Beauty and the Geek claims to be a "social experiment where two people become more than a beauty and a geek". This season, though, it is starting to look more like any other drama-ridden, train wreck reality show.
The problem comes from this season's new twist. Instead of pairing beauties with geeks, the show's producers decided to mix it up. This season it is Beauty vs. the Geek. The point of the show is for both the beauties and geeks to look more than skin deep. The geeks are supposed to learn social graces, and the beauties are supposed to learn to use their brains. It makes no sense not to pair them up if that is the true motive of the show. In previous seasons, the pairings was where most of the personal growth of the contestants came from. Being forced into a team with someone totally opposite of them; contestants learned to accept each other and saw beyond stereotypes. The best qualities of their partners often rubbed off on contestants. Beauties learned they could use their brains, and a few even went back to finish college degrees after the show. Geeks learned how to relate to the opposite sex and improve social interaction in general.
Beauty vs. Geek destroys many of the dynamics that caused individual development in previous seasons. First of all, pitting beauties against the geeks just re-creates a high school atmosphere. The cool kids hang out with the cool kids, and the nerds hang out with the nerds, with little crossover. The geeks already know how to hang with geeks, that does not put them out of their comfort zone at all. Many of the beauties expressed their distaste with Jonathan's velociraptor imitation. Another said he was not cute. What if one of the beauties was his partner and had to learn to put up with him? They might see his good qualities as well. Leticia and a few of the other girls hung out with the geeks in this episode, but was that because the girls lost the challenge? In this episode, some beauties learned the important lesson of leading a guy on to get what they want. The geeks are not really learning to relate to women, they are relating to them in the same way they always have been. Women are manipulating them or being cast by them as evil shrews that are not worth getting to know anyway.
Article comments
1 - Russ Evenhuis
Totally agree!
This was one of the few reality shows I liked because it was more about personal growth than money or winning. The twist this time seems to have killed the show for me.