Latest Reality Shows: Getting Worse?
At the risk of having my cultural-commentator card revoked, I have to confess that I’ve gone off watching most of the reality elimination shows lately. “America’s Next Top Model,” hosted by Tyra Banks (pictured), has an increasingly lousy track record of launching its winners into superstardom. The girls get dumber each season, with this year’s edition, set back in New York, the all-time stupidest. As the decibel level has gone up, the IQ level has gone down.
As for “Top Chef,” last week’s season-opener had more cursing than a David Mamet play or a frisky episode of “South Park.” Bleep bleep this; belch belch that. Two of the male contestants were as unable to utter a sentence without a curse word as a Valley Girl is incapable of emitting a phrase without the word “like.” The theatrics, it appears, are only going to escalate this week. I guess that Bravo, which airs the show, got nervous about all the criticism of the latest “Project Runway” being too tame and thus over-compensated by making “Top Chef” as unappetizing as dog doo-doo on brussel sprouts.
