Janice Dickinson And Faux Drama

In season four, episode two of The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency, it was all about the instigation of faux drama with forced friction between new models and returning models. It's a predictable ploy used on the series and it's probably played out by now. Long-time viewers know that by the end of the season, or at least by the start of the next one, everybody will be model buddies and one big happy PTSD family, so it's not worth investing interest in these little tiffs.

The gimmick of this season is the use of group living for the cast in a "model house", ala Big Brother, Real World, etc. Janice herself plays housemother, which makes the house sort of a cross between the Playboy mansion and a minimum security psych ward. Ostensibly, the purpose of the house was to give Janice Dickinson the opportunity to spend more time with her models, shaping them and keeping them focused. In reality, the concept was used to give the writers inherently more potential story lines to put together. The models, realizing that the house was where the stories and camera time were going to be based, all really wanted to stay within its limited confines. As terrible as it would be to have Janice on their back 24/7, they definitely wanted to be part of Madam Janice's little fame-whore house.

At the end of the first episode, the returning models were incensed to learn that only new models had been picked to live in the house. Only J.P. Calderon, the impossibly benevolent, good-hearted conscience of the agency, said he he was happy for the new models getting to live there. He indicated that he was blissfully ignorant of the anger of the returning models. Question: why are the gay characters on basic cable and network tv usually saints? When can we have gay super s|uts whoring with every drunken straight football player turned model?

It was understandable that the new models would need the most attention, so although I can understand that living in the house could be considered a bonus, it really was intended to be like remedial summer school and as such, anybody not forced to live in the house should have felt good that Janice considered them not needing the extra attention.

Janice pointed out that those not living in the house are still in her agency. She let them how much she still cared for them by saying, "I love each and every one of you. Shut the f*** up and trust me." She's so sweet. Lord love her.

The puke in the group that doesn't deserve any loving is Christian Prelle, who mocked Martin Ritchie's speaking ability. This was a new low for Prelle, lower than the repulsive behavior he showed last season before the PETA rally. Thankfully, Prelle got deservedly slapped by Janice.

To get all the models together, Janice threw a party. Everyone seemed to have a good time despite seeing Sorin Mihalache's mustache and sad little hat. At the party Janice announced that she had picked Maurice Townsell to move into the house. She explained that she hoped his manliness would rub off on the "effeminate" models. She went on to say that she meant it literally, describing some sort of weird, male model marking of territory where "he's going to rub his manly, manly, manly, all over the place." Not in, just over, sadly.

Strangely, Janice then wanted all of the models to cross-dress to show that they could portray different characters. This seem to defeat her purpose for bringing in Maurice as his female persona was unnervingly on target, looking like a $20 street prostitute. Martin, it should be noted, looked terribly sweet as a coquettish, naughty Texas housewife.

Getting down to work, the first casting was for Nicolita Swimwear. The company needed one of the girl models to be the face of Nicolita for the season and the finalists for the part who were selected to do a test shoot were Traci Moslenko, Polina Tretiakova, and CC Fontana. Chandler Maness was also selected, to be the man prop.

The shoot employed a very classy, classic look that I love, like Italy in the fifties. Traci Moslenko's face and hair looked real good, but the featured photo made her look like she had a beer gut. Polina Tretiakova's style just didn't fit the genre. CC clearly had the best photo of the women. Very sexy. Chandler Maness had the best look overall, looking fantastic in a Ivy League look. His one problem was his arm tattoo. It needs to go or have some body makeup on it.

CC had shown up late to the shoot because of her period. When Janice found out about it, she was very angry. Hearing it was because of menstruation, Janice asked CC, "Do you not know every 28 days that you have a blood bath downstairs?" Hearing this word picture of CC and her monthly flash flood disaster was a bit much, but probably better than seeing Janice hurl tampons at CC, shouting, "Plug it up! Plug it up!"

During the shoot, Janice met Anna Babbitt, Traci's manager for acting. Anna explained that she was representing Traci for TV and film. Janice asked, "What kind of film, porn?" Anna replied, "Well, she's going to be in features... soon." (As every other woman in LA is eventually promised.) Regardless, it's an great inspiration for having fun at work. I've started to bring a friend of mine to every business meeting, explaining that he's my agent for TV and feature films. It's a break from my usual intermittent but frantic waving away invisible bugs.

The second casting of the episode was for Kentucky Denim Jeans. Liat Tala, the owner, was looking for some male models (who isn't?) with a few females for background. The men had to try on jeans, which gave us a good number of crotch shots. Sweet! Christian Prelle, Martin Ritchie, Brian Kehoe, Dominic Figlio and Chandler Maness were selected. It will be hot to watch the photo shoot in the next episode.