12 - The Michigan Daily - Monday, August 15, 2005
'Beautiful People' hits all the old notes
By Eakta Khangura
For the Daily
In an ironic twist unexpected of
parent child-friendly ABC Family,
the channel's new show "Beautiful
People" serves as a
perfecthomage toour Beautiful
image-obsessed cul- people
ture. It reminds you
of a standard Monet. Mondays
From far away, the at 9 p.m.
show looks like a ABC Family
refreshing take on
the role beauty plays within our cul-
ture. A closer look, however, reveals
that it utterly lacks the panache or
unified execution to make up for
the absence of substance, ultimately
making it a vapid primetime soap
opera. And with most of its parts
husked off of other, more colorful
beasts, most things on the "Beautiful
People" set give the viewer a pretty
annoying sense of Dija Vu.
"Beautiful People" introduces us
to the Kerrs, a middle-class family
made up of three women who have
just been relocated to New York City
from New Mexico. Lynn, played
by Daphne Zuniga (TV's "Melrose
Place"), is the strong matriarch of
the family who decides to go to New
York after her younger daughter,
Sophie, played by relative newcom-
er Sarah Foret, wins a scholarship to
prestigious Manhattan prep school
Brighton Academy. Tagging along is
her older daughter Karen, played by
Torrey Devito, an aspiring model.
Shockingly, almost every fictional
television family manages to get one
kid into an "exclusive" day school.
Admissions standards are certainly
odd these days, aren't they?
The storyline focuses largely on
Sophie's attempt to navigate the
stormy seas of adolescence amidst
the decadent lifestyles of New York
society's creme-de-la-creme, also
known as the "Beautiful People."
She is joined by new friends Gideon
(Ricky Mabe) and Annabelle (Kath-
leen Monroe), the aforementioned
beautiful outcasts.
Lord knows the idea of people
born into a world of wealth and enti-
tlement is certainly nothing new.
In the end, the show becomes like
every other WB teen drama current-
ly on the air.
"Beautiful People" attempts to
be the edgier version of "Gilmore
Girls" by showing fifteen year olds
doing lines of coke in the bathroom
of a meet-and-greet party on the
first day back at school (because, of
course, all rich kids are on drugs),
while still retaining the saccharine
sweetness of the perfect mother-
daughter relationships so elusive in
the real world.
Eating disorders also occupy a
fair share of screen time: Paisley
(played by Jordan Mabley), Queen
Bee of the "BPs" (the nickname of
the Beautiful People) is bulimic in
order to fit into her size-two Helmut
Lang's. And Anorexia Nervosa rears
its overplayed -head in the sister,
Karen - because, for every skinny
beautiful model-wannabe, there is
someone skinnier and more beauti-
ful. These are all certainly fine plot
devices - for 1997.
Most conventional seems to be
the storyline developing around
Lynn, who just happens to run into
an old flame at the aforesaid meet-
and-greet, played by James McCaf-
frey (TV's "Rescue Me"). It's only
natural to move across the country,
enroll your daughter in the most
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"Beautiful People?" Are they sure?
posh prep school on the East Coast to those who know it best. Taking
and run in "the one that got away," a warmed-over concept and tossing
a.k.a. Julian Fiske. OK, now they some notes cribbed straight from
are just stretching reality. "Mean Girls" isn't the most for-
The banality of the plotline does ward-thinking of concepts.
not stop there. Mr. Fiske just so hap- ABC Family needs to make up
pens to be the father of Nicholas their minds - either "Beautiful
Fiske (Jackson Rathbone), the lead- People" must be witty or chock full
er of the Beautiful People and young of stylish diversions. Otherwise, it
Sophie's crush. The apple does not remains as inconspicuous as their
fall far from the tree in either case. other teen drama, "Wildfire" (if you
Nor does the plotting, which, in this have no idea what I'm talking about,
case, seems to have fallen from a then that's exactly the point). Of
really, really convoluted tree. course, eerily like the ultra-skinny
If the show is any indication, ABC Manhattan scions, when the style
Family should stick to cartoons and of a show is this-played out, it only
feel-good family movies and leave makes what little substance there is
the angst-ridden teen drama genre look that much worse.
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