A weird thing happened on Sunday’s edition of E! Channel’s I Am Cait, titled ‘Partner Up’. Okay, let me rephrase that. An exceptionally weird thing happened on Sunday’s edition of I Am Cait, as Chandelier (don’t ask) and Candis make their way through the South on the tour bus.
Images of a cross, an American flag, scenic Americana, and then…well…I don’t know what happened. Just watch:
>> Chandi: Oh, this is perfectly okay.
>> Candis: We're almost to Texas, and what just happened in here in this restaurant?
>> Chandi: They wouldn't allow us in here, which is horrible for them, because, um, you know, a lot of people see this show, so it would be some good promotion for them.
>> Candis: I lost my appetite when that went down. I was like, ugh!
>> Chandi: Oh, well...
>> Candis: But, you know, it is, what it is. It is really kind of a bummer the restaurant owner didn't want us there. Um, we were allowed to film, and then... He found out what show it was for and he said, "No, you can't film here anymore," he's not interested. We're so used to living in our... Our bubble...
>> Chandi: Our bubble of acceptance.
>> Candis: ...That everything is happy and accepting.
>> Chandi: But this is something we can look forward to experiencing, being down this way, though. In the South.
Okay, seriously? Notice how they go to great pains to not show the name of the restaurant. This show is entirely based on the advancement of transgender rights. If that restaurant owner had thrown them out because they were a trans show, then why in the world did they not broadcast the name of this hate-filled eatery all over the E! Channel?
Which is another thing. Why are there no shots of the owner throwing them out? Are we expected to believe that a 21st Century cameraman, working on a reality show about transgenders, isn’t instructed from Day 1 to get not just footage but if necessary, extreme up-close footage of any and all spontaneous or pre-orchestrated drama?
Not buying that for a second.
To say nothing of the fact that no television show --reality or otherwise-- takes unplanned stops at restaurants. Things are scheduled, release forms have to be obtained and signed, and space in the restaurant has to be cleared. In other words, there is no “reality” to any of it, in the sense that it’s just a spontaneous event. It’s all pre-planned.
Which means at some point the restaurant would have been made aware of the clown show rolling their way, and if they declined to have the show film there, it would have been done over the phone. Not in some doorway confrontation that, by the way, there’s no evidence ever happened.
The whole thing is just too perfect isn’t it? Crosses, flags, Chandelier saying “oh this is perfectly okay,” and then evil, Christian rejection. Because “these are things that happen in the South?” Please. Chandelier herself in the previous scene had just been going off about some trans guy who lived in Tulsa.
Houston and Atlanta have two of the largest gay communities in the country. Houston, up until recently, even had a lesbian mayor. So, in light of that, what does being “almost in Texas” have to do with anything?
The whole thing was staged, in my opinion. A really futile and lame attempt to stave off cancellation of a show that is chronicling the mental disease of a really troubled man.
Shameful.
