Reality Roll Call

If you want to see a template for how to turn a cute, innocent boy into a future date-rapist, look no further than this week’s episode. About halfway through Ali’s recording session, Dina takes Cody for some “fun”—meeting Hugh Hefner and his three girlfriends, who just happen to be at the Palms for someone’s birthday. Because that’s totally the right roll model for a twelve year old boy—a decrepit corpse man who’s “feminist” contributions include the statement  that sophisticated, complex women are somehow “mentally filthy.” As I watch Hugh’s brain-dead blondes giggle like the drunk 18-year-olds on the Girls Gone Wild commercials, the still-sweet Cody noticeably backs away whenever possible (he says diplomatically “Hugh’s girlfriend is very nice, but I’m a one girlfriend kind of guy”). Dina is oblivious to the horror she inflicts, saying “I’ve never seen Cody so shy and quiet in my entire life.”

The whole scene with the Playboy crowd was so bottom-feeding and despicable I was nauseated watching it. To compound my disgust, I had to watch Ali sashay through the episode like some kind of spoiled diva planning her super special sweet sixteen and why oh why mommy can’t she have a pony? By pony I mean Jeremy, the “producer” we met in the first episode or two of the show. Ali, if we recall, fell in love with Jeremy’s music. Then she decided the song she originally wanted wasn’t, in fact, the song that really spoke to her, so she changed last minute to a new song. So she has Jeremy fly out to Vegas to produce her thin and brittle voice into something resembling a hit, and what does Jeremy do? He has the gall to network with the other producers and musicians, rather than concentrating his attention on Ali. Because after all, this whole project is about Ali and what Ali wants. A bit like that old “Twilight Zone” episode about the kid who wishes people he doesn’t like into the cornfield, Ali pouts and mopes and decides she isn’t “feeling” the song and she doesn’t want to sing it.

This doesn’t mean I’m on Jeremy’s side either, as he’s rocking his own unique brand of tasteless. He sits in a permanent slump with his hoodie pulled up ovr his shaved head, wearing aviators indoors, playing his watered down techno-hip-hop-pop-rock-street-dance music to a bunch of awkward fiftysomethings executives who bob their heads like they’re listening to something fresh that the kids maybe could dance to. No, Jeremy “poor man’s Adam Levine” Greene is making second-generation copies Maroon5 songs sure, but he’s a hustler baby, and at least he’s upfront with his douchery. Ali’s flimsy excuse that she doesn’t want to record his music is almost incomprehensible, but it has something to do with it being a “boy’s song” because a guy sings the vocal track on the sample. When Jeremy offers to give her another track with a female lead, Ali won’t do it. “Jeremy, you’re really cool and you’re really nice, but I don’t want to work on a record with YOU.”

Ali was clearly expecting Jeremy to flirt with her like he did in Long Island—she’s wearing the shortest pair of cutoffs to date on the show and a flimsy tanktop, she had her hair dyed specifically for his arrival, and what does he do? Talk to grownups??!!!! OMFG WTF! It’s like, this is Ali’s day you guys, and she isn’t going “to be RUSHED to do a song, you know?” ‘Cuz she knows who she is as an artist as she is NOT going to sing a song she doesn’t believe in. And to underscore the fact that she’s an artist, she even sits in front of a piano hitting random keys and singing to herself, almost as if she can play an instrument. I was always under the impression that an artist was an individual who consciously uses skill and talent to create something meant for study, expression, and contemplation. Who knew singing paint-by-numbers On-Air-With-Ryan-Seacrest music written, produced, and arranged by other people was an art? Gosh, Ali Lohan’s record is going to be right up there with the Elgin marbles.

And where is Mommy Lohan during all this. Gosh, finally getting two seconds for herself, because she can never just indulge herself. She is so selfless you guys. For the majority of the episode, Dina is nowhere to be found in the studio—when she’s not forcing her son to interact with polyamorous Playmates, she’s taking in aerobics classes, getting her hair and nails did, and complaining to strangers about how crazy and complicated her life is because she has two daughters recording right now and WHY DOES NO ONE UNDERSTAND HOW HARD AND DEMANDING IT IS TO BE DINA LOHAN? When Dina does drag herself into the studio with her lemon puckered mouth and Lindsay’s leggings like a washed up hooker, Ali informs her Jeremy is not working out and Dina must find her a new song in a week. Oh my gosh I hate every single one of these people.

I devote such an extensive amount of these summaries to deconstructing Ali’s hideous bubble-cum (yes, cum) gloss and Dina’s straw hair because they insist on giving us nothing real or redeeming other than moderately good bodies and a shallow idea of what constitutes generic hotness. They’re mean, bratty, shallow, stupid, and self-centered women, and every episode just exacerbates it. But because they make such an issue about appearance—about having their hair done and clothes done and (especially) their make up done—they leave me with nothing else to talk about. But hey, this is probably because I’m jealous right? Yeah yeah yeah, I’m a hater. And I hate the players and the game.