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‘Obnoxious Fiance'
takes reality shows
to different level
The Fox program features
a woman trying to convince
her family she’s marrying
a slob so she can win money
By Brian Lambert
Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT)
Say what you will about Fox, when
you're a TV network willing to try ab
solutely anything for a buck, you're
bound to hit it big every few months.
Fox's latest reality show/practical
joke, "My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance,"
debuted Monday night (immediately
after the launch of the new "American
Idol") for a six-week run. On the face of
it, "Obnoxious Fiance" is one of those
"ripped from a sitcom" concepts that
seem to hold great potential for both
hilarity and ratings.
Reaching beyond the primary audi
ence for reality television, "Obnoxious"
will likely be a lot funnier to those
who've been rolling their eyes and gag
ging at "The Bachelor," "Average Joe,"
"Married by America" and their various
wedding spinoffs.
The set-up for "Obnoxious Fiance" is
simple enough to explain, but it quickly
gets more and more convoluted.
Basically, the lucky bride-to-be, Ran
di, a 23-year-old grade-school teaches,
from Scottsdale, Ariz., wins a big cash
prize, a half-million bucks, if she can
put a huge joke over on her parents. If
she can get "Steve," a beefy pig with
worse manners than a ffat-house party
chairman, to the altar, she wins.
But the gag gets more complicated
because Randi herself is being
scammed by Fox. She thinks Steve is a
real "reality" contestant putting the
same prank over on his parents. But in
real-real-"reality," fat, obnoxious
"Steve" is an actor through and
through, and so are all his equally ob
noxious family and friends.
In other words, the bogus bogus fi
ance ("Steve") and his bogus family are
being paid to sabotage the bogus
bride's bogus wedding ... thereby giv
ing a whole new meaning to "reality."
It sounds funny. But it cuts across a
lot of conventional wisdom regarding
"reality TV." Namely, it risks alienating
the large audience of viewers, mostly
young and female, who invest real
emotional interest in the dreams of
other young women competing for the
prize of a loving relationship.
"In its very short shelf life, reality TV
has already become postmodern, in
that everything about the newest gener
ation of shows is a variation on the orig
inals, the 'Survivors' and 'Bachelors,'"
says John Rash, director of broadcast
negotiations for Campbell Mithun ad
vertising in the Twin Cities.
The brilliance of the original "Joe
Millionaire" was the twist of letting the
audience in on the joke But the second
"Joe" bombed, because everyone knew
what the joke was. Nevertheless, the ba
sic direction was clear. Lacking a wholly
original reality concept producers can
steal and recycle from previous series if
they can improve on the "twist," which
in this case is very much of the mock
ing-parody variety.
Therein lies the gamble of "Ob
noxious Fiance." How far can pro
ducers go essentially ridiculing the
often extraordinary emotional in
vestment reality TV's core audience
makes in these programs?
All reality shows, from "Fear Fac
tor" to "The Bachelorette," are
watched by far more women than
men. "The Bachelor" is watched by
two times as many women as men
among 18- to 49-year-olds, and even
the macho exploits of "Fear Factor"
attract 20 percent more women than
men. "Average Joe" had twice as
many women watching as men, and
reality powerhouse "Survivor" pulls
in nearly 25 percent more women.
Only Paris Hilton and Nicole
Richie's 'The Simple Life" came close to
attracting equal numbers of female and
male viewers. But the publicity sur
rounding Hilton's Internet sex tapes
immediately prior to the show's launch
may have more to do with the relatively
slim 10 percent disparity among male
and female viewers than the show's ac
tual appeal to men.
So what comes next? If successful,
"Obnoxious Fiance" would seem to of
fer rich soil for other long-form, "Can
did Camera"-style pranks. But reality TV
is eminently disposable. Yesterday's hot
fashion is today's Von Dutch apparel,
passe before it even hits the shelves.
"The bar keeps getting raised in
terms of the twist these shows re
quire. Ultimately, the genre will have
to change significantly," I*ash says.
"As time goes by, viewers bring more
and more scar tissue to this type of
programming."
(c) 2004, Saint Paul Pioneer Press
(St. Paul, Minn.). Distributed by Knight
Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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