The Amazing Race > The Racers

♥♥♥ TAR14: Mel & Michael White - Father & Son

<< < (6/15) > >>

Hooky:
I'm such an idiot! :groan: :funny:

georgiapeach:
Delicious White Whine
Mike did 'School of Rock.' Mel worked for Pat Robertson. Now they're an amazing 'Race' team.

Joshua Alston
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Feb 16, 2009


The hardest part about watching a reality competition show is learning all the contestants' faces. But for the 14th season of "The Amazing Race," which starts Feb. 15, savvy viewers will have a leg up. One of the competitors is Mike White, the actor-screenwriter best known for "School of Rock." His partner is his father, Mel, the gay-rights activist who, before coming out, was an evangelical minister who ghostwrote books for Billy Graham and Pat Robertson. (Mike is bisexual.) They spoke to NEWSWEEK's Joshua Alston.

Alston: Did any of your rivals recognize you?
Mike White: A couple did, but it didn't necessarily endear me to anyone.

That's what I figured—there would be people thinking, what's he doing here? Shouldn't he be writing a movie or something?
Mike: Yeah, it does slightly put a target on your back because there are moments where people are like "You don't need the money—go home!" But the coolest part about being on the race is that when you see the show, you think everyone is this or that "type," but they are all real people with different dimensions, and I think they realized that about me and my dad just as much as I did about them.

Whose idea was it to do the show?
Mel White:Definitely Michael's.

Mike: I had been a fan for a while, and it just seems like the funnest thing you can do. It was last year during the writers' strike when I decided to apply. I first applied with another screenwriter, and we were going to be the neurotic screenwriters who never left their houses. But then he turned out to be so neurotic he couldn't handle it.
Did you guys fight a lot?
Mel: My son said from the beginning, "Dad, don't go aggro on me," knowing that I can get excited about things. But I think we succeeded; we had fun. I don't think there was much fighting between us.

Mike: The situations were stressful, and there are bound to be moments when one of us wants to go left and the other wants to go right, and we'll have our little issues. But when you look around at some of the other teams, we weren't at each other's throats nearly as much. There's drama, but not really between us.

Mel: You know, I'm 68 going on 90. So we would be running through an airport and I'd be the last one. But Michael was always patient, and would tell me to just limp along.

Mike, if you had to do the race with another celebrity, who would it be?
Mike: Reese Witherspoon. She's a friend of mine, and she was on Leno talking about how she wanted to go on the show because she found out that I was going on. Reese is an incredibly competitive, type-A, get-it-done kind of person. We would have kicked ass.

What about you and Jack Black?
Mike: Jack is pretty athletic, but there are some things he wouldn't want to do. He's, like, a closet neurotic. Although we did bungee-jump in New Zealand together, so some of the things he'd be up for. I think the biggest problem with Jack would be waking him up. We'd have to be up every day at 6, and I don't think he could do that.

Mike, you're a vegan. I'm sure that presented some challenges.
Mike: Yeah, it was pretty brutal because during the race usually the only place you can eat is on planes, and so you don't get a wide selection. After a while on the race my body was eating itself.

Reality shows tend to boil people down to their most unflattering moments. Does that concern you at all?
Mike: As someone who has created TV and knows the pitfalls of participating, I felt like the important thing was having the experience. We didn't really think about the consequences of participating, or whether or not it would be flattering.

Mel: If our appearance on the show is boiled down to us being gay, I'm hoping that this myth that gay people can't parent will be burned up in some way. I think it's really sad that so many people are still worried about gay people adopting or having kids. So if we have to be a model of something, I hope we can model that gay parents can be great parents.

Were both or either of you involved in the No on Proposition 8 campaign?
Mel: Oh, yes, my partner and I got married on June 18, the day after it became legal, and when Proposition 8 came around it was heartbreaking, and we had to fight it from here in Lynchburg, Va. We didn't donate money, but we were part of the crowd-gathering that was used to show the state this was a bad mistake.

Mike, how did your experience growing up with your dad shape your faith?
Mike: I definitely got a lot out of the ministry growing up, and we had a lot of theological discussions around the dinner table and stuff, and all that stuff certainly had a huge impact on the way I see things, and in a positive way. I don't really consider myself a Christian. It's complicated, like everything, but I think what my dad is doing as far as reaching out to the conservative Christian community for inclusion is a really courageous thing.

Mel: It's ironic because given the state of what it means to be a Christian these days, I'm not a Christian either. I'm a mediocre follower of a first-century Jewish teacher. And being a Christian brings up all those stereotypes that are so destructive to the gay spirit. So when Michael says he's not a Christian, I completely understand and feel the same way. I hope that one day we can reclaim that word, but as it stands now, it's embarrassing to be a Christian.

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/183721

georgiapeach:
Yay! Finally, confirmation of what we knew re Reese's comment,  puddin called it!! :jam:

puddin:
Mike & Mel get another blurb, this one from Entertainment Weekly

georgiapeach:
The 'Amazing Race' is on for local residents
Three area residents compete in the CBS reality show airing Sunday.
By Sharla Bardin

On your mark, get set, go globe-trotting.

That's exactly what three area residents got the chance to do when they competed in CBS' "The Amazing Race" to win $1 million.

Martinsville couple Steve and Linda Cole and Lynchburg resident Mel White and his son, Mike, are contestants in the new season of the reality TV hit that premieres Sunday.

They were among 11 teams competing in the race, which included stops in nine countries in 22 days.

Production has wrapped on the season, but White and the Coles can't reveal much about the race now because of waivers they signed to avoid spoilers.

Still, they did open up about their love of travel and how "The Amazing Race" was the trek of a lifetime.

....


White, 68, is a gay activist, clergy member and founder of Soulforce, a gay-rights group. He raced with his son, Mike White, 38, a filmmaker and actor whose work includes writing and starring in the 2003 comedy "The School of Rock." Mike White lives in California.

Mel White had watched the show occasionally, but it was his son who applied to compete.

Mel White, who jokes that he felt like "Father Time" during the race, said he was grateful to share the experience with his son.

"Mike said to me, 'Dad, we want to win. We want to compete and do the best we can.' "

But there was a catch.

His son told him if they weren't enjoying the race, they should stop.

"That was his rule from the beginning, and it was a perfect rule," Mel White said.

The father and son have traveled together before, including on family trips to Hawaii and China.

"Travel, to me, it's like learning a language. It opens up another world," Mel White said. "Going across the world has changed me for the better."

....

The Coles and Mel White also believe viewers will be fascinated by the racers.

Teams included brothers who are stunt men, flight attendants, Harvard lawyers, former NFL cheerleaders and the show's first-ever deaf contestant and his mother.

"They're all fantastic," Mel White said. "I think the audiences will just love these teams."

They also promise a lot of excitement.

"I think this season is the most dramatic," he said. "The things we did no human on Earth would be asked to do them, and we did them. And they were fun."

More here:
http://www.roanoke.com/extra/wb/194129

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page