Reality TV Manages To Conjure Up New Ultra-Douche To Rival Pantheon of Previous Ultra-Douches

A couple of seasons ago, Survivor got very Christian-y as one of its better players prayed to God every day, and held prayer sessions with a couple of the other faithful.

Well. Too much of an advertisement for Those Sorts of People. Time to show the world what Republicans are really like.

Enter Colton. Colton Cumbie, actually. A self-declared Republican whose idea of Republicanism boils down to "I don't share."

He's also gay. No, he's not gay. Gay doesn't do it justice. He is the biggest, queeniest, most annoying sissy I've ever seen.

If you went casting for the old-timiest, most demeaning, most offensively retrograde stereotype of gays, you couldn't go wrong with Colton Cumbie.

He sits around camp doing nothing all day. He vamps around like Mae West. He keeps going over to the girl's camp, crying that he has nothing in common with his male tribemates.

He gets into nonsense estrogen-fueled beefs with people over nothing.

But one of the girls gave him a hidden immunity idol, figuring he was both the weakest player and most likely to turn on his tribe (correct on both counts), so he's sitting pretty, as it were, and has license to be even more awful, as he has, at the moment, little fear of being voted off the show.

He got into a snit with some black struggling stand-up comic named Bill. I don't know what the source of this enmity was. I imagine it was all stuff dreamed up by the drama queen Colton, because Bill, at least as presented, was a pretty unobtrusive guy.

"Ghetto trash," Colton said of him. Which was odd, because if you were going to tag Bill with a racial epithet, it would be "actin' white" or "Oreo." I honestly didn't see anything "ghetto" about Bill, except his skin color, which, um. Really shouldn't be an automatic flag for "ghetto trash," you know.

But what Bill was, was poor, given he was struggling doing small stand-up gigs.

And the rich-brat trust-fund kid Colton didn't like that. Which he proclaimed proudly in the tribal council. See, he doesn't associate with the poor. He says so.

"Get a real job," he hissed at Bill, which was odd coming from Colton, who is the laziest guy in the tribe, and is just a student, and who obviously has never done a single day of work in his life. And I don't just mean labor-- obviously he's never labored. But I don't think he's even done a day of light clerical work.

Because Colton has power in the tribe that I am absolutely incapable of explaining the reasons for, he got the tribe to give up its immunity after a challenge -- the men had won, so the girls were supposed to go to tribal -- in order just to vote out Bill, who he'd decided he just didn't like.

This guy calls Colton a triumph for gays on TV, but not for good reasons:

Before I eviscerate Colton as a deplorable human being, first let me say one good thing about him: He defies stereotypes and expectations. Since I cover Glee, I'm used to seeing gay people as noble, heroic, tolerant human beings who are nice to everyone. They're also all incredibly liberal. But Colton is a self-proclaimed Republican who has no problem making fun of people who are poor or little. It's like he watched Queer as Folk as a teenager and assumed Brian Kinney was a virtuous hero. [I have no idea what this means; I assume this character is a hateful, whiny bitch. -- ace]

...

That kind of hypocrisy is what makes Colton so terrible. He claims to hate people who don't work hard, but he does absolutely nothing. He also claims that he doesn't have discrimination for being gay because he only associates with well-educated people who are tolerant and more enlightened. [As you'll go on to see, he demeans anyone with a pick-up truck as a homobphobic yahoo-- ace.] Yet somehow he thinks it's OK to compare Leif [a dwarf] to a Munchkin and an Oompa Loompa.

Why am I putting this up, nearly a week later? Well, for one, because I just saw it and was appalled.

For another, it's just another example of a fame-whore letting a little too much of his terrible personality shine through.

But for a third thing, this dovetails with the point I was making about Self Esteem. As the guy I just quoted continues:

Clearly Colton has never been told "No." I'm no psychologist, but his entire attitude seems like someone who's been given everything he's ever wanted and who was always told that he's the most special, amazing, talented, handsome boy in the world, and that anyone who doesn't like him is just stupid and worthless.

It's disgusting, and the fact that everyone in the men's tribe is so scared of him is embarrassing. I love watching reality TV villains who are scheming and manipulative and evil, but as much as he wants to be that, Colton isn't. He is incredibly obvious, making sure everyone knows exactly what he's doing, and somehow that strategy is working for him.

Anyway, here's the clip, if you're interested. Colton really drops some Weapons Grade Jaw-Droppers here.

No, seriously. As Adam Carolla would say, "That's really racist, and I should know, because I'm a racist."

Reality TV is easy in a lot of ways. One way is this: There is no shortage in the world of complete and utter assholes who do not know they're assholes, and who, in fact, think of themselves as SuperStars shooting across the sky.

Put a camera on them, and they're ready to perform, baby!

posted by Ace at 04:25 PM

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