Thread: Russian Dolls!?!? come on!

Russian Dolls - Episodes, Video & Schedule | myLifetime.com

I'm so bothered by the existence of this little exploitation that I could spit. Honestly I'm too angry to even look closely enough to get the info I'd need to make a decent argument against it.

In trade for a little TV-ratings, do we really need to exploit a culture? And revive sexism in the same motion? So what, the whole Italians-of-new-jersey Snooki Situation thing wasn't enough, now they're gonna try to do it to Russians? (And let's not leave out that the completely-braindead "lumping" of Ukrainians under the banner "Russians" could be offensive to some people.. Like if all Latinos were exploited in a show called "Mexican Dolls" ... umm, not all from Mexico??

Grr.

THIS is the kind of thing that makes me proud I haven't had a TV in years. ugh. <spit spit>

Ну и хари...

KidKBloom, if it's any consolation there are stupid reality TV shows about almost everything nowadays, isn't there?

Why live your own life, when you can watch others living theirs, edited with cheezy music added....? LOL....

This one seems to be about some noveau riche Russians in a Russian speaking area in the USA.
I don't know about the Russians in the USA, but I have a really bad impression of the rich Russians in London. More superficial and materialistic women would be hard to find on this earth, I think.

Sat next to a group at a restaurant a while back, and they were doing nothing but bragging about shopping and beauty treatments. And I can't help but think that they are rich because a bunch of innocent people in Russia got ripped off.... Maybe that's unfair and their husbands made their money in a legitimate way, but it just seems suspicious to go from no money to lousy rich in a decade.

I've met some regular Russian people in London who have been nice though. It's just this super rich group that I don't like. These women were at the Nobu sushi restaurant in London.

And on reality shows - I've discovered some that I like after arriving in Sweden.
"Flying Wild Alaska" and "Ice Pilots".

It's a follow on from the smash success "Ice Road Truckers"....
That's the only reality show I've ever enjoyed enough to actually watch several episodes.

Somebody ought to make an "Ice Road Truckers, Russia". That would be some cool watching, no doubt!

I thought you were going to comment on cheap matryoshka dolls being made in China.

Anyway, Lifetime network is famous for their movie of the week about some distraught women. Not as exploitative as MTV (I remember music on there) or Bravo (drama queens). I might catch an episode but I generally skip the channel when I'm looking at the TV Guide or channel surfing.

"Reality" TV is bottom of the barrel but I do like "Deadliest Catch".

Originally Posted by capecoddah

I thought you were going to comment on cheap matryoshka dolls being made in China.

I bought a matryoshka that was made in Belarus. Does that count as genuine? It was for my niece who is two years old. It was super cute - It had SOOOOO many dolls in it, and each had a different facial expression. The smallest one was less than a centimetre. My sister says that my niece absolutely loved it.I also bought her a cheburashka t-shirt and lots of linen clothes made in Belarus. Really cute and fantastic value...

These people don't seem to have any culture aside from the language and food. They treat everyone bad including calling their own mom "bitch" twice.

Originally Posted by Hanna

I bought a matryoshka that was made in Belarus. Does that count as genuine?

Why not? The "genuine Russian" matryoshka is less than 150 years old -- invented in 1890 by Sergei Malyutin, a professional Russian artist and architect. And the design is said to have been at least partly inspired by a Japanese "nested" doll that depicted a Buddhist monk with smaller monks inside, although it can be argued that Malyutin's redesign improved on the Japanese concept in some ways.

It's also possible that the story has gotten confused over time and that the Japanese original that inspired Malyutin was not a doll, but a set of nested cups or boxes. Or, it could be that the original Japanese doll was a type called daruma, which has a round shape like a matryoshka, but does not have smaller dolls inside it.

ЗЫ: Almost a century later, in the 1980s...





...the Russians were still ripping off the Japanese))))))

kidkboom!! you saved me from actually watching this show.. My daughter and I saw the teaser commercial that was about this guy giving a girl are hard time saying something like "what do you know about fashion and modeling? You think you Russians invented it?" and we thought it was about Russian Models IN Russia so we were going to watch it. Thank goodness you posted about it and I saw your thread!

When we want a good laugh... we watch Toddlers and Tiaras .. now that show makes me always feel like I'm a great mom!

I get a number of "industry" related articles and I can't recall where I got one that recently stated that the entire reality TV thing can be traced back to OJ Simpson and his white Bronco car chase. When 95 million viewers sat glued to their sets for about 3 hours and all major networks including CNN (there wasn't much cable back then) decided to cover the chase live on TV (and NBC even put the game 5 of the world series in a little box and the chase in the big picture) ... and then we HAD to watch the trial... the networks took notice. They gave us what "we" wanted to watch and it was cheap to produce.

This article about the "Animal Shows" I though was rather timely to our topic here...

Steve Irwin's Death, 5 Years Later: How He Changed Nature TV - TIME

Beware of the Gonzo Nature-TV Presenter

By Andrew Marshall Sunday, Sept. 04, 2011
Time Magazine World


Let me know if you can't access it and I'll cut and paste it here. It's not that long.