|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
et's get all the bad things about Inn Love out of the way, because they are legion. First, the name: it's wretched. Second, the concept: it's wretched. "They're reinventing the B&B!" the show's cloying commercial tells us. "Watch them go from 'the in crowd' to innkeepers." Ugh. Wretched!
On a likability scale, Tori Spelling has always ranked somewhere between Luke Perry and minor surgery, but her husband Dean McDermott is just a straight-up bottom-feeder. He's probably a nice guy; he would probably be a hoot knocking back shooters with Dane Cook. But every time I recognize him on television or the tabloids, it makes me seethe with self-loathing for how much I don't know about international news. Who is the president of Spain? No idea. Who is Tori Spelling's husband? Dean McDermott. Watching a show about the two of them "bringing back the B&B for our generation" is on my to-do list, somewhere around "drill hole in head to let in sunlight." Oh, and did I mention it's on the Oxygen network? This has never boded well for any show, ever.
But Inn Love isn't terrible, and I'll tell you why: Tori Spelling. Infamous for her lack of talent as an actress,
Spelling has found her true calling as the subject of tabloid gossip and reality shows. She is genuinely likable, if a bit dotty, spoiled and lacking boundaries. Whether this appeals to you — or makes you want to break a flat-screen television over your head — is another question entirely, but Spelling is part of a generation who may actually be more comfortable on-camera than off-. Along with lifers such as Danny Bonaduce, Spelling has withstood the microscopic glare so long that it may rankle her not to have a boom mic dangling in her face. Back in 1991, when Truth or Dare came out and Warren Beatty said of Madonna, "She doesn't want to live off-camera, much less talk," it seemed novel and strange and harrowing. Now, it just seems like another Hollywood existence — all these children of the spotlight, parlaying their lives into reality-television fodder. (Tori Spelling's brother Randy is also currently the subject of his own show, the nearly unwatchable Sons of Hollywood. At this rate, Aaron Spelling's offspring may one day reign over a trash empire comparable to their father's. Oh, who am I kidding? No, they won't.)
But unlike other Tinseltown tartlets — the Paris Hiltons and Nicole Richies and Lindsay Lohans, swinging around their sex tapes and rehab stints — there is something girlishly charming about Tori Spelling. She actually seems nice. I sometimes wonder if it has to do with the way she was so painfully ridiculed for her appearance as a teenager. Like Sofia Coppola and Chelsea Clinton, she was an awkward girl with very little of the prom queen about her. And yet, there she was, sandwiched between Shannen Doherty and Jennie Garth on television's hottest show. Maybe this doesn't make her more interesting; maybe it just makes me feel more sorry for her.
But whatever. Spelling also has an appealing eagerness to spoof herself, hinted at with a fag-hag role in the 1999 sleeper Trick and writ large with last year's reality spoof on VH1, So NoTORIous. That underrated show
|
|
"I'm a bundle of Hooksexups with boobs," Tori says, panicking after a night of rough sex with hubby.
|
(written by Mike Chessler and Chris Alberghini) was viciously funny, with barbed jokes about Tori's boob job, lack of acting ability and shallow, trophy-wife mother. It was almost uncomfortably self-parodic, like a dorky kid who will let you make fun of him as long as you let him stay at the party. Inn Love extends this theme: Humiliation is not a problem for Tori Spelling, as long as she can buy the new Fendi. The first episode of Inn Love finds her selling her treasure trove in a giant garage sale to make money after receiving a surprisingly small inheritance (of $800,000). As she prepares for the sale, she sighs, "Love me or hate me, please let people shop!"
The garage-sale scene is actually fascinating, beginning with an eyeboggling journey into the beast that is Spelling's storage space. Seriously, it's a warehouse as big as a department store. "Thus Spake Zarathustra" plays in the background as the camera pans across boxes piled three stories high and packed with designer clothes, furniture, memorabilia and straight-up crap. It's a staggering display of excess, and it's staggering how Tori Spelling doesn't seem to grasp the ridiculousness of this. She's like a bubble girl, born into luxury and vast wealth, and now forced to mete out a proper existence. But for all her spoiled-little-rich-girlisms, Tori Spelling also has an appealing down-to-earth quality. She waddles around town, ballooning with pregnancy, as she and Dean tack up garage-sale flyers. She stays at her house while strangers tear through her belongings. She chats with fans, happily signs a microwave oven. She lets people rifle through her bedroom drawers. (Did I mention she lacked boundaries?)
In the second episode, Tori has a panic attack after a night of rough sex with hubby. "I'm worried it was too shaky for the baby, and now he had a heart attack and died." This was the kind of quotable absurdity that made Newlyweds (which this show resembles) and The Simple Life (which this show also resembles) popular. And at times, Inn Love does play up the dumb-blonde factor too much. Thing is, I believe Tori Spelling when she says she thinks her baby had a heart attack. I believe that her understanding of biology is so foggy and spotted with half-truths and internet lies that death-by-doggy-style seems entirely plausible. She really is that neurotic and confused. "I'm a bundle of Hooksexups with boobs, basically," she says, and I suspect a lot of first-time mothers can relate to that.
More annoying (and less relatable) is the couple's search to find a bed & breakfast which they can then transform from doilies and antiques into something "all kitschy and cute." This takes them on a tour of rustic, provincial towns where Spelling has no problem bagging on the friendly neighbors and acting the Los Angeles diva. "Is there a McDonald's?" she asks. "No? Oh, I might die." Fortunately, this segment ends fast when they find a "real fixer-upper" in Oak Creek Manor, a replica of Monticello, and thus usher in what I imagine to be the Extreme Makeover portion of the series, and lots of fights about fabric and who's going to wash the dishes.
I'm doing a terrible job of selling this television show, aren't I? Well, the problem is that I'm not sure I want to. It's a reality show rehash that basically answers a bunch of questions no one had. Spelling understandably doesn't tackle the real drama and tragedy of her life — i.e., her father's death, her disinheritance, her ugly public estrangement from her mother and so we have a softshoe rom-com about domestic life and baby woes. Part of that nasty subtext does make the marriage a bit sweeter: do these people have anyone else but each other? n°
| ABOUT THE AUTHOR: |
 |
Sarah Hepola has been a high-school teacher, a playwright, a film critic, a music editor and a travel columnist. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, The Guardian, and on NPR. She writes the Scanner blog for Hooksexup and lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. |
©2007 Sarah Hepola and hooksexup.com.
|
|
|
|
| featured personal |
|
| |
|
| partner links |
|
|
Honesty. Integrity. Ads
The Onion |
|
|
Cracked.com |
 |
Photos, Videos, and More
CollegeHumor.com |
|
|
New! 2007 Top 99 Women
AskMen.com |
|
|
Funny, sexy videos
Heavy.com |
 |
Belgian Nun Reprimanded for Dirty Dancing
Fark.com |
 |
AskMen.com Presents From The Bar To The Bedroom
Learn the 11 fundamental rules to approaching, scoring and satisfying any woman. Order now! |
|
| sponsored links |
Advertisers, click here to get listed!
|
|
