Say what you will about Paris Hilton, but in the span of less than three years, she has become one of the most recognized faces in the United States, all without what most people would call a marketable talent. She's not a star athlete. She's not a celebrated actress or singer. It's probably safe to say she doesn't spend her free time working on cold fusion. The girl is attractive and has done modeling, but she has more presence than she has looks. No, she got to where she is by being thin and slutty, which is not the way I would choose to make a living, but people say that Paris is not an idiot and knows what she is doing, and she had to learn it from somewhere. That's the appeal of I Want to Be a Hilton, at least initially.

The premise (stop me if you've heard it before), is to take fourteen people who are not from the jet set crowd and teach them how to be, well, a Hilton. Basically, it's like a course on how to live when you worry all day about the money you're going to spend and none of the day worrying about how you are going to make that money. At the end, the winner gets a Manhattan suite and $250,000, plus enough social contacts to perhaps change your life forever.

I think one of the most important parts of any reality show is the casting, and from the first look of things, I Want to Be a Hilton does a great job at that. Everybody is so savvy these days, you really have to take care to find people who are real, and not wannabe actors looking for some face time. Granted, you do have to have a few of those types, because they make the show interesting, but overall, you want people who don't know what to expect and will give you natural reactions to situations. If you can find a bunch of people who are actually interested in the grand prize other than being on TV, that's an added bonus.

As the contestants arrive at Grand Central Terminal, we get a chance to learn a little bit about their backgrounds. Among them, we have a golf caddy, a plumber, a construction worker, a ranch hand, an interior designer, a Vegas showgirl. It didn't seem like all of them were devoid of the finer points of proper decorum, but when they were escorted to the Campbell Apartment for some hors d'oeuvres and cocktails, I was kind of shocked at the behavior. Call me old-fashioned, but if you are going to go on a show where you are learning the better parts of high society and know that whatever you are doing is being filmed, do you start slamming the drinks and scarfing the hors d'oeuvres? My guess is no, but our group did exactly that, not knowing that above them, watching everything they do, was Kathy Hilton.

When we first see Kathy Hilton on screen, it is kind of strange. Hilton is obviously a widely-known name, but outside of Paris and Nicky, you probably wouldn't notice one on the street unless they hit you with their Bentley. Therefore, it was a little hard to believe that everybody was in awe when they saw Kathy Hilton in the flesh. Seeing Kathy Hilton, you can see where her girls get their looks. For a woman of 46, she doesn't look that bad. You can tell she has had a plastic surgery or three, but it's actually pretty tasteful. Take a walk around Beverly Hills and you sill see the walking Frankensteins who look like they have had six or seven face lifts, a couple brow lifts, plenty of collagen injections, huge, almost alien-sized fake boobs, and enough Botox to last a lifetime. Really, they make Joan Rivers look fresh by comparison.

While I can suspend disbelief about how everybody recognizes Kathy, it is hard not to notice how stiff and unnatural she is in front of the camera. Fifteen minutes in, I don't want to say that she is worse than Tommy Hilfger, but she is certainly not much better. Then again, this is kind of expected. After all, as much as people enjoyed the Simple Life, Paris never blew you away when she was on camera, and Kathy is much the same way. Even though it looks like they had to do several takes, they still had to dub a lot of audio into scenes, although they do a pretty good job at that when they have to.

Posted by J-Unit on June 26, 2005 7:52 PM