I watched The Simple Life for the first time last night and was just absolutely appalled. Surely Paris and Nicole are mugging for the camera and aren’t really that vapid, amoral and clueless (though I seriously doubt it was staged when they could identify every designer in Trivial Pursuit but had no idea who the Secretary of State was).
I know that the success of the show depends on the fish out of water “hilarity ensues” premise, but sometimes they seem just a little bit too… HAPPY DAYS charicatures of spoiled rich girls. If they really did charge the birdhouse without permission and without the goading of the show’s producers, their anorexic arses should be sent to an Arkansas jail just like they would for anybody else. (Paris- you have Zsa Zsa Gabor in your immediate ancestry, for God’s sake… show some class…)
A very politically incorrect comment perhaps, but Nicole Richie is probably the least black looking child borne of two black parents I’ve ever seen. Is this the result of surgery or hair conking or just an odd genetic twist?
PS- To me the most irritating facet of the show is the girls’ vocabulary (or lack of). Every other word has to be bleeped. Kids: you’ve had access to the best of everything including private tutors and exclusive schools- is the “F” word still your favorite? One of my closest friends was the daughter of an impoverished illiterate truckstop waitress and I’ve NEVER heard anybody in her family use foul language that frequently. Get the fuck over it and pick up a fucking dictionary for fuck’s sake.
Irony moment: on last night’s episode Paris made the comment “I hate her” when a trivia question was about Shannon Doherty, who is in real life the wife of Rick Solomon (Paris’s producer/partner in her most famous filmed performance to date).
Sooooo staged. Which is a shame; I guess the producers quickly realized how unfunny and wit-free their “heroines” were and scrambled.
Both have admitted they were ordered to wear the slutty clothes, and to play up their bimbo personas. They left the pies out and the dogs just happened to come by and eat them? Four-year-old Braxton knows who the Secretary of State is? The milk-farm owner just wanders off and leaves them unsupervised. Riiiiight.
Now, a video-cam on Liza Minnelli and David Gest’s brief marriage–that would have been teevee!
I read her statement on it today: she is adopted, though both of her biological parents are African-American.
While I knew that she had been through rehab, I was surprised to learn that the drug was heroin. Not to sound all Whitney Houston, but that’s such a low class street drug; you’d think that a Beverly Hills girl would “go for blow” or at least something more exclusive. She is legally unable to drive because of something to do with her drug problems.
I think the show would have worked so much better if they had cast true “debutantes” (i.e. not foul mouthed little airhead druggie bimbettes) and, at the same time, filling their places on the LA social and club scene with the kids from the farm family. It would be interesting to see what each set took with them when they returned home.
Very obviously staged. Remember the scene from the first episode when the bimbos go work on the farm? They just happened to bring their swimsuits along for the hot tub??
I remember reading somewhere (regarding Joe Millionaire, I think) that contestants were “persuaded” by producers to do and say certain things on camera that they thought would make for entertaining TV.
My guess would be that this is no different (but I still rather enjoy the show:()
What I found interesting is Paris really enjoys looking at herself in the mirror. She’s not going to enjoy the aging process and I can foresee a lot of plastic surgery in her future.
I saw an episode or two of this show and definitely got the impression that situations were created, people were given general directions (like “tell them what to do then leave them unsupervised, hilarity will ensue”), but the other night I watched about 5 minutes of the “marathon” thing they were showing. They had just finished making these pies or whatever, and went outside and set them on the ground to go inside the house and use the phone. Why? It looked totally unnatural, as if even they didn’t know why they would ever do that in normal circumstances. A nearby dog, of course, messed with the pies, and if Paris ever wants to become a legitimate actor (heh) she’ll have to learn to do a whole hell of a lot better than that completely fake “surprise” she displayed.
I don’t like the show, but I will say that what I did see contained some mildly entertaining moments that, while obviously set up, still seemed somewhat spontaneous. The dog and the pie bit was obviously so excruciatingly micromanaged and controlled by producers or whomever, I could almost feel the Fox exec sitting next to me saying “see, the dog’s going to eat the pie! they’ll be sooooo crushed that the dog ate the pie, which he is going to do any second now! (grabs dog and shoves it face into the pie. . .dog resists, is forced to eat pie) See, the dog ate the pie!!! That’s funny!” I think I’ll go read a book. . .I just got these nice new bookshelves and have been unpacking my books from boxes and they’re all lined up on the shelf now, inviting me. . .
Speaking of dogs, I was surprised on the marathon when they showed the little boy pushing Tinkerbell down the slide. While his playing with the dog may or may not have been staged, what was definitely real was the dog’s yelp of pain and limping away. I’m major reactionary when it comes to unnecessarily hurting animals (unless it’s for an exceptional and unarguable reason like a cure for a fatal disease or for pork chops, both of which justify the procedure) and while Hilton and Richie and the farm family are all media whores the little Chihuahua is innocent.
Not sure, but I’m thinking that’s not the first little kid to do something like that to a dog. Sure, it’s not ideal, but that little rat is no worse for the wear.
True, but usually when kids hurt animals it’s unintentional and unsupervised rather than when they’re surrounded by adult and supposedly mature camera crews encouraging him.