Laguna Beach

. Addicted. Totally and utterly addicted. They take Dr.Phil off for summer and THIS is what happens.

Laguna Beach - the real OC. A documentary MTV style (ie, is loosely scripted) about wealthy young people living in a town in California. At first glance the show is about a group of spoiled, shallow and superficial girls. I confess I channel surfed past it, but it was the best of a bad lot so I gave up and watched. (It was either that or tearing my hair out over Boys of Summer - sigh).

I'm obsessed with women and community. Its always at the heart of everything I write. Women and how they perceive themselves, how the community perceives them, and how they interact with each other.

The dialogue in Laguna beach is not exactly scintillating. It goes along the lines of
"I, like, phoned him and then we, like, hooked up..."
"Did you?"
"Like, yeah..."
But its the ebb and flow between the cliques of girls that's fascinating. The jealousies and rivalries, the manipulation and the catty unspoken and unacknowledged battle to be the Alpha female is compelling. One of the boys is playing two of the girls off against each other. He's clearly only out to sleep with both of them (which he does), but instead of blaming him they turn on each other. Why do women do this?

Love it.

If you're bored at 1pm weekdays its on Channel 10.