Shared Darkness

The Simple Life
launched in 2003, back when Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie were only
demi-celebrities, it was pitched with the tagline of, “They’re rich, they’re sexy
— they’re totally out of control.” The gist of the show, at least at its point
of initial conception and mass marketing, had less to do with celebration of one
(or two, depending on your scorecard) trollop’s obliviousness and excess, and
more with exploring the supposition, however tongue in cheek or slyly, that the
preposterously affluent were still faced with their own sets of problems. In pulling
these two down from the penthouse to the sidewalk, this was to be cast in stark
relief, and everyone could laugh along together and maybe even feel a bit
uplifted.

Distressingly, I’m not sure many people in the series’ target
audience picked up on the joke. Whatever the status — today, this fleeting
moment — of Hilton and Richie’s smile-for-the-cameras! friendship, they’ve
peeled off three small screen re-ups of the show, as well as all manner of
endorsement deals, pop albums, perfume scents, etcetera. They’re also both…
authors. Sigh.

What began as a goof has seemingly fed into if not outright inspired
a whole generation of tweens sporting low-rise sweatpants with “Juicy” emblazoned
on their asses, and women carrying around little frou-frou dogs in custom-made
purses. It needs to stop, as the fourth season DVD release of the series
confirms.

I’m certainly not above some good, old-fashioned, low-class
fun. Newlyweds was a dryly brilliant comedy,
and the recent re-up of VH-1’s Flavor of
Love was similarly inspired. (No, seriously.) Hilton and Richie’s act,
though, has run its course. After the third season’s “interning” bent (sans
berets and Lewinsky reenactments, alas), The
Simple Life 4 finds their “feud” spilling over the carefully groomed plastic
hedges of this thinly sketched concept, already stretched perilously thin.

The first episode opens at a coffee shop, where Hilton and
Richie exchange wan bitchery. Then, over the course of the next nine shows, the
pair whine, kvetch and fumble their way through assigned domestic duties in the
SoCal suburbs, naturally leaving disasters and unfinished tasks in their wake. Whereas
Jessica Simpson’s idiocy on Newlyweds
was at least somewhat endearing insofar as you can tell she’s definitely not in
on the joke, Hilton’s shenanigans too frequently come off as blithely cruel-hearted
— those of someone, well, spoiled and un-thoughtful. If Richie is less grating and deplorable, that’s hardly an accomplishment of the highest order. That the show doesn’t
incorporate cathartic and lasting, consequential comeuppance for in particular
Hilton is to its irredeemable detriment. Can we, as a society, make a collective New Year’s to start ignoring both these lasses?

All 10 episodes of The
Simple Life are presented in 1.33:1 full screen, spread across two discs,
and retailing for around $19.98. An English language Dolby 2.0 surround sound
audio track anchors the release aurally, and there are (unfortunately? blissfully?)
no supplemental special features. D (Series) C- (Disc)