Beauty and the Geek looking for scientists

Hmm. So they say that:

“The premise of the show is to carry out a social experiment. . .. We will couple together beautiful, socially savvy women with highly intelligent males, and through a series of challenges, see what they learn from each other. The idea is to embrace and celebrate the talent and individuality of each contestant.”

I confess I’ve never seen the show, but the promos suggest a completely different proposition, namely: we put socially awkward nerds and outrageously stupid bimbos together and humiliate them all for your viewing pleasure!

They don’t make it look like much ‘learning’, ’embracing’ or ‘celebrating’ are going on at all . . .

Does anyone have any experience of the show besides my cynical observations from afar?

Regan

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8 thoughts on “Beauty and the Geek looking for scientists

  1. I was approached to appear on the show’s first season, and turned them down. They were talking about me – as a performer and comedian who does science-based material – being a “cool” “point of difference” – i.e. I would be a contrast to the stereotypically socially inept nerds they intended to pick for the rest of the cast.

    It was probably the least enticing offer I’ve ever received, and the attitude of the producer I spoke with didn’t do anything to change my mind…

  2. I¹ll second that..SCOPE rocks! And you can buy episodes from iTunes now, so you can watch them over and over and over.

    Em

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    On 7/07/10 1:57 PM, “Elizabeth.Yuncken@csiro.au” wrote:

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  3. If you’re looking for quality science on commercial TV, try SCOPE on Network Ten (www.scopetv.com). It features real scientists (actually working as scientists) talking about their work and research in a really engaging way. There’s a surprising lack of stereotypical geeks featured, and a (not?) surprising amount of beauty.

    They actually won the international Maeda Prize for best educational TV program (first time it was won by an Australian program) but sadly don’t get enough kudos in Australia. And yes, I’m a little biased, but also incredibly proud and excited about the top-quality product they produce.

    Cheers

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    My 2c for what its worth.

    I saw one episode of the first series as one of the contestants was a student at my former workplace*. It was cringingly bad, but given I had a glass of wine in my hand, it was somewhat bearable.

    But for the most part, in my opinion a majority of shows on commercial tv, to use a colloquialism, “suck”.

    The sad thing is the Australian viewers who have the Nelson ratings gizmo have no taste. Case in point: the #1 show in Australia for a while was “Dancing with the Stars”. A show where the terms “dancing” and “stars” should be used loosely, for there was neither dancing nor were there any stars, merely people famous for being famous, or in the case of some of them, who had an affair with someone remotely famous.

    These “reality” shows are cheap to make, where they can get a lot of sponsorship and thus put in lots of product placement. Commercial TV is all about turning what is supposed to be an art form, into something commercial to exploit and turn a profit on.

    Why would they pay for researchers, writers, actors, experts when they can just make a game show out of archetypes and not pay them much (compared to professionals)?

    At least we have the internet as a platform for providing quality content. It’s why the big media conglomerations are running scared and are trying to control the internet. Because this way you can make content and hopefully build an audience of other fellow malcontents who share the same dismay at the state of commercial tv.

    Herein endeth my mini-rant. I won’t get started on the state of commercial radio and music in the top twenty.

    (*Shameless plug, if anyone needs a photographer in Melbourne, I am available for freelance assignments and have experience shooting scientists in their natural environment. I’m available via natalie@recalcitrant.com)

  4. My 2c for what its worth.

    I saw one episode of the first series as one of the contestants was a student at my former workplace*. It was cringingly bad, but given I had a glass of wine in my hand, it was somewhat bearable.

    But for the most part, in my opinion a majority of shows on commercial tv, to use a colloquialism, “suck”.

    The sad thing is the Australian viewers who have the Nelson ratings gizmo have no taste. Case in point: the #1 show in Australia for a while was “Dancing with the Stars”. A show where the terms “dancing” and “stars” should be used loosely, for there was neither dancing nor were there any stars, merely people famous for being famous, or in the case of some of them, who had an affair with someone remotely famous.

    These “reality” shows are cheap to make, where they can get a lot of sponsorship and thus put in lots of product placement. Commercial TV is all about turning what is supposed to be an art form, into something commercial to exploit and turn a profit on.

    Why would they pay for researchers, writers, actors, experts when they can just make a game show out of archetypes and not pay them much (compared to professionals)?

    At least we have the internet as a platform for providing quality content. It’s why the big media conglomerations are running scared and are trying to control the internet. Because this way you can make content and hopefully build an audience of other fellow malcontents who share the same dismay at the state of commercial tv.

    Herein endeth my mini-rant. I won’t get started on the state of commercial radio and music in the top twenty.

    (*Shameless plug, if anyone needs a photographer in Melbourne, I am available for freelance assignments and have experience shooting scientists in their natural environment. I’m available via natalie@recalcitrant.com)

  5. Hi All,

    I happen to think that there is some potential for BandG but it may not be quite what the promoters are aiming at.

    A year or two back there was a program “SuperNanny” on Aust TV – dealing with how to treat young kids who were misbehaving. (It might also have been characterised as “how to put a young kid in the ‘naughty-corner’ in 7 different ways”). While the behind-the-scenes analysis might have more weight than was apparent on the screen, viewers didn’t rank it particularly highly

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0429442/ ( 5.4 )

    Around the same time there was a program (possibly “Little Angels”) with a similar basis – much less well promoted – but which seemed to have a far more profound psychological analysis.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Angels_(TV_series)

    Contributors included Tanya Byron, now Professor of Public Understanding of Science at Edge Hill University.

    Given the level of interest by the public in trying to understand the other gender, and the ability of the public to see through the limited depth of Supernanny, I wonder if, at some point, it might be worth considering an alternative show – perhaps on a similar social basis – but addressing the situation in a more analytic/informative way than was done in the first Australian BeautyandtheGeek show. After all, if the BBC can reach the legendary status it has based on films about animals then there must be some possibilities for more profound insight in the area of (closer-to-our- -kind) human relations. FWIW, on YouTube, BBC clips are ranking in the order a million while BandG are of the order 1000.

    Charlesw

    Alternatively, perhaps it needs to be asked …

    If Beauty and the Geek is a social experiment (as claimed), has it been written up somewhere? If not, did they do something wrong first time and now are having to repeat the experiment?

    “Creativity and innovation are measured not by what is done, but by what could have been done … but wasn’t”

    Disclaimer: http://www.eng.unsw.edu.au/emaildis.htm

  6. One extra observation from years spent making documentaries. You forgot to mention that its solely for the profit and benefit of a media company.

    Whatever it takes to rate goes…

    Cheers

    R

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  7. You pretty much nailed it in one, I’m afraid. There is nothing ‘experimental’ about it – it’s about exploiting ‘dumb bimbo’ and ‘socially awkward geek’ stereotypes and through the magic of television make it seem as if through hard work and a bit of competition, even geeks can be transformed into whatever it is the viewing demographic would presume should be the image of social confidence and bimbos can be made to seem academically gifted. All wrapped up in a nice, neat, engineered bundle under the cosmetic veil of ‘social experimentation’. *yawn*

    I celebrated the fact that there was no Australian version. Until now.

    M.M.

    href=”mailto:regan@reganforrest.com”>regan@reganforrest.com href=”mailto:wdas@nasw.org”>wdas@nasw.org; asc-list@lists.asc.asn.au

    Hmm. So they say that:

    “The premise of the show is to carry out a social experiment. . .. We will couple together beautiful, socially savvy women with highly intelligent males, and through a series of challenges, see what they learn from each other. The idea is to embrace and celebrate the talent and individuality of each contestant.”

    I confess I’ve never seen the show, but the promos suggest a completely different proposition, namely: we put socially awkward nerds and outrageously stupid bimbos together and humiliate them all for your viewing pleasure!

    They don’t make it look like much ‘learning’, ‘embracing’ or ‘celebrating’ are going on at all . . .

    Does anyone have any experience of the show besides my cynical observations from afar?

    Regan

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  8. I have seen it and your assessment is spot on…

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    Hmm. So they say that:

    “The premise of the show is to carry out a social experiment. . .. We will couple together beautiful, socially savvy women with highly intelligent males, and through a series of challenges, see what they learn from each other. The idea is to embrace and celebrate the talent and individuality of each contestant.”

    I confess I’ve never seen the show, but the promos suggest a completely different proposition, namely: we put socially awkward nerds and outrageously stupid bimbos together and humiliate them all for your viewing pleasure!

    They don’t make it look like much ‘learning’, ’embracing’ or ‘celebrating’ are going on at all . . .

    Does anyone have any experience of the show besides my cynical observations from afar?

    Regan

    _______________________________________________ ASC-list mailing list list@asc.asn.au http://www.asc.asn.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=97&Itemid=115

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