Too Cool For School
Has anyone been watching Tommy Lee Goes to College? Damn you Tommy Lee! You made me love you. I didn't wanna do it. I didn't wanna do it.
The premise is simple; kid at heart, bad boy rocker Tommy Lee makes good by going to college. Watch as Tommy Lee enrolls in complicated classes like Intro to Chemistry and Engineering. See him go through the struggles of finding that perfect roommate and waking up on time. Laugh with Tommy as he gets a tutor, young enough to be his daughter, but hot enough to be...his daughter.
Then the awful truth came crashing down around me.
In a Yahoo article on the show:
"Tommy Lee Goes to College finds its titular 42-year-old rocker sort-of attending the University of Nebraska (he didn't really enroll) for the purposes of a sort-of realistic view of campus life (more than a few of the bits are staged)."
Immediately a few choice words popped out at me, from "He didn't really enroll" to "staged". As a result, I had a few choice words of my own, "What the %$!?"
Here's the thing. I completely understand that much of reality television is based around implausible premises. I even fully expected a degree of Tommy Lee Goes To College to be fabricated. But part of the fabrication is his actual enrollment? Why not just call it Tommy Lee Visits College and call it a day?
I'm not naive. I didn't expect Tommy to graduate or even attend past the semester, but I think it would have actually been funnier to see Tommy really have a go at it. Instead we get a bunch of offbeat moments that make Tommy Lee seem, dare I say, charming and innocent. Don't laugh, they did.
Now I'm left to wonder. How much of it was real at all? Now that I know he didn't enroll, I'm assuming he didn't really stay on campus or even possibly really try out for the band and mess it all up, only to be triumphant in the end. It's all just too much to take.
I'm no fool. I know reality tv isn't perfect. But in the future, I'd like my reality tv with at least a side order of reality. Is that too much to ask?
The premise is simple; kid at heart, bad boy rocker Tommy Lee makes good by going to college. Watch as Tommy Lee enrolls in complicated classes like Intro to Chemistry and Engineering. See him go through the struggles of finding that perfect roommate and waking up on time. Laugh with Tommy as he gets a tutor, young enough to be his daughter, but hot enough to be...his daughter.
Then the awful truth came crashing down around me.
In a Yahoo article on the show:
"Tommy Lee Goes to College finds its titular 42-year-old rocker sort-of attending the University of Nebraska (he didn't really enroll) for the purposes of a sort-of realistic view of campus life (more than a few of the bits are staged)."
Immediately a few choice words popped out at me, from "He didn't really enroll" to "staged". As a result, I had a few choice words of my own, "What the %$!?"
Here's the thing. I completely understand that much of reality television is based around implausible premises. I even fully expected a degree of Tommy Lee Goes To College to be fabricated. But part of the fabrication is his actual enrollment? Why not just call it Tommy Lee Visits College and call it a day?
I'm not naive. I didn't expect Tommy to graduate or even attend past the semester, but I think it would have actually been funnier to see Tommy really have a go at it. Instead we get a bunch of offbeat moments that make Tommy Lee seem, dare I say, charming and innocent. Don't laugh, they did.
Now I'm left to wonder. How much of it was real at all? Now that I know he didn't enroll, I'm assuming he didn't really stay on campus or even possibly really try out for the band and mess it all up, only to be triumphant in the end. It's all just too much to take.
I'm no fool. I know reality tv isn't perfect. But in the future, I'd like my reality tv with at least a side order of reality. Is that too much to ask?
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