A few nights ago I was up late surfing channels, waiting for Ryan to get home when I stopped on the Oxygen Network. This is when I discovered a little show called “Bad Girls Club.” Just in case you haven’t seen it, here is the description, from the Oxygen website:
“Bad just got good on Oxygen with the third season of the hit reality series from the producers of The Real World. This season takes bad behavior to the next level with a cast of young women who are independent, spirited, and endlessly entertaining.
Bad Girls Club brings seven self-proclaimed “bad girls” together in a beautiful Los Angeles mansion, and drama reigns supreme. All the girls, ranging in age from 21 to 25, have a unique story, point of view and attitude — as well as some kind of personal issue that makes them far from perfect. Will living together help them move forward and turn their lives around — or will chaos rule?”
They just left out one key point:
These gals have absolutely NOTHING to do but drink unlimited free alcohol all day and start shit with strangers and each other.
I know I am getting old(er) because my first response to this is total horror instead of my usual train-wreck style amusement. My second response is that I want to lock up every teenage girl I know and prohibit them from ever knowing that this show exists. Or I want to sit and watch it with them and say “See? This is what happens if your parents don’t hug you enough.”
I watched the whole episode. These chicks drank (constantly), physically fought with each other (keep in mind, this was taped on the girls’ SECOND day in the house), screamed at each other, called each other every variation of the word “bitch” you can imagine, got kicked out of a restaurant, drank all day, ganged up on one another, talked about breaking another girl’s legs, said “it’s on” more times than I can count, and…hmm, what am I forgetting? Oh yeah, they GOT HAMMERED.
Oxygen tries to paint this as some sort of social experiment designed to help these girls sort out their issues, but let’s call it what it is: a drunken, totally exploitative journey through the psyches of these extremely damaged women.
It’s like putting seven three-legged stray cats on acid in a box and shaking it.
Look, I get the entertainment value of it. I am not totally devoid of a sense of humor. But when I think about all the amazing young women I know and how much they are influenced by all they see and hear around them and that THIS is the kind of absolute utter shit that gets put on the air? Wow. It basically says that being an awful person should be rewarded. You get a whole show about your f’ed up behavior.
Now, if they wanted to start a show called Bad Girls and make it about, oh, I don’t know, Tine Fey or Hillary Clinton, or Arianna Huffington then hell yes, I’d watch that show all day. But this show only succeeds in telling girls what they are already getting told every day:
1. Being famous for nothing (literally-nothing) is awesome and of paramount importance.
2. Getting hammered and acting like an asshat on t.v. is awesome.
3. Expressing your frightening rage however you want is totally okay, even if it hurts someone else.
4. Your body is your greatest commodity.
5. Women should never stick together. They should always be competing with each other (preferably over a guy).
Yuck.
Come on girls-we can do better than this.
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Oh, and if you are still holiday shopping, you may want to hit the Bad Girls Store on the Oxygen site, where you can get Bad Girl necklaces, hoodies, tanks or (my personal favorite) yoga pants with the words Cranky, Naughty, Flashy, Catty, Bossy or Sassy on the butt. Too bad no one asked me about these pants, because I do have some alternate ideas for the butt words; how about Cirrhosis-y, Shit Starter-y, No Self Esteem-y, Keep An Eye Out For My First Porno-y, or If Only My Parents Had Parented Me-y?
