Taking Care of Business Everyday

For me the summer television season will always be about the wonderful world of Julie Chen and Big Brother. That being said, there are plenty of other options to enjoy. In particular I have to give thanks to the Oxygen network. And yes, I like those reruns of Mad About You and AbFab just as much as the next guy, but I wouldn’t face public ridicule by admitting I regularly watch the network committed to bringing edgy and innovative entertainment to women for some simple syndicated programming.

No, I am talking about The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency, the reality series that follows, you guessed it, Janice Dickinson as she tries to make a living running her own, ummm, modeling agency. I have resisted writing about it because I was afraid I wouldn’t have enough time to give it the attention it deserves, but a few persistent readers have persuaded me that I need to make the sacrifice, and Umnata says he’s here to help. The show has been going on for several weeks already, so let me take this chance to catch up. Luckily, Oxygen is saturating the airwaves with the show from now until Wednesday, so you’ll have many chances to catch up as well.
For me the summer television season will always be about the wonderful world of Julie Chen and Big Brother. That being said, there are plenty of other options to enjoy. In particular I have to give thanks to the Oxygen network. And yes, I like those reruns of Mad About You and AbFab just as much as the next guy, but I wouldn’t face public ridicule by admitting I regularly watch the network committed to bringing edgy and innovative entertainment for women for some syndicated programming.

No, I am talking about The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency, the reality series that follows, you guessed it, Janice Dickinson as she tries to make a living running her own, ummm, modeling agency. I have resisted writing about it because I was afraid I wouldn’t have enough time to give it the attention it deserves, but a few persistent readers have persuaded me that I need to make the sacrifice, and Umnata says he’s here to help. The show has been going on for several weeks already, so let me take this chance to catch up. Luckily, Oxygen is saturating the airwaves with the show from now until Wednesday, so you’ll have many chances to catch up as well.

First off, I have to say that I was not a huge fan of Janice Dickinson. GASP! I know, I know, being a huge fan of ANTM, how can I not love her? Well, I couldn’t stand Janice because she was always more worried about letting you know amazing she was before anything else. She was Valentino’s muse. I GET IT. Just because you were trendsetter in the industry doesn’t give you cart blanche to act like a coked out whore. Janice may have been gorgeous once, but right now she’s about one plastic surgery away from complete disaster, and we are supposed to act like we don’t notice.

That being said, the ANTM judging panel has not been the same for and when you get right down to it, she was always about helping models get better. Some may question her motivational tactics, but her idea was that modeling was a difficult business, and if there was somebody who was going to have to teach them exactly how cutthroat it is, it might as well be her.

This is what it takes to get Janice’s makeup ready in the morning

The reason I like the Janice Dickinson modeling agency is that I think it gets us the real Janice, and I have to say, I am starting to fall for her again. On the Surreal Life, she was a caricature of herself. On her own show, she is just as crazy, but it feels more authentic. It could be that I am just a sucker for good editing, but the show makes me think that I am looking at an actual human and not some edited representation of one. Janice says that the reason she wants to do this is to be able to provide for her children and so there are real consequences if she fails.

The show features a lot of parts about Janice that you don’t normally get to see. For me, the most interesting part was to see Janice as a parent to her two children, Savannah Dickinson and Nathan Fields. Seeing her various antics on The Surreal Life, whether it be calling handicapped bowlers retards or sticking her ass out the window of a van, made me wonder what kind of parent she would be. There are so many spoiled kids in this town, I figured that hers would be the same.

Now perhaps Janice is playing nice for the camera, but in the scenes where she is actually parenting, she seems to be doing a fairly good job, and is much more concerned that her kids are doing well in school than the possibility of them following in her footsteps in the fashion world. Now, quite obviously, this is a case of do as I say, not as I do, but I really believed that she would be having little botox parties for her daughter’s friends and helping her son pick out a proper water bong. Who would have guessed that Janice is actually sort of responsible?

While the show does follow Janice for a little bit, it is really all about the modeling. Janice is trying to find new models for her agency, but we should not confuse this show with America’s Next Top Model. She picks her boys and girls based on their commercial potential, not because she thinks that they will work out well for the Oxygen network. There are no competitions to see who is the best, and there aren’t any eliminations, unless, of course, you piss Janice off. While some of her models need time to grow and learn as models, she isn’t taking people that are completely broken either.

This show has plenty of eye candy for the guys….

…..and the ladies

Janice has always talked about the ability of a model to do it all whether it be catalogs, editorials, runway, or commercials and with that in mind, she had her first open auditions. Open auditions in Los Angeles are sure to bring a lot of strange characters, and Janice’s first open audition was no exception. With the help of her three assistants, blonde sisters with a lot of boobs and a lot of dumb, Janice went about trying to see who would be right for her company. These three assistants appeared to be a lot of fun, but Janice had to can them because they not only interfered with what she was trying to do, but didn’t want to accept a reduced role that actually involved more work.

“It’s just a penis!”

Seeing Janice work with the models that have come for this open audition is amazing. Forgive me if I get cheesy for a minute, but I think you can really tell that she loves what she does. Janice is still Janice, yelling at people, and giving honest opinions, whether it be disgust for the unattractive guy that decided to walk in and show his rabbit (Janice’s favorite word for penis), or admiration for the numerous great bodies that have shown up. Janice loves modeling, she loves models, she loves photography, she loves everything about the business and it really shows and it sort of makes you appreciate her diva attitude. She’s one crazy bitch, but she loves what she does, and it’s hard to hate on that just because she is honest about that.

Because of the way she grew up and the way she has found success in modeling, Janice seems to love people who have a personality and people who are really up against the odds, and we get an example of this when we meet Teresa Cutie.

Is Cutie her real last name? Probably not, but Janice saw her when she was walking around the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica, loved her look, and loved her even more when she found out that Teresa was currently homeless, having been kicked out of her house. Teresa is cute but even Janice admits that she needs a nose job.

Not all of the models she picks are homeless, and a few of the others she finds at her open casting call are:

Nyabel Luna: From the Sudan, she clearly has a little bit of Alek Wek going on with her. Janice loved her confidence and said “I think she has everything I’m looking for in a super model”

Ian Thomas: Sort of a taller, more muscular Jake Gyllenhall with better eyebrows. Janice thought that he “was a joy to work with” and called him the epitome of classic American looks in the vein of Cary Grant and JFK Jr.

Crystal Truehart – Reminds me a little bit of Rebecca Gayheart. Janice says that Crystal is pure Cover Girl.

Chris Jones – After calling Janice pretty unpredictable, Janice welcomed Chris into the agency, calling him her number one, saying that Armani and Tiffany would be all over him.

Since Janice was very picky, she wasn’t really interested in adding a lot of people to her agency right away, but she did have a professional casting call a little bit later that further added to the roster. Among them are:

Sorin the Romanian: Buff body, big tattoo, will drop trou at a moment’s notice. Janice caused a stir because she had him model in his underwear with another model who was topless. It was something he would have to do every day at work, but he brought his girlfriend, who was very jealous, to the audition, which Janice didn’t appreciate.

Naz Mandighomi: Naz is the girl so many Persian girls in Los Angeles wish they could be, and you can tell be her love of lip gloss that she’s not lying when she says she comes from Valencia. She doesn’t actually make the cut, but I had to include because Janice made fun of her sagging ass. Hey, I don’t mind a little jiggle, but I guess I am not French Vogue.

Marcus Foy: Pretty Boy Foy wants to make a hip-hop album, but Janice loves his Ralph Lauren look.

Lauren: Janice called her the picture of the day.

Christopher Vanek: Must love the Phoenix Suns, because he has Steve Nash’s haircut.

TJ Bates: Sort of a smoother Chris Cornell.

The last step in Janice’s first forays with her agency was finding a business partner. Janice has a good eye for fashion and knows what she wants to do, but being talented at something doesn’t necessarily mean she is going to be successful. Janice knows that starting a business is difficult, and starting a modeling agency is going to be a nightmare. She decides to go with Peter Hamm, who she hopes will be able to help her prepare her models so they can succeed financially at the same time Janice is trying to prepare her models to be successful at the upper echelons of the fashion industry.

One of the harsh realities that Janice brings with her new business partners is the realization that she needs to make a lot of her people into models. I said before that she is not trying to fix people but there are many that need some work, particularly when it comes to health and nutrition. What I’m saying is that a lot of these girls are kind of fat, not by any human standard, but rather a supermodel standard. Peter was worried that too many of Janice’s models were geared toward a specific clientele

While her daughter Savannah is watching, Peter starts to really tell it like it is. Lauren? Best face in the agency says Janice. 149 lbs says Peter. Same thing with Nyabel. Janice sees a star with a smile that brightens up a room. Peter sees a model that is a little too short and a little too thick. One model has ears that stick out too far and somebody else has a lazy eye, but it’s with Lauren and Nyabel that you get an idea of why Janice just might succeed in what she is doing. She tells the girls the harsh reality that they need to get in shape if they are going to stay with the agency, and sends them away. Harsh, yes, but Janice does believe in them and she makes sure to take the time to let them both know that she believes in them and if they get it together, she would love for them to stay.

Although Lauren and Nyabel got the brunt of it, Janice brought in her own personal trainer to tell all of her models what they had to work on. And no, this was not some nice one on one stuff, this was “getting changed before gym class” scary. The models would walk up, the trainer would draw on the parts of their body that needed work (or put smiley face stickers where everything worked), and it all looked like some sorority hazing video. Cruel, yes, but again, it shows you that Janice is serious about this for more reasons than being on the Oprah channel.

There were a lot of smiley faces on Sorin’s body

So, there you have it. Janice has her own modeling agency, and I think Oxygen has a pretty good show on their hands. My apologies for making the first recap of Janice’s show a boring essay, but recapping every show would have taken too long, and I lost some episodes on the Tivo anyway. Umnata will pick up the next two episodes, so expect that recap soon. Now that everybody has an idea of what’s going on, things will get back to normal, or as normal as you can expect a show starring Janice Dickinson to be. Although she is running a business and has the passion for it to succeed, she is still Janice, and it really shows.

Have you seen this show? What do you think of the models? Can Janice make it as a businesswoman?

By the way, I’ve created a wayfaring map (much like Bohan’s Jacktracker) for the Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency. Throughout the show, I’ll update it when I recognize locations on the show. If you recognize a place that I’ve missed, send me an e-mail.