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October 12th, 2008
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Full exposure

MTV follows a Czech student's trek to New York

By Dave Faries
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
March 12th, 2008 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
A talented high-school athlete in Prague, Bára Galandáková faced a tough transition both on and off the court when she allowed MTV to chronicle her move to a new life in the United States.
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Bára Galandáková spent one final Sunday with her boyfriend’s family before heading off to school in New York last year.
It was a traditional affair. As they settled in for lunch, Petr’s father teased her about the flight. Meanwhile, his mother dealt out plates while ducking under a massive boom microphone, and grandma worried aloud if the crew needed something more to eat.
Such is life in the temporary spotlight of American pop culture.
The towering 19-year-old Czech student and basketball player was featured in MTVs most recent True Life documentary, a long-running series that chronicles personal stories ranging from the difficulties leading up to a gay marriage to the emotional struggles faced by spouses of soldiers stationed in Iraq.
This time around, the producers opted to follow the trials of two very different people adjusting to life in the United States.
“It felt a little bit strange in the beginning,” says the promising, 6’ 7” St. Francis College recruit, who was a basketball star at Gymnázium Nad Štolou in Prague.
With the hovering presence of cameras and microphones, television is more demanding than glamorous. Directors organized each day of shooting carefully, which meant calling restaurants and clubs days in advance or asking her friends to sign waivers before they could join the party.
“I had to divide my last days [at home] between my family and friends — and fit MTV into my schedule,” Galandáková says. The crew chased her through Old Town Square and eavesdropped as she said a tearful farewell to Petr, her boyfriend of five years. They even trailed when she boarded the plane and then filmed her as she emerged, seven hours later, in the Big Apple.
“Sometimes it was funny to have cameras with me in public,” she adds. “Many people thought I was famous.”
Private moments
In the age of reality television, everybody’s a star.
Yet Galandáková did not seek or audition for a spot in prime time. Last summer, at roughly the same time MTV began searching for suitable subjects, David Gansell, the sports information director at St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights, mentioned Galandáková to an acquaintance from the network. About two weeks before she was scheduled to leave for college, the phone rang.
“I had to discuss it with my boyfriend, family and friends, but most of them encouraged me to do it,” Galandáková says. “I called the coach back later that day.”
Similar emotions plagued her new teammates at first. “I thought that maybe we would all be ‘different’ and try to put on a show for the cameras,” says Cecelia Herald, a freshman from Maryland. “But as time went on and we became accustomed to the cameras, the publicity was great.”
For Galandáková, however, the cameras were just there, a constant presence. “It was fun most of the time,” she says. “But it was quite hard when they were asking, again and again, about my feelings — for example, right after I said goodbye to my mom.”
There’s a genuine sense of melancholy in episode one as she sprawls on the floor of her apartment in Prague, already longing for her friends. “I wish I could pack them,” she moans, her back to the camera. At another point, MTV catches her trying to calm Petr’s fears via Skype.
Exposing private moments to scrutiny is the soul of “reality” programming — if reality TV can be said to have a soul. To achieve this, networks happily stage confrontations in order to generate emotional friction. From the conniving nature exposed by Survivor to “I want to quit!” moments in Frontier House, much of the genre rests on contrived scenarios.
True Life, however, relies more on day-to-day events, tightly edited.
“I understand that this is what the show is about,” Galandáková says, shaking off vulnerabilities shown to the world. “People want to see ‘true life.’ ”
A hard transition
Teammates who gathered to watch the episodes, which aired earlier this year, agreed: The directors truly captured all of Galandáková’s tribulations, not only in dealing with a new environment, but learning the American style of basketball as well.
“It is always a hard transition from high-school or club basketball to college,” St. Francis coach Brenda Milano points out. “She has a lot of work to do still, and she knows this.” Galandáková played sparingly during the 2007–08 season, averaging 4.8 minutes per game, yet grabbing a total of 10 rebounds.
“She will be a great player for us in the years to come, because she works hard and is coachable,” Milano insists.
Curiously, MTV saw fit to pair her story with that of a young Thai refugee and his rather jolting transition from squalor to the neatly edged lawns and spacious McMansions of suburban Dallas. At one point, the show cut directly from a clubbing excursion in Prague (where America’s drinking age comes under fire) to a remote, dusty lane lined with huts.
The program’s “Coming to America” subtitle suggests a little hubris on the part of MTV — the Land of the Free remains an ideal for people, east and west. But there’s also an undercurrent of common fears and the universality of “home.” 
What grandma wouldn’t, after all, insist the crew line up for a second helping?

Dave Faries can be reached at dfaries@praguepost.com


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