Strongly Worded

Coming Clean

After a very lovely, very social weekend, I experienced a deep sense of shame last night, when I parked myself in front of the TV and watched The Girls Next Door, which is a horrible, horrible reality show about Hugh Heffner's three "girlfriends", and their life with him in the Playboy mansion. I still do not understand what being a "girlfriend" entails, other than being blond and busty, living in a pink bedroom, and complying with a 9 p.m. curfew.

Is having sex with 78-year-old Heff part of the deal? The "girlfriends" (Kendra, Holly, and Bridget) are shown kissing him all the time, and they call him "honey" and say "I love you" in syrupy voices on their cell phones. He is pretty dismissive of them, which is understandable, since they all seem (and I know this is shocking) pretty unintelligent, and Heff, while a scummy, exploitative guy, at least has the brains to create a multi-million dollar empire while staying in pajamas all day. While I'm coming clean, I have to confess that I have watched this show on multiple occasions (it always happens to be on when I'm parked in front of the TV), and every time I get sucked in-- the sheer weirdness of it all is enough to hook me in for half an hour, even when all that happens is that the girls go to Vegas and sit by the pool all day comparing boob jobs. Once, I watched an entire episode about the girls' buying decorations for a birthday party. And (OK), another time, I watched as they "made over" Bridget's perfectly-lovely-looking-but- generally-fully-clothed sister. Heff was very pleased to see her in all her glory and the other girls took pride in this. Does anyone else find this truly repugnant? Why aren't the girlfriends' parents protesting their concubine status when they visit them in the mansion? And why do I know this? And why do I care?

While I am concerned about my willingness to watch this trash, I find myself also concerned about the state of affairs over in the Jessica Simpson-Nick Lachey household. For some resaon, I am a big fan of Jessica Simpson. I only know two of her songs, but I like them, and I think the reality show about her marriage is fascinating. I love how she is so beautiful and so dumb, and I love watching her pout and preen, while her husband Nick responds with a mixture of contempt and indulgence. I faithfully ignored the rumors about their impending break-up, until I was waiting in line at CVS this morning, and the cover of US Weekly shattered my illusions about their wedded bliss: it has front-page coverage of an alleged SPLIT with the word SPLIT printed in two-inch letters across their faces. And there is corroborating evidence! Both were photographed sans wedding rings! Nick missed Ashlee's birthday party allegedly "for work" when, as far as I know, he hasn't had a job since he was a member of the boy-band 98 degrees!

Many of my friends don't watch this appalling programming, (and have probably already stopped reading this post). They may reproach me about devoting blog-space to this nonsense. But they don't understand! They have probably never heard of Jessica Simpson, and don't know about her virginity and her "promise ring", her Vera Wang wedding dress, her anniversary trip to Napa Valley, and her love of red velvet cake.

I am, however, comforted by the knowledge that a fair number of my readers will commiserate about the Nick-and-Jessica situation, and that I can feel just the tiniest bit smug knowing that I've thus far resisted the pull of the purportedly addictive American Top Model and So You Think You Can Dance.

Unless The Girls Next Door is some kind of gateway show ...

Posted by Dori at 2:21 PM