You did catch Phil Keoghan (Amazing Race host) in The Cut didn't you? That was a sweet moment. I bolted back in my chair like I had been hit with buckshot. It was during a Red Carpet celebrity interview assignment at the People's Choice Awards in Hollywood. Tommy Hilfiger wanted to gauge the contestant's "social skills" and sent two aspiring faux-Hilfigers on private jets to la-la land to see if they had the gravitas (I guess all clothing designers should have the social skills of times-share salesmen?) to yuk it up with the likes of Jessica Simpson, Sheryl Crow and, yes, Phil Keoghan.

By David W. Taylor (Email Me)
Reality Reel Media
06.18.05

It wasn't a close encounter for us Amazing Race fans. The shot of Phil was a medium view from the side and no audio. It would've been a treat to hear him say a few words — he's such a legendary nice guy; or get a more scenic, full-frame close-up of his pleasant mug, or maybe even one of those eyebrow-raised melancholy looks of his (a "Tommy, Shauna... I'm sorry to tell you, you've both been eliminated from the Race" would have admittedly been too showy: reality kitsch). At least those few added seconds of Phil talking about, well, anything would have been better than having to witness the odious snout of, say, Michael Moore.

Yet this exercise in fluff — and yet another marketing tool for the marketing fool, Herr Hilfiger — was interesting in that it showcased the curious talents of two of The Cut's more veiled personalities. Shauna, though little more than a background worker bee during the premier episode, stepped up in the first moments of the show to suggest that she was walking-off the program. Cutting herself from The Cut. This stunt could've been waved-off as yet another weepy, juvenile crack-up by a hyperactive reality crybaby but being that Shauna appeared to be one of the older and more mature (married three times!) contestants of the bunch, her promised abdication was of some weight and worry.

"I'm gone. I'm out. Oh no... bye, bye now! Shauna be gone," was her introductory wail to her comrades upstairs in their SoHo loft just after returning from Hilfiger's fortified lair. There were a few shocked glances and whispers and one person — I think it was Deana — that said ironically, "You're not going to leave. Give me a break." Shauna later explained that, "I wanted to just quit. I came here expecting to design clothes and I was unimpressed with the first assignment. I felt if the second assignment was equally ridiculous I wasn't going to continue."

And this is certainly an issue that needed to be raised by someone at sometime — and not that it would make a pinch worth of difference in the world of reality TV affairs — but it was nice to finally hear one of these contestants speak the truth about the disconnect that appears, at times, between the staged reality stunts and the stated objectives of the show's hype. In this case, I'm sure any dope would have assumed that to begin to build your resume before the Tommy Hilfiger corporate empire — to eventually construct a new Tommy Hilfiger clothing line, after all — that most, if not all, of the challenges would involve... gee, I don't know!?... designing clothes?

The fact that the first assignment was to help design a billboard advertisement and the second: to "trick out" an SUV for a rap singer, must be bothersome for someone more focused on... designing clothes! Yet one must consider that shows like The Cut, and The Apprentice, have as much to do with self-promotion, cross-promotion, market share, market identity, demographical identity and so on and so forth... let's just say that Tommy Hilfiger certainly didn't need a television show to find a design employee to slot and disappear somewhere in his corporate hinterland.