might be real, but it didn’t seem fair.

But what makes it worse is that all along I was pulling for Sarah from Nashville. She seemed like such an underdog with all the glamour girls stacked on the show. I liked her because she wasn’t as plastic as some…she just seemed real and I thought that made her the underdog. Boy, was I wrong.

Which leads me to Dancing with the Stars finale. The beautiful, undeniably talented, remarkably focused Stacy Keibler and her professional partner Tony were standouts on the show all season. They were head and shoulders above most of the couples and yet in the last night, in the final round of public voting, they didn’t make the final two. She got the judges’ votes, but not the audience’s. Why not? She was gorgeous, and the judges adored her, and her endless legs and blonde smiling perfection made her amazing to watch…but were you pulling for her? Rooting for her? Wanting her to win more than anyone else?

Probably not. And I’ll tell you why.

She was too together. She looked like a champ, performed like a star, had the judges gushing, and received three or four sets of perfect scores…she didn’t need us. She didn’t need me. She was doing just fine on her own. (And if you’re wondering who I voted for it was Jerry Rice each and every week, although I did once cast a vote for Drew Lachey because he was good.)

But once Lisa was out. Once the beautiful leggy blonde had to sit down, she became mortal. And she became real. And she became loved.

And it’s not fair that we have to wait until we’re broken to be accepted. But the world loves a good story and there’s nothing more rousing than an underdog.

Problem is, do we ever truly know who the real underdog is? We all assumed it was Jerry Rice because he was NFL’s greatest wide receiver and unlikely dancer, but thinking on it more, maybe the gorgeous leggy blonde who made it all look so easy was the real underdog. Because how many American women sitting out there, watching this sexy, incredibly slim beauty wanted her to win? Based on my own favorites, I’d say not many. So who is the underdog now?