Battle of the Bitches

This competition is for the title of Biggest Bitch, Reality Division, Fall 2008.

Our first contender is Vicky, currently on the Blue Team of the Biggest Loser on NBC. Her opponent, Randy, is presently spreading sunshine on the newly formed Nobag tribe on CBS' Survivor.

Let's get the disclaimer out of the way first. Yes, those of us who enjoy Reality TV know there is nothing real in what we are watching. Contrived TV is a much better description, but Reality is the name that has stuck to the genre and that's what I'm using.

I think one of the things that keeps viewers tuning in to shows like Survivor and Biggest Loser is seeing how everyday people react to unique, difficult and stressful situations. Many individuals rise to the occasion and prove just what drive and determination can do. Others fly under the radar and ruffle as few feathers as possible to achieve their goal. Then there is a special group of people who think they are better and smarter than everyone else in the group simply because they draw breath. You know the type. The people you hated in high school, have to put up with at work and occasionally get trapped sitting next to on a cross country flight. The Bitch.

It took Vicky a few episodes for her bitchiness to fully manifest itself. Her fellow BL teammate, Heba, was in serious contention for the job but got surpassed when Vicky baldly states that she isn't interested in a luxury like reading a letter from her kids. The game is way more important than communicating with her offspring. After all, she'll see them after the competition, anyway. I can just hear her at home now. “Just heat up those pizza rolls and get away from me!” You gotta love a woman who has her priorities straight.

Vicky's cinched the qualifying round when her own teammate, Ed, remarked “Don't cross Vicky, she'll claw your eyes out.” You know this woman is a bad ass if she can make a 6'3”, 300 pound man quake in fear.

The most astonishing thing about this woman is that she managed to remain in the game by securing the support of a woman whom she treated like crap. Vicky's teammate, Amy, dared to vote in her own best interest last week which didn't follow Vicky's master plan and Vicky proceeded to call her a back-stabbing bitch, refused to sit in the same room with her or even look at her. Ah, Junior High, how I don't miss it.

If you are thinking that's as bad as it gets and your vote is for Vicky, I beg you to read on.
Enter Randy, the Wedding Photographer, from Survivor. Randy proves that is isn't necessary to have ovaries to be a compete and utter Bitch. He was a quick study, too. He quickly qualified on the season opener by proclaiming that everyone in his tribe is an idiot. He boasts during the soliloquies that knows how things should be done, but instead of stepping up and helping out he takes the passive-aggressive route and criticizes everyone else.

Randy solidifies his Bitch nomination when he takes credit for a critical move in the game where a fellow player talks the group into throwing a valuable immunity idol into the ocean and out of play. He then again proclaims (to the cameraman mind you, not the group) that he is in control of the game and the King of Gabon.

Randy, too, managed to survive another round of Tribal Council this week without getting one vote. He had played a nasty, quiet game of discontent up until the last episode. He crawled out of his shell of miasma for a full frontal attack on Crystal whom he made fun of (behind her back of course) by calling her stupid and incompetent and described her as a T-Rex and Sasquatch. What a class act that guy is.

It's a tough call, but my vote is for Randy. Although Vicky is self-centered and appears to have no maternal instincts whatsoever she pales in comparison to a man who makes a living recording one of life's most joyous events while possessing one of the nastiness dispositions I've ever come across. The satisfaction we viewers have in these players is that they rarely ever win the game. I believe the producers salt our reality series with these personalities to give us a little spice and someone we love to hate, but tailor the game to make sure they get their rightful comeuppance. I'm perfectly okay with that, too. I don't really give a damn who wins Survivor or Biggest Loser, all I'm asking for is entertainment. So far, so good.

Who do you love to hate?