A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila: Hope Among the Ruins

(Getty Images) You know how there are some shows you are so embarrassed by you don't even want it staring back at you from your Tivo library? "A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila" is one of those shows for me. It's so bad I can't stand to acknowledge my own prurient interest in it, let alone risk someone else seeing it on my Season Pass Manager. So I have left it to fate whether I would see it or not (with MTV programming, it's pretty safe to assume you'll see every episode at least three times)...but as fate would have it, I've mostly just caught bits and pieces of the season thus far.

Until last night, when I was able to commit myself to watching an entire episode. I accepted that I had nothing better to do, and settled in to watch an hour of tv with a pained look on my face.

Episode 6: "The Cat Fight" hinged on three tried-and-true reality scenarios: 1) a "Fear Factor"-style challenge to see who could eat the most disgusting animal organs, 2) a group vote on who is the Most and Least compatible for Tila, and 3) the afore-mentioned cat fight.

First, the food challenge. I hadn't seen one of these in a looong time and they really took this to a whole new level. The eight remaining contestants walk outside to find a table set with a skinned cow's head, various insects, and other vomit-inducing delicacies.Tila explains that since her work takes her around the world (?), she "can't always have the foods that she wants".  Basically, the whole exercise is just an excuse to have eight people eat bulls' penis' and testicles. Keep in mind, now, we are talking about four lesbians and four straight guys: eight people who presumably have never had ANY penis in their mouth. Seeee....funny!

And imagine the kinds of things that will come OUT of their mouths while trying to complete this challenge! Vomit, bile, and witty comments like "swallow those balls and penises!", "this is the first time I've had dick in my mouth", and "there are some things I just physically can't do, and one of them is getting a penis and balls down my throat" .  Good stuff, huh? Although Domenico, whom I'm not entirely convinced isn't pulling a Borat on us, does have a zinger with, "I don't usually have penis and testicles for lunch...I usually eat it for breakfast".

For the record, Bobby won for the guy's side, and Amanda for the girl's. The two face-off in one last challenge: eating a pair of eyeballs, a heart, and downing a shot of blood. Bobby hammed it up, increasingly savoring each bloody bit, while Amanda set a new world-record for dry-heaving. It was absolutely disgusting. Oh and btw, Amanda hadn't eaten meat for 15 years (it was the "hardest thing I've had to do in my life...for reals" she says); how Tila inspires these kids to do this crap is a modern marvel.

So Bobby wins, and as a prize, scores a date with Tila in a champagne-shaped bath, into which he promptly slips and falls on his ass only to reveal minutes later to Tila and cringing viewers everywhere that he is, in fact, in love with her.

Next, the vote. After some more drama in the house, which Tila is "just so tired of", she convenes the group and each person must vote for whom they think is the Most Compatible (aside from themselves, of course) and the Least Compatible mate for her. Their votes will then be shared with the group. Tila is a freakin' genius: how better to put an end to in-house squabbling then to have contestants publicly humiliate each other.

I'll spare you the blow-by-blow, but I will share with you what may be the one shining spot of this entire train wreck: Dani, the butch lesbian. She may very well be the most normal person on the show, and she is undeniably endearing. Perhaps that is why she was voted Most Compatible. But I have another theory, one not quite so optimistic. I think Dani was voted Most Compatible because as the only butch, she is in a way the least threatening to both the other lesbians and to the guys. She exists outside the gender-cliques: the guys don't want to give their vote to another bro, to whom, presumably, each can more closely be compared; nor do the feuding skanks on the girls' side want to give a vote to someone they see themselves in direct competition with. Going a bit further with this, I think some who voted for Dani secretly don't see her as legitimate competiton; she is a safe vote because, let's face it, Tila wouldn't go for a butch...right? But conspiracy theories aside, how awesome would it be if Dani actually won? I have to admit, I've never found a butch girl so hot, and for a show that's trying to break some rules, this would give it some true cred.

On to the catfight. Apparently Vanessa (a "dancer") and Brandi (a skunk-haired mortgage consultant) have some sort of feud going on. Much of it seems to center around whether or not each girl is a committed lesbian (accusations of talking about men, or hooking up with men abound). As Vanessa was voted Least Compatible, Tila takes her to dinner to try and get to the bottom of all the drama. No such luck. Vanessa is an incurable idiot, and we see her dismissal coming a mile away.

Unfortunately, the producers prolong the agony to the point where Tila has both Brandi and Vanessa standing in front of her, crying, waiting to see who will get the last "key".  When she finally announces that Brandi gets to stay, Vanessa goes "Kill Bill" crazy and jumps on top of Brandi, pulling her hair and knocking stage props over.

This is the kind of thing straight guys are supposed to find hot, right? To their credit, the guys looked horrified. And to his credit, Ryan jumps in to break it up. And who is right behind him? None other than our Dani, who gets right in there. And despite her manning it up, her girly side can't be completely repressed: a close-up on her after the fight shows her still shaking from the altercation. It's the only glimpse of humanity in this whole show.

Vanessa is clearly unbalanced, and at some point you have to wonder about the producers of these shows putting these kids in actual danger. The MTV reality shows have a long rich history of violent confrontations, but I would argue that they have escalated in the recent years. I saw an ad for an upcoming episode of "The Real World" that was downright ominous, and basically promises viewers an ass-kicking.

So for a show that may or may not go down in history for breaking new ground, "A Shot at Love" has emphatically embraced the myriad reality cliches.  And yet the contestants keep at it, following Tila to humiliation, danger, and possibly disease. Will I Tivo it? No. But I will keep Dani in my thoughts and root for her, if not to win (because frankly I'm really unclear about the prize in this one), but at least to stay safe, both physically and emotionally, and to represent for outsiders everywhere. You go...girl?

Comments

[tina]

was dani born a girl or guy??