Posted on 12/03/2004 9:50:05 AM PST by gopwinsin04
There are a lot of important life lessons that can be learned from NBC's 'The Apprentice.'
Things like 'passion and desire are key components to sucess' and 'you should never underestimate a competitor' and 'if youre a woman, you can get pretty much get anything you want by acting like a complete whore.'
One thing you cannot get by acting like a whore, though, is respect, and Ivana Ma, a 28 year old 'venture capitalist' from Boston found that out the hard way on last night's episode.
Dont get me wrong, I was as happy as the next guy to see Jennifer and Sandy dressed like a pair of streetwalkers, and happier still to watch Ivana take off her skirt and reveal her skimpy panties.
But it also made me a bit sad. I know, can you believe it? Disappointed by cheap sexual shenanigans that demean an entire gender? I think I must have the fever.
Sandy and Jennifer of the Mosaic team tried a slightly different tatic selling their candy bars on Wall Street in that they dressed like the 'M&M Sisters' which is apparently the new slang term for 'pair of bleached blond sluts who are almost too old to even make this look work.'
And work it they did, by traveling around in a van and preying upon groups of horny construction workers who eagerly bought the bars for $5.00 on the chance that Jen might drop their change and have to bend over and retrieve it.
When Ivana realized what the Mosaic strumpets were doing, her solution was naturally, was to offer to take off her skirt for anyone who paid $20.00 for the chocolate bar. Oh, the savage irony. Two minutes earlier she was saying Jen and Sandy looked like 'strippers from a cheap beer dive in Texas, with peanut shells on the floor.'
Then suddenly, she's flashing her snug fitting girlie panties for all the world to see, in a bid to out trollop the trollops.
When she realized that the long knives were out for her, Ivana finally came to life in the boardroom and had the gall to suggest that the hypereducated Kevin as 'not as smart as her,' and got a verbal spanking from Trump's underling Carolyn for being disrespectful to the Donald.
Ivana backpedaled and backpedaled and did just about everything else aside from dropping her skirt again, but it was to no avail: Trump axed her like a teenaged victim in a horror flick.
That's what gets me. Ivana constantly complained about the "Barbie twins" and Jen's looks in particular.
Ivana isn't a bad looking girl. She's damn cute.(Until she opens her mouth, that is.)
She suffers from some sort of inferiority complex.
All she needed to do was do get herself cleaned up, made up and slicked up in tight, short black knit skirt to accentuate that nice little caboose of hers along with a loose fitting white sweater blouse and she could have sold a thousand candy bars at $5.00 a pop. She would have been a knock out. The way that team dressed for a sales job was deplorable and they deserved to lose.
That may sound sexist but since she made the decision to use sex to sell the product, all she needed was little imagination to do it right.
What she wound up doing showed no imagination and only revealed more about her character than it did her knickers.
At the reward in Chicago, the two women visited the last winner Bill Rancic (sp?), who proved that he is as weak a "manager" as anyone I have ever seen at any level of management. NBC was forced to show the best and still only had about 40 seconds of material where he was not saying something idiotic.
Exactly correct, but I also think there were two other factors:
1) Ivana's rivalry vs. Jen was obvious. I think she wanted to see Jen beaten more than she wanted to see herself win. She was determined to out-do Jen at something, even if it was out-slutting her.
2) From an economic standpoint, she realized that she had to make up the difference between 290 bars at $5 a pop and 300+ bars at $1.50 a pop. She first tried to sabotage the twins and, failing that, resorted to the only weapon she believed she had left.
Which should lead to another business lesson which is to know when to accept defeat, take your lumps and regroup for the next day.
Bill's advice could have easily come from a beauty contest winner. It was downright vapid.
Yep, and her vendetta against Jen was the nail in her coffin. She should have gone after Kevin for unilaterally lowering the price. It probably wouldn't have worked, because even at the $2 price they would have lost by a lot, but at least she would have had a chance.
Oy vey..looks like according to the Internet betting Jen fools the interview panel!
I think the producers are telling her to be more aggressive this year.
I'll bet the M&M people are just grateful it's all over.
Kelly's the clear winner, but he can sometimes be...dull. Everybody else had either cried (omG is that annoying!) or is just plain incompetent.
Trump does seem to be a flake. One day he says this. The other - the opposite. The man could be a news reader on local tv, hairpiece and all.
Ivana Ma was a phony, nonetheless. She complained of an immorality in Jen and Sandy. And there was some of that. But it was far more evident in Ma. And it was the street-seller position that Trump put them in, one more time for the sake of brand insertion and cross-brand promotion with his own Trump name, that was their undoing. These apprentices signed on for serious work in the corporate suite, and wound up in childish makework assignments because Pepsi paid to promote Edge, or because Mr. Madison Ave wanted some camera time. Nothing these apprentices produce, matters. And then Trump's grand reward on one ocassion was a day at the palace of Denise Rich. Denise Rich! Wife of . . Marc Rich. Marc Rich, of oil for food and the UN, former gun runner or whatever it was he did. Former FOB and pardoned by that same Bill. The immorality surrounds that show (not as much as fembot's Next Supermodel show, but still).
She is a lawyer, and a darn good one. Talking is her forte. I'm willing to bet she can get past nigh any talking task, such as an interview.
I wonder is Bill really over-seeing the construction of a 90 story building? This is where the whole premise of the show escapes me.
The problem for Ivana with Kevin lowering the price was Ivana was the PM and failed to nip that in the bud at the time. She displayed a lack of leadership right then and there and when asked about it by Trump admitted that she just let Kevin do his thing.
Very weak. Jen would be good on Trump's legal staff. But that's because she's a natural at B. Streisand. Very calm, self-possessed. She observes, she pounces. Kelly is similarly disciplined. Kevan hopes to get by on past academic accomplishment, perhaps his entire life. And Sandy is just glad to be there.
It almost doesn't matter. The first season was more about the apprentices. This season has been more about the product placements. The apprentices are just those people you tell to - go wait in that other room. This last went to a Mars bar that literally was hand selected by three inspectors as if each piece of candy were a mint proof set in Denver. Look at that gloss, says one. They'll lock those bars in plastic cases to forever preserve their value to collectors. They should have been selling THOSE bars at a minimum of twenty dollars each. And then Ivana wouldn't have had to introduce her resthome version of a strip show.
Maybe if the show is even picked up for another season, the 'Donald' might consider a little less of the lecture hall and sliding shade approach of a Pepsi 'think tank', a bit fewer Mars bars, and put the apprentices in a suit, a tie, and a job. They aren't supposed to be street-corner vendors. They aren't supposed to be strippers - yes. Sure. But they aren't supposed to be selling hot dogs and horseradish out of a cart on a downtown street corner, either.
If Trump and Burnett (is it? or is that the Rathergate guy?) don't wise up, if they don't get that, I don't think you'll see a season three.
I almost started a drinking game when Maria was still around for how often she'd say "the table", as in "Jen doesn't bring anything to the table".
LOL
Poor dumb Bill should have taken the gig to build that Trump golf course in LA..
The Denise Rich reward had us dropping our jaws....Big Time.
She and George, both, are lickspittles - toadies - yes men.
A narcissist, a meglomaniac like Trump would have it no other way. And that's probably why he'll eventually crash and burn.
Listen to these two in the boardroom. George complains that Ma did what was 'necessary' to sell on a street corner. She done good! Caroline says that while necessary, it was unacceptable behavior. Caroline wins. And Trump then pointedly asks his George - whacho think bout that, George? Oh, Mr. Trump, you HAD to make that decision. No question, Mr. Trump. It was unacceptable behavior.
Thanks for that, George. That's great. Caroline's no better.
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