Who Wants to be a Playboy Playmate?, Weddings From Hell & Wife Swap

This Column first appeared in the Age on June 6

When it comes to picking Playboy playmates, I'm clueless. The girl I thought was least attractive won. Clearly I won't be asked to join the Playboy Family with Papa Hef and Bunny Mother, former playmate, Ava Fabian. Because that's what they keep calling it on Who wants to be a Playboy Playmate? (Wednesday, Channel 7, 9.30pm): a family. And what a family. Hugh Hefner in his red smoking robes, and his dozens of big breasted 'daughters'. You've got to love a show that promotes wholesome values.

This New Bush/Howard world is big on family values, and on Economic Rationalism - and nothing is a better representation of their worldview than Reality Television because it is all about competition. This is what happens in Who wants to be a Playboy Playmate? Twelve women from are flown from around the United States to Los Angeles, and housed next to the Playboy Mansion. There they play with Hair and Make-Up [sic]. Then they progress from the bathing shoot, to the lingerie shoot to the big nude adventure. There are catfights and lots of analysis of breast enhancement surgery and what it means to be a 'natural' woman. The prize at stake is the chance to be Miss July 2002.

This is a world where everything is about winning. Their parent's talk of supporting their daughters in what they 'set out to achieve'. All the girls talk earnestly of 'direction', 'focus', 'striving to succeed' and 'goal setting'. All the while there is the knowledge that they can only win if their new 'friends' lose. And you know what, becoming a Playmate probably does change some women's lives, get them paid and out of small country towns. The way in which they are commodified is not a long stretch from the way in which all contestants in all reality shows package themselves. It is all just a bit more, ahem, up front.
There is more reality than you probably need in Weddings from Hell (Tuesday, 9.30pm, Channel 7). There is the groom who left his own reception to play soccer, a bride who had to be carried down the aisle and a groom who vomits on his wife-to-be.

A third Reality Show that was to run on Channel 9 this week, Wife Swap, in which working-class Michelle and middle-class Carol, traded families and homes for 10 days, has been postponed because of the rugby. [sally, insert Rugby time here?] Like Playmate (and the rugby), it was about the dangers of taking your eyes of the ball in these competitive times, and chronicled that exciting aspect of modern economic life - downward mobility.

Did I blink and miss the last forty years? Have I gone to sleep and woken up in John Howards's dream world: 1950's Australia? These are the roles women get in this latest round of Reality: Playboy Bunny, good wife/bad wife, and a bride covered in vomit. I think I'd rather be out on the rugby field with my head stuck firmly between some powerful and manly thighs.

Posted by Sophie at 05:07 PM