What twisted ambition rules the mother-daughter pageant contenders who call themselves the “Sassy Sisters”?
Maybe they think it’s cute when people compliment them by saying they could pass as siblings rather than be unmasked as mother and child. Maybe they like the psychological merger. But to take that as a title, their defining brand name, is more than a little curious.
Of course, the fact that Americans would want to carry around a brand title in the first place is a snapshot of what’s wrong with our overcommercialized age.
Don’t just stand there, brand yourself!
The fact that mom and offspring are posing, branding, waving, crying, merging and strutting on primetime “reality” television is sad enough. It gets worse if you stop and think about how long the writers strike could last. We’re going to see some supershlock before it’s all over.
TV’s latest pageant, CW’s “Crowned,” premieres Wednesday at 8 p.m. locally on KWGN-Channel 2. The sassy pair, 20 years apart, are just one piece of evidence of the culture’s tendency to demonize age, blur parental roles and responsibilities, elevate superficiality and generally mess with self-image.
The “Sassy Sisters” aren’t alone, of course. There’s a politely rapping pair of African-Americans, a team of “Blonde Bombshells” from the South, a mother-daughter duo who pride themselves on thinness and another set who are all about flaunting their impressive biceps.
Three judges — Carson Kressley, Shanna Moakler and Cynthia Garrett — try mightily to push the proceedings beyond the vapid. They verbally spank the teams who are preoccupied with bling and youth, steering them toward appreciating their mother- daughter differences and acknowledging the passage of time.
“You are not sisters, nor should you be,” clarifies Garrett, former VH1 host. Thankfully, the team that does best in the opening hour appears to be well-adjusted, with poise and enthusiasm.
Kressley of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” provides comic relief, suggesting one pair looks like “Amish hookers.” Meanwhile Moakler, a former Miss U.S.A., plays the level-headed judge, taking the whole thing rather seriously and moving it along.
After the initial Oedipal ick-factor of the premise, the show is stagnant. Is this how America will pass its time until the Writers Guild goes back to work? That thought is as frightening as the awful poetry some of these competitors put forward.
Tila Tequila
Another bottom-dwelling “reality” show that should be put out of its misery happens to be hugely popular in college dorms this semester. “A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila,” a bisexual dating contest built around the petite and shrill MySpace phenomenon, has its finale Tuesday at 8 p.m. on MTV. Will she choose the girl or the guy? Who cares? They’re equally vapid.
Tom Brokaw’s ’68
You know what they say: If you can remember the ’60s, you weren’t really there. Contrary to that adage, “1968 with Tom Brokaw,” at 7 tonight on the History Channel, debriefs a number of personalities who were there — and who have strong recollections.
Rioting at the Democratic convention, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, Tet, Apollo 8 and the social tumult of the times — those events are revisited here, complete with commentary by observers as divergent as Bruce Springsteen and Pat Buchanan.
If you thought Brokaw’s “The Greatest Generation” was the greatest, you may not be so enamored of his new book, “Boom! Voices of the Sixties,” which this documentary accompanies. The new book, like the era it chronicles, is divisive. Depending on where you stood, it was either a time of liberation, creativity, necessary change and deep connection, or a time of self-indulgent experimentation.
Brokaw worked at KNBC at the time and serves as a personal tour guide to history.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
