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Last night, on the latest episode of The Bachelorette,
the inevitable happened: One of the contestants—lovelorn, earnest,
ready-to-drop-on-one-knee Ed—was given an opportunity to have sex with
a girl he is “crazy about” in a hotel room, tricked out with roses,
body oil, and ... a crew, cameras, and millions watching at home. He
failed to get hard. How has this not happened before? ... (Read more in Double X.)
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Early in the first episode of NYC Prep, Bravo’s new, Gossip Girl-inspired reality show about New York City high school students that starts tonight, PC, the self-styled Chuck Bass
of the bunch, says to the camera, “In New York City, money flows like
the wind.” It was at this, the moment of the overly knowing, slightly
off metaphor, that I realized it was going to be impossible for me to
hate him. Try as he and the five other teenagers featured on the show
might—and God they try—there is no talk of money, sex, or power, no
uncanny preciousness, no shopper at Barneys, no address on the Upper
East Side, no limo rides, and ultimately no reality show that can turn
these kids into adults. Despite their best efforts, and all of their
privileges, they are in a high school state of mind.
Take, for example, Camille, a senior at tony all-girls school
Nightgale-Bamford, who asserts about her own future: “I will go to
Harvard. Then I will be the business head of a genetics firm. And then
at 40 I will have a husband and two kids.” This is delivered with the
frightening intensity we have come to expect from Blair Waldorf, and is
not, exactly, typical of the average 17-year-old. And yet, it is still
wholly laughable. Check back in a few years, Camille, after life has
gotten in the way.
Even more of the series is taken up with genuinely unprecocious high
school antics, just enacted on the glamorous streets of New York City.
Taylor, a 16-year-old who attends, gasp, public school tells her mother that...(To read the rest of this post, visit our new website DoubleX.com!)
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Susannah, you're right that the appeal of the Real Housewives of New Jersey lies in their outsize cattiness. But in today's XXtra Small, Torie writes about the anti-Housewife: The Hills' Lauren Conrad and her new, semi-autobiographical book L.A. Candy. Conrad's appeal has always been as the bland nice girl... (To read the rest of this post, visit our new website DoubleX.com!)
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We live in an environment where self-branding is a lifestyle choice and self-promotion is confused with achievement. Breaking through the 4th wall (when reality contestants talk to the camera) is not the same as actual contact between player and watcher, however, and does not substitute for honesty or intimacy. When the Octomom had her litter in January, Jess and Noreen wrote about the Gosselin and the Duggar families who became television commodities by inviting reality producers from the Discovery Channel into their reproduction-driven lives. Now I learn from Hanna's post that one reality celebrity husband, Jon Gosselin, has a secret life with a secret friend. I have to say, I can't really blame the guy. Maybe he just wanted some privacy?
I sometimes wonder about living our private life in public. Since my husband, my daughter, and I are each involved in different aspects of the media, at times when our home life is particularly surreal, I can imagine us inspiring a sitcom. But my family's imaginary TV series would be more like a small-cast version of the ABC series of 30 years ago, Eight is Enough. In that now-quaint series, the family of newspaper columnist and former CIA agent Tom Braden was fictionalized, their identity was disguised and the eight actual Braden children kept their relative obscurity.
Like Hanna, I cringe at the level of self-exposure necessary to tear down the 4th wall in the manner of that "family of renovators" featured in the New York Times article "Branding the Family." Bravo, the cable network that brings us Real Housewives of New York City and other urban locations, bets the exploited exploits of the Novogratzes, another multi-offspring family, will be riveting to audiences because, as the series executive producer told the Times, "audiences are craving authenticity." I doubt they'll get it watching Bravo. Real reality happens without cameras, inside the four walls of our own lives, fueled by truly unscripted, unedited, conversations. It is sometimes uncomfortable and usually, in our case at least, decidedly unphotogenic. Though, it may be exciting to imagine a life in front of an audience, genuine people tempted by reality-shattering reality cameras should follow the advice of fray poster ScrewJack2008, and run for their lives.
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Meghan, being connected to lost friends via Facebook can be vertiginous—but I bet it doesn't make a person feel quite as lost in time as being connected to a former BFF via reality TV. I'm thinking specifically of The Hills, which starts its fifth and likely final season tonight and has always been, at its core, a long drama about the disintegration of female friendship.
When the show began, protagonists Lauren and Heidi were besties. But it really took off in the ratings during its second season, when the duo basically broke up because Heidi got herself a truly terrible boyfriend. In the two and a half seasons since, other story lines—plus bathing suits, over-determined stares, a tension between "reality" and reality, and the meta-joy of watching celebrity be created in real time—have held the audience's interest, but Lauren and Heidi have always been the A-plot, conveniently running into each other, and shedding many mascara-laden tears, just in time for season premieres and finales.
Losing a best friend, whether due to drifting, fighting, or a cad named Spencer, is something most adolescent girls know about; that's why The Hills has always been "relatable" even though it stars a bunch of space aliens dressed as Barbie dolls. But when most regular folks irrevocably spar with a friend, they don't have to run into her, on camera, for the next three years. Talk about being stuck in time. No wonder Lauren decided she was done filming the series. Of course, even after the cameras leave, she'll still be receiving status updates from Heidi—the two of them are almost certainly Facebook friends.
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Audrina Partridge, the resident brunette on MTV's loathsomely addictive love letter to the meaningfully meaningless stare, The Hills, is getting her own television show. Burning yule logs hold the camera better than Partridge, but burning yule logs have never gotten a chance to think confuddled thoughts near Hills star Lauren Conrad, lay out on chaise lounges next to Lauren Conrad, or to mistakenly accuse Lauren Conrad of making out with their greasy, manipulative on-again, off-again boyfriends. If yule logs had such opportunities, and looked as good in a bikini, one would expect yule logs to break out of the Christmas Eve type casting and land their own reality show, just like Audrina and all her Hills co-stars, including The City's Whitney Port and Bromance's Brody Jenner.
Audrina's show will be produced by Mark Burnett, the reality TV guru who created Survivor and The Apprentice. Say what you will about Burnett (like, he’s the guy who briefly resurrected Donald Trump's reputation), but he understands how reality TV works. Just like in movies and politics, a name is better than no name. Partridge doesn't have to be interesting or charismatic in the limited way of The Real World cast members or the expansive way of the hilarious loonies on The Real Housewives of New York City because we already "know" her. In a sweetly human, but incredibly undiscerning way, prior knowledge of Audrina's story is all some of us will need to care about what happens next. She can continue to be as dull and dim as a burned out light bulb and she will have an audience.
In a big leap from brow to brow, Audrina’s show got me thinking of David Foster Wallace. In the recent New Yorker piece on him, D.T. Max wrote that Foster Wallace’s unfinished novel, The Pale King, about IRS employees, suggests that “Properly handled, boredom can be an antidote to our national dependence on entertainment.” I wonder what DFW would make of our dependence on entertainment that is already well and truly boring.
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Last night was an eventful one for television: Twitchy Fallon officially joined the White Dudes With Monologues club and a revitalized The Bachelor had its "dramatic" finale, sending a certain segment of the population—women who can still tolerate the show—into a tizzy. This has been a comeback season for ABC's long-running dating program, which, to my mind, provides one of the ultimate dichotomies in present-day American life—red or blue? Rich or poor? Someone who believes you can find love on The Bachelor or someone who does not? This season's resurgence has been credited to the fact that the bachelor in question, sweet and dull Jason Mesnick, a one-time runner-up on The Bachelorette, has a son. After all, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a toddler must be in want of a wife (as opposed to football players, princes, heirs, and navy men, who are maybe just after some tail). Plus, any man with a little kid, even the kind of man who would put that kid on national television, can't be a total cad, right? Wrong.
On last night's finale, Jason proposed to cheerful former cheerleader Melissa. They were so happy they declared their love for each other multiple times and then jumped into a horizonless pool with all of their clothes on. But then, on the After the Rose Ceremony special that airs immediately following the finale, but was filmed six weeks later, Jason explained that something had "changed." When the cameras left, apparently so did their chemistry (one of the most interesting things about The Bachelor has always been trying to find the sex between the platitudes; maybe it just wasn't any good?), and now all Jason can do is think about Molly, the big-eyed lady (chicks on The Bachelor are exclusively referred to as girls, never women) he'd thrown over in the finale. Melissa got mad ("You bastard"), Jason cried (again and again and again) and then made a play for Molly, who accepted his apologies and smooches. Adding another layer of absurdity to all this "drama" is that the Molly-for-Melissa switcheroo had been very accurately predicted weeks and weeks ago by one very dedicated, uhm, reporter, named Reality Steve (so popular this day after that his site appears to have crashed).
All this pre-wife swapping has pissed off some longtime Bachelor watchers, who now think Jason is a jerk and that the show has been wantonly cruel to Melissa. I'm honestly impressed by these folks continued ability to be shocked by reality TV's manipulations—their faith runs deep—but I suspect this evening's interview with Jason and Molly (After, After the Final Rose or something) will assuage their anger. The route might have been circuitous, but the program's delivering its happy ending, as promised. This show's gonna make it to 25 seasons easy.
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Well, Jessica, maybe people are riveted to these shows the way they are riveted to every reality show: At least I'm not as crazy as they are! Or, in the case of the mean nanny shows, at least my house isn't as bad as that!
And Bonnie, forget what the woman herself was thinking: What was the doctor thinking? It should be medical malpractice to implant eight embryos, given the extreme probability of premature births leading to crippling disabilities—especially if the woman says in advance that she would not be inclined to reduce the number if they all implanted.
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The more a reality-TV show makes my jaw drop and leads me to ask, "What must his/her parents be thinking right now?" the more I relish it. But today, I've got a wicked guilty-pleasure hangover. On last night's episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County, a cast member, Tamra, who was hosting a party, set out to get her younger blond rival, Gretchen, drunk—"naked wasted," as Tamra put it. Usually, I relish drunken reality-TV shenanigans, but last night, I wanted to change the channel when I saw the way Tamra's twentysomething son pawed at the blitzed Gretchen, whose much-older fiance was hospitalized and dying of cancer at the time of filming. I couldn't bring myself to turn it off, alas. (Watch some of the lowlights here, thanks to Jezebel.)
Usually, the reality-TV stars I laugh at are my age or younger—part of the "everyone is famous," social-networking, watched-Survivor-during-my-formative-years generation. The Real Housewives of Orange County may be neither real nor housewives, but they are all older than 30; all but one are over the age of 40. They should know better than to a) maliciously get someone drunk; b) continue to encourage her to take shots when it's readily apparent that she's drunk; and c) commit the crimes of (a) and (b) in front of cameras—while giggling behind their hands about it. Mean-girl behavior in fully grown women is stomach-turning. Real Housewives used to be fun fare to watch while unwinding after work. Now, I find myself wondering how much farther up the generation chain the look-how-badly-I-behave genre can climb. A reality show about catty nursing-home residents squaring off in their separate cliques, perhaps?
I wish I could promise I won't watch anymore, but I can't: The episode ended on a cliff-hanger, and I'm dying to know what will happen.
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To Hanna's question about whether any of us feel we could pull off a "fake romance," a la those high-end prostitutes who "date for months before pairing up'' and stroke more egos than anything else: Most women are pretty good actors, I think, having been trained from the beginning to smile and make people feel good. But what I wonder is how fake these romances for hire really are; if that Pennsylvania college student is so gaga for her sugar daddy, how is that different from what the Real Housewives of wherever feel for their rich hubbies?
When I was single, in another century, I finally eased up on judging women who seemed to be chasing dollar signs when I realized that it wasn't so much that they were making some kind of moral compromise or settling for security as that they just found money sexy, the same way I found it a turnoff. No kidding, wealth was a mark against a guy in my book, which was filled with social workers, dollar-a-word writers, and men struggling with possible religious vocations. Not because I'd taken a vow of poverty or was making a stand on principle, but because that just was my taste, same as that college girl Meghan wrote about goes for Louboutins and the "poshest'' hotel in Atlantic City.
Either this "be your own pimp" option further blurs the definition of prostitution or it brings clarity to the trading of sex/youth/looks for money/power/security. But that's a trade that sure is taken for granted in our culture—or so it seems on all these "win a rich bachelor" reality shows. And though it's our own bargains we should worry about, it's hard not to look at the people on both ends of those deals and think: Wow, you get what you pay for (and pay for what you get.)
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As Melinda laments, people don't seem to care so much about experienced or informed in their candidates. Many who would consider refueling in Ireland a visit to Europe also believe Gov. Palin has sufficient international policy knowledge to be half the presidential ticket. That the untraveled VP nominee might soon need to rebuke both Putin and Saakashvili or stare down whomever inherits Kim Jong Il's nuclear stock pile evidentially has no more significance to many voters than if those responsibilities were challenges on Celebrity Apprentice. As long as the winner is smarter than a 5th-grader, Americans seem willing to be satisfied with the result. The American Idolization of democracy has apparently taken hold. But perhaps the distortions and tricky framing of the GOP campaign that lately resemble creative editing of reality TV writing are even more Machiavellian than they seem. I wonder if Karl Rove is secretly advising McCain to go "too far" in order to force Obama to go negative. (See, he can be as callow and politically manipulative as everyone else!) If so, personally, I'd like to see a daisy ad scare the voters back into reality.