Yes, VH1, This Is What You Signed Up For - Monkey See Blog : NPR
Daisy Of Love is just one of the many, many dating-oriented shows VH1 has been running over the last several years. Suddenly, they seem embarrassed. (VH1)
by Linda Holmes
Let us start with this: It is not VH1's fault that Ryan Jenkins, a participant on its Megan Wants A Millionaire show, killed himself after becoming a suspect in his ex-wife's murder. They didn't cause that to happen.
But let us continue with this: For Tom Calderone, the president of VH1, to suggest to the Los Angeles Times that something inexplicably went awry, and that "this is not what [he] signed up for" in working with 51 Minds — the company that made the show, as well as The Surreal Life and Rock Of Love and others — is absurd and disingenuous, and will hold no water with anyone who actually watches his network.
There is nobody who doesn't know that they cast people on Rock Of Love (to pick just one instance) with the clear expectation that those people will engage in bizarre, exhibitionist, self-destructive behavior, probably while liquored up to within an inch of their lives. Suggesting that you figured it was just fine to populate your network with moderately crazy booze-hounds because you did everything possible to nullify the risk that this would associate you with violently crazy booze-hounds is, not to put too fine a point on it, rank hypocrisy.
The vetting process and the problem of overreacting, after the jump...
Calderone apparently is displeased with some perceived defect in the vetting process, and it's indeed been reported that Jenkins had an assault conviction that didn't surface during his background check.
But honestly: Who cares? Everyone who has violent outbursts has a first one. Any genuine effort to avoid casting potentially dangerous people would do a lot more than screen for previous convictions. The problem is that it would screen out almost everyone who makes a good Rock Of Love contestant in the first place.
It's simple logic. It's the simplest logic, in fact: If you're casting people because you believe their personalities are volatile — and any claim that these particular shows aren't cast that way is patently, blatantly, laughably false — then you have no way of knowing what form that volatility will take. That's what makes it volatility.
If VH1 wants to change the direction of its programming to include fewer shows in which people without a modicum of self-respect pound shots of tequila and take their clothes off, that's a lovely idea. They should do it. The world does not need any more [Blank] Of Love variations. But it is far too late for any claim that Calderon — or anyone else at VH1 — didn't understand what was involved in making Megan Wants A Millionaire.
I've resisted writing about this particular story, because it's so easy to overreact to it. There are now hundreds of people a year who appear on various unscripted shows, and the fact that one of them turns out, after the fact, to be a dangerous criminal doesn't mean a whole lot when it comes to the broader battle over "reality" shows. This one story, in particular, doesn't even mean a whole lot with regard to whether VH1 should change its lineup. Nobody learned anything about Megan Wants A Millionaire from this incident that they couldn't have learned just from watching it.
That's precisely why it makes no sense for VH1 — VH1, of all places! — to adopt an attitude of wounded bafflement at being let down by its production company. Of course the crime itself is not what anyone "signed up for." But the nature of this entire subgenre of "entertainment" was not a mystery to the network that was airing it. The production company did what was required — it delivered people who would behave as horrifying attention-seekers.
If the network now finds itself embarrassed, then the cause of that embarrassment is the decision to place the order, not some kind of rude surprise upon delivery.