Reality TV Whores: HGTV’s Design Star, Episode 3

Oh, the fun of trashing people on Reality TV! They just put themselves out there, starved for attention– so what’s an astute Societal Commentator to do? Give ’em the attention they’re begging for, naturally! Of course, when they’re as clueless and annoying as some of the people on this show, it makes my job easier, and, let’s face it… fun!!

OK, and so just maybe I’m a little bitter that no one asked moi to do the show– I am a bit of a Design Star myself, you know.

And as such, I’m all the more qualified to combine three of my favorite things into one fabulous rant: Designing, Reality TV and Editorializing (OK, bitching)!

Of course, I am, in fact, bitching with a purpose. If there’s one thing I loathe, it’s when Designers give the rest of us a bad name, setting the profession back to the days before women could vote.

Case in point: To quote many-a-client of mine’s husband when he finally sees my (suprisingly tasteful and restrained) work in his home: Gosh, I, uh, really like it?! I heard that my wife hired a Decorator and thought my house would end up looking all foofy! But this… well, I wished I’d had hired you earlier!

So every and again I come across such a Designer (Hilde on trading Spaces, anyone?) and I can hardly contain myself. I want to tie them up in strings of hot glue from their glue gun. And surprise, surprise, this show has at least two offenders.

And, surprise again, one of them is a high-maintenance blonde lady from Texas (Donna). Apparently she has issues with the younger, prettier and more talented blonde named Temple. But, you know, being Ms. Southahnn Hawspitahhlity, she can’t bear to have her buttons pushed and risk lashing out, especially on TV– people will talk!! So as the show opens, we catch her trying to sell Temple on the merits of being phony, or pretending to be friends, so as to avoid any nasty conflict.

So last night the Designers were given an identical room to Redesign. Naturally there was a twist– they were given a room with non-descript furniture and told that they could reconstruct it with power tools, one gallon of paint (for which they had to budget $25) and materials from either an Auto Parts Store, a Camping Store or a Beauty Store– and no, they don’t get to choose which store they shop out of.
At this point I am *praying* to the Design Gods that Ms. Texas does not get the chance to pollute the airwaves by designing a room with items from a beauty supply store. (SHUDDER!!) Can you say Jon Benet Ramsey-cum-Liberace??

So you can only imagine my glee when I learned that she’d be shopping at an Auto Zone (gidee-up!!), right along with her arch-nemesis, Temple.

Despite having to work with Auto Zone materials, Ms. Texas manages to create something foofy. That’s right, she faux-finished her way into fewwww-fdom, using car paint, of all things!! Yep, that’s right, everyone– the image you see on your left is the paint-job she littered her room with. To her credit, she was shown agonizing over the mess she’d made… something to the effect of “the Judges will think I was painting with my eyes closed!!”

Um, sorry Darlin’, but even blindness on the part of the painter does not explain that. The only explanation for such ugliness is bad taste!

Of course, the foof-dom of Ms. Texas doesn’t end there. Her “design sense” dictates the over-use of trinkets. How, you must be wondering, does one come up with tasteless-Texas-style trinkets when furnishing a room with auto supplies? By finding random car parts that somehow resemble foofy plants and other over-the-top accessories.

Well, it’s hard, which is why Ms. Foofy ended up with a foofy-cum-utilitarian motif. These two design genres never, ever mix, and her room is a prime example of why. Can you imagine mod, futuristic, masculine furniture with chrome accents in a room with frilly lace curtains and Shabby-chic wallpaper? (SHUDDER!!) Well, this gives you an idea of Ms. Texas’s end result, presented in all of it’s glory below…

(L) The room everyone had to start… (R)Donna’s after-“Texas Minimalism”?

Of course, if you think this project is impossibly hard, check out my girl Temple’s design on the right– no wonder Donna resents her in a way that can only come across as “I’m soo above you– I have a DESIGN DEGREE and you DON’T!!”

Lord only knows why they didn’t eliminate Donna here. Perhaps it’s because the producers decided to keep her around despite her lack of design sense, because having a marginally-talented, annoying character that produces lots of conflict is GOOD for ratings (Does anyone remember Santino on Project Runway last season, Jade on cycle 5 of Top Model, or– the gold standard– Omorosa on Trump’s show?!) With those examples in mind, I’ll happily make the following prediction: The more annonying Ms. Texas is– and the more she fights with Temple– the longer she’ll be around. I just pray that they never give her the opportunity to use anything with feathers or artificial plants!!

Vapidly Yours,

Jenna