The City vs The Hills: The Discrete Charm of the Vapid Whole

I think it may be one of those whole greater than the sum of the parts things.

A key element of the charm and appeal, for want of better terms, of The Hills, had to do, I think, with the juxtaposition of essentially bland characters, each of whom brought a different quality of blandness, and without that blandness, the show would never have had another key element to its success: accessibility.

Lauren, Audrina and Whitney remind us all of girls we knew in high school, college, or both, no matter when or where we went to high school or college, and regardless of whether we mocked those girls, were best friends with those girls, wanted to be those girls, or were those girls.

That, more than any DiVellic script or production values or editing, is why we feel as if we know them, and why their inane interactions with each other against the backdrop of an almost static, time-stands-still landscape, resonate with us.

We are taken back to a standingstill time when we each heard our own personal protoLaruens and protoWhitneys exchange banalities, sharing with each other and us the non-events of lives that are, despite the glitterglam of the designer bags and endless expensive outfits and trendy restaurants, the glitzy star-studded events and assorted swimmin' pools n' movie stars, basically dull as dust.

Oh, sure, there is a little kick of schadenfreude, of cliched hollow bleakness of tinseltown existence, but these are almost optional condiments to be sprinkled or not on the dish that we are really lapping up: the slightly more "experienced," opaque-eyed Lauren, as she recounts, in her trademark whiskeywhisper, to Whitney the Fresh-Faced, that this or that boy did or did not call, that this or that recently or not-so-recently estranged friend of her televised Lagunadolescent days was or was not present at this or that place, texted or did not text, and Whitney's impeccably polite and unerringly noncommittal responses delivered in that perfect Nice Girl peal of a voice that no amount of coaching nor talent could produce. This is the reality part.

Whitney the Wholesome, who keeps her friend-estrangements, if any, genteelly to herself, who seldom receives, or expects calls from boys, at least none that she wishes to tell us about enough to interrupt Lauren, to whom it seemingly never occurs that Whitney has any existence at all beyond sitting at the next desk, she is there all night, waiting, while Lauren is out at the fashionable bar du jour taking shots and whispering to other more, sophisticated but equally uninteresting and unremarkable members of her limited little social circle about who has come in, who has gone out, OK, don't look but who is coming this way now.

Maybe the incongruity of what, in almost any other circumstance, would be called the "chemistry" between the two is enhanced by Whitney the MarySue, the viewer representative.

Lauren is without a doubt the most accessible Teen Queen in television history, Millions can identify with her completely, either being, or having been her, minus, of course, at least some of the tinsel and limitless wardrobe budget.

But if it is too heady for most of the show's biggest slice of the demographic pie, young girls between 10 and 24, to imagine themselves in the Jimmy Choos and Louboutins that grace the feet of LC Superstar herself, they can at least imagine themselves as that next-desk neighbor, receiving the Word from the slightly overglossed lips of the Goddess Herself.

Every high school, every college homecoming, every town festival, always has more Ladies in Waiting than Queens, more Whitneys than Laurens, who don't date quite as much, don't seem to inspire as much envy, or have quite as many quarrels with friends old and new.

The Los and Audrinas of the world do not fight over the coveted prize of being Whitney's BFF, nor are mothers likely to sigh that they wish their daughters had more friends like that Lauren.

It is no wonder then, that as The Hills has crawled on, through season after season of a story whose actual plot, if it can be called that, could be summed up in about half a page, double-spaced, as Lauren has blazed into the stratosphere of superstardom and become a one-woman empire that some awed whispers have suggested could be on her way to giving Oprah herself a run for her money one day, if this keeps up, that the Sweetheart Crown has gradually ceased to fit exactly, and shifted from Lauren's smooth, meticulously maintained highlighted head to the softer, corn-colored locks of Whitney the Increasingly More Accessible.

The decision, in retrospect quite shrewd, of Whitney to keep her personal life off the show (if indeed it was hers and not the producer's) added a touch of mystery to her sweetness, and cultivated a growing interest in the girl who just sat at the next desk and absorbed recap of the basically nothing that had happened last week, whose lines consisted almost solely of those unfailingly courteous, exquisitely vapid replies that slowly got viewers to wondering, first idly to themselves, and then out loud, what was really going on under those golden tresses.

There were even a few here and there who dared to speculate that Whitney must be totally over it by now, sick of just sitting there listening to Lauren going on about every phone call and text message she received, every social engagement she attended, though Lauren's star could by no means be said to be in decline, on the contrary, her fame moved ever-upward, even as more and more viewers began expressing more and more love for Whitney.

Audrina and Lo's own respective "chemistries" with Lauren fulminated and marched apace, and roles continued to grow, and the unique contributions to the show's overall lack of substance recognized, with Audrina becoming what that big viewer pie slice perceived as having an "edge," meaning that she hung out with "rockers" and had once posed for photos with her top off.

Audrina evolved into the Slightly Bad Girl and undisputed champion whose perfectly empty gaze would define for a generation the term "vacuous," perhaps most sharply crystallized by a scene that quickly catapulted itself to viral status, of a co-worker trying to discuss with Audrina the news of some experiments involving a particle accelerator, to which Audrina responded with the now-classic line "Isn't it strange that all of this is happening when Lauren is gone?"

Meanwhile childhood friend Lo, historically pleasant and perky, but so assiduously uninteresting, even for a show famous for giving viewers a glimpse into a world where nothing happens, that in a bold and unprecedented move, she was given a character makeover, and with no warning, and for no apparent reason, did a complete personality 180, from one appearance to the next became New Demon Lo, jealous and crafty, petty and manipulative enemy of Audrina, her declared arch rival for the BFFic affections of LC.

Whitney, already The Sweet One, by contrast began to appear positively angelic, and all through the fandom, Whitney Love bloomed like wildflowers on Miracle Gro.

This is how spinoffs happen, and so it happened with Whitney and The City, the story of the basically nothing much that happened when Whitney proved to have indeed grown weary of sitting at the next desk delivering noncommittal and courteous responses to Lauren's weekly update.

If ever a show were positioned to be an instant hit, The City should have been it. Whitney even relaxed her no private life on camera rule and allowed herself to be shown not only liking a boy, but kissing one, going on dates with one.

The new star-become sun was given her own coterie of satellite players, carefully selected to be guaranteed to be duller than she, but with tenuous off-show celebrity connections: the daughter of a famous name eighties rock band, a social-climbing wannabe whose mediaho antics had gained her a few, if not a full fifteen minutes of minor and largely local notoriety, even a slightly sketchy musician boyfriend with an Australian accent that he might or might not be enhancing for dramatic effect.

She was outfitted with a suitable faux job at a famous name design house, and the regulation spacious luxury apartment that no one who really had that job could possibly afford. Off-camera, she launched her own clothing line and made multiple appearances on The Hills aftershow to promote The City.

No effort was spared to painstakingly craft the show into an East Coast doppelganger of The Hills, with all the identical stock elements, of fancy parties and scene after scene set at cafe tables set up outside establishments popular with a small but select segment of Manhattanites who all knew each other and no one else.

But it just wasn't the same. It just isn't the same.

Whitney in the role of Manhattan Lauren recounting the non-events is nowhere near as compelling as Lauren, with her Knowing Looks imparting significance to the dreary trivia of her lifestyle of the rich and famous.

Frankly, Whitney was much more fun to watch when she sat at the next desk and replied politely, when any expression of emotion, even a smile or a laugh, would send viewers by the thousands to the internets to exclaim over how beautiful she was, and how much they loved her.

Where is the Whitney that won our hearts that wonderful day when, in the presence of God and everybody, even Emily the SuperIntern, Andre Leon Talley cast one keen glance at her and commanded the magnificent midnight blue Guy Laroche be brought forth and placed upon her?

Andre Leon Talley himself validated our growing Whitney-love, Andre the Giant of all that is Vogue on any and all coasts, saw some ineffable something In her sweet everyday face and proclaimed that our Whitney would walk.

Gracing and graced by the elegant drapery of the very gown in which Hilary Swank had accepted her Oscar, it was our Whitney who would walk, while LC, the undisputed Queen Regnant of Reality Television looked on with a clearly heartfelt joy for her friend, in contrast to the poorly-concealed glowering of Emily the SuperIntern, despite the fact that she, too, was walking, and Lauren was not!

It was an unforgettable day, a day on which something actually happened on The Hills - and what a something!

The now-famous stumble was the moment that sealed forever (or so we thought) Whitney's place in the box section of our affection.

What happened?

How can it be that a mirror-image of DiVello's Hills, matched shot for shot, scene for scene, ham-handedly lyrically relevant popular pop songbyte for ham-handedly lyrically relevant popular pop songbyte, trendy restaurant for trendy restaurant, with even more celebrity cameos and even more Real Couture because it IS New York, and starring our beloved wholesome fresh-faced Whitney, for whom the writers have even gone the extra mile, positioning her character as if she were the quintessential ingenue just arrived farm-fresh from some hamlet in the heartland instead of a seasoned Teen Vogue Paris returnee intern born and bred in the affluent SoCal enclaves and forged in the world capital of glamour, can fail to captivate us even as much as watching yet another meaningful Look form in the void behind those opaque eyes of Lauren Conrad as she huskily confides news of yet another phone call from someone the innocent-looking girl at the next desk has never met?

How do we, who have faithfully watched, for four seasons, every excruciatingly substance-free second of every still-life-paced, soul-sucking episode of The Hills, dare to complain that this DiVello creation, if possible more Hills than The Hills, is just not very interesting and that nothing really happens?

What audacity we have! And what short and fickle memories, to sulk at the just-opened box in which nestles the gift we asked for, the Whitney show we wanted!

The very WhitneyStar we created with our praise of her blandness, we whine, is too bland.

It is early days still for The City. It may find its zone yet.

Even if it tanks, if DiVello has ever had a moment's doubt of the rare jewel he has in Lauren Conrad, or ever questioned that he should move heaven and earth to hang onto her, he can consider the millions spent on the City as a good investment, because if it does nothing else, it will put those doubts and questions, whether they have actually occurred or not, to eternal and definitive rest.

Scarlett O'Hara, wrote Miss Margaret Mitchell, "was not beautiful, but men seldom realized that when caught by her charm..."

Lauren Conrad may be neither beautiful nor charming. She may not be the crispiest fry in the bag, or even interesting. One young man who had a small one or two episode part on The Hills described her "odorless."

**If she were not famous and therefore accompanied by a large and obvious entourage and jostling horde of paparazzi, It would, I think, be difficult to find Lauren in a crowd, in the context of the milieu in which she has lived her life, for instance, in a mall or at a concert in the SoCal enclaves. Had she not, as a young girl, made that fateful decision to sign on for Laguna Beach, it is very probable that today she would be virtually invisible.

I have seldom uttered more than two sentences about her without using the word "accessible," meaning that she is ordinary enough so that millions of viewers, diverse of age, culture, economic status and just about every other trick in the demographer's bag, can identify with her on some level.

Whatever she does not have, Lauren Conrad, we now know, just in case it might have been we and not DiVello who was having those doubts and questions, does have some indefinable and ephemeral quality, a je ne sais quoi that somehow confers on her the mystical ability to cause us to watch her, whether with reverence or lulz, as she does the same thing - which is basically nothing - week after week, year after year - that is, at least, as long as she is one of those parts whose sum is less than their whole.



**(Ironically, I can't say any of that about Whitney. I bet I could find her in a mall within minutes).

The Secret Life of the American Teenager: Here Comes The Child Bride

"Little to offer," said The LA Times, who described the show as "thin, mechanical and confused."

"Doesn’t take the fun out of teenage pregnancy, it takes the fun out of television," sneered NYT, going on to hmmph that "ABC...could not have done worse."

Dudes! You had me at "thin, mechanical and confused!"

Nevertheless, whether due to planetary alignment, a coincidental side effect of The Pills, the hormonal hilarity unleashed by The Liberation that is Menopause or a combination of all three, but I completely ignored this show when it actually ran on ABC family, and as I did with The Gilmore Girls and more recently, the Twilight book series, sat down one day and gobbled up the entire pie of the first season in one gulp.

Or maybe I'm forming me a little pop culture consumption tradition.

Secret Life is the story of a typical TV-wholesome upper middle class suburban mainstream demographic community, whose idyll is shattered by a series of events at once improbable and ordinary, in a delightfully unlikely yarn ball of plot twists entertwining the various characters and their families.

If season one of Secret Life were a book, I would say it was un-putdownable, a crazy quilt of stereotypes and contra-stereotypes, improbable plot line comprised of everyday elements so commonplace they're either and both cliches and stuff that just doesn't even register on anybody's radar anymore.

Teen pregnancy, teen sex, foster homes, divorce, single parents, absent fathers, extra-marital affairs, blended families, sexual abuse, religious hypocrisy, all living cheek to jowl with the (very) occasional flash of serio-comic sweetness, nobility of character, and just plain old fashioned goodness synonym, all of the latter largely referring to the character of Ben and his widower father the Sausage King, both still grieving for the death of Ben's mom five years pre-show.

That's right. Out of the entire gaggle of tangle-lived teens, plotting against stereotype for once, Ben the rich kid is the "good one," for it is Ben the Chivalrous Prince of Sausage who falls in love wth Amy the Pregnant and offers to marry her, even though the baby is, of course, not his. Ben is so innocent that he practices his planned First Kiss on a life-sized plush bear. And dad the pudgy, dad the loveable Sausage King is all for it, because, he has no problem admitting, he - and his son - miss Ben's mother. What if, he asks, the marriage of two fifteen year olds does work out?

Ken Baumann as Ben appeals equally to lolfans and earnest innocent factions alike, with a performance that will have the latter raising the value of Kleenex stock, while the former will be obliged to give his talent its due and incline their giggling heads in respect.

I suppose some kind of quasi 4th-wall deliciousness points are due for casting Molly Ringwald, whose rise to icon was born of a series of movies where she played a teen who gets pregnant as Anne Juergens, whose daughter Amy (Shailene Woodley), the star of Secret Life, whose secret life includes - you guessed it - getting pregnant!

Amy "embodies innocence" as thoroughly as the most avid fan of innocence embodiment could wish. Shailene Woodley looks younger than fifteen, the age of her character, and somebody figured out that her doe-eyed childface would make a poignant contrast of a visual if they get her hands in the shot, the jarringly womanly length of her nailbeds, unpainted and natural, just to remind us when a scene is supposed to be particularly moving and bittersweet.

Liberal use is made of physical characteristics of other actors as well, sometimes engineered in whole or in part to tell the story, sometimes they seem to have been cast in their own sub-role. Alicia's injected fishlips, Ben's adam's apple, Adrian's big butt, the empty yet earnest opacity of Grace's dull almost turquoise/yellowblue eyes, even the TV evangelist butter-colored prophetlion mane of Grace's overacting buffoon father (played by John Schneider), and of course Amy and her nail beds.

The producers get props for casting Camille Winbush who has - gasp - dark skin - as Lauren, the obligatory African American best friend, and extra props for featuring Luke Zimmerman, an actor with Down's syndrome, though they lose some of those props by giving him lines with an unreasonably high hurl factor.

Megan Park as the vapid blonde devout Christian cheerleader gives really good vapidity, and Daren Kagasoff as the victim of child sexual abuse turned teen Lothario - and - Amy's band camp babydaddy drops upon our heads all the anvils of nuancing anyone could ask for.

Jack the box of rocks devout Christian jock is played to stereotypical perfection by Greg Finley, though Francia Raisa as Adrian the School Ho With A Heart of Gold and OMG! - A Brain! has a tendency to bring a little too much depth and subtlety to her character, making her mercifully short scenes with Finley a little awkward for all concerned.

And for extra stereoffensive lulz, guess what? She's Latin American! - and her single (of course) mom (Paola Turbay) is also a Ho With A Heart of Gold. And oh, yeah. the costume designer makes sure that Adrian has a teeny tiny waist and a big ol' JLo-sized booty.

But it is India Eisley as Amy's perfect Lolita of a little sister who emerges as the consistent scene kleptomaniac, ruthlessly commiting acts of serial scene larceny as she proudly shows off her ability to go from from the zero of a deadpan precocity of 13-going-on-40 Lolita to hurt child sixty in a nanobeat.

Season Two premiered this week with Ben and Amy's wedding. Yes, they really do get married. Why not? The typical scenario of economic troubles that might plague such a union are conveniently sidestepped by the existence of the lucrative Sausage Kingdom.

It is implied that Ben footed the bill for fake IDs for the entire all-teen wedding party and guests.

No parents were invited. Just as well, since all the parents are currently very busy with their own assorted and sordid goings-on.

Amy's parents are splitting up, because it got out that her buffoon of a dad was hooking up with Adrian's mom, who is in negotiations with her babydaddy over Adrian's future, the evangelical blonde Christian Bowmans might also be splitting up, because it got out that Mrs. Bowman cheated on Amy's dad when they were married, before she married Dr Bowman and had Grace and adopted Tom, Lauren's dad, who is also Ricky's shrink, is all conflicted because Ricky made out with Lauren, and the school guidance counselor has Mysteriously Disappeared.

If the opener is any indication, Season Two of Secret Life will be more "thin, mechanical, and confused" than ever!

I'm stoked! I won't be missing a single golden moment! And neither should you!

Gossip Girl: Writers Steal Bad Fanfic and CrossBreed with Twilight

I think this season, I'm just going to be a little less literal in terms of my Gossip Girl viewing, and just pick up where that semi-inspired but sad little sputter-start of a fanfic left off.

The writers, at least so far, are being at least semi-cooperative in terms of subtext, so no matter what you may think you saw, here's what really happened on tonight's episode, which is subtextually told in flashbacks as the past merges with the present.

Upon catching Chuck in his glittermarble arms as he was jumping from the building, Edward whisked him off to Thailand, where the Cullen family has taken up part-time residence when they're not in Forks.

There he was swiftly vampirized by Carlisle, whose intrepid dedication has resulted in this being a much more streamlined process, and instead of being a raging, incontrollable walking bag of unstoppable compulsions and urges, Chuck emerged from the process just a bit groggy, but with the help of nomad Uncle Jack, quick-study Chuck learns nomad skills and nomads back to New York for the first day of school, obviously not quite 100% yet (hash makes lousy joints, you really need a pipe).

Because Chuck is careful to stay in the shade, Blair doesn't see any actual sparkling, but she can tell that something is a little off, because when she looks into his eyes she can't see him anymore.

Then Blair has a panic attack but is luckily able to stop it by quickly stylemorphing into Emily Gilmore.

Before dreaming that it is she and not Edward Cullen who saves Chuck from his planned rooftop plunge, she gets really mad at the most prestigious Argyle Vest Enthusiast club in all New York, which she is hoping to join but will be unable to when her parentage is investigated and it is revealed that Dorota is secretly her biomom, which makes her ineligible, at least until it is revealed that Dorota is secretly the child of a member of a long-deposed Eastern European royal family (Romania, maybe? Hmmmm. Just sayin...) whereupon the fancy club will fall all over itself begging her and Blair to please please both join. And what hilarity will ensue when Nellie's inevitable and official not-quite-werewolfescence gets cranked up and she imprints on Uncle Jack, even though the rules on the Vampires Unite roleplaying board clearly states Absolutely no Vampire/Werewolf romances and even though Uncle Jack is discovering that Blair is his own special brand of heroin and he is totally going to tap that.

Meanwhile, somewhere, probably somewhere in Manhattan, an Immortal Child is on the loose. Well, an Immortal Teen, ostensibly the product of a moment of fervent youthful fumbling by Rufus and She who has now been revealed as now-Enemy Vampire Lily, but of course really created by her because all women want babies more than they want to breathe air, which Lily, being a vampire, only does recreationally anyway, and it is in that same spirit of primordial whimsy that she created the Immortal Child, whom Rufus has vowed to track down, because he thinks it is just a regular mortal child and he is the babydaddy because being a babydaddy is what he is all about.

While all this is going on, we suddenly notice that Lil' J is behaving very mysteriously, suddenly and for no apparent reason renouncing her life's ambition and her dreams of being a Famous Fashion Designer and the Toast of All the Runways of Paris, and decided instead that she wants to be a normal high school girl. She explains that this is because at the Snowflake Ball she felt 15 for a minute and liked it. Very mysterious, indeed.

What is unknown at this point is whether that crusty old dude we saw Serena tangoing with in Argentina made her a vampire during one of those dips. What we do know is that she has broken up with he who is now Blair's sketchy artist dude step-brother, and now wants to be Dan's girlfriend again, and teach him to do the tango.

Did Rufus arrive just in time to save Dan from being vampirized? Is Lil'J suddenly so concerned about Nellie's human rights being violated because she knows that Nellie is secretly a teenaged not-quite-werewolf and she wants to make a territorial agreement for the Upper West Side with her before Nellie surprises everyone, herself most of all, by fursploding? And shouldn't that happen at some sort of fancy dress ball specially given for the occasion by the Argyle Vest Enthusiast club or something?

And just exactly how dead is Bart, really? Or would it be more accurate to describe him as UNdead? Is he - could he be - Volturi? Chosen of course, for his Special Vampire Talent of being really creepy.