[ASC-list] Beauty and the Geek looking for scientists
Charles Willock
charlesw at cse.unsw.EDU.AU
Tue Jul 6 09:28:13 UTC 2010
Hi All,
I happen to think that there is some potential for BandG but it may
not be quite what the promoters are aiming at.
A year or two back there was a program "SuperNanny" on Aust TV - dealing
with how to treat young kids who were misbehaving. (It might also have
been characterised as "how to put a young kid in the 'naughty-corner'
in 7 different ways"). While the behind-the-scenes analysis might have
more weight than was apparent on the screen, viewers didn't rank it
particularly highly
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0429442/ ( 5.4 )
Around the same time there was a program (possibly "Little Angels") with
a similar basis - much less well promoted - but which seemed to have a far
more profound psychological analysis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Angels_(TV_series)
Contributors included Tanya Byron, now Professor of Public Understanding
of Science at Edge Hill University.
Given the level of interest by the public in trying to understand the
other gender, and the ability of the public to see through the limited
depth of Supernanny, I wonder if, at some point, it might be worth considering
an alternative show - perhaps on a similar social basis - but addressing
the situation in a more analytic/informative way than was done in the first
Australian BeautyandtheGeek show. After all, if the BBC can reach the
legendary status it has based on films about animals then there must be
some possibilities for more profound insight in the area of (closer-to-our-
-kind) human relations. FWIW, on YouTube, BBC clips are ranking in the
order a million while BandG are of the order 1000.
Charlesw
Alternatively, perhaps it needs to be asked ...
If Beauty and the Geek is a social experiment (as claimed), has it been
written up somewhere? If not, did they do something wrong first time and
now are having to repeat the experiment?
> Hmm. So they say that:
>
> > "The premise of the show is to carry out a social experiment. . .. We will
> > couple together beautiful, socially savvy women with highly intelligent
> > males, and through a series of challenges, see what they learn from each
> > other. The idea is to embrace and celebrate the talent and individuality
> > of each contestant."
>
> I confess I've never seen the show, but the promos suggest a completely
> different proposition, namely: we put socially awkward nerds and outrageously
> stupid bimbos together and humiliate them all for your viewing pleasure!
>
> They don't make it look like much 'learning', 'embracing' or 'celebrating'
> are going on at all . . .
>
> Does anyone have any experience of the show besides my cynical observations
> from afar?
>
>
> Regan
"Creativity and innovation are measured not by what is done,
but by what could have been done ... but wasn't"
Disclaimer: http://www.eng.unsw.edu.au/emaildis.htm
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Charles Willock charlesw at cse.unsw.edu.au
c/- School of Computer Science and Engineering
University of New South Wales,
New South Wales Australia 2052 http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~charlesw
More information about the ASC-list
mailing list