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Sex Advice from . . . Objectivists
by Kate Sullivan
Q: I over-analyze in bed. How can I enjoy the moment?
A: Stop and ask yourself, "Why am I here right now?" /regulars/

Sometime to Return
by Sarah Hepola
Soul Asylum's Dave Pirner on Dolly Parton, New Orleans and why getting mobbed by girls isn't as fun as you'd think. /music/

Miss Information
by Erin Bradley
This week: How can I tell my roommate's girlfriend that she's cheating on him? /advice/

Scanner
by Ada Calhoun
Kid Rock and Pamela Anderson to marry. /regulars/

The Screengrab
by Bilge Ebiri
Today on Hooksexup's film blog: Snakes on a Plane is barring critics.

After the Patriarchy
by Jay McInerney
When a male assistant is sexually objectified by his high-powered female boss, he reflects on how male/female dynamics have changed since the '00s. *future issue*

Inbox
by Douglas Rushkoff
In 2033, age 70 is the new 30. *future issue*

Don't Let the 100% Divorce Rate Spoil Your Wedding!
by Lisa Gabriele
Our tone: the first wedding is an event, for sure, but if it's not forever, why does it have to be perfect? *future issue*

Horoscopes
by Neal Medlyn
Your week in sex. /regulars/

The Henry Miller Awards
by Various
This month: drugs, daddy issues and breast milk. Vote for your favorite literary sex scene. /fiction/

The Passion of the Brunette
by Raul Hofer Torres
This long-haired model knows from rapture. /photography/

Film Reviews
by Bilge Ebiri, Logan Hill, and Gwynne Watkins
You, me, and the Devil Girl from Mars. /film/

Sex Advice from . . . Ibiza
by Marisa S. Katz
Q: What's the best way to have sex on the dance floor?
A: Cut a hole in your knickers. /regulars/


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he first time I saw Laguna Beach, I thought it might be the worst show ever made. Each scene rang more false, each discussion of a party or a perfect wave more vacuous and annoying. I couldn't tell if it was a scripted show with people who couldn't act, or an unscripted show with people who couldn't talk. Something was horribly, chillingly fake about it. And, like a whole slew of girls and women, I ate it up like cookie dough.

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   I say "girls and women," because as far as I know, Laguna Beach appealed primarily to those two demographics: girls who enjoyed it as a fantasy of high school, and women who enjoyed it as something of a nightmare. Every week, I watched it in my pajamas, secure in the knowledge that it was far better to be a thirtysomething littering the couch with popcorn than a high school student who thinks tragedy is an off-the-rack prom dress. It would be tempting to say Laguna Beach was a way of reliving my own senior year (which I prefer to do by karaoke-ing the songs from Grease ), but the truth is that Laguna Beach reminded me more of freshman year — when I'd spend five hours discussing a blade of grass with some vaguely cute sophomore, wondering if he was ever gonna feel me up; when all the seniors seemed so perfect and sun-kissed; when things like college essays and part-time jobs had not superseded the weekend trip to the mall. Life sucked then, and I like to remind myself of this. But MTV's bourgeois teen dramas are a powerful force. By the end of season two, I was all: "Jason's a jerk, but you guys, Lauren really loves him!"
   Anyway, this season brings us The Hills, which airs Wednesday nights (and, thanks to MTV's programming push, nearly every day of the week in re-runs). Filmed in docusoap style, the show follows pretty, pampered nineteen-year-old Lauren Conrad ("LC" to friends) as she moves to Los Angeles, enrolls in fashion school, and takes an internship at Teen Vogue. MTV has called the show the "Melrose Place to Laguna Beach's 90210," and that turns out to be pretty accurate. The Hills is darker, slicker and arguably much better.
   Don't get me wrong: it's still trash. My brain still evaporates with the opening notes of Natasha Bedingfield's carpe-diem ditty "Unwritten." But whereas Laguna Beach had basically one formula for dramatic tension — will so-and-so hook up with such-and-such? — The Hills mixes things up by documenting our characters in the workplace. It's more than fish out of water; it's fish on the fryolator.

The queen bee of the SoCal social scene is just another drone now.

In the first episode, Lauren shows up for her internship and must submit to an outfit critique from the magazine's curiously neutered fashion director, Olivia. "So obviously the Teen Vogue style is all about the mix," Olivia blathers on, draping a crop jacket over Lauren's tank. Lauren's fellow intern Whitney fares worse: "I feel like maybe it's a little matchy-matchy," Olivia says. "We've kind of done the Western look." It's like a scene from The Devil Wears Prada, but while the protagonist of that story at least had an Ivy League degree and delusions of journalistic grandeur, Lauren drinks the Kool-Aid. This is akin to a Harvard freshman getting his first C, the high school star quarterback being booted to the bench. The queen bee of the SoCal social scene is just another drone now. Sure, she has the benefit of a two-story pad, a fat bank account, and the small matter of MTV camera crews following her every move. But life is no beach party. By the end of the first episode, Lauren has botched her first assignment for Teen Vogue, gotten in trouble with her boss, and failed to properly accessorize.
The first episode of The Hills may be my favorite thirty minutes of television this season. I could offer sociological reasons — how it's a harrowing depiction of Paris Hilton's effect on teen girls, yadda yadda yadda — but really I think it's just damned entertaining. This is partly due to Lauren's roommate Heidi, a train wreck straight out of Lindsay Lohan finishing school. A perky blond who yaps like a terrier, Heidi moved to Los Angeles to join Lauren in attending the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising. But she prefers drinking at clubs until four a.m., fighting with her boyfriend, tanning herself by the pool and indulging the fantasy that she, too, can one day be Lizzie Grubman. When a college-admissions interviewer asks her what her high-school experience was like, she breezily issues forth: "I never learned anything. I never did anything. I never went to class. I just hung out and, like, went shopping." Heidi should have been hog-tied to her chair during Hillary Clinton's commencement speech on

"I never learned anything. I never did anything. I never went to class. I just hung out and, like, went shopping."

work being "a four-letter word," although you get the feeling Heidi might not understand the reference. On the first day of fashion school, she skips class in favor of computer solitaire. On the second day, she drops out. She lands a job with a well-known party-planner, but she whines and cries after discovering it involves, like, actual work. One of the show's great pleasures is watching Heidi try to squirm out of some menial task as her bosses find new ways not to throttle her on-camera.
In comparison, Lauren comes off like the show's great moral center. She attends class, keeps plugging away at Teen Vogue and pulls off vintage scarves with aplomb. Even on Laguna Beach, Lauren seemed more reflective than the other girls, partly because she doesn't say much. For that reason, she was always eclipsed by bubbly and conniving Kristin Cavallari — her nemesis on Laguna Beach, the kind of girl who sucks all the air out of a room. (Cavallari has since gone on to such success as possibly dating Nick Lachey and mugging for red-carpet cameras.)
Cavallari may be more fun, but Lauren is more compelling. She has a face that registers every hurt and insecurity, which makes her a cameraman's dream. Unfortunately, she also has rotten taste in men. By episode three, Lauren has taken back Jason, her lame boyfriend from the second season of Laguna Beach (come to think of it, he was everyone's boyfriend in the second season of Laguna Beach). Dull, arrogant, and such a pathetic mumbler he occasionally requires subtitles, Jason is the kind of guy who makes me forever glad to be on this side of twenty-five. And isn't that why I watch The Hills? To feel better about being a grown-up? Something like that. Pass the popcorn — and the Kool-Aid. n°

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
	Sarah Hepola is a freelance writer living in New York City.

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