How little Lauren Conrad understands the truth of her statement on MySpace: “Many of you have been asking me if the rumors are true,” she wrote. “There are false rumors every week about me and I can’t address every rumor out there, but I feel like this was important for me to respond to. The show is not fake and this is really my life.”
Fake, you say, dear viewer? The Hills is fake?
The level of “reality” depends on your perspective, and for Lauren Conrad, who has spent more time as a “reality TV star” than perhaps anyone in the history of the genre, how could The Hills be anything but real?
Take note: As of February 2008, Conrad will have been a fixture on reality TV for four years. At 21 years of age, nearly 20% of her life has been a real life version of "The Truman Show."
“Real” for Conrad means lunch and coffee with friends…and 5 cameras, a director, and producer in tow. “Real” means scripted plot lines and controlled conversations. “Real” means cat fights and boy problems dictated by a TV network. “Real” means eating at a restaurant, and it just so happens the one enemy you have in the world, Heidi Montag, shows up right on cue. And that enemy? She holds the role in your life because your “reality” show needed some spicy drama.
That is Lauren Conrad’s “real” life, whether you like it or not. It’s not your life, or anyone you know, but it’s her life, and it’s “real.”
Conrad defended the show on her MySpace page because, presumably, it is important to her career (and to MTV, of course) that we, the poor saps who are suckers for cheap entertainment, believe in the authenticity of the show. The Hills has been dogged of late by rumors suggesting the title “reality” should be removed.
It began when Montag and boyfriend Spencer Pratt were photographed at
Then Gavin Beasley, who went on a date with Conrad on the show, spilled the beans in an interview. “[MTV] totally set up the BBQ scene for Brody and I to meet each other and talk because, as they said, ‘the audience would get a kick out of seeing ‘the ex’ talking to ‘the new guy,’” he said. “Brody would talk all this s—, then be like, ‘Sorry about that, we’re just trying to make good television. He creates drama and a storyline. That’s why he is there.”
Beasley even dished on details of his date with Conrad: “She’s kind of a conversation killer, and when the cameras are rolling, all conversation is kept firmly on the surface.”
Audrina Patridge, Conrad’s friend on the show, attempted to clear things up: “Lauren and me are real friends. We live in our apartment. That’s real, like where we work, everything. The situations are real.”
But even Patridge couldn’t keep from slipping: “I mean, they might be kinda like, ‘Okay, we want you to go to Les Deux tonight,’ so we go and whatever happens, happens. And they might do things to tweak it a little bit, but our reactions—it’s totally real. It’s reality.”
Say what you want, but there’s no disputing it: For the characters on The Hills, most especially Conrad, this is their real life. Scripted, filmed, and choreographed as it is, it’s still their life.
Photo from MTV.com
Some apartment-dwellers own their own cacaitas apartments, either as co-ops, in which the residents own shares of a corporation that owns the building or development; or in condominiums, whose residents own their apartments and share ownership of the public spaces.