Bad Girls Club

You probably don't need to be told that a reality TV show called Bad Girls Club is not high art. I was expecting, however, that it might at least be guilty fun. The Real World-style formula of taking a group of strangers and recording their (mostly drunken) antics has produced some hits and many misses. From its cloyingly coy title to its faux-self-help premise, however, Bad Girls Club is a clunker.

The idea of the show is that "difficult" women will live together for four months in an attempt to overcome their problems. In order to really get behind the basic intention of the show, you have to be willing to distill the spectrum of female personalities into a rainbow that ranges from "peevish" to "ostentatiously bitchy." That's a bad start, but each of the women did agree to be on the show, so I'll give that part a pass. Still, it is a little unnerving to watch grown women consistently refer to themselves as "bad girls" during the interview segments.

Overall, I blame the producers for the weirdly hostile vibe of the show. The women themselves seem to be trying their best to be entertaining, although there's absolutely no vestige of the self-help angle of the program in most episodes. The producers leave the girls with little to do beyond partying and fighting. Episode plotlines are often shallow and ridiculous. Watch Zara become obsessed with a bobble-headed club promoter! Watch the blondes try to set up a tent and build an illegal bonfire! (How tired are blonde jokes?!) Every now and then the women are able to manifest a spark of their inner, non-stereotyped personality, but these instances are sadly few and far between.

Kudos to the show for its catchy theme song by Lady Sovereign, and its pretty California beach setting; otherwise, I think this show is too aimless and angry to be much fun.

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