By Maya Minwary
Assistant A&E Editor
People, welcome to the United Ditz of America.
Or that’s what it seems like with the new wave of reality shows dealing with rich, spoiled teenagers and young adults.
As if watching humans eating rats or picking their dream mates within a season weren’t grueling enough, viewers can look forward to watching wealthy, way too pampered-for-their-own-good teens battle with such arduous tasks as sharing a bathroom — and not to mention their intelligence.
Last week’s Newsweek magazine gave its readers a sneak peek into the upcoming reality shows about the lives of affluent, bratty kids. This fall, viewers can look forward to “The Simple Life” on Fox, which will feature Paris Hilton, the Hilton Hotel heiress, and Nicole Richie, Lionel Richie’s daughter, relocate from their comfortable mansions to a remote town in Altus, Ark., population 817. MTV will follow the lives of Tommy Hilfiger’s daughter Ally and her friends as they go through high school cruising in their limos in “Rich Girls.” Taking a slightly different angle, HBO will air “Born Rich,” a documentary about the lives of heirs such as Ivanka Trump and Georgina Bloomberg.
If these shows are supposed to make the average Jane and Joe feel better about rich people, it’s only having the opposite effect … at least for me anyway.
What will probably be most entertaining about these shows is not that the audience will appreciate the fact rich people have normal problems like everyone else, but we’ll all probably end up laughing at the stupid comments the shows’ stars will most likely make.
“What is Wal-Mart?” asked a bewildered Paris Hilton, according to last week’s Newsweek article. “Is it, like, where they sell wall stuff?”
With such brainless comments as that, I wonder: “Could anyone be that dumb?”
Oh, sadly, yes. The Hollywood socialite is in a close tie for the most mindless quote-of-the-year next to pop-singer Jessica Simpson. Once I considered her as a positive alternative to trashy pop singers like Britney Spears, but Simpson’s many infamous one-liners on MTV’s “Newlyweds” (such as whether Chicken of the Sea was tuna or chicken) make her seem like the princess of stupidity.
I guess money can’t buy you everything. Especially a brain.
Maybe Simpson isn’t as dumb as her show portrays her, and perhaps not all wealthy teens are spoiled brats, but that’s where these shows can create negative stereotype.
I could hardly see many of these rich kids in a positive light when they show their ugly side like Luke Weil, the casino heir, who ranted about how anyone who doesn’t want to sign a prenuptial agreement is a female dog.
And I could hardly respect them when they make absurd comments like the ones mentioned in Newsweek.
“My dad invented cargo pants and everybody copied him,” Hilfiger’s daughter said.
Sure he did Ally, sure he did.
So here’s a tip for the new stars of reality television – the pop princess, the Hollywood socialite and the affluent heirs: don’t quit your day jobs. Not that you have any … or ever will!
October 23, 2003
