IDIOT BOX SAVANT People with heads need not apply.

Thursday, February 27, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Idiot Box Savant: Yes, I am!

By Andrew Kiraly

The Savant thinks it's time for a reality-TV vacation. It's a difficult parting. I've stood by the trend through its ups and downs, endured its tantrums, humored its whims, and remained at its side through its darkest hours, i.e., that total-bullshit bait-and-switch "Joe Millionaire" episode that was all flashback and recap. What a crock that was. I was so appalled, in protest I watched the dreaded Criterion Collection Rashomon DVD that had been assaulting me for days from the coffee table with stamina-sapping you-should-try-to-culture-yourself-or-at-least-watch-the-first-15-minutes-so-you-can-name-drop-Kurosawa-at-those-parties-you-never-go-to beams. Energy...drained..must...reach cupboard...four pounds of Girl Scout Friendship Circles only hope of salvation...

But seeing "Are You Hot? The Search for America's Sexiest People" (ABC, Thursdays, 8 p.m.) convinced me that a little break from reality TV was definitely in order. Not because the show's bad. Rather, because the show's so good--so luridly, wantonly, emptily good--that my brain's pleasure sacs threaten to explode from the dopamine overload. And that's a kind of bloating that no amount of commercials with gauzy-looking women pensively walking on beaches can cure.

Yeah, it's that good. "Are You Hot?" is a delightfully loathsome little distillation of our culture's obsession about appearance, which includes, but is not limited to, having big boobs, manly pecs, great buns, nice legs, tight ass and general, all-around hot, spicy meathood. That said, ugly sensitive people are advised to avoid "Are You Hot?" and spend Thursday nights rereading their favorite holistic living magazine.

The setup is simple: Three judges--Rachel Hunter, Randolph Duke and Lorenzo Lamas--perform a sort of streamlined, meth-fueled casting call on a fast-moving line of muscly beeftards and bikini-wearing whorelets, judging their faces, bodies and sex appeal. The process is swift, dispassionate and often brutal. "You got the butter, but not the biscuits, honey," Randolph Duke told one lady you can probably find naked on the Internet. "I give you a 7 on the body." Yeah, she tried to play it cool--firing back a line about his receding hairline--but you know she felt burned. I mean, dissed in the looks department by a gay man. Owie!

And that's the perverse fun of the show. I mean, there's nothing better for one's spiritual upkeep than seeing a would-be Calvin Klein model being told his blond, kinked hair is more fruity than Starburst. At first I thought this show would only inflame my deep insecurities about my manly pecs being either not manly or not pectoral enough, but "Are You Hot?" made me realize it's all relative. I mean, some of these people break into tears backstage 'cause they were told they were too skinny, lacked cleavage or didn't have a "cute tummy." It moved me to a reflective moment of sobering self-acceptance, and today I'm proud to say I love and accept my TV-nourished, Tastykake-fed man-tits, as well as the part between my shoulder blades that, when squeezed, makes it look like my back has an ass.

Besides, who are these people to judge? Well, okay, they've got grounds. Former swimsuit model Rachel Hunter is pretty hot, though she seems like she's in a Xanax fog the whole time; Randolph Duke has a cool, slimy, over-coiffed villain thing going; and Lorenzo Lamas is still my standard by which to judge wrongly accused men on the run from the law on motorcycles.

But Lorenzo has got to ease up on the mack. At every woman who tottles out on stage, he leers and goes, "Hi there, [woman's name said with smoldering relish]." One woman got him so excited, he actually told her, "I've got a burrito cooking down south, and it's almost ready."

Whoa, man! Save it for your future gay-for-pay Cinemax soft-porn career. Otherwise, "Are You Hot?" rules. My pleasure sacs concur!