Showdown at the Shopping Mall
Last night I witnessed a rather horrifying spectacle on TV, that I believe should have been reviewed by my sister since she is much better at mocking TV shows than I am. Since she has remained silent on the matter (hopefully because she did not watch it) I must describe for you the following offering from E! Entertainment Television: To Have and To Hold: Last Bride Standing. First, I must admit that I only saw about 45 minutes of this show which is apparently an hour and a half long. Forty-five minutes is more than enough, especially since anyone who has attempted to watch anything on E! knows that it is the only channel on TV that is organized with commercials interrupted by programming breaks rather than the other way around. Strangely, most of the commercials are for other E! programs that will also be brief episodes between commercials. But I digress…
When I flipped onto the E! channel, I beheld a group of women standing in a gazebo in what looked like an outdoor shopping center. The women were arranged in a circle and each of them had a hand on a huge wedding dress. Even I was able to quickly surmise that they were in a contest to win some sort of wedding prize. I didn’t see the opening scrum, so I don’t know who the contestants were or how they were chosen for this great endeavor. I don’t know how many women started up there under the gazebo, but when I turned it on, the remaining brides-to-be had been standing up there for 24 hours.
I had to find out more. It was about 8:45 when I turned it on, so I figured it would all be over within 10 minutes. But 9:00 came and went, and I realized I was in for another 30 minutes of excruciating anticipation. The show was hosted by a box of hammers named Jason Kennedy, who jabbered away nonstop, and had a serious manner as if he were overseeing international peace treaty negotiations rather than a stupid bride stunt in a shopping mall. He was in constant communication with the secret surveillance booth staffed by people who are apparently experts at staring at a TV. Every so often he would lean to the side and press on his earpiece like a reporter in a war zone and then in somber tones throw the show to commercial with the news that the TV watchers needed review tape to see if one of the unlucky brides had taken her hand off the dress.
When I turned the show on, each of the brides was wearing a pair of pointy white high heel shoes and holding a garter in her hand. The shoes were apparently not a part of the contest at the beginning, they were added later to make the brides more uncomfortable and encourage them to let go of the dress. Some of the brides were wearing socks with the shoes, but I’m not sure if that was a personal choice, or if they had to wear socks because they had started the contest with socks. The garters I later realized were trotted out each time Jason Kennedy (the pile of rocks) came by to offer them a prize that they could have if they let go of the dress. When he was done describing the great prize, he instructed them to hold the garters over their heads, and once he had counted to three (no small accomplishment for him) the first bride to drop the garter would win the prize. The first garter I saw drop was in the hands of a lesbian bride-to-be, and her fiancée, while not particularly scary looking, definitely looked mad that her fiancée had chosen the trip over the dress (and not to be mean, but she should have turned in the $10,000 dress for some dental work).
The remaining contestants included a cute blond single mom, a cute blond hard ass bitch who was supposed to seem sympathetic because her mother and brother were deaf, a 60-year-old who “found love late in life” (a regular 60-year old, not one of those hot Goldie Hawn 60-year olds), a cute weepy chubby girl who had lost 50 pounds for her wedding and was attempting to lose 50 more, and a few other girls who eventually took their hands off the dress, so I don’t really remember what they looked like or what their stories were, because this show was focused on WINNERS.
When Jason Kennedy (running with scissors) next came up to the gazebo, he was holding a pile of boxes which he explained were 10 inches by 12 inches (“I good at geomometry”). The poor exhausted brides were to stand on these boxes, in their high heels, while holding onto the dress, and if they lifted their hands from the dress or their feet from the box, they were through. This brought about another round of uncontrolled weeping from the chubby girl, who I actually felt bad for because I thought she might be carted off to the funny farm if the show went on much longer. She had a harder time keeping her hand on the dress than the other girls, because she had to keep wiping away the makeup that was running down her face.
In case you are wondering how the brides could possibly stand up there for so long without a break, don’t worry, they didn’t. Every so often an air horn would blow (I’m not sure if Jason Kennedy had responsibility for that since he was already in charge of walking and talking at the same time) and the brides would retire to their corners like boxers. Their loved ones would rub their feet and open their granola bars and whisper words of encouragement or growl stern words to “not give up.” The loved ones were much more competitive than the actual brides, and none of them appeared to be the sort of people that you would want to spend a great deal of time with. Perhaps that is why the host did not spend much time interviewing them (that and he already had all those trips up and down the gazebo stairs to concentrate on).
In case you are wondering how anyone could possibly sit and watch a bunch of exhausted weepy women wriggle uncomfortably and hold a dress, don’t worry, there’s more. To fill time between the host’s trips to the gazebo, the producers showed montages of celebrity wedding stuff that they obviously took from other E! Entertainment specials. Since no major celebrities really want E! Entertainment at their weddings, the montages basically included candid pictures of celebrities (sitting in cars or walking the red carpet) interspersed with pictures of buildings that the celebrities apparently did wedding stuff inside. Fascinating.
Not to ruin it for you, but the 60-year old bride was the next bride to drop her garter and claim a vacation prize. She said she was very proud of herself for standing up there with girls who were less than half her age. I think she would have been prouder if she had avoided the contest all together, but if she wants to think she has made a stand for 60-year old women, I’m not going to take that away from her. The next bride to drop the garter was the single mom, who was probably the only one in the contest with the looks and body to pull off an enormous designer wedding gown. Two other girls were eliminated which set the stage for the showdown between the weepy chubby girl and the hard ass bitch. At the last break when the girls were in their corners, both used the phrase “It’s on now!” but when they got back up under the gazebo, the chubby one immediately started weeping again as the host told them over and over again that one of them would go home with nothing, Nothing, NOTHING and one of them would go home with a $10,000 dress and “everything that goes with it” whatever that means. Finally, the weepy girl lost and the bitchy girl claimed the dress. In later footage, they showed her trying on the dress, and she looked, as expected, like she was acting out the “I’m Being Swallowed by a Boa Constrictor (Enormous Designer Wedding Dress)” song. After Jason Kennedy (his accomplishments listed on the E! website included interviewing Paris Hilton – need I say more) asked the weepy girl how it felt to win NOTHING, to go through all that pain for NOTHING, to put forth all that effort for NOTHING, he told her that they were giving her a $6,000 vacation for being such a trooper. She is going to need it if she wants to avoid putting that 50 pounds back on. She needs therapy.
All I could think was “Really? The dress? You’d do all this for a fancy dress that you’ll wear one time? Really???” If I had been in some sort of industrial accident that required the removal of part of my brain and in my foggy existence I had somehow stumbled into an appearance on Last Bride Standing, I would have dropped my garter for the first trip they offered. What people who are not yet married don’t realize is that nobody cares about the dress. Everyone is looking at your face and how happy you are. A few people may tell you that day that they like your dress, but the next day, no one will really remember what it looked like. And then, what do you do with it? Have it framed and hung on the wall? No, you put it in a closet and then in 25 years you offer it to your daughter (if you have one) who, if by some miracle is the same size as you and gets married in the same season as you, would more than likely rather pick a dress of her own.
Many of the weepy brides said that they would never be able to afford that sort of dress without the contest, and I’m sure that is true. However, none of them seemed like they could afford a cool honeymoon either, and I can’t imagine throwing a chance at a great trip away so that you can have a crazy expensive dress. Wouldn’t it be better to start out your marriage by choosing something that both you and your future husband can share? I guess by posing that question I have revealed that I am not destined for greatness as a TV programmer. Clearly the experts at E! know what they are doing, because they even got me to watch it. In my defense I was exhausted, but I wasn’t so exhausted that I couldn’t have flipped away from the show. Maybe the people who put the E! in entertainment know that the audience doesn’t care about the contest, they just want to feel smarter than the people in the contest (and the astoundingly idiotic host – I wonder who reminds him to get dressed in the morning).
When I flipped onto the E! channel, I beheld a group of women standing in a gazebo in what looked like an outdoor shopping center. The women were arranged in a circle and each of them had a hand on a huge wedding dress. Even I was able to quickly surmise that they were in a contest to win some sort of wedding prize. I didn’t see the opening scrum, so I don’t know who the contestants were or how they were chosen for this great endeavor. I don’t know how many women started up there under the gazebo, but when I turned it on, the remaining brides-to-be had been standing up there for 24 hours.
I had to find out more. It was about 8:45 when I turned it on, so I figured it would all be over within 10 minutes. But 9:00 came and went, and I realized I was in for another 30 minutes of excruciating anticipation. The show was hosted by a box of hammers named Jason Kennedy, who jabbered away nonstop, and had a serious manner as if he were overseeing international peace treaty negotiations rather than a stupid bride stunt in a shopping mall. He was in constant communication with the secret surveillance booth staffed by people who are apparently experts at staring at a TV. Every so often he would lean to the side and press on his earpiece like a reporter in a war zone and then in somber tones throw the show to commercial with the news that the TV watchers needed review tape to see if one of the unlucky brides had taken her hand off the dress.
When I turned the show on, each of the brides was wearing a pair of pointy white high heel shoes and holding a garter in her hand. The shoes were apparently not a part of the contest at the beginning, they were added later to make the brides more uncomfortable and encourage them to let go of the dress. Some of the brides were wearing socks with the shoes, but I’m not sure if that was a personal choice, or if they had to wear socks because they had started the contest with socks. The garters I later realized were trotted out each time Jason Kennedy (the pile of rocks) came by to offer them a prize that they could have if they let go of the dress. When he was done describing the great prize, he instructed them to hold the garters over their heads, and once he had counted to three (no small accomplishment for him) the first bride to drop the garter would win the prize. The first garter I saw drop was in the hands of a lesbian bride-to-be, and her fiancée, while not particularly scary looking, definitely looked mad that her fiancée had chosen the trip over the dress (and not to be mean, but she should have turned in the $10,000 dress for some dental work).
The remaining contestants included a cute blond single mom, a cute blond hard ass bitch who was supposed to seem sympathetic because her mother and brother were deaf, a 60-year-old who “found love late in life” (a regular 60-year old, not one of those hot Goldie Hawn 60-year olds), a cute weepy chubby girl who had lost 50 pounds for her wedding and was attempting to lose 50 more, and a few other girls who eventually took their hands off the dress, so I don’t really remember what they looked like or what their stories were, because this show was focused on WINNERS.
When Jason Kennedy (running with scissors) next came up to the gazebo, he was holding a pile of boxes which he explained were 10 inches by 12 inches (“I good at geomometry”). The poor exhausted brides were to stand on these boxes, in their high heels, while holding onto the dress, and if they lifted their hands from the dress or their feet from the box, they were through. This brought about another round of uncontrolled weeping from the chubby girl, who I actually felt bad for because I thought she might be carted off to the funny farm if the show went on much longer. She had a harder time keeping her hand on the dress than the other girls, because she had to keep wiping away the makeup that was running down her face.
In case you are wondering how the brides could possibly stand up there for so long without a break, don’t worry, they didn’t. Every so often an air horn would blow (I’m not sure if Jason Kennedy had responsibility for that since he was already in charge of walking and talking at the same time) and the brides would retire to their corners like boxers. Their loved ones would rub their feet and open their granola bars and whisper words of encouragement or growl stern words to “not give up.” The loved ones were much more competitive than the actual brides, and none of them appeared to be the sort of people that you would want to spend a great deal of time with. Perhaps that is why the host did not spend much time interviewing them (that and he already had all those trips up and down the gazebo stairs to concentrate on).
In case you are wondering how anyone could possibly sit and watch a bunch of exhausted weepy women wriggle uncomfortably and hold a dress, don’t worry, there’s more. To fill time between the host’s trips to the gazebo, the producers showed montages of celebrity wedding stuff that they obviously took from other E! Entertainment specials. Since no major celebrities really want E! Entertainment at their weddings, the montages basically included candid pictures of celebrities (sitting in cars or walking the red carpet) interspersed with pictures of buildings that the celebrities apparently did wedding stuff inside. Fascinating.
Not to ruin it for you, but the 60-year old bride was the next bride to drop her garter and claim a vacation prize. She said she was very proud of herself for standing up there with girls who were less than half her age. I think she would have been prouder if she had avoided the contest all together, but if she wants to think she has made a stand for 60-year old women, I’m not going to take that away from her. The next bride to drop the garter was the single mom, who was probably the only one in the contest with the looks and body to pull off an enormous designer wedding gown. Two other girls were eliminated which set the stage for the showdown between the weepy chubby girl and the hard ass bitch. At the last break when the girls were in their corners, both used the phrase “It’s on now!” but when they got back up under the gazebo, the chubby one immediately started weeping again as the host told them over and over again that one of them would go home with nothing, Nothing, NOTHING and one of them would go home with a $10,000 dress and “everything that goes with it” whatever that means. Finally, the weepy girl lost and the bitchy girl claimed the dress. In later footage, they showed her trying on the dress, and she looked, as expected, like she was acting out the “I’m Being Swallowed by a Boa Constrictor (Enormous Designer Wedding Dress)” song. After Jason Kennedy (his accomplishments listed on the E! website included interviewing Paris Hilton – need I say more) asked the weepy girl how it felt to win NOTHING, to go through all that pain for NOTHING, to put forth all that effort for NOTHING, he told her that they were giving her a $6,000 vacation for being such a trooper. She is going to need it if she wants to avoid putting that 50 pounds back on. She needs therapy.
All I could think was “Really? The dress? You’d do all this for a fancy dress that you’ll wear one time? Really???” If I had been in some sort of industrial accident that required the removal of part of my brain and in my foggy existence I had somehow stumbled into an appearance on Last Bride Standing, I would have dropped my garter for the first trip they offered. What people who are not yet married don’t realize is that nobody cares about the dress. Everyone is looking at your face and how happy you are. A few people may tell you that day that they like your dress, but the next day, no one will really remember what it looked like. And then, what do you do with it? Have it framed and hung on the wall? No, you put it in a closet and then in 25 years you offer it to your daughter (if you have one) who, if by some miracle is the same size as you and gets married in the same season as you, would more than likely rather pick a dress of her own.
Many of the weepy brides said that they would never be able to afford that sort of dress without the contest, and I’m sure that is true. However, none of them seemed like they could afford a cool honeymoon either, and I can’t imagine throwing a chance at a great trip away so that you can have a crazy expensive dress. Wouldn’t it be better to start out your marriage by choosing something that both you and your future husband can share? I guess by posing that question I have revealed that I am not destined for greatness as a TV programmer. Clearly the experts at E! know what they are doing, because they even got me to watch it. In my defense I was exhausted, but I wasn’t so exhausted that I couldn’t have flipped away from the show. Maybe the people who put the E! in entertainment know that the audience doesn’t care about the contest, they just want to feel smarter than the people in the contest (and the astoundingly idiotic host – I wonder who reminds him to get dressed in the morning).
posted by Shannon at 10:08 PM
1 Comments:
I did watch it actually, but blocked it out until I read this. I only saw the end, and my only thought was that it was quite possibly the fugliest dress you can get for $10,000 and that if any aspect of your wedding requires standing on a box, and you do it? You are too dumb to live, let alone get married.
And Jason Kennedy? He ate a lot of paste, I think.
Post a Comment
<< Home