Monday, October 26, 2009

Perez's news story on Kristin!

kriswenn2625797.jpg

We say, BLAME KRISTIN CAVALLARI!!!

Could this be the end of The Hills?! Has Speidi seen it's day?! Has Kristin destroyed the franchise?!

We sincerely hope so!

In Lambiase's article, she examines how audiences are trained to relate to news characters based on their stereotypes. She states, "throughout U.S. media history, the most familiar characterizations exhibit salience and power." So, I chose to examine one the most popular celebrity blogs, Perez Hilton, and his story on MTV's The Hills' new reality character, Kristin Cavallari. With Lauren leaving the show, The Hills producers had to hire someone "with salience and power," or, someone who would bring in drama and keep audience interest in the show. Hence, producers casted Kristin, and used the slogan "The Bitch Is Back" to advertise for her debut on the show. Kristin exhibits the same stereotypical Hills character qualities: she's blonde, beautiful, thin, sexy, fashionable, and a true California girl. These are all qualities that all characters on The Hills cast embody, including qualities that Lauren brought to the show. However, Perez discusses how it just isn't the same without Lauren and states that Kristin's forced drama is dragging down ratings for the show. Lauren was much more passive and sweet and did not go looking for drama, but rather had to deal with unfortunate and frustrating run-ins with Heidi and Spencer. Instead, Kristin puts herself in a position to create drama by dating Justin Bobby, an ex of Audrina's who she rightfully knows is off limits. This makes Kristin a less classy character than Lauren was, and perhaps this is a reason why so many people have given up watching the show because Lauren was someone most girls look up to and aspire to be, and Kristin is not exactly the girl we want to model our behavior after. Additionally, Kristin's careless attitude also gives a bad vibe because it makes people think she thinks she's better than everyone and is only on the show to ruin people's lives, and many of the viewers who used to watch Lauren do not want to be apart of someone who's taking over a show to make it some big publicity scene and further their career. So, whether Kristin was hired as a media character for Lambiase's reasons such as "sudden deadlines, economic viability, or management expectations," she seems to not be doing as good of a job as producer's expected. Maybe she'll care and want to change her attitude, but chances are we're not going to see that in any upcoming episodes.

5 comments:

  1. I can't really speak to all the drama surrounding The Hills, but I really think Perez Hilton himself is such an interesting person to analyze regarding the reporting of news. His website demonstrates how the way we get our news is evolving into a more interactive format.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree, and I feel like he is really taking advantage, and even contributing, to the blogging craze that is shaping the future of news distribution.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I completely agree, his blog is not only informative (about the least important things) but also addicting to read because of how interactive it is (since you can comment freely on all the posts and share/email them to anyone.) And he's just hillarious- I love how he draws on the celebrity photos and gives his two cents about everything. Thanks for the great comments guys!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Perez doesn't even write his own blog posts. He's a symbol of everything that's wrong with journalism (and perhaps humanity) today.

    ReplyDelete
  5. You will all be happy to know we are reading an article about Laguna Beach very soon.

    I'm working on an article that uses Perez's Twitter stream as an example of how social media is changing celebrity interaction. He does a bizarre job of both kissing celebrity butt and harshing on people he doesn't like, like Speidi.

    http://twitter.com/perezhilton

    ReplyDelete