To Warner, training isn’t just therapy; it also provides structure and guidance on how to live. In that sense, it’s almost like a religion, but one that doesn’t control the behavior of the unconverted.
“I grew up as a Baptist, so I know,” she said. “Part of your job on earth as a converted Christian is to spread the word. And that’s my job [as a trainer] too; I’m doing it in my way, but the biggest difference is that I am not criticizing or making policies for people that aren’t athletic.” Laughing, she added, “That’s kind of what makes my way the better way.”
The show’s second season certainly rose above the status quo for reality TV. Viewers enjoyed moments such as openly gay trainer Jesse Brune’s training session and lunch with a client who is an anti-war, pro-gays-in-the-military Marine veteran. Viewers’ hearts went out to a client who talked about the connection between her weight gain and her father’s suicide. And they mourned the unexpected and tragic death of Doug Blasdell, one of the more beloved trainers at Sky Sport.
Bravo showed great sensitivity in the depiction of Blasdell’s sudden death from kidney failure. For a show with characters who appear to be at the pinnacle of health, the death of one of the trainers was shocking for everyone involved, from the producers to the audience.
“You know, this is a show about a gym, and Jackie and her trainers,” said Cohen. “This was a really sudden, shocking thing. And the only way to portray it was as a sudden, shocking thing. … We depicted it in a way that we knew would be truthful to the fans and what happened, but also respectful of Doug’s wishes. We respected Doug’s privacy.”
That meant excluding any reference to the cancer Blasdell had battled for the two years prior to his death, and refraining from filming any of his experience in the hospital, his funeral or the immediate aftermath of his death. The final episode of the second season, which showed the trainers taking a group bike ride to the beach to honor him, was shot after a monthlong break. The break gave all the Sky Sport trainers a chance to grieve privately, away from the intrusive eye of a national audience.
That privacy, however, is the exception, not the rule, on the show. Reality TV is about bringing out dirty secrets and suppressed emotions, and Work Out offers personal exposure in the extreme in Season 3. The season opens with Warner snuggling in bed with her new live-in girlfriend, Brianna. From that moment on, the cameras don’t shy away from the subjects’ emotional and relationship turmoil.
Brianna and Jackie
The fallout from Cardon and Warner’s relationship also gets plenty of screen time, particularly Cardon’s struggle with being relegated back to friend status. Cardon admitted that her jealousy of Warner’s relationship with Brianna this season was portrayed accurately.
“I do not want to be discarded as a friend and a confidante, all the things that I was with Jackie,” Cardon said. “The lack of attention she would give me is where I had my problem. And that becomes a big problem in the upcoming season, because I tend to act out when I’m not being acknowledged.”
She laughed and added, “And then I become very venomous and spiteful, and it’s all kinds of ugly.”
Warner’s tumultuous relationship with her mother has engaged gay and lesbian viewers since Season 1. While Season 2 ended on a positive note between them, Warner’s new relationship with Brianna in Season 3 proves very challenging for her mother to handle.
Work Out offers a rare depiction of something so many gay people face in their day-to-day lives: the arduous, lengthy effort to reconcile with a family member who doesn’t support their gay life and identity. Before the show, Warner and her mom, like many gay people and their disapproving parents, didn’t interact much at all.
As Warner put it: “I pretty much ignored my mom. I would go five months without calling her.”
But Warner recognized the power of the camera to provide a mirror, one that might enable them to find new understanding and intimacy, so she decided to include her mother on the show. “I obviously on a subconscious level really wanted to heal that,” she said. “And I thought, ‘Let’s get it out in the open, and let’s force ourselves to do something.'”
Being on the show together kick-started a new phase in Warner and her mother’s relationship. “I think watching herself, watching our dynamic, she bitterly, bitterly is saddened by the lack of relationship we have – or had,” said Warner. “And the show kind of quickened the pace that we could heal.”
A reality show’s impact on the very subjects it purports to merely depict is one of the most fascinating aspects of the genre: The action of filming and editing real people and putting them on screen alters the lives of those people, thus altering the very story the show aims to document.
Whether the presence of the camera amps up the drama is up for debate. “People say, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe that gym is that dramatic,'” said Cohen. “Well, I mean, a) It is so dramatic, and b) We show the dramatic parts, obviously.”
But Cardon hinted at a slightly different perspective. On an Olivia cruise to Mexico in the second episode of Season 3, Cardon and Warner explode into conflict. Cardon attributed at least part of the incident to the presence of the cameras.
“When Jackie delegates responsibility,” Cardon explained, “she usually lets it go and that’s it. But in this particular instance I just – I don’t know. … I think probably it had something to do with the filming. I also think she was irritated with me on a lot of different levels. She was just, perhaps, acting out in her own way.”
Warner is particularly aware of the camera’s inability to depict the objective truth when showing any of these conflicts. “There are always two sides to the coin; there’s always 50 different stories,” she said. “It’s never going to be accurate. All I can control on my show is what I say and do. And the editing process is the editing process. And it does not matter what I say and do fully, because if anyone else is talking about me, then their story becomes the truth.”
The process of taking the real life of Sky Sport to the screen is relatively straightforward. According to Cohen, for 12 weeks “you’re shooting for eight, nine hours at a time with various people. Probably five, six days a week. You may be on Jackie three to four days that week, and you may cover other stuff with the other trainers.” The producers sift through the hours of film and cut 99 percent of it to create nine 44-minute episodes that tell a compelling story.
Warner expressed a bit of discomfort with the footage that is chosen for the show: “Things that I was dying over was people were saying, ‘Oh, you have to kiss her to work here.’ And I’m like, that is absurd. That is crazy and going to land me in jail. It’s not the case at all. I’ve never hit on one of my trainers. They always hit on me.”
Despite Warner’s feelings to the contrary, the overarching perspective of Work Out remains loyal to her point of view. She might cringe at certain moments, but viewers are usually in on the joke, seeing it for the cartoonish exaggeration it is. Cohen said: “We’re more likely to cover Jackie’s point of view because it’s her gym and she’s the hero of our show. … That would be more likely how the show gets cut, how the story gets told.”
But Warner’s occasional unease with how she is depicted is understandable and something most gay people can relate to.
Her concern about moments in Season 3 where “I thought that I was a saint … but it looks like I was the biggest ho-bag” echoes the experiences of many non-televised gays and lesbians. It is frustrating to live one’s life openly, in ways that one hopes will make mainstream society more accepting of LGBT folks, only to have the reputation of the gay community defined by conservatives or the tabloids who can’t seem to see beyond the stereotype that gays are promiscuous.Luckily, Work Out rises above stereotypes, showing Warner’s professional successes alongside her struggles in her personal life. Season 3 offers more of the complex and changing relationships Warner has with her trainers, girlfriend and mother – as well as the effort of all the Sky Sport clients to get in shape. But for lesbians, perhaps it’s just enough to tune in each week and see a kick-ass, powerful woman in charge.
Season 3 of Work Out premieres Tuesday, April 15 at 11 p.m. on Bravo.
After a controversial and moving second season, Season 3 of Bravo’s Work Out premieres on April 15, and Jackie Warner and her Sky Sport training staff are back to their usual romantic escapades and gym drama.
Warner is a unique personality on the television landscape – a lesbian, an athlete and a businesswoman. In a medium where elite female athletes are not given much coverage and the emphasis is on those who are traditionally feminine, Warner stands out for her assertiveness and power.
In a recent interview with AfterEllen.com, Warner said that to counteract this sexism, it’s important for “men, in particular, to see women come from a place of strength, and that we can push ourselves physically and mentally.”
With Warner front and center, the show reverses the common stereotypes of male athletes as more competent and talented than female athletes. For example, while WNBA stars earn a fraction of the salary and respect of their male counterparts, Work Out highlights a woman who is better than the male trainers, higher paid and more effective.
Whatever her shortcomings as a boss, Warner’s charismatic and authoritative character is a far cry from the more passive women who pop up in both scripted and reality television shows.
As in the first two seasons, in Season 3 Warner never falls back on feminine stereotypes to make people feel less threatened. Her powerful business persona is inseparable from her physical strength. “That’s why I got into athletics,” she said, “because I wanted more respect. I wanted to carry myself differently.”
While not every viewer may identify with Warner’s strength and athleticism, it’s easier to relate to her as a professionally successful woman who still struggles to master her emotions and relationships.
Warner’s presence as a strong woman and lesbian on television was mostly serendipitous. Bravo, often described as “the other gay cable network,” might better be characterized as bisexual (as in falling for the person, not the gender): Bravo picks subjects regardless of sexual orientation.
Andy Cohen, Bravo’s senior vice president of programming and production, was part of the team that created and developed Work Out. He said: “At Bravo we follow the person. Jackie happens to be gay. … We didn’t have a mandate saying we need a lesbian show. We just found Jackie.”
Cohen went on to credit the gym setting with bringing out the drama in the personal lives of central and supporting characters alike: “You go into a gym and you start talking to your trainer, and suddenly you’re kind of spilling your soul. [The drama on Work Out] is kind of the natural course of what happens.”
Rebecca Cardon, Sky Sport’s best-known trainer in the lesbian community since her relationship with Warner in Season 2, agreed: “Initially, [the relationship with a client] is sort of superficial. And then after you’re with somebody and they trust you, they open up about the craziest things, like affairs, and different things that if it ever got out it would just ruin their lives.”
To Warner, training isn’t just therapy; it also provides structure and guidance on how to live. In that sense, it’s almost like a religion, but one that doesn’t control the behavior of the unconverted.
“I grew up as a Baptist, so I know,” she said. “Part of your job on earth as a converted Christian is to spread the word. And that’s my job [as a trainer] too; I’m doing it in my way, but the biggest difference is that I am not criticizing or making policies for people that aren’t athletic.” Laughing, she added, “That’s kind of what makes my way the better way.”
The show’s second season certainly rose above the status quo for reality TV. Viewers enjoyed moments such as openly gay trainer Jesse Brune’s training session and lunch with a client who is an anti-war, pro-gays-in-the-military Marine veteran. Viewers’ hearts went out to a client who talked about the connection between her weight gain and her father’s suicide. And they mourned the unexpected and tragic death of Doug Blasdell, one of the more beloved trainers at Sky Sport.
Bravo showed great sensitivity in the depiction of Blasdell’s sudden death from kidney failure. For a show with characters who appear to be at the pinnacle of health, the death of one of the trainers was shocking for everyone involved, from the producers to the audience.
“You know, this is a show about a gym, and Jackie and her trainers,” said Cohen. “This was a really sudden, shocking thing. And the only way to portray it was as a sudden, shocking thing. … We depicted it in a way that we knew would be truthful to the fans and what happened, but also respectful of Doug’s wishes. We respected Doug’s privacy.”
That meant excluding any reference to the cancer Blasdell had battled for the two years prior to his death, and refraining from filming any of his experience in the hospital, his funeral or the immediate aftermath of his death. The final episode of the second season, which showed the trainers taking a group bike ride to the beach to honor him, was shot after a monthlong break. The break gave all the Sky Sport trainers a chance to grieve privately, away from the intrusive eye of a national audience.
That privacy, however, is the exception, not the rule, on the show. Reality TV is about bringing out dirty secrets and suppressed emotions, and Work Out offers personal exposure in the extreme in Season 3. The season opens with Warner snuggling in bed with her new live-in girlfriend, Brianna. From that moment on, the cameras don’t shy away from the subjects’ emotional and relationship turmoil.
Brianna and Jackie
The fallout from Cardon and Warner’s relationship also gets plenty of screen time, particularly Cardon’s struggle with being relegated back to friend status. Cardon admitted that her jealousy of Warner’s relationship with Brianna this season was portrayed accurately.
“I do not want to be discarded as a friend and a confidante, all the things that I was with Jackie,” Cardon said. “The lack of attention she would give me is where I had my problem. And that becomes a big problem in the upcoming season, because I tend to act out when I’m not being acknowledged.”
She laughed and added, “And then I become very venomous and spiteful, and it’s all kinds of ugly.”
Warner’s tumultuous relationship with her mother has engaged gay and lesbian viewers since Season 1. While Season 2 ended on a positive note between them, Warner’s new relationship with Brianna in Season 3 proves very challenging for her mother to handle.
Work Out offers a rare depiction of something so many gay people face in their day-to-day lives: the arduous, lengthy effort to reconcile with a family member who doesn’t support their gay life and identity. Before the show, Warner and her mom, like many gay people and their disapproving parents, didn’t interact much at all.
As Warner put it: “I pretty much ignored my mom. I would go five months without calling her.”
But Warner recognized the power of the camera to provide a mirror, one that might enable them to find new understanding and intimacy, so she decided to include her mother on the show. “I obviously on a subconscious level really wanted to heal that,” she said. “And I thought, ‘Let’s get it out in the open, and let’s force ourselves to do something.'”
Being on the show together kick-started a new phase in Warner and her mother’s relationship. “I think watching herself, watching our dynamic, she bitterly, bitterly is saddened by the lack of relationship we have – or had,” said Warner. “And the show kind of quickened the pace that we could heal.”
A reality show’s impact on the very subjects it purports to merely depict is one of the most fascinating aspects of the genre: The action of filming and editing real people and putting them on screen alters the lives of those people, thus altering the very story the show aims to document.
Whether the presence of the camera amps up the drama is up for debate. “People say, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe that gym is that dramatic,'” said Cohen. “Well, I mean, a) It is so dramatic, and b) We show the dramatic parts, obviously.”
But Cardon hinted at a slightly different perspective. On an Olivia cruise to Mexico in the second episode of Season 3, Cardon and Warner explode into conflict. Cardon attributed at least part of the incident to the presence of the cameras.
“When Jackie delegates responsibility,” Cardon explained, “she usually lets it go and that’s it. But in this particular instance I just – I don’t know. … I think probably it had something to do with the filming. I also think she was irritated with me on a lot of different levels. She was just, perhaps, acting out in her own way.”
Warner is particularly aware of the camera’s inability to depict the objective truth when showing any of these conflicts. “There are always two sides to the coin; there’s always 50 different stories,” she said. “It’s never going to be accurate. All I can control on my show is what I say and do. And the editing process is the editing process. And it does not matter what I say and do fully, because if anyone else is talking about me, then their story becomes the truth.”
The process of taking the real life of Sky Sport to the screen is relatively straightforward. According to Cohen, for 12 weeks “you’re shooting for eight, nine hours at a time with various people. Probably five, six days a week. You may be on Jackie three to four days that week, and you may cover other stuff with the other trainers.” The producers sift through the hours of film and cut 99 percent of it to create nine 44-minute episodes that tell a compelling story.
Warner expressed a bit of discomfort with the footage that is chosen for the show: “Things that I was dying over was people were saying, ‘Oh, you have to kiss her to work here.’ And I’m like, that is absurd. That is crazy and going to land me in jail. It’s not the case at all. I’ve never hit on one of my trainers. They always hit on me.”
Despite Warner’s feelings to the contrary, the overarching perspective of Work Out remains loyal to her point of view. She might cringe at certain moments, but viewers are usually in on the joke, seeing it for the cartoonish exaggeration it is. Cohen said: “We’re more likely to cover Jackie’s point of view because it’s her gym and she’s the hero of our show. … That would be more likely how the show gets cut, how the story gets told.”
But Warner’s occasional unease with how she is depicted is understandable and something most gay people can relate to.
Her concern about moments in Season 3 where “I thought that I was a saint … but it looks like I was the biggest ho-bag” echoes the experiences of many non-televised gays and lesbians. It is frustrating to live one’s life openly, in ways that one hopes will make mainstream society more accepting of LGBT folks, only to have the reputation of the gay community defined by conservatives or the tabloids who can’t seem to see beyond the stereotype that gays are promiscuous.Luckily, Work Out rises above stereotypes, showing Warner’s professional successes alongside her struggles in her personal life. Season 3 offers more of the complex and changing relationships Warner has with her trainers, girlfriend and mother – as well as the effort of all the Sky Sport clients to get in shape. But for lesbians, perhaps it’s just enough to tune in each week and see a kick-ass, powerful woman in charge.
Season 3 of Work Out premieres Tuesday, April 15 at 11 p.m. on Bravo.
