Trouble & Attitude 1/Trouble and Attitude - Issue 01.iso/pc/pctext/bayw3.txt

Text File | 1995-06-02 | 9.8 KB | 199 lines

BAYWATCHED
by Anne Marshall

        "On the sparkling shoreline of Southern
California, a small group of lifeguards patrols its
surfside beat - a patch of soft sand, less than a mile
long and only several hundred feet wide. Their
workdays are packed with action, while their off-duty
hours are filled with matters of love, relationships,
and compelling human drama. Through it all, the whole
world is watching."
        Thus begins the weighty Baywatch Press Kit
that now looms before me on my desk, topmost in a
teetering pile of paper from which I can run, but
never hide. As a journalist and observer of pop
culture, I've grown to really resent press kits. At
first, they were a thrill. I loved the insider
information, I loved the smooth and shiny folders - so
perfect for carrying my writing samples! But most of
all, I loved the photos. Black and white 8 x 10's,
color slides, color 8 x 10's - hey, big spender!
        After a while the romance died. I've become
sick of knowing where the executive producers went to
college, or who's going to die at the end. I could
never dream of filling the dozens of empty folders
that litter my office with pleasant fictions - I'm too
busy going to movies, or befriending soulless
publicists. I still love the pictures, but I'm pretty
damn sick of the sludge that accompanies them.
        The Baywatch kit, as Trouble and Attitude's
readers can find out for themselves, is no more or
less inane than any other self-serving propaganda. Of
course, most television shows aren't as markedly
low-brow as Baywatch.
        Ostensibly the continuing saga of a bunch of
pretty surf cops and their adrenaline-fueled duties,
Baywatch features so many gratuitous bikini shots of
Pamela Anderson jogging down the beach that I've
mistaken it for the Spice network.
        Strangely enough, this is what passes for
"family entertainment" in over 110 countries of the
world. The show's producers like that phrase a lot,
and when confronted with the suggestion that they are,
in fact, serving up soft-core, they're quick to point
out that Baywatch airs on Saturday afternoons in many
markets, a time slot usually reserved for children's
programming. Saturday afternoons - perfect for
unshaven, hung-over Daddy to watch the kids to while
enjoying a little hair of the dog that bit him. David
Hasselhoff, Baywatch's star and one of the show's
executive producers, has told interviewers that he
won't allow his own children to watch the program.
        If the kids aren't watching it, who is? No one
I know will admit to indulging in the show's guilty
pleasures, even when they're really bored. Yet
Baywatch boasts a (presumably exaggerated) figure of
over one billion viewers, or slightly less than 20% of
the world's population. My guess is that a lot of
wanna-be Americans, probably in Europe, have become
entranced with the program's portrayal of The Good
Life, American Style. Or maybe it's the miles of
shaven California leg, since we all know Europe is
nothing but cathedrals and nude beaches. They should
be used to seeing bathing beauties wearing even less
than those luscious lifeguards.
        But I've neglected the Hasselhoff factor.
Although widely regarded as little more than a bad
hairdo with legs here in the U.S.A., David Hasselhoff
is inexplicably happenin' in much of the known world.
The cult of Hasselhoff started in Germany. Riding high
on the success of his breakthrough series, the
improbably dumb "Knight Rider", Hasselhoff released a
little-known album entitled "Night Rocker" in 1985. It
crashed and burned at home, but some tourist must have
bootlegged a copy and brought it back to Deutschland,
because before you could say "Entschuldigung", David
was collaborating with noted German composer/producer
Jack "This is my real name" White. Their cumulative
effort would soon top the German charts. (Readers will
note that "Night Rocker", the seminal Hasselhoff
recording, is conspicuously absent from the musical
resume in his biography.)
        Before long Hasselhoff had taken the
Netherlands and France. The rest of the world soon
followed. Of all the Allied nations, only the U.S. and
Canada offered any notable resistance to the
Hasselhoff regime. In June of 1994, a live
Pay-Per-View special of Hasselhoff in concert aired
across this continent. North American viewers, in the
spirit of strong moral values and exhibiting unusually
good taste, chose instead to watch the Los Angeles
Police Department chase O.J. Simpson and Al Cowlings
in a white Bronco for several hours. Here's to freedom
of choice!
        What makes Baywatch work, of course, is the
heady mixture of cops and flesh. It's a scientifically
tested, proven formula for success. People will still
flock to the latest James Bond films, regardless of
which British has-been is wearing 007's well-cut
pants. The only things that matter are the guns and
the girls. George Lazenby, who played Bond in "On Her
Majesty's Secret Service", had it all figured out. He
became so entranced with the perks of the role that he
went rather batty; he began packing a piece and
seducing women indiscriminately, convinced that he
really was Bond.
        David Hasselhoff should be mindful of
Lazenby's fate. Baywatch is like a beached Bond film,
minus the nifty devices. And in a recent episode, I
was struck by the way he blurs the line between his
television show and reality. (This problem actually
manifested itself early on, in the title of his
immortal first album.) During a long montage in which
Hasselhoff and a pretty blonde walked on the beach,
ran on the beach, and lay on the beach, an uptempo
Hasselhoff rock ballad played at unusually high
volume. Later in the episode, the same pretty blonde
lay dying in Lt. Mitch's arms as Hasselhoff the rock
star crooned a sorrowful elegy to lost love, no doubt
singing his character's very thoughts.
        It's not unusual for contemporary shows to
feature a contemporary pop soundtrack; it is strange
that, when Hasselhoff sings, all dialogue and
distracting action halts. For a few magic moments, the
show reminds us that it's not just anybody on that
little screen: it's a Very Famous Person. As executive
overlord of Baywatch, Hasselhoff can insert his
musical opinions throughout the show to complement (or
compensate for) his acting skill. One wonders if, in
his live concerts, he leaps out into the audience to
give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to crowd-surfers.
        Here in North America, Hasselhoff is probably
the least popular Baywatch cast member. Former and
current Baywatch babes Nicole Eggert and Pamela
Anderson are perennial tabloid headline-makers -
witness the huge "Current Affair" media jamboree that
accompanied the latter's recent surfside wedding to
Heather Locklear's abusive ex, Tommy Lee. Anderson and
Eggert are quintessential California girls, regardless
of where they actually hail from. They're buxom,
blonde, and beautiful in that perverse living doll
way. They wear teeny outfits, keep their mouths shut
most of the time, and mask whatever intelligence they
possess behind a helpless "but I'm just a girl!"
demeanor. Their on and off-screen personalities are
tailored to placate and mesmerize the lazy male ego,
and they do a fine job of it.
        Baywatch provides eye candy for the female
viewer as well, lest anyone should accuse the show of
being geared exclusively towards men. Right now the
cast includes a skinny Fabio clone, who I'm apparently
supposed to find appealing despite the fact that he
looks like the kid who took first place at every
science fair with a bad bleach job and a fake tan. As
if that weren't bad enough, he's Australian, too! I
thought the American love affair with all things
Aussie had reached the "just friends" stage, but I
guess the success of films like "Priscilla, Queen of
the Desert" and "Muriel's Wedding" has paved the way
for the next wave of embarrassing Oz knockoffs.
Remember "Young Einstein", Yahoo Serious' starmaking
vehicle? How about Cheech Marin's pitiful "Shrimp on
the Barbie"? (And this from the country that gave the
world "Breaker Morant".) Of course, Aussie actors have
no problem blending into the Baywatch scene, because
everybody knows that Australia is exactly like
California, only bigger - and with even more
impenetrable dialects.
        When you get right down to it, Baywatch is
simply the latest example of television's long love
affair with the beach and all it represents. The
"Beach Party" movies of the early sixties spawned a
number of knock-off endeavors, in addition to rescuing
the drowning careers of Frankie Avalon and Annette
Funicello. For some reason, the American public is
willing to embrace just about anyone willing to wear a
bathing suit on-camera--even those who are barely
palatable fully clothed. (Remember, we're talking
about the show that wanted Fergie to do a guest spot.)

        This tradition of career resuscitation has
landed more than a few fading stars next to the
pounding surf. Look at Hasselhoff, whose
recognizability rating was about the same as my Aunt
Helen's at the time of the show's inception. (Except
in the Fatherland, of course.) Yasmine Bleeth had
booked herself a one-way ticket to oblivion on the
soap opera / Psychic Friends Network train; now, she's
proudly hailed as the first Baywatch Brunette.
        Gidget. Gilligan's Island. Hawaii Five-O. The
Beachcombers. What unites these shows, other than
flimsy premises and improbable plot twists, might be
dubbed the four S's: Sun, Sand, Skin and Surf. Add
Smut, Stupidity, Sentiment and Stars and you get
Baywatch, proof positive that sleaze spells success in
the international market.