The Bachelorette: How the Wes Was Done
Six weeks into this season's The Bachelorette, starring Jillian Harris, Wes stands out as the man viewers most love to hate.
Six weeks into this season's The Bachelorette, starring Jillian Harris, Wes stands out as the man viewers most love to hate. His real name is Wes Hayden, but I prefer to think of him as the other Wes Craven, as it better describes his abjectly opportunistic approach.
The heavily tattooed Hayden, who has been one of the top contenders for Jillian Harris's hand in marriage-or-at-the-very-least-publicity, is the self-styled bad boy of this season's show, which follows Harris's attempt to find love among 30 producer-picked men. The 32-year-old Texan country singer so far has crooned his way into the Canadian lass's affections, even while being accused by his competitors of having a girlfriend and being there "for the wrong reasons" — a capital crime in reality television's parallel universe.
How is it that the otherwise common-sensical — at least in the context of this reality show — Harris has mistaken Wes's smarm for charm? I blame the Southern accent, which somehow blunts his arrogance and makes his flattery go down like so much mint julep.
Now, to add fuel to his funeral pyre, ABC have released a video preview of Monday's show in which the dastardly Wes bald-facedly admits to the camera that he's only there to further his musical ambitions. "Right now at this stage in the game, if there's anybody here for a hidden agenda, it'd probably be me," he says. "Because I've been working on an album for over a year. There's no doubt that this is going to help me; do you think people are just overnight successes? They're not."
Seen going to comfort Jillian after she's regretfully let another bachelor go, Wes arranges his features into a sincere expression as Jillian confesses she's having a hard time. She thought "there was going to be more jerks," she jokes. "There's not enough jerks."
"Uh, I don't know, you might want to stick around a while," Wes chuckles. "I don't know; there's a few. Mmmhmmm."
The camera cuts back to the interview. "The publicity I'll get from this, it's almost like, it's almost like I can taste it, and eat it, and it comes inside of me and becomes a part of me. I'm getting excited, this is fun, I got records to sell. I'm a [expletive] hidden agenda right here."
The scene is made more discomfiting by the fact that he's fingering the starched collar of his lavender shirt like he's Gollum in Lord of the Rings. Fame is clearly Wes's "pretty," and his hunger for it is naked — ruthless, almost.
"I'll always have Jillian wrapped around my little finger, y'all," we hear in ominous voiceover. "Believe it."
I'm guessing Wes's sudden attack of candour isn't sudden at all — clearly this is a conscious bid to make himself memorable beyond the three-month life span of the show. Sure enough, his MySpace page features a downloadable version of "It Don't Take That Long," the song he allegedly wrote for Jillian Harris and insisted on singing to her relentlessly. Plus his album, "Full Circle," is now available online, the site proclaims, and upcoming tour dates (all in Texas) are listed.
But if Wes is using Jillian, it's equally clear that the show's producers are using Wes — if not pulling the strings. And who can blame them? It makes for a classic story arc: Wes is the reality-show equivalent of Snidely Whiplash, tying the unsuspecting Jillian to the railroad tracks before she's saved by her very own Dudley Do-Right.
At the end of the ABC preview Jake threatens to out Wes as a girlfriend-having, music-career-wanting cad. Then there's Ed, who exited last week to save his career, but who's been suspiciously unavailable for interviews recently, leading to speculation about his possible return to the show. The only actor in all of this who seems oblivious to Wes's machinations is Jillian Harris. Let's hope for her sake that her Dudley-to-be isn't just a dud.
via: http://www.theprovince.com/Entertainment/Bachelorette+Done/1706207/story.html
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