Tribute to E!

I can almost see the looks on most people's faces: a tribute to E! ? What's that all about. Isn't that the worst channel that ever faced television? Ever?? Hell no, it's brilliant.

First of all, for those of you unfamiliar with E! (and who can blame you), here is what you can expect when you, willingly or not, happen to land on this channel. Most likely you won't even realize it as first, as you're bound to land in the middle of a commercial at almost any given moment. However, a well-informed source told me they do actually have real shows in between all the ads. Some of them are regular shows, but most of the programs are specials and countdowns of some sort or other. Special doesn't even begin to describe it.

Some of the shows you might encounter are the 'Top 100 Celebrity Slim-downs', 'Top 50 Girls Gone Bad' or other 'Top 75 Worst Hollywood Divorces'. Now tell me, who wouldn't want to know about that. I guess these titles are pretty self-explanatory, so I'm not going to get into further detail here. Later at night it gets even better with 'Girls of the Playboy Mansion' (where, surprisingly enough, we can follow the always incredibly exciting adventures of 3 of Hugh's blond big-bosomed belles who, and why not, are apparently his girlfriends). Then there's 'Chelsea Lately' where Chelsea Handler does something the likes of Jay Leno and many, many others have been doing for ages, but less funny. And who would want to miss 'Wild On' where busty beauty Brooke Burke (what's in a name) travels all over this planet to show us the wildest, weirdest and hottest places and parties. The show inevitably ends in women taking of their clothes, but I'm sure there is a perfect valid reason for that. After all, why wouldn't waitresses in a coffee shop in Chile walk around naked while serving you their finest mocha. And I almost forgot my all-time favorite. 'Fashion Police', where a bunch of (what I guess are) fashion connoisseurs comment on the clothes of celebrities at various events and charities and make or break their outfits with their (supposedly) witty remarks.

So why do people watch these shows, or this channel for that matter? Plain and simple: it's in our nature. We want, no, we need to see how all these celebrities suffer. How they had it all, and somehow managed to loose it. How their seemingly perfect life doesn't seem to be just that after all. How we can make fun of them. Other people's grieves have nourished us perfectly well over the years.

Let's face it. Everybody secretly hopes that Angelina gets her picture taken with her shirt on backwards. Jennifer on a really bad hair day. Tom who missed a button on his shirt. Leonardo with his fly open. Orlando being drunk. Anything that shows that they're just human beings after all, just like you and me. As long as we believe that, there will always be that tiny little spark of hope that one day, maybe, somebody might make fun of our shoes while we're strolling down that red carpet.

As for the spicier shows: a little bit of nudity never hurts, I guess, we all enjoy looking at a nice naked body. And it does wonders for the ratings. So let me just finish by saying: 'Hi, I'm Jan, and I'm an E!-aholic'.

P.S. Anybody happened to catch what was number one on 'Guilty Pleasures'? I missed that one.