I thought the reality shows that really had been pushing the limits of ridiculousness were all on VH1 - shows like Tool Academy (self-obsessed muscleheads in bandanas whose girlfriends try and force them unsuccessfully into monogamy and misery) , I Love New York (loud yelling from a metareality star)and Celebrity Rehab make me realize all bets are off when it comes to show ideas.
However, after catching a few snippets of The Food Network's Cupcake Wars last night, I realized that VH1's dramatic trash reels were at least soap-operatic in their material, in some tiny way referencing the human dramas we've all experienced - love, loss, and social pressure.
In contrast, Cupcake Wars seems like the inevitable result of inbreeding among competition reality shows - the category of cable shows of which Top Chef is top dog and Project Runway, Design Star, Hell's Kitchen, The Apprentice, Shear Genius and the like crank out something judgeable (usually food, but including art, hair, businesses, clothes). What makes Cupcake Wars so bad is not just that it's a stretch of the formula from the start (how many different ways can you judge cupcakes?), it's the contrast between the light, simple pleasure of making/eating a cupcake and the stress and drama of the competition. Everything they say or do on the show ends up reading like a comedy.
For example, when one contestant, an older, foppish pastry chef from Beverly Hills named Farish starts in on the final cupcake round, in which the contestants have to build a giant cupcake display (a challenge that basically reveals that the producers ran out of ideas for baking cupcakes), he exclaims:
"At this point, I don't know how many more fondant purses I can make!"
Farish's display includes four giant spinning cupcakes gazing at their own reflections, "inspired by a 1930s hollywood dressing room". If self-absorbed starlet cupcakes can't make you laugh, I don't know what will.
The judging panel drama, a staple of any reality competition show, is even more laughable. The contestants, fully absorbed in the competition and putting their "reputations" on the line, spew standards lines while tearing up: "I want to win this for my family, it's my dream", etc etc. But I can't help feeling the whole show is like adding "in bed" to your chinese fortune cookie fortunes. Add "cupcakes" (or anything related to cupcakes) to end of any dramatic sentence uttered and you collapse into giggles.
How serious are YOU about cupcakes??
When contestants are elminated, the judges say:
"You are a casualty of this cupcake war". Groooooaaaan. How about "You've been frosted." Or "Take your cupcakes out of the oven, you're going home."
The older judge - some sort of French pastry expert, barely cracks a smile the whole show and says things like "the frosting is like mortar" while grimacing. With his exaggerated French accent, I almost believe that the cupcake he's judging is a serious matter. Oh wait, no, I don't. I think they casted him from a Grey Poupon commercial from the 90s.
The show seems to struggle to find ways to portray making cupcakes with more skill than it actually requires. For example, when another contestant craftily makes paper cups for her cupcakes, it automatically becomes her creative selling point:
"She came up with these ingenious cups that no one has done here before!"
Yawn.
With project runway or top Chef, I'm genuinely impressed with the contestants skill. I know I couldn't sew a couture dress or cook a gourmet meal from scratch. I'm pretty sure I could come up with a creative way to make cupcake holders.
