my first episode of The Hills

The Hills is a long running show on MTV. It follows some wealthy twenty-somethings as they attempt to figure out love and life. The show is supposed to be doocumentaryish with the supposedly real dialogue and action. Clearly, there is a great deal of staging and writing that goes into it, but the veil of reality really does give the show a certain voyeuristic charm. I am not totally unfamiliar with this type of show, the Hills is actually a spin-off show of Laguna Beach, which I saw a few times.

While the show is supposed to show the real lives of the main characters, I can tell from exactly one episode that there is a very strict formula here that i would guess the show almost never deviates from. I will give a run down of the characters I saw in this episode, what they did in the episode, and also what their roles in the show are.

1) Lauren, the vapid main character on the show, will inevitably create the drama/conflict that must be overcome for the show to move forward. In this episode she had two story lines. The first being that shortly after arriving in Paris to work on a project for teen Vogue, she discovers that her newly acquired boyfriend back home is referring to some other girl as his girlfriend. Feeling jilted, she decides that she needs a rebound while in Paris to make herself feel better. Enter tv-pretty french guy who apparently is in some un-named band(though since this show is on mtv, and mtv is in the business of promoting and selling music, it was suspicious that they never revealed who the band was. My answer to this is that they weren't a real band at all, but merely actors/models hired to play role on show.) Lauren has her rebound. Second story line, Lauren, while pursuing her rebound, realizes that she hasn't packed the right attire for wooing french hipster rebound, and needs to alter the presumably priceless ball gown she has on loan for her teen vogue event. She promptly ruins the dress, and relies, as people like her do in real life, on everyone around her to fix her dilemma she created through her own selfish pursuit of rebound.

2) Whitney, the ever faithful sidekick to Lauren, is on the show to clean up Lauren's messes while simultaneously never pursuing her own gory. Whitney, despite being smarter and more responsible than Lauren, as well as being just as cute in a subtler way, doesn't have the necessary star quality to make people want to clean up her messes. Because of this cursed invisibility factor, she is the born sidekick. We care about her the most and root for her on the show, but god forbid she ever set out on her own, which will only lead to failed attempt at being a Lauren, and will inevitably end in failure and loneliness, and a crawlback to Lauren to resume her role as sidekick. This dynamic of the show is a good reflection of reality I think. The world has roles, friendships have a dynamic to them. Once the dynamic is established things can never change.

3) Spencer and Heidi are the classic troubled couple. Terrible for each other, but somehow they cannot break-up. In a scene that seemed to define the relationship Heidi is trying to break-up with Spencer while at dinner in a restaurant. Spencer, not to be outdone, threatens that if she continues with this type of talk she would find herself single. It was the most asinine thing i had ever heard in my life. What was amazing was that this strategy worked. Heidi, who had been adamant that she wanted him to move out and get away from her, suddenly was back in baby's arms. I wonder if he beats her.