A little commentary on The Amazing Race

For the past six weeks, I have been part of a group that meets regularly to discuss pop culture. The leader gave us all composition books and asked us to keep journals about anything related to pop culture—TV shows we watch, movies, music, etc.—and I ended up writing about a show that’s new to me—The Amazing Race. My friend Diana, who’s also in the group, asked me to post them here so she could share them with others, and since I’m not dumb enough to turn someone down who is actually asking to read my stuff and share it, the four entries I’ve written thus far are posted below.


March 8, 2009

Just finished watching The Amazing Race for the first time since so many people I know like this show and for once I’m caught up (mostly) with my DVR backlog. I enjoyed it and can see the appeal, but this has got to be the most stressful travel show ever. I understand the logic of why they can’t show these kinds of mundane details, but it started to make me anxious that we never got to see the contestants eat, drink, or sleep. It seems like they are just constantly on the go, all hours of the day and night. The bobsled thing looked like tons of fun, but when the deaf boy was struggling to spell “Chekhov,” I almost had to change the channel. Really, CBS? Are you going to make a deaf boy cry? But then he finally got it and everything was okay, and according to the previews, it looks like he may turn out to be a kind of evil U-turning deaf boy. And just as I was thinking, “how is it that none of these people have heard of Chekhov?” the Asian guy who seems more like the sister than the brother of the brother-sister team said, “Who doesn’t know Chekhov?” and I realized that we’re both smug bastards. As enjoyable and entertaining as the show was, though, there are a few aspects that made me uncomfortable. For example, does the cab driver who got stiffed by the stuntman brothers get the rest of his fee from the show’s producers? And I also couldn’t help but wonder what all those Russian guys were thinking watching all these ridiculous Americans in their brand-name sportswear doing the jobs they have to do every day of their lives as a game, and one, at that, where they could totally screw up and knock over a huge pile of wood and just run away to build some tacky Disney shutters instead. Maybe they are all well-paid by the show and enjoy the diversion—the crazy singing woman sure seemed to—but do they secretly resent us and just see it as one more example of how Americans view the world as their playground? Hopefully not, but part of me wouldn’t blame them if they did, even if it is good television.

March 15, 2009

Well, I got my wish—I actually got to see the show’s contestants sleep for a few minutes, even if it was on a train’s midget-sized sleeper bunks. I loved it when one of the blonds exclaimed indignantly to the camera, “This isn’t a vacation, you know!” Yeah, lady, I kind of got that last week when they made you stack a giant pile of wood and run around a lot. I don’t think that would seem like a vacation to anyone except maybe people in prison. I was very relieved to discover that despite the promos, the deaf boy is actually a super nice kid. I think I would have felt uncomfortable with having to hate him, so that’s a good thing. In retrospect, it was actually a good strategy to eliminate one of the strongest teams, and when he tried to help out the cheerleaders in the car behind him by posting a note in the back windshield, all was forgiven. I wish I could say the same for Victor and Tammy. I get that when they peeled away in the car and left everyone else behind it wasn’t much different from the deaf boy’s U-Turn—this is a race after all, and what kind of idiot says to all the other runners, “hey, let’s all jog together at the same pace”? So I get that, but I still kind of hate them. Partly it’s because they thought they were way funnier than they actually were reading all those Russian names aloud, but mostly it’s because Victor has this kind of high-pitched voice that sounds like a whine even when he’s super happy & excited about things like driving a snow plow, and it kind of makes me want to slap him repeatedly. They are so annoying that I found myself rooting for the cheerleaders at one point, which is not something I ever thought I’d do in my lifetime. I’m still trying to figure out the rationale behind one of the challenges. I get the snow plow—they’re in Siberia, for cryin’ out loud—but how brides in flimsy white dresses and capelets are, as the host claimed, “an inevitable aspect of Siberia” is beyond me. And making them run around in their underwear (the contestants, not the brides) just seemed plain mean. Hilarious to watch, but mean. I was somewhat unwillingly impressed by the stuntman brother, who trucked along nobody’s business. He reminded me of a bantam rooster at full tilt. But what was with the scary ballerina girl at the end? Her words said, “Welcome,” but her face and voice said, “This is Siberia, bitch, and we’ll cut you up!”

March 22, 2009

Not only is the deaf boy—Luke—a nice kid, but after watching him weep unashamedly at the poverty in India, I think I now love him. If he didn’t already have such a great mom, I’d probably want to adopt him and bring him home and make him soup. Another set of contestants making its way into my heart is the father-son team. If I thought watching Luke struggling to spell Chekhov was bad, it was nothing compared to the agonized wheezing of the 68-year-old dad hauling buckets of water back and forth for those hussied-up camels. And just when I was convinced that I was going to witness a collapse on camera, he pulled through and the two of them made it in second. And seeing the genuine love and affection between the two of them was, I have to admit, truly heartwarming. The family members that continue to irritate me with their constant stream of self-congratulatory commentary are the siblings Victor and Tammy. I think it’s very telling that while Luke wept during his cab drive through the slums of India, Victor waved cheerily like a has-been pop star riding a float in the Rose parade. And of course they were number one. I think I’ll root for anyone who will beat them at this point, except maybe the cheerleaders, who slipped back into the stereotype this week by getting shrill, rude, and diva with their cab driver. That said, if I’m honest, it’s easy for me to sit on my couch in my pajamas judging them, and I can’t help but wonder what ugly aspect of my nature would come vaulting to the surface if I were in an intense competition in the middle of a foreign city and my cab driver had disappeared with my luggage. I might very well be a screaming banshee as well. Although one with far less caked-on foundation and mascara. Still, this is why I have no desire to ever be on a reality show—ever. I save my flaws for the people who know me. I don’t need them televised far and wide for all of America to shake its finger at me.

March 29, 2009

So this week I actually listened more closely to what the host was saying at the beginning and caught the phrase “mandatory rest,” which makes me picture all of the contestants being locked in their hotel rooms. It’s like, “that’s right, people—no sightseeing for you! We want your memory of this country to be one of stress and confusion.” But at least we know they’re resting. He didn’t say anything about mandatory eating or drinking, though, so I’m still a little worried about that aspect. In this week’s episode, Tammy and Victor have been bumped by the cheerleaders as the most annoying contestants. I still don’t particularly like Mr. “No, no, I can pull this rickshaw with the flat tire the whole way myself” and am disturbed by Tammy’s almost pathological need to encourage her brother despite the fact that he continually dismisses her. But those cheerleaders—especially the one whose name I can’t bother to learn—are really starting to grate on me. I can tolerate someone losing their cool and yelling once—an aberration that they are later remorseful for—but this lady yells constantly, her strident frustration and rage lambasting cab drivers and herb-drawer openers alike. I can almost hear her thinking, “Why can’t you people understand me when I am screaming English at you in your own country? How stupid and unhelpful can you be in my quest to win a million dollars?” Way to represent America, lady. For once in my life, I’m really glad I don’t have red hair and big boobs so that I can never be mistaken for her while traveling abroad. Those cheerleaders could learn a thing or two from the awesome father-son duo, who have said repeatedly that they’re in this to have fun. Sadly, their lack of competitive edge took them to the beach instead of the Phuket Zoo. I was bummed to see them go since they are far more interesting to me as contestants than the sister duo, who don’t seem to have much in the way of discernable personality. Luke and his poor fainting mother continue to dominate as my favorites. I think the best part of this week’s episode was when the cheater brothers got spanked by the host with a 60-minute time out, during which they had to sit under a tree like the naughty boys they were. As the saying goes, cheaters never prosper, and it was nice to see that finally be true. Three words for you, brothers: ha ha ha!