"I have no problem with the Hills," 18-year-old Staci assures on this week's premiere of BET's reality series "Baldwin Hills." "They have a problem with me."
Like many outsiders -- Staci is the lone female cast member who doesn't live in the titular neighborhood -- she is a bit defensive and too proud to really admit it, instead passing judgment on the show's better-heeled girls by feigning disinterest. "Let them do what they do," she says. "Be bougie."
If she is meant to be the voice of reason on "Baldwin Hills" (BET, 10 p.m. Tuesdays), she has accepted a fool's task. Clearly inspired by MTV's "Laguna Beach," "Baldwin Hills" follows a handful of teens who live in and around the so-called black Beverly Hills. "Not all black people live in the ghetto," goes the show's intro. "This is our 'hood -- big houses, manicured lawns, amazing vistas."
Or, put more succinctly by Ashley: "When we go shopping for a party, we do it \o7big\f7."
The Unusually Entitled Young Person has become a familiar TV trope in recent years, but save for reruns of "The Cosby Show" and "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," black teens in this income bracket are largely absent. (Another rare exception is MTV's routinely glorious "My Super Sweet 16," which is equal opportunity in its selection and presentation of spoiled young people.)
The innovations of "Baldwin Hills" stop there, though -- these kids are, by and large, just as frivolous as their peers down the 405. They attend parties (thrown by Jordan, one of their own), shop at Christian Audigier (except for Staci, who, natch, shops at Rainbow) and inch tentatively toward romantic mismatches.
But these kids seem particularly conscious of the cameras -- even though they are often placed at a distance, as in "Laguna Beach" -- and their descriptive voice-overs sound stiff and scripted. They're not wholly at ease, as if they're still carrying some of the burden of representation of their parents' generation -- a weight the white kids of "Laguna Hills" never needed to bother themselves with.
Auditioning with Diddy
THERE'S a culture gap too in MTV's "Making the Band 4," which started its season last month (Mondays at 10 p.m.) and is focusing on the creation of a male hip-hop/pop vocal group by the increasingly avuncular Sean "Diddy" Combs. But "MTB4" isn't merely a singing competition -- it's also a test of social-climbing will. "Some of them are rough around the edges," says Diddy, with more excitement than condescension. "Some of them need some work vocally, some people need to run on a treadmill, but it's a start. Not everybody that you see on TV looked like that from the beginning, so bear with me."
