Charm School under the Influence

Charm School under the Influence by Roxanne McDonald

“Charm School” may have been inspired by what Mo’Nique says is her disgust at “Flavor of Love” girls’ behavior, and may be (well, is) the second spin off of “Flavor of Love.” It has also likely taken influence from “Ladette to Lady.”

At least in format and framing, the popular Vh1 show “Charm School” (now in its second episode) is very similar to the show that is set in Eggleston Hall in Teesdale, England. “Ladette to Lady,” which first aired in 2005 in Great Britain and elsewhere and then came to America via the The Sundance Channel in 2006, has the same premise:

“Ladette to Lady,” writes a Wikipedia contributor, follows eight ladettes (i.e. loud, foul-mouthed, uncultured and unpleasant women, who like to drink and smoke and who are often sexually promiscuous) in Britain, who are given a five-week course in learning how to behave like a real lady.”

“Charm School” is following the unlikely development of twelve girls (now ten) as they scream (Saaphyri); swear and use booty humor in inappropriate settings and at

inappropriate times (Becky does a no-booty rap for Andrew Firestone at a civilized and monitored dinner testing the girls’ etiquette, grace, and poise); drink and smoke (though that was New York’s thing); and are [it is implied, mostly] sexually promiscuous (Becky, again, is the target of Ms. Colette Swan, who is teaching the girls poise, grace, and etiquette around the dinner table, while walking, and while sitting—and when she observes that as Becky sits she can see her “little Britney,” Becky tells the confession cam she doesn’t care about showing her vagina…though she wouldn’t mind showing it to the drill sergeant.)
The women of “Ladette to Lady” are living at the finishing school,Eggleston Hall, where they taught by five instructors, including a headmistress of sorts, and where they conform by wearing the mandatory tweed uniform with “sensible shoes” and a pearl necklace. The Charm School girls live in what Becky decides is just like the Playboy Mansion, wearing requisite Catholic school girl uniforms with their own shoe choices…which leaves Heather to come to etiquette class with red come-f-me pumps (a move she that will count against her in the Expulsion round, you recall).

The girls also wear their own dresses for special occasions, such as for the second episode’s etiquette test dinner and pre-dinner socializing. And there is where the girls get really bad—or one does: Schatar steals Heather’s 400-dollar! Dress and her 1500-dollar1 suit, and then, when paired with Heather for a tete a tete with Andrew Firestone (wherein the best-mannered will be invited by Andrew to dinner), mentions very snakily how she is glad to see Heather has gotten over the missing dress debacle she—heh-heh—was responsible for. This makes Heather nuts, and even Mo and Mikki watching the monitors and praying for her to keep her cool doesn’t help.

Heather loses it, gives up her power, and Schatar comes off as the better presented, better poised, to Andrew. As Mikki Taylor will tell Heather at the Expulsion Ceremony, “You gave in, gave up, gave out.” And Mo is just terribly disgusted by Heather’s combined victim-diva personality, so Heather is out.

So as the students at “Ladette to Lady” have lessons in everything polished—from elocution to etiquette to cooking, the “Charm School” girls get similar lessons, though their cooking task (done while Schatar, the winner of the Andrew Firestone choice for presenters of his new winery, is boasting to the cameras how completely fabulous she looks, then falls down, then brags about how her beautiful smile and her

grace make her wonderful for Andrew’s unveiling ceremony, then yanks the cloth from the framed picture as if she were yanking gossamer off a two-ton show car, so the cloth snags and the picture and easel crash to the floor) is to use Mo’Nique’s cookbook to prepare a luncheon.
Leilene is again going into apoplectic fits with a third anxiety attack about not being able to cook. She tries to chant and coach herself into participating, but by the time she arrives in the kitchen, seventy minutes late, the girls neither need nor want her help.

So she makes grilled cheese sandwiches.

And while the “Charm School” girls will have it better in the end, the winner getting fifty grand and the others likely getting more gigs (reality TV, most likely), the “Ladette to Lady” participants are just that, and while one gets expelled each week, the winner and second and third runners-up will only get the very real Eggleston Hall diploma.

Now that separates the women from the girls, the serious schooling from the mock, the more serious reality TV originals from the fun and funny re-makes.

SirLinksAlot Charm School links

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