The Hills—More Meaningful Than We Ever Imagined

Canada

The Hills—More Meaningful Than We Ever Imagined

Thu., Jul. 31, 2008 10:44 AM PDT by Jennifer Cady

Entertainment Weekly

Is it possible there’s more to the The Hills than meaningful stares over cocktails, clubbing at L.A.’s hottest spots and staged Speidi fights?

Entertainment Weekly tries to add some sort of depth to the show in this week’s cover story about the peachy life of millionaire/earthquake survivor Lauren Conrad now that we're all addicted to her little personal dramas.

Of course there is the obvious comparison of L.C. being “a West Coast reincarnation of Carrie Bradshaw (if Carrie were a millionaire).” Fair enough—the show does feature four girls with no real jobs who lunch, go out for drinks and talk about boys.

It’s the comparison of the show to the novels of Charles Dickens that seems a bit off...

Tony DiSanto, MTV’s exec VP of series programming and development, actually says out loud to a reporter that The Hills is “almost becoming like a novel at this point, like this generation’s A Tale of Two Cities or Oliver Twist.”

According to Lauren, she’s “about empowering girls": "You’re gonna have bad boyfriends and best friends-turned-enemies. You need to be yourself, you need to work hard and you’ll get there.” Ah yes, because being a girl is all about boys and which friends are jerks for liking the wrong boys.

Obviously, we not buying any of this. We don't watch the show to feel empowered or admire the intricate storylines. In fact, we're not sure why we continue watching it other than it's just so darn easy to watch with the crafty editing, perfect soundtrack and petty drama. So you tell us—why do you keep tuning in?