The Desperation, the Tears, the Smack-Talk: A Review of The Search for the Next Doll
by Theresa Benaquist

If you like America’s Next Top Model, you will probably like The CW’s The Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll. The structure is similar: nine girls, eight weeks, three judges. The judges are Robin Antin, creator of The Pussycat Dolls, producer Erik Dawkins and choreographer Mikey Minden. Like ANTM, The girls live together, and much of the appeal of the show will lie in the drama that unfolds among them. We can expect that by the end of the second episode we will know who is the bitch, who is talented but self-defeating, who is a great singer but can’t dance, who can dance but can’t sing, who is the loner, and who is just plain crazy.

More than the footage of the cattle calls, and introduction of the contestants and the judges, or any attempt at editing in some interpersonal drama, the most memorable part of the show so far was the stomach virus that swept through the house. Angelia, the first girl to get sick, sits out during her choreography rehearsal. I found her sickness somewhat suspect when she said to the camera, her expression chipper, “I can’t even think right now except how much this sucks.”  However stagy Angelia’s delivery, I wasn’t left in doubt for long as to whether or not she was really sick. The camera was present as each girl fell ill, and with an incredible crassness I believe unprecedented on network television, we see tight shots of the girls emptying the contents of their stomachs into toilets and wastepaper baskets.

But The Search for the Next Doll isn’t just about a stomach virus; among the more promising of the girls are Mariella and Sisely. Mariella was trained in ballet, and is easily the best dancer in the group. She has a gorgeous extension (she can lift her leg up to her ear) and a Fosse-like fluidity and weighted quality to her movement. She has yet to prove herself as singer, however. Sisely has a raspy singing voice, a short, pixie haircut, and bears a loose resemblance to Kirsten Dunst. In an effort to develop the personalities of the girls and reveal/create a little drama for the audience, much was made over her refusing to rehearse until the early hours of the morning with the girls in her group, instead choosing to get eight hours of sleep. Ultimately, she seemed sensible rather than contrary, as she was also one of the few who didn’t get the stomach virus that effectively turned the house into a heavily surveilled vomitorium.

So far, The Search for the Next Doll seems like standard reality television: entertaining, yes, but beyond the thrill of watching yet another half-season of heavily scripted catfights, I wonder what a reality show will do to the validity of an established and currently popular group. The Search for the Next Doll could be the beginning of the end for The Pussycat Dolls as a viable musical presence, an identity that was perhaps tenuous to begin with.

Reality television and its almost literal application of Andy Warhol’s notion of everyone getting their fifteen minutes of fame has changed the idea of celebrity. In some ways, reality television has a lot to do with our national fantasy of the meritocracy of talent. It’s true that the modern version of fame, to some degree, must be engineered, but there is a serendipitous element that is absent when the process is exposed, and becomes part of the marketing of the performer. We see it all on The Search for the Next Doll, and other shows like it-- the desperation, the tears, the posturing, the smack-talk.  It’s difficult to root for someone, no matter how talented or deserving, if they are almost entirely lacking in grace. The feeble self-aggrandizement and the almost sociopathic narcissism has become part of the reality show standard, and it comprises a large part of the train-wreck allure of the genre. The Pussycat Dolls were never high-brow, but there is something about the inaccessibility of fame and famous people, and the all-access, all the time of reality television that is incompatible. It’s kind of like Isaac Mizrahi’s clothing line for Target: It’s the same guy, but it ain’t haute couture.

March 28, 2007