TV Detail: Confessions, revelations and doppelgängers on MTV's The Hills

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the hills cast 1_430x274.shkl.jpg As an introduction to what may be both the first ever and last ever post on PasteMagazine.com about MTV's The Hills, I feel I should offer some kind of explanation as to why, exactly, I watch this show. Why, exactly, I allow these producer-contrived, forced, unrealistic stories (if you can even call them stories-- more often than not, "loose amalgamation of somewhat related bits of dialog and people staring at each other" would better apply) of these shallow, listless, over-priviledged human beings to suck away half-hour upon half-hour of my life every Monday night. Why, exactly, despite the sheer ridiculousness of it all, I still allow myself to care about this show-- which, unlike a certain other series about shallow, listless, over-priviledged human beings, doesn't even have that great of a soundtrack.

But that's just it-- the sheer ridiculousness of it all. I don’t watch it despite that, I watch it completely and totally because of it. If I wanted to get all smarty-pants about it, I could say that I appreciate the show for its ability to manipulate reality and the questions it raises (unintentionally or not) about that ability, and the willingness of its audience to accept it, or not. But really, honestly, it’s just because it's stupid. And sometimes, there is just not enough stupid in my life.

To be clear, though, I am not stupid. I know the show reflects reality only to the extent that the cast members are actual human beings (not androids, though it's tempting to think so at times) who actually moved their lips and said these things and had those fights and stared those blank stares. I know that they are just simple people playing deformed versions of themselves, living considerably-less-than-real lives and getting paid real money for it. I believe nothing this show tells me. I feel no sympathy for its characters. I forgive it for nothing. I will defend it to no one. But I will watch it. Oh, will I ever watch it.

Sometimes I like to toy with that tenuous reality myself. For example, my friend Elizabeth and I like to pretend that Whitney Port (one of the show’s most tolerable characters, actually, and probably the one who’s most legitimately benefited from its exposure) is actually a Mensa-grade genius, which makes every scene she’s in at least fifteen times funnier. Any time she’s shown staring blankly at anyone (usually at Lauren Conrad at any number of the conveniently shared internships they've had together, where apparently they do nothing but eat muffins and gab and play with dresses, maybe sometimes) we narrate her thought process: “Whitney just counted all the hairs on Lauren’s forearm!" "Now she’s conjugating Latin verbs in her head.” As the stare continues, she might be developing new trigonometric theorems, or alphabetizing every U.S. president by their middle name, or calculating what day of the week her birthday will fall in the year 2037. It’s fun. I recommend it.

Another assumption I enjoy making is that Lo Bosworth is actually an old woman. This game dates back to her days on Laguna Beach, when even as a high school senior something about her seemed decidedly geriatric to me. It’s something about her hair, or her pants, or her judgemental face— I’ve never really been able to put my finger on it. But with her recent return to The Hills cast as Lauren’s housemate, her old ladyness has become increasingly more pronounced.

But then I realized: She’s not just any old lady, she’s a very specific, real-life, actual old lady. She’s Shirley Knight!

Specifically, Shirley Knight in The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood:

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But she also eerily resembles Shirley Knight as not-so-old lady:

Of all the other instances that have cropped up lately of famous people looking like other famous, this is my favorite-- less relevant than Fey/Palin or McCain-Pailn/Tigh-Roslin, but still just eerie and silly enough. Also, while I'm at it, let me just say that Jerrell from this season's Project Runway may very well be the black Jesus from Madonna's "Like A Prayer" video. I've Googled the crap out of both that and the Lo Bosworth/Shirley Knight resemblance, but apparently no one else on the Internet has made either connection. Am I that sharp, or just delusional?