>I should have just not said
>anything. I feel really affronted
>by "Don't kid yourself" in
>your message. That stings a
>little, particularly when I was
>trying to be frank.

Please don't feel affronted...I didn't mean to offend. I just don't think what the Guidos did was any worse than what Rob did throughout the season. Honestly if I had seen the first season of Amazing Race when it first aired I'm not sure I would have continued to watch, because it seemed to me that being a horrible person (as the Guidos were) was being rewarded. I definitely would not have continued to watch had the Guidos won. Just as I would have never watched another season had Rob and Amber won. The reality show genre makes it okay to be a horrible person if it means that you will get a million dollars in the end. Both the Guidos and Rob totally bought into that and that is what makes me dislike them. I don't think one is any better or worse than the other...they both were slimy and underhanded and really detracted from what I think is the spirit of AR.

Keep in mind the power of editing. Who's to say that Rob & Brennan didn't do slimy things of their own, or maybe Uchenna & Joyce (other than the airport thing in the final episode)?

Editing allows the producers to frame a storyline -- they know who has won and who didn't, so they can try to make the winners look better by focussing on their positive game qualities and make the also-rans look like villains. Flo was allowed to be edited as a whiny beyotch and it was still palatable to accept her team as a winner because of Zach's incredible patience and game skill that caused his team to win the race. Kendra had diarrhea of the mouth when it came to Africa, but with the Jonathan editing and later the Hayden editing, she came off smelling like a rose by comparison.

We've heard over and over that Victoria was just as bad as Jonathan in TAR6 (other contestants say this, too) but the editors went to work on Jonathan (deservedly so) but didn't make Victoria look so bad. Why? I don't know, you'd have to ask the editors, but they had a storyline in mind and maybe they were repulsed in particular with Jonathan's physical approach so they decided to do a hatchet job on him.

So... the Guidos were allowed to be edited the way they were because the producers knew they would be finishing third. If the Guidos had won, we'd probably have seen the airport fiasco with the Festers edited in a different way to favour the Guidos more. They'd have been edited in a more resourceful way and less in a confrontational, pathetic way.

Scratch and sniff
"Tsk, tsk. Pepe's messing with the newbies again." Spidey, 3/30/05

>Keep in mind the power of
>editing.

I am so sick of hearing that it is all about the editing. If you did not say or do something slimy, it could not be edited in. Who cares whether the other teams did or didn't do something that could be considered slimy? We are not talking about them - we are talking about the fact that the Guidos and Rob were slimy. The editing did not make them slimy...they made themselves slimy. And although I have not seen the entire seasons with Flo and Kendra I think they were both pretty despicable as well. Kendra NEVER came off smelling like a rose in my book - in fact when it became clear that they would win I turned the show off and didn't watch because I could not stomach such an unkind person being rewarded for her unkindness. I'm still not sure I'll continue to watch AR, but I definitely would not have continued to watch had Rob and Amber won right after a season where someone like Kendra won.

LAST EDITED ON 07-24-05 AT 01:43 PM (EST)

Like it or not, it IS about editing for the most part. There are hours and hours of footage for each team that are being snipped into 40 minutes total for each episode. There have been posters who have had behind-the-scenes experience who say there are a lot of stuff that are intentionally left out or scenes have been edited in that aren't in chronological order to create an impression of slimy behaviour when it actually didn't happen. More than a few contestants on TAR and Survivor have appeared on the Early Show and remarked "I was surprised by the editing because it didn't happen that way."

There are people out there who swear that Rob and Amber are great, down-to-earth people but we don't see that for the most part because the editors love editing them in a slimy way -- it worked as the proof is in the record number of viewers tuning in to watch TAR7. We all have our own warts and less than perfect behaviour but it can be greatly enhanced through the powers of editing. We have caught instances where sentences said by contestants were spliced in and words taken out to enhance a situation. You can choose to disagree with this (and have every right to do so), however it's been proven to happen on several shows including TAR and Survivor.

Here's an example. Chip and Kim stiffed a taxi driver at one point, but because the editors had made them look good over and over, viewers shrugged it off for the most part even though what they had done was probably slimy. By comparison, other teams who had also stiffed a driver or squabbled over the cost of a taxi ride were raked over the coals because they had already been edited negatively and it was 'another strike against them'.

Let's face it, it's virtually impossible to go through a race for 30 days or however long it is and be filmed 24/7 without saying one cross word or being caught in some less than ideal situation -- but for some teams, the editors have chosen to completely leave such situations out and for other teams, they leave them all in.

Scratch and sniff
"Tsk, tsk. Pepe's messing with the newbies again." Spidey, 3/30/05

I'll echo Pepe's post about editing. There have been numerous contestants who have said (on the Early Show, in articles and whatnot) that their comments were taken out of context. It is the producers job to provide us entertainment, to make us love some teams and hate others. It keeps us talking and tuning in to see what happens next. Let's face it, if every team is really nice and lines up at the clueboxes in orderly fashion and performs the tasks without showing their frustrations, then it would be boring and shows like this would never be watched.

Turning the table, there must be times when even the nicest appearing teams face frustration and say bad things! I am a really patient person, I very rarely use vulgar language and I would enjoy the experience of this show, but I know myself and when the stress of travelling, language barriers and sleep deprivation combined with physical tasks got to be too much, I could certainly see myself blurting out things that aren't things I would usually say, calling other teams bad things and perhaps even cursing out of frustration! Just as editing can made a devil of someone, it could also make an angel of someone! I guarantee those teams that looked wonderful to the viewer had their fair share of bad stuff that was edited out.

Kendra NEVER came off smelling like a rose in my book - in fact when it became clear that they would win I turned the show off and didn't watch...

This was only clear to me when there was approximately 10 minutes left in the season finale when we saw Freddy & Kendra leave the pizzaria in Chicago and Kris & Jon were just arriving ... or maybe it was absolutely clear when Kris & Jon were stuck waiting for the train at the entrance to Ping Tom park, but that was what, 5 minutes before the season was over? It's not as if we could tell that Kendra was going to win in any earlier episode.

'nutz: Proud member of the inoffensive OT Triumvirate... and Shroomhater! - shroom go boom!

You hit the nail right on the head, Femme.