The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency (Episode 3.2): "You've got rolls on your stomach"

The biggest delight of watching The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency is that it is a non-filtered account of a whacked-out, acerbic, fearless, hilarious businesswoman trying to jumpstart yet another chapter in a career that should have been over decades ago. The gratuitous male nudity, one-liners, gay representation of many types, and plethora of opportunities to be fascinated and/or scared by all that is Janice simply seal the deal.

Like, the fictional Brian Kinney from Queer as Folk, who was collectively voted as the favorite TV gay character ever in our recent polarizing poll, Janice is unapologetic about her choices. She’s the first to admit to that, as a mother of two college-bound children, she’ll do whatever it takes to make a buck, which this week’s episode (Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems) could not make any clearer. The show begins with Janice crashing VIP Latino’s tragic photo shoot only to find out that her girls will no longer share the cover with the great Carlos Mencía (who?), but will instead appear in some third-rate editorial showcasing clothing sold at Mervyn’s due to a scheduling conflict with Señor Mencía.

Janice will have none of that and reminds the annoying co-founder that she is a star and they can put her and her girls on the cover. While I love my Janice, I am too much of a skeptic to believe that the opening of her Latino division will make the cover as strongly suggested the by narrative. I give you the cover of the first issue of VIP Latino. Yes, it´s Eva Longoria.

Next we see another of the agency’s top money earners telling Janice that she has moved on to a bigger agency. Janice gives the model a well-rehearsed guilt trip about having turned her from a little nobody into a real model, only to be left high and dry.

I don’t know if it was that I was watching the show on a 46 inch HDTV versus my usual 32 incher, but as she spoke, Janice’s eyelashes looked like horror movie spiders caught in an oil spill. The “lashes” kept moving in all sorts of gravity-defying ways as she spoke. I smell another open call and more drama with Janice’s business partner, the absolutely underwhelming Peter Hamm.

Highlights:

My crush of the week: I decided that I had to get over my crush on apparently straight Dominic as I can’t become a cliché. Ethan Peterson, the agency’s openly gay Recruitment Director, is the recipient of my rebound crush who must have more screen time. He is shown 5 times, but mostly via quick shots. Here he is in Paris.

A breakout character waiting to happen: While Duke and Gabe (Janice’s superhero-worthy gay duo, hair-styling and make-up, respectively) have been around since forever, Gabe shows that he needs a spinoff ASAP as he was hitting all cylinders during the casting callbacks. Like Lou Gossett in An Officer and A Gentleman, style drill sergeant Gabe has several back-to-back zingers to make it clear to the callbacks that their attire is unacceptable. He tells them that they are there to show their bodies and faces. Most of them were dressed like Lauren Conrad from The Hills, thus hiding the goods. Some had a lot to hide.

He reminds the ladies that they are supposed to be “skinny, pretty girls, with no boobs.” One particularly tragic girl is told that her hips looks "huge" and that has a “long-waisted” problem. He also questions her choice to wear a scarf to a callback. He asks: “What is wrong with you?” Snap, crackle, pop. The girl takes it like a champ. Please no rants about Gabe being a cliché/stereotype, as that is so last week. It’s all in the delivery, and Gabe is my new fey crush.

The nude photo sessions: All the callbacks get photographed and my favorite moments included a first on TJDMA: We are shown an image of censored male butt shot during the pre-commercial teaser. While there was the usual clear man flesh on display, it turns out that a Michael Anderson, a 33-year old straight, married, father of 3 (but described as single in the TJDMA website), does not want to drop trou during the shoot.

We know how Janice feels about models who are not comfortable with their bodies. So she starts ranting about how she does not want to see his penis, just to phograph his behind due to their client base. In the span of less than a minute Janice uses more than a handful of unprintable synonyms for "penis." The would-be model bends over to remove his briefs, and due to the camera angle, provides a butt shot that is so much more penetrating than usual that it is blurred; however we do get to see his round uncensored butt once he straightens back up.

Peter Yonan: A total 22-year old cutie who is the male Janice. He is hands down the pick of the litter of the new male models, so I am surprised that there are no pictures of him on the TJDMA site nor on anywhere on the internet. I smell a problem here as he’s adorable, so I will begin my diligent research so that I may report back to you. As Janice slowly unveils him, he asks her who her favorite photographer is (I could not even prenounce his name) and then asks her about her most memorable moment in modeling, to which she responds that it was the time that she had sex with another model in a closet during a shoot. Earlier this year, Janice did tell Howard Stern that she’s had slept with more than 1000 men so Wilt Chamberlain can move to the left.

The old guard meets the up-and-coming guard: With a cover on Fashion L.A. on the line and several other potential bookings taking place on the same day, all the models are called in. Only memorable because we get to see the magazine’s sexy publisher Roger Musé, his cute staff, as well as favorites from the show’s first two seasons. J.P. Calderon fans are treated to a rock star entrance and a confessional about the dynamics between models. When J.P. first appears we hear a Janice voice over referring him as “happy, out and, proud.”

Cliff-fat-hanger: While not particularly interesting, there is a lot of talk of some of the models needing to be fit. A beautiful model named Traci has indeed gained some serious lbs. since we last saw her. She looks great, but not model great. Janice looks repulsed and calls her a “salami,” a “stuffed sausage,” a “hot dog,” and dares her to get into Janice’s size 4 skirt. Janice takes her skirt off and Traci looks like she’s not going to be able to squeeze into it. Alas, she does not and the show just ends like that. Huh? Very underwhelming. No glossy fake-out budget here.

Next on TJMDA: Nude modeling at what appears to be an art class at s senior retirement community, and what looks to be a really disturbing discovery about one of the most promising new female models. She’s shown prominently on this episode but no there is mention of her on the show's website, so this might not be the red herring that they pulled with Desiree earlier in the show. The shocking revelation, which I thought was going to be that she was sleeping with nasty Peter Hamm, was that there girl is anemic. There may be more than meets the eye....