The Amazing Race > The Racers

TAR 16: Carol Rosenfeld and Brandy Snow--Dating

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Cocoa:

--- Quote from: georgiapeach on April 13, 2010, 10:11:20 PM ---No, this was an audio interview, clearly the transcriptionist heard Daniel and typed Danielle. :groan:


--- Quote from: uycocoa on April 13, 2010, 09:02:40 PM ---Carol and Brandy are calling Dan, as Danielle? :lol3:

--- End quote ---

--- End quote ---

aw. I thought they are teasing Dan.  :groan: :lol:

redskevin88:

--- Quote from: Joab on April 13, 2010, 10:10:24 PM ---Anyway, i thought that the U-TURN should always be in close proximity.. and this season it was unfair because C/B had to travel from Speakers Corner to Istana Park and then back to Bugis Street, where they will complete the Detour... then move on to Istana Park again!??!

That's around about 30 to 45 minutes wasted as compared to the past when the U-TURN was first introduced and the U-TURN locations were always within close proximity and one task will be relatively easier to complete than the other.


--- End quote ---

AR12 the second detours were also apart, and they had to go to some circle for the u-turn...

slayton:

--- Quote ---The Amazing Race 16: Carol and Brandy, "We Weren't Mean"
by Reg Seeton

Although the Amazing Race team of Carol Rosenfeld and Brandy Snow were dating only a few weeks prior to The Amazing Race 16, Carol and Brandy were soon put to the test as a couple when The Amazing Race got underway in Chile. Early in The Amazing Race, Carol and Brandy were dubbed this season's Amazing Race villains when Brandy joked about the tiara of former Miss Teen U.S.A. contestant, Caite Upton who was their Amazing Race competitor with her boyfriend Brent Horne. From the tiara moment on, Carol and Brandy were labeled the mean lesbians by some of The Amazing Race teams, including Louie and Michael who used the Carol and Brandy villain strategy to their Amazing Race advantage.

The morning after the most recent Amazing Race elimination, we went one-on-one with Carol and Brandy to get the straight story on how they felt about being dubbed "the mean lesbians", their Amazing Race strategy, and how the tiara joke got out of hand.

THE DEADBOLT: After running the race, can you guys locate the U.S. on a world map?

CAROL ROSENFELD: Don't take the bait, Brandy.

BRANDY SNOW: [laughs] I'm not opening my mouth. Nice one, though.

CAROL: There was a coup over the weekend in Kyrgyzstan and I had to look it up in an atlas, and I couldn't pronounce it. Then I looked to see how close we were to there.

THE DEADBOLT: [laughs] Looking back, do you think you should've dumbed down your strategy?

CAROL: We would've had to dumb down ourselves. You know, we've been talking about that. Should we have been disingenuous? Should we have been overly friendly to everybody? I think people would've seen right through that. I'm not that good an actress. But the fact of the matter is that we weren't mean.

I made a joke on day one that I thought was funny, and I still do, but other than that, I have yet to see a piece of tape where we were mean to them. She just keeps saying we're the mean lesbians. We're the lesbians. We're the mean lesbians. I'm like, I made a joke and the joke's not mean. We were amazed that the cowboys were racing in their hats. I think it would've been hysterical if she showed up in the fashion tiara. I would've given her more props for doing it.

THE DEADBOLT: As the race went on, aside from the tiara thing, what was it about Brent and Caite that got under your skin?

CAROL: You tell me.

BRANDY: There's no tape. We were totally shocked and amazed. I mean, people are calling it the feud and judging us, and there's no tape. There's no tape because there was no interaction.

CAROL: For the first third of the race, we weren't anywhere near them because they were on a different bus in South America. They were on different buses both times in South America when we were on long bus rides. They were on a different plane all the way from South America to Germany. They were on a different train once we got to Germany and then we were in cars in Germany and France. The first time we ever had any extended amount of time with them would've been at the Charles De Gaulle airport, and we weren't around them. We had gone off to do some research on the internet at a hotel and we weren't near them. So I'm not sure when we were mean. I'd love to see it. I haven't seen it yet and anyone who supports us has said the same thing, "When were you mean? I'm waiting to see it."

THE DEADBOLT: Were they enough of a threat for you guys to U-Turn if you got the chance, or would you have U-Turned Louie and Michael?

CAROL: They were third on the list to us.

BRANDY: They were third on the list. I have to say, had Jet and Cord and Mike and Louie not been available to U-Turn, and they had chosen to U-Turn us, I would've totally accepted it and not had any problem with it. But because it was so out of the blue and so blindsiding with the two strongest teams available to U-Turn, it was stunning to me.

CAROL: Yeah. I think we were in shock more than anything. You have this great strategic opportunity to get rid of the cowboys who are a phenomenally strong team. Really, even when they were at their lowest low, they came back to finish in first place. So here you have this wonderful opportunity and I think we viewed it as not the smartest move in terms of strategy for the game. You know, we didn't know until we saw the tapes the last few weeks about the lesbians, the mean lesbians, over and over and over, and she hated us. I'm like, "Wow!"

BRANDY: I think there was some personal issues for her going on with us. I don't think she liked us for who we were. Obviously she labeled us and hated us for that label. Then I think there was some jealousy. Carol keeps saying that she thinks that my existence sort of stole the limelight away from her, but I think it was really our existence. I think she's smart enough and a savvy enough girl to know that the further along a female/female team got in the race, the more attention it would take away from her because no female/female team had ever won the race.

So we would start getting closer and closer to the final three and we would start getting more and more attention. She's an attention whore. I mean, you can even see it. I watched these episodes and felt actually kind of bad for Brent, - my comments aside - because she throws him under the bus at every turn. I mean, she's commenting on how she's made more goals than he did, or she beat him at this or she did that, and she's constantly speaking for him.

It's been an interesting thing to watch her kind of try to steal the attention at every single turn, and she's managed, I guess, so far to do it fairly successfully. She certainly targeted us as a threat to her. I don't think it had anything to do with a threat to the million dollars, it had to do with a threat to the attention that she felt she deserved and or craved.

THE DEADBOLT: As for Louie and Michael, did they really have a problem with you guys, or was that more of a strategy on their part?

CAROL: You know, I think that also came as a huge surprise to us. To watch Louie refer to me as a snake and a serpent a couple of weeks ago was incredibly disappointing, because that was not how they interacted with us to our face by any stretch of the imagination. So whether it's gamesmanship on their part or how they really feel, I think they were actually a little threatened because they felt like they weren't going to get to the U-Turn first.

In last night's episode, they knew there might be a target on their back, because obviously they had won a couple of legs, but they had to be thinking that the cowboys were the strongest team and that they were the second. The best thing they could do was befriend them and keep them from getting U-Turned. Whether or not they manipulated them and whether or not it was a good choice, I don't really know. I think it was really surprising and very disappointing because it was not at all how they presented themselves to us.

BRANDY: And it's certainly not indicative of the interactions we had with them personally, the respect we extended to them. Like on the steps in Malaysia, I turned to him and go, "Mike, you're a rock star."

CAROL: And it was always, "Good job, you guys," and congratulations when they won. When people would start off each leg, we'd say to everyone, "Good luck today." You never wanted anybody to slip up and be gone, you wished everyone their best. It was like, "We're going to do our best and wherever we ended up doing our best is where we end up." Maybe we were a little naive. We had watched many seasons and didn't see the amount of gamesmanship we saw in our season going on behind the scenes.

BRANDY: We were focused on the race and not the racers, and that was perhaps a naiveté on our part. It is, after all, a race for a million dollars. It is, after all, reality television. Oftentimes there's underhanded or backstabbing dealings and I think that showed through more this season than seasons with Meghan and Cheyne and Tammy and Victor. I mean, there seemed to be a lot less of that kind of gamesmanship and nastiness exchanging between players.

THE DEADBOLT: Since you were only dating a few weeks before the race began, how did that play a part in your chemistry as a team?

CAROL: We bickered quite a bit, but I think we were also both so goal oriented that the bickering never seemed to slow us down. We would put our heads down and finish the task and it was like, "All right, the bickering is just going to be part of the reality." I think part of the reason for the bickering is because most of these tasks, for two women, are f**king grueling.

I mean, carrying a wooden horse? That frigging horse weighed a ton and she's a couple of inches taller than me. I'm bruised up and down my shoulder from that thing. Those tasks, the crawling on your belly in Massiges, that's all upper body strength. That's not something women necessarily have. And carrying those incense sticks, which I thought were going to be twelve inches long not twelve feet long, I mean this stuff is [grueling] for two women running around in men's work boots.

We both have scars on our legs to prove we did it because our feet were rubbed raw by boots in Massiges and boots in Singapore. It's like, lets make this a fair game. Let's have the guys race in heels. Then it's a fair fight and a level playing field. The guys playing G.I. Joe is fun, it's just not our cup of tea. It's not my cup of tea, that's for sure, as you can tell [laughs].

THE DEADBOLT: Was there anything you wish got aired that we didn't see?

CAROL: I think our interaction with Dan and Jordan, our card playing. I would love that.

BRANDY: And Carol and I played cards on the train in Malaysia and we looked and felt like one of the locals, kind of hunched over sitting cross-legged on the lower bunk of a very stinky rickety train. We were playing cards and laughing about the whole situation at that point in time. So I wish that they had shown other teams speaking at least respectfully of us, because it's hard to repeatedly every week watch Caite speak very disrespectfully and hatefully about us.

Steve and Allie had respectful things to say about us and others said we were a strong team. Even something as simple as that gives us props for who we are as individuals and how we played the game versus labeling and hating us for that. So I do wish they had shown some more positive comments about our team, because a fair group of people seem to be buying into this idea that we were mean when there's no tape to back that up. And to be called to task for a comment, a joke, about a tiara that wasn't even made directly to Caite by Carol, is pretty ridiculous.

I mean, Jordan did an amazing, spot on hilarious imitation of Caite, but he's never accused of being mean. So the double standards are difficult. There are a lot of secret scenes that show us being really straightforward about the teams and respectful about their strengths and what they bring to the table. It might've been nice to show that on national television to kind of offset the negative remarks and the hateful remarks that were made.

CAROL: The many times they asked us about them, we were like, "They're young, fast, and they're hungry. They seem to get over their mistakes and not have them hurt to such a degree that they get eliminated." We said that as an add-in item, but it never gets aired.

THE DEADBOLT: Do you think was easy for the teams to scapegoat you because of your sexuality?

CAROL: I think it has something to do with the sexuality and something to do with the fact that it's two women who aren't necessarily intimidated. We're not going to play dumb, because dumbing it down I don't think would've worked too well. You saw the poker players try to lie about who they were last season and that didn't work. That didn't last too long. It was like, "Okay, you're obviously not the do-gooders that you say you are." You know, hindsight is 20/20 and I don't think there's anything that we really would've done differently.

-- Reg Seeton

--- End quote ---
http://www.thedeadbolt.com/news/107420/carol_brandy_amazing_race_16_interview.php

slayton:

--- Quote ---Exclusive Interview: Carol and Brandy from 'The Amazing Race'
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
 Henrik Batallones
Staff Writer, BuddyTV

Carol and Brandy is the sort of team that'd split opinion. Take it from me on this one: in the early legs of the race they came across as this annoying, snobbish team. In the later legs, however, they got their act together and became this focused team, and suddenly I don't mind seeing them far on the race. So, I'll admit, I felt a little bad when they got U-turned in Singapore on The Amazing Race last Sunday, and were consequently eliminated.

The couple were known for their many lines--witty, rude, choose your pick--and I got to experience just that when I talked to them early today. We talked about their early bickering, their opinion towards Brent and Caite, and that "valet parking" line in Los Angeles.

Why did you decide to join the race?

Carol: It was just such a unique opportunity to travel extensively and have some grand adventure with someone that I had just begun a relationship with, and as such simply seemed too good to pass up.

Who first floated the idea of joining the race?

Carol: Actually, the idea to apply was recommended to us by a mutual acquaintance of ours.

Brandy: We were newly dating and had such great chemistry, so she thought we'd be great on the race.

In the early legs of the race, it seemed like you weren't willing to go through certain tasks--those comments on valet parking and hotel rooms--thus viewers thought you were arrogant. Do you think you were misunderstood?

Brandy: I think we were terribly misunderstood. We were willing to do each and every challenge from the very beginning of the race. The lack of hotels and valet parking didn't affect me in any way.

Carol: We have both traveled extensively but never with such a great degree of sleep deprivation and never having spent so many nights either sleeping on a plane or bus, or wandering around the streets.

Brandy: I've lived in many other countries as a local, no valet parking or hotels involved! (laughs) Also, I am from Utah. I grew up camping and doing strenuous outdoorsy things, so any type of lodging the race had for us, I was ready for. I know how to make myself comfortable in any given situation, and often all it takes is a travel pillow and blanket, which I definitely took with me!

Carol: My joke about "my idea of roughing it is when there is no valet parking" was exactly that, just a joke.

Brandy: That's all it was, a joke! Where did an appreciation for humor, self-effacing at that, go?

Carol: There is a really cute secret scene of us in the streets of Puerta Varas amused over our homeless and moneyless state. Other racers cried and yelled. I have a tendency to use levity in times of great stress but would challenge anyone to go through the same experience and not feel stressed.

You also argued a lot in the early legs, but you decided to get past the bickering and focus on the race. What was that moment like? I'll be honest: I didn't expect you to make it far after all those disagreements.

Brandy: I appreciate your honesty. The truth is, we barely knew one another before embarking on this trip of a lifetime. It was actually between four to five months that we have been dating before we left on the race. Our entire relationship was consumed by the race: auditioning, preparing, then competing. I am quite proud of how well we did given that handicap. All the other teams had had relationships for much, much longer.

Carol: Look, we are two strong-willed, confident women. We agree to disagree but really never let it get in our way--the only time it really affected us was when we spent too much time trying to find the bags in the field in Bariloche. If we had simply tried it for 10-15 minutes we would have ended up in second as opposed to third on that leg. But it taught us a great lesson about how long we should stick with a task before moving on to something else, so in the end, it was absolutely worth it.

Brandy: After our meltdown in Bariloche, we realized that we would not survive either in the race, or together, if we didn't shift our thinking. We decided that it had to be us against everybody else, not us against each other! We recognized early on that if we didn't focus on our game and realize we were not competing against each other but rather against the other players, we would surely be not only eliminated, but miserable, too!

How were you with the other teams? Your short-lived tie-up with Joe and Heidi raised some eyebrows, but soon it seemed only a couple of teams didn't like you a lot.

Carol: I don't think we viewed our alliance with Joe and Heidi as short-lived. Rather, we ended up in separate vehicles shortly thereafter and we always wished them success in every subsequent leg.

Brandy: We ran a great leg with Heidi and Jo and I have nothing but respect for them. I chose to focus on the race, not the other racers. It was far more important for me to show up each leg and do my absolute best, give it my 110%.

Did you really dislike Brent and Caite, or were you just frustrated by them? Have you since talked to them?

Carol: Can't say that I have spoken to them and really don't expect to. I also wouldn't say that I disliked them because the truth is, we were never around them for any significant period of time so I really didn't have a chance to form an opinion in one way or another.

Brandy: Until the U-turn, I had nothing but kindness and support for Brent and Caite.

Would it have made a difference if another team slapped you with a U-turn?

Carol: We considered it to be a strategic opportunity to eliminate a stronger team.

Brandy: I would have been equally stunned had Mike and Louie managed to U-turn us. It just does not make good strategic sense to target us. We were not the strongest team, physically, and we had never won a leg of the race.

Carol: I don't think we considered ourselves to be that big a threat in terms of outrunning or out-lifting the other teams so it just doesn't seem like the smartest decision at the time.

What was the most memorable part of the race for you?

Carol: There were so many incredible sites. I personally loved South America and cannot wait to go back. The Champagne region of France was gorgeous, and with a couple of glasses of champagne probably even more enjoyable. Even Massiges, though the task was grueling, was very moving when you consider its history dating back to World War I and the soldiers that died there. And I loved Malaysia with its mix of three different cultures.

Brandy: I left bits and pieces of myself across the race course. There is not one moment that sticks out for me over any other. Everything from traversing the high wire, to bungee jumping, to the gorgeous helicopter ride in the Seychelles and those damn incense sticks has left an imprint on me. I am forever changed for having done the race, and for that I consider myself very lucky!

You've been dating for five months or so before joining the race. How has the whole experience benefited your relationship?

Brandy: I learned a lot about Carol in a very short period of time, and about us together. I am very proud of how we were able to show up and complete each task despite exhaustion, hunger and stress.

Carol: Look, we got to share something incredible that very few people get the opportunity to do, so from that perspective I feel humbled, honored and privileged to have participated. I'm proud of the fact that we never gave up, we never cried or threatened to quit when we didn't like the tasks we were faced with.

Brandy: Although we bickered a bit, we never gave up, we supported each other and we did our best and for that I am very proud.

Carol: Our goal was simply to do our best and not worry about the things we couldn't control and I think by and far we have achieved that goal.

--- End quote ---
http://www.buddytv.com/articles/the-amazing-race/exclusive-interview-carol-and-35861.aspx

I have to give special thanks to Henrik Batallones for being the first interviewer, that I've read or heard, to ask Carol & Brandy about Joe & Heidi.

I'm somewhat surprised that they only had positive things to say about them.

Dånooky:
Hmmm...didn't Luke said that the producers tried to stir drama during Pit Stops while spreading false rumors? Maybe that's what created this invisible feud. Either the producers begun it or it was Mike & Louie's strategy from the beginning.

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