We owe Flavor Flav for refreshing reality TV. He is a breath of fresh air for the genre that suffers from debauchery and cheesiness.
Before becoming a television star Flavor Flav was a member of the rap crew Public Enemy. He was what is called a "hype man," essentially a sidekick meant to pump up the crowd in anticipation of a show. His job required him to be loud, obnoxious and memorable.
This is why he was one of the first rap stars to get gold teeth. Because gold grills were so rare in the 1980s, Flavor Flav became a memorable hip-hop icon. His wardrobe choices also propelled him to stardom. He would wear loud colors in oddball combinations, and would often don Army camouflage shirts and pants. Most of all, Flav's greatness lies in his signature clock necklace.
Fast forward to reality TV and it is obvious why Flavor Flav is such a huge hit. He brings to the table a perfect mixture of obnoxiousness and unpredictability that avoids any sense of clich8e. He doesn't try to warm your heart like a would-be American Idol. He doesn't try to make you laugh at perverse stupidity like the idiots in Jerry Springer or MTV's Jackass. He doesn't try to make you empathize with his daily troubles like The Real World.
Flavor Flav is simply himself. He cannot help it. You put him in front of a camera and magic happens. His "Yeah Boy!" catch phrase makes perfect television. It is humorous, absurd and unpredictable.
He is a one-man show. Flav's different wardrobes rival the collective fashions featured in any production. In one scene, and likely in the same day, you will see Flav wearing an oversized bright orange jersey and shorts, and in the next he will be wearing his Viking helmet, complete with horns and studs. He might even wear some oversized purple and pink sunglasses.
Usually reality TV requires some gimmick. It could be two families trading mothers, two neighbors trading rooms, a group of kids living together or a bunch of good-looking women competing for some bachelor.
Unlike characters in other reality shows, who rely on the show's producers to put them in some sort of interactive environment, Flavor Flav is his own gimmick. It started with his on-screen affair with his Brigitte Nielsen in VH1's Surreal Life. Flav is a short rap star who looks like he just kicked a crack habit, and Nielsen is a fairly attractive, tall white fifty-year-old. This nonsense continued in Strange Love where he visited Nielsen's Italian mother and attempted to speak the language with gold teeth and a true American `hood speech-slur. It continues today with Flavor of Love, where Flav uses his trademark clock necklace to tell girls vying for his love that "it's that time" to get off the show.
Flav means a lot for a genre which suffers from the Miss America syndrome - petty vanity and exaggerated antics. He never resorts to tricks intended for the camera or scripted behavior. He almost doesn't realize he is on TV. Watching Flav one gets the impression that whether you see him on TV or the street he will act exactly the same.
In a genre where images are ubiquitous and fame is fleeting it is easy to lose touch with the realness that likely launched your stardom. Flavor Flav seems to have avoided this pitfall, and maintains his street cred regardless of how much attention audiences pay him. It could also be that years of abusing crack desensitized his senses in a way that makes him unaware of his clout on television. But the likely scenario is that Flav remains genuine, and that his success lies in staying so.
Flavor Flav really is his own genre of reality TV.
--Mike Huerta is a senior applied math and political science major from Ft. Bragg, N.C.
