Project Runway Stereotypes
As I was watching the first show of season five, I couldn't ignore a suspicion that I had seen all of the contestants before. I know, Colin live-blogged that he thought all of the contestants looked exciting, but as I watched, the contestants all looked like has-beens. Has-beens? It's only episode one and I'm tired of them? Could it be that they lack fashion skills? I thought that at first, but as I watched, some of them sucked, but there were quite a few good ones--the vacuum dress and the blue solo cup dress in particular.
They're has-beens, not because their style/skills/fashion-sense is old and boring, but because they're personalities are so cookie cutter. Whoever chooses the characters on Project Runway (and whoever it is is pretty powerful), hasn't come up with any new easily identifiable character types.
For example, to your right you'll see pictures of the Token Sassy Black Woman. Each previous season, except for season three, has had one black woman, and that woman has always had an opinion and known she's right. Kara Saun of season one was awesome until the finale. Kind and polite and friendly. But then her friend made her a bunch of nice shoes that she didn't think she had to pay for. Kara Saun couldn't see that she wasn't playing fair.
Now you'll say, well wasn't Laura Bennett and Wendy Pepper opinionated? They were, but besides the fact that they weren't African American, they were also plotting. They wanted to win, they were going to play dirty and they were damn self righteous about it. They didn't have that honest sincerity that the Sassy Black Women had. It's not a subtle difference.
So, can we put our collective knowledge of Project Runway together and come up with all the character types? Right now I've got:
Sassy Black Woman
Girl Next Store
Outrageously Flamboyant Gay Guy (Just to clarify this one: Austin Scarlett, Andrae 'Andrae' Gonzalo, Kayne Gillaspie, Ricky 'I always cry' Lizalde)
Punk Girl
I'm not sure you've correctly identified the source of the problem. I think the reason we're seeing the same characters over and over is because Project Runway contestants, more than those on any other reality show, worship Project Runway.
ReplyDeleteWhy shouldn't they? The reason it's such a successful reality show is because it treats its subject with so much reverence. It is, first and foremost, a show about designing. Very few other shows do that. Tyra might talk a lot about what it takes to be a model, but when you get down to it, most of the decisions on ANTM are about attitude and personality and believing in yourself. If you get kicked off of PR, it's because of the clothes you made, period.
So imagine you're one of these designers, and you've for some time devoted yourself to a profession that isn't very lucrative, isn't that well-respected, and probably got you picked on as a kid. Then all of the sudden there's a show on Bravo that's about what you do, and it's a good show. You start to get a little excited.
I think it's because of this that everyone who comes on the show, since season three, has viewed everything prior as canon. That's why you end up with these forced characters like Blayne and Suede (early last season, I felt the same way about Christian) who constantly sound like they're reading from a script of past seasons. Fortunately, they tend to grow out of it after a few episodes.