Sigh…
There are no Lesbians in Canada.
Hey, don't look at me like I'm Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, standing in front of the student body at Columbia University declaring that there are no homosexuals in Iran.
I'm deducing this from a TMN press release that landed in my inbox today promoting "The Real L Word" a summer series about the lives of six LA Lesbians --- "every bit as glamorous, fashionable, fabulous and even as cutthroat as those hetero housewives".
The press release then reminds me that TMN is Premium Cable so "nothing will be held back".
Much as I can't wait to see the young lady who can apparently emit blinding light from her kitty region, the first thing that struck me was "Don't we already have enough foreign content on TV here? Do we really need to import the throw-away stuff as well?"
I know Bill Brioux would still rather see imports of the new Betty White show on TVLand than another rerun of "The Trouble with Tracy". But isn't there somebody willing to stand up for our right to make our own "shit" as some Alberta Cultural minister might describe the end product?
I mean, we can do cheap, cheese-ball, peep-shows! By the look of the promotional video for this "Heat Up Your Summer" series, it was shot for about $46 not counting what appears to be an astronomical bar tab.
Geez, even Canwest could come up with that kind of money. And somebody like me coulda probably shot the whole thing over a long weekend.
Seriously, this is just "Jersey Shore" without "The Situation" and "Snooki" constantly hitting on "J-Woww". It's got the production value of a high school Youtube challenge and offers about as much insight into the lives of the women profiled as you're likely to discover talking to a drunk getting a tattoo.
And nobody in the audience cares because all they're doing is waiting for the hot girl-on-girl action to start.
Cause I guess they can't find all the free versions on the internet.
The only reason we're not doing a show like this here must be that we don't have any Lesbians.
Or in the executive offices of TMN, they maybe think we don't have any of those smokin' hot, LA tanned, tattooed and hard drinkin' ones.
It's that kind of thinking that condemns us all to eternally playing in the minor leagues, TMN.
See, off the top of my head, I know at least six Canadian Lesbians who are far hotter than any of these obviously fine young ladies. A couple of them are actresses. One's a fitness trainer. One's a nurse. I think the one that's a lawyer stripped to pay for Law school.
They'll all talk dirty if you ask 'em and every single one can drink me under a table.
Unfortunately, I don't have any tattoo intel. But I'm sure somebody's got one. If they don't, a good stick-on isn't hard to find these days.
They're all far more well-spoken than the ladies from LA. Maybe they don't do the red carpet with regularity, name drop movie stars or have a past with the Crips and Bloods. But they've all had to fend off drunk hockey players and know somebody with a cottage in Muskoka so that's probably good for an episode or two.
All's I'm sayin' is -- if this is the kind of crap TMN will pay for (obviously backed by market research that says its what their viewers will pay for) how come they don't hire a local producer to make it?
Why pay license fees on a show so inexpensive to produce they could recoup from their own broadcasts and then have something they could sell internationally, on DVD, online, whatever?
And of course it would sell. TMN bought it! And, c'mon who doesn't like Lesbians?
Maybe it's a Pride thing -- and I'm not talking about any parade with squirt guns. But since TMN always prides itself on the "classy" shows it has developed like "Durham County" and "Terminal City" maybe they don't want anybody associating them with something this tawdry.
Which makes you wonder why they sent out a press release in the first place.
"The Real L Word". Somebody explain to me why we had to go outside the country for this…
7 comments:
I don't know, I've seen Kink and Webdreams, maybe we can't do this stuff...
We just got our new Bell "Fibe" installed, complete with three free months of almost every channel in the universe.
I've pleasantly discovered the XS in TMN:XS. I mean, I used to have to pay big bucks to have this stuff delivered in plain brown wrappers, looking over my shoulder when I picked it up from the rented mail box (under an assumed name). Now, its on channel 310. Ah, culture.
Of course, this is the "network" that had to set up HBO Canada, onto which they stuffed all the HBO stuff they couldn't stuff onto TMN.
Seriously, its not like they're running out of numbers, are they? Why the corporate "shuck and jive" of actually putting a name and brand onto a "new" "network", when they could just put more stuff on channel 456879.
The ironic thing is if you talk to some people in the lifetstyle sector, there's actually quite a different thing going on.
Production companies here are making shows totally driven by the U.S. sale & needs -- but getting full CanCon to do it. Then the Canadian network limps in.
Many of the shows on HGTV are like this. You get a makeover show, and it's all done here, but they have to make sure not to show teh gays because though that wouldn't really do much of an eyeblink here, it's a big deal for the primary audience in Alabama or wherever.
There are at least 10 series on the air on the specialties right now that were met with total indifference in the pitch or in picking them up - only the U.S. sale (sometimes to the parent channel) keeps them afloat.
DMc: yes, my wife actually noticed this for me about one of those real estate shows. We've seen the Toronto locations for most of the episodes, but one was definitely in...Texas?!?
And I guess Mike Holmes working in Naw'lins counts as CanCon. Maybe if Brangelin adopt a Canadian kid, it'd count even more when Brad is involved. I mean, there has to be some bureaucratic point system where adoptive fathers of Canadian babies are ranked Canadian.
And you'd think a nation that gave us "Queen Eye for the Straight Guy" wouldn't have a problem with Steve and Chris...
They only spend what they *have* to...on Cancon as required by their conditions of license. Haven't we already been through this?
Mmmm...lesbians.
But obviously the sexism doesn't bother you, or you wouldn't have used that pic.
What's with all the open sexism in this industry, anyways?
Hahaha. They're shooting that new Reality show - you know, the one where the recently divorced, dumped, and discarded women are put up in an Spanish Mansion, given a total makeover, and then taught to strip - in Ontario.
That should be a classic!
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