Share my world, share my garbage

GSN's Baggage is the most cynical dating show I've ever seen, and it just might be the best. It's as though the genre itself has hardened and grown bitter in the 45 years since its birth and this is the result: a show that suggests everyone has suitcases full of shit that you have to put up with, and the most suitable mate is the shit-bearer you find most tolerable. At least philosophically, the very idea of keeping up appearances isn't relevant here -- the people who go on Baggage go out of their way to exaggerate their flaws (in many cases, absolute statements like "I pretend I'm famous to get laid," end up describing an incident, not a habit). Maybe as we've grown more comfortable with ourselves as an increasingly over-sharing culture, so have our game shows -- the dating show is now so comfortable that it's shitting with the door open.

Calling Baggage a game show, though, isn't exactly fair -- yes, there is a grand prize (a paid date) and a few consolation ones (online dating subscriptions), and yes, the bachelors and bachelorettes competing for the love of the episode's deciding bachelor or bachelorette are clearly encouraged to get competitive and chide each other over respective baggage. However, there is no real sense of play. This is more a process or a system than a game -- it's more akin to visiting the DMV and standing in this line and then going to that one and then filling out some paperwork and then getting your picture taken and then waiting in another line to pick up your license. You can read a detailed description of the Baggage process, as described by Jordan Carr last month on The Awl, but basically, it's like this: three people compete for a date with one person (we'll call that person "the decider"). These people reveal one increasingly embarrassing detail for each of three rounds. One of the competitors is kicked out in the second round (the "dealbreaker" round) -- that round is the only time a person isn't immediately paired with his or her baggage (the three competitors' medium-sized baggage is revealed anonymously, the decider picks what he or she won't tolerate, and, after we see whose baggage is whose, that person is out of the running). In the final round, the decider is left with two potential dates, but since he or she is looking at them the entire time, what their biggest baggage is matters little because he or she can always just pick the one he or she is most attracted to anyway. The person chosen (the "winner," if you will) then gets the opportunity to hear about the decider's baggage and, having stared at them for the duration of filming, can also accept or reject that based on attractiveness alone.The Baggage system is the exact opposite of fool-proof.

Fools are the point, though -- what speed dating is to regular dating, Baggage is to reality TV. By encouraging people to reveal their quirks ("I'm extremely gassy." "I tape myself having sex." "I will only stay at four-star hotels." "I've never had sex and probably never will." "I pee in the shower to conserve water." "I'm uncircumcised."), it can portray the extreme human behavior we crave in reality TV in an extremely efficient way. We aren't following our weirdos over the course of a multi-episode plot arc, but over 30 minutes, and so Baggage gets right to the point. Other dating shows wine and dine the viewer; Baggage asks, "Wanna fuck?" As host, Jerry Springer goes from proto-reality TV ringmaster to post-reality TV MC (in at least one case, this is literally post-reality TV -- Rock of Love's Heather Chadwell taped an episode for the second season, which begins today). Not only is Springer making great genre bookends, he's obviously got the perfect skill set for hosting something so lurid.

 

The unscripted but contrived exchanges that result from these reveals are as absurd as anything with a camp sensibility. Just after revealing, people are encouraged to explain themselves, so you get things like an exasperated dude going, "It was just somebody I got to writing with online!" to justify the mail-order bride he paid for. Another guy who habitually embarrasses his girlfriends on dates says, "It's a filtration system." Peeing in the shower to conserve water is a "win-win," according to one woman. Another who sleeps with a mouth guard is "very secretive about it" (except when she's on TV, I guess?). A guy with a collection of women's panties explains it casually by saying, "It's like a collage, right?" A man with a crooked penis explains, "I've got a capital J and that capital J can really cut some corners." A guy with 250 unicorn figurines in his room casts this in the butchest light possible: "Unicorns are just horses that can stab people." One woman who takes her pink poodle everywhere says in her defense: "Let me explain the pink poodle. It was an accident at the groomer’s. When I picked her up, she was pink, and I did not order that. And, y’know, I just kept doing it." Rationale at its finest. As if out to prove just how truthful she is, by the way, she brought the poodle to Baggage...

 

...much like another contestant brought her transgender former father/current mother.

The reactions to the revelations are just as ridiculous.

 

On hearing that one of her potential suitors had paid for sex on the special "cougar and club"-themed episode (pretty sure in the realm of relationship taxonomy, the title of "cub" is already taken by people who have no interested in a Botoxed-within-an-inch-of-her-ability-to-express-herself fortysomething bimbo), the cougar is empathetic. He explains that the cost of this sex was $4 or $5 and asks, "How do you pass that up?" She replies, "$4? I might pay four bucks." You could choose to view him as a creep who courts cheap hookers overseas or you could admire his thriftiness! Up to you. After the sexy silver fox pictured above reveals that he must have his nipples bitten during sex ("must!"), he faces ridicule when the decider tells him, "That is gross!" (After the dealbreaker elimination when they move to the couch -- the "hot seat" -- to discuss their quirks, his remaining competitor refers to him as "Niperella.") The same woman (pictured above -- she's good one) says she fears she'd lose her face "like that woman who got bitten by a monkey" if she goes home with the dude who admits he lives amongst 10 pit bulls and two tigers.

I think my favorite exchange, though, comes as a result of a guy admitting that he "loves" to lick belly buttons.

Him: Guy: On a scale of 1 to 10 do you think you have a sexy belly button or...
Girl: You know what? It’s interesting that you ask. Most guys always tell me that they like my bellybutton. I have a nice cute tiny little belly button.

Apparently, this Baggage structure makes people talk like no human beings ever have before or probably will again. The discussions are inane and brief to the point of meaninglessness, but they're also often endearingly original and singular. And even when they aren't, they're notable -- today's minor taboos are yesterday's socially acceptable traits, and such revelations sometimes make Baggage feel like the land that time forgot...

 

Although the conceit amounts to these contestants showing up and embarrassing themselves (or as Springer sometimes puts it, "love-minded singles spill their secrets for a new relationship"), you figure there's some self-editing involved -- if a woman is sharing with the world that she had a relationship with a fugitive, what isn't she telling us? But, of course, the fact that anyone is willing to go on TV and consciously portray themselves in a negative light (cutting out the reality star's favorite post-show scapegoat, editing) is telling enough. Baggage is the place where the desperation to be on TV meets actual desperation. Carr, in his somewhat informal survey of the first season, estimates that the show has a 71 percent success rate -- that is, 71 percent of the time, the "winner" accepts the decider's baggage and they get their date. Who knows what becomes of these "couples" after (perhaps updates will be part of the second season?), but frankly, I'm always a little disappointed when someone, for example, forgives the decider's wearing of adult diapers (again, that'd be the awesome woman pictured above -- the guy that she picked was OK with this "as long as it’s a Number 1, not a Number 2") or when a guy is still on board after finding out the decider has left three men at the alter. I know the point of a dating show is to find matches, but the system of Baggage is one of weeding out. After watching so much of this show, the best case scenario is one of mass weeding so that no one ends up with anyone. Really, who wants any of this shit? Besides, haven't we come too far to settle?

Comments

[Karleigh Beigh]

http://twitpic.com/24z7lz

This is my FAVORITE SHOW EVER.

[Robert]

My grandmother watches every airing she can of this show. Her reason? She loves to laugh at these idiots.

And now I know where I got my sense of humor. Thanks, Granny!

[JC]

Rich, please tell me you made up the "I'm uncircumcised" line, and it's not from the show. Please.

We are so going to die out. As a species, I mean. And given war, terrorism, torture, and The Jersey Shore, let's face it: We kind of deserve it.

[Velops]

"Unicorns are just horses that can stab people."

That is my favorite quote because it isn't obvious compared to the ones that deal with sex and things people find disgusting.

[Gretchen]

"Love begins when you carry each other's baggage" as a tag line? Does George Rekers write for this show by any chance?

[Vanessa M]

I can't bring myself to watch this even once, it's just too depressing. The clip I saw on The Soup was enough. If it had been on when I was in my 20's though I probably would have loved it for a few weeks.

I was wondering the other day what ever became of RofL's Heather (I still shudder thinking of whatever reunion I saw her on last where she demanded perks for her entourage and said she was working with "Anna Nicole's people" on her career. Yikes infinity.) This is where she landed? Fuuuuuck.

[Amanda]

OH MY GOD I HAVE TO WATCH THIS SHOW. I don't have cable, and I can't find torrents of it or streaming!! Can someone help me! Please!

[Gretchen]

Amanda, here you go:
http://www.fancast.com/tv/Baggage/106903/full-episodes
Enjoy! :-)

[Mike]

Said woman in the purple dress looks a lot like Amy Sedaris playing a character.

[Amanda]

Hell yea! Thank you Gretchen, you're the best!!!

[EZ]

Did anyone see the episode where the bachlorette got it down to one man, and then he revealed he had sex with a man? It was awesome. She was like, "Um... bye". The guy was all "Everyone does it in college..."

Good TV!

[k]

This review is a perfect example of why I keep coming back (to your blog)

<3

[Xavier]

I love this show. Just full of all kinds of crazy.

[Yvonne]

I love this show. Has anyone who got selected on the show ever got married. I watched the second season last night 25th August 2010 and there was a guy from the Bahamas; his name is Christian. What is his last name and what is the name of the book he wrote about penis extension.

[herve leger dress]

I like this program, I will continue to pay attention to it!

[cheap air yeezy]

Romance is seeking perfection, love is forgiving faults!

[Supra Shoes]

Papa Pea really likes all the cabinets without doors...you can see where everything is and it is so much more efficient. I agree with all of that, but I don't really like seeing everything in the cupboards all the time...)

I really wanted to buy new pulls for all our kitchen casdfabinets, but we really didn't want to spend the money on it. Mostly, I don't want the shiny brass look with our white and yellow kitchen. So, I decided to try painting them!

[buying a research paper]

Actually once the three contestants are pared down to one, the potential dater must admit to a fault of his or her own.