Dorrk Dot Com

I’m not one to let shutting off my cable stop me from watching too much worthless television, as this post about The NEXT Joe Millionaire seems to attest.

But, wait, maybe there is something valuable about the second series of this “reality” series so crass it dirities everyone involved, including the viewer.

For those that don’t know, Joe Millionaire promises a group of women a shot at snaring a wealthy bachelor, only to reveal at the last moment that he is, instead, a penniless lug.

The first season — transplanting a gaggle of American women to a French mansion for their courting by the faux moneybags — was so popular that for the follow-up the producers had to scour Europe’s skankiest club whores for a selection of females who had no idea that the subject of the show was, first, their deception and, second, their ridicule.

What makes this second season interesting is the contrast between the behavior of its European golddiggers to that of their predecessors, and how quickly it dispels the arrogant notion of European culture or sophistication.

First, the women are mostly worn and jaded, despite being mostly in their 20s. They all seem to have suffered from too many debauched Ibiza holidays. Secondly, they, unlike their American counterparts, bared their claws in the first and second episodes, exerting bored contempt for each other and their Texan bachelor at the outset.

When the women found out that their courtier was a cowboy (literally — he’s a rodeo rider) from Texas they all made of fun of him. Once they saw that he was cute (and supposedly worth $80 million), they praised him for being a cowboy.

Even more shocking to their cosmopolitan tastes, however, was when their suitor insisted on saying Grace before a picnic lunch, which made his escorts squirm uncomfortably, and elicited from some declarations of atheism, and from others strings of oblivious profanity.

Is this the superior intellect and sensibility of our Old World neighbors? Immunity to manners and mockery-turned-opportunistic-praise? It’s not a surprise that the worst offenders are the Swedes and Germans, while the Easterners, mostly composed of Czechs, seem more down-to-earth.

Tags: No Comments