Review: A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila 2 Season Premiere

Originally posted on Sayoni Speak

Guess who’s back? That’s right, bisexual bachelorette MySpace queen Tila Tequila is back for another shot at love, this time, with 15 guys and girls each. Tila and Bobby broke up barely months after the end of the first season, Bobby not being able to handle her job and its pressures, so a broken-hearted Tila is back for another season, looking for love. Still picky, still princessy, still as gorgeous as ever.

Whatever she is taking, I want it too!

Warning: Mild spoilers ahead! Do not read further if you don’t want to know what happened at all.

Rating:

Tila: The Reunion

Just when I thought it was all over, the reunion show came out.

Brandi and Vanessa have yet another confrontation where Vanessa makes up even more lies about Brandi, Domenico announces his own dating show on MTV, Steven and Rebecca finally confess to doing something, and Ashley and Marcus almost get into a fight again.

Can anyone spell dramatic?

And… breaking news! Tila and Bobby broke up, a few days before she hosted Tequila’s New Year’s Eve Masquerade 2008. Personally, I find the announcement rather fake and abrupt. If the person you loved just broke up with you, you wouldn’t just slide in the news among other snippets. She doesn’t seem all that upset, but that might be just her trying to be strong and not show her emotions in front of the world.

Secondly, they are doing the casting call for Season 2 of A Shot at Love, again with a bisexual woman. I can’t tell whether it is Tila again, or someone else – the title of the show and announcement expressly leaves the name of the woman out. I’ll watch the first episode to determine whether I am going to be watching it again.

I already have two shows I am supposed to follow: Lost and The L Word. The L Word Season 5 is premiering on Jan 5th, and Lost Season 4 on Jan 31st. I’ve lost interest in following Grey’s Anatomy after Season 3 and I haven’t heard too many good things about season 2 of Heroes.

Not like The L Word is any better than Grey’s, by sheer standard of writing and film-making, and engaging plotlines – but being the only lesbian TV show around, you just have to watch it. And I heard this is going to be the last season. I hope it is the last season, seriously, so that they can scrap it, I can stop following it for the sake of following it, and someone else can come up with a better show. And more importantly, so that the writers can’t torture me with Bette and Tina anymore.

Review: A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila

Originally posted on Sayoni Speak

A Shot At Love With Tila Tequila is a MTV reality dating show, with a twist: the bachelorette is a bisexual woman, and 16 guys and 16 girls will be competing for her heart. Now, normally, I don’t watch reality TV trash. And I watch dating show trash even less, and MTV trash takes the place at the bottom of the ladder. But I was introduced to it by a friend, and in a couple of episodes, I was hooked already. How could I miss a program like this, a pioneer in the visibility of lesbian, and more importantly, bisexual women?

Tila Tequila, the bachelorette of Vietnamese descent, whose real name is Tila Nguyen [now you see why she changed her name to something so much more porny], is an undeniably beautiful, sexy woman. Her beauty can be fully appreciated in all the various outfits she appears in the show, all of which she does justice [except that awful dress made of metal sheets she wore in the first episode]. She is a very picky, often unforgiving person with regards to her suitors, complete with a free-spirited, sometimes child-like personality.

The suitors are a good-looking bunch, that is to be expected, with the producers only picking people who look fairly good on camera. Some of the men seriously did look like male models. But what was pleasantly surprising was that the women were absolutely gorgeous too, and these were real lesbian women, not the fake ones in porn or on The L Word. Even the butch/andro women were good-looking, in my opinion. So, anyone who claims that The L Word is unrealistic because “the women are all thin and pretty”… please look at the line-up in Tila.

The show itself is as dramatic as you can get. Maybe more dramatic than The L Word. The men push each other into the water, the women try to tear each other’s hair apart, one lesbian tries to use her sex appeal to get rid of the men, people threaten to leave… you name it. More than once, I’ve had to wonder how scripted it is, because it seems so unrealistic, that all the drama that does not happen on camera on straight dating shows happen on this show. Or maybe the producers deliberately threw in some unstable personalities. Or maybe they were “encouraged” to do so. Who knows – what I do know that it makes for a lot of entertainment for me, in front of the computer screen.

One major problem I had with the show is how they chose to approach bisexuality. They pitted girls against guys, and it was fairly obvious from the elimination each week that the producers instructed Tila to keep an equal 1:1 ratio of girls and guys as far as possible. Which really isn’t how it should work… this is a game of love after all, and the girls and guys are equal competitors. Most of the “challenges” in the show, which they had to win in order to win “alone time” with Tila, were organised along girl-guy lines, which did really make me want to hit the stop button. ((What did surprise me was that the girls consistently won most of the challenges, which were rather physical.)) Bisexuality isn’t about whether it is a girl or a guy, but whether the person is right for you. Tila herself made a lot of “I like girls for this, but I like guys for that” remarks, which made me roll my very bisexual eyes, and kept saying she had to figure out whether she really liked girls or guys. The suitors made similar remarks too. And the very next moment, she would justify herself saying she was bisexual, and was attracted to both guys and girls, and that no one understood her.

Only in the end, I think, she finally understood it wasn’t about choosing between the sexes. At least one person has gained enlightenment. One down, rest of the world to go.

Rating:

A Shot At Love with Tila Tequila – Full Episodes
A Shot At Love with Tila Tequila – MTV Homepage

From this part onwards, I’ll be talking about what actually did happen on the show, including the ending, so if you do not want spoilers, do not read ahead.

Tila’s Pick

Tila picked Bobby. Surprise surprise, saw it coming 5 episodes ago. I know exactly how she feels, loving two people, but eventually picking the one she is in love with, even though Dani is the sweetest, cutest person on earth. Sometimes in love, you don’t pick the better person. You pick the one who makes you feel crazily in love, gets your oxytocin flowing. And sometimes that person is not someone who will necessarily make you happy, and might even have made you cry, and might have hurt you in the past. But we are human beings, and we go for the possibility of happiness, despite knowing we are going to get hurt.

And all that sounds so very Grey’s Anatomy. Actually Tila’s choice reminds me of Meredith. A lot. And Meredith reminds me most uncomfortably of myself.

In the most shocking moment of the show….

Dani wore eyeliner!

And then again, after she was rejected. She looks really good with it… almost Shane-like.

Before anyone asks, I don’t give a damn that Tila picked a guy. It is her life, her love. And it is really about who you fall in love with. It has got very little to do with whether it is a guy or a girl, and this proves nothing about lesbians or bisexual women. And I would say the same if it were a girl.

And still I pine away for Brandi… yes, I like emotional girls. So sue me.

The Last Two Standing

Tila got rid of Amanda in episode 9, keeping Dani and Bobby in the race. Like I couldn’t see that one coming. I have a feeling she is going to pick Dani in the end, because of how sweet and genuine she is. Whether they last or not… who knows

Amanda, by the way…. backstabbing ain’t cool. Particularly if you are alleging the sweetest and most innocent person in the competition visits strip-clubs regularly

I, however, am still pining away for Brandi. Please, oh, please come back!

Tequila and Brandi

Alright, so there are 4 people left, and adorable Brandi left the show out of her own volition [you stupid stupid girl!]. Which was the biggest mistake, in my opinion, because Brandi stood a real good chance of making the final two, compared to Amanda [who is seriously just a blonde bimbo], and whats-his-face Ryan, who is just boring. Dani is cute and sweet, but too much so. While even I would date Ms Androgynous-Firefighter because she is so sweet and nice, I don’t see how it can lead to a passionate relationship, because I am very likely to ditch her for the next hot, voluptuous lipstick lesbian brunette who comes along, say, Brandi. At this point, it seems pretty clear that Tila is going to pick Bobby in the end. He’s cute, but a little too young, in my opinion. But of course, I am watching A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, not A Shot At Love with Pleinelune Perry.

Okay, doesn’t take a genius to guess that I am totally rooting for Brandi. Come on, both girls are named after alcoholic beverages! That’s got to be a sign from the person up there in an angel-outfit calculating people’s compatibility. Tila was totally stupid to not let her back in, in my opinion, but then we all know Tila is somewhat unforgiving and princessy

The missus will probably kick my ass for saying this… but dear Brandi, if you ever do get over Tila, and if I were single, you are always welcome on the show A Shot At Love with Pleinelune Perry. And I promise I’ll let you back in even if you run away, because I am a lot more forgiving than Tila.

Tila Tequila

I am, against my better judgement and time-management issues, hooked on a reality TV show [yes, I know, don’t say it] called “A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila“. If that sounds vaguely like a porn movie title to you, don’t worry it is not. Or maybe it is – Tila Tequila is as porny a name as you can get. The girl, Vietnamese and Singapore-born, is OMFG hot, and… bisexual.

The show plays on this, and pits 16 guys against 16 girls in a reality TV dating show, in a bid to win Tila’s heart. I am not sure what to think of it – on one hand, there is the obvious sensationalism, and the reinforcement of the stereotypes that bisexuals play with both genders, cannot choose between men and women, etc. And I am sensing that people are going to make too much of whether Tila chooses a boy or a girl. On the other hand, it is great bisexual visibility, and lesbian visibility – besides The L Word, there is no other show where you get to see so many gorgeous, normal lesbian women [emphasis on gorgeous – these girls could have walked off the catwalk of America’s Next Top Model].

Overriding all the obvious political concerns, there is the simple fact that the show is entertaining, and has more drama than all the seasons of the Bachelor and Bachelorette combined. And did I mention that the girls are hot? Even the butch/andro firefighter, I find cute. I like all the bitching going on, and the attitudes of the girls towards the guys, though reproachable, is funny. The guys, especially the Italian dude, are just entertaining.

FYI, I dont usually watch MTV trash, much less reality TV trash. And even less of reality TV dating show trash. But this show is so unique, I just gotta.

Quotable quotes from the show so far: “Homophobia, I don’t know, is kinda like when you are scared of other guys. Homophobia, it is like a disease!” [Now say that with an Italian accent and you’ll see why I love this show]