From Rolfe to Raunchy

One UCLA graduate student has found adding “exotic
dancer” to his résumé actually may be a good career
move.

English graduate student Adam Wasson will appear on The Learning
Channel’s “Faking It,” where he will trade in his
text books for a pair of dancing shoes and a G-string as he
prepares to become a Chippendales dancer.

Each week the show challenges an individual to become a
“faker,” forcing the person to become enough of a
master at a completely different job than his or her own to be able
to fool a panel of experts. The episode, in which Wasson is
transformed from studious dud to Chippendales stud, will be
featured as part of the show’s season premier Sunday at 10
p.m.

“The idea is that they wanted a professor or a graduate
student because academics aren’t really known for being very
sexy or physical,” Wasson said. “Or at least certainly
not the type of (people) that would rip their shirts off in front
of a whole bunch of women.”

“Faking It” is based on a British version of the
show, which featured such episodes as a short- order cook being
made over into a high-class chef and a house painter transformed
into an artist.

As a result, the transformation process is no easy task: Not
only did Wasson have to move to Las Vegas (the exotic dancing
capital of the world) for four weeks, but he had to turn his
unchizzled body into a slab of Chippendales Grade A beefcake.

Wasson, who was recommended for the show by a friend, said he
had no idea what he was going to be doing for the show up until the
very first audition, where the producers made it clear they were
interested in more than his academic achievements.

“At first, they didn’t really tell me exactly what
it was,” he said. “And so I go in for this meeting, and
they were asking me about my teachings, until suddenly it gets sort
of quiet and one of the ladies goes, “˜So do you think you
might take your shirt off?'”

And surprisingly, taking his shirt off was something Wasson had
no trouble with.

“The worst part wasn’t the idea of whipping my shirt
off,” said Wasson. “What petrified me was dancing. I
had never ever danced, and so the idea of not only having to just
dance but literally do it in front of 600 screaming people was the
toughest thing.”

To replace his two left feet with a pair of dancing shoes,
Wasson had to undergo a rigorous training regiment for the
four-week period. According to Wasson, the six-hour daily training
sessions often would leave his feet bleeding and his legs more than
tired.

And while Wasson might have been in good shape by the end of the
show, one thing he still was not was a real professor, although the
show’s producers chose to promote him as such. According to
Wasson, this bit of television magic might have blurred the lines a
little but wasn’t meant to fool anyone.

“What I hope is that my peers understand that obviously
that wasn’t me, and to be honest I was quite specific that I
was not a professor,” he said. “But it’s
television, so they sort of do whatever sounds better for the
audience.”

Wasson was nervous about the rest of the English
department’s response, and not just because he was being
presented as a professor. But nobody had any problems with it.

“It’s frivolous; it’s fun, and it’s
reality television,” said Thomas Wortham, the English
department’s chair. “If this inspires other professors
to work out, learn to dance, and (have) a great sense of humor,
then I’d be more than proud of the UCLA English
department.”

Even Wasson’s fellow graduate students support him,
promoting his shift in image instead of making fun of it.

“He’s the perfect man to explode that stereotype of
the nerdy academic,” said Christopher Mott, teaching
assistant coordinator for the department. “We all have a lot
of faith that Adam can pull this off in a tasteful yet provocative
way.”

And while Wasson might not be turning in his books for a bow tie
and cummerbund permanently, the experience did help him realize his
love for being in the spotlight.

“Life is totally different when you have a camera on
you,” he said. “I think that this show helped me to
realize how much fun, and what a rush is it to be the center of
attention. After you’ve done it, you kind of want to do it
some more.”

And he plans to. Wasson has a book coming out in May that he is
looking forward to promoting. He hopes it will give him another
chance to get in front of the camera.

“It’s fascinating because what is happening is that
fantasy and reality are merging,” he said. “It used to
be that you would watch because you wished you could look like a
soap opera star. Now you watch because they are taking people like
you and making them look like soap opera stars.”

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