HELP! I CAN’T STOP WATCHING ROCK OF LOVE WITH BRET MICHAELS

on sleazy mid-aughts reality dating shows, summertime slumps, and being honest about our desires

I am watching season one of Rock of Love with Bret Michaels. Whenever I’m unemployed it becomes clear that the worst thing in the world for me is to be left alone with my thoughts. The silence amplifies everything that’s been on mind–rejections piling in my inbox. Editors encouraging me to send more ideas. A job interview to add to my calendar. I try to distract myself. Bought a new book. Painted my toenails candy apple red. The usual. But it’s been too long since I’ve gotten a pedicure. I stopped writing. That’s unusual.

So maybe I’m in a slump. But I don't want to talk about that or my emails or unemployment. I only bring these things up to explain why I have been watching Rock of Love for the past three hours, because despite insisting I don’t believe any pleasure is guilty, I feel I have to offer some kind of justification. I know someone will bring up the show’s obviously problematic handling of race and gender or the state of entertainment post-9/11 or our general fascination with violence, especially the low-culture variety (Wrestlemania, torture porn, influencer boxing matches). It’s easy to make judgments about the intelligence of people who watch this kind of content–I remember people using the phrase lowest common denominator to describe audiences who enjoyed trash TV and movies with gratuitous sex and violence–but I don’t think most people are stupid. I don’t even think the women on the show are stupid. 

Rock of Love has been off the air and out of the public consciousness for so long that I feel required to explain the show’s premise–25 women are invited to a mansion in Southern California to compete for the affection of 44 year old Bret Michaels, former frontman of the band Poison and father of two who is never seen without his bandana, a cowboy hat, or both. In between mingling with Michaels, the women participate in various challenges in order to win dates, which can be anything from shopping for custom bikinis to subjecting the girls to a private screening of a documentary about his life. A contestant is eliminated each week until Michaels must choose one of two remaining women to be his Rock Star Girlfriend. The show aired for three seasons. 

This is a show you can smell from the screen–patent leather and bottom-shelf-liquor, cigarettes and hairspray, chemically sweet body mist and Listerine. It’s knowingly loud and ugly and mean-spirited. The bodyguard, Big John, stocks a bathroom with toilet paper as Michaels talks about how the most beautiful women will be coming to the mansion in a voiceover. There’s a pole and a penile plethysmograph. They call each other sluts, skanks, and whorebags, sometimes all at once. A colorless blonde looks into the camera with unseeing eyes and calls herself a Jessica Simpson knockoff. She is eliminated immediately. One contestant insults the other’s meth-scratched face. Another tattoos Bret’s name to the back of her neck. Michaels acknowledges a contestant fascinated by parallel universes with polite disinterest before commenting on her nice ass. Everybody has fried hair and nobody is having fun.

A lot of people think I’m an intense person and I understand. I never recline my seat in the movie theater. Or on an airplane. I prefer to sleep without pillows. Reader, I have worn leather jackets in 80 degree weather. But I refuse to become insufferable. This is where my interest in low-culture comes in. It’s important to be open to every possibility, to experience everything, to learn how to be an active and engaged viewer no matter what. It can’t be Janus Films and Tove Ditlevsen all the time. I’ve learned just as much about human nature from an episode of a reality house hunting show as I have from reading Proust.

So of course I’m watching a (mostly) forgotten mid-aughts dating show on Hulu. I could be watching something relevant and arguably good like Love Island USA or something romantic like The Bachelor. I watched a few episodes of Love Is Blind but lost interest quickly. The contestants are real estate brokers and account executives and financial advisors with perfectly groomed brows and tasteful filler and white teeth. They are hyper-vigilant and cautious–they know how to position themselves, how to say the right things, how to justify their behavior with the kind of terminology and verbiage you’d see on a pastel infographic. They are definitely, totally, 100% here for the right reasons, and certainly not interested in shilling Fashion Nova and Shein on Instagram or launching a podcast. They are safe and approachable. I am skeptical and easily annoyed.

So what are the girls on Rock of Love trying to win? What would motivate someone to simulate phone sex for a moist has-been rockstar on national television? Not many people are willing to shake the fundamental fear of being ugly and unlikeable or make quick decisions in order to create good entertainment. These girls knew they weren’t going to become serious actresses or models after their time on the show. Social media didn’t exist in the way it does now in 2007, so becoming an influencer was obviously not an option. Sure, there was opportunities to star in potential spinoffs and make some money off of paid club appearances, but those are never guaranteed. These women just wanted to be on TV–but so what? At least they’re being honest about their desires. I don’t think many people can say that about themselves.

When I watch Rock of Love, I can’t help but to think about how much I fear being seen but desire attention nonetheless. I’ve never felt a need to become an influencer or some kind of It girl, I can disappear from social media for weeks or even months and not miss a single thing. I want to *want* to be wanted. I want to put myself out there just because. And yet.

There’s always something—my name, my face, my body, my thoughts. Are they good enough? Engaging enough? Interesting enough? I’m not sure how much of myself I am willing to share, how far I am actually willing to go to have my desires met. Watching these women use their fearlessness and creativity to invent storylines and personas on these kinds of shows is fascinating to me—what would be possible if I just committed to my desires, even the most shallow and fleeting ones?

Maybe I’m thinking about myself too much. Time to watch another episode.