Beyond bad taste
What’s the most offensive reality show you remember airing on TV? Is it Joe Millionaire, with 20 ladies angling to marry supposed rich guy Evan Marriott, who’s really a construction worker? Or is it Are You Hot? with its panel of celebrities judging seminude contestants on their hotness? Or maybe it’s The Swan, which gave “ugly” women extreme plastic surgery makeovers only to make them compete in a beauty pageant at the end?
Well, hold on to your Spanx because a new Dutch TV show just might usurp them.
The premise getting people in a lather is this: Women must stand on a podium while men guess if they are fat or pregnant. Men must also figure out whether women’s breasts are real or fake, and determine whether Asian volunteers are Chinese or Japanese.
The show, called Neem Je Zwemspullen Mee (or Bring Your Bathing Suit), debuted Sunday night on public broadcaster NPO 3. Viewership was unremarkable, with just 304,000 people tuning in.
An online petition claiming the network is “downgrading women to pieces of meat” has garnered more than 2,000 signatures so far.
For its part, the public broadcaster said that the pilot episode that aired last summer didn’t raise any eyebrows for its fator-pregnant segment.
The show’s producers maintained that “the satirical setting is a way to laugh off all kinds of prejudices,” by confronting stereotypes head-on and forcing participants to reflect on their assumptions.
HILLS COUPLE EXPECTING
And from maybe-pregnant to definitely-pregnant. Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag, who starred on the MTV reality series The Hills, are expecting a baby.
“The look on her face, I can’t even describe it. She was literally glowing,” Pratt told Us Weekly about the reveal. “I thought she was about to say she made muffins or banana bread.”
The couple has been married for eight years. Montag is 12 weeks along and due Oct. 19.
Pratt and Montag were a devious duo on The Hills, entangled in feuds with co-star Lauren Conrad and making headlines for their behaviour — like in 2009, when Montag had 10 plastic surgery procedures in one day.
Now, though, they claim they’ve matured and are ready for diaper duty.
“We’re older, we have more life experience,” Montag said.”
Her cravings — because we know you’re dying to know — are salt-and-vinegar potato chips and Sour Patch Kids.
The Hills aired for six seasons starting in 2006.