Season Four of The Hills debuted last night and in some ways I feel like it has been going on forever. I feel that I have invested part of my formidable mid-twenties identifying with a group of girls that I will probably never meet. I sort of like that. I sort of like this voyeurism that has been engrained in me. Just give me three more episodes and my life will be surrounded by nothing but dreams of sugarplums and Heidi Montag dancing in my head.
But there’s always this argument of people who think they are better than me, and the rest of the millions of people, that tune in faithfully every Monday for a half hour to dissect this weeks actions. I feel persecuted in this way. Like it so much better to tune in to Lost and dissect the lives of these castaways and their polar bears and their unknown monsters. I never got into Lost because well I see it as Gilligan’s Island 2.0.
I would rather have this nostalgic feeling of watching a city I grew up in transform into a city I didn’t know existed. The creator of The Hills has turned Hollywood into an island. They have made it seem to the outside world that this place is bigger than it actually is. Ad they made it seem beautiful. They’ve made it fake.
And we all know that. But it seems crazy that people are appalled that this show is fake. Maybe because their confusing reality television with reality. Reality television is a show that is staged unscripted, but it goes further than that. It is a show about nothing. In a whole season nothing really happens. The only thing is that more characters are introduced. The Hills is just on big case of nepotism. I just hope Justin Bobby has a brother.
But I am here to make a declaration. I think the Hills go where Seinfeld couldn’t. I here constantly that Seinfeld is a show about nothing. This isn’t true. Seinfeld was a show about something. It was a show about the human character that is in all of us. The asshole that tortures us and the friends that stick around. Where is with The Hills is a show about Lauren Conrad and her boring friends and boring lives and how money and beauty and an MTV contract can give you success. It is what the kids on The Real World were dying for.
We watch nothing because it is interested. This is what Jerry and George were pitching, but they just didn’t know yet. Maybe when Larry David first realized that the shows premise half the cast of The Hills hadn’t been born yet. See Elaine, George, Jerry, and Kramer had too much substance. In each of their seasons they had character arcs. The Hills have been milking the same conflict for over 20 episodes. And I watch.
And I think it just might have to do with the fact Spencer Pratt has made himself scarier and more evil than any monster on an unknown island.
