Average Joe: Melana the Hypocrite

I’ve been meaning to write about Average Joe since the first episode, but never quite got around to it. I wanted to talk about Zach being a jerk, then about Zach being almost human, then about him being a jerk, then about how we had to root for him anyway over the pretty boys. There were other topics I wanted to address as well, but last night’s episode changed the focus of what I had to say. Now all I can really say is that Melana is a hypocrite.

Melana came onto this reality show expecting to find a bunch of GQ models competing for her. Instead, she got average guys. She was so upset that some reports say she ran off into the desert after greeting them all for the first time. Obviously, she came back and went through the motions with them, but as much as she smiled and pretended to be more interested in personality than looks, it quickly became apparent that it really wasn’t the case.

By the second episode, Melana had eliminated all of the heavier guys. At that same time, she got rid of Dennis even though she said that if his outside was as beautiful as his inside, he’d be somebody along the lines of Brad Pitt. The two non-models she kept the longest were Zach and Adam, who have been described to me by women as the best-looking among the average Joes. Mind you, she kept Zach around even though she knew he was a jerk and warned him several times.

Then, when the models came, it all changed. Melana had four opportunities to go out on one-on-one dates after they showed up. All four of them went to the Models. She claimed it was in the name of fairness, but that’s sure not the way it looked from this viewpoint. It looked like she was smitten with the pretty boys and felt she could always fall back on the average Joes if things didn’t work out. I don’t blame Adam and Zach one bit for being upset – they were absolutely right.

So then she gets into the fat suit and she’s suddenly seen the light? Please. She gets upset that people on the street don’t pay as much attention to her. Now she knows how the guys she booted feel. She gets upset that some of the remaining guys don’t like her in the fat suit, but she tossed everybody who was overweight. She complains that she was the same person inside, but the only situation she was in with the guys was her pretending to be somebody else grilling them for a few minutes, so how the hell would they know who she was inside? She, on the other hand, had an opportunity to know what some of the average Joes were like on the inside and instead tossed them.

Putting on a fat suit for a day does not grant any serious understanding to what it’s like to be overweight. But it apparently granted Melana the ability to get on her high horse and act like she knew everything.

So when she saw Zach making fun of the fat “cousin,” she felt that it was time for him to go. Granted, Zach should have been smart enough to know that on a reality show, you might be videotaped at any time. But he was being the same person that he had been throughout. Melana had liked him then but suddenly didn’t anymore because she had changed the focus of her crush from Zach to pretty-boy. My, she’s so deep.

On one light-hearted note, it was funny that Adam made the comparison of the cousin to "fat Monica" on Friends, because that was exactly the same type of fat suit that was worn by Courtney Cox for that part. He was so close to figuring it out and didn't even know it. It certainly would have been amusing if he or any of the others did figure it out and ask what the hell she was doing.

But they didn’t. Melana showed us all what a hypocrite she is by going on and on about how you should judge people by what’s inside even though almost her entire history on the show contradicts those words. It’s really too bad Zach didn’t tell her, as he was leaving, that she did the very same thing.

Now we just have one more episode to watch. Will she pick the pretty-boy or Adam? Will she continue to be shallow or show that personality actually does matter? Either way, she will have to work extra-hard to overcome the image that many people have not gotten of her.

David Bloomberg is the Editor of RealityNewsOnline and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com.

Be sure to sign up for our e-mail update so you can stay informed about new articles on the site! And take a look at the rest of the site. You can find all of our recent articles on this show at our Average Joe page and take a look at our sections on The Next Joe Millionaire and The Bachelor 4. You can even buy reality show stuff at our Reality TV Store!

For more news about Average Joe, be sure to check out SirLinksALot!