Drama, a bit of flesh sells

The year's reality-show craze finally concluded as CBS' "Big Brother" concluded last week. The show was obviously no match to the ratings of "Survivor" and the critical acclaim of "The 1900 House" and "American High." On the other hand, it never sunk to the depth of "Making the Band," "The Real World" and "Road Rules." If ABC renewed "Making the Band" for a second season, you knew that "Big Brother" wasn't doing badly after all. In fact, its season finale managed to beat the ratings of the Olympics telecast. \nMost of the "Big Brother" houseguests are worthy of comparison to "Survivor's" Richard Hatch, such as ex-Panther William Collins, exotic dancer Jean Jordan and Indiana's chain-smoking mom Karen Fowler. But they were voted out early by the same viewers who were complaining about the show being boring. The remaining houseguests, who struggled to put on their best behavior, were blamed for being uninteresting. What does this say about the viewers? Are we so accustomed to WWF violence that we can't tolerate a show that's all talk and no action?\nThe folks on bigbrothersucks.com proved that "Big Brother" could be fascinating if we had spent nearly as much time analyzing, dissecting and obsessing over it as we did for "Survivor." Although the two shows shared similar formats, the Orwellian tension of "Big Brother" should really be appreciated differently from the Machiavellian intrigue of "Survivor." \nWe saw the houseguests plotting to leave the show. We saw the increasingly unstable George "Chicken Man" Boswell, the roofer from Illinois, approach the verge of insanity. \nThe show finally came to a compelling end as Eddie McGee, the tough-talking one-legged New Yorker, emerges from the entrance of the house as the show's top prize winner. The crowd cheered as the host Julie Chen left the audience with the ominous parting words: "They lived. You watched. Good night." \nIt was disturbing how closely "Big Brother" mirrored the comic, paranoid and ultimately unsettling tone of the fictional reality-television drama, "The Truman Show." \nIt's a shame when the human spirit finally triumphs on television, and most people don't care enough to tune in. But whenever there's a cockfight (remember Susan Hawk's "rat vs. snake" rant on "Survivor"?), most people are absolutely captivated. \nFLESH, FLESH AND MORE FLESH\nEx-Menudo member Ricky Martin is showing flesh in the new video to his idiotic new song, "She Bangs." Not only does Martin himself expose skin, the video also shows us plenty of carefully obscured nude extras in the background. Well, sex sells. How else are you going to get anyone to spend hard-earned cash on a brainless Ricky Martin album?\nEx-Take That member Robbie Williams is also showing flesh in his new video, "Rock DJ." The video begins as Williams strips on a platform while numerous female skaters and a female disc jockey look on. Once Williams is buck naked, he begins tearing off his skin, while the various skaters start devouring his flesh. Toward the end of the video, there's only a computer-animated skeleton of Williams dancing on the platform with the DJ. The clip ends with the disclaimer "No Robbies were harmed during the making of this video."\nAbsolutely brilliant.\nThe clip may not be Total Request Live material, but Williams' anti-pop and anti-glamour satire of that sort of video is by far the most imaginative thing on the MTV rotation. Yes, the video is impossible to stomach. But it is also great to see someone making fun of the pop genre's self-glorifying videos in a provocative way without taking pot shots as Blink 182 did with "All the Small Things." Although his popularity is not even close to that of other pop acts, Williams once again proves that he is above it all.