The Hills Have Eyes (And Faces!)
The great thing about Slate’s Troy Patterson is that he communicates both the towering awfulness of reality television and its vapid pleasures — often all at the same time. For example:
Meanwhile, Lauren and Whitney jetted to Paris. Their internships at Teen Vogue required attendance at a debutante ball. Said Lauren of the City of Light, “It’s so pretty here,” which counts as an incisive comment, the dramatis personae of The Hills not really being verbal creatures. They communicate in a language of dropped jaws, desperate gapes, nonbelieving double takes, and plastic reaction shots. They don’t need dialogue. They have faces! Thus, my favorite among the girls is not button-nosed queen bee Lauren, but Whitney, on account of the hints of Modigliani around her doe eyes.
I can’t say I watch much reality TV. About two or three minutes at a time is usually all I can stomach, unless I’m sick, in which case I already feel like the show would’ve made me. But my sense, all the same, is that his summation of the show’s goals, or lack thereof, is just about perfect:
The Hills—flat as fact, intentionally pointless—presents distinct problems of critical practice. The questions it means to inspire include “Is Heidi’s behavior toward Spencer consistent with her earlier statements?” and “Is Lauren hot?” We are supposed to discuss these people as we would our own friends. They’re just like us, and, for that, they are stars.
The only thing I might quibble with is the word “stars.” They’re not stars; they’re simulacra of stars. They are the remnants of stardom in what is approaching a post-star age. Oh sure, we’ve still got George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones, but stars—those truly otherworldly creatures of LA sun and Manhattan skyscrapers — are going dark. Instead, we’ve got fragments of stars, miniature celebs on reality TV, writing blogs, chronicling their exploits in gossip columns and vanity fashion lines and bi-yearly glossy features. As might be expected, there are far more of them — anyone and everyone truly has a chance now. But with the exception of the occasional Britney-sized supernova, their reach tends to be limited, their star-light less bright
Well, Lauren IS hot.
— Dave · Mar 26, 03:59 PM · #
Peter,
The older I get the more I love documenturaries and informative television programs (“How’s It Built” for example or History Channel and Discovery Channel product).
I think we are entering an age when Hollywood can no longer “titillate” very often. When DeNiro and Pacino get on a “film” (and not “movie”), alot of regular folk will read the reivews and go see it because the know it will be good entertainment with a plot, but when just your run-of-the-mill-Hollywood “product” comes out, its a silly movie with a hackneyed plot with the latest pretty face du jour to look at.
Hollywood has a “titillating” competitor these days and we shirk from mentioning it: Porn. Statistics show that Americans are renting more and more porn be it online or from the backroom of the video store. Sure Scarlett Johanssen and Natalie Portman are cute, but young men (and women) can see women who look pretty much like that doing things that you would have though anatomically impossible with each other and five other men in a bazillion DVD’s in your local video stores backroom. No longer having the market cornered on titillation, Hollywood actually has to sell plots and movies with themes and points……………..to a generation too dumb to enjoy it. “Stars” with political causes dont help the matter. John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, and Errol Flynn did not bother you forcing their political convictions down your throat. I can’t imagine my all-time-favorite actor, Cary Grant, wearing an AIDS ribbon and browbeating me about using public transportation and voting for Obama. Hollywood has done quite a bit to bring its misfortune on itself.
Reality TV (Ive only peeked at it at the most—-MTV’s first reality program, The Real World, by episode three showed me that I would hate it and it was “staged”), puts pretty people in your face and titillates you. You will learn nothing unless its a fluke. The only reality shows I’ll admit Ive watched more that five or six episodes of in my life, Cheaters and Cops, #seem# unscripted. I like Cheaters because cheating people trying to talk their way out of being caught red-handed is truly funny, and they deserve to get busted. I get a laugh out of it—although I haven’t seen it in a good year or so. Cops, whom my parents watch, and America’s Most Wanted, actually are “real” reality shows that show the world in all its ugliness. AMW can actually help catch some folks on the lam and also lets viewers know that they “chase” never really stops if they are named “suspect”, which might have a suppressive effect on crime (at least amongst its viewership). The other reality shows seem to be pure junior-high-school-politics-and-pomp. One show that I thought could be genuinely interesting, but wasn’t due to its setup, was Survivor. They did it all wrong. What Survivor should have been was…………..we are going to put you on an Island, lets see who can really “make it” out here—ALONE. That would have been interesting. It would have been very humbling for some people who thought it wouldn’t have been that hard also.
Reality shows are “cheap” as stars salaries are expensive. The cast works for almost nothing. A one million dollar reward is chump change compared to what “stars” make for entire seasons on various series. I think as time goes on, networks will lose more and more intelligent people to cable, but since we are getting stupider as a nation, they will still have many viewers. The TV-shows in 20 years will be much more minoriticized than they are now. They will have to be due to shifting demography. I imagine whites will watch “those” programs less and less.
— m · Mar 26, 08:37 PM · #