I wanted to see "Rich Girls" the moment I first heard of it, but after reading the girls' online self-assessments, my want's turned desperate.
From Jamie's answers to 20 Questions:
Describe yourself in three words.
Intellectual, creative, passionate
Describe each other in three words.
Ally is eccentric, creative, and deep.
While I think "deep" is almost always a description chosen by the shallow, I'm intrigued that the girls' responses to the describe-yourself-in-three-words question differ so greatly from the way most reality TV girls respond. Take the contestants on "The Bachelor," for example. Here's a tally of the most popular words those girls used when answering the question: outgoing (9), spontaneous (6), caring (5), energetic (4), fun or fun-loving (4), and humorous or funny (4).
Are the Rich Girls more interesting, or is this a matter of context? "Spontaneous" and "energetic" are obvious code words for being bed-able and good-in-bed, qualities that matter on a dating show. And despite my hating people who think that being "outgoing" has value in itself -- without having to manifest intelligence or humor -- I can't begrudge the word choice; you probably have to be outgoing to be on a show like this.
But words like "intellectual" and "deep": those aren't immediately justified by the reality show genre. "Intellectual" is a word I take seriously, and apply sparingly. In other words, "Rich Girls" excites me because, while it's hard to hate someone who, even if he's an ass, has exact self-knowledge, it's very easy to hate someone who lays claim to words you reserve for self-description.
I don't really hate the Rich Girls, though. For starters, it somehow seems unfair to be rich, young, but not also really hot. (I've noticed that, on the show's homepage, the girls' faces have been reduced to eyes-and-mouth-blobs.) And if they're awful people, everyone will now know they're awful people. They'll have inflicted upon themselves the revenge that most of us, thinking of the kids we hated growing up, couldn't even dare imagine.
Posted by nchicha at October 31, 2003 02:20 AM