Danielle Staub, Real Housewife of New Jersey: You're Fired!

Is this a Garden State setback? Apparently, Danielle Staub -- who's one of the peoplecreatures Bravo turned their cameras on for the Cloverfield-esque faux-terroreality television program The Real Housewives of New Jersey -- has been fired, and according to the NY Daily News, is shocked -- shocked! -- at being canned.

This in itself is surprising, because she was only fired from a bad TV show, and not the Universe at Large. For the record, she was the one who leaked her own sex tape, which was unfortunate if only for the wildly-out-of-proportion crazypants-to-sex ratio (by something like 20 to 1...supposedly). Who knows why Bravo fired her, but, really, does it matter? In the great canon of contributions to America's cultural legacy that come from New Jersey, I don't think any natives are going to mourn this one. I could be wrong. People from The Jerz might derive some sincere joy from it, there might be some kind of altruistic motif at the heart of all this. Who knows.

Actually, no. No. This show, like much of TV, is braintrash, and some of that braintrash is okay, but this? This is braintrash concentrate. If it's doing something to upset its viewers and make them want to watch less, it's probably doing something correct, though if that's the case, one can only assume Staub made things so uncomfortable for viewers that they had to kick her off or risk losing people who can only watch a 40-minute-a-week trainwreck go on for so long. Whatever. Surely Showtime's Real Lesbians of Crazyface Town, or something as equally terrible would take her in as a stray.

[fkamer@villagevoice.com]