Ready for the latest CBC-TV reality show concept? It’s “female-free reality TV”.
Vancouver’s Paperny Films is preparing for a series called A Week Without Women. It’s a “social experiment” where all the women in a small town leave for a week, and the men must fend for themselves.
A Week Without Women is an ambitious new series which explores what happens when all the women in a ordinary Canadian town leave for seven days… What happens to a workplace without women? What happens in a community? What happens at home when the men and children are forced to cope without girlfriends, wives or mothers?!
The towns in the running are Lillooet, B.C., Hardisty, Alberta and Bashaw, Alberta.
The “winning” town must be completely behind the project.
“I keep telling everybody I want 100 per cent buy-in,” director Sally Aitken told CP. “I am serious, but I recognize there are external circumstances - we can’t kidnap people.”
Aitken says the company is trying to find a sponsor to take the women away on a week’s vacation. They are also trying to figure out what to do about women who need to stay for reasons like looking after elderly relatives.
The remaining menfolk will have to not only look after their families and businesses, but will be assigned a “special project.”
The town will be selected in February, and filming is to take place in May. If, for some reason, you should want to volunteer your town of under 1,000 people, just visit thewomenwent.com (but don’t expect your neighbours to thank you.)
Editor’s note: Some of these towns look hard enough to live in even with women. The Wikipedia entry on Bashaw rivals the description of Earth in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Here’s the whole thing:
Bashaw is a town in central Alberta located at the junction of Highway 21 and Highway 53. Formerly one of the most recognizable sources of cheese production in Alberta, the Bashaw cheese plant has been closed since the spring of 2002.
No women, no cheese! No fun.
On that note, I’m off - Tod should be back next week.
~Paul
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Why is a respectable organisation like the CBC following such a down market piece of reality TV such as this? Must be for the same reasons as the BBC in ‘The Week the Women Went’, the prototype for this junk.
I live in the village that suffered under this ’show’ and I would advise anybody or any community thinking about this to think again.
You can see the full story on my comments posted at:
http://www.rabble.ca/babble/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=24&t=001137
Cheers!
Paul M
Paul…..what are you doing dude. You write letters to the editor for all the towns involved…sorry that you didn’t have a good experience, but please, let it go.
and GO LILLOOET!!
Rayne,
I can only guess that you’re one of the production staff - everybody else that I’ve communicated with so far has been fascinated to hear what went on with the ‘prototype’ and have been very interested. That’s why I’ve continued, because of the positive feedback.
If you knew the damage that this programme caused I think you might understand. This reality trash is divisive, crude, harmful and lousy boring TV to boot. Do you really want to put your name to something like this?
The internet is a wonderful thing, it enables people from across the planet to communicate and exchange ideas and experiences, good and bad. This was a bad experience here and it is highly likely that it will be there. Why not warn people of the consequences of being hooked by a naive reality TV ‘format’?
Any publicity is not good publicity and communities will probably not feel enhanced by this sort of thing - you won’t be thanked.
Best regards,
Paul M