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Sydney Morning Herald
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘There would be nothing without you': Why Ozzy was the original Kardashian
Ozzy Osbourne famously cemented his reputation as the 'Prince of Darkness' in 1982 when he bit the head off a bat – the lead singer of Black Sabbath was a dark and otherworldly rock god who couldn't be constrained by the bounds of polite society. But I, like many other millennials, instead knew him as a doddering sweatpants-wearing dad who ranted to his pets, loved burritos and couldn't ever quite work out his TV remote. It's a bizarre dual legacy for Osbourne to leave, following his death at age 76 on Wednesday. And while endless words will be written about his contribution to heavy metal and his shifting of the musical zeitgeist, it's only fair to mark his contribution to TV. Through his seminal MTV series, The Osbournes, the Prince of Darkness was also the father of reality TV as we know it. Though it would go on to run for 52 episodes over four seasons, The Osbournes began in 2002 as a total experiment. And a risky one at that. The established musician who had struggled with sobriety had everything to lose by letting cameras into his private life; and at age 53 for the series launch, he was well outside the usual demographic for the youth channel (even though the cartoon stars of Beavis and Butt-Head loved him). The show – which followed Osbourne, his wife Sharon and their two teenage children Kelly and Jack going about everyday life in their Beverley Hills home – was conceived as a 'documentary sitcom' off the back of the success of The Real World. The family had shot a segment for MTV's other new show, Cribs, which looked inside the homes of celebrities, and producers realised there was something worth exploring about the 'loving, dysfunctional, chaotic' nature of their home.
The Age
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
‘There would be nothing without you': Why Ozzy was the original Kardashian
Ozzy Osbourne famously cemented his reputation as the 'Prince of Darkness' in 1982 when he bit the head off a bat – the lead singer of Black Sabbath was a dark and otherworldly rock god who couldn't be constrained by the bounds of polite society. But I, like many other millennials, instead knew him as a doddering sweatpants-wearing dad who ranted to his pets, loved burritos and couldn't ever quite work out his TV remote. It's a bizarre dual legacy for Osbourne to leave, following his death at age 76 on Wednesday. And while endless words will be written about his contribution to heavy metal and his shifting of the musical zeitgeist, it's only fair to mark his contribution to TV. Through his seminal MTV series, The Osbournes, the Prince of Darkness was also the father of reality TV as we know it. Though it would go on to run for 52 episodes over four seasons, The Osbournes began in 2002 as a total experiment. And a risky one at that. The established musician who had struggled with sobriety had everything to lose by letting cameras into his private life; and at age 53 for the series launch, he was well outside the usual demographic for the youth channel (even though the cartoon stars of Beavis and Butt-Head loved him). The show – which followed Osbourne, his wife Sharon and their two teenage children Kelly and Jack going about everyday life in their Beverley Hills home – was conceived as a 'documentary sitcom' off the back of the success of The Real World. The family had shot a segment for MTV's other new show, Cribs, which looked inside the homes of celebrities, and producers realised there was something worth exploring about the 'loving, dysfunctional, chaotic' nature of their home.
New York Times
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
What ‘Road Rules' Wrought
Attention, as a currency, can work a bit like money itself, creating classes of haves and have-nots. If income inequality in America ballooned in the 1970s, attention inequality got worse in the 1990s — thanks of course to the internet, but also to reality TV. On 'The Real World,' which premiered on MTV in 1992, viewers were invited to surveil the day-to-day of people who were both totally normal and anything but, people finding jobs and facing crushes and doing what 20-somethings do, all while living under one roof. On 'Road Rules,' a sister show of sorts that premiered 30 years ago this month, a handful of teens and 20-somethings were dropped into the middle of nowhere in a camper van. There, they performed 'challenges' like jumping out of an airplane or spending the night in a supposedly haunted building. The two shows, made by the same production company, essentially ushered in the reality television factory of fame — fleeting and otherwise — as we have come to know if in the decades since. There is something distinctly American about 'Road Rules,' possessed of a berserk energy as if it had emerged from a Hollywood brainstorming lunch between Jack Kerouac and Kim Kardashian. It's just an R.V. full of young people and the open road. Plus some 'challenges' that seem like a real-life test of the parental aphorism 'If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?' The answer is always yes, so long as the tape is running. Both 'The Real World' and 'Road Rules' attracted and thrived on a particular personality: obnoxiously authentic. The type of person saying what nobody else will — because it's rude, offensive, moronic or plainly unnecessary. If that archetype sounds familiar, it's because reality TV show fame is now actual real-world fame, and we're living in a world that 'Road Rules' made. Theo Von, a cast member on Season 9, is now one of the biggest podcast stars in the world, with a show that frequently ranks in YouTube's Top 10, reaching millions, and which last year counted President Trump as a guest. Sean Duffy, who met his wife on 'Road Rules: All Stars,' is the secretary of transportation. Michael Mizanin, now a wrestling star better known as the Miz, was a cast member of 'The Real World' and went on the mash-up once known as the 'Real World-Road Rules Challenge.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Time Magazine
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Magazine
What to Know About Sean Duffy, NASA's New Interim Head
The people tapped to run NASA have often been scientists, engineers, academics, or government officials. The agency's new interim head, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, brings a different sort of background to the position. Over the past three decades, Duffy has worn a variety of hats, appearing on reality television, serving as a district attorney and a member of the House, and now leading the Transportation Department under President Donald Trump's second Administration amid mounting concerns about air travel safety. Trump announced Duffy's appointment as NASA's interim Administrator on Wednesday, praising his work as Transportation Secretary. 'Sean is doing a TREMENDOUS job in handling our Country's Transportation Affairs,' Trump said in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social. 'He will be a fantastic leader of the ever more important Space Agency, even if only for a short period of time.' Duffy said in a post on X that he was 'honored to accept this mission.' The news of Duffy's appointment comes after Trump pulled his nomination of billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman to run NASA in May, just days before Isaacman was expected to be confirmed to the position. Isaacman is a friend of Elon Musk, and the move was seen as the first sign of the rift between Trump and Musk that widened as the two men publicly feuded over a sweeping tax and spending package central to Trump's second term agenda. Duffy will continue to run the Transportation Department while temporarily leading NASA, making him the latest Trump Administration official to take on multiple roles. Here's what to know about him. He was an MTV reality star When Duffy was in his 20s, he appeared on MTV's reality show 'The Real World' and became known as the show's resident playboy. He later starred in the MTV show 'Road Rules: All Stars,' where he met his wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy, now a Fox News host. The couple have nine children. Together, in 2021, they launched a podcast, 'From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys,' on which they have discussed various social and political issues and promoted a conservative vision of family. He was a district attorney and served in Congress Duffy was the district attorney of Ashland County in Wisconsin for nearly 10 years, from 2002 to 2010. He was elected to the House as part of 2010's Tea Party wave, winning a district that had been held by a Democrat for more than four decades. He served in Congress for about eight years before resigning partway through his fifth term in 2019, saying he wanted to support his family after learning his ninth child would be born with health complications, including a heart condition. He worked as a political commentator and lobbyist After leaving Congress, Duffy worked as a paid political commentator at CNN, where he garnered criticism for promoting a conspiracy theory and suggesting National Security Council official Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman had an 'affinity' for Ukraine after Vindman testified in Trump's first impeachment inquiry. He later worked at a lobbying firm based in Washington before becoming the co-host of a show on Fox Business that premiered in 2023. He now serves in Trump's Cabinet Trump named Duffy as his nominee to run the Transportation Department soon after the 2024 election. Duffy was not among Trump's most contentious nominees, and was sworn into the role in January after an easy confirmation process that ended in a 77-22 Senate vote to approve his nomination. Under Duffy's leadership, the department has pledged to make changes to the nation's air traffic control system, after a string of crashes and near misses. In January, an American Airlines passenger jet and an Army helicopter collided when the plane was about to land at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, killing all 67 people on board both aircrafts. A few months later, radar and communications at Newark Liberty International Airport stopped working on multiple occasions. One of the outages lasted as long as 90 seconds. Hundreds of flights were canceled and delayed in the aftermath. Duffy said he plans to overhaul the nation's air traffic control system, including by replacing antiquated telecommunications and launching efforts to boost staffing for air traffic controllers. As Transportation Secretary, Duffy has also said that he will roll back 'woke DEI policies' and environmental regulations initiated under the Biden Administration.
CBC
28-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
How queer people shaped reality TV
Social Sharing From RuPaul's Drag Race to The Real World, what would reality TV be without queer people? That's one of the questions that journalist Mel Woods gets into in their new podcast, Get Queer, which explores reality TV's queer history. Today on Commotion, host Elamin Abdelmahmoud sits down with Woods to talk about how queer people helped make reality TV the powerhouse that it is and how the genre has also shaped the queer community. We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player. WATCH | Today's episode on YouTube: Elamin: Since the birth of reality TV, queer and trans people have been fixtures in the genre as characters, but also as fans. And I think there is something going on about this consistently here. Why do you think queer and trans people have historically been so drawn to this genre? Mel: We've been there from the beginning. You look at what a lot of people say as being the first reality TV show, An American Family, way back in the '70s, and there was the gay son, Lance Loud, right there. Or on The Real World, we had Pedro Zamora, who was kind of disclosing his HIV status. And when you think about modern reality TV, I think there's a natural overlap between the camp, the performativity, the excess, the extra with queer culture. There's a reason gay people like housewives flipping tables and spilling their wine on each other because that's very fun. And I think that plays to a lot of the cultural history associated with performance and camp and excess that queer and trans communities have for ourselves. Elamin: You've been working on the show [ Get Queer ] for some time. Why did you want to talk about queer people and trans people in reality TV right now, in this specific moment? Mel: Yeah, I was born in 1995. I turned 30 last week. I like to say that I've grown up alongside reality TV as a genre. It is a very distinctly 21st century medium. I think we forget about that because it's so pervasive in our lives today. And it's really interesting when I thought back on my life over the last three decades and seeing these wins in progress in the public perception of queer and trans people over that same period of time. I grew up just outside Red Deer, Alberta, so for a lot people in middle Canada, middle America, who maybe think that they don't know a queer or trans person in their real life, reality TV might be the first place that they had been seeing a real person — not a character written by somebody — but a real queer or trans person on TV. And that can be really impactful, both for allies who don't know their allies yet or people who are building empathy for the real life queer and trans people in their lives. But also, of course, for young people coming up and seeing themselves or seeing possibility models for themselves reflected on there. So the show [ Get Queer ], it's a contained, six-episode thing…. It looks at that history and traces those parallel paths that we see between some of these movements of representation and visibility, and how these different shows and properties open those doors, or close some doors, or whatnot, along the way.
