Wasting my degree on MTV

2010-02-03T04:18:00.000-08:00

EDIT- this spectacular piece of procrastination is now sadly and horribly dated, but I'm going to leave it up as a testament to my love for LC and her flawless eyebrows.

Hi. My name is Taylor, and I watch The Hills. I also frequently enjoy watching episodes of its spin-off series, The City, unabashedly. I could give you some defensive bullshit argument about it being a fascinating post modern anthropological study, or expound upon its merit as a classic Bildungsroman in it depiction of Lauren's journey from winsomely naive Laguna Beach teen to winsome slightly less naive big-city-LA fashion intern...designer..PR...person(?), and cite the universal theme of the conflict of good and evil (Lauren 'LC' Conrad vs. Heidi and Spencer 'Speidi' Pratt).
This started out as a jokey bit of procrastination, but it seems to have taken on a life of its own. I've avoided referring to Audrina, because she's a bore, and to the rest of the secondary characters, because no one really gives a crap about Steph and Holly and Roxie (that said, Lo is a genius). Additionally, I've left out the current season of the The Hills, which has descended from guilty pleasure viewing into a blatant free for all of fame-whoring. Aside from the fact that Kristen Cavallari just ain't no Lauren Conrad, the show, which resembled 'reality' in only the vaguest sense, appears to have completely given up any attempt towards resembling real life. Its just not fun anymore.

The Hair

Frankly, the girls' manes are so important they should get their own character credits. Note how season after season, as Lauren grows older and wiser, her hair improves vastly, reflecting her evolution from over-plucked, over-processed, and eager-to-please teen to confident young lady with some kind of career in fashion (and literature, if you can believe it) with nice eyebrows.

Lauren's foil, ex-BFF and arch nemesis Heidi, who started off as a fresh-faced, cute-as-a-button Colorado farm girl, has gone through the LA wringer since the first series. By my count, she's had twelve different surgeries, written a book on how to be a famewhore, had a breakdown about dry shampoo on I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!, and become America's answer to the likes of Jordan but creepier and not as much fun.

Essentially, Heidi has devolved into the L.A. nightmare hot tranny mess postergirl.

This is also reflected somewhat less noticeably in the girls personal style (Heidi wears stripper shorts and string bikinis, Lauren wears standard hipster-issue check shirts and Ray-Bans). The notable exception is Whitney Port, whose move from The Hills to The City has provoked a what seemed to be major wardrobe overhaul, and some pretty wackjob NY-hipster ensembles as she went from her secondary role as cute but sensible Teen Vogue intern and work-pal to Lauren, to wild-child starlet/aspiring designer/People's Revolution employee:

Love you really, Whit.

This brings us to City, in which The Hair (maybe this should just be the title of the show?) is equally significant. This season, Elle Magazine has employed socialite Olivia Palermo as its new accessories editor (the backstory, in case you aren't an avid follower, is that while working with Whitney at DvF she took credit for an ensemble that Whit pulled for an Elle cover, which, funnily enough, never actually appeared on news stands). Erin Kaplan, Elle's director of public relations and proper employee, has been less than pleased. This is pretty understandable as most episodes involve her trying to give Olivia advice, which she ignores, and then having to do her job for her. Without fail she relates this to Elle Creative Director Joe Zee, who usually pouts and brushes her off with something like 'why can't y'all just get along?'
On paper, Erin should be able to boot Olivia out of Elle Offices in no time. She totally owns Ms. Palermo in terms of professionalism, talent and experience. However, she doesn't have The Hair, which is why I'm banking on Olivia FTW. Its just the rules of the MTV universe...and come to think of it, the Bible too. Remember Samson? That Jesus dude looked pretty hairy as well. Also, Erin seems to be permanently pulling the stinkeye, whereas Olivia, in her complete state of obliviousness, comes across as absolutely serene at all times.

To be fair, Erin's hair is perfectly lovely by real-life standards, and the reason I like her is because she dresses for the office, not for MTV, but she cannot beat Olivia's bodacious locks.

The Dialogue

Most of the dialogue on the show is pretty dull. Without fail, Lauren, Lo, Audrina and co generally sit around and feign interest in whatever 'drama' one of them got involved with the night before in a generally rather awkward and stilted manner.

However, on occasion things get really intense and even, dare i say it, profound, with these chicks. One of the unintentionally comic high points of the show was at the end of Lauren's final season, with Lo's stonefaced delivery of the line 'what's next? Like really, what IS next?' when pondering, you guessed it, what was going to happen next for all of them sans-LC (not a lot, so far). But nothing bests Lauren's ever-sage advice, including this rather proverb-like gem:

'Boys are like purses. There's that one boy that you're always comfortable with and will always kinda like. You have the gorgeous bag you want to be seen with. Then, that purse you really like but don't want to be seen with....The gorgeous bag is usually an asshole.'

Wise words, girl.

Since he wormed his way onto the show, as Heidi's better/worse half, Spencer Pratt has been eager to dominate Lauren in her Yoda-like quotability, but he's generally too big a douchebag to say anything without making me want to vomit onto his smug little face (which is why my BB Al Roker took him DOWN on the Today Show last year, and why not even ONTD and E! News will deign to feature Speidi). I can't help but like this one though:

"It's my way or the lame way"

Props where props are due.

Their Los Angeles colloquialisms are pretty awesome, too. Aside from accusing people of causing, or 'bringing' 'drama' left, right, and centre, the cast seem to have a real affinity for referring to people and/or their actions as being 'shady' (this can range from implying someone is acting a bit funny, that they've threatened to leak a sex tape of you and your gross jailbird ex-boyfriend). If you want to be really cut-throat though, you accuse someone of being a 'sucky person':

LAUREN!

Not that this needs pointing out, but they could all do with picking up a book and expanding their vocabulary a little.
While its become shamelessly transparent that both shows are an entirely edited/skewed/prompted/manipulated version of reality, and that none of the girls seem to have full-time occupations that don't involve drinking frappucinos outside of Urth Cafe during a weekday afternoon, audiences keep watching because it does have some moments of sincerity. I'm sure I wasn't the only girl to engage with the very real breakdown of Lauren and Heidi's friendship over the course of the show, cringe as Heidi made consistently poor life choices, or when LC and Whit got told off by Lisa Love for being lazy interns/not going to paris/consorting with the talent, etc. I used to empathise whenever LC cried, but then she became kind of a wet blanket and it seemed to happen every episode. You could even build a drinking game around it.

The City is also at its best when the cast go off-script; Uppercrusty Olivia's ever-so-slight pause when she commented that some bracelets/purses/neckerchiefs were 'really...fly' was just long enough to demonstrate how absolutely hilariously disconnected she was from the rest of us plebs. Of course the ultimate pillar of honesty on both shows is...

Kelly Cutrone

As far as I'm concerned, Kelly is the real star of both shows. As Head Bitch In Charge at People's Rev, and boss to Whitney Roxie and Lauren (and Steph, that time she wanted more screentime) she's produced some of the show's most memorable moments; Her most infamous appearance, the time she straight up accused one of Whitney's friends of having an eating disorder, repeatedly, over the course of an episode of The City, was incredibly sad (she really did look unwell, and everyone else spent the rest of the episode just dodging the issue) and also pretty comic in its awkwardness. Plus, if she'd never brought it up, we would never have seen Olivia deadpan the line, 'Shamu's not runway material'.
As the only cast member who is remotely representative of the fashion business, she's the only one who ever genuinely ripped any of the cast a new one and reduced them to stammering/crying/dumbfaced silence, but she's got a heart of gold. When Whitney started working on her line, Kelly promised to be her 'loyal bitch' and represent her. What a gal.

Well, that just about wraps it up, glad I got all that off my chest. Apologies to everyone for being so TL;DR. I feel a little sick with myself now I'm confronted with written evidence of my vast knowledge of MTV Reality Television; I'm fairly certain I've lost some brain cells writing this, but at the same time, it feels a bit cathartic...maybe now I'll never have the urge to address this again, so i can use my brain for something more dignified. I think I'll got read some Breton now. Yeah.

wild thing, you make my heart sing

2009-10-08T05:39:00.000-07:00

I know by now this is probs old news, but I am completely in awe of Opening Ceremony's Where The Wild Things Are line. Every time I see the trailer for the film, my heart melts into a big puddle of goo, I am so ridiculously excited about it. It figured heavily among the bedtime stories my parents read to me when I was little, although nothing compared to my Cowboys of Moo Mesa comic, which I think Mum actually hid from me at some point (SRSLY cowboys and dinosaurs in one place? How could anyone get sick of that level of awesomeness?). But Maurice Sendak is a close runner up with Where The Wild Things Are and The Nutshell Library (Pierre being the best, by FAR. Life lesson: Apathy leads to being eaten alive by a lion.)

Anyhoo, I'd been waiting to post the Opening Ceremony pics till I had photos of my own home-made Wild Thing inspired costume from last weekend's WTWTA fancy dress party (best birthday theme ever. It doesn't quite compare to the $610 Max Suit ( my favourite thing is actually the Ira skirt, it looks like something the Iced Queen would wear) but I think it holds its own considering. Plus, having massive horns sticking out of your head is actually a brilliant ice breaker, I should really dress like this much more often.

ERR

2009-09-14T13:26:00.000-07:00

Animals With Lightsabers just became my newest favourite website:

take that, lolcats.

I Love You Beary Much

2009-09-13T07:47:00.001-07:00

Can someone lend me $3,000 for this Moschino dress on Ebay.ca?kthanks.

Breakfast Clubber

Wasting my degree on MTV

wild thing, you make my heart sing

ERR

I Love You Beary Much