The Massachusetts SpyVolume CCXXXIX, Number 233 January 10, 2009

That's entertainment!

MTV GOES
ALL SKANK 

By Roscoe Arbuckle
Entertainment Editor

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – Faced with incessant demands for loan repayments from his bankers, margin calls from his brokers, and interlocutory spousal support from lawyers sicced on him by his soon to be ex-wife, the eternally priapic Sumner Redstone is seeking to generate more revenue by revivifying some of his core cable properties. 

Is she smarter than a seven year old? 
Can she multiply 2 times 4?  Sumner wants you to know!  

Redstone is known to be dissatisfied by the lagging earnings and ratings of CBS and Viacom, the two broadcasting titans that he has run into the ground. [Surely, with an iron hand? – Ed.]  Having fired all of his executives, Redstone is now personally taking the helm of some of his most troubled assets, including the once-mighty MTV network.

After huddling for weeks behind the gates of his Beverly Hills mansion with hordes of pimps, hos, party girls, and hangers-on [Surely, consultants? – Ed.], Redstone has decided on a top to bottom revamp of the youth-oriented network.

According to a source close to the deliberations who would only identify himself as "Playa D," [Surely, Philippe Dauman? – Ed.] Redstone intends to drop all music-related programming in favor of 24-hour-a-day reality shows focusing on what he believes the MTV viewing audience is most interested in: skanks.

These sources note that MTV's greatest ratings successes have come from such skank-rich shows as "Rock of Love," "The Real World," and "Flavor Flav." "We're only giving the public what Redstone [Surely, it? – Ed.] wants," Playa D said.

Although the exact schedule for the revamped MTV is a carefully-guarded secret, the Spy was able to obtain a copy by plying a senior MTV executive known as "Amber" with a few tequila and Bailey's. Among the most notable new shows to debut on MTV are:

Are You Smarter than Britney Spears?  Every week, a team of second graders from an L.A. school competes against the brain-dead pop tart and a rotating group of friends she has rented for the occasion, including Kim Kardashian and Vanessa Hudgens. The teams must choose from questions chosen from the standard LA school curriculum, including "What is 2 times 4?", "How many planets are there?" and "What do you do when you hear gunfire in the corridor?"

Battle of the Celebrity Borderlines.  This lively competition pits killer borderlines of different generations against each other for the grand prize of a 16th minute of notoriety. The older team has already been cast, and includes Sean Young, Lisa Rinna, and Janet Jackson. Puff Daddy has reportedly inked a deal to host.  

VIP Room and The Bachelor, M.D. These high concept shows will run in consecutive time slots. In the first, 13 skanks compete for the affection of a washed-up rap star and his grotesquely obese entourage. Later, on the second show, these same 13 will compete for the right to be cured of the STD's they either picked up or transmitted on the first show by a handsome single Beverly Hills infectious disease specialist. The competitor with the most resistant strain gets a free butt enhancement and is sent back to the VIP Room for season (and infection) two.  

Project Runamok.  This show combines elements of several other successful reality shows. It gives 25 slappers with eating disorders a chance to fall on their face at a fashion show – if they can lose 20 pounds in two weeks. The contestants, who are trapped in the same house with nothing to wear but bathing suits and lingerie from sponsor Larry's of Chatsworth, are given all the vodka, coke, and crank they can consume. Hilarity is expected to ensue when the girls find out there is food enough only for ten of them. Host Hulk Hogan will live in the house and pry the competitors apart while their injuries are still considered non-life-threatening.

Mrs. Sumner?
Trophy wife wannabes can compete for the coveted title of Mrs. Sumner Redstone for a day 

Who Will Be the Next Mrs. Sumner Redstone for the Day?   This program features the lusty octogenarian and 20 skanks who compete for his affection and the chance to earn the right to be called Mrs. Sumner Redstone for a day, as soon as they sign the pre-nup. In addition to the usual amorous tryouts, Redstone plans to subject the bimbos to feats of physical endurance. For example, in one episode, the slags compete to see who can hang by their fingers the longest outside the window of a burning hotel. In an unusual sponsor tie-in, all burn victims will be treated at the new Sumner Redstone Emergency Room at Boston's prestigious Massachusetts General Hospital. 

In addition to the new series, Redstone has ordered a top to bottom overhaul of MTV's venerable, if not creaking, Video Music Awards. The withered Casanova has decreed that the awards be renamed the "Skankies," and devoted to extolling the louchest of the louche through new categories such as Best Public Defecation, Most Drug Resistant Collection of STD's and Best Public Humiliation of Your Only Daughter. The venerable yet pointless astronaut award statuette will be replaced by a 12-inch gold-plated representation of Tara Reid barfing into a potted plant.  

Reached for comment on his Throne of Glory in the High Heavens, the Almighty God, Blessed Be He, mused that He might have to rethink the promise He made to Noah never again to wipe out all human life on Earth due to the sinfulness of man.

And then He wept. 

IF MTV ISN'T YOUR CUP OF TEA, PERHAPS WE CAN INTEREST YOU IN . . . . 


CONSIDERING what they’re putting onstage, the creative team behind “Blasted” is awfully genteel. Before a recent rehearsal of that 1995 play by Sarah Kane, which has its New York premiere at Soho Rep on Thursday, the director Sarah Benson politely offered water in her soft British lilt; as the actress Marin Ireland glided into the room, she gave a friendly wave. It seemed contradictory when they both acknowledged they were afraid of the show.

“I’m always attracted to plays that on some level I find frightening and baffling,” said Ms. Benson, who is also Soho Rep’s artistic director. Ms. Ireland added: “What’s terrifying is something I don’t know how to do before I do it. And there’s a feeling that this will require something out of me that I have not previously seen in myself.”

Those who know Ms. Kane’s play (many theater folk are devoted to it) may understand this artistic dread.

Though it was the first work staged in Ms. Kane’s short career — she committed suicide in 1999 at age 28, leaving only five plays behind — “Blasted” immediately established her as an important voice in modern playwriting. But the things that make the play remarkable also make it challenging to produce.

On the most obvious level, it bursts with audacious violence. Drawing parallels between sexual assault and the cruelty of war, the plot follows an older man and a younger woman as they hide from combat inside an opulent hotel room. The war then literally and figuratively invades their space, subjecting them to Jacobean-style horror. One stage direction has eyeballs being sucked out and eaten, and another has a dead infant getting buried under the floor. 

. . . .

But gore isn’t the point. “The purpose of the violence in Sarah’s plays is diametrically opposed to the purpose of violence in most other people’s plays,” Mr. Kane said. “The purpose of the violence in Sarah’s plays is to resensitize people to what violence is.”

Mr. Kane added that 2008 is the perfect time to mount his sister’s work. “You’ve only got to watch the latest Batman film to realize how desensitized to violence we are,” he said.

Ms. Benson insists there’s much more to “Blasted” than its cruelty. She discussed the funny moments that were discovered in rehearsal, and she added: “I also find it really optimistic. Ultimately it is talking about the human connections between all the characters.”

At this, Ms. Ireland leaned forward and added, “It is so much, as all of her plays are, about love.”

– The New York Times (via nytimes.com), Oct. 6, 2008.