So, I watched the first episode of Celebrity Apprentice on Sunday night. Why? Because apparently I have secret masochistic tendencies. And while there were tons of things that annoyed me during that episode (three words: Andrew. Dice. Clay), one thing in particular stood out: the inherent unfairness of the men vs. women format.
Not in general, of course. I think that, given a fair playing field and roughly comparable contestants, a gender war theme is perfectly fair. But this isn't a fair playing field, and it's not one with roughly comparable contestants. And this is because of the nature of fame.
Celebrity Apprentice is cast with a few genuine celebs (Dennis Rodman, Herschel Walker, Joan Rivers), and then a bunch of lesser lights that will make up the difference. Many of these people have gained some business experience through their various post-fame enterprises. The problem is that when it comes to finding lesser celebrities, the men still get people who have spent some time in their life doing actual work. The women get people who are famous because they are pretty, slutty, or both, and whose post fame business savvy may (at best) consist of starting an unsuccessful line of lingerie. Not to mention that they're also generally dumb as a post and insanely high-maintenance, making them a nightmare to manage. "Oh, but Playboy models can be smart." Yeah, spare me. That's why so many Playmates of the Year win the Nobel Prize for Physics. Sure, one of the them (once) might have been smart. And perhaps they're no dumber than your average model or actress. But no, Virginia. Playboy models are not smart.
So that the end result is that we get the pleasure of watching a poor beleaguered Annie Duke (poker champ) attempting to convince a Deal or No Deal model to help make cupcakes. It was painful. Yes, the show is only minimally about business skills and is generally more of a contest about who knows more rich people who can give big donations, but whenever some level of business sense (or simple human logic) is required, it's like a battle of the brainless.
Oh, the other incredibly painful thing? Watching Donald Trump shamelessly suck up to his sports heroes. Lord, I loathe that man.
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