Fatale Abstraction

Coyote Fugly.
I was flipping channels tonight and I came across a startling spectacle on CMT, a channel I never normally watch for any reason. Freakishly, my sister called a short while later and said there was a terrible mess on tv that I simply HAD to watch and it was the same thing. Kismet! What riveted my gaze so effectively was "The Ultimate Coyote Ugly Search" which is a reality show of contestants vying to be the triple threat of a hot'n'sexay singing & dancing bartender who can make customers thirsty yet submissive. The winner will receive $25,000, and who knows what else? The CMT series is making stops in several US cities including Nashville, NYC, Austin and San Antonio for auditions.

On the NYC show, the hair-flinging girl in the top pic is dancing her little heart out, but she just doesn't quite have it. Rather pitifully, they keep doing the mini-interviews with the girls, and she seems to think she has it all sewn up - that she's the only one performing well. It's very through-the-looking-glass how like the Elizabeth Berkley Showgirls character she is, glazed-over with a naive desperation. I kept expecting her to take her top off at any moment, which would have improved my opinion of her, by the way.

Another standout moment of off-the-mark heartstring tugging was the girl who started crying because the story of the CU movie was just like her life story and her dad just died. Ew. Awkward. Nix on the sad story thing - her ass was cut from the competition forthwith, as she was a crap dancer. Thank you, drive through.

The people thinning the herd of auditionees kept talking about how there are no standouts in the audition- like no one is bringing anything to the table that is memorable. Maybe it's just that these girls only want the exposure of being on television (cue Cartman singing "I'm gonna be on television") to showcase their singing/songwriting talents, but they really need to do their homework and bring a little more than a pulse and a burning desire to the audition. What blows my mind is there is choreography they are taught and expected to perform from the movie - the classic Coyote Ugly dance, and these girls are having difficulty with it. No wonder these bitches seem apathetic - they have a primer available on VHS and DVD, and they didn't bother to bone up on it in advance? Well, they don't really look like they want it at all. Based on what I've seen so far, they need to give the $25 grand to some chick who already is working for Coyote Ugly instead of these lukewarm sorta-wannabes. I'll DVR some more episodes, because I feel I need to take one for the team and watch this mess, so you won't have to. Really, I'm thinking of you.