Better than heroin

Popstar is Reality TV at its best!

Admit it. Like me, you love to watch people fighting it out for 15 minutes of fame. It's great when they also have looks, talent, personality, humor, wit, or brains. Most American reality TV offers up at least a sampling of those qualities, it's what makes us watch before the drama hooks us in.


Popstar is nothing like this. It's better. In a German Making the Band 3, 20 girls are thrown together in an abandoned ski loft accessible only by gondola, given vocal and dance training, and forced to perform routines while singing impossible songs, like "Don't Cry For Me Argentina." Problem? Only two of them can sing. And none of them can dance. It's like watching Spotlight on Talent on public access Channel 13, but with more makeup and higher heels. Oh, and these girls cry. All the time. I'm serious. Even during performances.

They even have a panel made up of washed-up stars and execs, featuring the hugely famous Nina Hagen. This woman is fabulous! She's like a talented Janice Dickinson, if Janice Dickinson was a man in drag who chased Ecstasy with bourbon and thought he was a spiritual healer. She also does a mean Freddie Mercury impression.

Luckily, the Popstar website is generous enough to give us bios and photos of the lovely ladies; even better, you get to watch clips from previous episodes. My absolute favorite is Die Maedels vor der Show where the girls, dressed for performance, complain that they don't look enough like trashy Burlesque street walkers to win it. We then get to see my favorite cryer Kristina wonder aloud if her jacket makes her tits look flat, while Leo thanks her mama for giving her the inspiration to achieve her dream of sucking horribly in front of a television audience. Or at least that's my loose translation.