Project Runway, season 1
Feb. 27th, 2009 06:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ivyficI am watching Project Runway on DVD. I know this is way late, but I just finished watching season 1.
Watching this season, it's pretty clear that no one really knows what they're doing—on camera or off. There's one episode where Nora has a complete meltdown with crying and accusing and storming off with other contestants singing at her and the next day Tim Gunn comes in and is like…I heard there was some drama last night. Like he kind of can't believe how nuts these people are going.
I also have sympathy for some of the contestants, like Vanessa, who clearly had no idea what they were getting into. It's the first season. So they didn't know they were going to be locked in a room and told they had a day to sew a dress out of produce. So it's clear, at least for some, that they thought they would be able to get something out of this career-wise but it was actually very harmful to their career, in a way that was partly due to their actions, but mostly due to them having made an uninformed decision. Of course, then Vanessa went off and bad-mouthed everyone, including Heidi, to the press, and generally made everything worse, so I don't feel too bad for her. But most of the time when I watch reality TV and people come off looking incompetent and stupid I just figure they got what they signed up for. Season 1 of PR…they didn't know what they signed up for, so I feel a little bad watching it.
Wendy Pepper… It's clear from the start that she was playing this like Survivor. I can't really blame her. Of all the people on the show, she's the only one who's thinking of this as reality tv. Your designs are not the only (or the main) reason you're here—you're here to make good television. I also don't think she was that much of a backstabber. She threw people under the bus, but she was really kind of honest about it. After she spoke against Austin, she made no bones about being in it just for herself. And I can't even blame her for picking Austin. They had to choose someone as the weak link, and if both she and Vanessa worked very hard to create Austin's design and it failed because of the design, then it is Austin's problem. I don't even blame her for pointing out Kevin's flaws. The fact is, he got eliminated because his piece didn't work, not because of what Wendy said. It may have helped, but the other contestants treated her like she had been the one to kick him off the show. She wasn't.
She was certainly not as talented as some of the other designers there, and her collection at the end was noticeably worse than the others. But despite her schemes, I really think she stayed on the show because she always managed to be the one standing next to the talented designer who'd just fallen flat on their face. She didn't help them, but she didn't push them. She won the last challenge. Austin lost that spot in the final three by himself by making a really sub-par dress.
Maybe my opinion of her is tempered by Kenley the last season, who I really did dislike. Kenley was fake and disingenous throughout. Wendy was just one of the most ruthlessly competitive people I've ever seen. She didn't cry at the end about how no one talked to her and no one ever liked her in school. She just pointed out, rightly, that they were in a competition. And she was competing.
I also thought she was really quite attractive when she was working that Rogue-like white streak, except when she had the awful eye makeup.
Austin is absolutely my favorite. He is one of the most strikingly beautiful people I've ever seen. I kept thinking it's a good thing he's gay because it would be hard to be a straight man with that face. And he totally won me over with the cape and the curls and the tricorn hat for the reunion show.
The only moment that made me uncomfortable was in the swimsuit challenge when he basically had his model give the columnist a lap dance to win. And she's sixteen. Awkward!
I was rooting for Kara Saun through the whole season (though I already knew who won), but she really lost me in the finale. Those custom made free shoes? That was clearly cheating. It was cheating. And for her to try to pretend like she had no advantage by getting custom made shoes instead of buying shoes off of the sale rack was such self-righteous bullshit. I don't think they should have let her show her collection with the shoes. I know it was too late for her to change anything, but she had the rules of the contest. If she didn't follow them, it was her own damn fault. I honestly think that's why Jay won. They couldn't let her win after pulling something like that.
All in all it made the finale kind of unsatisfying. My champion fucked up royally; I felt bad for Wendy being picked on by Kara Saun (I'm with Jay—she should have been cordial. Not talking to her was psychological warfare); and the judges were all rather negative about their collections. And then, watching the extras, it's clear that Jay was really disappointed with the prize. His spread in Elle was like half a page and they made him change all his styling. So I end up feeling like the contestants were rather badly used by the producers, just because they didn't know what they would be asked to do going in.
On to season two!
Watching this season, it's pretty clear that no one really knows what they're doing—on camera or off. There's one episode where Nora has a complete meltdown with crying and accusing and storming off with other contestants singing at her and the next day Tim Gunn comes in and is like…I heard there was some drama last night. Like he kind of can't believe how nuts these people are going.
I also have sympathy for some of the contestants, like Vanessa, who clearly had no idea what they were getting into. It's the first season. So they didn't know they were going to be locked in a room and told they had a day to sew a dress out of produce. So it's clear, at least for some, that they thought they would be able to get something out of this career-wise but it was actually very harmful to their career, in a way that was partly due to their actions, but mostly due to them having made an uninformed decision. Of course, then Vanessa went off and bad-mouthed everyone, including Heidi, to the press, and generally made everything worse, so I don't feel too bad for her. But most of the time when I watch reality TV and people come off looking incompetent and stupid I just figure they got what they signed up for. Season 1 of PR…they didn't know what they signed up for, so I feel a little bad watching it.
Wendy Pepper… It's clear from the start that she was playing this like Survivor. I can't really blame her. Of all the people on the show, she's the only one who's thinking of this as reality tv. Your designs are not the only (or the main) reason you're here—you're here to make good television. I also don't think she was that much of a backstabber. She threw people under the bus, but she was really kind of honest about it. After she spoke against Austin, she made no bones about being in it just for herself. And I can't even blame her for picking Austin. They had to choose someone as the weak link, and if both she and Vanessa worked very hard to create Austin's design and it failed because of the design, then it is Austin's problem. I don't even blame her for pointing out Kevin's flaws. The fact is, he got eliminated because his piece didn't work, not because of what Wendy said. It may have helped, but the other contestants treated her like she had been the one to kick him off the show. She wasn't.
She was certainly not as talented as some of the other designers there, and her collection at the end was noticeably worse than the others. But despite her schemes, I really think she stayed on the show because she always managed to be the one standing next to the talented designer who'd just fallen flat on their face. She didn't help them, but she didn't push them. She won the last challenge. Austin lost that spot in the final three by himself by making a really sub-par dress.
Maybe my opinion of her is tempered by Kenley the last season, who I really did dislike. Kenley was fake and disingenous throughout. Wendy was just one of the most ruthlessly competitive people I've ever seen. She didn't cry at the end about how no one talked to her and no one ever liked her in school. She just pointed out, rightly, that they were in a competition. And she was competing.
I also thought she was really quite attractive when she was working that Rogue-like white streak, except when she had the awful eye makeup.
Austin is absolutely my favorite. He is one of the most strikingly beautiful people I've ever seen. I kept thinking it's a good thing he's gay because it would be hard to be a straight man with that face. And he totally won me over with the cape and the curls and the tricorn hat for the reunion show.
The only moment that made me uncomfortable was in the swimsuit challenge when he basically had his model give the columnist a lap dance to win. And she's sixteen. Awkward!
I was rooting for Kara Saun through the whole season (though I already knew who won), but she really lost me in the finale. Those custom made free shoes? That was clearly cheating. It was cheating. And for her to try to pretend like she had no advantage by getting custom made shoes instead of buying shoes off of the sale rack was such self-righteous bullshit. I don't think they should have let her show her collection with the shoes. I know it was too late for her to change anything, but she had the rules of the contest. If she didn't follow them, it was her own damn fault. I honestly think that's why Jay won. They couldn't let her win after pulling something like that.
All in all it made the finale kind of unsatisfying. My champion fucked up royally; I felt bad for Wendy being picked on by Kara Saun (I'm with Jay—she should have been cordial. Not talking to her was psychological warfare); and the judges were all rather negative about their collections. And then, watching the extras, it's clear that Jay was really disappointed with the prize. His spread in Elle was like half a page and they made him change all his styling. So I end up feeling like the contestants were rather badly used by the producers, just because they didn't know what they would be asked to do going in.
On to season two!
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-28 12:25 am (UTC)Jay's an interesting character--he was interviewed over and over about refusing the prize money and despite his cattiness, I side with him because this show is not as helpful as people think towards building a legit, lasting fashion empire. And I wonder if his comments about how the PR folks never tried to help the contestants understand the business part of the fashion business was part of what motivated the PR Canada crowd to have the one episode where they sat down with some mentors to discuss the non-artistic side of this profession.
(BTW? PR Canada, first season, was amazing. Great looks came out of it. Plus, Iman is a better, more confident sort of hostess. She's also freakin' gorgeous in this effortless way and has a killer accent. Heidi Klum looks like a child next to her.)
no subject
Date: 2009-02-28 12:32 am (UTC)Of course, second season project runway canada actually killed a guy, so it has that going for it.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-28 12:36 am (UTC)Also, no season two spoiler! Shh!
no subject
Date: 2009-02-28 12:47 am (UTC)Biddell was awesome though.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-28 05:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-01 04:22 pm (UTC)