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The reality TV shows of the early 2000s seemed to test the waters of what was appropriate television. There were bizarre dating shows like Playing It Straight, Boy Meets Boy, and I Wanna Marry 'Harry.'" Unfortunately, there were also reality shows that exploited and shamed participants, like Average Joe and Are You Hot?

What fans of reality TV of the 2000s may also remember are the controversial makeover programs that aired. These makeover shows glorified plastic surgery and, instead of focusing on helping a woman's internal struggles, it was all about physically altering their outer appearance to the extreme. This sadly led women to believe they needed to go under the knife to feel "beautiful," but it was just all so wrong.

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Reality TV is great for those of us who want to escape from everyday life, whether it's watching competition shows like Survivor or The Amazing Race. For those who are fascinated by drama and conflict, there's reality shows like the Real Housewives franchise and Vanderpump Rules.

However, viewers have come across a few reality television shows that have made them wonder how they ever got air time. These shows were highly questionable because of their outrageous premise and some were downright offensive. The concept of reality TV was taken too far with these particular shows.

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By 2001, there were terrific and fascinating reality TV shows like Survivor and Big Brother. However, that year also gave viewers...

It seems inconceivable in an age when every facet of Prince Harry’s celebrity marriage and Shakespearean sibling rivalry is meticulously scrutinized by every man and his corgi, but 10 years ago, there were apparently a dozen young American women who couldn’t pick Prince Harry out of a line-up.

That’s what the 2010s’ most intelligence-insulting reality show “I Wanna Marry Harry” — the lone season of which concluded June 11, 2014 — expected us to believe anyway. Never mind that the self-proclaimed ‘spare’ was then third in line to the throne and, thanks to his penchant for playing strip billiards in Las Vegas hotels, a long-running tabloid favorite. Just recruit a vague posh boy lookalike, dye his hair ginger, and provide a crash course in etiquette and croquet, and voila, no aspiring princess would be any the wiser.

The eight-part Fox original was essentially an aristocratic take on “Joe Millionaire,” arguably the genesis...

After a 10-year absence, Paul Verhoeven has returned to feature filmmaking with “Elle.” The controversial filmmaker’s latest has been widely acclaimed since premiering at Cannes earlier this year, and in the leadup to its imminent theatrical release he’s had the chance to talk about such earlier works as “RoboCop” and “Total Recall.” Both films have recently been remade, and Verhoeven has a theory as to why these new takes were unsuccessful: “They take these somewhat absurd stories and make them much too serious.”

Read More: ‘Elle’ Exclusive Clip: Isabelle Huppert Takes Revenge On An Attacker In Paul Verhoeven’s Latest Thriller

“I think that is a mistake,” he continues in an interview with Collider. “Both those movies needed the distance of satire or comedy to situate it for audiences. Playing it straight without any humour is a problem and not an improvement.” Verhoeven’s films have long been...

We’re in a time where Hollywood creatives believe that every blockbuster needs a strong dose of seriousness, a firm measure of grim attitude that is often mistaken as a way of bringing stakes into a movie. This often comes at the expense of humor or even levity, turning these movies that cost hundreds of million of dollars into one-dimensional, one-note slogs. And for director Paul Verhoeven, who has seen two of his successful, satiric, funny and entertaining movies — “RoboCop” and “Total Recall” — given contemporary remakes, he believes that single-minded approach is the wrong-footed move that doomed those pictures.

Continue reading Paul Verhoeven Says “Playing It Straight” Was The Mistake Made By ‘RoboCop’ & ‘Total Recall’ Remakes at The Playlist.

Simon Brew Sep 14, 2016

The director of the original RoboCop and Total Recall on where the remakes went wrong...

Many of us at Den Of Geek remain really rather fond of the remake/reboot of RoboCop, that was clearly neutered to an extent by its 12A rating, but also had some strong ideas of its own.

That said, one of the many who had sizeable problems with the new film was the director of the original, Paul Verhoeven. In a new interview with Collider, he’s been nattering about the film, and where he felt it went wrong. He also had a word or two for the relatively recent remake of another of his films too, Total Recall.

“Somehow they seem to think that the lightness of say Total Recall and RoboCop is a hindrance. So they take these somewhat absurd stories and make them much too serious. I think that is a mistake.

The studio is building its unscripted portfolio with the announcement that it has bought a stake in new production company Primal Media.

The company, formed by Gogglebox founders and executive producers Mat Steiner and Adam Wood, will develop and produce unscripted programmes in the UK and work with Lionsgate’s alternative programming team in the Us to produce Us formats for the UK market.

Lionsgate will distribute Primal Media’s content worldwide and will produce formats owned by Primal Media for the Us and worldwide market.

Steiner and Wood’s formats have garnered six Emmys and include UK formats Release The Hounds (ITV2), Cash Cab (ITV), The Code (BBC1), Playing It Straight (C4), Man v Fly, and Breakaway (BBC2).

Primal Media’s first two commissions will see a third season of Release The Hounds and a second season of The Code (BBC1), both in 2017.

In the last 12 months Lionsgate has formed a strategic alliance with Us reality...

Last year, the London Film Festival was bookended by a pair of Tom Hanks movies. This year, the fest is going in a different direction with opening- and closing-night films set during World War II. The event will open with The Imitation Game on October 8 and now has set David Ayer’s Fury as the capper on October 19. The pic stars Brad Pitt, Shia Labeouf, Logan Lerman, Michael Peña, and Jon Bernthal. Pitt and Ayer are confirmed to attend the closing-night festivities in Leicester Square with screenings to be simulcast to cinemas across the UK. The film is set in April 1945 as the Allies make their final push in the European Theater. A battle-hardened army sergeant named Wardaddy (Pitt) commands a five-man Sherman tank crew on a deadly mission behind enemy lines where they face overwhelming odds in their heroic attempts to strike at the heart of Nazi Germany. Written and directed by Ayer,...

Last year, the London Film Festival was bookended by a pair of Tom Hanks movies. This year, the fest is going in a different direction with opening- and closing-night films set during World War II. The event will open with The Imitation Game on October 8 and now has set David Ayer’s Fury as the capper on October 19. The pic stars Brad Pitt, Shia Labeouf, Logan Lerman, Michael Peña, and Jon Bernthal. Pitt and Ayer are confirmed to attend the closing-night festivities in Leicester Square with screenings to be simulcast to cinemas across the UK. The film is set in April 1945 as the Allies make their final push in the European Theater. A battle-hardened army sergeant named Wardaddy (Pitt) commands a five-man Sherman tank crew on a deadly mission behind enemy lines where they face overwhelming odds in their heroic attempts to strike at the heart of Nazi Germany. Written and directed by Ayer,...

No, that is not a typo in the headline. If you watch Comedy Central's hilarious sketch series Key & Peele, you likely have seen this recurring sketch featuring two valets discussing the merits of all sorts of movies. But, they have a soft spot for the kick ass movies of Mr. Liam Neesons. Whether it be Taken, Unknown, The Grey, or his upcoming Non-stop, these guys love them some Neesons. And then, of course, Neeson himself shows up. Playing it straight, mostly, Neeson plays along...

All week, Vulture has been celebrating the lasting joy bestowed upon us when Fox launched The O.C. in 2003, but the ensuing decade has not been as kind to some of the network's other fare from that era. I know this because, while putting together Vulture's quiz about The O.C. (how'd you score?), I worked off a copy of the show's first season that had been recorded off the original broadcast feed. Along with all of the soap's now-quaint early-aughts references (at one point, Zach asks Seth to hit him up with some JPEGs later), the recordings opened another window into that moment in time via the obtrusive cross-promotional ads that Fox frequently plastered on the lower third of the screen. The network used the space to pimp everything from its household staples American Idol and The Simpsons to buzzy new fare such as Arrested Development and Wonderfalls; more hilariously,...

Channel 4 has announced that dating show Playing It Straight will return on E4. The series, which first aired in 2005 and was hosted by June Sarpong, tricks contestants into believing that they are taking part in a programme called Dream Date. They soon discover that they are on Playing It Straight, where one single girl must choose her perfect man. However, some of the male contestants are gay and must convince her that they are heterosexual. After eight weeks, the woman has to pick her dream date. If she chooses someone straight, they share £50,000, but if she picks a gay man he will keep all of the money. The (more)...

One of our favorite mantras around the AfterElton offices is “because visibility matters.” Indeed, the idea that gay and bisexual men need to be visible, both to ourselves and to the wider culture, is one of the principle reasons AfterElton.com even exists. After all, it is only by being visible to family, friends and the world that we’ve been able to overcome the stereotypes and bigotry used to justify discrimination against the Glbt community.

That quest for visibility explains why we have done so many polls including the AfterElton Hot 100, the Fifty Greatest Gay Movies, the Top 50 Gay TV Characters, and the 50 Best Gay Books. After all, it’s not as if Entertainment Weekly is going to ask gay and bisexual men which guys we think are the hottest, which movies mean the most to us or, in the case of our latest poll, which celebrities we most admire.

Our members might be predominantly gay and bisexual men, but we do have a surprising number of female readers here at AfterElton.com. We value you ladies and feel bad that every year we have to ask you to sit out the Hot 100 voting (for that list we wanted a fair representation of whom gay and bi men find attractive).

To try and make up for it, every year we run a special poll exclusively our female readers, in which we ask them which gay/bi men they find hot.

This year over 12,000 votes were cast for over 600 different nominees. The top fifty appear here.

Without further ado... The 2010 Ladies' Choice Hot 50!

1. Adam Lambert

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