Beauty and the Nerd?
So I caught the tail end of a new "reality show", eponymously titled "La Bella y el Nerd".
The show's concept is simple: take the usual misfits, sequester them in a house and watch them fight cabin fever and each other for a prize. The twist here is that the 10 females are all knockouts: models, dancers, apprentice actresses, former beauty queens. Dumb as bricks, the lot of them, but certainly the kind of woman no red-blooded male would reject attention from. The 10 men in this scenario are "nerds", which in Mexican culture describes any person of intellectual bent, so most geeks fall in that classification also. The guys are somewhat average-looking, stereotypically lacking in social graces, and some of them are quite pedantic.
The program has these people pair off, in more or less random fashion. Then the new-minted "couples" have to train their partner in what they most lack: nerds have to learn to dance, for example, and the beauties have to learn to spell and recite 6th grade geography and history facts.
The program annoyed me, yet I was fascinated on some level. The set-up is clearly exploitative, with the nerds at a massive disadvantage. Most of the girls are graceful and tv-aware, and they clearly understand that they're there for the exposure and the long-shot at some kind of celebrity. Their interest in their nerds-qua-persons is small-to-nonexistent: the guys are clearly just means to an end, and interacting with them is a chore... but of course, the cameras are rolling, so the chore must be performed with a smile.
The guys motivation is transparent: they just want attention from a hot chick. They more or less get it, but you can kind of see a shadow in the guys eyes as it dawns on them that the only reason the runway model is talking to him is because she's supposed to. He has already mentally lumped her in with the class of gorgeous women who in high school made you feel like a king by talking to you while she copied your homework, then went and made out with her jock boyfriend. (I know the type)
Beneath this, I am authentically curious as to whether or not one or more of these girls will develop, then confess to, a nerd fetish on national TV. Odds are low, but it could happen. Let's face it, we nerds are very undervalued commodities on the dating market. Perhaps some of these girls, born beautiful by chance and surrounded by circumstance (or choice) with superficiality, might come around to actually like her nerd... even love him. Now wouldn't that be a morality tale with a happy ending?
The show's concept is simple: take the usual misfits, sequester them in a house and watch them fight cabin fever and each other for a prize. The twist here is that the 10 females are all knockouts: models, dancers, apprentice actresses, former beauty queens. Dumb as bricks, the lot of them, but certainly the kind of woman no red-blooded male would reject attention from. The 10 men in this scenario are "nerds", which in Mexican culture describes any person of intellectual bent, so most geeks fall in that classification also. The guys are somewhat average-looking, stereotypically lacking in social graces, and some of them are quite pedantic.
The program has these people pair off, in more or less random fashion. Then the new-minted "couples" have to train their partner in what they most lack: nerds have to learn to dance, for example, and the beauties have to learn to spell and recite 6th grade geography and history facts.
The program annoyed me, yet I was fascinated on some level. The set-up is clearly exploitative, with the nerds at a massive disadvantage. Most of the girls are graceful and tv-aware, and they clearly understand that they're there for the exposure and the long-shot at some kind of celebrity. Their interest in their nerds-qua-persons is small-to-nonexistent: the guys are clearly just means to an end, and interacting with them is a chore... but of course, the cameras are rolling, so the chore must be performed with a smile.
The guys motivation is transparent: they just want attention from a hot chick. They more or less get it, but you can kind of see a shadow in the guys eyes as it dawns on them that the only reason the runway model is talking to him is because she's supposed to. He has already mentally lumped her in with the class of gorgeous women who in high school made you feel like a king by talking to you while she copied your homework, then went and made out with her jock boyfriend. (I know the type)
Beneath this, I am authentically curious as to whether or not one or more of these girls will develop, then confess to, a nerd fetish on national TV. Odds are low, but it could happen. Let's face it, we nerds are very undervalued commodities on the dating market. Perhaps some of these girls, born beautiful by chance and surrounded by circumstance (or choice) with superficiality, might come around to actually like her nerd... even love him. Now wouldn't that be a morality tale with a happy ending?