Gawker
The Hills star Lauren Conrad explains why you don't have to be a teenager, or a stunted twenty-something, to enjoy her MTV reality show. Number 1: It's like Sex and the City, without scripts and things. "But we were four girls who came to L.A., and became friends over time, and friendships were broken." It is also like The Devil Wears Prada. "That was about a girl who works at Vogue. I'm a girl who works at Teen Vogue. I get yelled at a lot. I miss birthdays and dates." And how is it an unscripted program can come off as kind of scripted? "It looks more like it's scripted because of the way they shoot it. There's a lot of editing. They use our stares for dramatic effect. All of us have more expressions on our face now, out of habit."
But the real magic of The Hills is what it can do for the older gals, like those ones from Sex and the City. "A lot of older women, not even that old—I'm talking, like, late 30s—say one of the reasons they love watching is because they love reminiscing. And remembering what it's like to be young and free and in your early 20s." [Newsweek]
Comments
She's got nothin on Coldstare...
Because I'm old and locked down?
remembering what it's like to be young and free and in your early 20s
uh, let's see: student loan payments ...
How cute, she has more expressions. Maybe if you develop enough, some day you won't be bland anymore.
I feel like I would be giving her too much credit if I said she sounded very "Cerie from 30 Rock" esque in this interview.
Then again, Cerie is supposed to sounds like a clueless 2o something...
I hope she comes across that comment in her late 30's again and realizes what an idiot she sounds like.
@chicklit: Indeed.
I read this, and I wish we could selectively make sterility a side effect of those new birth control implants.
Lauren Conrad keeps me gay.
The thirtysomethings are remembering what it was like back when they could still make facial expressions. Not that L.C.'s blank stare differs too greatly from her mother's botulized one.
@if_i_only_had_a_heart: four roommates in your first apartment ...
Well, honey, they weren't going to use your dialogue, that's for sure.
Oh! Hey, can I use this very same hypothesis to argue how PX This (currently being considered by Brian Grazer of Imagine Entertainment) would make a totally awesome super duper teevee show??
Well, it's like Sex and the City in that it's all New York based and set in all sorts of fabulous awesome restaurants! Except that: PX This is all REAL.
And! It's just like The Devil Wears Prada in that the protagonist (loosely based on moi-- heee) is a fashion designer! Who moonlights in a fancy posheroo restaurant that's run by a total psycho!
Isn't that hott?! Hooray!
So yah! See yalls at the Emmys or the Golden Globs or whatever!
:)
xoxo
abbe diaz
PX This.
p.s. Oh yah, so I guess if any of the Gawker editors and whatnot want to know "what [I'm] doing here..." (as a commenter, I mean).
Well, I hope this answers your question!
:)
ahh yes, Lauren Conrad is just like the rest of us in our early 20s...living in LA with only her parents' credit cards and the beemer she recieved for high school graduation! But she totes gets yelled at by her editor and stuff! Tough life.
I'm 23, live in a group house with 7 other girls and take the city bus to work. Someone should make a reality show about my life!
It's true that old people (ok I'm only 28 but still...got a kid, totes locked down...) like to watch and reminisce. I sit and think - wow, I was a total naive idiot, just like them!!! It does engender some sympathy.
@jann9884:
Yes, I can remember my early 20's so clearly. It was a time when all I had to live by was my Mercedes, my flat in my newly gentrified neighborhood, my Amex black card and my word. Some would say that I struggled to make ends meet, but I would take the shortcut and just get them trimmed. I was street-smart and knew that a blow-out should last me at least 4 days and that a pair of $500 heels wouldn't cause blisters. I took no shit from my maid, cook or my driver...and by God my neighbors respected my chihuahua.
Those were the halcyon days--so carefree and light. The days before the weight of my plastic surgeon's fuck-up and the lovers that would leave me alone in my poor mansion. With only a chihuahua and a tiny little tiara to remember the old days.
Like I want to relive the hell I went through during my daughter's teenage angst years...yeah, sure...
@if_i_only_had_a_heart: Ha! My friends and I are in our early-30s and we watch them act like assholes then we call each other and say "Yeah... I totally dated douchey guys like Justin Bobby and let them treat me like dirt. I'm so glad I'm not that stupid anymore... hahahahahah.....idiots!" Date the nice guy down the hall Audrina!
@Mike_Jahn:
there was i time i was so poor i didn't know where my next husband was coming from
just kidding
I would respect her so much if she'd just be like, "yeh, I was born into the good life, Mtv wanted to cash in on my fortune by making Laguna, then came this Hills biz-nass, and now I'm not only rich (as I always was) but famous taboot. They even made a magazine about me & my friends, it is called US Weekly."
Like, stop fronting like you have it tough somehow-- admit you are blessed/lucky/whateva da fuk you wanna call it & shhhhhhhhhhhhut up!!!!
get.
off.
my.
television.
and take your dog, Heidi with you. please.
@BeAgrestic:
When she's 30, she's going to be too busy crying that her 15 minutes are up.
I'd watch this if there were less facial expressions, and more yelling at Conrad. If I must contribute to her wealth and fame, at least let schadenfreude be my reward.
@Theda_Bara: well, I think you know where you can go to pay off those student loans. The Emperor's Club needs a replacement and I'm thinking you can start at 4 or 5 diamonds easy!
Problem solving...just one of the many things an overprice graduate education has taught me.
@SneakingThroughTheAlleyWithLalley: Is she really any different from Ben Kunkel or Keith Gessen? I don't really see a difference between some moneyed baby-slime saying stupid things on TV or writing stupid things in boring-ass "novels." They're still the same sheltered little nest-chicks marveling at the world around them without ever becoming part of the actual world. Without ever holding a job, without ever being at risk, without ever doing anything most humans must, by force, do.
Conrad, I can take. She knows she's kind of stupid and cosseted. Kunkel and Gessen are the same exact product, but never even suspect what they are for a second. Rich, boring, little, self-celebrating Twix bars, who believe they have figured something out without having lived for even a moment.
Ah, now I feel better.
@Ian Spiegelman: Hee!
Actual Twix bars are so much more awesome than metaphorical Twix bars, too. With the layer of caramel on top of the cookie and the chocolate on top, mmmmm! No boringness.
@PoBoyNation: For serious! Twix are among the best candy bars ever.
Oh to be in my twenties again when there were no Lauren Conrad, Paris Hilton, Tori Spelling, Julia Allison types. Big Brother, Bachelor/Bachelorette, Flavor of Love, Sandra Lee...
The good old days...
blue steel ...
Am I a racist prick if I say these shows could all be called Rich White People? I'm just sayin'. (Oh, damn, there's Flavor of Love and that New York one). Ok, RWP and Shameless Cooning. Yeah, I said it.
The Hills would be so great if people were yelling at Lauren on her job at Teen Vogue. From what little I watched, she doesn't even seem to work, she and Whitney just talk over their computers.
Lauren Conrad is really a smart girl in so many ways, because she undercuts all the other women on the show, so that she remains the star. Essentially, she's just a little bland little blonde who anyone could replace. So she has very carefully constructed Heidi as the villain, and only allows Audrina and Whitney around her. Audrina is just too dimwitted to carry the show, and Whitney ... isn't quite as pretty as Lauren (debatable, I know, I like Whitney better).
I've only watched a couple episodes, but she seems to me like a little Alpha female with minimal talent protecting her spot at the top of the pack. And as I've said before, she must have a kind brilliance for taking her 15 minutes farther than it should ever have gone.
@donmiguel:
We are talkin' stupid here. Across the board. Mind numbingly. Is it surprising to anyone that we ( US Americans) are on the verge of losing the "super power" title? Verge? Funny. Where is Henry Kissinger when you need him? And why the hell cant they find Osama? I watch CSI. They find everything. Let's get them on it.
@extremelysnarky: You, too can see that they're all one look? Phew, I thought I was taking crazy pills.
WTF? This half-wit slut made Newsweek?!?! What's next? NPR?
@roodles: OOOOO, honey! Don't you think I didn't pause a second back in the day when the word first came out and think: but would they take a 32 year old poor grad student? It would be like--*waves hands* Student loans begone!
On the other hand, I'm trying to figure out if that's a compliment. *snort*
@if_i_only_had_a_heart: HAHAHAHA..... good one.
@Theda_Bara: def meant as a compliment!
@roodles: Thanks, hon. You had me worried for a second there!
@dandles: You may be on to something. If you remember, Kristin totally outshone Lauren. And now Lauren has a show, a clothing line, etc., and where's Kristin? Yet Kristin is far more charming and pretty and diabolical and interesting. So Lauren learned her lessons well.
Someone tell me ....Since when did "15 minutes" turn into a f*cking eternity?
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