The reality of it all
The View
Gerard Ramos

In 2000 Americans voted George W. Bush into the White House. In 2004 Americans sent Bush back into the White House for a second term. In 2006 Americans voted to have Katharine McPhee face off with Taylor Hicks in the American Idol finals, instead of Elliott Yamin, who throughout the highest-rated season yet of the massively popular talent show had consistently shown himself to be the best singer among the 12 finalists.
       Of course, it would be entirely laughable to suggest that Americans have a peculiar penchant for sending the wrong people to positions of prominence, especially given our own record of electing actors, comedians, liars and thieves to the highest offices this side of the White House. And even in the realm of something as vacuous as a talent competition where the winner is adjudged by the public at large, we haven’t done any better than our former colonizers.
       Just look around you. There’s Jennylyn Mercado, one of the so-called Ultimate Survivors of GMA’s top-rating talent search StarStruck, headlining or popping up on various GMA shows seemingly to alternately taunt us with the good fortune she attained largely through sheer luck and good genes, and torment us with her obvious indifference in parlaying that good fortune into work that is sublime and edifying. There’s Sandara Park, one of the two top winners of ABS-CBN’s copycat talent search Star Circle Quest, who’s done just as infamously as Jennylyn Mercado has.
       Of course, in fairness to these two kindred young women, the fault may be not so much theirs as it is the entertainment companies to which they are contractually obligated to generate as many eyeballs as conceivable to add to their respective company’s seemingly bottomless bottom line, and never mind if the platforms given to them routinely aim for the lowest common denominator of the mass market. I mean, it’s frightening to think that it was Jennylyn herself who wanted her character on GMA’s I Luv NY to be this whiney young woman you’d like to wish the sort of hexes you wouldn’t want to bring on your worst enemy.
       The unfortunate results of these nationally televised—or, in the case of American Idols, globally televised—talent searches have cooled me toward the genre. With one exception: Project Runway, now on its second even more fascinating season on Discovery Travel & Living while the first season is just concluding on ETC.
       Originally seen on Bravo TV, the reality TV-style talent search gathers young unsigned designers to compete in weekly challenges at the famed Parson School of Design in New York until only three remain to face off at Olympus Fashion Week, the Olympus of fashion shows. The winner in the three-way face-off will get his or her designs photographed for the pages of Elle magazine, a $100,000 cash prize to start his or her own fashion business, plus an esteemed mentorship with global fashion brand Banana Republic. For the second season, the winner also drives away with a very fancy, very posh and very exclusive car.
       The second season of Project Runway has turned out to be far more compelling television than the first, what with the competing designers being decidedly more vocal and voluble than the debut-season batch, along with all the back-stabbing and minidramas that have long been whispered about the fashion industry but are now in full public view. There’s even a major minimeltdown that happens early in the competition, plus—in the episode airing tomorrow night on Discovery Travel & Living—a screaming match between one of the designers and Nina Garcia of Elle.
       Ultimately, however, what makes Project Runway truly compelling television is that, for all the minidramas happening among the designers and between the designers and the show’s estimable judges, the process of creation is the true star of the show week in and week out, as the competing designers create something glamorous and chic and wearable occasionally out of practically nothing for a spot in Olympus Fashion Week. In Season One, the designers in one competition had as their material only the stuff available in a grocery; in Season Two, it’s greens from the flower market. Seriously, who would’ve thought that creating an utterly chic wrap dress out of leaves could be so compulsively watchable?
       And in a reality TV landscape where how well a talent show contestant works the camera—and, consequently, the audience—is sometimes even more important than his or her actual talent, it is utterly refreshing to see nothing else but artistry and creativity be rewarded in Project Runway.
       I can’t wait for Season Three to begin.