Being Chaz

Honestly, I have been feeling a bit of Chaz-fatigue lately and so I’ve missed all the talk show episodes from Andersen Cooper to Wendy Williams. You can probably find video clips online. Someone on the Yahoo list sent around the Howard Stern transcript: http://www.marksfriggin.com/news11/11-14.htm#tue

Then my friend Dave sent me the news story about Warren Beatty & Annette Bening’s transgendered son Stephen’s remarks calling Chaz out for various crimes against the celebrity transgendered.

Oy! There’s only so much time in the day to devote to Cher and her folk. If it’s a choice between Chaz on talk shows and a big new coffee-table book biography on Cher…well, life is choices.

But I was a bit rejuvenated by the World of Wonder update to Becoming Chaz that aired Sunday: Being Chaz. Although it was sad and scary (and ended on a cliff-hanger situation sure to produce future updates), I felt the one-hour doc actually held together with more drama than the first feature length…but this, of course, was at the expense of its characters. And those are my mixed feelin’s in a nutshell about reality shows. But as I'm already hooked into this drama, I have to two things to say:

1. It's not the fact that Jen drinks that is the main issue in their inability to tie the knot; it's why she drinks. Unless they solve that problem, the relationship will include pain.
2. Scary haters who make death threats scare the hell of me. Billy, don't be a hero.

According to Current TV’s 50 Documentaries You Should See Before You Die, Madonna’s documentary from 1991, aptly titled Truth or Dare, changed the celebrity-PR-game. To compete in show biz, Madonna set a standard that you must expose your day-to-day dramas to your fans, meaning everyone must do a reality show of some sort to maintain interest. Open access. Or simulated open access. Kind of a harsh theory if it’s true. I can only surmise that Cher must have been grandfathered into the old system which is why she can escape such a vulgar fate beyond the occasional phone calls to Chaz on his reality shows.

But seeing some Cher peripherals is always fun: leave it to Heidi to blow the secret of the ring at the dinner party; and I loved seeing Paulette pressuring the troubled couple to set a wedding date.