TV / Keeping Up with the Kardashians

Okay, before you lose all trust in my critic abilities, let me first say that I had never even heard of this show before last week and stumbled upon it in my boredom. I actually think this is best way to determine a show’s true merit--you’re sitting there with guillotine-remote ready to cut down any unwitting show you find; you have nothing to lose--delirious from the bag of chips and four sodas you just consumed. Click. You’ve given up hope to finding anything actually good on TV and then you find yourself watching the antics of three bullheaded Valley girls (Kourtney, Kim, and Khloe Kardashian) as they vacillate between Hollywood and middle class suburbia...and you can't turn it off.

I think this show has more than meets the eye. A good portion of the plot revolves around the two stores the girls co-own, Smooch and Dash. It was really surprising to see that these girls make a living. Ever since the Middle Ages the idea of handling money and actually “working” was a plebian task, necessary but certainly not something the wealthy did. You can see this in many of the reality shows today. Nobody works. Instead the producers arrange entertaining antics for the leashed celebrities: they go shopping, they prepare for a party, they do a magazine interview, they remodel their house, they train their dogs. Now don’t get me wrong, these are probably all things the Kardashians will do or have done for the HD cameras, but there’s more substance to their narrative. What’s refreshing is I honestly believe these girls have to work beyond the show’s affected scenarios. In one episode Khloe and Kim get into a fight about the Dash website. Khloe is furious that Kim never works at the shop anymore and that she still has not completed their website. What’s more is that Kim’s absence is attributed to fame calling; she is always away doing modeling gigs, interviews, or appearances. The strain of fame is affecting their stores. We see this negotiation between reality and non-reality fame in almost every episode and it’s what makes the show ring true. I realize that “reality” is a cloudy word when it comes to TV programming and I’m sure Keeping Up with the Kardashians is edited to the hilt, but there’s something at it’s core that allows me identify, if only minutely, with these working girls.