I was at a friend/colleague's birthday party on Thursday night, so I taped "The Apprentice" and didn't get around to watching it until last night. (In case you missed it, here's a recap of the episode.)
The upshot: Elizabeth was a pretty lame project manager (though not as bad as last week's losing PM, Ivana); and Maria cost Apex the win because she didn't negotiate a hard price of $1800 for the printing of flyers. Instead, the printer put a bunch of people on overtime and charged almost $7000 -- leading Apex to go overbudget. Although the Proctor & Gamble people had a slight preference for Apex's work, the cost overrun cost them the victory.
Still, Stacie J. ended up getting fired! Now, first, let me make a slight mea culpa. Previously, I labeled her as "crazy," which was based on episode 1 when she kind of wigged out on screen. As others have pointed out, this could just be an artifice of editing, in the sense that perhaps she was provoked by the others -- but we weren't shown such scenes. So I should say, she "appeared to me to be acting crazily," and only in episode 1.
Why did Stacie J. get fired? Because the one thing that Maria and Elizabeth agreed on (when they weren't attacking each other) was that Stacie J. was a drag on the team. They told Trump that she was crazy, blah blah blah, and Trump decided he needed to hear from all of Apex. So he sent Maria to get the team. Gee, what do you think Maria told the rest of Apex as they were coming back to the boardroom?
Hmm, perhaps:
MARIA: Hey, the Donald wants us all back in the boardroom!OTHERS: What the . . . .?
MARIA: No, it's all right. We told him that Stacie J. is crazy, you know, the Magic-8 ball incident, and he just wants to confirm that it happened.
Of course, in litigation, we might call that "witness preparation". . . .
In any event, the other five women not on the firing block all confirmed the story (though one of them -- I can't remember her name because she hasn't stood out in any way yet -- was a bit less harsh than the others), and Trump fired Stacie J.
Prof. Althouse is outraged by what happened:
So now, unless something else happens later in the season (and assuming viewers don't just leave), the show seems to have a race problem: Stacie J., the only black woman, chosen for a resemblance to last season's only black woman, was ostracized by the group, and then, instead of receiving the benefit of the doubt, like Omarosa, she was fired for being the outsider. That was quite ugly. And it wasn't even funny. Well, maybe you could justify getting her off the show because she didn't make her outsiderhood funny (as Omarosa did). Maybe Stacie J. was a drag, as she chose to get quiet and preserve her dignity. And where's the show in a quiet, dignified outsider? Maybe she needed to be fired because she lacked sufficient entertainment value. But it's racist to assume the black character ought to provide the entertainment, and her presence was making her teammates put on a little show: that sorority-girl-style exclusion routine.
Prof. Althouse notes that since the firing had nothing to do with what happened in the project, we (the viewers) essentially sat through a meaningless 20 minute commercial for P&G's new toothpaste. (I suppose that I should disclose that I own a miniscule number of shares of P&G stock, which I bought because P&G makes Pampers brand diapers, which we were using like crazy before we switched brands.) RealityNewsOnline sees it differently, however:
Play well with others. Stacie, as we already know, did not. What does one part of this rule say? “But don’t come in with the ‘I’m not here to make friends’ attitude.” What did Stacie say? You got it. She didn’t want to make friends with the others. She obviously thought it wasn’t important. But perhaps if she had tried to reach out a little bit and make friends, the “vote” against her wouldn’t have been unanimous and Trump would have had to think more about it before firing her – perhaps giving her another chance.* * *
People need to remember that the challenges are short-term, but the job – the goal of being on this show – is long-term. We saw last season that Trump didn’t make his decisions based on one single challenge. And really, he shouldn’t! Why should Stacie’s bizarre behavior be ignored simply because it occurred during a task they happened to win? If Sam had fallen asleep last season and his team had still won, should everybody have just shrugged their shoulders and said, “Oh well, we can never bring this up”? Of course not!
* * *
[U]se common sense. Stacie failed in this one for a number of reasons. It is common sense to figure out how much you have to transport before showing up to do the moving. It is common sense to be certain of where you are before telling somebody to come and get you. It is common sense not to make a spectacle of yourself with bizarre behavior when you have just recently met these people are they are all looking for the slightest reason to focus negative attention on you. I could go on, but I think the point is pretty clear.
As we look through all of this, I have to shake my head in wonder at how Trump could have fired anybody but Stacie. If he had known about her behavior during the first challenge in last week’s Boardroom, perhaps Bradford would have been safe. Instead, Maria or Elizabeth (I think Maria) received the benefit of another chance. Sure, Maria screwed up this challenge and then tried to make excuses for it. Without much of a track record yet, under normal circumstances I’d say she should have been fired. But Stacie did have a track record – and it wasn’t a good one. She had cracked under pressure in the first challenge and continued to exhibit odd behavior while at the same time remaining distant from her fellow teammates and managing to screw up even small tasks. That is why Stacie lost.
Although I agree with Prof. Althouse that Stacie J.'s "teammates" acted pretty lamely in banding together against her, I think Stacie J. did exhibit -- or at least was edited to exhibit -- some pretty bad limitations. And some of this can't just be editing, like the failure to calculate how much space the 20,000 boxes of Crest toothpaste would take up (only to be surprised at the warehouse). So I go back to the point I made about the second episode, which I'll modify a bit:
Speaking of Stacie J., what is it with Mark Burnett's casting of [and portrayal of] African-American women, anyway? I realize that two data points are hardly conclusive, but doesn't it seem suspicious that each season of "The Apprentice" has had exactly one African-American woman, and each time, she's been [portrayed as] completely nuts? (You haven't really forget Omarosa, have you?) Compare that to the one African-American male cast in each season (Kwame in season 1, Kevin in season 2), who seem like normal, likeable guys.
Either Stacie J. is crazy or she was edited to be seen as crazy. Omarosa was shown to be untrustworthy, self-absorbed, and utterly worthless as a teammate. I can't believe that Burnett can't cast African-American women for the show who can be portrayed as reasonably normal, or at least lame in the way that the other women (e.g., Ivana, Maria, Elizabeth) are.
Check out this site:
The Apprentice Rules
They have some great commentary.
Posted by: robert | October 17, 2004 at 09:41 AM