I was having lunch yesterday with four women. Each was young and attractive and ambitious and energetic and impeccably dressed. And each was seated in a wheelchair.
Maybe you've seen them or know who they are. (From left) Mia, Angela, Tiphany and Auti are the central figures in Push Girls, a TV series entering its second season at 10 p.m. Monday, June 3, on the Sundance Channel.
Like all reality shows, it's heavy on personality, drama and emotional crises. Unlike most, though, this reality show is mostly real. The drama flows from the lives of these four women, not from suggestions of producers seated around a conference table.
As far as I can tell, these women are not coached to exaggerate their emotions. They do not, from what I understand, shoot multiple takes to give the editor the best angles.
It's not necessary. Life is dramatic enough if, like Angela, you're a gorgeous fashion model engaged to a handsome actor one moment and a quadriplegic unable to turn in bed the next. Or if, like Auti, you're a dancer on the cusp of music video stardom and then your car flips and those lovely, agile legs are no longer your ticket to fame and fortune.
Last summer, if you watched Push Girls, you also met Mia, a promising athlete and talented swimmer, and Tiphany, a flirtatious blonde with an uncanny ability to turn heads merely by stepping into a room. Viewers liked the show enough to convince Sundance to renew it for another season.
That's why, amidst sparkling water, tender asparagus and tasty halibut in a posh Century City restaurant, the women were gathered to answer my questions. Sort of.
They were warned not to spill the beans, not even a tiny bean. In fact, you can find out more about Season 2 from the Sundance web site, sundancechannel.com, than from the women.
To save you time, here's what the web site says: "Auti finds herself embroiled in conflict as her marriage and friendships unravel. Tiphany falls in love and begins a search for her missing sister. Mia confronts emotional demons while jumping back into dating. Angela shifts her modeling career into high gear and takes new steps toward independence. Chelsie experiences extreme highs and lows with home life and rehabilitation.
(Chelsie, who lives in northern California, appears on the series less frequently. She is the youngest, a state dancing champion who lost the use of her legs in an auto accident. She was a high school senior who was a passenger with a drunk driver at the wheel.)
Rather than probe for details and get the same old "We-can't-tell-you" replies, I tried a different tack. I asked how the first season changed their lives.
Tiphany said she travels more, speaks to more people, has a wider audience for her message of hope and courage. Other than that, not much. "I don't feel that my life has changed. I always had a mission, which is to inspire and encourage," she said.
"I'm still myself. I definitely put wheel in mouth sometimes and don't filter myself as much as I should."
In every reality show, editors cook the drama. Boring parts are boiled until they evaporate; exciting parts are condensed for greater impact.
"The show is 22 minutes long and we shoot for six months and they can only fit so much in," Tiphany explained. "But I feel they are portraying the person that I am in a truthful light."
Auti says she's nervous about watching the second season because some of it is about marital conflicts. "I shared some deep emotions."
She hints at a happy resolution. She said she wants to be married to her husband for the rest of her life. Did the series help, I asked. "Absolutely, it helped a lot," she answered. "It forced us to reveal things to one another that we didn't actually know about one another. It helped us become stronger together."
Auti says that, over time, she and the others pay less attention to the cameras that tail them 12 hours a day. "The first season, you're kind of aware the cameras are there. You're more aware of what you're saying. You're thinking, 'How are we going to let this scene play out? How much am I going to allow them to capture a real moment instead of shutting up and closing down?' Season 2 was like open doors. A little too open, sometimes."
But there are compensations.
"We went to New York and our pictures were on the buses," Tiphany blurted."That was a huge surprise."
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