It's Friday which means - other than a higher than usual amount of clock-watchery - it's time for another edition of The Hollywood Outsider!
The deeper into the holiday season we get, the crazier people seem to get. But fear not, your humble contributor will light the lamp of sanity and lead you through the cave of irrationality like Charon leading all those ancient Greeks souls into the underworld.
Only this trip is going to work out way better for you than it did for any of those ancient Greeks.
On to the headlines!
Fear Factor Contestant Super Pissed About Way Her Son Was Portrayed
Remember that show, Fear Factor? In case you forgot, it was a reality show that had contestants perform crazy and dangerous stunts based on things 14-year-old boys would dare each other to do. It was the only show where pre-production meetings took place in a middle-school cafeteria.
Well, Fear Factor is back to provide all of you who missed it the first time the opportunity to miss it again.
According to TMZ, this week's episode has caused some controversy as it featured a mother and son as one of the teams of contestants.
Now that in of itself is no big deal as mother and son teams have been common since the days of Oedipus and Jocasta (what's with all the Greek references you ask? No idea). But unlike Oedipus and Jocasta, the Fear Factor team was alluded to having a more "intimate" relationship.
Oh wait, that's exactly like Oedipus and Jocasta.
Now Monica, the mother half of the team, is furious at the show's portrayal of her relationship with her son. So while she said she isn't planning on suing, she is still shouting from the tallest mountain that Joe Rogan and company are assholes.
Upon hearing this news, the nation has responded by awarding Monica the congressional medal of obvious.
Look, being falsely portrayed as having a sexual relationship with your son on national television is truly horrifying, probably way more horrifying than any of the actual stunts on the show. But did you really expect to get a fair and honest shake on a show that wants to bury you in live scorpions?
The best part of this story is that TMZ contacted the show for comment and (as of this writing) had not had their calls returned.
Ironically, it appears that Fear Factor might actually fear Monica.
Girls Gone Wild Shoot Raided By Police
This headline is a bit misleading.
While it is true that last week the LAPD did, in fact, raid the rented home where Girls Gone Wild was filming, it was not for the reason you would probably expect.
It turns out filming Girls Gone Wild was not the greasiest thing going on in that house as it has been rented out serval times before with the necessary permit.
So why does something like a zoning permit issue require a raid? Hard to say.
It's possible the Cops knew exactly what they were raiding and were like, "Ohhhhh heeeyyyy it's Girls Gone Wild! Didn't know you guys were here. Mind if we stick around for a bit? You won't even notice us."
For anyone who might not know anything about Girls Gone Wild, allow the Outsider to bring you up to speed: Girls Gone Wild is a series of voyeuristic, soft-core, pornographic videos featuring college-age women taking their clothes off at parties, usually under the influence of alcohol.
Now it would be difficult to convince most sober, rationally thinking women to appear nude on camera, and even if you could find some to agree to do it, you would think they would only do it for an exorbitantly high price.
What were the girls who appeared in these videos compensated? A cheap tank-top.
Let that bit of irony sink in for a second: the payment for removing your clothes is an article of clothing.
O’ Henry himself couldn't have written it better.
You would hope someone presented with this once in a lifetime opportunity to publicly "go wild" would hold out for a little more--especially considering the future ramifications of having an easily accessible video of your squawking, naked, drunk ass flailing around on a dirty bar table.
Perhaps the most famous "Girls Gone Wild costing a young lady a fortune" story was that of Ashley Dupree, better known as "The Spitzer Girl."
Dupree was the high-end female escort who was associated with ending NY Governor Elliot Spitzer's political career. Well, you can imagine after putting "hot enough to take down a Governor" on your resume that people would pay serious money to see you naked.
Naturally, this modern siren (another Greek reference) was in talks with all different types of publications and one would assume had them in a bidding war to pay her a ton for something that she was probably going to do anyway for a whole lot less.
And by "probably" the Outsider means "did," a few years earlier.
You see, back when Dupree was a nobody and not having affairs with Governors, she was partying at a place when Girls Gone Wild showed up. Since she is a fearless party girl, she stripped for the video crew.
Zoom ahead to modern day, since there was already footage of her naked, all of the exorbitant offers immediately vanished. A woman who could have made hundreds of thousands of dollars to strip, instead only got paid a lousy tank top.
Let that be a lesson to all you young ladies out there.
And to all you guys: you're off the hook this time. Nobody wants to see you naked.
Seriously. Nobody.
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erikdolnack
Totally off-topic, I have been noticing a trend in our media culture today that disturbs me.
Speaking of ancient Greece, has anyone noticed that ancient Greek culture is almost suppressed in modern culture today? Yes, we will see the occasional flirtation with Greek mythology as fantasy - as in such films as “Clash of the Titans” and “300”, but these are based on comic-book naivete, not reality.
Why would our corporate media today not want to promote the western heritage that probably formed our modern world today more than any other, one may ask today? I think the reason is democracy. Democracy is rule by the people. In an ancient Greek city, or “polis”, the people were called “demos” and our English word for “democracy” comes from ancient Athens (most likely the world’s first true democratic state).
Democracy is under attack by multinational corporations and conservatism today. Conservatism, at its heart, is a strong belief in aristocracy and hierarchy. Conservatives fear the idea of being ruled by one’s peers and an equal distribution of political power. Conservatives fear the external world and seek a strong dominant father-authority to protect them from external threats. We see this policy very clearly under the George W Bush administration, where the United States was seen as the responsible parent of a world of naughty disobedient child-nations that need discipline. (And we dare ask why the rest of the world hates us so).
Much of the mark of an “educated” person in western societies has always been a thorough study of the Classics, and this ultimately progresses democratic tendencies throughout society. Why do you think the early Christian communities forbade study of the pagan Green and Roman writers? It’s very difficult to dominate people intellectually when they have role models like Pericles encouraging his population with inspiring words that their individual empowerment in society is what makes their society the strongest and best and able to stand any trial.