Faking It

[jbsegal]

I've seen 2 whole episodes, and I'm in the middle of a 3rd.

What I've learned so far is: If you have a large budget and enough experts dedicated to teaching you what you need to know, you can learn anything well enough in a month to pass as a professional.

I want that month. I just don't know what I want those experts to teach me.

(So far, I've seen: Hot Dog Vendor Turns Chef and Ballet Dancer Turns Pro Wrestler)

Comments

[mangosteen]

I'm a big fan of the phrase "It's a skill like any other". There are some things that require years upon years of practice to just get barely passable. There are many more things that don't.

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but there are people who are good at picking up skills in just the course of life.

I want the intensive option...:)

[ceelove.livejournal.com]

I was trying to figure out what you were talking about, and at first I thought you were referring to the recent California gubernatorial election. So I thought, hmm, right, Arnold must be the second, so Georgie-boy must be the first...what's the third, then...?

[pookfreak.livejournal.com]

I've seen a few but the question you need to answer before you do go through with it (assuming you figure out what you want to fake) is if you're willing to let them cut your hair and trim or shave your beard. I know that of the shows I've seen part of it includes being made over to a certain extent - for example I saw a guy who learned to be a sommelier who had to have his hair cut neat and short and beard shaved etc.

But I think it'd be cool to do and if you figure out what you wanted to fake I think you'd be great at it!

[aliza250.livejournal.com]

Things one could learn to fake in a month:

• Interior decorator


• Gardener


• Romance novelist

Things that one could not fake in a month:

• NBA Basketball Player


• Sculptor


• Concert pianist

Though I'm not sure what I would want to learn, given a month of intense tutoring...

[deguspice.livejournal.com]

Where it's needed, some of the people of the show have some sort of job that is vaguely related to the profession.  When they selected someone to train to be a wrestler, they found someone who is athletic and knows how to move their body.  A recent one (that I've haven't seen) they turned a concert violinist to a club DJ.  Her understanding of rhythm probably helped.  On another show, they wanted to teach someone to jump horses.  The experts wanted someone who was flexible, athletic, a fighter, and had a good sense of rhythm.  The producers found a orphaned dancer who worked at night clubs.

I'm not sure that the guy who sheared sheep, had the appropriate skills to be trained to work at a high-end hair salon.  The shy, gay liberal arts student who grew up in a small town, definitely didn't start with the skills to be a bouncer at a London club.  And the bicycling preacher was a bit handicapped when they asked him to learn to be a used car salesman.

One thing I'd like to see, that the show doesn't do, is follow up a month or two later and see if their life has changed because of what they learned.

If you can't tell, I like the BBC-America cable TV channel (one nice thing about BBC-America is that they carry programs from other English TV channels).  If you haven't yet seen them, I recommend "Manchild", "Graham Norton" and "The Office".