Boman Martinez-Reid was studying at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic when his social media status made a stratospheric leap. Five years on, he’s a bonafide content creator with a TV show to boot.
The student-turned-online-sensation soared to TikTok stardom (@bomanizer) thanks to his caricature style impressions of well-known reality TV stars, namely the Kardashians, which for the sake of his skits, he wittily renamed, The Bodashians.
But Martinez-Reid’s sketches aren’t so much about poking fun at the typically outlandish and far-flung experiences of Kim and co. as they are honouring their absurdity, and his recently released series on Crave, and now the Roku Channel, Made For TV, proves exactly that.
“Made For TV is a love letter to reality TV, and it’s also a love letter to those of us who watch reality TV,” Martinez-Reid told Now Toronto, who alongside a team of talented producers, masterminded the docu-comedy where he stars as an exaggerated version of himself in multiple reality TV settings, from dating to drag.
As a devout reality TV viewer, Martinez-Reid says he had been fascinated by the making of such television long before he got the chance to create his own show.
He recalls watching Dance Moms obsessively in high school.
“That was the first time I was binging a reality tv show on streaming and I became obsessed with the iconography and really getting into the lore of everything that was playing out on the show…and then I found the Real Housewives,” he quipped.
“I think that with reality TV comes this back seat driver mentality of like effortlessly judging those who are doing it and living it as if it is easy,” he continued.
But the illusion that reality television is unchallenging fools even its biggest fans, Boman shared.
“While we were creating it (Made For TV), I kept saying it’s easy. I would talk about the Queens on Drag Race creating garments from scratch in a mere matter of hours and I’d say well that gown is hideous…and people would look at me and go like, ‘You know that it’s not easy?’” he explained.
Made For TV challenges that notion while playing into the ‘is it real is it fake’ trope that so often defines the genre, but Martinez-Reid was granted the opportunity to craft his own version of reality.
“This whole experience of creating a television show and seeing it on Crave for the first time and the whole journey of all of this has been so so surreal it would be nothing without the amazing team that created my show and the trust that we had at the network. They basically said to make the show that you feel is best for you and that is a dream.”
In Made For TV, Martinez-Reid commits to long-form bits while remaining true to the jesting retort that gained him over two million TikTok followers.
“We have so much to say with this show and I’m so excited for what’s next.”
Martinez-Reid’s rising success in TV is not going unnoticed. The reality star is also in consideration for a Canadian Screen Award for Best Lead in a Comedy.
Made For TV premiered on Crave in July and is also streaming on the Roku channel.
