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[gurgen]

Thursday, January 01, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Idiot Box Savant: Rich people hate you!


By Andrew Kiraly


It's a new year, a time for reflection and self-renewal. How can I become a better person? How can I contribute to society in a more positive way? Why am I here? Do I have a larger purpose in life? Oh, the questions a skull-hammering Crown Royal-and-Coke hangover inspire. More bottled water, please. Don't slip! Yes, that's my puddle of steaming glurge.

Anyway, in my ongoing studies of the species richicus bitchitus, I've been watching a couple of shows pretty regularly, MTV's "Rich Girls" and Fox's "The Simple Life." Yeah, that's the one with Paris Hilton. Which reminds me: Seen the video yet? It's lame. Between the splinter cell night vision goggle effect and Hilton's famine-chic frame, it basically looks like some lucky guy's nailing the walking stick mother alien from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In "The Simple Life," (Fox, Tuesdays, 8:30) she and her rich girlfriend, Nicole Richie--daughter of the man who inspired millions to dance on the ceiling, Lionel Richie--are sentenced to live and work on a farm with the Leding family in Altus, Ark., a real-deal agrarian clan who drive tractors to one-room schools and eat their mashed potatoes with pitchforks.

Awright, maybe it's a sign of my charitable spirit that I half-expected to be surprised and see, I dunno, some promising glimmer of humanity revealed beneath Richie and Hilton's sneering reptilian veneer of Chanel and Louis Vuitton. I also figured, well, the producers couldn't possibly produce a show that would make Hilton and Richie look bad; the vindictive harpies would rip their human face-masks off and shoot fireballs from their eye sockets or something. But damn, if this show doesn't inspire an eat-the-rich revolution among the lumpen TV-watching nation, then our country's future is dim indeed, friend. Yeah, it's everything you secretly expected: The two girls pout, simper, whine and pull grade-school funnies like county-fair kissing-booth shenanigans and making a ruckus at quilting parties--all with an amazing lack of charm, verve, sass or intellect. Indeed, the Savant is as convinced as ever that rich people are an alien race sent to attack America's small farming communities and manufacture wars to make Hamburger Helper out of the nation's poor volunteer military force. Why, oh why, do they hate us?

But the freaky thing about "The Simple Life" and "Rich Girls," (MTV, Tuesdays, 10:30 p.m.) is the utter transparency of the bitter conceit that money can, in fact, buy you happiness; it doesn't take much to see how unhappy these girlies are. For the real sad/bizarro V.C. Andrews shit, check out "Rich Girls," which follows Ally Hilfiger and Jaime Gleicher as they travel the world, explore different cultures...and then inexplicably start to weep.

Well, not always inexplicably. There was this one hilarious episode when Ally--suddenly rapt with the realization that the fact that she'd been raised in a protective artificial womb made of AmEx cards and Florentine silk had prevented her from learning basic life skills such as cooking a simple meal for herself (in this case, burritos)--starts to bawl over the fact that she's incapable of feeding herself without the help of a waiter. Determined to make burritos for herself, she actually tries to fry the dry beans in a pan and is about halfway through chopping up some scallions when she has a full-on breakdown. At this point, I was both rapt and disgusted, half-cheering her on, half-mocking her--you see, I love burritos, and there's no reason why members of the uberclass who have worked so hard to put sweatshops over our heads should be denied the taste of a hearty bean-and-cheese delight. Hell, I was even cheering her on to go back to the store and score some cheap microwaveable ones. But what did Ally do? Did she tough it out, stumbles and all, and learn to make that burrito, earn that burrito?

No. She called Daddy, geese-honking through tears about how confused she is and how hard life is. Then she went out to a Mexican restaurant. Curses! I stab my Jose's microwaveable chimichanga with the raw fury of the underclass!
You may be grossly wealthy socialites, but I've seen half of you naked.