For those of you who thought North American reality TV had hit rock bottom, Allison’s got the scoop on the latest and greatest in Israeli viewing entertainment:
My latest guilty pleasure is watching “Project Y,” the local reality show, which is a hybrid of “Big Brother” and “American Idol.” With a little bit of “Fame” mixed in.
The 20-somethings are all trapped in a house, and the viewers vote them off one by one, but they’ve all got show biz ambitions and spend their daytime hours in the house taking acting, voice and dance lessons — with the usual gossiping, partying and casual sex in the evenings.
The winner — the sole survivor — gets a contract for their own TV show.
So, I’m unloading the dishwasher and I’ve got it on in the background, and suddenly I hear screaming, “You Arab dog, you Palestinian terrorist! Go ahead blow yourself up, you suicide bomber! I dare you!” and a response, “I’ll kill you, you shiksa Russian whore sleazebag!”
Thinking that things are heating up in the house, I head over to the TV screen.
There were two of the show’s participants, Camilla, a Russian immigrant, and Fares, an Israeli Arab, engaged in a massive tickling and wrestling match on a bed and laughing their heads off. They were completely joking with each other.
Interviewed afterwards, they said that getting all this stuff out in the open and joking about it defused the tension. Hey, whatever works.
But I’d love to put THAT clip on Peter Jennings newscast and let him sort it out.
Does Israel have equivalents to raspberry awards?
Still, it’d be worth it to air a few episodes here, just to see the heads of the ultra-politically-correct wackos explode.
“Still, it’d be worth it to air a few episodes here, just to see the heads of the ultra-politically-correct wackos explode.”
Yeah, I agree. And I’m sure they’d add some lines about “Jew dogs” and “Zionist terrorists” for balance.