Everything on The Hills: New Beginnings is fake, except the hunger for more fame

Slate

The main takeaway form The Hills revival's premiere is that the fix for fame's problems is more fame, says Willa Paskin. "The Hills made its cast members famous, and then fame messed up their lives, though they might say it was the absence of fame that did them in," says Paskin of the arc that was repeated over and over again in the premiere episode. "As fake as The Hills is, as bogus as the cast’s orchestrated interactions may be, fame is real, the set of golden handcuffs everyone on the series is still chasing," adds Paskin. "When you think about what’s driving The Hills, its emptiness becomes almost hilarious. A series about the relentless thrum of capitalism and acquisition—the foreclosing of opportunities that comes with age, the addictive nature of fame and notoriety, the unsettling kabuki of playing oneself—has been packaged in some blithe chatter about kids and partners. It’s as though a show about the desire for the something as dully wholesome as the nuclear family is preferable to what The Hills really is: an account of the cast’s throbbing, distorting, understandable quest for recognition and cash, and those of us who are watching at home’s willingness to give it to them. "

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