Archive for the 'Reality Rehab with Dr. Jenn' Category

FINAL VIDEO: Reality Rehab Webisode 7: The Gangster Guy (and series conclusion)


Today, at last, I present the thrilling conclusion to the Reality Rehab with Dr. Jenn web series, Webisode 7: The Gangsta Guy!

If you’ve been reading the blog recently (or media outlets from The Vancouver Sun to Jezebel to The Frisky), you know I launched a satirical book trailer and webisode series last week, Reality Rehab with Dr. Jenn, which spoofs — and then liberates — reality TV’s stock characters through media literacy therapy.

In the final webisode of the series, The Gangsta Guy (actor Brian Moreland)–one of seven Reality Rehab cast members–starts out embodying all the racial stereotypes about men of color in reality TV (“I’ll pimp out every ho in this room! Of course I’ve been arrested. I’m from the hood!”). Yet during the course of media literacy therapy, we learn that he is only pretending to be a “G” because, as an urban planner, if he wins MTV’s “From Gs to Gents” he and his architect wife will be able to use the prize money to build community centers for troubled youth.


Like The Gangsta Guy? Blog him, tweet him, post him to Tumblr, share him on your Facebook wall — let’s make him go viral!


Archive for the 'Reality Rehab with Dr. Jenn' Category

NEW VIDEOS: Reality Rehab with Dr. Jenn: Webisodes 5 & 6: The Slutty Bitch and The Douchebag Dude


Today, folks, we’ve got double-enrollment as The Slutty Bitch and The Douchebag Dude check in for intensive stock-character deprogramming via Reality Rehab with Dr. Jenn!

If you’ve been reading the blog recently (or media outlets from The Vancouver Sun to The Frisky), you know I launched a satirical book trailer and webisode series this week, Reality Rehab with Dr. Jenn, which spoofs — and then liberates — reality TV’s stock characters through media literacy therapy.

In Webisode 5: The Slutty Bitch (young feminist activist Shelby Knox) starts out sniping at her castmates, because she is most definitely “NOT HERE TO MAKE FRIENDS!!!” But reality show personalities can be deceiving, and eventually we learn exactly what production tricks happened behind the scenes to make her spit in a fellow contestant’s face–and why living in a reality show house “is like psy-ops!” (the kind of Psychological Operations often used as elements of psychological torture):

In Webisode 6, The Douchebag Dude (improv comedian Bob Kulhan) starts out as every bit the meathead jerk we’ve seen on VH1’s Tool Academy. But through media literacy therapy, he drops his douchey act, realizing that although MTV’s Jersey Shore boys are going to get rich off their GTL slogan, there’s more to him than just “gym, tan and laundry.” Now, his only problem is what to do with a cabinet full of unnecessary Cox Body Spray…


Archive for the 'Reality Rehab with Dr. Jenn' Category

VIDEO: Reality Rehab with Dr. Jenn: Webisode 4: The Top Model


If you’ve been reading the blog recently (or media outlets from The Vancouver Sun to The Frisky), you know I launched a satirical book trailer and webisode series this week, Reality Rehab with Dr. Jenn, which spoofs — and then liberates — reality TV’s stock characters through media literacy therapy.

Who’s the latest to check in for some Reality Rehab? Introducing Webisode 4: The Top Model. In this episode, The Top Model (Kendra Leigh Landon) explains just how seductive is when fashion and beauty advertisers build modeling shows around clear instructions about which makeup and clothes to wear in order to be beautiful, valuable, and successful. Through media literacy therapy, she learns how and why most women will never achieve advertisers’ definition of beauty–and how important it is to think for herself:


Like Reality Rehab’s Top Model? Blog her, tweet her, post her to Tumblr, share her on your Facebook wall — let’s make this Top Model go viral, so that all the girls who watch America’s Next Top Model can hear her speak.

What, you say you haven’t seen the previous webisodes? Well, then, as Veronica Arreola says, “you’re missing out on a world of funny.” Check out — and then share/tweet/blog about — the whole series:


Archive for the 'Reality Rehab with Dr. Jenn' Category

VIDEO: “Reality Rehab” Webisode 3: The “Real” Housewife


On Monday, to celebrate the official publication of Reality Bites Back, I blogged the launch of Reality Rehab with Dr. Jenn, a book trailer and satirical web series spoofing — and then liberating — reality TV’s stock characters through media literacy therapy.

Monday also saw the debut of Webisode 1: The Desperate Bachelorette (see below), and yesterday we met “The Angry Black Woman” in Reality Rehab Webisode 2, also below.

Today, it’s time to reveal Reality Rehab Webisode 3: The “Real” Housewife. Although she doesn’t know what “homogeneous” means, she explains — while sipping copious martinis, naturally — that her friendships are actually much more supportive than it seems on Bravo, whose producers instructed her to focus her on-air conversations on “More brand names, less deep thought!” Her media literacy therapy includes a case study in Frankenbite editing–a must-see for every reality TV fan!

Four more Reality Rehab videos will roll out over the course of the next week, including The Slutty Bitch, The Top Model, The Douchebag Dude, and The Gangsta Guy.

***


Archive for the 'Reality Rehab with Dr. Jenn' Category

VIDEO: “Reality Rehab” Webisode 2: The Angry Black Woman


On Monday, to celebrate the official publication of Reality Bites Back, I blogged the launch of Reality Rehab with Dr. Jenn, a book trailer and satirical web series spoofing — and then liberating — reality TV’s stock characters through media literacy therapy.

Today, in Reality Rehab Webisode 2, “The Angry Black Woman” starts out as a screaming, cursing, threatening mess, just as so many women of color have been framed on Flavor of Love, The Apprentice, and America’s Next Top Model. But after intensive media literacy therapy, she explains how producers manipulated her persona–turns out, she’s actually a compassionate hospice nurse who never wanted Flav in the first place!

Watch the brilliant Allison Jones unpack one of reality TV’s most insidious forms of racial typecasting:

Close to 700 people have watched the trailer in the first day and a half, and it was picked up by the Vancouver Sun and half a dozen other Canadian news outlets. Blog it, tweet it, share it

on Facebook, Tumblr… let’s spread the laughs around:


Archive for the 'Reality Rehab with Dr. Jenn' Category

VIDEO LAUNCH: Reality Rehab with Dr. Jenn


Today, in conjunction with the official release of Reality Bites Back, I’m

excited to debut a satirical book trailer and webisode series, “Reality Rehab with Dr. Jenn“– where all your favorite reality TV stock characters come to get deprogrammed:

In addition to the trailer, I’ll be rolling out seven webisodes, one for each character. The first webisode follows The Desperate Bachelorette (modeled after shows such as The Bachelor, Tough Love, Married By America, Joe Millionaire and more). When we first meet her, she embodies reality TV’s stereotype about single women as weepy, pathetic losers who can never possibly be happy or successful without husbands, mouthing lines pulled directly from actual quotes from some of these shows, such as “I don’t want to die alone!” and “I would be a servant to him!” By the end of the webisode, her media literacy therapy has helped her realize that, in fact, she has a full life, a great career and a lot going for her, and she can wait for a truly fulfilling relationship, rather than grasping for romance with any randy dude who’ll snog her for fifteen minutes on national TV.