^{HIT THE HILLS!}
by  Jihan Forbes  

_{I promised myself that I would never watch The Hills. I didn’t watch a single
episode of Laguna Beach, and I was already a faithful viewer of The OC. As far
as I was concerned, I did not need to watch another show about over-privileged
white kids in the suburbs. I laughed at my friends who watched the show,
wondering why they would waste their time and brain cells on such foolishness.
The cast of the show is rather plain looking and not particularly well dressed.
Why were so many of my friends so obsessed? What reason did they have to watch
if the cast didn’t even look good? Did this show have any redeeming aspects? I
didn’t find out until one night when a few of my friends invited me over to
play the Hills drinking game they had just invented. I agreed to attend, after
all, they were having coke and rum and I hadn’t seen any of those girls in a
while. They scrawled the rules of the game on a piece of paper and taped it
next to the television. We were to take a drink for each Chanel bag we saw,
every time they flashed a character’s name on the screen (as if you didn’t know
who they were), each time Heidi left work, etc. By the end of the episode, I
could feel the alcohol swirling around inside me. “This show is hilarious,” I
said. One could argue that Captain Morgan had seized my senses and I didn’t
know what I was talking about. Still, that one episode of The Hills caused me
to realize that the show’s brilliance had everything to do with its inherent
stupidity.
As I watched, I noticed that every person had assigned roles. Heidi and Lauren
were the main characters, so, of course, they were always involved in some
petty drama. “Heidi got into an argument with her boyfriend in front of
everyone at the club,” “Lauren can’t decide if she wants to go to Paris or
spend the summer with her boyfriend.” It seemed that Heidi and Lauren were
incapable of making decisions that would clearly benefit them in the long run.
In the face of their indecision, they confide in their coworkers who often seem
exasperated with their inability to make obvious choices. Their conversations
always follow the same formula. Each time Whitney Port (Lauren’s coworker)
dared to open her mouth it was to inquire about Lauren’s drama. “… And how does
that make you feel,” it seemed she always asked, as if we all of a sudden
changed the channel and stumbled upon an episode of America’s Next Top Model,
right in the middle of one of Tyra’s heart-to-hearts with her future fierce
awards nominees. To Whitney’s credit, she did often help illuminate Lauren’s
stupidity with sometimes rather backhanded comments, none of which Lauren ever
seemed to notice.
You know when you’re watching television, and a song comes on during a show,
and you wonder, “what song is this?” I have that same sentiment the each time I
watch The Hills. Except, I want to know so I can write the producers a letter,
asking them why they insist on abusing some poor post-production firm’s stock
music library. For a show on a network that has its own high-profile music
awards ceremony, it is curious to me that they would afford one of their
biggest shows such a horrible soundtrack. But when I think about it, with the
exception of TRL, MTV’s programming has little to do with actual music, so, I
guess it makes sense. I also noticed that The Hills also shamelessly and
hilariously staged. These staged moments I like to call “TRUE moments.” In
season two of The Hills when Heidi moves out of her apartment with Lauren to
live with her sleazy boyfriend Spencer, the very last shot of the episode is
Lauren, standing like a jilted lover on the sidewalk, watching Heidi pull away
in a U-haul van. The Truest part of this moment, however, comes when the camera
switches to a shot of the rear of the van, and all we can see is Heidi’s forlorn
face in the reflection of the van’s side mirrors. I could barely hold back my
tears. Even with all these wonderful aspects, The Hills is would not be as
brilliant were it not for Spencer Pratt, Heidi’s manipulative, flesh-coloured
beard-rocking boyfriend. His stupidity is almost genius; he refuses to take
responsibility for being a jerk. Each time anyone calls him out for his blatant
douchebaggery, he makes a nonsensical statement alleviating him of all blame.
Consider this dialogue between Spencer and his sobbing younger sister,
Stephanie:
Stephanie: “You’re making me cry.”
Spencer: “No, you’re making yourself cry thinking about what you did.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
No matter how intelligent you think you are, there is something to be said for
mindless entertainment, which The Hills provides. Though you may feel guilty
after enjoying an episode (or ten), you can sleep soundly at night knowing that
even with all their money, your IQ is probably higher than Spencer and Heidi’s
combined.}