Oh, of course I'm recapping Charm School! Did you ever think I wouldn't? I've stuck by this godforsaken franchise for so long, I couldn't leave it now. Besides, Charm School turned out to be some of the best TV I've seen in a while.
I'm gonna warn you: this is going to be long. I'm going to go off on many tangents, make several sweeping pronouncements with no basis other than my own half-assed opinion and spitball a lot about the characters of people I've never met.
I know; what a surprise!
We begin with an introduction of our 13 contestants, as well as a handy reason for explaining why some of them are here (besides, y'know, the siren call of the TV camera).
In my writeups of Flavor of Love, I referred to all the female contestants as "the skanks," (or sometimes "the skanks and Goldie") because that was pretty much how they presented themselves. But some of them have discovered that that strategy tends to backfire once production has wrapped. Rain and Toasteee tell us that their families are Very Disappointed In Them, and that they're hoping to rehabilitate their images through this show.
Saaphyri, whose tri-colored hair I find fascinating, is unsure of what awaits her on the show. You know, I think Gwen Stefani rocked this very look in 1998.
Mo'Nique introduces herself as an actress, author and stand-up comedian. I've seen some of her comedy, but basically this is my first real experience as a member of Mo'Nique's audience. I know she's written a book called Skinny Women Are Evil, and I really wish she'd found some other title. The problem isn't thin women, it's a culture that says a person's humanity is inversely proportional to their pant size. (This is one of those tangents I was telling you about earlier.) Ironically, the best way to combat that culture is to honor and appreciate all the different shapes and sizes of the human body -- including the thin ones.
Looking sumptuous and cozy, Mo'Nique walks outside to greet the contestants, and they all respond with delight.
Buckwild proclaims her love for Mo, saying "She'll be bopping skinny bitches over the head!" I shake my head at the TV and say, "That means you, dear," and suddenly a light bulb goes off in the dingy attic of my mind. (Tangent!) I suddenly think I get both Buckwild and the response to her ridiculous accent. She's been called racist for affecting a "black" accent and claiming to be African-American, but I don't think her affectation comes from hate any more than her apparent disdain for thin women does. I think she wants to express her solidarity with non-privileged groups so much that she claims to be a part of them, and while it's motivated by a good impulse, the result is pretty insulting. Because at the end of the day, she still gets all the benefits that accrue to a thin (and white) person and none of the crap that non-thin (and non-white) folks have to deal with. So now I think I understand her a bit better. I could be wrong, of course; she could just be a nitwit. Hard to say.
Speaking of nitwits, what the hot-combed hell is on Hottie's head?!
Mo'Nique surveys the contestants and notes how some of them looked clueless and lost, some of them looked eager to begin and some of them were radiating attitude from the get-go.
But when Mo tells them that the final student of Charm School will win $50,000, they perk right up! Before the opens the door, Mo cautions the girls that since there are 7 bathrooms in the house, there's no excuse for poop on the floor. Heh. The girls run upstairs and start picking rooms, making jokes about how there are actually enough beds for all of them. The trio pictured above wants to room together, but then Goldie notices that there are pictures above each beds, so rooms are assigned.
This is Buckeey's response to having to room with Bootz and Pumkin. (It's not Bootz she's objecting to.) Buckeey tells us that Pumkin wrote something "on blog" (?) saying that all the black girls in the house in Season 2 were jealous of Krazy, and that this struck Buckeey as racist. She and Bootz, of course, confront Pumkin about this, and Pumkin looks more than a little terrified.
There's kind of a weird Season-1-vs-Season-2 vibe about this, as Serious and Goldie comfort the accused racist Pumkin while Buckeey and Bootz say vaguely threatening things about her.
Bootz, of course, loves conflict and threats. I hate this about her. I know she's got her fans, and they too like threats, but I just don't see the appeal of Bootz. She reminds me a lot of Francis Begbie in Trainspotting: she totally gets her juice from the idea of violence. Look at the way her eyes glitter when she says, "If [Pumkin] looks at me, if she says anything to me, if one of her friends says anything to me, I'm gonna kick her ass and they'll have to shut the show down." And smiles. Creepy!
Hottie is glad to see the conflict between her competitors, figuring she'll let them eliminate themselves. I am still hypnotized by that ... thing on her head. What is it?!
Mo calls the girls downstairs and introduces them to her advisory panel:
Keith is in charge of the California Miss U.S.A pageants, while Mikkie is the beauty and cover editor for Essence magazine. Hey, Mikkie and Keith! (I'm totally dating myself with that one, aren't I.)
Before going any further, Mo insists that some unfinished business must be taken care of: the girls must shed their Flav names. One by one, they tell Mo their real names, take off their nametags -- which are then burned -- and get their pledge pins.
It's a surprisingly moving bit of TV. The thing with Flav giving the girls names has always bothered me, both for its creepy pimp-naming-his-stable connotations and because its ostensible reason was that Flav couldn't remember the girls' actual names, but he could remember characteristics about them like, say, Bootz or Hottie.
But this being "celebreality," it's not without its entertaining moments as well. Krazy tells Mo her name is "Nevaeh" -- "heaven" spelled backwards, which is so very, very clever and original -- her "professional" name. Mo gives Krazy the greatest "bitch, please" look and asks her what name she was born with (Heather). When Buckwild goes to give up her Flav name, she tries to argue for keeping Buckwild but finally cops to the name...
... Becky. Mo's response to this is fantastic, too. But best of all, of course, is Hottie.
"That apple was hot!" Hee hee! Okay, so for those of you playing along at home, here are the names of our 13 lovely former skanks:
- Thela (Rain)
- Cristal (Serious)
- Larissa (Bootz)
- Jennifer (Toasteee)
- Leilene (Smiley)
- Courtney (Goldie)
- Schatar (Hottie)
- Shay (Buckeey)
- Darra (Like Dat)
- Becky (Buckwild)
- Heather (Krazy)
- Brooke (Pumkin)
And then there's Saaphyri. Mo asks her what her real name is, but that is her real name; she didn't stick around long enough to get a Flav name. In her 20 minutes of fame, Flav had pronounced her name "Sapphire," which has its own weird history, but apparently the correct pronunciation is more like "Safari." Mo gives this name another withering look, and I'm right there with her.
Parents of the universe, please remember: your child's name is not an opportunity for you to show off how creative and unique you are. That thing's gonna have to go on applications, resumes, wedding announcements, court documents and obituaries. If you want to name your child something that doesn't sound quite right after the phrase "Supreme Court Justice," do him or her a huge favor and give that name to a pet instead. I mean, come on. "Safari"? Why not just put a practice pole in her crib, ferchrissakes. And what the hell is up with that extra "a"? Damn. I need a drink.
Mo says the girls will be subject to the 10 Commandments of Charm School, and that the challenges will be based on these commandments. The first -- oh, dear, they're worded in faux-King-James -- is "Thou shalt checkest thyself before thou wreckest thyself." Which is apparently supposed to refer to making a good first impression. So the girls have one-on-one interviews with Mo and, separately, with Mikkie and Keith, the latter of whom is apparently of the tough-love school.
Saaphyri tells Keith how broke she and her family are, and he tells her, "That $50,000 is nothing compared to what you can get with what you take from this [experience]." She blinks a couple of times, tells the camera he doesn't know what he's talking about, and then asks Keith where that extra money that she could get might be. And see, Keith's right in that personal development can pay huge dividends, but I totally see Saaphyri's side, that investment is a luxury that people who are in dire financial straits at that very moment can't afford.
Mo finds, to her astonishment, that all the girls break down crying almost immediately when they talk to her in private. "Why are you so angry?" she asks several of them, and cue the waterworks! It's actually kind of sweet. She determines that Larissa acts all tough, but is actually just a kid. (The kind of kid who sets fires, tortures animals and wets the bed, maybe?)
The next morning, the girls discover their personal Charm School sweatsuits and a note from Mo downstairs telling them to pack their bags for an overnight trip. While some of the girls envision a glitzy getaway, others are a little suspicious. Saaphyri wants to know why her official issue sneaks aren't Nikes.
Schatar thinks they might be going to a spa. I start yelling at the thing on her head. "Doesn't she even brush you?!" That thing is messing with me, y'all.
Of course, their destination is not a spa, but the side of the road in a hilly region. In keeping with the commandment "Thou shalt goeth, girl," the girls' mission is to hike to their campsite, two miles away, carrying whatever gear they believe they need to survive. This exercise is supposed to build teamwork, but I strongly suspect it won't. (The tumbleweed is a nice touch, especially when I imagine some production intern having to wrangle the tumbleweed and ride to the shooting site with it sitting on his or her lap.)
Immediately, the griping starts, and nobody is griping louder than Thela, whom Mo has chosen as the leader of the mission. How does she respond to this honor?
Yeesh. While Thela is yelling and pouting in the bus, some of the other girls take off with a minimum of gear. Schatar is the first one to do this, of course. (I found this online. It's a ... song, kinda, with Schatar doing some sort of half-singing, half-chanting thing. It's awful. Enjoy!)
So the rest of the girls have to carry the majority of the gear, and Thela's Achilles tendon is acting up, and she doesn't really want to be there in the first place, and (say it with me) cue the waterworks!
Okay, I know it's not cool to laugh at someone who's crying, but what the hell is up with her voice? She sounds like Phil Hartman!
The girls eventually make it to their camp (after traveling 2 miles in 4 hours) and do a halfway-competent job of setting everything up.
Well, I said halfway-competent.
Camping, Charm School style: a kebab and a Kool.
Mikkie visits the girls at camp and gives them a hint of the next day's challenge. They'll need to pick two team captains. Nobody volunteers, until someone suggests Schatar. Reactions to this idea:
After this moment of insanity, Leilene steps up and volunteers to be a captain. Everyone tells the camera that this will surely be a disaster, because Leilene's a big ol' softy and not really fit for leadership.
Say, when did the girls invite a crusty sailor on shore leave to camp -- oh, that's Brooke without makeup.
The next person suggested for a captain is Saaphyri, and the other girls endorse this idea. She's startled to be nominated...
... but agrees to assume the mantle of leadership.
The next morning the girls are awakened by a loud dude in Army gear.
Waitaminute... that's Earl from The Joe Schmo Show! I call shenanigans!
The girls moan and whine their way awake. Darra is particularly vexed, as she is hung over.
Becky, meanwhile, is sweet on the "sarge," claiming that she likes older men who can put her in her place. Or she's just a Joe Schmo fan.
The girls are bused to the site of the next challenge: an obstacle course. Leilene and Saaphyri pick their teams, and it goes about how you think it will. Leilene picks the girls she fears will get picked last, and really, her heart's in the right place, but that's no way to win a challenge. Especially a challenge where only the members of the losing team will be eligible for elimination that night.
The purple team, left to right: Heather, Thela, Brooke, Leilene, Cristal, Darra. Leilene's idea of a pre-race coaching session? Letting the girls know that she believed in each of them (which was met with eye rolls, by and large).
The nadir of the race was during the cargo-net climb, when Darra, hung over and given up, needed a three-person boost to get over the top.
The worst part of that is that I fear I've given the very same view to the members of my Monday stretch class.
And here's the yellow team: Saaphyri, Courtney, Shay, Larissa, Schatar (picked last), Jennifer and Becky. These girls are clearly the better athletes, but they also got a much better leader. Before the race, Saaphyri coached them on actual strategies: climbing the cargo net near the poles, climbing under the net on one's elbows rather than one's hands. "Damn, that is smart!" I exclaim at the TV. I think it agrees with me.
Despite Schatar's highly individual way of crossing the log, the yellow team demolishes the purple team. So all seven of its members are safe from elimination. Leilene is worried and annoyed with herself for letting her team down, Darra is worried and annoyed with herself for being big (ouch) and Thela is worried and kinda weird, but we knew that anyway.
When they get back to the mansion (which is so totally the same mansion from I Love New York), the girls find their Charm School uniforms, which they proceed to skank up as best they can.
Lord, Cristal, put it away. (Nice shoes, though.)
In an attempt to do some damage control, Thela goes to see Mo and goes on a rambling explanation for... something.
I am loving Mo, especially her reactions. "Wooooow!" Hee!
The other girls don't really cotton to Thela's talk with Mo, thinking she was trying to take some unfair advantage. What they probably don't realize is that Thela has pretty much talked herself out the door.
The girls gather downstairs, and Mo tells them what she hopes they've learned this week. She congratulates Saaphyri for leading her team to victory and safety, and then calls Leilene, Darra and Thela on the carpet.
No, literally, there's a carpet that they step onto.
Mo and the panel lay it out like this: Leilene is in dutch because she failed to lead. I think they're being harsh because she was just trying to be nice, but then I realize that Leilene is probably the type of woman who will ruin her own life trying to be nice to others, so it would behoove her to start thinking of herself and letting others deal with things on their own. Darra is in trouble because she worked so hard the first day, but then gave up the second day. And Thela is in trouble because she showed no leadership whatsoever at any point, and most folks think she was faking it with the Achilles tendon business.
And so Thela is expelled, and frankly, I'm relieved to see her go, 'cause she seems pretty damn unbalanced.
As she's sending her off, Mo recommends therapy to Thela, and follows it with "it'll make you the best person you can possibly be." And I just want to kiss Mo right then and there, 'cause usually a recommendation of therapy is used as an insult, but not here. I love Mo. I love this show. (But I still don't love Larissa.)
"You're the whore of Charm School!" I cannot wait. This is gonna be great!
$100 on Goldie. Thank the sweet mother that you are following this one too. I have been reading your posts since the first season of flavor of love, and you always make me laugh out loud. You deserve a Pulitzer.
Posted by: Dave | April 19, 2007 at 11:39 PM
Dude. Rewatch and tell me that Thela doesn't TOTALLY remind you of Julia Roberts. Think I'm crazy? Watch it again.
Posted by: LeeLee | April 20, 2007 at 02:39 PM
Aw, thanks, Dave!
LeeLee, you have just BLOWN MY MIND. That's uncanny; I even had a couple of screen shots where I was wondering who Thela reminded me of, and now I know. Good eye!
Posted by: Catherine Cantieri | April 20, 2007 at 04:51 PM