Mary's Musings: Ten-year old Steve Martin fans, RomComs are for Losers, etc.

As a kid, I loved comedy. My main favorites were Bill Murray and Steve Martin, whose dry wit I both related to and adored. I was also a fan of John Candy, another comedian I felt I grew up with. I loved The Three Amigos (something tells me this movie would be significantly less watchable as an adult) Ghostbusters, Wayne's World, the non-corny parts of Father of the Bride 1 & 2 and L.A. Story, Twins starring Danny Devito and Arnold Scwarzenagger (I also have my doubts about that one holding up) and the work of Leslie Nielsen. Many of these movie were copied for me from video-store tapes to VHS tapes, and when the FBI warning would flash on the screen I would be terrified, anticipating a team of FBI agents breaking into my home and seizing my copy of Joe Vs. The Volcano as I watched it for the twenty-second time.

The Naked Gun series, as well as Hot Shots 1 & 2 were movies I rushed to see in theaters. My family saw Naked Gun 33 and 1/3 while traveling through Europe. We first chose to see it in England, but the British wouldn't let me see it as a ten year old, though I was with my parents. (Maybe because of the scathing Queen Elizabeth parodies such as this one?) We ended up seeing it in the formerly communist city of Prague, Czechoslovakia, in an extremely Soviet-style, all-cement movie theater. The theater creepily echoed the cement apartment we were staying in, where the lights would shut off if you didn't make it fast enough down the hallway, and at the end of the hallway, we were rewarded with an always ajar-door with red stuff on it leading to the apartment next to ours, where Czech people had violent domestic arguments. These terrifying settings did not spoil my enjoyment of the movie, which I loved. And Anna Nicole was in it, and I thought she was so beautiful. I also selected it as a film to watch at the very last birthday party I remember having, age ten or eleven, a sleepover where I felt alternately embarrassed at the crassness of my selection and annoyance that people weren't watching it.

I also remember when Wayne's World came out. It was really exciting. I was eight, and my mother and I went to see it, but we got there really late and missed the first half, so we stayed in the theater to re-watch it. I later received free or cheap copies of both Wayne's World and the equally excellent Addams Family on VHS from McDonalds as a pack. What a combo!

On a more 90's note, I enjoyed Tommy Boy and the works of Adam Sandler. I loved Ace Ventura, Pet Detective. Saturday Night Live as one and a half hours of pure enjoyment. At the end, when the cast waves goodbye and the credits roll, I would feel a great loss. It seemed extra sad because of the dramatic farewell, and I wished I was up there on that stage with my fellow hilarious castmates, signing off at the end of another great show. I didn't have cable, so there were no reruns. In vain, I would stay up, hoping something good would be on. I usually ended up watching the beginning of Showtime at The Apollo, which didn't really satisfy, just as Soul Train or Professional Wrestling would come on after cartoons and I'd watch it much more out of desperation that enjoyment.

Some of these movies have certainly held up- Bill Murray's Groundhog Day (besides Andy McDowell)/Ghostbusters 1 & 2/What About Bob? type movies are light years better than all his stupid mopey Wes Anderson/Jim Jarmusch/Sofia Coppolla roles. Dumb and Dumber is another I will not hesitate to watch if it happens to be on TV, and obviously the aforementioned Wayne's World and The Addams Family are some of the Greatest Films Ever Made. I still like Seinfeld, a middle-school age obsession neatly fitting in with my other dorky passions.

I think most comedy is really age-appropriate only for a precocious nine-year-old, whereas now the retard tingles you get after watching Michael Cera stammer his way through the same movie for the eighteenth time tend to overwhelm any "funny" aspects the movie promises to contain. Luckily, the trend of wacky sports movie died (Thank god the one starring Andy Samburg bombed) but looking at the comedies still set to be released in 2010, it doesn't look pretty. More romcoms starring Kristen Bell, and then more movies starring Steve Carrell and Paul Rudd as a duo, and then Owen Wilson is the live-action Marmaduke movie. Looks like the studios are taking some crazy, creative chances yet again!

Most comedies are geared toward men. Comedies geared towards women are called "romantic comedies," but they're not really comedies. Romantic comedies are not funny. I'm tired of women on feminist blogs being like, "We have to stop criticizing romantic comedies because they're for and about women. There's no shame in loving romantic comedy. Why aren't people ashamed of action movies instead?" Romantic comedies are insulting to women, that's why. The very format of a pathetic fairy-tale romance combined with the forced wacky hijinks of polite society makes me want to kill myself. They are simultaneously boring and embarrassing. They are almost always about women feeling stupid/ugly/single/uncool/bad about themselves. The women are never crass and funny. I think Tina Fey can be very funny, but to me 30 Rock is just like a romantic comedy- it's about hating herself (Like Chelsea Handler, I often get the feeling Tina Fey actually hates all women.)

The last time I regularly watched romantic comedies was in middle school, when friends would take me to see them. Even then, I cringed. I thought about selecting the The Wedding Singer as a movie to see for my birthday party, but after the final scene, wherein Adam Sandler sings a song called "I Want to Grow Old With You" to a very non-80's looking Drew Barrymore, I was glad I hadn't. It made me uncomfortable to watch such such treacle, and it still does.

Sure, action movies are retarded too, but they are exciting and exhilarating, and not always based on some series of horrible, cutesy, faux pas. I don't know how you can compare an entire yacht blowing up or someone getting stabbed in the face with some girl worrying whether she is too fat for her date with Hugh Grant. Only one of these scenarios should be fulfilling some kind of primal urge.

A lot of these modern, "I Love You, Man" style comedies kind of blur the line between romantic comedies and wacky retard comedies, both because the men in them appear to be in long-term, committed relationships with their male friends, and because they also have to resolve a problem with their nagging but inexplicably hot wives or girlfriends. Plus, they are always talking about their feelings. So many women seem to have embraced these kind of comedies, even laboring under the delusion that the men who star in them are attractive and sexually appealing due to their "comedic" "talents." I recently heard a young woman say she would have sex with Jonah Hill if he asked her to. Do you think, fifteen years ago, a lot of guys would be like, "Hey, she's such a great comedian, I'd have sex with Roseanne, wouldn't you?" Talk about a double standard.I mean, it would be cool if a guy said that in a way the opposite would never, ever be cool.

Also, I know I've been ranting a long time now, but I also am so sick of the faux-documentary style format I want to puke. It had already been perfected with the British The Office, some Christopher Guest movies, and Arrested Development, but, instead of thinking of something new, everyone just jumped on the bandwagon to play out a bunch of third-rate versions until it looks really dated and everyone hates it. I feel like I am the only person on earth to hate Steve Carrel and the U.S. The Office. The last commercial I saw for it promised Jim and Pam or whatever their names are having a baby and they were having a baby special episode! Way to stay true to the dry, realistic, melancholy spirit of the original, American colonialist TV producers!

Needless to say, I also hate Judd Apatow and think he directed all the most sexist, trite parts of Freaks and Geeks, which he wrongfully gets credit for and is the greatest show ever.

In conclusion, it's really hard to find funny comedies, and if you want to get high and watch a retarded comedy you haven't seen, please check out Spring Breakdown, starring Amy Poehler, Rachael Dratch, and Parker Posey, which manages to be feminist without being patronizing (alright, I can't recommend the scenes with Amer Tamblyn, but still, the movie is good.) If you are like, "Why is Jonah Hill in all these movies but these famous, established female comedians can't get their much funnier comedy released?", obviously the answer is the patriarchy, and I guess that is also the answer to the question about why I never watched any female-driven comedies or remember liking an female comedians, but we all know that.

Mary's Musings: Jezebel, More Lady Gaga

I never used to read Jezebel, but now I read it all the time. It is a good go-to for gossip and news with a feminist bent. But then, I also get angry a lot by what I read there, because it seems to have an intense reactionary/normal bent as well. A disturbingly large amount of the comments are from grown women who write stuff like:

"No! NO!
I will not share my dolls with you.
They are mine. All mine. You go get your own."
*stamps foot and pouts*

bluebears promoted this comment

That is, of they're not busy writing really long, anecdotal, boring personal statements about their life that tangentially relate to the featured article, which is often not so much an article as a photo of someone from Gossip Girl on the street wearing a slouch hat with a pun title. Also, apparently people who comment there refer to themselves as "Jezzies." Anyway, here are some examples:

That is, of they're not busy writing really long, anecdotal, boring personal statements about

Adorable Children Do Adorable Thing
Specifically, they're recreating classic album covers, like that of Abbey Road. The kids, who are between the ages of 10-12, are cute as pie — but give me some toddlers doing this, and then my ovaries will really coo.

Even if you think babies and kids are cute, do we really need individual posts to point out how some child models are being used? Apparently for a Disney advertisement? Ovaries cooing? How essentialist! Sometimes Jezebel is one step away from just posting Anne Geddes photos, and what's horrifying is that all the commenters seem to totally approve!

Secondly, they hated on the new Lady Gaga video for its "mixed messages" and "bad acting" and being about "style over substance." What?! This video, btw, is totally amazing. Clearly it's got some tacky product placement, as well as some not that interesting crotch shots which I do think Lady Gaga needs to lose, but it horrifies me to know that whoever wrote this seems to have zero knowledge of campy B- movies, which are obviously what is being echoed/parodied/honored here. Style over substance and not being about the song, in a music video? How cutting! They don't even know why they don't like it, man! It certainly doesn't have anything to do with Leigh Bowery!

Also, a lot of commenters were angry over the "fake homoeroticism", but it's not like Girls Gone Wild style, she's making out with a legit-looking butch lesbian, which serves a totally different purpose. Also, Beyonce looks so beautiful with baby bangs. Also, Gaga wears cigarette sunglasses that have smoking cigarettes on them, and her hair is rolled up in Diet Coke cans. Also, she wears a telephone on her head made of hair. Also, the women's prison scenes are awesome. You must be made of stone not to appreciate this shit! Especially when you are appreciating seven year olds reenacting the cover of Abbey Road. The Beatles suck!!!

MTV: What Happened?!

Apparently MTV has dropped the "music television" part of its logo, in an effort to rebrand itself yet again. Despite the success of Jersey Shore, they really seem to be staggering along blindly when it comes to connecting with the youth market, as previously written about in my Alexa Chung post. MTV and VH1 are mere shells of their former selves, desperately trying to stuff one more Tila Tequila Humps A Dog for Money reality TV show into their tired line-up.

It's sad because MTV, you used to be cool. Sort of! Showing music videos is cool (though the fact that they didn't want to show those of non-white artists in the 80's when they started, is, of course, not.) Beavis and Butthead, Daria, a focus on Prince when he was popular, and even the original Jackass made MTV worth watching. You may recall that even Daniel Johnston was discovered by MTV.

And the same for VH1! I spent much of high school watching their "Top 100 [whatever] Albums/Band/Etc" shows that relied too heavily on Dee Snider's opinion, but were still pretty interesting. And there was the truly brilliant Behind the Music, where I learned the Go-Gos used to be really punk rock and made a "sex tape" which featured them in long dresses, mumbling incoherently in a coke-addled haze and forcing their male roadies to do it with each other or something. I saw Patti Smith for the first time on one of those channels, performing "Horses" in the 70's, which of course blew my mind. And who can forget their first video ever, "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles? That song is 80's pop gold.

Obviously, MTV has always been corporate. It's always been suspicious when a huge company decides to market themselves to the youth in a hip and cool fashion, but for a time, it made sense. They managed to straddle the line between the two worlds, and while I'm sure they always put out plenty of crap, there was plenty of good stuff too. They had a perspective.

If I were the CEO of MTV, I wouldn't lose all this stuff. They can still have Jersey Shore and True Life (admittedly, a pretty great show) but I think the success of Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" video showed that people are still into music videos as a format. And even though the overall music scene isn't what it once was, it's still worth tapping into the market and trying to find stars and all that exploitative shit that MTV was once all about. How about a music and culture show that isn't so forced and weird like It's On seemed to be? What about hipsters? How about some more direct exploitation of them? I've lived in cities with interesting local music scenes, but MTV is just too interested in Bret Michaels humping a dog to get into that. And once you show Bret Micheals weave one too many times, you start to lose your cache, you know? And become a grotesque version of what you once were? Who runs these channels? What are they doing?!

Seal of Approval: Adam Lambert

Like everyone else, I now love Lady Gaga after the masterpiece of "Bad Romance"...but what really blew my mind was American Idol Adam Lambert's insanely gay performance last night on the American Music Awards!!! This was absolutely the first time I have ever seen such "classic" homosexual imagery within the context of an openly gay performance on a major awards show! He dragged some guys in bondage gear around on a metal leash! He kissed a guy! Simulated oral sex which sadly was edited out of the West Coast Feed! Whoa!

Apparently it "shocked" many- prompting a commentor to say "I can see why America is embracing Taylor Swift. She is sweet and pure. I didn’t understand it before, but Adam helped to put all of that into perspective." Another referred to it as "degenerate" and "sick." Many people said they wouldn't want their kids watching, as if this was the first "inappropriate" performance on an awards show-but think how great this could be for older teenagers who really are confused about their sexuality and see something like this validated, even in a theatrical way?

Yeah, the song was pretty bad, and the singing was more Broadway-esque than anything else, but it was more about the spectacle. It seems that though we have seen as much from scantily clad-eighteen-year-old girls appropriating this type of sexuality in order to appeal to men, it's okay, but when it comes to a gay man camping it up in the same way, it freaks everyone out. I think we are so used to gay performers consciously trying to avoid addressing sexuality, or to only embrace the most mainstream of mainstream to not alienate anyone, it is nice to see such an obviously brash/trashy/bawdy tribute to it. (Additionally, everyone has sat through countless performances wherein clearly gay backup dancers dance suggestively around the lady-star, so it was nice to see backup dancers be what they usually are, which is hella gay!)

Anyway, I have to agree most with Entertainment Weekly critic Ken Tucker who said, as a TV viewer, he totally disagreed. "I thought Lambert's performance was a gas, a delight, a blast of brash vulgarity in the midst of merely ordinary vulgarity," he wrote Monday morning. "Lambert was an event unto himself. The song he was singing was beside the point — and the point was, 'Here I am, Adam Lambert, freed from the shackles of 'American Idol,' I'll push this dancer's face into my crotch if I feel like it, isn't it funny to lead human beings around on leashes, and can you believe how high I got my hair to stand up under these lights?' "

Anyway, perhaps someday we won't have to talk about performances like this one as if they represent all of gayness, as they obviously don't, because we will have lots of representations of gayness in all it's forms in the media and blah blah blah, but for now, at least he did it loud and proud.

Mad About Urban Outfitters

Hey, does anyone remember the show Mad About You? Boring Helen Hunt, the always grating Paul Reiser, sort of yuppies, the 90's? You know, as a kid you will watch almost anything: Professional Wrestling, Weekend at the Apollo, Home Improvement...but when the Mad About You theme song began, I couldn't change the channel fast enough (I feel the opening credits clearly show why.) As the blandest of "adult" sitcoms, focusing on adorable relationship foibles, it was everything I hated about TV, and to top it all off, it looked SO boring.

And, without further adieu, I bring you some new Urban Outfitters clothes, clearly inspired by the puffy chambray shirts and unnecessary vests of Paul Reiser and the high-waisted faded jeans and boxy blazers of Helen Hunt. You know, designers spend thousands researching their inspirations, but why bother when such sartorial splendor is only a remote-click away?

Ohmygooood this is so ugly. I just don't understand why anyone would want to wear something like this. What draws you in? If you want to look like absolutely nothing [ie, Helen Hunt], why pay so much for it? This is $100!!!


This is a stonewashed shirt- very Paul Reiser! It also comes in bleached chambray and tie-dye, to be worn for more of a "world music" look! Did you know these are just old shirts Urban Outfitters hand "splatter bleach finished?" What can't those geniuses do?


Alright, probabaly no one on Mad About You would wear this- maybe a kooky aunt? Anyway, what is going on here?! A faux fur vest paired with a washed silk oversized blouse? If you're going to wear a faux fur vest, even one this ugly, at least try for a little glam rock panache a la Brian Eno in his Roxy Music days! Why is everyone so willing to wear fugly, strange clothes like harem pants but only in the most muted and boring ways possible???





Once, not long ago, I worked at a very trendy vintage store that happened to be located right near Urban Outfitters headquarters. The store was full of hipsters and 90's stuff that flew off the shelves. Occasionally some young ladies wearing a belted oversized silk blouse and whatnot would come in and buy a lot of stuff with the Urban Outfitters credit card, so they could be "inspired" by the stuff for their designs, then manufacture brand new copies of this shit and sell them for far more than even our jacked-up prices. And everyone at my job would be like, "They don't even go to real thrift stores! The stuff is already picked out for them! Easiest job ever!"

Indeed. One would almost think, to make this garment, an "Urban" buyer closed their eyes and plunged straight into the next available sale rack, but I guess it was carefully chosen? This blouse looks like the kind of blouse they still sell at stores that have displays like this out front.

So ugly and 90's and boring and ill-fitting and weird. And so paired with an off-white silk blouse. We truly are moving into the mid 90's as "vintage" and "inspirational." Isn't Urban Outfitters worried that soon they will have covered the whole 90's and then we are going to end up overlapping even more and nothing will be "in" or "out" anymore? Also, how are they ever going to "draw inspiration" from the 2000s as nothing original happened through out the entire decade, fashion wise? Maybe these purses will come back? Who knows? Start buying everything, because tomorrow it could be popular!

PS: "They're not going to like my NYPD Shoe sketch! It's basically the same thing!"

Seal of Approval: Dancing with The Stars/Beth Ditto

I guess I'm a little late on this one, but Dancing With the Stars is kind of an amazing show. I always heard about it, and was like, "This is the most European concept ever," which it totally is. But it's kind of amazing because it, unlike every other show on TV, is so straightforward. All these "stars" (Aaron Carter!!! Wooooo!!!) have to learn a complex routine with another person, put on a ridiculous outfit, and dance their heart out. That's it. No one gets special treatment (well, the guys don't have to wear heels and wigs and dresses, but at least they have to wear high-waisted pants with a matador jacket and no shirt) and they all just seem, so, well, eager to please. Clearly this is the highest of high camp (especially that one supergay judge), but no one is acknowledging it because they're too busy dancing. It hearkens back to another, simpler celebrity era, when we expected our stars to be all-around entertainers who acted, sang, did impressions, told jokes, tap-danced and smoked a high-tar cigarette all with a smile on their face (That clip is so cool! There is a guy with peg-leg break-dancing for serious. Why is tap-dancing by far the best kind of dancing?)

It's like, what do celebrities really do these days (besides coke?) Nothing! But not on this show! Doesn't it kind of make sense that we expect these people to be skilled at something? And even though the people on DWTS aren't especially talented, at least they're trying. There's something so...humble about it!



I'm still rooting for Kelly Osbourne after all these years, too. Plus, she did do a dramatic dance to "Crazy Train" with crazy hair. And Ozzy came to watch her. I was touched. She seems pretty cool on that show! Apparently she's a crowd favorite!


Secondly, my second Seal of Approval is also kind of late, and goes to Beth Ditto, after I watched this style.com clip of her. Like many hipster feminist types, I first saw The Gossip way back in the early 2000s when I was but a teenager, and it was like, "Here's this fierce cute fat girl who takes her clothes off [in an aggressive/nonsexual way]! Wow!" (It was also like Wow! because we had just seen The Donnas. Remember them? They sucked.)

Kind of like seeing Kelly Osbourne on TV though on a far grander scale (Kelly Osborune was, after all, mostly pretty annoying), it was pretty mind blowing/empowering at the time, so the fact that Beth is actually Famous now is really cool because she is a completely, completely different role model from every other famous pop star today- describing yourself as a "fat feminist lesbian" who grew up "poor" and "butch" on a website owned by Vogue is the kind of thing we need a lot more of. She also seems to really love and appreciate fashion in the outsidery, all-encompassing way that it should be loved. And she is one of those rare people who is managing to affect (however small) amount of political change through art, music, fashion, etc., without being preachy or boring. She also seems to love novelty prints- just like ME!!!!

Should Beth Ditto go on a special episode of Dancing With the Stars? In a word, yes.

Gee, my posts have been so warm and fuzzy lately. Maybe I will go to Urban Outfitters today.

RIP, Mrs Slocombe

LONDON (Reuters) – British actress Mollie Sugden, best-known for her role as Mrs Slocombe in the television comedy series "Are You Being Served?," has died at the age of 86.
Her agent Joan Reddin told newspapers Sugden died on Wednesday after a long illness. "She was a lovely, lovely person. She was a great professional," Reddin said.
With her hair highly coiffed and referring frequently to her "pussy," Sugden played the bossy Mrs Slocombe throughout the run of the BBC's innuendo-laden Are You Being Served? between 1972 and 1985.

I love Are You Being Served? I used to watch reruns on PBS when I was a kid and my mother used to tell me that Mister Humphries (first photo below) was supposed to be gay, and I had no idea what she was talking about, even though on every episode there would be some sort of fashion show and he would dress up as a fairy and flit around the department store. I also didn't really get Mrs Slocombe's constant "pussy" references.

Anyway, Simone and I have discussed how Mrs Slocombe would make a great Hallloween costume, which we should probably do. First Bea Arthur, and now this! Who is going to replace these people! No one!

Also, AYBS? has the best theme song ever.

PS: Speaking of high camp/the recently departed, it's too bad there's not really going to be a showing of Michael Jackson's body at Neverland. If I were in Southern California, I would totally go. It would be a landmark moment in pop culture. Also I have this Michael Jackson half shirt from the 80's I could hawk for like $10,000.

Alexa Chung is Boring

Alexa Chung, a model/TV presenter from England, recently started a show on MTV that is sadly trying to tie in Facebook or something because I guess all of a sudden MTV is remembering it is no longer hip or "with it." Also, the TV show is supposed to look like a "loft party in Williamsburg." Also, Alexa Chung lives in a loft in Williamsburg. In conclusion, someone at MTV really knows what's up to come up with a fresh concept like this, and also I watched her interview with Ryan Reynolds (What is up with him? What is the appeal?) and it was boring and it looked like the set of the Ellen show and also you could have replaced Alexa Chung with Ellen and nobody probably would have noticed. Also, lastly, at least this show could interview be about interviewing bands and playing music videos, because that's usually more entertaining than asking Ryan Reynolds borderline pez questions about muttonchops. Not that I really want to watch a "Bat for Lashes" interview or anything.

But that is neither here nor there. The point is, Alexa Chung is revered for being a fashion icon, because she is tall and thin and attractive in an unassuming way and has that boring, hipstery, lank look so popular right now- you know, a sack tucked into a sack, a navy blazer, some long/tangled necklaces, flats or big chunky shoes, a brown leather bag, straggly hair, neutrals aplenty, a twist of the 90's.

Here she is in some assorted looks. Could that 80's-or-Built-By-Wendy dress on the bottom be any more ill-fitting?

Fascinating! Also, according to some research I did, she dates or dated this guy who looks like he is seven from the Arctic Monkeys. God, it's so depressing what passes for hipness these days! 

PS: Here's a photo of Peaches Geldof (experiencing some Agyness Deyn fallout) and Alexa:

I think I had the denim dress Ms. Chung is wearing in sixth grade. I used to wear it with a pair of silver earrings shaped like teddy bears. Anyway, LANK! Peaches, despite- or perhaps because of- looking like a sci-fi vixen from 1989, wins this round!

The Hills Vs. the City Vs. The Bad Girls Club

As many of my readers know, I really hate The Hills. If I were to choose between that show and another, also mostly semi-scripted "reality" show about women in their early twenties, my choice, by far, would be the always-excellent The Bad Girls Club (TBGC), on Oxygen.

Here are some reasons why!

1. The Hills is boring and nothing happens on it. Seriously, nothing happens. It's as boring as real life but at least real life is actually happening, but this show is just a bunch of bitches being like, "Justin Bobby texted me...I'm so upset," and the other one being like, "LA fashion week that no one cares about anyway because it's LA fashion week is coming up and I'm supposed to put a belt on a model within the space of six hours." Who cares? No one! Then we have The City, which is the same format as The Hills because it's a spin-off, but it's set in fabulous NYC so everything is really "chic" and "urban" and they "go" to "art openings".

2. The ladies of The Hills look like crap. I would take the spandex mini dresses, huge hair, large earrings and giant silver shoes of the bad girls over the bland sacks The Hills/City crew are regularly seen in.

Check out the Bad Girls style! Trashy exuberance, i call it!

3. The Hills reinforces female stereotypes, whereas TBGC reinforces male stereotypes, but stars women- thus rejecting female stereotypes! It's not that the bad girls never backstab and gossip, but that whole aspect really takes a backseat to them establishing dominance in a stereotypically male fashion, whether the girls are knocking down someone at a club for looking at them funny or challenging someone else to a fight. There's always a lot of screaming to "Bring it!" on - quite a contrast to the classic passive-aggressive "Mean Girls" style The Hills endorses.

We may recall Andrea, a latecomer to the bad girl house on Season 2, who basically got challenged by the rest of the ladies for not being enough of a bad girl/a weak anorexic, and endured a lot of her housemates' screaming and threats for no reason. ("You're a moron and food tastes good!" yelled one, notably.) Not soon after, Andrea left the house, having been chased out because she couldn't, you know, take the hazing ritual she was being subjected to. And the rest of the bad girls were like, "We don't know what's up with her! I guess she's not a bad girl! She couldn't take it!"

5. Race and class are often discussed on TBGC. "Whathat?" sayeth Whitney, who may be functionally retarded, no? I'm not going to pretend TBGC is, like, intent on helping and/or positive for women or anything (I'm talking about reality TV here!) but many episodes have the stars discussing their economic and racial backgrounds and how they are shaped by them. On The Hills, everyone is from the exact same background, which is that of an orphan raised by the studio. In Laguna Beach.

4. No one, to my knowledge, has ever pushed anyone into a pool on The Hills, or yanked out someone's weave, or peed in the kitchen sink. Not once. In TBGC, everyone knows the big rule is that they get sent home of they actually physically assault anyone else on the show. But is there even a reason for such a rule on The Hills? No.

Vs:

5. The men on TBGC a mere props, clearly introduced by the show with BS and/or porn jobs like "party promoter", "surf instructor", "poolboy", "handyman", and "stripper." There are some episodes that revolve around men, but they're mostly there for the bad girls to have sex with, like bunnies in their own personal Playboy mansion. No fucking Spencer types with faces too small for their heads further ruining their hopeless lives, dude!

In conclusion, fuck The Hills!!!!! Especially Lauren Conrad and especially all the other boring-ass skanks on that show!