By Jae-Ha Kim
Amazon.com
January 13, 2007
What reality series is complete without booty calls, catfights, and accidental defecation? Sure, The Bachelor may have romantic locales and the promise of at least a few weeks of happiness with a tall and ridiculously handsome dude.
But the second season of VH-1’s raunchy, tacky dating series Flavor of Love has wild action and eagerness on the part of the contestants that borders on desperation. Never mind that the man all the ladies are fighting for is the diminutive Flavor Flav–once known as a rap pioneer for his work in Public Enemy, but best known today as Brigitte Nielsen’s plaything from VH1’s reality series The Surreal Life.
Since the object of his affection turned him down in the previous season, Flav is back to select a potential wife from 20 contestants here eager to get their 15 minutes of fame by pretending to be in love with Flav. Both he and the contestants are much more aggressive this year than in the past and the implication is that if the girls want to make it to the next round, they’d better be willing to make some major nookie with him (and, in some cases, each other).
The nicknames he bestows on the contestants add another comic book flavor to the show: There’s Toastee, Nibblz, and the return of mouthy New York (back from Season One). And faster than you can say, “Oh no she didn’t,” New York is in the face of at least a few contestants she doesn’t deem worthy of competition.
Flavor of Love goes through the motions of being a real reality show, but it doesn’t try that hard. It’s obvious Flav is taking advantage of his popularity while he can and that the women are hoping their participation will help launch their modeling/acting/singing careers. But no one in their right mind actually believes that Flav will marry any of these unusual women.
