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Among the PrincessesA day with reality-show contestants.

By Troy PattersonPosted Monday, Sept. 10, 2007, at 5:32 PM ET

American Princess. American PrincessIf you're beyond a certain age, or not yet beyond a quaint awe at the standards of decorum in this culture, then the exertions of prime-time exhibitionists will have left you feeling perplexed. You are the gentle souls who feel that the mystery at the core of every reality show—the question more pressing than, "Who gets voted off this week?" or even, "Why am I watching this?"—is, "Who the hell are these people?" Possessed by this query, I headed out to pass a moderately mind-blowing summer's day with the producers and talent from American Princess (WE, Sundays at 10 p.m. ET).

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There were, at that early stage in the season, a dozen contestants quite literally vying for a crown. American Princess assembles a diversely unrefined group of New World lasses—tomboys, drama queens, geeks, hoochies, and sundry other commoners—and trains them in the ways of the European nobility. The winner will saunter away with a $5,000 necklace, $50,000 cash, the opportunity to wear a diamond tiara at a ball thrown in her honor in Ye Olde England, and—you gotta love it—a title: Lady of the Manor of Nether Hall. Danielle, a 22-year-old figure model in a shrieking red halter dress, was kind enough to limn the attractions of that last prize: "Getting a British title would make things a lot easier," she confided. "I could put it on my card or my résumé."

Danielle and the other girls—these aspiring princesses exist in a state of adolescent hysteria and pubescent self-invention, so let's call them girls—had begun their day at the Roosevelt Hotel. In the morning, the judges, Jean Broke-Smith and Paul Burrell, put them through the day's carriage lessons on the hotel's humid mezzanine. Broke-Smith, a finishing school matron and the most fearsome figure on Sundance's Ladette to Lady, strove to correct the girls' strides. She was especially vexed by one of the most promising girls—Clarissa, a Bronx-bred executive assistant who, despite being a veteran of beauty pageants, walked with a certain sauciness in her stride. The dictum: "Forget the wiggle." Meanwhile, Burrell—first a butler to Diana Spencer, then a best-selling retailer of her secrets—pointed out to me which of the girls were "thoroughbreds" and which were "donkeys." Sorry, but I don't think the help should talk like that—and I say this in the knowledge that the girls wouldn't give a whit about service knowing its place. The girls, harboring dreams of becoming pseudo-royalty and yet instinctively as democratic as Walt Whitman, came to American Princess secure in the belief that if you can sing of yourself, then you're the equal of any royalty.

The production assistants herded the girls downtown to a photo studio where they sat for publicity shots. An executive producer filled the photographer in on the girls' personalities. ("Well, LaToshua's very arrogant," said the EP. "Oh, perfect," said the shootist.) The girls struggled to find something appetizing on Balthazar's takeout menu. A person whose vast pile of yellow hair extensions did not quite cover her wild eyes plopped down across from me and introduced herself as Kirsten. "I'm the crazy one!" she said with pride. Those AP viewers fortunate enough to catch Kirsten's musical belches and ridiculous flourishes of emotions—in her opening scene, she hugs the bellman who opens her taxi door as if he were a dear cousin—will not rush to challenge her self-assessment.

As the crazy one—indeed, in her very eagerness to announce herself as the crazy one—Kirsten is just an especially noisy exemplar of the new normalcy. With her background in the arts—the publicity materials list her occupation as "singer/ actor/ teacher/ dancer/ creates dog tutus"—she's a peer of castmates Cassie (drama major), Crystal (minor-league football cheerleader), and Nakia (booty girl in hip-hop videos). They're all born performers, and they've been born into an age when they no longer need an art. When I asked the girls if they thought their spot on AP would lead to their big break, they each gave a nonchalant "no." This isn't a step on the road to stardom, just a chance to perform on a larger stage, and who wouldn't want that? When I asked the girls if they'd had any second thoughts about turning their private lives public for the sake of a cable show, none of them understood the question.

I sought out Tara, a 19-year-old theater major billed as "the smart one." (She had just taken her publicity photo posing with a copy of Jean de La Fontaine's Fables in the original French.) Tara is the type of person who uses the word plethora with great frequency and grating enunciation. I asked her to please put on her dork cap and explain what goes into constructing a reality-TV persona. She answered, "When the camera turns on, it's not let's act. It's focus, play your intention." Thus, if your intention is to win the tiara on American Princess, then you'll project those qualities the judges want to see as you struggle through your lessons with soupspoons and receiving lines and proper curtsies. Her approach is obviously sensible, but reality television just as obviously is not. I parted ways with Tara and her gang asking more questions yet: How do things shake out if you're not so level-headed about your intentions? What's it feel like to play yourself?

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Troy Patterson is Slate's television critic.

Still from American Princess courtesy WEtv.

COMMENTS

Remarks from the Fray:

Thinking, that dressing up fancy, learning to walk a little less like a crocodile and more like a female, and spending some time in nice setting will make somebody a noble person, is like thinking, that building an exact replica of the JFK will redirect the international air traffic to your back yard.

Emulating something, or somebody, will not make you that thing, or person… As for nobility itself: throughout ages it was a reward for exceptional deeds, or being an exceptional person. It came with duties, requirements and standards to uphold. More often than not it meant a life in the service of the state, and sworn duties of upholding laws and sovereign's will as well as defending the integrity of the state, if needed.

--paxterminus

(To reply, click here.)

I am so unbelievably, thoroughly, over new "reality" shows. Have we as a species declined so that only ritual humiliation captures our attention? The ultimate celebrity culture is one in which everyone in the universe can be a "celebrity" -- vacuous, unpleasant, insipid, useless and money-grubbing. Welcome to America y'all.

I am a reluctant fan of some entries in the genre, but women acting like idiots for idiotic reasons seems to be a special sub-niche for prime time. Women fighting over men (the Bachelor), women fighting for weddings, women having their looks improved, women fighting over money and now, since there's women making foolish over themselves for a title that sounds like it comes directly from one of the "Series of Unfortunate Events" books. I've had it with the soft misogyny of spectator "reality." Welcome to the other side of America. Turn off the TV and go back to your computers. Maybe you'll learn something.

--rundeep

(To reply, click here.)

(9/14)

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