Average Joe Commentary

The very thing they set out to disprove on Average Joe, they can’t help themselves but prove every show. It seems this reality tv show wants us to think that an average-looking man can be more than a geek, yet they’re going to be spending each episode remaking a rejected Joe to be physically more attractive.

To add to it, the “hot” guys that are added to the mix spend every introduction minute talking about how great-looking they are (no denying that) and how the Joes have no chance against them. One went as far as to say he’s going to invite the beautiful red-headed Anna to a “gun show”, then flashes his biceps as proof. To borrow a phrase from my years spent as a high-schooler in the early eighties … Gag me. Are their looks their only merit?

The Joes even start to turn on themselves as crazy-haired Dante spends all his waking moments on the show strategizing how to fight off the incoming competition. Igor says he wants to enjoy the time on the show, not sit around strategizing. Dante wants to get such an early start one morning on the planning that he runs around banging pots and pans to wake the other Joes. They get him back the next night by taping his snoring carcass to the bed. At least they didn’t put his hand in water.

The dating starts as the Joes join Anna at Sea World. In an odd move, Dante tries to scare away the others by wearing smelly sandals. It doesn’t seem to work, though, and there’s no word on what Anna thought. I do have to think it would deter and not attract me.

As they all go watch the Shamu performance, Anna needs to pick a Joe to give a hug to the whale and she chooses Nathan, as she likes the quiet type. Later, she needs to pick someone for the first private date, and chooses another quiet guy, Aaron. But she doesn’t tell him to his face, instead she whispers it to a sea lion, and he goes down the line of Joes, “yelling” at the rejected men, and when he gets to Anna’s choice of Aaron, he smiles. Yes, this sea lion actually smiles, but it’s almost more creepy-looking than cute.

For their date, Anna and Aaron swim with dolphins, and enjoy their first kiss while cavorting with them. Later, when they are sitting alone together, the PhD computer science student admits to her that he was quite a geek when he was a kid. She didn’t seem very shocked, and I don’t think many others were either.

One day later Anna takes a group of Joes on a yacht where Dante is again featured when everyone goes tubing, as his large body has a tough time boarding the tube. They just can’t seem to show enough of this guy. He then asks what everyone would bring on a deserted island with them and Clay chooses a bible while Igor chooses a case of condoms. I think he’s trying way too hard to prove he’s not a geek or “average”.

Anna is much more impressed with Gino, picking him for the next alone date, a private dinner on the boat. He tells her several times that she has a round face and that he likes it. He even tells her that in Italian. He is quite smitten with her, getting giddy when she kisses him. Later, he does what he calls “the five-year-old dance” with the Captain of the boat. Cute, but probably keeping up the geeky image a little.

The next day brings another group date, this time playing frisbee with dogs. As much as my twelve-year-old son is enamored with the gorgeous Anna, my dog, coincidentally also named Anna, is quite enamored with the frisbee-playing border collies. I think they both have good taste.

After discussing his love of the Rat Pack with Anna, Arthur is chosen for a one-on-one with her. She gives him a quick Polish lesson, and when he learns one of the phrases means “give kiss” he asks her for the “imperative” to that phrase. Again, acting upon geekiness, but in such an endearing way. After he receives the imperative phrase and the kiss, he talks about his short marriage that ended in divorce. Arthur follows this, giving Anna his lucky charm. A pair of dice he has carried in his right pocket for two years. He says he realizes he doesn’t need lucky anymore. Take note, Anna, this one is more than a geek, much more.

When it comes to eliminations, Igor is eliminated first. Still trying to prove he’s cool, and not a geek, he says it’s no hair off his back, and I can’t help but look at him and his name, and think he probably is a hairy-backed guy. Dan and Joshua are eliminated next, not surprisingly, as I don’t even know who they are. They could be a couple of guys off the street. The surprising elimination goes to Aaron. It just must not have clicked for her; she sheds a few tears telling him goodbye.

The seven remaining Joes (Chuck had left during the show to aid a friend in need in the hospital) join Anna watching a fireworks show, but the surprise is on them, as the fireworks are just about to start (sorry, had to go for the bad pun). As they turn at the end, the “hot” guys, who have been driving red sports cars across the country to be there all during the show, have arrived and are lined up, standing just behind them. Anna looks a little too happy to see them.

Just when this show makes you see that the Joes aren’t just a bunch of geeks, here’s a bunch of guys that show up to remind us that they are. I think it does more of a disservice to the “hot” guys, though, as they are shown to be nothing more than good-looking. They don’t even seem like nice people.

In a nod to the Swan, here’s rejected Joe, Joshua, getting a makeover to re-enter the game at a later date. I have to say he looks great. Had I not seen the before pictures of him with a ponytail and full beard, I would have never known this clean-shaven guy with a highlighted blunt cut was him. I’m not sure what to make of the nutritionist telling him he “eats like a girl.”

But what does this prove? It proves that the only guy that will succeed will be good-looking, or so it seems at this point. At least he’ll have more substance to him, and won’t be just the good lucks. As a friend pointed out to me, maybe this Charlie Brown will finally get his little red-haired girl.