Pollyanna

We have mentioned MTV's The City at this here school newspaper once before--I believe I termed it "the ultimate jumping of [Manhattan's] heptitude shark." I generally have less to say about it than I thought I would. It's parent programs (same premise, methods, producers, etc.) Laguna Beach and The Hills are utter gems, aesthetic marvels top full of a truer "nothingness" than Larry David could ever muster (being he's cerebral and all). And The City is about here, this, my town (not the inner and outer Los Angeles of the other two). It is also about Whitney Port, who was my very favorite Hillsean (the seemingly savvy, disinterested one) until she branched out to my coast. But yes, despite these factors, I find the whole quite dull and repugnant (still watching, poor me!).

I was present for a a bit of filming in early Fall. Two characters, heroine Whitney and half-baked sidekick Erin, live near my office, and a beloved diner (The Lyric, at 22nd and 3rd) was chosen as set-for-a-day. It was bizarre. I had to sign all kinds of paperwork and was barred from my usual booth. The "actors" were not speaking or eating (you know, playing the "scene") while I was there, but checking the monitor to see "if their tans looked funny" (which they most certainly did). I just think being on a reality show is super-trashy (duh). The transplant characters lead gross existences in Murray Hillish end-of-days condominium towers and SoHo bars. The native characters are the worst sort of dumpster people, claiming Uptown/socialite identities, dwelling in the filthiest new developments in TriBeCa (I take this quite personally being that these stupid bastards ousted my family from that lovely old district and chose to live in glass and sheen rather than the warm, beamed industrial spaces of its inception and true artist's golden age). If these clowns were in any way legitimate, they WOULD NOT BE ON TELEVISION.

Preamble preamble preamble (my greatest fault)! What I really meant to say in the first place is that you should watch last night's saga {right here}. Because it contains a thing so remarkable, so rare, so very very strange: an actually, plainly nice person on a reality program. Of course, she, Allie (the knife-boned international model), is being trod upon by Adam, her loserly, scum-times boyfriend (a dippy model/promoter person-thing). Adam has cheated on her and in his hair-jellyed sociopathy is denying and denying it. Poor little, gawky, gorgeous Allie believes and disbelieves him (in that way that only lovers of losers can comprehend). Her pain and insecurity are the most stunning jolt of reality in a universe of camera tricks and dull fakery, an accident of heartedness from an otherwise distended, cynically crafted teen-bop T.V. network. I feel for her, and you will too.