It's not enough to be good at something if you want to become a reality television star.
No sir, in this day and age if you want to get noticed you need to act like a self-obsessed prima donna. You need to talk smack about everybody else, invent idiotic wannabe catchphrases, and generally act really, really unlikable.
Remember who won season 2 of “Project Runway?” Probably not, and that's because she was quiet and drama-free, unlike last season's winner, Christian Soriano, who has parlayed his sassy attention-grabbing stunts into a “Saturday Night Live” skit and guest-starring spots on shows like “Ugly Betty.”
The current crop of “Project Runway” contestants are clearly students of the show, and spend just as much time painting themselves as personalities as they do actual designing.
Dalton Ross of Entertainment Weekly reviews "Project Runway."
You have Blayne, who painfully tried his best to add the suffix "-licious" to every single word he can. He thinks it's a clever catchphrase, and he would be right, if this were 2001. Then there's Suede, who sports a funny hairstyle and insists on referring to himself in the third person, which comes off as annoying, although in this day and age I suppose we should all just be happy that he hasn't yet changed his name to “Suedelicious.”
Of course, acting like a cocky jerk does have competitive advantages. The show has always gone to great pains to keep its bigger personalities on the program. There is even a disclaimer at the end letting us know that the producers help the judges make the decisions as to who to eliminate. Hmmm, now I wonder why they would go and do that?
Of course, the drama I prefer is on the catwalk, where the designers often debut truly hideous ensembles. Now that is good ol' fashioned humiliation we can all get behind, right?
This is, after all, supposed to be a talent competition. As host Heidi Klum says, “You're either in or you're out.” Let's hope that some of these diva designers are shown the door sooner rather than later.