"Have you ever dreamed of having fame, success and stardom?"
No, I want to be a hobo when I grow up. Who are you and what are you doing in my television?
Meet Jeannie Mai, Hollywood make-up artist and B's new crush as of two seconds ago when he read her name in this sentence. Jeannie is the host and "fantasy guide" of "Character Fantasy," a show that brings the general concept of cosplaying to the demographic of TV watchers who felt bad for Paris when she cried about going back to jail, all while interrupting a movie I'm trying to watch the rest of after flipping through channels and seeing it on the USA Network, Ă la "Dinner and a Movie." Only instead of dressing up like a Japanese cartoon, "Character Fantasy" transforms their subjects into a more generic occupation for a day. Say you want to be a rock star, or an interior decorator, or Catherine Zeta-Jones. Jeannie Mai can make your dream come true. Or at least narrate.
It just so happens that fame, success and stardom are the only reasons I started putting things on the Internet in the first place. That and poontang. Doy. That's what every dude who's ever learned to play the website started for. Only we disguise it with more sensitive names like "attention" and "breathing life into our creative souls." Tell me more, Jeannie Mai!
"Well, then you got to meet Emma, a motivated high school teacher with a secret character fantasy!"
I don't get it. Is this Emma person supposed to help make me famOH MY GOD IT'S MY EX-GIRLFRIEND
Now you see, what I did just now was try to make you believe that I was surprised to see someone I know on TV. The truth is, Emma had already told me all about the contest she won beforehand, and how the USA Network was going to make it interrupt the movie "Love, Actually," which I wasn't about to watch by myself because I'm afraid I might grow a vagina. I pretended to be surprised just now in attempt to put on a good show. Even the term "ex-girlfriend" is a technical one, like how adoptive parents aren't technically the child's actual parents, but shut up yes they are. Sure, we dated briefly in 2001—Emma, not my parents—but we've since stayed very good friends, to the point where I feel weird referring to her as an ex. Ex-cept as the occasional bragging rights. Like when she appears on television.
I explain this because "Character Fantasy" does the same sort of "selling" of a story. Like in wrestling. Only instead of holding her back when Jeannie Mai hits her in it, which would be hot and now I wish this was a totally different kind of show, Emma had to sell certain parts of the picture that "Character Fantasy" wanted to paint. Surprise! Reality television is partially fixed! Thank God we invented reality television after we landed on the moon. I'm already one of the so-called gullible majority who still totally buys that moon landing junk, but I also believe in God and dinosaurs at the same time, so you can make your own conclusions.
It's not the same as selling out. There's a difference between selling out and trying to put on a good show. If Emma was selling out, you would've heard of her before reading this article, but you and I both know that nobody watches the USA Network on purpose.
"I want to be a celebrity for the day!"
Always the aspiring dreamer, that Emma. "My fantasy is to be rich and famous, but not for more than a specific 24-hour period, tops."
Oh, great. Apparently I get to review the boring episode of "Character Fantasy." Getting made over into a celebrity is boring compared to the guy who became a knight in shining armor so he could get the courage to ask out a girl, or the struggling actor who wanted to be the Nutty Professor, or the girl who wasn't intimidating at all and wanted to be a ninja. With no mask. And visible cleavage. To hell with Emma. I'm going to watch this ninja blonde fight about 50 more times. Later, suckers.
Emma doesn't live in Swiftwater! She lives in Scranton.
OK, so I've just been told that Swiftwater is where the school she taught at was, but it still sounds to me like someone on the "Character Fantasy" production staff wants to make her seem like SMALL TOWN AMERICA! So they pulled out a map of northeastern Pennsylvania and picked the name of a town that sounds the most like an alternative rock band whose unspecific lyrics are actually about the Lord.
"I think the message that I would like to put out being a celebrity for a day"
She wants to be famous for a day so she can put out? Well you don't need to be famous to do that. All you really need to do is
"is that our students are our future, and we need to support their education."
Oh.
Jeannie brings a camera crew to surprise Emma at her "Swiftwater, Pennsylvania" home. Which appears to be a Super 8 Motel. And a limo with a California license plate that reads "FANTASY" waiting in the parking lot. Which contains palm trees.
The best part is that what I thought was a run down, cheap motel was actually a run down, cheap school in Culver City, California. They were trying to make it look like they were surprising Emma at work, while she was teaching. She teaches in jeans and leaves the house without make-up on all the time. Nice work, USA Network. I've seen better backdrops duct taped to bedroom walls.
EMMA: Hi? (awkwardly, as if to say who the hell are you lady, because come on who the hell is Jeannie Mai?)
JEANNIE: Are you Emma?
EMMA: Yes?
JEANNIE: Perfect! I'm Jeannie from "Character Fantasy," and I heard that you want to be a celebrity for a day!
Emma laughs. I know that laugh. It's not a laugh of surprise so much as it's a laugh of hello I'm Jimmy Fallon and I just broke character and ruined the skit. She can't quite pull off the lie, but fret not, young dreamer. Your first step in becoming a celebrity is ... acting lessons!
From an evil snake lady!
Emma has learned that she'll be starring in her own commercial, so it's up to acting coach Marcie Smolin to teach Emma how to RULE AS QUEEN OF ALL SNAKES
Or feel comfortable acting in front of a camera. One of the two.
I don't know. I guess Marcie looks rather harmless, save for the monster cleavage, but there's something about her facial features that creeps me out a little. Like a video game that's hit that uncanny valley where a character looks very close to human, but not quite, and thus is widely regarded as even more repulsive than its less realistic counterparts. It doesn't help that her first question to Emma is "What are you afraid of?"
"I'm afraid of embarrassing myself."
"And subtitles exploding into Smurf bukakke in my face. That's up there, too. Right under bears."
"I'm going to make Emma face her fears, which may involve doing some embarrassing things."
Awesome!
...Slightly less awesome!
"Bouncing on the ball was definitely embarrassing,"
You had to hold roses and bounce on a ball in a room full of two other people and a cameraman oh no how terrible.
"but it was important to getting over my fear."
Of Smurf bukakke.
Next came a lesson in reading some commercial copy. We hear Emma reading lines for a pizza commercial. A pizza commercial that starts with "I have been to the edge and back." Which now makes it sound like she should be kayaking and talking up a treatment pill for genital herpes. Even Emma squints and looks away in realization that she is reading some corny bullshit.
Snake lady, of course, instructs Emma to raise her voice and take command of the room. I don't know if you've ever taken an acting class, but every single acting instructor ever seems to be in agreement that the pinnacle of perfect acting is shouting like a black Baptist pastor doing an impression of Christina Aguilera when she whips out her Cookie Monster voice near the end of the bridge.
"Marcie really made me feel comfortable about shooting the commercial, so I'm good to go.
I feel one step closer to my fantasy being fulfilled."
Oh, look at that. Progress already. So, now that Emma has clearly mastered the art of making people believe her when she reads fake, bullshit copy off camera, it's time for her celebrity makeover with the "Character Fantasy" Style Squad!
Whom she already looks and dresses better than, so there's a big step already.
The girl in the army hat and dog tag has apparently just enlisted to protect our country from terrorists, so we don't see her again. That leaves the tall one, who, judging from Emma's height as I remember it, isn't really that tall, but only looks like Andre Giant when standing close to a female, to put make-up on Emma like she's never heard of it before.
Hopefully Andre the Medium-Sized can do something about it. She suggests a makeover that includes:
- Full, pouty lips, which for Emma, means "putting on lipstick"
- Sun-kissed cheeks, you pale-ass honky. Even ski instructors are supposed to have good tans.
- Eyes that can now help provent forest fires at sea.
I like the one on the left best, and pregnant leopard is pretty nice, too, but it's Jeannie's show, and she either gets to pick, or throws a tantrum, so black it is.
AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
"OK, eyes on the camera, aaaand now make a face like you just walked in on your husband in bed with a fat chick. Ready? Go."
I noticed right from the beginning that "Character Fantasy" apparently told Emma to not wear any make-up, to help complete a more drastic change in the above before/after shot.
It's like they're trying to pick the least flattering photos of the girl. I'm probably hitting the nail on the head. Some cameras add 10 pounds. This one apparently brings out every facial blemish you've had since birth, like when you look at yourself in the mirror in the bathroom of a nice restaurant. Not that I think Emma's ugly now. There are some things you just don't notice or care about someone until you hold a light bulb two feet away from her face. Your mind fills in the holes with flawlessness, and suddenly that's all you see. It's not a bad thing. It's just putting on a good show.
"Wow! You look amazing! How do you feel?"
Like I do every time I go out to a formal occasion, really.
"Like a celebrity!"
She sways her hands and brings them down to her sides with a slap. Her body language doesn't sound believable, but you just don't tell the make-up crew that you could and have done that at home wth much less expensive crap. Especially not when they put you on TV. Speaking of, it's time for her commercial on national television!
By "national television," of course, I mean just once ever on this show and then that's it.
With a crosshairs over the entire thing to remind us that it is being used with a video camera and video camera equipment!
"Hi! My name is Emma, and I'm not an actor.
My job is to teach the kids of our future."
It's a commercial for the 2008 Suzuki XL7, a car Emma has never touched or probably heard of before, and she's going to sell it like she's had it for years.
"As a high school teacher, I need a reliable vehicle to get me to and from school
EVERY day, regardless of the weather."
Um, they close school when it snows, babe. I know this because I'm the one at the radio station who takes all the calls from the principals, all the calls from idiot kids who don't know what a radio is, and all the calls from other idiot kids trying to make their voice sound deep enough for their best impression of their principal. As that guy, I need you to stop your bitchin'.
"That's why I love my Suzuki XL7.
It has a powerful 252 horsepower V6!"
Emma is the only woman I know who knows what that means and makes it sound like she doesn't. That's OK, though, because she's definitely showing shades of the equally foxy Mercury spokeswoman, Jill Wagner.
"And available seating for seven."
Which will be great when she's a soccer mom in 12 years and her car is wearing down and out of style.
"And I never get lost with the available navigation system."
Why the hell is "available" in that sentence?
"My students are constantly begging to borrow my car,
and I keep telling them if they keep doing their homework,
maybe one day, they can get one of their own."
In about ten years used with a teacher's salary.
"Suzuki:
It's going to be a GREAT ride."
Her inflection goes up on "Suzuki," like she's telling Suzuki that it's going to be its own great ride. Or like she's the alternate, crappier baseball broadcast announcer coming in to take over for the middle three innings. Whatever. What matters is she gets to keep the car.
When she's going to get it is another story. Emma finished shooting her "Character Fantasy" episode two months before this post, and she still hasn't gotten her frigging car. But no matter. It's not about selling out. It's about putting on a good show. Topped off with the least fake "This is the best day of my life!" she can muster at the very end. At least she did get something of an acting lesson out of it.
Watch Emma's episode of "Character Fantasy" at USAnetwork.com
"Aaand cut! Print! We got it!"
Good God! Even the director has Smurf bukakke all over his shoes. I never thought I'd ever type those two words next to each other, let alone three very necessary times in one post.
Keasbey Mornings: you can't HAVE bukakke on you. its an action not a substance.
Keasbey Mornings: you can have A bukakke performed on you and... you know what, i'm going to stop.
Thank you, Justin.
