Friday, March 16, 2007

Debbie Travis, Canada's Queen Hypocrite?

Is it just me, or does anyone else in Canada get ticked off every time they see Debbie Travis being touted as an expert on interior design and as a proponent of pushing people to work hard and take pride in the work they do AND as a leader in the drive to encourage more young people to go into training to become professional tradespeople? She's going to nominate herself for Prime Minister next.

She's often called "Canada's Martha Stewart", but Martha is a personable and sympathetic individual who achieved fame by offering her own self-generated and well-researched recommendations on a broad field of topics appealling to party hosts and home owners. Debbie's specialty is faux painting techniques, period -- but you'd never know that from the way she attempts to explain home renovation techniques and the finer points of interior decorating.

From her current show's website (http://www.debbietravisfacelift.com/gang), I understand that this woman is a former model and art school grad who kind of "fell" into TV production, married an established Canadian TV producer, raised their kids and then became a specialist in faux paint finishes while renovating her own home.

That she is an ambitious and aggressive self-made businesswoman, I have no doubt. What ticks me off is that she is not an interior designer, but is represented as such on the show. She also spends an inordinate amount of time each show criticising both her staff and the homeowners and their families/friends about their poor work ethic as she flits in and out of the set ensuring she puts in as few hours as possible.

Her bullying of staff and homeowners as though they should be exstatic about worshiping at the Debbie Travis altar is characteristic of megalomaniacs who have few professional qualifications. They start doctoring their own resumes to cover up their inadequacies and begin insisting that their subjects praise them for their brilliance in things they actually know nothing about. I find it tiring that people like this usually do end up in positions of power and influence (see George W. Bush), but their drive and determination seem to pay off -- or perhaps it's just that the more qualified folks get too much job satisfaction from their profession to have any interest in becoming TV stars (Holmes on Homes being a welcome exception). If Debbie needs, show after bloody show (my wife insists on watching her), to berate people for not being enthusiastic about working through the night as pay-back for her producers funding their home renovations, then maybe we should see her royal higness working through the night as payback for her substantial paycheck.

She waddles onto the sets every morning at around 10 am after the sleep-deprived team has worked through the night and then proceeds to screech at them all over how they screwed up her "vision" (drawn up by a team of qualified interior designers, I'm convinced). I've worked on a lot of home renovation and construction projects and I can tell you what every contractor knows, you cannot leave design-sensitive execution in the hands of tradespeople or regular folks -- you have to be there to supervise every step, hour after hour. Debbie, if you aren't willing to put in the hours yourself, then I'd suggest you cut back on the "lazy sods" commentary.

Now she's on a new soapbox pushing young people to work hard (no evidence of her being willing to set an example for them, of course) and get training in the trades. Maybe you could take a course or two in interior design yourself, Deb, or at least admit that it's not your forte and invite the people who actually know what they are doing explain the work.

Listen to your audience, Queen Travis, you come across as an irritating housewife, not a professional, and people are starting to see through your producers' and sponsors' attempts to keep you on your pedestal. You're not a Gordon Ramsay, Nanny 911, Simon Cowell or Donald Trump -- they can get away with being aggressive with the people on their shows because they are being INVITED to berate the willing participants and every one of them is a qualified expert on the entire scope of their profession. Your team are there to make YOU look good at the things you have no expertise in, while the homeowners and their friends only agreed to take you up on a free offer to help you promote yourself. A little humility and polishing of those rough edges will take you a long way. You're just the HOST of a show about interior design, you don't have to try to come across as an expert in the field in order to do your job well.

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