Ok, so I was not planning on writing more tonight. Its really late, but I just HAD to say something about this. And for the first time, I am going to let everyone else say something as well. This is important enough to enable feedback on this entry.
CAUTION TIVO OWNERS: Average Joe 2 spoilers ahead
So if you read my blog often, you know that I have been watching the "Average Joe" shows on NBC. Well, I just finished watching the finale of the second season (I know that its on Mondays, but I have tivo and tend to watch things days behind so I just got to it).
For those that do not know, let me briefly explain the premise. The whole point of the show is that you take a beautiful woman and introduce her to a set of normal average guys (some of them are not so average, but it all evens out. This past time I thought they did a fairly good job at representing a variety of people). Then after she has gotten a chance to know them, you add the same number of extremly good looking guys to the mix and see who she starts eliminating. This time, I am not sure if this is on purpose, but the better looking guys that were chosen for the show all seemed to have issues. The only thing they had was their looks. I know that this is a stereotype that often gets applied, and I want to try and be fair here and give other good looking men out there the benefit of the doubt by assuming that not all are just "empty shells". But, the ones one the show seemed to be. The "average" guys that they found for the most part seemed to be interesting and have more substance. As normal, not all did (or it was not shown on the show....which is EQUALLY as possible) and they were eliminated early. But essentially towards the end, you ended up with the interesting average guys versus the boring and empty good looking guys.
On the very first episode of this season after the average guys were introduced, the woman: Larissa was shown behind the scenes cursing at the producers and asking if this was a practical joke. She elaborated how important physical attraction was to her and how not attracted she was to these guys. This seemed almost as a prelude to the whole story. She was constantly favoring the better looks over anything else. Luckily the producers had excercises and parts of the show that would allow everyone`s tallents (for the most part) to shine through. This kept the eliminating even since quite often a bad or dark side of the lookers would show and that would get them eliminated right away. Those actions actually gave me some hope for Larissa. I thought that she might actually be smarter than she had seemed thus far.
Well in the end, it came down to a Bostonian (the average one) and a Floridian (the looker). She commented on about every date that she had with him (Gil - looker) that she could not get him to say anything and that he was being very reserved. Read boring and empty. Yet on the dates with Brian (average) she was always complementary of how he treated her, what he said to her, what they talked about, how Brian acted, etc. This did not happen with Gill, she seemed to only comment on his looks and not much else. Each episode that led up to the final one, Brian looked better and better. He dressed better, sounded better, acted better, and each episode Larissa seemed to enjoy Brian more. Finally in the last episode, Brian and Larissa seemed to have a dream date that had way too many cool moments to talk about. In the end they even shared a tear together. Well, on Gills date, there were lots of things that went wrong. Too many to talk about in fact, but essentially there was a lot of silence, a lot of shockingly strange answers....etc. Well then it came down to decision time. I was all relaxed because based on what was shown on tv (I can recognize that much more actually happened that we were not able to see) totally made it seem like it was a slam dunk for Brian. Brian was going to show the world that having intellegence, wit, feelings, sensitivity, and other things that normally are not hilighted in men were not bad and lacking traights, but instead important to have. I was pretty excited right up until the last 14 minutes or so. Thats when she announced it. Larissa had picked Gil (looker) which by the rules meant that she could not see Brian (average) again, and he had to leave on a bus right away. I was shocked. I could not believe my ears. Here is a situation where she had a great guy that loved here (or so he said, but he certainly cared for her), and then she instead when off and chose to pick someone else because of how they look. She said that she was going to try and get Gil to open up. I wanted to tell her at the time that that wasn`t going to happen, and she should give up. This is the SAME thing that happened the first episode as well. I think the first guy had more going for him, but the example is exactly the same that it seemed as if the final guy was picked for his looks and that was all.
Well, I could make rash wild assumptions at this point and try to say cliches that would probably just alienate and insult others out there that are not like this. But instead, I will let others voice their own opinion.
So the question for the comments is how important do you think looks is in a relationship, and do you place that above all other traits and or qualities? Additionally, feel free to comment on Larissa `s decision, and or similar decisions like this that you have faced in the past. I will most likely remain bitter towards Larissa and those like here that make decisions like that, but I can at least respect that people are entitled to their own opinions, and on this topic I thought that it was important to allow many opinions and feelings to be expressed.
Personally, I can not stand what she did. She was leading him on really badly as well. She was also getting into the relationship more and more each episode as well. It seemed as if she really valued her time with him, but apparetly not that much.
What I find more interesting though is that this time they showed where the couple went in the end after the decision, and it turns out that this is when Larissa broke it to the looker that her ex was Fabio. For some reason this caused him to freak out. He said that every guy could relate....but honestly at that point I did not care. I also did not think it was a big deal when she made the announcement, but that is just me. Well, it turns out that after that he actually left the island where they were alone without here, so she was stuck with no one fo pick at all. She had dumped the one guy that just about worshiped her and the ground she walked on, and had done so on many occaisions. Personally I think that serves her right for for doing that, but that still does not make it better for Brian because he still can not see her.
Well I heard the premise for the next show. They are switching the rolse and will have just one guy. That should be interesting. My comments still apply there as well though. I hope that this guy can respect the ordeal and choose sensibly rather than a human dividing rod.
So this is your chance to vote your opinions. Do you agree with me that it was stupid for Larissa to go with the looker based on looks? Do you agree that its poetic irony gone wrong that Gil chose to leaver her in a few days? Are all Women like this? Men?
Also feel free to read a recap of the finale as well:
http://www.nbc.com/nbc/Average_Joe:_Hawaii/recap_209.shtml
Also, it seems that most people agree with me:
J.P.
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